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I’m gonna keep this real simple for you guys. We’ve all seen the leaked video of the Nexus S running Ice Cream Sandwich. Many said it was a fake — turns out those guys were wrong (yeah, I’m calling you out). Today, we saw a newer build of Ice Cream Sandwich this time running on a bonafide Nexus Prime (Galaxy Nexus, Droid Prime, Rodimus Prime) in a much clearer but still kinda fuzzy video. Reading through the comments I found a lot of people either loved the new look of Android or absolutely hated it. Since I’m a man of the people, I wanted to throw up a quick poll and get some solid statistics — Ice Cream Sandwich: Love it or hate it? Indifferent? That means you like turtles! Go!
[polldaddy poll=5566901]
I mean i know i don’t have the OS in front of me, but for some reason from the pics the dock icons are looking too big, but that’s what launchers are for, right? :) Otherwise i’m lovin it, idk whats wrong with all the people sayin it’s ugly.
because some people are never satisfied and the internet has given them to complain about EVERYTHING……its a phone OS, buy it or dont buy it…..but at least someone can customize an android phone with different launchers……if someone reallly thinks the iphone is better….**cough** Mike Booth **cough** then let him buy it and be disappointed.
Freakin’ turtles… o_O
Hey Chris I know ur friend nick. ^_^
Oh snap! That’s my boy right there! :D
Hey Chris, I know your friend Jake!!!
I don’t have a friend named Jake o_O
Hey Chris, I know your friend Martin
//facepalm
I’m very sorry Chris. o_o”
chris i know your buddy oscar
I guess people thought I got the name out of the blue….. lmfao
Simi valley all the way….!!!
Living in TO myself!
See I don’t love it, and I don’t hate it. I was expecting much bigger changes. Also I dislike the idea of no physical buttons on phones.
So I had to go with turtles. :D
That’s what it’s there for! Hahaha! :D
Same here.
I’m sure there is more to it than what an 88 second video could show us.
If I had that phone I would have definitely given a better walkthrough.
that messaging app looks EVIL i don’t like it
You have to love it. I do not own a Honeycomb tablet, but imagine what the new dual core phones are going to be able to do once this one is released with ICS.
i like it but i just looks like they skinned honeycomb for phones :/
hopefully you can finally take screen shots
I’ll miss the old Android but I feel it will be very easy to adapt.
I hate it when Google does this. The whole thing is blue but then they make the Messaging icon green? Lol why not just make it blue!
Other than that I love it! UI is wonderful and looks oh so smooth.
Wish they stuck with the capacitive buttons, but oh well.
Personally, I don’t like a hole blue THEME. I don’t think Google wanted that either. Blue accents (as much as I hate blue) I can live with.
Word on the street is ICS could introduce a new themeing engine (like the T-Mobile app) which means we could get this looking how we want in no time :D
Where is this word from? I also despise the blue. It looks like the cover art for an 80’s sci-fi/horror movie.
MIUI does themeing beautifully, with a really user-friendly implementation, so Google, with their huge budget and self-proclaimed love of customisation should be able to pull it off, surely.
This is great for people, like me, who love blue. Tron-blue is so slick. Also, videos can be deceiving. After downloading the music app I am in love!!
Music app actually looks like a massive improvement. Mainly because of getting rid of the round buttons. Unfortunately, they’ve now filled the launcher with tacky round buttons.
I’ll give em one thing though: at least it looks like the apps are all part of the same OS now.
Now thats what I’m talkin about. Themes should be factored out of the OS so that users and OEMs can change them. Then the OEMs have less excuse to stall on updates.
Love the blue!!! UNC BABY!!!!
You could just root your phone and change the icons/icon colors yourself. It really isn’t that hard. Just drill into the .apk via something as simple as 7zip to find the image you want to edit, extract it, use an image editor (I’m sure Gimp would do), replace, and apply to your phone. May seem daunting, but it’s easy as pie. :)
Thank you dude. I’m actually fairly good at stuff like that, but my point is, most users aren’t.
