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I have been testing the Pixel 10 for a few weeks now, and there is a lot to love on the phone, cameras with an integrated MI2 magnetic load. However, what I did not expect to love as much as I do is the flavor of Google from Android 16. It is dynamic, reactive, and it brings welcome changes that I hoped to see on Pixel software.
That said, the Pixel user interface has never been my favorite, and although I like the modifications made by Google with Android 16 and Material 3 expressive, there are still things that I would like to see Google implement in future versions of Android. In fact, many of these features feel so common on other Android phones, I am surprised that Google has not implemented them on pixels.
Fast parameters
Maybe my favorite change in the Pixel user interface is with the quick settings. I was not a big fan of unnecessarily large tiles in previous versions, which limited the number of tiles that you could see both compared to A UI. But now Google allows you to customize the quick setting panel more than I never thought.
You can now resize any tile just by pressing it for a long time. You only get two choices, which are essentially 1×1 or 2×1, but it allows you to adapt more tiles on the panel and provide it with more personality, allowing you to highlight the most important tiles if you wish.
That said, there are still boring quirks that have not been discussed with Android 16.
For a functionality entitled “quick parameters”, I have the impression that it is not great to provide quick access to certain essential parameters. For any reason, it takes two blows from the sign in order to access the brightness cursor, which is boring when I want to adjust it quickly beyond the automatic brightness.
In addition, the real settings button is also inaccessible until the second shift. Of course, I could have an icon on the home screen or browse the application drawer, but I prefer not to take my home screen with applications / widgets. I can be spoiled by Samsung’s quick parameters, which gives you immediate access to the parameter icon after a blow down.
Finally, I would like to see Google add an option to Separate the notification panel and the quick parameters. I got used to this on Samsung and Motorola phones, and I started to prefer it because it shows more tiles or notifications at a time, and I can easily slide between the two panels.
Multitasking
While Google focuses on improving the multitasking experience on Foldables like the Pixel 10 Pro Fold, the experience on its traditional phones seems a little defective.
The Open Apps view simply displays large side by side cards, which does not offer a particularly useful view of your applications. It is not a huge affair, but it does not seem as useful as the view of the applications open from other OEMs. In addition, although access to features such as screenshot and text selector are useful, I would like the option to see the recommended applications to jump quickly into one.
In addition, he does not make sense to me that I have to slide to the right to find the erase button. Even Motorola allows me to open the view and slam everything without sweeping. I can also lock an application on the view of open applications so that it remains open when I erase the rest, which is useful when I broadcast Youtube music, for example.
A functionality that I suppose to see on pixels is a native side panel. It is a space to quickly access your favorite or most used applications simply by dragging on the screen side on almost all screens. It is incredibly useful, and generally the first thing I configured when using a new phone. It is also available on just about all the other smartphones I have tested, from Samsung to Tecno, so it is strange that Google always did not include an option for this, despite having given us a task bar on the foldable.
More personalization
The open view of applications is just one example; Google should leave us choose The style in which applications are presented. Ditto with the quick settings menu; We should be able to reorganize, resize and further modify the style of the tiles and the panel. Samsung does an excellent job to allow you to reorganize the different elements on quick parameters, and that would be an excellent starting point.
But even more than that, Google should allow us to personalize other aspects of the pixel user interface, such as the shape of the application icons and the content indicated on the state bar, allowing us to choose the icons we want to present and how. OnePlus offers this on his phones, and I have always appreciated this as a way to unclutter the top of my screen.
And as a person who prefers a cleaner home screen, I would also like to be able to stack widgets.
The best of both worlds?
There are also a lot of smaller things, which could be added to fairly granular personalization options. However, Android has always been to provide its users with options, and although many like the pixel user interface for what it is, offering the possibility of a deeper customization could go very far.
Maybe Google could launch a Good Lock style application (maybe called “pixelate”), which gives users more means to personalize their phones without Google needing to play with the basic pixel experience. It would give us the best of both worlds.
What changes in pixel user interface would you like to see? Sound in the comments below!
