[Google Pixel 2 Guides, News, & Discussion] jallenhayslett:
Fair enough. Rather than continue on in the confrontational way we were moving, let's have a constructive discussion about this. I will admit my choice of words were maybe a bit too colorful and possibly a bit too easy to misconstrue as demeaning.

Personally, I don't mind missteps either. I do, however, feel it is shoddy to have a major point release with mix-ups like Product Sans and Roboto on screen simultaneously, unless of course those mix-ups were not actually mixups. If you look at the notifications drop down, when there are active notifications, they used Product Sans. If there are none, they go back to Roboto. Then, if you'll open any of their new MD2.0 ready apps, the title bar and list content are in Product Sans, but the sidebar is all still Roboto. It just looks half-baked to me.

If it's intentional, I'd like to see some explanation as to why, perhaps in their breakdown of MD2.0, but I've yet to see any such explanation. Even still, it was literally the very first thing that leapt out at me when I fired up 9.0 and a couple of the MD2.0 ready apps. The rounded notifications and quicksettings I can deal with, whether I think they are ugly or not, and the new recents view I would eventually get used to. But those fonts just jarred me.

The other major issue that stood out to me is how they suddenly have decided to move away from toggles and go back to checkboxes, which in itself is odd enough considering the juxtaposition of squared checkboxes with the rounded UI of MD2.0, but in the notification settings they changed the surrounding UI and text and removed the borders in such a way that it's impossible to know that there are actually further options when that element is tapped on. In effect, it acts exactly the same as before, but now looks like a dead-end plain text label instead of a clickable setting with further pages.

If their explaination would be the staged rollout of MD2.0, I suppose I could understand that. Smaller steps certainly are much easier to roll-back if there's too many issues or too much outcry. I guess it just feels like an incomplete product to me. I'm sure I'll eventually end up updating at some point. After all, it truly does run phenomenally well on the Pixel 2. I'll probably just wait till 9.1 to do so. At least by then they will likely have all of those MD2.0 apps updated and most of the UI inconsistencies ironed out. I agree with you regarding gestures, although I'm not quite sold on the idea of them being an unchangeable feature. At the very least, like you said, as part of the feature they should make them seamless and remove the navbar when they are activated or in use. It seems silly to waste that screen space on something that is effectively just a visual marker. Tightening up the swipe distance would also help, as it still seems to require a bit too much travel to be used comfortably.

Functionally, the only major issue I saw, and continue to see pop up in complaints, is the consistency of notifications. Some are there, some are not, some are delayed, and some are broken completely. Whether it's an OS issue, an app issue, or both, it's not good, and it seems like something that definitely should've been ironed out before a major release.

So, I suppose, if you look at most of my wording in this post, if I were to sum 9.0 up in one word, it would be "inconsistent". Your calling it a paradigm shift is very close to correct. It's more like the shift itself, a bridge between two paradigms, not completely one, but also not completely the other, and thus, not completely complete in either way.

As for the overall design, that's really just a never-ending rabbit hole of opinions. I tend to obsess over symmetry, asymmetry with reasonable intention, and, above all, consistency. I also much prefer clean angles and soft but clear edges as opposed to curves, oblongs, and ovals. So it's easy to see why some of these recent design changes get under my skin the way they do. I was the guy that always disabled all unnecessary OS theming on Windows every time he upgraded, if that tells you anything. You can probably imagine how much annoyance OSX and macOS has caused me over the years, especially when Apple started merging desktop and mobile features. Eventually I figured out how to disable the stuff I didn't like, ignore the stuff I couldn't, got over it, and moved on. I probably could've solved a lot of those problems by switching to Linux, but that would've been like trading a cold for cancer, exchanging minor ui annoyances for major ones and a nightmare of compatability issues.

I often compare mobile OS development and evolution to what I've experienced with desktop OSes, and I know that's flawed because the two are vastly different in their use and application. We are just now beginning to understand how people best use mobile devices, so it sort of goes without saying that things are going to develop and evolve much faster. I guess I just miss the 3-4 year development cycles like we used to have with major desktop OS and software releases. It's probably just the nostalgia talking, but it felt like you actually had time to learn and understand how a system worked. Now it seems like as soon as you get used to it they change it on you.