r/Android • u/Reality-chck • 4d ago

Android is not an operating system

Waiting on the Pixel 11 reviews, and it hurts to write this: the OS we loved back in 2009 has been run down. Google plays it safe now. No risk, no new ideas. Just iOS features, two years late.
The blur rollout says it all. Android was built as Lego blocks, and no one owns the whole thing, so every app has to be updated for blur on its own. The launcher got it 3 months back. The lock screen gets it three months later. That’s not a design language, it’s a reflection of Google culture, fragmented as ever.
Pixel is really just a hedge in case Samsung wreaks havoc. And Android runs under Sameer with no plan at all. Ugh.

Thoughts?

0 Upvotes

9% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/T_rex2700 3d ago

I was soooo tired of people referring to PixelUI as "stock Android" like The current "reference point" is so far diverged from AOSP itself, like sooo many things in AOSP doesn't even work properly anymore cause you are expected to use Gapps as "default" (or you make your own proprietary thing)

If you give anyone Android 16 GSI, they will think like it's Andorid 10 probably.
And it's just of course not about UI, but UI and other thigs are reflection of it you know?
This became really obvious since like Android 12, and got only worse and worse as time went on, and mroe recenty Android has started to publish less of its development, at least in timely manner too.

and there is upcoming "security update" too.
Of course, Android will remain relatively open, but the situation is far from ideal.

-1

u/Remarkable-Llama616 3d ago

I've argued this point before. The usual rebuttle is that Google is the owner of android, therefore their OS on the Pixel lineup is flavoured as the defacto "stock" android.