Ice Cream Sandwich lost it.
Before jumping into the iOS bandwagon, I used Android ever since the ADP1, started paying attention to its UI about a year ago, and co-developed a Honeycomb app (UI).
To start, I'm going to sum up what I always say regarding the Android UI: there are agendas, on Google's, Mobile Networks, Manufacturers, that impact the look of the Android UI.
The system is modular to please anyone who wishes piggy back its mark onto it, tries too hard to distinguish itself via visual components like live wallpapers, pseudo futuristic aesthetics, whatever, you know the story.
I'm going to keep this really short:
In Honeycomb (and Android in general), the lack of visual affordances, or weak affordances, were one of the major issues with the OS, eg:
- almost unintelligible main navigation (back/home/menu buttons)
- weak affordance for the button widget itself
Navigation
You get there pretty easily, but wouldn't hurt to make them more obvious and any time you have to spend thinking about it is expensive to the user, as usual. (don't get me started on the need for such buttons, or buttons themselves).
Samsung and other manufacturers tried to make them more obvious:
Disregard the red highlight on the dedicated screen shot button present on all Galaxy Tab 10.1, instead direct your attention towards the first three icons.
As a reference, these are the original Android navigation icons:
(as present on the Nexus S, order and shape may vary)
Buttons
This is a simple comparison between Gingerbread and Honeycomb button widgets.
First Gingerbread:
And then Honeycomb:
The label is much more readable, but the buttons are way too blended into the rest of the UI.
Other questions arise here of course, why display this on a modal in the first place, brightness settings don't exactly require confirmation or cancel actions, neither a group of two fields - there's a slider that's visible when you disable auto-brightness, require a modal.
Ice Cream Sandwich
If you're interested on a tour through the software in ICS, watch Engadget's [video on the software of the Galaxy Nexus](http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/24 /galaxy-nexus-hspa-review/), but I gotta tell, the trend of bad UI decisions continues, many of Honeycomb's imperfections are present in ICS.
There's also a new one, this one's actually a regression and it's the way open home screen folders are displayed, previously they looked something like this:
But on ICS:
Yes, it's a modal, you have to click outside to close, single tap 'Google' to rename.
Also, this is how it looks on the home screen:
If you watch the video I mentioned earlier you'll find more dubious UI elements, like a legacy menu button that is displayed on legacy apps right to the app switcher icon in the nav area.
I would find it hard to believe these UI decisions were impacted by the agendas I mentioned earlier, they simply are thinking in a different mindset, geeky, pro users, used to deal with complex systems, recognising patterns, etc that allows them to perceive a meaning out of this interface with a minimum effort.
The subject of wether or not these UI decisions are really harmful to the rest of the users, or how obvious should your UI be, can provide for a good discussion.
Would be interesting to reach a conclusion to wether or not users will become more tech-savvy as the young grow up on this world, or if these concerns will be valid in 10 years time.