> some things about the UX in this is so bad, which i love because it discourages me from using the phone more. every time i end a phone call i struggle hanging it up. i don't know how to go forward in the browser because the swipe always makes me go back, even when i swipe forward. it's using the ugly material ui components from google. it's great!

Android has a standard system back navigation gesture based on the previous system back button. Apps integrate support for it. Chromium disables their back/forward gestures when using the modern gesture navigation in the OS. It would have made sense to have a forward gesture but Android never had that as something apps had to implement so it would only work in a small subset of apps and would be generally unavailable, which would be confusing.

Phone app has a button for ending the call. It's our fork of AOSP Dialer with minor changes including UI improvements. Calculator, Clock, Contacts, Gallery, Keyboard, Messaging and Phone are AOSP apps which we need to overhaul or replace. These look and function the same way Google's apps used to but are outdated. They're the open source projects which were abandoned beyond security patches after they forked them off into their own proprietary Google apps. Gallery and Keyboard will likely be replaced while the rest will be overhauled. We know these apps have a bad UI but our focus has been on the core OS instead of apps people can replace. We're beginning to do more work overhauling these.

very interesting. thank you for all of that information and the work you do. maybe one day i can contribute to the UX without being an HN cynic!