Why I am leaving Android Ice Cream Sandwich

The new Android 4 ICS has not yet had enough time to disperse on the devices of the users of this wonderful system, because of which the atmosphere of anxious and happy waiting prevails around the new version. So far, only Nexus S and Galaxy Nexus users can officially enjoy the update, and some other companies seem to be on the way. As you might guess, the post will be dedicated to the fact that Ice Cream Sandwich, in fact, is not so perfect in all respects, as one would like. I just want to make a reservation that this does not mean that the latest version is bad, unreliable, and the post was created in order to discredit it. On the contrary: I myself love Android and sincerely believe that in the future all the shortcomings will be corrected, and the system will only get better. But the discussion here will deal with things that to some extent spoil the impression of using this mobile OS at the moment. In my case, they were enough to give up the idea of ​​using Android ICS in the form in which it is now. Of course, the taste and color of a comrade is not there, but the points that I am going to describe here, it seems to me, will be important and interesting to someone. Go.

How it all began

Here from this post (yes, my device - Nexus S). I saw, was delighted, I climbed to download. Immediately I ran into the problem of the fact that the update file, accessible by the link contained in the post, for some reason does not want to be installed from under the Clockwork Mod. A bit of a long search led me here to this link, the file with which it was successfully installed. By the way, it happened so quickly (no more than 30-40 seconds) that I, frankly, thought that I would get a brick now. However, a window appeared shortly after the reboot, informing about the optimization of applications for the new version, and, in general, everything worked. Unfortunately, this was probably the last positive impression associated with the system, but you should not dramatize it. Now in order.

Font, icons, status bar

The status bar decided to abandon different colors and repaint in a single azure-blue color, which is now dominant in the entire system. Such a move is quite understandable, given the statements of the developers that Android will acquire a single style. However, the blue color of the clock on a black background is completely incomprehensible to me. Of course, this is completely uncritical and does not interfere at all, but, in my opinion, we have somehow got used to the fact that time is shown to us either in black on a white background, or in white on any other. The same problem concerns the indication of battery charge: if it is displayed in green - everything is healthy, yellow - it means that there is not much charge left, red - look for a power outlet (take this opportunity to say hello to HTC users); but when there is a blue color there, misunderstanding arises. In general, for the indicators, the blue color is somehow not suitable. Well, absolutely.

The font, according to my subjective impressions, became better only in the menu. The forms of Roboto are unnecessarily rounded, and such an outline looks, again, simply unusual. However, you should not take this item seriously.
')

But what you really should pay attention to ... but no, you shouldn't get better - these are standard icons. In the century when, on Windows Phone, we decided to return to the simplest forms and icons, on Android we are trying to seriously push icons with a claim to volume. In the first screenshot, these are the two closest to the menu button; in the picture above, taken from official guidelines, this is all but the far right. If the previous claims could still be attributed to personal dislike, the “voluminous” icons have long since been a move and no one draws them for years, probably five. Against the background of quite cute and, most importantly, original icons from android version 2.x, this step looks at least rather strange.

Search widget

A separate song is a search widget at the top, which is now completely unkillable. No, of course, we can do everything, but a simple user will be doomed to wander with him forever on all five desktop screens. The screenshot captures, in my opinion, a rather paradoxical situation: despite the fact that the search bar always hangs at the top, no one bothers to add it as a widget. Probably, in order to exactly find everything you want. It would be logical to think that it is still somewhere and is disabled in the settings, but no, I personally could not find this option. This step of the developers evokes two contradictory emotions in me: on the one hand, I remember and understand that Google’s lavish share of profits is contextual advertising during a search, and it’s quite logical to make the search string in this form; but on the other hand, it is unpleasant for me to constantly see her up, as if I lost something. I don’t lose anything on my phone, and I don’t need a search for it in this form.

In addition, the appearance of a number of icons at the bottom (with a rather unsympathetic dividing line above them) and the search line already mentioned above at the top, cut, in fact, the very free space of the desktop, which has now become simply more vertically narrow. Pleasant from this did not.

Application crash

The window that first started saying that all the applications installed on the phone are being optimized, of course, it already told someone that some of them could start having problems, but this could not be expected from the standard clock. This crash happens when you try to view your alarm clocks and, in fact, when you start the system (like this, turn it on, and you get an error message right away. WinXP reminds you of happy times, where you always like to break something and report about it often). Another application crash for me was a complete surprise: it happened in Angry Birds, when instead of touching the screen my bird had to drastically increase in size and break all nearby structures, the application simply instantly flew to the desktop without any messages and reports. Ironically, but earlier the phrase “flew to the desktop” was associated only with whimsical toys on Windows, but now we see that mobile OS erases all faces, including this one, and come close to desktop functionality. In general, applications for some reason fall and suddenly close. I really did not expect.

