I've had Androids since way back, and while the UI has continuously gotten prettier, it has gotten harder and harder to use.
I can 'feel' these new concepts as they roll them out, and then just get frustrated by them. It feels like they come up with certain standards/rules, and then have to adapt their UIs to it. So buttons are put in confusing places, with weird icons.
Take the phone dialer for instance. I press the phone icon. How do I get to a dial pad? Why didn't it just give me a damn dialpad to begin with? The dialpad button is a little blue square with dots in some kind of matrix that sort of looks like a dialpad. Every time - every time - I make a call, I have to go through this ritual again of figuring out where the dialpad is. Even though I know where it is, it doesn't look or feel right. And that's just the beginning. The whole dialing process, finding contacts, etc. has been totally broken. Just so the UI is pretty and meshes well with itself. And this is a phone!
Haha. I remember that. The hardest feature for me to figure out after getting my phone was how to actually call somebody. Also after installing skype I started getting popups when I would call about "Do you want to use your phone or skype to call?". Why do I have to click so much to make a call I kept asking myself?
Then I figured out the double tap on the home key and "Hi Galaxy" and my life changed forever. I use it waaaayyy more than I've seen anyone I know using Siri. The only annoying thing now is when I disable gps and then try to use maps from voice while driving things get wonky because I'm driving, trying to enable GPS, and trying to deal with maps popups telling me gps isn't on and whatnot. I just forget to re-enable it before I drive somewhere so it happens quite a bit.
I also actually sat down and read the manual for the phone and looked up tips and tricks online. Really studied it as opposed to just expecting to "get it out of the box". I know the whole "It just works" mantra is great, but if you're willing to spend a little time reading and researching you can have a great mobile experience instead of just blindly ignoring things that don't appear to immediately work/make sense.
In a nutshell, they really are little computers now, and putting in the time to learn it well will open up doors for you.
On the other hand, a dialpad takes up a lot of room, and for many cell users, the common case is calling a contact, not dialing a number. The only time I ever use the dialpad is for "press N to Do a Thing" interfaces, such as my voicemail (which automatically opens the dialpad for exactly that reason) or my employer's conference-call system.
gosh, i could go on and on about the phone dialer.
What is the most frustrating thing about it is the "hang-up" button is a gigantic red button and right below it are the really minute buttons to fire up the dialpad, mute, conference, contacts, etc. Yep, what are the chances you will accidentally hang up while trying to find the dialpad or quickly mute your conversation.
I can 'feel' these new concepts as they roll them out, and then just get frustrated by them. It feels like they come up with certain standards/rules, and then have to adapt their UIs to it. So buttons are put in confusing places, with weird icons.
Take the phone dialer for instance. I press the phone icon. How do I get to a dial pad? Why didn't it just give me a damn dialpad to begin with? The dialpad button is a little blue square with dots in some kind of matrix that sort of looks like a dialpad. Every time - every time - I make a call, I have to go through this ritual again of figuring out where the dialpad is. Even though I know where it is, it doesn't look or feel right. And that's just the beginning. The whole dialing process, finding contacts, etc. has been totally broken. Just so the UI is pretty and meshes well with itself. And this is a phone!