I would consider the A-Series of Samsung “mid-range”. I know you said “lower” and “mid-range” is lower than “high-end”, but I suspect tetris11’s issue mostly applies to “low-end” phones. Something like a Motorola Moto G Play 2024
There used to be tons of customization options which have been removed/limited under the guise of “personalization”. For example you used to be able to do things like choose system colors that weren’t from a selection of 5 pastel themes. For some reason Google believes that pastels and pastels alone accurately reflect the “personality” of every user and that users wasn’t their “personality” reflected.
There’s a ton of settings that have been removed over the years, volume button behavior changed, various privacy settings reset to default with random updates, privacy settings removed…
It’s still fairly functional but if it weren’t for certain apps i need i would be trying out graphene or whatever.
You could never officially choose system colors in AOSP. It was always white with teal accent. If you’re thinking of Substratum, that was kinda an unintended exploit when Google was working on adding native theming for OEMs.
Volume buttons are being made more customizable in Android 15, which is launching on Pixels soon.
Privacy settings have never been reset for me, maybe you’re confusing it with Windows 11.
Sorry i think i meant theme colors, not system colors. In any case it was better before the “you” thing that’s currently used which has restricted customization significantly.
I think it may be google account settings, which are not android I’m aware. Though i recall phone settings becoming default whenever a settings menu was overhauled instead of something reflecting the previous selection.
No I’m on windows 10 still. Well aware of the difference lol
The drop down that shows the toggles and notifications. I remember when there used to be 6 or 7 toggles at the top before you had to swipe down again to get more, but now, there are 4 huge and frankly unnecessary toggles instead of the previous 6-7 small ones. Also, more and more of google shoving their unnecessary products down your throat that you cannot uninstall.
Yeah, I disliked that when I saw the announcement too. I think the disconnect here is my Android flavour. Since I’m on Samsung, I still have 6 small round buttons at the top (Android 13, OneUI 5.1).
Latest Samsung updates removed classic swipe controls for navigation. I had to do a hacky workaround including finding 2 random APKs just to preserve functionality. (S21U)
They used to have both the old school one where you swipe up on the three sections at the bottom, as well as the new Google one for years. The newest update to OneUI 6.1 removed the classic swipe controls for no reason, keeping only the Google one. I had to install Good Lock and NavStar to make some sort of custom settings configuration, which returned the navigation option. Thankfully I did get it working, but only after messing around and wasting 20 minutes of my time.
I really hate that they think they own my device, not me.
Android worse every year? How? Every update I’ve received (on a Samsung, mind you) has made my experience better.
Android 12 took up 700MB RAM, leaving some space for non-sytem apps on lower end smartphones.
Android 13 takes up easily 1.2GB, leaving almost nothing at the benefit of having a somewhat “snappier” interface
Lower end phones usually already have 8 GB RAM (example: Galaxy A54 5G, 300€ new).
I would consider the A-Series of Samsung “mid-range”. I know you said “lower” and “mid-range” is lower than “high-end”, but I suspect tetris11’s issue mostly applies to “low-end” phones. Something like a Motorola Moto G Play 2024
You consider that a good thing… Phones shouldn’t have this much RAM.
Why would higher RAM be a bad thing? That’s like saying phones shouldn’t have more storage, faster processors, better camera, …
Sure, they worked before that already. But isn’t technological advancement still good?
To a certain point.
There used to be tons of customization options which have been removed/limited under the guise of “personalization”. For example you used to be able to do things like choose system colors that weren’t from a selection of 5 pastel themes. For some reason Google believes that pastels and pastels alone accurately reflect the “personality” of every user and that users wasn’t their “personality” reflected.
There’s a ton of settings that have been removed over the years, volume button behavior changed, various privacy settings reset to default with random updates, privacy settings removed…
It’s still fairly functional but if it weren’t for certain apps i need i would be trying out graphene or whatever.
You could never officially choose system colors in AOSP. It was always white with teal accent. If you’re thinking of Substratum, that was kinda an unintended exploit when Google was working on adding native theming for OEMs.
Volume buttons are being made more customizable in Android 15, which is launching on Pixels soon.
Privacy settings have never been reset for me, maybe you’re confusing it with Windows 11.
Sorry i think i meant theme colors, not system colors. In any case it was better before the “you” thing that’s currently used which has restricted customization significantly.
I think it may be google account settings, which are not android I’m aware. Though i recall phone settings becoming default whenever a settings menu was overhauled instead of something reflecting the previous selection.
No I’m on windows 10 still. Well aware of the difference lol
More bloated and inefficient every release. That would be fine for Android but sadly, it affects the core and thus every custom ROM too.
Lots of proprietary google crap. Much harder to run a custom ROM with decent support and apps
OP technically isn’t wrong, there are many UI changes that have made android worse over the years.
Like what?
The drop down that shows the toggles and notifications. I remember when there used to be 6 or 7 toggles at the top before you had to swipe down again to get more, but now, there are 4 huge and frankly unnecessary toggles instead of the previous 6-7 small ones. Also, more and more of google shoving their unnecessary products down your throat that you cannot uninstall.
Yeah, I disliked that when I saw the announcement too. I think the disconnect here is my Android flavour. Since I’m on Samsung, I still have 6 small round buttons at the top (Android 13, OneUI 5.1).
Latest Samsung updates removed classic swipe controls for navigation. I had to do a hacky workaround including finding 2 random APKs just to preserve functionality. (S21U)
Really? D: That sucks, I use swipe navigation for everything. Not sure if it’s classic or not but losing an option is a bummer.
They used to have both the old school one where you swipe up on the three sections at the bottom, as well as the new Google one for years. The newest update to OneUI 6.1 removed the classic swipe controls for no reason, keeping only the Google one. I had to install Good Lock and NavStar to make some sort of custom settings configuration, which returned the navigation option. Thankfully I did get it working, but only after messing around and wasting 20 minutes of my time.
I really hate that they think they own my device, not me.