Android 10 – The Ars Technica Review

It's time again for Google's annual big Android rollout. This year we are at "Android 10", but if we count by API levels (which actually increase by one per publication), this is the 29th version of Android.

For most of 2019, this new version of the Snack software is in beta under the name "Android Q" and we have already recorded six beta versions. Normally, this "Q" would become a snack-themed code name with the final version, but this year the "Q" apparently means "Quitters" – the code name mark is dead. Android follows a textual diet and it is only about Android 10, without snack.

Despite this change, Android 10 brings to Android many tasty changes, often requested by users. The operating system finally adopts a dark mode, the sharing menu is reorganized and the gesture navigation has been significantly improved compared to the half-cooked version introduced in Android 9. The developers have many new APIs, including support for the future foldable version. smartphones, the floating application "Bubbles" and a new biometric API more generalized. And on top of all that, there are a host of changes to work around, such as considerations for the new gesture navigation system and new privacy and security-focused application restrictions. Even the notification panel receives a new injection of artificial intelligence and, of course, new emoji.

The work under the hood on the modularity of Android continues, as always, with Android 10. This year, "Mainline Project" is the engineering effort put forward. This initiative creates a new, more powerful, file type for system-level code, and several pieces of features disappear from the main operating system difficult to update and in the Play Store, where they will receive bets. monthly updates. There is also a new dual boot feature, which will allow curious users to quickly switch between commercial versions and beta versions of Android.

As has become Ars's tradition, we will cover every unsustainable change in detail. So, even if Google abandons the theme of snacks, you may want to grab your own snack before diving into the next 20,000 words of Android 10 intel.

Contents

Android 10-Just Android 10

Before we get into the current operating system, we should probably talk about the name. For years, Android versions have been launched with codenames based on snacks next to the version number. We had Android 1.5 Cupcake 1.6 Donut, 2.0 Eclair, 2.2 Froyo, 2.3 Spice Bread, 3.0 Bee Nest, 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, 4.1 Jelly Bean, 4.4 KitKat, 5.0 Lollipop, 6.0 Marshmallow, 7.0 Nougat, 8.0 Oreo and Android 9 Pie. The names were a way to add a little fancy to an Android version, with funny speculations and jokes about his name, as well as a statue unveiling with the release of the operating system. The code names were alphabetic, so this year we were supposed to have a snack that started with "Q."

With Android 10, the code name system is coming to an end. Android 10 is just "Android 10" without additional names. In an August blog post, Google said the code name system was coming to an end as it was not "always understood by all members of the global community:"

For example, L and R do not stand out when they are spoken in certain languages. So, when some people heard us say loud Lollipop Android, it was not intuitively clear that it was referring to the version that follows KitKat. It's even harder for new Android users, who do not know the naming convention, to know if their phone uses the latest version. We also know that pies are not a dessert in some places and that marshmallows, although delicious, are not a popular treat in many parts of the world.

In addition to the new name, Android receives a new wordmark and a modified color scheme. While the wordmark is not so exciting, the small logo of the Android robot (usually called the "Bugdroid") is now part of the wordmark, head above or beside the letters. The bugdroid injects a little fun into the logo when it is animated. In Google's videos, he tends to come out of the ground, the antennae squirm and his eyes blink. One of Google's images even shows him looking around.

Gesture Navigation – Significant improvements, but not yet completed

The most important feature of Android 10 is easily gesture navigation, which has been a major redesign in this version. Google started on this track with the release of Android 9 Pie from last year, but with Android 10 it now has a "fully gestural navigation".

Implementing gesture navigation on Android 9 was a disaster. Google started with the traditional Android three-button navigation system: Back, Home and Recent Apps, then converted a single button, Recent Apps, into a gesture. The functionality of the other two buttons was usually left to itself. This made the navigation bar really strange, with a Back button, a Home button, and a blank space where the recent apps were located. This also made the feature quite strange, with only one tap on two of the navigation features and a gesture for the third.

The gesture navigation of Android 9 also offered no benefit to the user. The main selling point of gesture navigation on the iPhone X and many skins of third-party Android manufacturers is that it saves money on the phone. 39; screen. When each navigation command is a swipe gesture, you no longer need a large space for navigation buttons. On Android, that means recovering about 7% of your screen from the three-button bar, while on an iPhone, this means you have to remove the hardware front-cover button and add a much larger display great.

