Google didn’t announce a new version of Android at Google I/O, its annual developer conference last week, leaving our devices feeling sad and unloved. Android 4.3 may still be on the way soon, but for now, here’s what we wish Google had announced — and how you can get many of these features right now.
A Smarter Lock Screen
Android’s lock screen has evolved in many ways to include widgets and a Google Now shortcut, but it could use a bit more tweaking to add better shortcuts and notifications. Fortunately, a few apps can give you those features right now.
Dashclock (Free) supercharges your lock screen, and we have a great guide to help you set it up. Not only does it look great, it will provide notification via icons and/or text, useful information like weather and appointments, provide audio controls, and a lot more. As well, you can extend Dashclock to do a number of things to make your lock screen incredibly useful.
For those who prefer a more iOS-like interface, try LockerPro ($4). Due to its higher price and smaller feature set we wouldn’t recommend it ahead of Dashclock, but you may prefer its interface if you particularly like the way iOS handles its lock screen.
If you want quick settings tweaks for your favourite apps, you can grab something like WidgetLocker or flash a ROM such as CyanogenMod, which give you a more dynamic lock screen. Not only will you get your favourite widgets, but you can add buttons to your most used apps for quick access — no swipe-to-unlock required.
Profiles For Settings
Android does a great job of taking care of things for you so you don’t have to waste your time doing them yourself. But Android doesn’t manage your settings based on your location or needs right out of the box. When our sister site Gizmodo went through the 15 features they wanted to see from Android, we particularly loved one suggestion: the ability to create setting profiles and switch between them easily. Custom ROM Cyanogenmod adds this feature, but if it doesn’t support your phone you’ll want to check out Setting Profiles ($4, Lite).
Setting Profiles allows you to automatically activate different settings on your phone based on your location, battery condition, and other rules. For example, when your battery gets low you could have a profile that automatically disables power-hungry features such as LTE, GPS and high screen brightness.
A Unified (And Global) Messaging System
Google Voice provides the ability to send and receive text messages and receive calls on Android and your computer — but only if you live in the US. Meanwhile, Apple’s iOS offers a nice unified messaging system in the form of iMessage. It would be nice to see Android take Google Voice a step further, adding global availability and support for picture messaging, though we’re not holding our breath.
If you want an alternative to Google Voice that offers these additional features, check out MightyText. It provides access to your text messages on any computer, via a web interface, and on tablets as well. This way you can not only keep all your messages in sync, but also receive MMS on every device. Future versions of MightyText will include photo sync, too, so you’ll get new features as development progresses.
Simpler App Management
Installing apps through Google Play works greatwell, and organising your home screen doesn’t take much effort either. When you want to remove an app, however, you can’t uninstall it from your home screen — you can only remove it. We’d like to see simpler app management with options. Custom launchers, such as NOVA Launcher, allow you to press and hold apps and decide whether you want to remove them from your home screen or uninstall them from your phone. You also get quick access to app info pages so you can clear their caches and manage their other settings with ease.
Alternative launchers provide a number of other great features that enhance your home screen’s abilities and its interface, so we highly recommend installing an alternative to the default if you haven’t already.
Also, check out Andmade Share if all of this isn’t enough. It’ll allow you to reorganize Android’s share menu and prioritise the apps you use most.
Other Features Google Needs to Improve
Unfortunately we can’t add every feature and fix we’d like to see in the next version of Android. Here are the major items on our wish list:
- A consistent back button: Android’s back button doesn’t always work exactly the same way in every app, so it can take a little trial and error before you know where you’re going. We’d like to see Google set some guidelines for how the back button should be used so users always know what to expect.
- Clean up the notifications drawer: While we’ve always loved Android’s notification drawer, we’d like to see a little more organisation. Even something as minor as notification categories or organisation by app would make a big difference.
