In Pictures: Google Android L Feature Tour And Preview
In Pictures: Google Android L Feature Tour And PreviewLollipop? Licorice? Life Savers? The mystery remains as to the final codename that Google will assign to the next version of Android. Currently known only as “Android L”, this version presents a major design overhaul for Android. This release contains many user interface changes, so Android L looks great, but it won’t become available until this fall. Fortunately, inquisitive Nexus 5 and Nexus 7 (2013) owners can explore Google’s new mobile OS today by installing the public beta.
To do this, you need a host machine with the Android SDK tools. Simply download the system image available on the Android developers page and then flash it to your Google Nexus device.
Warning: This procedure will erase all data from the device! This beta is not stable!
And I despise the card-style interface that is popping up everywhere now, it seems. What is the point of all these beautiful displays if all you are going to us is black text on white squares? Do I even need to mention that for some displays, like the Note 3, bright colors use more battery?
Forcing eye-piercing white down our throats, minor, meaningless graphical changes, a a parameters screen that now shows LESS information, no meaningful performance gain? For what? A couple of nice things (rotating view of running apps) and a tiny gain in storage space? It looks like the took the worst design ideas from Apple and M$ and decided to out-ugly both. Bleh.
Horrible puns aside, it's as if they kept the people who designed Android into a decent thing to look at and brought back some of the original designers who made the original Android look like crap.
A circle for the home button, a back arrow that makes me want to skip to a different scene, and a square that infers nothing...I feel like a 4 year old with that shape toy (triangle/square/circle).
Still don't understand the fascination with flatness and oversimplification either. It's like we're going backwards technologically.