Happy weekend!
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With the release of Android 14, which is slowly making its way to more devices, it seems like a good time for a community discussion on the direction of Android development.
Discussion Questions:
- What do you think about this latest release?
- Do you think things are going in the right direction?
- Is there anything you’d like to see prioritized in future releases?
- Which device are you on?
P.S. Subscribe to !askandroid@lemdro.id if you haven’t already. It’s the best place to ask questions, seek advice, or to help steer others in the right direction for all things related to Android.
I’m running 13 and it’s been great. I do think overall that Android is going in the right direction.
Material You in particular was a great decision. I love colour this feature adds so much colour to every app. Talk about taking customisation to the next level. 😊
The lock screen customisation in 14 completes that transition.
I also think the improving Google Assistant by adding Bard is a move in the right direction. As long as they roll it out to all phones, irrespective of age. After all, Assistant runs in the cloud, not on the phone so any device should be able to just it.
I am concerned about Google but releasing enough Android features into AOSP. For example the colour picker you use to choose a colour from your wallpaper they originally kept as proprietary forcing OEM’s to write their own. Only later did they release it to AOSP because they released OEM’s weren’t getting it right.
I believe all new Android features most be in AOSP. Only Google specific stuff shouldn’t eg Google apps and gcam.
I have to assume that the Pixel 8 getting 7 years of support means that Android won’t be getting heavier in future, so that it will remain fast 7 years from now.
Which is good news. Android 14 is supposed to be even faster and more efficient they say, but we’ll see. There are still some bugs from what I’ve read so OEM’s will need time to adapt and optimise it. It will be a few months before we really know.
Android has hardly been getting heavier. Running recent Android on a 1st gen Moto E flies!
That said, recent full-fat Android shipped by an OEM to their devices can be heavier due to the OEM shipping more system services running in the background. I don’t have numbers to supports this but the base Android OS has mostly just received performance optimizations over the years. For example the Java runtime has gone from Dalvik sans JIT, to Dalvik with JIT, to ART, to ART with major improvements, etc.
I agree with you. I didn’t mean to imply it was heavy but just to say I reckon that will keep it a as light (or lighter) than it already is.
One of Android’s many strengths is how it can both run on older hardware, “weak” cpu’s as well as run apps developed for Android 5 and higher. Ios cannot do any of those things.
No. Everything went to shit in 12 with material 3/material you. It looks so bad. Bring back material 2.
Also of course there’s the whole privacy nightmare that android with Google services is.
I’m unfamiliar with the clockworkpi, but I was just looking it up. Are you saying they’re able to do phone functionality as well?
Honestly, the MD3 You had been to my liking. I agree lots of features are getting Pixel Exclusive nowadays, but let’s not blame Google for this. The general space of Android in last 2 releases has been refinement over time but obviously with contestable decisions like AppData folder access and others. On the other hand, Android OEMs are not innovating enough in Android Space like they used to do at one point. They are just focusing on UI changes and not features.
Been using android since the first galaxy. Never have I experienced such a fuck up as when I let my pixel 7 pro update to 14. And this is from someone that used to run random custom stuff going back a few years.
Android 14 caused my phone memory to become corrupt and I had no choice but to factory reset, losing everything not synced. Apparently this was due to running two separate user profiles.
Somehow Google was too busy finding ways to get and sell more of our data and forgot to test if this basic feature fucking works.
Not looking forward to Monday when I’ll have to jump through flaming hoops to set up my work micrishaft authenticator / profile / intune crap again.
Other beef with 14, custom launchers are broken. I have never been able to stand the stock launcher, it is like babies first launcher. No customisation options and the stupid search bar can’t be removed. A few apps I use on a regular basis claim to to not be compatible, even though they ran fine for several days in 14 till the whole thing shit itself.
On the UI front I feel as if everything seems to get more bland each release with less interesting customisation than we had circa android 5.
Huh, I’ve had no issues with Nova launcher on my 7 pro. I honestly didn’t notice any changes after the update, aside from the lock screen clock settings
Dude are you me? I literally just went through this. I used two profiles and had the memory issue. Couldn’t even take photos, the camera app said device was out of storage despite deleting most of my apps. And apps crashing all over the place.
The best part is… I’m traveling so it cost me half a day of vacation photos when I factory reset. And same as you… Will have to fix work 2FA on Monday.
What he hell were they thinking??
