The Full Android Experience

2014 is yet another Google I/O I missed. You simply cannot be everywhere. And I barely have time to catch up. Feedly more or less keeps me informed every morning when I browse through around 100 news items that keep flowing my way every day via subscribed RSS feeds. Yes I still use RSS, not Twitter, as my main information source.

BTW: an idea for an app: offline reader for the most popular articles and news items referenced by given Twitter hashtags: subscribe to several #, hit refresh when online and it all gets sucked into the local cache (like in the Pocket). I'd pay $10 for an app like this one. So would probably a million other people. Does $10M budget seem interesting?

But back to Google and the Subject Line. I am absolutely amazed with the Material Design presented by Google. When this is implemented in Android itself and in the most popular apps (of course it will be!), Android is going to be the most beautiful and desired OS on the planet. Material affects not only Android. Look at the Polymer Project: it looks like the entire Web will soon look aligned with Android / Material. Ever wondered how Google would merge Chrome with Android? Material is the answer. Consistent UX matters. Not the implementation behind it.

I also very much like the Android Auto: continuous integration of a phone with a dashboard. Finally. I have been driving with Android dashboard for several years, and while much better than the factory multimedia and navigation system, it is still far from perfect. Mostly because the UI really has to adapt to driving environment. Which the Auto promises to do.

It all seems like Google has executed a giant intergalactic leap in UI / UX design. They are pushing absolutely the right buttons and Apple starts looking really pale in comparison.