[Zigurd]

Android is a lot more than look & feel. In fact Android was pretty homely looking at first. But it was always beautiful on the inside.

Android is apps that share UI, using intent filters that launch Activity objects. Android is a Java VM, including a unique bytecode, and jit and gc, and that's good at multiprocessing, and that's appropriate for battery powered devices.

A lookalike launcher that launches apps written in C++ that can't do what Android apps do is not going to make any headway in the market. In fact it is kind of silly to emulate Android's launcher style. There is nothing, apart from familiarity, that makes it especially good.

Android's app runtime technology has become the de facto client Java technology. Anything that is going to credibly compete has to have something at least as compelling going for it.