- More resizable widgets: We like the ability to resize widgets, but some can’t be resized at all. Custom launchers help a little bit in some cases, but not in all. Additionally, sometimes certain sizes of widgets leaves them feeling unevenly spaced on your home screen. We’d like to see a few updates to make everything fit better and look nicer.
- Social media integration in the notifications drawer: iOS offers the ability to tweet and post to Facebook from its Notification Center, so why shouldn’t Android? Also, if Google made notification drawer widgets an option we could do much more (such as check weather or search the web).
With all of this said, Google has made Android pretty amazing since 4.1 and a lot of the features we want we can wait for. But part of what makes new versions of Android great is that we get a bunch of cool features we wouldn’t have thought of ourselves. With Android 4.3 rumoured for 10 June, we may see a decent update. Hopefully that will bring the excitement some felt was missing from this year’s I/O keynote.
Comments
15 responses to “Four Features We Want To See In Android (And How To Get Them)”
I use either Google talk or fb messenger with my friends. It’s much easier as everyone has a split between iphone and Android.
I have to say I don;t see the point of some of these suggestions. One being the lock screen. it is called a lock screen for a reason. You want the phone locked to prevent anyone from accessing the phone. Why put an app on that allows you do access it all from the lock screen? Defeats the purpose in my opinion.
Also, in my mind unified messaging is EVERYTHING. That includes SMS, MMS, Yahoo, MSN, Gtalk, etc etc etc. Until someone does ALL of that there is no unified messaging.
For one, a lot of us don’t have anything to hide on our phones so couldn’t care less if you can access it from the lockscreen and would prefer functionality over security, so that is relevant to some people.
And secondly do people still use MSN and Yahoo messengers?
It’s not about security or having things to hide. The lock screen is there to prevent you from accidentally dialing mum when you stick your hand in your pocket.
Then disable the lock screen.
I want some things visible but most data/apps behind the lock screen so these sort of things are helpful for me. At the moment I’ve got an alarm widget, a bunch of settings widgets and shortcuts (torch!), a music player widget, my to-do list (just titles, no info) and my calendar events, none of which I think will do much damage if anyone accesses it. It’s just about degree of control
Exactly, if you want that extra security, add the PIN, Password or Pattern function, for me, the point of the lock screen is to prevent pocket dialling and such. I like having the other apps on the lockscreen including SMS, Phone, Camera and Calculator, allows quick access to the most used apps.
I’d love the security of a pattern lockscreen with the features of the slide unlock screen on Cyanogenmod.
But at the moment, usability demands that I have the slide unlock and risk exposing my login details that are saved in browsers and the like.
It’d be great to be able to read/reply SMS, make a call, check the weather and calendar without unlocking the rest of the phone!
The only feature I care to have is No Latency Audio!
I hate apple but i have to buy a friggin iPad because no Android system has no latency audio, meaning any DJ / Music programs have latency from finger touch to audio. = worthless for audio.
please fix this google!!
i would prefer apple’s spotlight search feature over anything
there are just so many apps on my phone that it takes three complete scrollthroughs to find something that isnt a shortcut
Make a shortcut then!
Put them into folders and you minimise the number of homescreens you need.
google now searches the apps on your phone if u set it to…?
Sure you can’t uninstall apps from the homescreen, but you can from the drawer. Just drag one out as if you were putting it on the homescreen, but drop it over “Uninstall”. It would be nice to be able to uninstall from the homescreen, but I like the idea of flicking the apps upwards to remove them from the homescreen. I can organise my icons in a flash by just tossing them up and off the screen.
Yeah iMessage-like support would be great. I suppose Hangouts is the first step, but reworking the SMS app to try sending it online first and if it can’t, as a regular message, would be amazing.
All this “Add X (Where X already exists elsewhere) to Y” seems redundant. Are people really so lazy now that they can’t unlock a screen and tap Facebook to make a post? I don’t want or need the ability to be able to post to Facebook from every single position on my phone.
I think the stock messaging app should allow pop ups like Handcent or GO SMS