Android Police: Let Android be Android

[Bateluer]

http://www.androidpolice.com/2010/09/20/editorial-let-android-be-android/

I’ve had this article in mind for quite some time now, but haven’t mustered up the courage to do it in fear of upsetting fanboys, but when the Fascinate shipped with Bing rather than Google as the default search engine, I could hold off no longer. For a Google Android phone to ship with a search engine other than Google, the search engine I know, love, and use on a daily basis (and I’m pretty sure I’m not alone here) is unthinkable; not offering a way to change it is even more of an outrage. Of course, Verizon isn’t the only one committing this crime; AT&T did essentially the same thing with the Motorola Backflip, T-Mobile bastardized Sense on the MyTouch 3G Slide, and Sprint’s had its share of Android-related evilness too (Sprint NASCAR? Sprint NFL? Who needs that crap installed by default?). The manufacturers – HTC, Motorola, Samsung, and others – have all participated in this game as well, even more so than the carriers. Simply put, Sense, MotoBlur, TouchWiz, and other skins are ruining the Android experience and must be stopped immediately.

I agree nearly 100%. Carriers NEED to stop this crap or they'll choke off their own revenue as people get ticked off.

 

[sjwaste]

I like sense.

 

[theeedude]

I will not buy any VZW phone after the stunt they pulled with the Fascinate.

 

[Anubis]

I will not buy any VZW phone after the stunt they pulled with the Fascinate.

id love to do that but they are the only provider that gets decent service where i live/work/travel 90% of the time

also they are they only one work gives me a discount with

 

[Bateluer]

I will not buy any VZW phone after the stunt they pulled with the Fascinate.

Which stunt? Forcing Bing Search or gimping the RAM?

 

[Puddle Jumper]

I actually like Touchwiz but I would consider giving it up if it meant getting Froyo before Gingerbread launches.

Having anything other than Google as the default search on an Android phone is just wrong.

 

[theeedude]

Which stunt? Forcing Bing Search or gimping the RAM?

Bing search. It just shows they'll screw their customers if it makes them a quick buck.

 

[QueBert]

Bing search. It just shows they'll screw their customers if it makes them a quick buck.

Google, Apple, MS all would do the same thing to make a quick buck. it's called business as usual. You wanna talk about the consumer getting screwed look at MS and the Zune HD. They were hyping up how it was going to have this awesome sauce selection of apps and was so powerful blah blah blah. 2 years later it has what 8 apps? If us Zune HD owners are LUCKY we might have 10 by this time next year.

 

[Deeko]

While I might prefer stock Android - saying these things should be stopped wholely goes against the spirit of Android. Its an open system. Geeks don't get to have their open-source cake and eat it too. If you want a consistent ecosystem, get an iPhone. If you want an open platform that let's manufacuters, carriers, and end users customize it to their hearts desire, go Android.

 

[Deeko]

Google, Apple, MS all would do the same thing to make a quick buck. it's called business as usual. You wanna talk about the consumer getting screwed look at MS and the Zune HD. They were hyping up how it was going to have this awesome sauce selection of apps and was so powerful blah blah blah. 2 years later it has what 8 apps? If us Zune HD owners are LUCKY we might have 10 by this time next year.

A) There are more than 10 apps on ZuneHD
B) Microsoft never said the ZuneHD would have a huge app selection. They said from the beginning it was a closed system where third parties can't make apps.

 

[QueBert]

A) There are more than 10 apps on ZuneHD
B) Microsoft never said the ZuneHD would have a huge app selection. They said from the beginning it was a closed system where third parties can't make apps.

Ok, so I exaggerated, MS has about 2 dozen apps, while MS did say closed system they said the Zune HD would have apps. I guess you could technically say they were right, but it's about as shitty as it could be. I own a Zune HD and it's easy for me to admit they dropped the ball on the Zune HD when it comes to apps. The way they talked about how powerful it was and how great it was blah blah blah. They failed hard, but I could always play with the calculator that takes 8 seconds to open up for no apparent reason.

 

[olds]

http://www.androidpolice.com/2010/09/20/editorial-let-android-be-android/



I agree nearly 100%. Carriers NEED to stop this crap or they'll choke off their own revenue as people get ticked off.