Ahhh, very true.
Why is there not a “Meh” option on the survey.
That was generally my reaction to the new aesthetics in ICS.
LOL! There literally was! If you don’t love it or hate it — it means you love turtles. o_O
Fo’ real?
Better go vote for that option then…
Do yo thang, Sam =)
It looks so customizable (is that a word, it sounds wrong) that I don’t know how anybody could say they hate it without getting some hands on time first.
It’s a little too blue for my liking and I hate how they gone with horizontal scrolling with the app tray rather than vertical. I know there are home replacement apps, but LP never updates anymore and none of them please like LP. I don’t know why, I just can’t stand a blue battery icon, green is just a better color. I’m hoping there’s more to this then what we see now, oh and I hope they change the multitasking because the one I saw in the video is just horrendous. I’d rather take Froyo’s multitasking (which wasn’t bad) over that.
fingers crossed you can toggle to vertical scrolling, cause I’m with you on that, hate horizontal scrolling
hmm “too blue” ???? you do realize what your avatar is right ? a giant light blue block with an exclamation point.
Id like it better if there was a device I could buy that had it on it.
They should’ve kept the greens but I don’t hate it. As of now Ive changed my Nexus S’ theme to a Honeycomb one so I can get used to the blueness including the battery and status icons.
Really it sucks. I was hoping that after seeing Google plus that Google realized UI is important… I guess not.
I’m not a big fan of the “Tron UI” on this either but I don’t know — I guess it’s different?
I would say “Love it!” but my turtles (That’s right! I have 2 awesome yet perverted turtles!) forced me to press the last one. =(
But honestly, I do love the new look. ^^
I like it, but I prefer it with touchwiz
Hmm… I don’t really get what’s going on with the screen. It looks like a widget is on top of applications and stuff. It looks like another home screen replacement.
Hmm… I guess I just have to see it in action. Heh heh…
When you apply a widget it gives you a zoomed out view of the homescreen. Like on Honeycomb. Then you can move around from screen to screen and see where you wanna drop it =)
Ah!! So that’s a Honeycomb effect right there? Well that explains that.
Another thing, hopefully we can (finally) change the dock apps without needing to install a third party launcher
right…does it really take 4 major o.s. iterations to finally give us control of something that is always present?
Too soon for this poll wait until its official and post this again
From a designer’s perspective, it’s disgusting.
The icons are really inconsistent in style, and just ugly. The fact that they’re not uniform makes it look too busy and cheap. The phone, camera and messaging for example are all so different, they just don’t fit together. It looks like they’re from three different icon sets. They look more like HTC icons, which I’m sure are straight off an amateur ‘free icons’ internet page.
Secondly, there are many, many reasons not to use blue on black as a theme. Most prominently, userbility (it’s difficult to read due to poor contrast). On that basis, it is wholly inappropriate for notifications. Other reasons include a lack of ‘quality’ associated with the colours.
The app drawer icon and folder icons are round, and basically don’t make it clear what they do, look cluttered and don’t fit with the other straight lines of the operating system. Poor choice.
Nothing at all looks like it’s been designed on a grid, which is good practice. The three buttons at the bottom don’t look good against the four-icon-row just above them on the homescreen. It gives an impression of misalignment and untidyness.
Finally, the OS doesn’t look like the Google website, which people are familiar with. IOS looks like Apple computers. WP7.5 looks like Windows 8. It makes it easy to pick up products. Why does Android not look like Chrome OS, or the Google site which people are so familiar with, and which is actually starting to look quite nice? What a stupid decision.
Basically, it looks like an A-Level graphic design project, and not a good one. Or a cheap custom rom… one of the really bad ones you see on XDA-Dev. They basically need to pay the people who produce MIUI to make their next interface. Or hire all those Palm designers. WebOS was much prettier than this garbage.
I love Android and how it works, but I’m loathed to fork out a huge sum for a premium phone with a weird hump on its back, a sub-par camera and a half-baked UI to boot. I don’t want to have to spend days polishing up another Google mess.