The implementation of Android 9 has not recorded any screen savers. It was a weird and awkward half-step to gesture navigation, but it was also an option. So for most phones, it was easy to forget. Unless, of course, you bought the Pixel 3, in which case the new navigation system was mandatory and very negative for the device.

The "fully gestural" navigation in Android 10 represents a considerable improvement and solves most of the major problems we encountered during the implementation of Android 9. Better yet, after the waste of mandatory gestures on the Pixel 3, Google s is committed to ecosystem rules that will maintain the old three-button navigation bar for all devices because it meets certain accessibility needs.

So what's really new in the new gesture system? The first big improvement is that everything is a gesture now. A sweeping motion can trigger the Home, Back, Recent Apps, the Google Assistant apps and some other extras. The second big improvement is that this version of gesture navigation finally saves space on the screen. In properly configured applications, the system tray becomes completely transparent and is only replaced by a thin horizontal bar to indicate the gesture area, in the manner of an iPhone X. "Works more like iOS" is a concise way to describe how the new gesture navigation works, and that's great, since that's what everyone's been asking since Google launches Google Android Pie.

Now, meet the new gestures:

• Return: Slide your finger on either side of the screen.
• Home: Swipe up from the bottom of the screen.
• Recent applications: Swipe up from the bottom and hold.
• Fast change of application: Slide horizontally on the gesture bar.
• Google Assistant: Slide your finger from one of the lower corners of the screen.
• Navigation panel of the application: Long-press on the side of the screen, then drag

This is a lot to remember, but the "Big Three" of "Back", "Home" and "Recent Apps" are pretty easy to understand to find out if you are an experienced user of gestural navigation. Just like on iOS, I think that users completely new in sign language will need time to get used to gesture navigation. But these three are easy to remember and quickly become second nature.

The animation and physicality of some of these gestures are excellent. If you are in an application and you slide from top to bottom to trigger main or recent applications, the application zooms out and follows your finger. From there, you get a seamless transition to one or the other screen: if you trigger "Home" and that the application has a home screen icon , the application will shrink and disappear in its home screen icon. If you head to recent apps, the app's thumbnail will shrink seamlessly into the app's carousel of thumbnails.

Again, these gestures are similar to those of iOS. But that does not stop them from being wonderful to use, as if you physically move application thumbnails with gestures. Open recent applications really gives the impression of grabbing the application and placing it in its place in the carousel of recent app vignettes. My favorite touch is that you can cancel this gesture by simply doing it in reserve. Drag a recent apps thumbnail to the bottom to enlarge, fill the screen, quit recent apps and return to the app.

Recent apps do not work as well from the home screen, where this conflicts with the opening of the application drawer. Both start with a sweep up. Therefore, if you perform a "scan and hold" on the Home screen for recent applications, the application tray will begin to appear. Then he realizes that you want to use the recent applications. It then slides down, and then recent apps slip from the screen side. If all of this seems busy and messy, that's totally the case! Older versions of Android had an application drawer button that did not require dragging. Returning to this seems to be a lot nicer, as it would eliminate the conflict with recent applications.

The gesture of quick change is excellent. Dragging left or right on the gesture bar will allow you to glide smoothly through the carousel of recent apps from a full-screen view and, again, you'll feel like physically moving application windows. It looks and feels great, with silky smooth animations as apps slide to the side. I think it's one of those UI interactions with a "high fidelity factor". I caught myself slipping a few times into apps for no reason just because it's fun.

The gesture of the Google Assistant, which appears in the lower corner, is one of the least obvious gestures of the group. But Android offers continuous reminders when you unlock the phone. For a second or two after unlocking, L-shaped corner indicators appear: "Hey, you can do something here!" and, hopefully, after a brief experiment, users will come across the right thing.

Once you understand the gesture of the Google Assistant, the animation associated with it is superb. The L-shaped gesture indicators turn into segmented Google logo colors (red, yellow, blue and green) and grow along the bottom edge of the screen. When they log in the middle, the Google Assistant opens with the usual white pop-up map. It's funny. Previously, you could open the Google Assistant by long pressing the home button. With the removal of this button, it is reassuring that a new gesture takes its place.