I still don't see how that's bad. My current lock screen, a custom one, only unlocks if I swipe right. Not up, not down, not left. Swiping left would open the camera. There's no easy way for me to get to the dialer straight from my current lock screen. From the way you describe it, Lollipop's lock screen sounds great to me. Full notification list, the ability to interact with the notifications, the ability with a single swipe to either get to the camera, the dialer, or just unlock the phone... sounds great to me. I'm not trying to be facetious, just to be clear. It sounds like by far the most useful lock screen Android has ever had by default.
Also, for what it's worth, I find swiping up to be easier to do one-handed on large phones.
The issue is the previous lock screen didn't require any swipes to enter your unlock pattern. They added a step, making the most common gesture slower than it was before.
Ahh, I see. I guess I wouldn't notice that since I'm so used to already having notifications shown first on the lock screen. I can see how that'd be annoying if you don't care about the notifications list.
That's a very general statement which hasn't been customized at all to the current scenario. So really there's no way for me to respond, but I'll try.
As I said, swiping up actually feels easier to me on a large screen than swiping left or right. And putting notifications on the lock screen is a critical feature in my opinion, something Android has desperately needed out of the box for a while now. I use a custom lock screen just for that feature because it's so useful.
The notifications are a great addition in stock usefulness. You could always add that functionality through 3rd party lock screens but it's nice to see it baked right in.
It's the swiping that I'm specifically disliking. Every time I swipe to the right it opens up the phone app. Probably there are many users who have formed a really strong habit of swiping a certain way to unlock their Android phone. I would bet on that direction being left-to-right.
Do you know if it's possible to change the way the lock screen handles swiping in some settings page somewhere?
Also, for what it's worth, I find swiping up to be easier to do one-handed on large phones.