The nascar/nff crap on my sprint evo is the sole reason I will, at some point, root my phone.
That shit needs to come off there.

 

[basslover1]

Call me strange, but I actually prefer Sense UI to vanilla Android. And yes, I've used both extensively.

 

[sjwaste]

The nascar/nff crap on my sprint evo is the sole reason I will, at some point, root my phone.
That shit needs to come off there.

I don't get it - is it that big a deal to have those two icons in the app drawer? Also, rooting is pretty easy these days. Just get it over with.

I'm rooted and run Fresh, which has those apps removed by default, but I'm not entirely sure I'd care enough to do it on my own.

Protip: Titanium Backup can uninstall pretty much anything once you're fully rooted (NAND unlocked). I did use that to uninstall Facebook, Peep, and FriendStream - along w/ their associated widgets. I killed them because they seemed to have services that kept restarting.

 

[Pliablemoose]

The nascar/nff crap on my sprint evo is the sole reason I will, at some point, root my phone.
That shit needs to come off there.

You can restore your phone to stock, just root it and start playing with custom roms and don't look back.

 

[Bateluer]

While I might prefer stock Android - saying these things should be stopped wholely goes against the spirit of Android. Its an open system. Geeks don't get to have their open-source cake and eat it too. If you want a consistent ecosystem, get an iPhone. If you want an open platform that let's manufacuters, carriers, and end users customize it to their hearts desire, go Android.

Disagree. With an open system, you should have the option to choose. With Verizon et al making the apps uninstallable, locking the boot loader, and forcing their UI on the device, the consumer has no choice. These devices should be sold bone stock, with the option to download an update either OTA or through a PC and copied to the SD card, to add MotoBlur/Sense/TouchWiz/etc.

Sense is the best UI of the bunch, I'll grant that, but HTC has also spend FAR longer than any other manufacturer developing for Android too. Sense gives the phone extra features and capabilities, while looking pretty slick doing it. MotoBlur and TouchWiz add nothing, and do nothing, aside from slow the phone down and irritate users.

 

[QueBert]

Disagree. With an open system, you should have the option to choose. With Verizon et al making the apps uninstallable, locking the boot loader, and forcing their UI on the device, the consumer has no choice. These devices should be sold bone stock, with the option to download an update either OTA or through a PC and copied to the SD card, to add MotoBlur/Sense/TouchWiz/etc.

Sense is the best UI of the bunch, I'll grant that, but HTC has also spend FAR longer than any other manufacturer developing for Android too. Sense gives the phone extra features and capabilities, while looking pretty slick doing it. MotoBlur and TouchWiz add nothing, and do nothing, aside from slow the phone down and irritate users.

There are a lot of minuses with how Verizon has locked down the DX and D2, but there's a big plus. I have installed a few apps on my D1 which basically rendered the phone semi unstable. I could imagine a person without tech knowledge installing one of these apps calling Verizon CS and complaining up a storm. The bottom line Google needs to do something about monitoring apps that are in the Marketplace. People bitch about Apple rejecting this app, and that app. But I've downloaded about 300 and had stability problems with maybe 5. On my Droid in 2 weeks I've had problems with 2 of the 5 I've installed. And reading reviews of some apps I didn't install, some apparently don't work for 90% of the problem. I don't blame Verizon for doing this. If a person wants to mod their phone even the locked bootloaders will end up getting hacked. And it will keep people who don't know shit about Android from messing their phone up.

 

[Pliablemoose]

What's this, frustration with an "open" OS?

The problems are what happens when an "open" OS goes mainstream. And I gotta tell you, you ain't seen nothin' yet...

 

[zerocool84]

What's this, frustration with an "open" OS?

The problems are what happens when an "open" OS goes mainstream. And I gotta tell you, you ain't seen nothin' yet...

There's frustrations with an open OS and frustrations with a closed OS. There's going to be frustrations with everything as we obviously know. There is not one mobile OS out there right now that is even close to being the full package.

