[drivebyacct2]

Has anyone seen the Motorola phones they're criticizing? The DROID line is really, really good. The newer DROID releases have a Blur that is even more minimal than the already very-minimal recent Blur. When I watched the demo of the RAZR I (with Intel), I was floored at how clean Blur was and how close to stock it was.

Turns out, the RAZR M that's available like, everywhere, is also the same way. Huge screen, smallest bezel I've ever seen, same form as the iPhone 5.

I was a lot, lot, lot more worried about Android a year or two ago. A year or two ago Blur was god damn awful. And irremovable. And there were NO phones on the market that offered an updated experience or an unlocked bootloader. Today, we have the Nexus line. We have Motorola and Samsung offering "Developer" edition phones that we can load our own OS onto.

tl;dr Android customization has been reigned in, though likely because of consumers buying in patterns and HTC/Moto/Samsung realizing that fewer and cleaner modifications in Android allow them to perform updates faster.

(also, I think Google would do themselves a favor in more than one way by accepting T-Mobile Theme Chooser into Android proper so that Motorola/HTC/Samsung could use that to provide visual differentiation instead of brewing their own theming jars.

[eropple]

It wasn't a Droid, but I took back the Motorola Atrix HD I got from AT&T the day I got it because of the Motorola crap on it--thin as it is. Because, honestly, it's still terrible. Some people might not care that things are changed just for the sake of changing them (the back/home/task-switch buttons are changed very slightly, for no good reason). I do. Because they don't know how to make it better in the process of doing it. Blur makes it worse, and it might be only slightly worse, but it is worse.

I realize I'm in a minority compared to all purchasers, but I full-stop refuse to buy an Android phone (or tablet) that isn't stock.

[dougmccune]

it's also not just about the skin being bad, it's about quickly getting updates. That's the bigger problem IMO. Both the phone manufacturer and the carriers seem to hold up updates, sometimes indefinitely. More important than getting TouchWiz/Blur/Whatever off the phone is getting the latest Android bits on the phone. If the manufacturers pushed their skin updates as quickly as Google can push release-ready Android updates I wouldn't care as much (although the recent Samsung security issue still gives us plenty of reasons to hate these customizations anyway)

[drivebyacct2]

I understand this frustration as a developer, but users don't seem to care, or else Nexus would be selling like hot-cakes. More to the point, as Android slows release cycles and focuses on things like "Project Butter", having the absolute latest becomes less important.

I mean, you're right and I do NOT want to be making excuses for the version fragmentation out there when Apple does such a better job with updates (granted, it's much easier for them).

[talmand]

But that's the very thing that people who should know better keep forgetting or are ignoring, the market doesn't care!

Find any random person that has a phone running Android v2.3 and ask them if it bothers them that their phone, which works perfectly fine every day for their needs, is not running the latest and greatest version of Android. I'm willing to bet most of them would not know what you're talking about and that they have no idea what version they are running anyway. You might as well ask them what version firmware is installed on their TV.

I'm also willing to bet this is true for most of the market for iPhones as well.

The average consumer most likely DOES NOT CARE. As long as the phone is in their price range, a carrier they like, and that it works for them then they could care less about the OS version. Whether it's Android or iOS.

Why can't people just be happy with the amazing things we have?

[drivebyacct2]

I agree that the average customer doesn't care but "Why can't people just be happy with the amazing things we have?" is a terrifically awful outlook. If people thought that way, we'd still be using Motorola RAZRs. The flip-style one, not the smartphone one.

[talmand]

I disagree, technology tends to move forwards regardless of the market's feelings towards it. Granted a great deal of technology is driven by the needs of the market but to say we would stagnate on one phone for a long period of time just doesn't work for me.

[wmf]

I don't think users even know that Nexus exists.