Today certainly has been Lollipop day with a constant flow of Lollipop news on what’s new, what’s changed and what sucks. So far the clear majority of the changes we have seen are positive and really change the aesthetic look and feel of the user interface. Most of the features we have noted were small changes that although on their own wont change your life they do together make for a much improved user experience.
To add to the ever growing list of changes another new feature being reported is changes to the Share/Complete Action menu. Whenever you take a photo, open a file or webpage and want to share a link Android opens its internal Share menu which is pretty much the Complete Action menu (used for non-sharing actions). The Share/Complete Action menus are rather static and have not seemed to have changed for as long as I can remember. Simply consisting of a list of relative-able apps and services like Bluetooth, Mail, Drive, Hangouts, the list goes on. However like everything else we are seeing this function has also had a make-over and revamped for the dizzy heights of Lollipop. Now aesthetically there are no major differences with the list (generally speaking) and as before lists all the relative capable apps. However, now Lollipop ranks the apps in order of their frequency used. So basically the more you use an app for a certain function (like Bluetooth for an image) the more Lollipop recognizes it as your most used for this action and ranks it accordingly. This is a small change, but will improve how quickly you can send an image or complete an action without having to scroll down the list. Now for all you rooters out there you will be shouting we’ve had that for ages and you are right. Like you, I downloaded the Xposed module ‘Complete Action Plus‘ ages ago which does the same thing. Complete Action Plus allows you to preset your most used app for a feature however the difference is Lollipop will do this automatically based on your previous experience. It is presumed as your habits change and you start to use one app more than one you did before this should change and Complete Action Plus certainly can’t do that.
Although I said there were no major aesthetic changes to the Share/Complete Action menu there is a minor one worth noting. The standard “Just Once” and “Always” links which pop up on the Complete Action menu are still there although they have lost some prominence in how they are displayed. Now they are more tucked away in the right hand bottom corner (see image below) which to me this looks more neater and cleaner. What do you think? Do you like the new look and feature? Let us know.
