Android N

One of the main reasons why so many people love Android is its famous customisability. Google’s OS is notoriously flexible, and despite being already available in a variety of different forms thanks to the OEMs’ re-skinning, the hundreds of apps present on the Play Store allow for further personalization in almost every corner of the system. Toggles, widgets, icon packs and entire lock screen replacements are just a few of the categories of things Android can be user-modified with.

However, particularly after Material Design‘s introduction and a general push towards cohesiveness and consistency across the system, the diverse adaptations of the OS have started to look more and more similar; be it thanks to whiter, more card-based menus, the use of similar toggle icons or the widely adopted carousel-like task switcher, among others, Android has finally started to look and feel instantly recognizable, even when buried deep underneath the oft-poor design decisions made by third parties…

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One of the reasons why I initially fell in love with Android was Google’s ability — often showcased on an annual basis in May or June at I/O — to always push technology forward, reinvent itself, and even dare to go a little overboard before making sure that everything was under control.

Most notably, since the end of 2011, Ice Cream Sandwich started to look as a more mature OS, one whose direction was beginning to make sense, appear clearer, as Android itself was soaring, soon to be the most adopted mobile operating system on the planet. What we know as “Holo”, a good-looking visual style for the system, was introduced, and coupled with bleeding-edge devices such as the Galaxy Nexus it made for a pretty sweet package.

But now, 5 years after the Galaxy Nexus was released and with Lollipop’s new design under its belt, where is Google going next?

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Very quickly, USB Type-C has this year become a part of every phone’s spec sheet. Either a new phone has USB Type-C, or it doesn’t. And it’s already being seen as a pro (or a con) when comparing phones against each other. Before the introduction of USB-C, pretty much every handset was assumed to have the previous connector, microUSB. And pretty much every phone did. Now, that’s changing.

With the Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P, and the OnePlus 2 before that, Android smartphones have recently begun adopting the new standard en masse, and as far as we know, many of the phones set to be announced in the coming months — including the HTC One M10 and the LG G5 — are going to make the jump. For me, supporting USB Type-C is absolutely a requirement for my next phone. Here’s why…

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