Since this screenshot also shows a little menu, it is worth saying something about it. The first is that the tabs “applications” and “widgets” with a dedicated line are absolutely unnecessary. First, it again “cracks” the screen vertically; secondly, to allocate the whole line for two switches is completely irrational; thirdly, the old system of adding widgets, in my opinion, was much better. Therefore, the second: it is inconvenient scrolling of the menu, and in particular - the menu of widgets. Since after the establishment of several applications, each of which offers several of its widgets at once, it really becomes a lot of them, scrolling them into real torment. Especially when you need to install some widget whose name begins with one of the last letters of the Russian alphabet and you have to go the longest way to it. Someone now thought that the post was paid, I’m talking about Yandex widgets, but somehow miraculously they were ahead of English A. I’ve put a few tricky developers, but at the same time I feel that others may soon think of using invisible characters for getting the first places in the list, and then the widget catalog can simply turn into a trash can.

For some reason, the developers abandoned a rather convenient and good vertical continuous scroll and switched to a horizontal block, i.e. as in the iPhone. On this topic, Mr. Gorky put it very succinctly and effectively in the comments to the post, the link to which was cited above: “It was also inconvenient to scroll through applications and widgets - you could have used one gesture to the end of the list, now I’m sorry to play the screen, waving blocks.” Once again, brave to this gentleman, because his words immediately surfaced in my memory when I first got acquainted with the menu and were very welcome.

Finally, the third - the market icon appeared at the top right. This is great, I liked it. But the post is not about that?

killed Negro

For some strange reasons, some of the reasons may be clear for the superuser in the new firmware version. It is not that this happened after its first launch. At the moment, getting superuser privileges in ICS is impossible in principle. Re-installing it via Clockwork Mod, alas, did not lead to anything. Yes, by the way, the latter for some reason also turned out to be unceremoniously worn when installing the firmware, and going to the Recovery section of Bootloader led to something incomprehensible, and then to reboot the phone. On the Internet, in fact, there are already a long time ago ICS assemblies, where everything is fine, but we are talking about an official update. This disadvantage for me was quite critical: now DroidWall cannot restrict certain applications in accessing the Internet, and I, like many others, will be completely unpleasant when I try to sit on the mobile Internet through 14 megabyte update to the operating system. By the way, it was from this controversial moment that my acquaintance with Android began.

Task Manager

Of course, everyone had been waiting for this for a long time, and the appearance of such a chip was necessary for Android. However ... I do not quite understand the principle of the newly appeared Alt-Ctrl-Del.
The misunderstanding is explained by the fact that, as we see, the application “Clock” is considered to be working, which, it seems, quite recently took off solemnly (by the way, forcing me to use the external alarm clock). Including those that are open in this list (they are not visible in the screenshot, so believe in the word) are listed, and applications from which I, it seems, quite definitely came out: that is, I pressed the exit button in them, after which they (surprisingly) immediately and closed. Of course, if you “shake” the windows with these applications aside, they will really disappear, but then what does this mean, I no longer understand. Honestly, it reminds me of the magazine of recently opened applications, as in Adnroid 2.x, and not the task manager. And, it seems, the truth is somewhere nearby.

By the way, speaking of secret materials: attentive people, having looked narrowly at the bottom of the picture, may notice that next to the “Camera” inscription a picture obtained from the phone’s lens is shown. At the same time, this is not the last picture taken, but the last image that was displayed on the screen while the application was open. And if you were at home, say, you were going to do an intimate photo session of your girlfriend, but at the last moment you changed your mind, not pressing the shutter button, and then came to work and showed your colleagues how the new Android ICS works, then be ready that very soon they will get acquainted with all the charms not only of your new mobile OS.