This is just too true. I assumed that the Palm-guy Google hired would make Android more pleasing to my eyes, but I was let down. As a lover of graphic design as well, this does not give me that same feeling of beauty and elegance that WP7 and iOS do. I am only looking forward to the hardware acceleration, added features, and smoothness from ICS. I will look to MIUI for aesthetics.
I love Android, but not how it looks. Google just does not seem to get it, and this is why Android has skins put on top of it.
About the Nexus Prime, I reallllllyyy hope it does not look like what has been shown so far. I highly doubt that they would allow the phone to look the way it does now…
Thank you! I got downvoted to hell on Reddit for suggesting that it might be less than perfect. I am only an amateur designer, but if you read the first 10 pages of any book on UX design, this basically does the opposite of everything recommended.
It’s all well and good pointing out that iOS is playing catchup by copying features from Android, but when they copy, but make it work/look hugely better, the argument becomes pointless from a consumer perspective.
Whoever designed Honeycomb / this mess needs firing, pronto. Google had a huge opportunity to blow Apple out of the water, following the disappointing iPhone 4s, but have missed it solely because of that person. No-one is going to drop their iPhone when the competition looks this tacky.
The worst part is, that with iPhone being priced more competitively now, it’s going to be very hard to sell these. In fact, SGSII cost about £500, and I expect this to be the same, which is more than an iPhone 4s will be. I presume this phone is also cheap and plastic feeling like my SGS II. The rounded shape looks old-fashioned, the weird hump on the back that Samsung seems to love looks crappy, like they couldn’t design the insides properly. The cameras are also lacking on paper (and yes, megapixels do matter to both consumers and photographers – granted a decent lens is needed to get the most out of them).
I’ve always stood by Android, justifying this on the basis that you get better features, for considerably less than an iPhone. However, now Apple have potentially priced lower, have copied most of the good features, looks 10x better and has higher quality hardware, and probably doesn’t force-close every 15 minutes, I’m really struggling not to join the dark side.
The Nexus Prime/Galaxy Nexus has a metal chassis. I don’t believe it is all plastic, or has much plastic at all actually. The plastic Samsung uses is high quality, while cheap feeling, it is not horrible. The iPhone is a beautiful phone and it’s hardware is nicely made, but I don’t particularly like the fact that Apple covered it in glass, almost forcing you to buy a case.
Honeycomb may look tacky, but the improvements it brings will allow people to enjoy Android a bit more. The improved-smoothness alone should bring in quite a bit of people. It is a very big leap from what Android is now, and the changes should grab attention.
Manufactures and Android users will again be responsible for making Android look well, but I don’t mind this. Judging from the poll results, we are in the minority. The majority seems to be fine with how Android looks.
I’m not dedicated to any one OS, I get what I like. I don’t see any side as “dark”. If I want an iPhone, I would buy one. The same goes for a WP7 device.
You sound somewhat fanboyish sadly, as you seemed awesome at first. The “force close every 15 minutes” threw me off. Truthfully, this is rare. The same as iOS applications randomly freezing is rare as well.
can u please use another word besides “blah” your blah blah blah blah is really ….well……blah
btw a halfway intelligent person, let alone a “designer” would realize that a phone that “force-close every 15 minutes” is defective and return it for a new one that works instead of bitching about it on the internet. Good, buy an Apple mr. designer, no one cares.
I could agree with some of that. I definitely shouldn’t look like Googles old site. I’d like the new style. Just push everything towards the Google+ app.
Overall I get the impression that Android is built by a bunch of teams working independently and Rubin for some reason doesn’t see the need to enforce some things across the board. Now of course this could all be just a dev build and the icons will change. But honestly….even if you come up with an icon scheme you’re not going to get all third parties to follow it unless you start denying apps. Then again in the Linux world people build icon sets and take care of icons for hundreds of common third party apps as well.
And finally iOS doesn’t look like OS X to me. In fact OS X kinda suffers from the problems you describe about Android. I hate the look of all the different icons. It makes it look very toy like to me.
