[bitmapbrother]

>Manufacturers can do mostly what they want without any downsides

No they can't. They need to pass the CTS and VTS.

>so at the end you just end up with ROMs similar in quality to WinXP themes.

When was the last time you saw an Android phone? 2008? Name those WinXP themed OEM skins.

>The Android APIs themselves are just layer and layer of hacks and inconsistencies on top of each other

Considering all of the bugs and security issues iOS has had I would have to give that award to iOS.

>which is the main reason why most of the Android apps look so ugly in the first place.

Not only do Android apps look better, but they also take up considerably less space than their bloated iOS counterparts.

[realusername]

> No they can't. They need to pass the CTS and VTS.

Well then, the CTS and VTS are so weak they are useless then.

> When was the last time you saw an Android phone? 2008? Name those WinXP themed OEM skins.

Have you worked with Samsung or a no-name Chinese brand? There's plenty of errors arising from bad ROMs customising low-level stuff they should not do.

> Considering all of the bugs and security issues iOS has had I would have to give that award to iOS.

At least iOS fixes them and they can update their devices.

> Not only do Android apps look better, but they also take up considerably less space than their bloated iOS counterparts.

That's only for the top-notch part of the Store, the rest is just a dimension below iOS in term of usability (and I say this using only Android). The reason being that you need more dev time to have the same result on Android compared to iOS.

[bitmapbrother]

>Well then, the CTS and VTS are so weak they are useless then.

No they're not as they enforce and verify Android compatibility.

>Have you worked with Samsung or a no-name Chinese brand? There's plenty of errors arising from bad ROMs customising low-level stuff they should not do.

Yes, and there is no WinXP theme resemblance. So, once again, where are the links to these Android Phones with WinXP like themes?

>At least iOS fixes them and they can update their devices.

So does Google with 3 years of OS and security updates for their Pixel phones.

>That's only for the top-notch part of the Store, the rest is just a dimension below iOS in term of usability (and I say this using only Android). The reason being that you need more dev time to have the same result on Android compared to iOS.

The problem with iOS apps is that the top apps seem to think their a special snowflake and that they must develop their own UI and UX to differentiate themselves. The end result is an app that doesn't follow Apple's Human Interface Design guidelines and looks and navigates completely different from every other app. And then there's the garbage apps that are blown up on an iPad because Apple didn't understand Pixel density independence.