I’ve been a mobile Google user since the Google Nexus 5, owner of nearly every Pixel that’s come out, and a strong supporter of Android in its purest form. Until the arrival of Android 12. Visually (speaking of the ROM understood by (Google in its Pixel) it’s spectacular, but the most important thing an operating system can have has been overlooked: functionality.
Interestingly, manufacturers without doing anything they better moved the tab with its layers of customization, something you will understand very soon. I tell you how Android 12 made me look at layers with different eyes.
Some of Android 12 bugs
Android 12 for Google Pixel (because for other phones it doesn’t have that UI) it’s aesthetically the best we’ve seen in a long time. A new design language, automatic color palettes, better looking menus. Visually, it is a real delight.
Pixel 6 on the right. Realme left.
But let’s get down to business. Historically, when you pulled down the status bar on android you had at least six shortcuts. For WiFi, data, auto-rotate or whatever you want to put on. One of the steps back from Android 12 is that now we have four shortcuts, two are missing for the benefit of those we already had and have been using for years. Besides, there are more shortcuts than everit is therefore almost impossible to get there easily.
Google’s interpretation wastes screen time at a glance, makes us take more steps to do the same thing, unsuccessfully mimics iOS in the launcher… Layers that don’t have applied these changes have already won here
Another step back that is taken with Android 12 concerns screen time. A measure that has also existed on Android for years and that serves to know exactly how long we have been with the phone. In “pure” Android 12, this graph no longer exists as such. There is a system of measurement by periods of 24 hours, much less precise. In customization layers it keeps showing, in some just open the battery menu.
I could go on with a long list, but the concept I want to convey is that in order to make the system more aesthetic, a leap back in functionality has been made. Here the manufacturers have a great advantage: by following the design line of Google, these problems do not arise.
Material You, in its proper measure in the layers
The ROM of OPPO, Realme and soon OnePlus, a delight with Android 12.
Google has made mandatory one of the most important points of its Material You: automatic themes. ROMs like OPPO, Samsung and soon Xiaomi, include the themes that change when we change the wallpaperso we have the main advantage of Android 12 at the design level in a mandatory way.
Over time, manufacturers have improved their ROMs, without losing the essence that characterizes each one, for better or for worse. The common measure they took was precisely not to go back on those steps that we have commented on. The main layers of customization have not complicated their menusreduced shortcuts or removed functions.
Samsung also did well with Android 12.
I don’t want to say that I’ve lost my love for completely clean ROMs, but I want to open the discussion on the improvement that customization layers have seen.
Perhaps they are no longer that enemy that we “pure” lovers had, and all this without mentioning updates, where even Samsung has realized what Google could not and will update for five years. We’d love to hear your thoughts on the current state of Android and manufacturers’ interpretations, so feel free to comment on that.
