Tag: materialdesign

Google’s material you: be together not the same

Android: Be together not the same
I spent some time in the spa recently and listened to a conversation about Android vs iOS in the stream room. I didn’t partake but found it interesting to hear how people were describing both and their dis/advantages.

There was a point when one person mentioned the customization of Android vs iOS, something like “you only just widgets last year”

But there is something which I have been thinking about in that general space.

Most phones are super similar and the software is what makes it different, its why I stick to the Google phones. I’m not keen on the Samsung opinionated software choices, although I understand people do find much comfort in the per-installed software and decisions. I think of it like Debian vs Ubuntu (of sorts). When Ubuntu came with Unity, I always installed Gnome Shell. It was easy enough to do, but its very difficult to do on a phone (replace Samsung’s UI with plain Android).

But back to phones…

The customization is key… I was originally concerned when Google was following Apple’s approach a while ago but then they seemed to understand the power of Android being yours and leaned right into customization.

Having upgraded to Android 12 a couple of days ago, I really like the system. Material you is surprising and is just right even in dark mode.

I am using Yatse remote which changes the background of my phone depending on what I am watching.That change will persist till I watch something else. I thought it might cause a clash but it doesn’t and still manages to look good always. The colour palette works no matter what. What would Joney Ive and Steve Jobs make of this design approach? Can’t imagine they would be a fan. Its one of the rejections I had about objectified the film/documentary is the lack of customization.

I found this video which sums up what I’m thinking. I look forward to seeing Material you on my new Pixel 6 soon.

 

Material Design in Android 5: Lollipop

Nice use of natural materials

All my Nexus devices have been updated to Android 5: Lollipop and I’m getting use to the changes.

My old 2012 Nexus 7 was first to be upgraded, about a week after the release of Lollipop. Then a week and half later my Nexus 5 was upgraded. I thought the Nexus 5 would be first honestly.

The Nexus 7 had problems, the upgrade was fine but it got really really slow afterwards.  I wiped the cache a few times and that helped but after a day of use, it would go back to super slow. In the end I had to wipe the whole device and just start a fresh. Luckily Google made the process much quicker and easier. Using NFC on my Nexus 5, it sets up an adhoc network and transfers most of the settings across. Only real issue is setting up all the individual apps.

Android 5 is actually really nice, its like the jump from Android 2: GIngerbread to Android 4: Icecream sandwich (we don’t talk about Android 3: Honeycomb). Icecream sandwich’s Halo interface was great and to be honest Material design is a little weird to get use to. But you get use to it and the way it works. In actual fact the interaction design of the interface is well thought out.

I basically think of everything being pieces which are viewed from a top down view. The shadows help with this and the motion makes things very clear. My own gripe is the flat colours but the edge to edge pictures help break things up quite a bit. I would say its not as revolutionary as the Windows Metro interface but its smarter and is a lot clearer.

Quite interesting when you look at the other human interfaces guidelines in software.