“Overall I get the impression that Android is built by a bunch of teams working independently and Rubin for some reason doesn’t see the need to enforce some things across the board.”
That basically hits the nail on the head for me. Windows Mobile suffered from that several years ago, and we all know how that ended.
You appeared to start to compose an intelligent post, until you typed “userbility”….
*usability. It’s 4:20am and I’m wired on caffeine due to being tricked into drinking 2 cans of Monster energy drink. Give a guy a break ;)
Shocking that an inconsistent company like Google would make an inconsistent OS. :)
ha
You mention bad alignment for the dock and software buttons. Upon close inspection, the soft buttons appear to be perfectly centered under the 4 icon dock. I agree that it looks like there’s too much going on, but that in my opinion is the only design flaw there.
“From a designer’s perspective, it’s disgusting.”
From *your* perspective, you phrase it like you represent all of “design”. Google has a bunch of very talented designers and they seem to like this just fine, I tend to agree with them.
No, he said “a designer” – one person. And he took plenty of time to create his post. No reason to snipe with cheap shots.
From any designer’s perspective this should look like garbage. Every point he made was right. This seriously looks like 3 different icon sets were used. It’s stupid. I’ll be flashing over TW4 or TW5 launcher whenever I can to get this shit off. You figure Google would at least come up with new better looking icons for Android’s flagship phone.
ANY designer who doesn’t look at this and see at least 2 different icon sets needs to find a new line of work.
sorry , all i was able to read was “blah blah blah blah blah blah”
Like the parents talking in a Peanuts cartoon, eh?
That would be “wah wah wah wah” not “blah blah blah blah”
I agree. This new design is an improvement but it’s still far behind competition. It lacks the simplicity, elegance and attention to detail of iOS, WP or WebOS. It’s not bad but I expect something more from Google.
The 5 icons at the bottom look really weird, especially the middle one. I don’t like the shade of blue color. Everything is too dark. From a usability perspective, the homescreen concept is more complicated and harder to understand than iOS or WP.
I think the core problem is that Andy Rubin, Larry Page and other leaders just don’t care much about design. And they don’t have a very good taste. Steve Jobs would never release something like this because design is top priority for him. For Android team, design is perhaps 3rd or 4th in the priorities list.
wow long posts are horrible sorry though :)
who reads all this anyway ?
I don’t think it would make sense for it to look like the Google website. Personally, I don’t like the iPhone look. It reminds me of a children’s book or something, like it’s drawn to look cute for children.
I don’t get why you would suggest paying the MIUI guys to make the interface, they copied a lot from the iPhone style. Not very original.
Yea the icons look weird though, agree with you there. And I preferred the green-on-black theme from Gingerbread. Not a fan of baby-blue or whatever you call that.
Why is then when talking about design and Android, people always refer to the poor iOS knockoff that is MIUI? If I wanted my android stuff to look like iOS I wouldn’t be using Android. MIUI designs suck.
The way ICS is looking right now, is about 100x better than MIUI could ever hope to be.
Don’t talk about something unless you’ve tried it. And I don’t want to hear some “I flashed it but 5 minutes later I was out, LULZ.”
MIUI is awesome. It’s uniform, it’s different, you can make it look however you like. You don’t want it to look like the default? Change it. The only people that knock MIUI are the people that don’t use it. You sound like all the other clowns that say, “If you want your phone to look like an iPhone, then – derp derp derp – buy an iPhone.” I’m sorry, but no. It’s still Android underneath.
People knock on the look of iOS, as if that is the reason people don’t like the iPhone platform (spoiler alert – that’s not the reason, so don’t act like it is). I feel it’s the other way around. It’s clean, simple and uniform. Something that Android lacks, resulting in Android consistently being an eyesore. I agree with the above poster, I love Android but I often find myself hating the appearance. It’s baffling. Thank the mysteriously absent lord that I have the power to change that. The new Prime looks AMAZING, from what I’ve seen. ICS? Not so much. Thankfully I’ll be able to get that ish looking however I want because at the moment it’s looking uglier than anyone could have expected.
