I don’t think so. This is what it looked like for me.

A/B testing. My Play Store was blue for the last couple of weeks, then turned green again a few days ago, and yesterday it was fully MaterialYou-themed (at least on some pages).

Asus has always been big on letting you customize your smartphone, to the point that there are two modes for most changes: “Stock Android” or “Asus Optimized.” These two modes can be chosen from your settings, and when setting up your device, you can choose one or the other. It changes how your notifications look, your volume panel, and your power menu

Tim Schofield shows that in his video at 5:13, and from 7:03 onwards. The Asus Optimized looks more feature-rich but the design is clearly pre-Android-12 and clashes with some of the modern Android design elements. I guess it’s especially for those people who want the old notification drawer design back. 🤷‍♂️

I thought there were gimmicks too but I now think that somewhere down the line – once they’re more refined and less expensive – I’d like to get one.

I was tempted to buy the Pixel Tablet until I realized that I don’t want a second device. I’d rather like a multi-purpose device. And the Pixel Fold seems to have a great form factor to use it as a “normal” phone, and then switch to the large screen when you want to do something that you’d normally do on a tablet, just with the benefit of having all your settings, apps and recent notifications right there with you. It’s a seamless transition which is really neat.

Over on /r/Android there was a very vocal crowd that saw it not only as a gimmick but actively detested it. In their opinion an UI is only good when it has an AMOLED black background (and 0 px padding between UI elements, but that’s a different topic).

Material You. I wondered why they wasted resources for … colors. But it’s so nice to have a consistently colored UI across apps and across dark/light modes, and I wished that more apps would support it. Also, those pastel colors are less stressful for the eyes than the previous grey/blue.

I know it’s not everyone’s taste but I really like it.

MVP

Most Valuable Program?

Sync is soooo aesthetically pleasing. (I’m a sucker for full MaterialYou implementation) I’d love it if I could continue using it on Lemmy, and would happily pay a second time.

There’s a Japanese company who released a quirky 4.9 inch Android phone last year but AFAIK it’s only available in Japan.

https://www.xda-developers.com/balmuda-phone-review/

Maybe import that one?

Edit: Mr Mobile did a review too: https://youtu.be/Tx6GqiSipy8