[skimpycompiler]

I have a 4 year old phone. Without all of the kernel optimizations, forced removal of Google App and Google Play Services, I wouldn't be able to do anything. My battery lasts 4 days of normal use. Before my changes it couldn't last 10 hours.

So much amateurish bloat. I'm baffled by those engineers.

[soylentcola]

At the same time, isn't it nice that you can do these things? Every so often I look for similar projects or hacks to revitalize my old iPad2 but they don't seem to exist. At that point I don't care about warranties or the silly insistence that I can't be trusted to grant superuser privileges on a device I own. But even jailbroken, I've yet to find a way to reliably "slim down" the iPad's set of running processes so it's painful to use even as just a web browsing device.

[Elessar]

Don't be baffled. Engineering is driven by business direction, and the creation of an upgrade cycle is beneficial for the entire Android ecosystem.

You are not the customer they want.

[legulere]

This has nothing to do with an upgrade cycle. Optimisation costs engineering time which is quite pricy. So it's an easy way to cut costs.

[skimpycompiler]

> You are not the customer they want.

That's true. Then I'd say I just don't like the engineering they are doing.

[72deluxe]

How did you force remove the Google apps and Google Play Services? Did this require root?

I have a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 edition that I bought in February, and it lasts nowhere as long as my wife's 2012 iPad3. Such a disappointment. I will sell it, last Android device I buy.

[skimpycompiler]

Of course, root, without it I couldn't do a thing.

I have Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 but older edition, battery is still fine, the OS got slow, even on factory reset, so, I decided to root it and runs much faster - pen use was not that great before, now it's perfect.

Note that the act of rooting didn't have anything to do with the speed up, after installing a custom OS with GPU optimizations for drawing graphical elements it worked great.

[ionised]

CyanogenMod is basically a stock Android without any of the Google apps, services or frameworks.

You can always install a very minimal version of the GApps later if you really need them.

Look for a Nano or Pico version. I can't remember which is the smaller of the two, but it basically just comes with Play Store and the Framework to make it work.