{"id":394795,"date":"2026-01-28T10:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T10:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/394795\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T10:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T10:08:09","slug":"are-you-excited-or-worried-about-android-17s-blurry-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/394795\/","title":{"rendered":"Are you excited or worried about Android 17\u2019s blurry future?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img class=\"e_Ug\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"eager\"  title=\"phone showing android 16 quick settings home assistant sit stand desk toggles\"  alt=\"phone showing android 16 quick settings home assistant sit stand desk toggles\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/phone-showing-android-16-quick-settings-home-assistant-sit-stand-desk-toggles.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Rita El Khoury \/ Android Authority<\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udde3\ufe0f This is an open thread.<\/p>\n<p>We want to hear from you! Share your thoughts in the comments and vote in the poll below \u2014 your take might be featured in a future roundup.<\/p>\n<p>This is a rather obvious statement, but you won\u2019t find every single person in a group of millions agreeing with a decision, and this makes designing something as integral as an operating system\u2019s UI rather tricky. Google has been pretty good at it in the past few decades \u2014 at least I haven\u2019t met anyone who outright hates the look and feel of Android.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re currently in the Material 3 Expressive era, which sees the likes of Android 16 play with more colors and fluid animations while placing greater emphasis on personalization. I feel that it\u2019s Google\u2019s best work, and it looks splendid on modern Android phones. However, this is by no means the end of the road for the design langauge.<\/p>\n<p>As the first images of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/android-17-3561251\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Android 17<\/a> come trickling through, there\u2019s one additional design decision that Google is seemingly pushing hard this year: it\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/android-17-leaked-ui-looks-great-huge-mistake-3635205\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">turning that blur dial all the way up<\/a>. For some, this is brilliant news. Blur and transparency do look decidedly gorgeous on the right screen and with the right UI elements, but I\u2019m not entirely sure how necessary they are, at least for improving information delivery to the user.<\/p>\n<p>I remember the first iteration of Material Design on Android 5.0 Lollipop rather fondly. Although I do enjoy the flourishes of modern Android, Lollipop introduced solid elements that were easy to see \u2014 much like ink on paper, albeit a digital version. It didn\u2019t sacrifice visuals for usability, something that I fear future Android versions are heading towards.<\/p>\n<p> Don\u2019t want to miss the best from Android Authority?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/andauth.co\/AAGooglePreferredSource\" class=\"e_do\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\"><img class=\"e_Ug\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  title=\"google preferred source badge light@2x\"  alt=\"google preferred source badge light@2x\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1768240152_738_google_preferred_source_badge_light@2x.png\"\/><img class=\"e_Ug\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  title=\"google preferred source badge dark@2x\"  alt=\"google preferred source badge dark@2x\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1768240152_238_google_preferred_source_badge_dark@2x.png\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This got me thinking \u2014 while my eyes adore <a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/month-with-material-3-expressive-admit-i-was-wrong-3609382\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Material 3 Expressive<\/a>, I\u2019m not quite sure that it is the best Google design language thus far from a usability and accessibility standpoint. Sure, you can disable the blur, but how many novice users would know to do this?<\/p>\n<p>So, I want to hear from you: what do you believe was the best era for Android design language in terms of user experience and usability? Which design language or Android version was your favorite in terms of aesthetics, and why? And what do you think of Google\u2019s move towards more blur and transparency in Android 17?<\/p>\n<p>Here are some more questions:<\/p>\n<p>What are your feelings about Android 17\u2019s design leaks thus far, specifically the additional use of blur?<br \/>\nWhich Android design language era do you believe was the best, and why?<br \/>\nDo you think that Google is looking over at Apple\u2019s use of blur to inspire its own work? Is this a sensible move or a cop-out?<br \/>\nIf you could make one significant UI change on Android 17, what would it be?<br \/>\nAre you convinced that Google is still focused on improving the user experience and reducing friction on Android, or has it become obsessed with aesthetics?<\/p>\n<p>Do you think Android 17 is at risk of becoming too much like iOS?<\/p>\n<p>975 votes<\/p>\n<p>No, the new blur\/glass effects aren&#8217;t that big of a deal<\/p>\n<p>50%<\/p>\n<p>Yes, Google is taking too much Apple inspiration<\/p>\n<p>50%<\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udc47 And if you have a specific comment related to your poll choice, or want to answer any of the questions posed above, be sure to have your say in the comments below.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you for being part of our community. Read our\u00a0<a class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/android-authority-comment-policy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" data-stringify-link=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/android-authority-comment-policy\/\" data-sk=\"tooltip_parent\">Comment Policy<\/a> before posting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rita El Khoury \/ Android Authority \ud83d\udde3\ufe0f This is an open thread. We want to hear from you!&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394796,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[29185,2306,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-394795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mobile","tag-android-17","tag-mobile","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}