The Android 12/13 UI really grinds my gears. Excessive amounts of whitespace, and the notification shade has become “kiddified” - Turning off wifi/mobile data now takes 2 taps, the icons are all ridiculously big and takes up so much screen space, etc.
I personally don’t like phones that are excessively big, because I use it a lot on my commutes. Screen real estate is valuable to me, and while whitespace has its uses, I think Android 12/13 went too far - it might work better on a tablet, but it sucks on a phone. I was really tempted by the Pixel, but ended up getting a Samsung partially because of this (One UI doesn’t have the same bloated-whitespace look).
Am I the only one? Surely Google did user testing… didn’t they?
They do extensive testing, but only on clowns.
Still bewilders me Google got rid of the 2 button navigation style. They hit the nail on the head with that one, it was a perfect balance of convenience and speed, and they went and gutted it for a half-baked ripoff of iOS’ gesture system. Cannot explain how upset I am over that.