As said, lack of uniformity goes a looooong way. There is no reason why ICS couldn’t have been a bigger step in the design department. It’s actually shocking that this is what we’ve been anxiously anticipating.
MIUI looks very smooth in a lot of ways and has very nice menus, ala iOS. That being said, FUCK IT
Yeah, but it’s not like people hate iOS because of the look, it’s because of what it stands for, how the experience is offered. Or for that mattered, not really offered but given.
If there is one consistent piece of praise I hear about iOS, it’s the appearance, layout, presentation etc. It’s consistent and the uniformity is something not seen with Android. Yeah, they lock it down and that is both a negative and positive.
It’s just like the app situation across Android, you have some that look nice and sleek and others that, while may still work, look absolutely horrible. It’s inconsistent. Much like Android itself. THAT’s the issue.
And it’s not just ‘the menus’ that have people flocking to MIUI, which is moot because EVERYTHING can be themed and changed, and easily.
I know it’s all a matter of personal preference and opinion, and I’m glad I left iOS for Android … but there are some things that are due for a serious clean up, some design direction that I really do miss.
Android is great, but it makes almost no sense that Google doesn’t try to take a bigger ‘next step,’ and I know I’m not the only one that was expecting that here. Speaking in terms of the appearance, at least.
The only thing I like about iOS is the folders. That’s it. I used MIUI extensively when I had my Inc. As soon as I found out Golauncher existed, I dumped MIUI. I hate iOS with a passion. I used an iPod touch for about 3 months and now refuse to use it. I can’t stand the fact that nothing can be changed. I hate the appearance of iOS. It sucks.
Spoiler alert the look of iOS is actually one the reason I don’t like it (the other being the company belonging to the stupild half eaten apple logo on the back of all iDevices). So when an Android ROM comes along that looks like, naturally I tend to hate it as well.
Also I still think you’re confusing MIUI with ICS in terms of which is ugly and which isn’t.
Also I don’t need to use MIUI. Looking at screenshots of it, is enough to tell me what it looks like and that I don’t like it. Using it will not change that, because it will still look like the pictures of I’ve seen.
Derp, derp.
Obvious obviousness alert, I was speaking about the masses. Sure, one of the things (though, as said, NOT the key thing) that steers people clear of Apple is the bland look … BUT at the same time you have to acknowledge the consistent and clean appearance. Most people that despise Apple / iOS do so for entirely different reasons. With Android you have things looking good and other things looking like a child worked with vomit.
And that’s fine, don’t use MIUI. Just don’t talk about something unless you’ve tried it. That’d be like refusing to use an ice cream scooper because a black man created it.
And I’m not confusing anything with ICS, which appears to be continuation of the “Android has a more haphazard shit look to it than diarrhea” look. I love Android, I just don’t necessarily like the look. Thankfully I have have full reign to change that. And MIUI is, essentially, a themed (with certain, and key optimization’s) ROM that makes it no different than some of these shit nasty ROMs I see people applauding on XDA.
You have to be kidding me. I see more people knocking MIUI due to the appearance than the countless Sense ROMs that are essentially themed (horribly, I might add) and knock on it for no reason than it slightly resembled iOS.
I love Android, but I’ll never refer to myself as an Android fanboy because clowns like you make most of us look more retarded than the iOS fools.
They love Apple for the simplicity, you love Android because it simply isn’t Apple. Would you know that a lot of Android devs have an iPhone and use Apple products as a whole? No, you wouldn’t. You clowns are borderline insane. Or retarded. At times I don’t know which.
Personally I wouldn’t mind a android os that looked like the new UI for google’s online offerings (gmail, calendar, docs, etc)
actually from a REAL UX designer’s point of view, this is a step forward in the right direction. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither were real UX designers, Michael.
It’s been about 4 years….. Time for some new icons…. And the status bar etc looks exactly like Gingerbread. Hopefully and most likely there will be an insane amount of devs that do some serious work on the theming.
