[wdmeldon]

There are some definite valid criticisms here (Photos/Gallery being the least understandable oversight), but you really need to try the Nexus 5. Fragmentation needs to be dealt with and OEM's need to stop "differentiating" themselves into UI hell, but pure Android is definitely worth experiencing. It will mainly make you more upset at HTC.

[fidotron]

Yep. What's funny about HTC in particular is some of their additional features such as disabling apps and hiding them from the launcher, even if they're uninstallable, exist purely to work around some of the crap they've burdened the system with.

I've worked with Android for basically the whole time it's been around, and in that time never saw a single manufacturer led user interface change that represented an improvement. Supposedly the Chinese ones do, but I've never had the chance.

This isn't to say stock is perfect, but people underestimate just how much the OEMs have messed with in their efforts for software differentiation absolutely no one really wants.

[bdcs]

To underscore your point, there was recently a speed test[1] conducted to compare the Moto E (~vanilla android, 120$ unlocked) vs Samsung Galaxy S5 (TouchWiz, ~700$ unlocked) in user tests (think Google+ load times, not MIPS). The Moto E was faster, despite having roughly 1/3rd the hardware metrics.

Hardware vendors and carriers are to blame for a lot of this UX disaster (e.g., including their own superfluous app, causing the Intents Dialog confusion on day 1 rather than popping up after you choose to install a new app for X). Is Google to blame for not doing a better job of controlling fragmentation? In my opinion, in the past, no. Android might not have taken off without the freedom given to manufactures/carriers. In the future, Google DOES need to wrangle this crapware problem (I think of it as crap icing on a delicious vanilla cake). Google is doing exactly this with Android Silver [2].

Finally, what does Android do wrong? Well, just look at CyanogenMOD's features to see what Android is lacking: privacy and app permissions, data limiting (ads), firewalls, etc.

[1]http://phandroid.com/2014/05/19/samsung-galaxy-s5-vs-motorol... [2]http://www.businessinsider.com/android-silver-launch-date-20...

[milesskorpen]

The author specifically addressed this defense in his post — basically, Google owns Android. Whatever an OEM does, they're doing it with Google's tacit support. If that makes the experience awful, Google still has responsibility (though certainly not exclusive responsibility).

[MBCook]

Unfortunately those 'improvements' afflict 95+% of Android users.

Just like all the crapware that was/is shipped on every Windows computer by OEMs these decisions are effecting Google's image.