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Oh great, I get to learn how to use my phone all over again. We need a "leave this the $EXPLETIVE alone" setting for our user interfaces.
by flyinghamster 1y ago
Oh great, I get to learn how to use my phone all over again. We need a "leave this the $EXPLETIVE alone" setting for our user interfaces.
- eurekin 1y agoI think this topic returns with some regularity... It often ends with justification about the need for a promotion of a particular executive that is involved with that inevitably undeniable success
- voidfunc 1y agoUI engineers need to justify their existence.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- hadlock 1y agoI genuinely think this is the case, and why products don't have a LTS interface, even though they ought to. Sign me right up for the 10 year LTS interface. I can't recall any features in gmail that were added that I actually use besides labels, which was an early launch feature. But it's been redesigned about 9 times in the last 20 years, each time with increasing white space and/or a slightly different font.
- lupire 1y agoLTS interface is expensive for minimal benefit.
- kasabali 1y agoMore expensive than re-designing it every 2 years?
- SchemaLoad 1y agoIf you need an LTS interface you might be best with one of those old people smartphones with the big numberpad.
- rvba 1y agoIf you need change for the sake of change, then maybe your time is worthless.
- hadlock 1y agoI can't think of a single feature my phone has gained since at least 2015 that I use. Actually it looks like the nav bar and material design 1.0 came out in 2011? The smart phone was largely "done" being developed by 2014. That's the year we got formal support for "use the flash LED as a flashlight" feature. Nexus 5 had wireless charging in 2013. Other than that the only reasons to upgrade is forced obsolescence or battery failure, or better quality phone camera(s).
- nawgz 1y agoDefinitely. Those pesky UI engineers are always rewriting and refactoring and reworking stuff. Me, a talented backend engineer? I would never. My code was perfect initially and there's no pressure to show deliverables from my manager since they know I'm the best.
- stackskipton 1y agoHuh? Sure, UI code can change, no one is arguing that but API changes, just like for backend, need to be extremely thought out and slow. For UI Engineers, UI is API to the user and for some reason, when they blow up their API, they get praised for it. Most backend engineers are change API at much much slower rate.
- Lerc 1y agoUI engineers should be like vaccines. If they do their job well, you should never see why they were needed.
- jrgaston 1y agoThat so many do not see why vaccines are needed is a serious problem.
- DannyBee 1y agoSure, but what is happening here is basically the equivalent of us engineering current-vaccine resistant viruses, along with new vaccines, and releasing them all together, so that people know vaccines are important and are forced to get new vaccines to be safe. We shouldn't do that, in the same way we shouldn't make sure people know UI is important by changing it completely every n years.
- echelon 1y agoI wish we had a dozen phone companies instead of just two. Please write your legislators and demand antitrust action against Apple and Google for the following: - Lack of One-Tap Web Installs (without scare walls or buried settings menus). This is the biggest stranglehold they have. Web installs can be done safely and securely via app signing, permissions, and signature blacklists. - First-party defaults for all the platform pieces: Messaging, Payments, Photos, Music, Media, Navigation, etc. Every single one of these lets Apple and Google squeeze another industry and forces us into a pit of no-innovation. - Default search, in the case of Google, which ropes you into their search / ads funnel. They've also bought it out on Apple's end. - Default browser tech, in the case of Apple. It prevents innovation on app runtimes and deployment and forces you to develop using Apple technologies. Winning the mobile rights battle will not only liberate us from the "promo cycle" plague, it'll stop the tax on innovation and introduce healthy competition. If American legislators and the DOJ / FTC won't act, then every other country should. If enough countries put pressure on Apple and Google, we'll start to see competition reemerge. Right now it's impossible to develop a new smartphone entrant. Even Meta and Microsoft with their nearly-unlimited capital couldn't fight off Apple and Google. YCombinator would probably be happy if smartphones became open platforms. They'd see healthier margins for startups and less direct platform competition. a16z is pushing for this. Just because Apple and Google were there first twenty years ago shouldn't give them an eternity to rule the entire category.
- kabdib 1y agobring back the Windows phone! (srsly, they were pretty nice to develop for)
- rawling 1y ago> - First-party defaults for all the platform pieces: Messaging, Payments, Photos, Music, Media, Navigation, etc. Every single one of these lets Apple and Google squeeze another industry and forces us into a pit of no-innovation. Don't/can't Android manufacturers provide alternative defaults here?
- _ea1k 1y agoYes, and most people hate it when they do that.
- demosthanos 1y agoThis knee-jerk reaction is correct more often than not (see the terrible iOS redesign announced earlier), but in this case it seems like it might be incorrect? I looked through the highlights linked here and the full "What's New" page [0] and am pleasantly surprised to see a few new features but no major overhauls of existing ones. [0] https://www.android.com/16 https://www.android.com/16
- microtonal 1y agoYep, I just installed on my Pixel 9 and it looks barely different from Android 15. Most of the changes seem to be in the plumbing. Material Design Expressive will only arrive in the next quarterly release.
- nsriv 1y agoYeah I think this is being lost in this rollout (and a little bit in these comments). Expressive is in the next update, since this year is a big hike up in the calendar for phone release.
- butlike 1y agoThe issue is this reaction never sticks. Everyone's up in arms, but would you really want to go back to Android KitKat or iOS 2? Probably not for more than novelty, right?
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago[flagged]
- legitster 1y agoMore and more features are getting added, so the UI has to get reorganized to accomodate for them. A lot of the changes for Android 16 are to accommodate wearables and folding phones and etc while keeping the controls more consistent between them.
- rezonant 1y agoAre you speaking in general, or is there anything specific about this update that has you upset?
- legitster 1y agoNone of the changes have actually been that crazy. And at least on my Pixel Google has made new features opt-in after major updates.
- ozim 1y agoIt is good for your brain, it is an excellent exercise. /s
- SchemaLoad 1y agoUnironically think a lot of HN users brains have hardened up after using the same shitty linux DE from the 90s for too long, to the point a slightly changed border radius or color leaves them unable to function.
- johannes1234321 1y agoBo worries, Gemini AI will take care of that! The phone will now what you want (and show more ads)