Very interesting take my friend. GOOGLE!!! HIRE THIS GUY NOW!!!
I Think it’s some custom rom… because if you look at the Honeycomb icon set everything look cohesive, and here it’s look unpolished. maybe it’s an early build (I hope)… or something.
I agree that google have put in a decent UI framework, but are amateur at implementing a professional and stylish design.
I like turtles.
its freakin’ awesome!
I need to see more of it to draw a opinion.
Motoblur + Turtles = JellyBeans!!!
Rodimus Prime? More like Roidimus Prime! Right? …. Right?
(I’ve got my Rodimus Prime flamin’ Winnebago toy sitting on my desk beside me.)
:O I still have mine too! :D
I personally really dig the blue on black theme, as well as the Tron-esque look to the UI.
If you don’t like it, switch to a launcher you like or root and slap on a rom. What’s the big deal? It’s not like android is locked down to where you have no choices, like iOS.
Well we won’t know how long it’ll be before this gets rooted and deodexed or whatever we need to work on it. This is a whole new animal, ICS isn’t Gingerbread or Froyo.
UI looks nice Except for its ICONs -> it’s absolutely not match with the Theme.
I say ‘boo’ to the whole no buttons things. I feel control of my device being taken away from me, even if it was a fake sense of control before. :)
Interface is nice, I guess. Not liking the icon theme though. Some icons don’t match in theme, i.e the ringed launcher icon…wth? Zune much?
I too prefer the capacitave buttons. Why take em away and then make the screen bigger when it seems very redundant because there on the screen? Oh well either way sounds interesting. I would probably get used to it though.
Battery life is already 3/4 empty. ;-)
(though the lightning bolt likely means it’s charging)
I love it people picking out icons are u serious this is Android not iOS its very easy to modify the UI look in personalization cat in the market bam new icons me icons are the least of my worries I’m just wondering about performance how its performing compared to gingerbread or even honeycomb which I love homecomb UI the best yet now ICS I’m digging it.
You’re right but everyone was expecting Google to release not only a hardware beast out of the box but we were hoping and expecting Ice Cream Sandwich to not only act super awesome but actually look like Google has been working on it for a while. It seriously doesn’t take more than 2 minutes to change the color of an icon or more than a few hours to design a completely brand new icon. Either Google is stupid or this is an early build that is only designed to show that the ICS operating system actually works.
It seems that a lot of people have forgotten that Google already fessed up to this not being the major Android overhaul that they planned for ICS. Despite that fact, judging by the youtube video that shows the whole thing in action, it’s pretty darn good! I agree that the blue isn’t very eye friendly. But black on a white status bar was not very awesome either. You could see it but it sure was ugly. ICS is still better than cupcake aesthetically speaking, imho.
After the huge disappointment that was iToy 4s, i refuse to let the hype kill my excitement for ICS and the new Nexus on Big RED!!!!!
Remember when everyone stood back and gasped at how much more awesome the iPhone4 was than everything else? *crosses fingers and says a little prayer* The new Nexus and ICS will be the shock and awe this time!
Now we see why Apple released the 4s instead of the iPhone 5…..they probably got a sneak peek of this and said, “guys, we don’t have to release our best for this!”
You still here? Go get the iphone 4Suck and shut up. There is plenty of iphone news sites that you can go to…
You shut your suck hole. That was funny.
I find the irony of looking for solid stats on something nobody can give a solid answer about since nobody’s used it.
However, from what I’ve seen, I like it so far except the app drawer. Keep it vertical!
It’s essentially Honeycomb for a phone. If you have a tablet, it should be the same experience.
I don’t know why. I just hate it. I guess I’m the only one. But I’ll give it a chance.
I like turtles. Looks just like my Galaxy Tab on Honeycomb. What I want is some awesome battery management and a fast response camera – 5 MP is fine for me.
I think it looks very nice and polished, and i think google did a good job of putting honeycomb on a smaller screen. I do agree the icons dont match, but most people dont use the default apps. And im glad touch capacitive buttons are going away….Hate those lol
It looks pretty meh, but who cares? I’ll be reskinning it immediately. Just give me that godly hardware.
