Hacker News Reader

Comment by verytrivial | Hacker News Reader

Sigh. There is literally nothing I like about the changes in Android 12 versus 11. This seems like yet another shoe-horning in of "cleverness" when it wasn't invited and in this case appears to be outright broken.

After disabling every single assistant or enrichment option I could find, Android is still putting auto-reply prompts into any notification that has a reply button. GO AWAY!

View on HN

The "material you" redesign is just such a ridiculous waste of space, too. They changed all the things that worked just fine. But I guess a feature-complete operating system must still receive a major update every time the planet completes a lap around its star because the marketing department said so?

https://mastodon.social/@grishka/107327145271362804

Google seems to LOVE taking a working, great product everyone enjoys, and mutilating it to make everyone miserable. There are many examples. And I know at least one person who updated their phone to android 12 and found it so off-putting they downgraded back to 11 (thankfully you can do that). I just stay on 11 to begin with.

The best feature from Android 12 is being able to update quick setting within the status bar. But that was a feature from Android 9 or 10 that they removed in Android 11.

I don't understand what's going on in Google's mobile division. Android 12 is filled with bugs that aren't fixed months after release. The Pixel 6 came with a terrible fingerprint scanner. They released a completely botched update for the Pixel 6 that broke basic cellular connectivity, and it took more than a month for a fix. Feels like this part of the business isn't a priority for them anymore.

I’ve always read that Google’s internal incentives discourage maintenance and encourage novelty, and that this is why from the outside google is just an endless churn of product redesigns and replacements.

I have a pixel 6 pro, the assistant immediately crashes if I try to use it. Has been like that for months. One would think google would prioritise that feature for bug fixes.

It is so terrible. The UX is infinitely worse, not just the aesthetics of the huge bubbly corners, but also the menu systems and the pull-down notifications.

And honesty, it seems significantly buggier. My wife and daughter have noticed it on their phones as well. The keyboard frequently disappears while texting, and you can't get it back without exiting the program. Things freeze for longer.

Seriously regretting upgrading.

I can't describe how much I hate the "internet" control in the shade, or the lack of a switch for the cell radio specifically.

I loathe the fact that I can't click the left hand side system clock anymore and immediately be sent to the clock app. Why this was removed I just can't understand.

Even if users were misclicking, I'd settle for a long press instead.

You can downgrade but that involves a factory reset and flashing things from a computer.

If I knew Android 12 would be this ugly and annoying I wouldn't have installed the update. What bothers me the most is that I can't opt out of the Material You UI, and it's barely customizable.

B-b-but the update notification says it offers new customization options?....

I used to be pissed off due to lack of updates on Java support, however NDK does all I care about even though it is quite clunky, and WebGL/WebAssembly are quite good.

So I just stop caring about Android updates beyond watching a couple of Google IO talks.

There is absolutly nothing on the newer versions that makes me think "oh I need a new phone".

I've got to agree with you. I feel like my experience with phones over the last decade has been thrashing between Android and iPhone when I'm finally fed up with one enough to go back to the other. I still miss my Windows phone despite the lack of many apps.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com