RAM and tab switching

Free RAM compared to my previous firmware (albeit custom) was less. The former NSCollab provided about 145 MB of free ROM, but here, as you can see, it was somewhat diminished. Actually, I want to say that Android did not become faster. More precisely, is it: did he have any special brakes on anyone? Therefore, all domestic tasks are performed at exactly the same speed as before. Faster is nowhere. But for some reason he began to eat more batteries. Perhaps today was a bad day and magnetic storms, but in general it turned out like this: for some reason, my Android 4 consumes more charge than 2.x, which can even be seen from the percentage of battery consumption in the settings. It is possible, of course, that all this is completely wrong and I am deeply mistaken, well, so much the better. I was a little upset about the way to switch between tabs in similar windows: as we can see, the list of different categories of applications does not fit at the top, so in order to switch to another tab, we need to click on it, and if it is not visible, rewind the horizontal list to it and again same push. It would be logical to combine both actions by entering a horizontal scrolling between screens, but for some reason the developers did not.

Contacts

Another oddity is the separation of contact and phone applications. Now in contacts we have groups, the contacts themselves and the favorites (that is, the most frequently used ones). In the phone application, we now have dialing, call log and again contacts, where first the frequently called ones go, and then in alphabetical order. Of course, I remember something from the developers' explanations that the applications are separated for compatibility with tablets and phones (I wanted to say that you cannot call from the first, but I somehow saw a man walking along the street and talking on the tablet), but To be honest, I see no reason for this to cause inconvenience for mobile phone users. Another rather unpleasant trifle that appeared with the separation of applications is associated with calling contacts: from the contacts application, you need to click on the profile, then click on the phone number (even if there is one), after which the call will start. The phone icon in the call log for this purpose is specifically displayed the handset icon to the right of the call information (in general, as it used to be in the contact list in Android 2.x). And in the contact list in the phone application (not yet confused?), It’s enough just to poke the contact at any place. Therefore, forgetting myself, I accidentally called a person, wanting to simply view information about him.

And from now on, contacts and messages cannot turn off contact pictures. I think that many people, like me, never put them, and therefore we will now constantly have to contemplate a vertical row of faceless (as well as eyeless and eyeless) smiling people pictograms.

And of course, it is impossible not to notice the proud inscription "I" at the very beginning of the list, which, try to guess, does it turn off? I already know who I am, but for some reason the phone considers me to remind me of this every time I visit the contact list. By the way, the usual and simple contact "I!" With my phone numbers with me, and so it exists from time immemorial.

A little more about scrolling

The mechanics of the usual scrolling lists, by the way, also changed. Previously, a short and fast swing of the finger across the screen led to a long vzhzhzhzh through the entire list to the very end (it was so cool that sometimes I wanted to do so back and forth), now the list will only reluctantly move to half a screen. If you make the path of touch a little longer, then scrolling will go more willingly, but closer to the end it will slow down much faster than before. The ideal option for fast scrolling is to take and do everything as it should with the finger of your other hand, but unfortunately it can be busy sometimes. In other words, the physics of scrolling has changed in the direction of greater “viscosity” and lower mobility.

And what's good? Instead of conclusion

Anything that is not bad is good. You should not expect any innovations from ICS: the format of the system remains the same, and it has not learned how to write programs for you and order beer. You won’t tell me that you were just waiting for the new Android, that Face Unlock (which, by the way, was turned off) and those, to put it mildly, dubious effects of eye glazing when shooting people? Bringing a design to a single view really made it much nicer, standard applications outwardly also looked prettier, the revision of some interface elements undoubtedly benefited the system. It became possible to take screenshots with standard tools, if someone was very impatient (Volume down + Power). In general, quite a lot has been written, photographed and filmed about the advantages of Android ICS, and there is nothing new here to say. The post was created to show the reverse side of this OS, where, unfortunately, not everything is perfect. Of course, there are no critical flaws, imbalances and other major troubles in the system. Of course, it can be used. But, alas, not me. We'll have to roll back to 2.3.7.

Perhaps some of the shortcomings described here can be attributed either to the fact that the update was made by me from the custom firmware without data cleansing, or to the subjective dislike of some elements, or to the banal misunderstanding of what is actually more convenient (now I really want to say hello to the past to the owners of the iPhone 3G, who were the first to encounter the fact that the mobile OS can prohibit even free access to their own files, not to mention the forced non-support of some technologies, but not giving in mind using this file. ATPase), but not to say that none of them, in the end, is not worthy of attention.

In any case, I wish you as little trouble as possible when meeting with Ice Cream Sandwich, a happy experience of use and quick updates. I'll wait for now.

PS A modest picture in the head of the post was drawn by me especially in his honor (and in honor of all Habr's users, which is a big deal). Well, if anyone is interested.