I like it, but I think Google could have improve in this design a little bit. Here is my take. Why not just make Android 4.0 literally a buttonless experience. You would say it is, I say it is not. You still have soft buttons on the bottom of the device. What I mean is trully buttonless. You are able to get to functions of the phone with gestures. Hand gestures. Hear me out before you debunk my proposal:
You are at the home screen and you want to start using your new ICS phone. So first I want to see what is on other screens besides the home screen.
1. Swipe left to right and right to left to get to other screens.
Ok I want to see what applications are installed on this bad boy.
2. From the bottom swipe finger upwards to reveal your app screens.
There are too many apps to see on one screen.
3. From the app screen swipe left to right or right to left.
I want to go back to the home screen.
4. From the top of the screen, in the application list, swipe from top to bottom twice.
I want to install a widget or some app on my main screens.
5. Press and hold finger in an open area on the screen
I want to see all the home screens
6. Double tap in an open area on the screen
I want to see the last few apps I used
7. Can’t think of a proper gesture
I want to see my notifications.
8. From top of the screen, in home or app screen list, swipe from top to bottom once.
You get the picture. I think Google could do wonders and change the interaction with our devices in this way. Gestures would work in the same way in apps. All applications will have the same gestures for calling the setup menu or other things.
What do you Phandroids think?
People already say Android is insanely complicated because they are used to iOS and WP7 devices, and Android you can actually *do* things with your device. What you are suggesting is absolute madness and would drive a TON of people away because it would make Android infinitely more complicated.
Turtles was just too compelling :). I have to say, I like the new look though.
We’re just gonna retheme it 5 hours after it launchs, so, meh. :)
It looks terrible compared to iOS and WP7, the icons are different sizes, there isn’t any uniformity. It looks like something that was put together by a bunch of people with everyone doing their own thing. Google has some brilliant engineers,but I don’t know wtf is going on with Duarte. It looks more like a custom ROM thrown together by a basement-dwelling geek from XDA.
i think we should reserve some judgement for when the manufacturers throw their horrible UIs on top of it.
Only 8% of people dislike it! Good job Google! You’re giving people what they want! I however will stick with Golauncher. I’ve invested too much in my own personalization.
Agree ive been running golauncher for a while now on my OG epic and its pretty smooth i figure as soon as i get it on a dual core itll run like smooth as a babys ass
whoa so many comments… mine is just gonna be a quick short one.
I think the fact that Android changes its default look, once in a while and not drastically, adds to the whole Android experience. I find that it makes things exciting, unlike WP or iOS.
thats for me, i like learning to use new UIs.
I absolutely love it how it is! But I suspect this is an earlier build and all the apps have not been changed yet (for instance the messaging app) but even if that is not true, I can’t complain!
I like the idea of no physical buttons on phones, but only when replaced with gestures, like webos, not when you just replace the physical buttons with on screen ones.
Laughed my ass off at the I like turtles option. Haha
I like it, but it doesn’t seem revolutionary. I think it is time for me to get off this boat because the iPhone4S really blew me away with the new processor and Siri. Also I will always remember it as iPhone4(for)S(steve). It only makes sense for me to switch. No fanboyism here. I love android, its just that I want something totally new. Farewell, I am now going to the Verizon store to pre-order.
ok.
I think it should be a bit more uniform, but other than that, it looks like Android is going forward as it should! I love the elimination of the front facing buttons.
What directions do the buttons usually face? o_O
left, right, up, like volume and powe/lock??
Ugh, I love it but I also love turtles
the only thing I care about is whether when the transformer 2 comes out how both devices work together – if it’s really the same thing and I no longer need a windows pc = ultra mega win. The design will get cleaned up in future versions and I am sure you can DL some launcheres to fix it.
Barely 8% say they don’t like it; good, then don’t buy it. I for one like the direction Google is headed in.
