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Discussion: Is Android going in the right direction?

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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?

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84 comments
  • No. Its still more customizable and capable than iOS, but it's been getting more locked down, with more new features integrated into Google's proprietary services. I still would get an android phone over an apple one, but that's only because I can root it and replace it with a better custom ROM.

  • i miss when android was fun tbh i don't like material; i liked jellybean and lollypop and holo before that. i liked the deserts and robots. bring back that.

  • Absolutely not. Its basicly a locked down ecosystem at this point and there is barely any Foss left in stock android.

    Lineage is is the future. I imagine that most Roms will base off of it if there haven't already

  • 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.

  • What do you think about this latest release?

    I really don't have any thoughts at all because I have yet to notice one difference.

    Do you think things are going in the right direction?

    I really miss the days where I was excited about Android releases, but honestly, there hasn't been a single feature I have been excited for since like Android 5.0.

    Is there anything you'd like to see prioritized in future releases?

    Android really needs better cross device support like Apple devices have. Apple users can seamlessly send and receive messages across all of their devices, transfer files between them, move their web browsing session, etc. Android requires apps made by others to do this, and they are all lacking critical features. KDE connect barely even works for me no matter what I do. It used to work great about 5 years ago, but since I installed it on a new laptop about 4 months ago, it has barely worked.

    Android NEEDS RCS support. Right now only apps shipped with the phone can use the API. But that's not good enough. Android needs a user-level API for it. I feel like our only hope for this is that the EU mandates it.

    Which device are you on?

    Pixel 7.

    • Android 14 has been trouble-free for me. Upgrades here and there along with a significant improvement to screen-off battery life. About 30%. I can also now throw my Home Assistant dashboard on the lock screen device controls shortcut.
    • Yes. Unlike many other of Google's projects, Android is still fully staffed and improving in significant ways even if sometimes invisible year over year. One area where there's been a lot of improvement is separating the hardware-specific software bits from the rest of the OS. This is a major enabler behind the longer support lifespans we began seeing recently. It also makes third party ROMs much easier to support on devices with long term support. Security and privacy have been ramped up significantly too.
    • Stay the course and keep with gradual improvements. Perhaps do a bit more work on the desktop mode. Android should be able to replace ChromeOS.
    • Pixel 6 Pro, upgrading to Pixel 8 Pro
    • Putting my developer hat on, I know it's fetch to hate on Google these days, not undeservedly, but Android has made huge leaps in ease of development and robustness for apps. It's also incredible open source OS platform for implementing all sorts of things. The explosion of TV boxes is a great example. Payment terminals is another. Portable shipping scanners (UPS, FedEx) is yet another. All the proprietary bits that people dislike on Play-enabled devices are added via pluggable APIs, same as always, and if you want different ones, you could plug your own.
  • 14 is the most underwhelming release I've ever used, to the point I didn't even notice when my phone updated

  • I don't know what opinion to form. The openness of Android is constantly abused, but Google seems to be overcorrecting by locking it down more than iOS in certain cases and reducing choices for users to use/customize their device as they like. I can't backup my damn Minecraft worlds without paying Microsoft $4/month for a server to act as an intermediary, or I have to download an unvetted third-party Minecraft addon. On iOS, the "walled garden", you can use the Files app or connect to your computer and backup.

    Would decoupling Android from Google help Android's long-term future? Let some non-profit organization with different goals take over? With that said, it'll be a big challenge for them to figure out licensing, funding, development, etc.


    I'm on a Pixel 6a running Android 14. Material You has grown on me. I still dislike gesture navigation. Would love to see more lockscreen customization.

  • Android these days is mixed. The app ecosystem is mature and I still have more freedom than Apple in terms of home screen, app store, browser, a real filesystem, etc. The phones are all quite capable and powerful. I can sync texts reliably across devices, use my phone's location to trigger smart home automations, and my watch syncs effortlessly with my phone. All of these were issues for years that are now pretty much solved! Haven't felt a need to upgrade my Note 20 Ultra yet, but might go to a foldable in the next year if the right deal pops up.

    I'm disappointed about how Google has locked down some features in the name of security, like the ability for apps to access text messages. The Play Store is so enshittified. It's been a long time since I was able to discover new apps there: these days I don't feel secure installing apps from there and prefer to stick to F-Droid when I can.

    I also am disappointed by how the Android market has consolidated so much. There was such a diversity of OEMs in the 2010s and I miss the HTC, LG, Nextbit, Essential and others which weren't afraid to rock the boat and try new form factors. Foldables are one of the only exciting product categories. Everything else feels pretty predictable, iterative and on rails.

  • I’ve been firmly in iPhone-land quite a while and dabbled only a bit since my phone-switching days so my current perspective will be possibly dated and definitely from someone on the outside, casually following what’s new in Android but I did have a great time bouncing between platforms back in the day. (RIP webOS, BB10 and Windows Phone)

    I had a Moto Z Play back in the day (that battery life but like that and the Priv it replaced, a bit big for my taste) and I ditched it when a then-critical feature to me: “Ok Google with Screen Off” was removed around the time Google Assistant and the Pixel 1 was rolling out. It was a Play Services and/or Assistant/Google Now update that removed the option from settings, I uninstalled them to keep it temporarily and when I looked it up, all I could find was a curt official “the feature is not supported” response on some support board. I knew the Snagdragon-whatever chipset it had supported it, and I was using it just fine in the past - it felt like gaslighting, I saw people throwing around the “your battery life would suffer” excuse or that it was never supported despite it being the time when chipset support for hotwords when sleeping like Hey Cortana, Hey Siri were a notable feature and the Z Play had it.

    Imagine my reaction when I see that feature being advertised as a Pixel exclusive(? At least it was advertised as a Pixel feature) so that was it.

    in hindsight, Google’s shenanigans to promote their own in-house projects over Android as a whole seems pretty in-character now. Even as iOS features aren’t as big like “ooo iOS’s facsimile of multitasking!” there’s still the “that’s neat” or small QoL moments coming out like auto-deleting 2FA texts when they’re used. And I just don’t seem to see any of that in recent releases. I saw “AI color themes!” and a new time layout? and I’m not shortchanging the features already there like holding volume down to mute, but it just feels like they’ve decided base Android is good enough and slowed down or stopped in favor of figuring out whatever exclusive Pixel features and what to keep from the non-Pros.

    But with the move of so many things to Play Services, are features still coming out that way outside of the usual point release?

84 comments