BlurSandwich? SenseCream?

[I_Am_Incredible]

I'm really looking forward to the Galaxy Nexus and ICS. But I can't help but wonder about Skins from other manufacturers. We all know the Skins aren't going anywhere but I'm wondering how different they would be, if at all because of how different ICS is.

For example HTC tends to leave out a lot of simple stock features like the CRT Screen animation, color co-ordination and they even swapped out the gallery app for theirs. If an ICS phone from HTC looks exactly like Sense UI 3.5 I'll be highly disappointed. I love HTC hardware but sense is getting long in the tooth.

As far as MOTO Goes. They did a lot of work revamping Blur... it's actually not too bad now... But I'm also worried about them just slapping their new skin on ICS.

I guess my point is that I want to wait around and see what manufactuers do if anything different to showcase ICS more and not just the backend features.. But I think i'll be disappointed...


Do you guys expect any kind of overhaul of Skins to highlight the look and feel of Android 4.0?

 

[SpaceHippie]

Touchwiz seems to be less irritating. They keep the stock notification bar and menus. But add a different homescreen. I think Sense will look the same. They just came out with 3.5 so that will most likely be the ICS look. Difference is they will maybe have a few new features. Blur is blur.

 

[ottscay]

I think Samsung has already indicated that the newer versions of Touchwiz will be more about custom widgets and lighter on the full reskin. Other manufacturers will have to decide how they can best add value to differentiate themselves. By making ICS so much better it will put more pressure on OEMs to either keep more of the interface intact, or really step up their game when they develop an overlay.

I personally think we could see a shift towards more art-direction changes to the UI (along with custom icons and widgets) rather than as many wholesale launcher replacements. It's possible that media players might get replace more though, as companies like Sony try to add their own ecosystem into the phones.

 

[FD2]

Can we stop calling them skins. They are not skins.

 

[firelightx]

No... I expect HTC to revamp sense and call it 4.0. HTC is a software company, and as they've shown with 3.0 they're not afraid to take something that works and change it into something that works better. What's more, they actually have a good understanding of what works and what doesn't. I suspect the 3.0 lockscreen will carry over, as well as many of the widgets. But there's actually a strong chance that the bottom "phone" bar will be replaced with something new. A lot of the new features that ICS brings to the table actually make Sense redundant, and I trust HTC to realize that and innovate accordingly.

Motorola... I worry about. They've proven in the past that as Android updates their feature set, Blur gets steadily more redundant, but remains unchanged. The Accounts section in the settings on a Moto phone is one of the most rediculously confusing and unpleasant things I've ever had to navigate on a phone before, with multiple listing of Facebook, etc. that each do different things on the phone but all require you to sign into seperately. Their methods for customizing your home screen have also succeeded inmaking android LESS intuitive, and I forsee that getting worse with ICS when Moto refuses to remove things that ICS made redundant.

 

[qnet]

Can we stop calling them skins. They are not skins.

Whatever they are, hopefully with the improvements in ICS they will not incorporate them so much if at all. I think the reason carriers add their own overlay is for the consumer experience. As much as I like pure Android, I hate the music player

 

[FD2]

Whatever they are, hopefully with the improvements in ICS they will not incorporate them so much if at all. I think the reason carriers add their own overlay is for the consumer experience. As much as I like pure Android, I hate the music player

Really. I love the ICS music player.

 

[ManBearPig618]

I hope they transition to light and lighter "overlays", or whatever anyone wants to call them. Blur has gotten a lot better recently.

 

[qnet]

Really. I love the ICS music player.

I was actually meaning Android prior to ICS. They didn't show the music player at the event, has it changed? I hope it has.

 

[Andrew Ruffolo]

I was actually meaning Android prior to ICS. They didn't show the music player at the event, has it changed? I hope it has.

Music "beta" defitely has... you can even run it on your non ics device

 

[Donmeister85]

But there's actually a strong chance that the bottom "phone" bar will be replaced with something new. A lot of the new features that ICS brings to the table actually make Sense redundant, and I trust HTC to realize that and innovate accordingly.

Yeah, I never did like that Phone bar thing. Could never get past that. I mean, I like the Sense lockscreen, but the rest? And Touchwiz, Blur.... UGH, I just wish that manufacturers would get their grungy hands off of vanilla Android and let it be what it is. Makes me so mad. I always end up using a different launcher anyway.

 

[firelightx]

Yeah, I never did like that Phone bar thing. Could never get past that. I mean, I like the Sense lockscreen, but the rest? And Touchwiz, Blur.... UGH, I just wish that manufacturers would get their grungy hands off of vanilla Android and let it be what it is. Makes me so mad. I always end up using a different launcher anyway.