Android= chess – deeper, fun, scalable to grow with you
iO/S= checkers – simple, fun, boring after the first thrill
The thing here is the integration with tablets bringing a unified look… That’s one thing not demonstrated here
iHate it.
I like the new look personally but it isn’t hard to recognize that UX design is not the Android team’s strong-suite. The tron-esque themeing will appeal to some, like myself, and not to others, whilst iOS and WP7, which are comparatively neutral in terms of theme, appeal to a larger majority of people.
The main point of IceCream Sandwich is to eliminate fragmentation between the various screens. IceCream may accomplish that but I’m worried about Google’s direction considering full integration of services, unique and intelligent layout and overall consistency of the UI.
Looking at the new WP7.5 …I can see MSFT kicking some serious ass next year! I’m a huge android phan but WP7.5 is looking like a very appealing alternative….
PLEASE FIX THIS GOOGLE…..I DON’T WANT TO THROW MY MONEY AT SLEAZY MSFT!! PLZ!!!!!!!111 I FREAKIN HATE BING!!!
Am I the only one more concerned about what I’ll be able to do with this? Design wise, it’s fine. But we all know everyone and their mama will be customizing it in some way- either roms or launcher. If google was smart, ICS would be able to be customized without any third party apps are rooting. That would be the biggest improvement overall.
Android people come in all different flavors. If you want conformity, go to Apple.
You know it’s a geek talking when they praise WP7. Non-geeks are repulsed by WP7. When WP7 gets more than 15% consumer adoption, then you can add it to the conversation. I personally applaud Microsoft’s new OS, but of course, just like you, I’m a geek.
I’m kinda indifferent on this new look, but I think I just put my finger on why it bugs me a little bit. It looks like Vista! The ginormous analog clock, the background, etc. Perhaps that’s what people are reacting negatively to.
its too dark and looks like a low end smartphone. even Android 2.2 looks way better!
Whoever was the GENIUS at Google who said that we should remove all physical buttons from the UI, should be fired. I love Android but the thing I hate most about Android are capacitive or virtual buttons, which ALWAYS accidentally get pressed.
I, having tried out a Xoom, think that Google is going in the wrong direction on this one. It will be a long time before developers go all in on this new UI, both on tablets and phones, being that the inefficiency of the developer environment, and a lack of consumers that will pay for applications, will discourage them from using all of the tools to make Android apps as good, quality wise, as the iPhone’s or the iPad’s.
Oh god, they’re going to put the buttons on the screen instead of on the bezel? I already end up hitting the menu button on my Sensation enough when I type a message, I don’t need Google to make it worse for me.
It works for Honeycomb because it’s on a massive tablet screen where you can easily navigate your fingers around. This is a phone screen that will be dominantly navigated by your thumbs. This doesn’t bode well. It also just makes it looked extremely cramped and bad overall.
This new look of Android is very cool and there is lots of sophisticated features, which is a very nice gift from Android for Android users and I do Appreciate your valuable efforts.
Please don’t get people to vote on an imminent release of an OS and destroy the party of the vendor by some biased lead comments. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you. Remember, a fan site depends on the success of the OS of which it claims to be a supporter. This kind of voting could have been conducted after the release of the OS when people had seen enough of it. Of late this site seems to be harboring some hostile trolls (disguised ifans?) and some deliberate provocations against the Android OS of which this site claims to be a fan. Well, I had enough and I’m disgusted enough to tell you that you just lost a fan of your site. I’m unsubscribing from the feeds of this site.
I don’t like the teal color, I liked the green – it made it more Robotic Android. Teal moves it closer to blue which is more iOS, gross. And what’s everyone’s problem with the SEARCH button???? I use that button constantly. This part of me makes me glad I have the SGSII Epic Touch that I’ll put ICS on instead of getting the Prime lacking the seach button.
Any one consider this is not complete.
I’m looking forward to the features ICS will offer, but I’m not a fan of the screenshot/layout. The analog clock with the lack of weather is quite lame. It’s a non-issue for me really since I use GoLauncher with Cyanogen theme.