Buckle up people, because this is going to be a long (compared to the other posts here) rant on Android 16 QPR1.
TL;DR: the things I don't like about QPR1 - many of which have already been pointed out by others - were enough to make me go through the effort to downgrade to an older GrapheneOS release for now (I understand the security implications, so don't bother me about that). If Google (or even GrapheneOS - which I doubt will change its UI significantly from upstream AOSP) fixes even some of the more critical issues/annoyances I have with the new UI, I might just put up with the rest of it. And now, a massive wall of text and bullet points:
After some research into Android 16 QPR1's changes, and subsequent discovery of the major UI update, I decided to upgrade to it after some hesitation. Apart from a couple of nice changes that I actually quite liked (resizable quick actions being one of them), I don't really like the overall vibe that Google seems to be going with for this new UI, to the point where I actually went through the effort to downgrade the GrapheneOS version (please don't roast me for this, I understand the security implications, and I made sure to use the security preview release for the extra patches it provides), especially since my current version does everything I want it to, outside of an annoying Auto Brightness bug (not the one described elsewhere in this thread, this one has to do with the auto-brightness "memory", but it's outside the scope of this rant). I don't blame GrapheneOS at all for the new UI issues/annoyances that I'm having, and in fact think they are doing great work at bringing greater privacy and security into many users' hands.
What follows is a list of annoyances I have with the new UI. I may have missed some things, but this should cover the bulk of it:
- The top bar icons (I forgot what the actual name for it is, but basically the battery, Wi-Fi, cellular icons, etc.), as others pointed out, manage to both look like they were ripped from a copy of iOS, while also looking like they were made for a children's toy, particularly with the font used for the mobile data indicator and (I think) battery percentage.
- Speaking of battery percentage, I find it harder to read on the new UI than the old one, particularly in dark environments with the brightness turned all the way down + night light + extra dim on the dimmest setting.
- I find that the notification centre can be more cluttered in this version than the old one, despite claims to the contrary. This comes partly as a result of the (from what I can tell from screenshots) doubling in size of the notification icons, partly because notifications are no longer grouped by app (I'm not sure if there's an option to change this, but I'm not going back to QPR1 for now), and partly because some silent/shorter notifications (e.g. "app/system is up to date", "charging device via USB", etc) take up more space than they used to, most likely because of the increased icon size.
- Staying on the topic of notification centres, another annoying issue I found was the area to trigger the actions of some notifications seems to be smaller to me. The USB charging notification is a good example, as it took me a fair few attempts to find the right place to tap to open the menu to put my phone into USB file transfer mode (so I could back up the data on it before downgrading).
- The notification centre app icons seemingly can't be customised anymore (or has been changed), instead taking on the app's standard icon, removing visual distinction between an app's different notification types (assuming it has different icons per notification type, that is - the GrapheneOS app store does, and they aren't preserved in QPR1!)
- I find the new "two-step" unlock vibration annoying. It seems like they're trying to emulate the phone unlock sound, but the setting they chose for one of the vibration's "steps" just so happens to be the one that creates a loud "ping" noise (the same one that plays when dismissing an app). This is especially annoying when there's no option to disable it other than using the global vibration toggle, which removes a bunch of other useful haptics to me (mainly the "tap and hold" one - my watch gets all my phone notifications so that's not a problem on silent mode). I'm astonished it took until QPR2 to add better haptic controls.
- This is more of a personal preference, but I don't really like most modern OS background blurs (this is an opinion I've had since iOS 7). The point being, if you're going to add background blurs to your OS, you need to have an option to disable them for the users that don't want it that doesn't involve enabling developer mode (I believe the option is called "allow window-level blurs", if you want to disable this effect).
And because I don't hate all of the new UI changes, here's some things I do like (or at least, don't hate):
- Resizable quick actions are very nice, and despite also basically being straight up stolen from iOS, is actually a nice feature to have in my opinion.
- The new sliders (volume, brightness, etc.) are okay. I can see people going either way on them to be honest. Personally, I prefer the older ones, but I can see why they'd want to update it (to reduce confusion, maybe?)
- I don't mind the colourised icons on the main page of the Settings app, which I'm sure I could get used to, if it wasn't for the other issues I had with this update.
- The Settings app has consistent sub-pages now (made inconsistent with a QPR of Android 15 iirc), and they're actually a bit more compact than the old ones (at least from the screenshots I searched up to write this)! Unbelievable, given how lots of websites (including some of Google's own) seem to be adding excessive padding to literally everything.
- The clock font being bolder than the old one is a non-issue for me, as it can be easily reverted to pre-QPR1 thickness. More customisability is a win in my book, especially given how limited it was (and still is) in AOSP/GrapheneOS.
My suggestions would be to add options to change the notification grouping (if not already implemented) and icon size (including reverting to the old icon behaviour), adding at the bare minimum a toggle for the old System UI icons, but preferably a way to customise them (Android was supposed to be more "open" to these sorts of customisations, right?), adding a toggle for the lock screen vibration (seemingly done in QPR2, which likely won't hit GrapheneOS until next year at this rate), a toggle to place the percentage outside the battery icon, and a "proper" toggle for blur effects that doesn't involve Battery Saver or Developer Mode. If all of these changes are implemented, you might see me back for Android 17 (or however long it takes to fix even some of these issues). I realise this probably isn't the right place to be posting these suggestions, but I don't really have a better place to vent on this topic at the moment.
Lastly, Seedvault can apparently restore backups from the current (as of writing) Android release (with QPR1) to the last non-QPR1 version. I can't say I recommend relying solely on this behaviour, but it's certainly an option should you chose to go through with a downgrade to the old UI (keep in mind that you will not receive any security patches if you decide to downgrade to Android 16 (non-QPR1)).