Well, in Android 1.5, when Sense was first created, the phone bar made a lot of... uhm, sense. Since Froyo it's a lot less necessary than it was, and ICS with it's customizable bar of 4 icons + drawer it'd be a shame to include it still. Definitely time for HTC to redesign Sense.

 

[kev24k]

If im google I make motorolla drop their customizations all together and make 4 phones of different sizes. Have them run vanilla android and get the latest updates right away. 3.75" screen budget phone, 4.1" midrange phone, 4.1" midrange with phys keyboard, and 4.3-4.65" high end phone.

 

[Donmeister85]

Well, in Android 1.5, when Sense was first created, the phone bar made a lot of... uhm, sense. Since Froyo it's a lot less necessary than it was, and ICS with it's customizable bar of 4 icons + drawer it'd be a shame to include it still. Definitely time for HTC to redesign Sense.

Yeah, that would make... um, sense? (Damn puns) I was still using a feature phone back with Android 1.5. Lol.

 

[jerrod6]

For this up coming release of ICS I hope manufacturers just release vanilla android so we can experience it. If I want something more I can find a launcher in an app store that I WANT and install it. If Samsung is only going to be doing widgets I don't have a problem with that.

 

[borgey401]

For this up coming release of ICS I hope manufactus rers just release vanilla android so we can experience it. If I want something more I can find a launcher in an app store that I WANT and install it. If Samsung is only going to be doing widgets I don't have a problem with that.

That would be awesome. I think it's so add that android is a different experience for each OEM. These skins have just gotten out of hand. Like it was said earlier back when 1.5 was out Android honestly needed sense to make it usable. Now that Android has matured it does not need skins anymore. I hope Google will put a stop to heavy skins like they did with 3.0

 

[BSG75]

Sense had some good components. The "People" app was a nice way to integrate info from social networks into your contacts and the dial-by-name feature was very handy. There was also a time when I really like having separate "Scenes" but I don't need that anymore now that I have Circle Launcher (which could be obviated by the new ICS folders)
htc should differentiate with the online services, not with skins (seriously, what other single word should we use?). I hope they keep the monkeying with Android to a minimum and get some decent battery life as a result.

I'll be getting the Galaxy Nexus, however. Currently using a Droid Incredible.

 

[Digiflame]

I kind of get that overlays are there to build brand loyalty and set one companies devices apart. what i don't get is why they're so inbuilt that you need root and a custom rom to get rid of them. sense, blur, essentially launchers (i know there are more tweeks) but for power users why the hell not offer a way to remove it? we're going to anyway. the whole brand loyalty effort is doing the opposite for me: i started with a droid x, that had blur and a locked bootloader so at upgrade time i got a t-bolt, i like it and i've been on cm7 for months but I don't like how the handled the GB update so i'm jumping ship for a galaxy nexus. for the amount and quality of work the community does it really seems these giant corporations should be doing better. My 2 cents

 

[ScottG]

If I see a manufacturer skin on ICS, I will be aggravated beyond belief. What they don't understand is that Google is finally taking a step forward and essentially making the default OS appearance skinned, and it looks appealing and great. I also don't really get what the point of manufacturers putting skins on phones is. Sure, some skins add some functionality not found in the stock OS, but others just plain ruin the visual appeal. They don't get any money for selling the phone with or without a skin and they know a lot of people don't like skins so why do they do it in the first place?

 

[Wicket]

This is the way I see it going down for the manufacturers, they are going to have to back off the core/framework tweaks and go with more of a themed, launcher, icons, widgets and apps approach to how they do things.. which really would be a good thing and speed up updates. imagine if all HTC/Moto/LG and Sammy had to do was install their apps into the system folder! A launcher, some apps (maybe just themed GApps), widgets and call it an update. maybe I'm stretching but even crazy talk dreams can come true!
as for current devices (older to just coming/came out) I'm sure updates will take a while because HTC themselves has already shown signs of "hmmm... how can we get SenseUI on here?..." if I was an average consumer and got a notification to update and I update only to suddenly have my phone look nothing like before the update (ie new UI.. not Sense/Blur/Wiz) I'd flip out cause I wouldn't understand.. I'm sorry if that makes the average consumer sound stupid but.. people who don't understand what's going on underneath will just see it looks different so now I don't know how to use it.. I can see them at least giving it a good try for more recent phones to see ICS but this might also be the point that google breaks.. I hesitate to say this.. fragmentation but the manufacturers are going to have to change how they do things which seems would be for the best.