 

[theeedude]

Google, Apple, MS all would do the same thing to make a quick buck. it's called business as usual. You wanna talk about the consumer getting screwed look at MS and the Zune HD. They were hyping up how it was going to have this awesome sauce selection of apps and was so powerful blah blah blah. 2 years later it has what 8 apps? If us Zune HD owners are LUCKY we might have 10 by this time next year.

It's business, but so is avoiding bad PR and not alienating potential customers. Verizon is investing a lot of marketing into being the go to Android carrier, it's penny wise but pound foolish to throw it away by bastardizing their own Android products. It's not helping MS either, every Fascinate review is dragging Bing through the mud saying it ruined a great phone. Not the kind of PR they want when launching WP7.

 

[Tom]

Do you all know what the Bell system was ? Verizon and ATT are both offshoots of the Bell system.

If you knew how the Bell system worked you would know why Verizon and ATT behave the way they do; they are arrogant companies who know what's best for you..

That's one reason for supporting independent phone companies like Sprint, their corporate philosophy is more about giving you what you want, not what they think is best for you.

 

[boomhower]

It's not going to stop, it will get worse if anything. Carriers make to much money of these "customizations" to stop. The average joe doesn't know any better for there to be enough backlash for them to stop. Just root and be done with it.

 

[Pliablemoose]

As Anssi Vanjoki put it, mobile manufacturers who go the Android route are doing no better than Finnish boys who "pee in their pants" for warmth in the winter.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/21/ce-oh-no-he-didnt-anssi-vanjoki-says-using-android-is-like-pe/

Why doesn't Nokia switch to Android? Because Google's software represents only a short-term solution that will lead to bigger quandaries down the line, says he. Anssi was even graceful enough to illustrate this point with a vivid example, saying that mobile manufacturers who go the Android route are doing no better than Finnish boys who "pee in their pants" for warmth in the winter. Yeah. We don't know where to go from here either. To be honest, there's a legitimate point behind this trash talk, as the FT notes some analysts agree with Anssi that relying on Android as the universal OS may lead to "permanently low profitability" with users failing to distinguish between different brands if they all offer the same experience.

You'd have to grow up in the far North to really get what he's saying, I grew up in North and South Dakota.



Actually he's got a point, the problem is the profit they make from cell phones is minimal to what the subsidized models cost us, so while Android may eventually hurt manufacturers in the long run, HTC and Moto are making some serious money till the market is saturated. (and providing us with some pretty good phones in the process).

 

[GaryJohnson]

While I might prefer stock Android - saying these things should be stopped wholely goes against the spirit of Android. Its an open system. Geeks don't get to have their open-source cake and eat it too. If you want a consistent ecosystem, get an iPhone. If you want an open platform that let's manufacuters, carriers, and end users customize it to their hearts desire, go Android.

What we want is end user customization, and the carrier & manufacturer customizations more often then not hinder that. You can root it if you want ultimate control, but you shouldn't have to.

 

[Deeko]

What we want is end user customization, and the carrier & manufacturer customizations more often then not hinder that. You can root it if you want ultimate control, but you shouldn't have to.

Disagree. With an open system, you should have the option to choose. With Verizon et al making the apps uninstallable, locking the boot loader, and forcing their UI on the device, the consumer has no choice. These devices should be sold bone stock, with the option to download an update either OTA or through a PC and copied to the SD card, to add MotoBlur/Sense/TouchWiz/etc.

I think you guys are missing the point. An open OS is open to EVERYONE, not just the geeky end user. You can't embrace an open OS for its openness, while shunning its openness at the same time. HTC doesn't want you to think the Incredible is just-another-Android-phone, they want you to think its an HTC phone. Verizon has their reasons behind their customizations as well. Don't like it? Root it and change it, or get a different phone. Or, there's always the Nexus One.

Sense is the best UI of the bunch, I'll grant that, but HTC has also spend FAR longer than any other manufacturer developing for Android too. Sense gives the phone extra features and capabilities, while looking pretty slick doing it. MotoBlur and TouchWiz add nothing, and do nothing, aside from slow the phone down and irritate users.

Actually, the new TouchWiz found in the Galaxy S phones is pretty nice.