Things About Android That Annoys Us

The Android phone is one of the most popular phones on the market. Android phones and tablets are easy to use and usually trouble-free. Like all tech gadgets, however, it comes with its share of shortcomings. I’m not talking big issues, just little things or behaviors which should be different. Here are some of my personal Android annoyances.

Not being able to zoom out on HTML email apps:

Yes! I swear that every single email that I view in the GMail app only renders properly in landscape. If I hold the phone in portrait I have to swipe left and right to read a block of text.

App history:

I hate that you have to go through every app you’ve installed including free ones, just to find your purchased apps. Plus the apps you install are in your history forever and this bug me probably the most especially when I am setting up a new device. I would like to push the apps to the device through Google Play on my Mac, but I have 100s of junk apps I tried that will forever be in my history.
Privacy Issue: Privacy is a major concern. Apps are not properly screened before they appear on the Google Play Store unlike Apple’s App store. If you wish to know more about it, read about the security breach of Android apps that lets apps record your calls and SMS (scary, isn’t it?)

The inconsistent back key:

You never know what it’s going to do. It’s all too often that I open a text message and then wish to return back to whatever I was doing before, only to have the “Back” button bring me through a never ending chain of text messages.

Backup:

No native backup to computer or cloud. I am talking about more than contact information. Every time I restore my android I am faced with all blank contact icons… I hate being left with the option to use several backup solutions or dealing with missing pieces.

Folders:

They just seem very unorganized and every app stores its data somewhere different.

General Syncability:

When trying to sync my music and some of my Aperture library to CM10, I just can’t do it. I don’t want to go through Picasa, because I don’t agree to their shitty TOS.

Snooze for X minutes:

Sometimes I just want to sleep for an hour longer than usual and forget to remember the day earlier to set new alarm, disable old one or whatever. If i hit dismiss, I’ll wake up 3 hours later, then I end up snoozing every 10 minutes, for an hour and half.

Can’t edit:

There is no way to edit information about a song/album/artist in Google Play. I have entire albums that show up on my computer with the correct information, but it comes up Unknown Artist on my phone or when the tracks on an album are out of order.

The Community:

I know there are some genuinely awesome people in the Android community. Hell, I talk with a lot of people who do lots of work on Android. They’re awesome. But those who think that for Android to succeed, that everyone else in the market has to perish. Or that if you dare say anything remotely bad about an Android product, you are an Apple fanboy and you hate kittens and what not.
THOSE are the people I hate, and it kills the fun of having an Android phone for me. I don’t want to hear about how much you hate Apple or how much Windows Phone sucks. I want to hear about Android and all the awesome things these devices are capable of.
I am continuing here with some quick bullet points

No bounce back.
Google assistant not deleting timers when they have expired.
Little inconsistencies in the stock widgets.
No task or reminder app (could be classed as big issue though).
Ads starting to appear throughout the system (im deathly afraid of ad cards in Google Now).
Not being able to easily mark your current location in Google Maps.
More multi touch gestures like the one to switch apps on the iPad (four finger swipe left and right) are not available.
Apps spamming their shit absolutely everywhere across the sdcard instead of storing stuff in their proper location.
We can’t do a screen capture without rooting.
In browser, when I change tabs, music or video stops playing.
When I switch apps, music or video stops playing.
Not being able to search the calendar

Android is as big as it is today because of the variety of devices that it supports. But I really dislike hundreds of devices (many of which are very low-end and cheap) clogging up the market. Hopefully in the near future, all Android phones will include NFC and other such “standard” features so that we can all have a much more unified experience together.
And while this reasoning may be untrue (I’m no developer), I think that the massive amount of devices, shapes and sizes is putting off developers from creating or porting their apps for us or keeping them updated quickly enough for System Updates.
Did I missed anything? Let me know. If you do, you are helping the community, You are helping to keep the height of quality in the SmartPhone race.

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