Ok I'm confused.....(Vanilla Android VS Sense UI)

[SdotJ]

First off this is my first android device and my first encounter with htc sense in this form. With all the vanilla android talk andy tomas of people using launchers , why is vanilla android better? Image confused by the hate for htc sense. Besides getting updates faster what am I missing. Is the hate because of the thought that the custom UI will cause update problems or because we will have to depend on the carrier to push updates. Like I said I'm still relatively new to android and learning all types of good things about the OS but this confuses me. I have seen the nexus one and vanilla android and honestly most would still prefer a launcher. So could somebody educate me on why nobody imo likes sense in favor of vanilla android.

 

[Jay730]

i think its more personal preference than anything else...

 

[PedroTheGoat]

Yeah, I've had a chance to play with vanilla Android on a Nexus, and I truthfully like Sense better.

 

[RayStinkle]

sense is the best of them all, and i do like it. but i prefer vanilla android on my nexus by far. but next in line would be sense. i HATE moto's new UI as well as samsungs UI. puke.

if the manufacturers did not add their own UI, and instead just included their own apps in widgets in the form of .apk files built into the ROM, think about how easy android life would be. 2.2 could release and all devices could be updated that same week or so. granted some testing and customizing would have to be done for each device, but nothing major at all. its like the iphone how all the phones can kinda grab the same OS. it would just make the whole experience of the platform that much better for everybody.

i swear the other day in the ATT store, 3 android phones were next to each other, galaxy s, backflip, and aria. and the customer asked about them and the sales rep didnt even know they were all android. all she said was "this one has apps, but not that one doesnt have apps". i had to butt in and say they were all android phones. sad state of affairs i'm afraid

 

[Mikey47]

@RogerPodacter, yeah it is bad enough when people don't know what their phones are running and horrible when the sales people have no clue.

I swear, outside of a couple of good sales folks most must not have graduated high school.

 

[Robbie317]

Pure personal preference... My first Android phone was the Nexus One... I had that baby for 3 months and I really got use to Vanilla Android after 2 years on the iPhone OS. Sense is really neat... I can live with sense..... I wish MFG's like HTC, Motorola and Samsung would offer you a UI free version for your phone... Android is SUPPOSE to be all about customizing and doing what you want... But unless you root your stuck with what ever UI the MFG puts on the phone regardless..

Sense is really just eye candy over top of Android..... To me most of the cool things about sense (the eye candy) wears thin after a while and gets old.... The widgets are neat but over time I use them less and less....

 

[Darth Mo]

And to say everybody "hates" Sense is certainly not true. Most people like it, and even those that don't use it for the most part think it's ok, they just prefer some other launcher or vanilla.

 

[pwnst_r]

Who's Andy Tomas?

 

[SdotJ]

Ok if it's just a personal preference are there not any benefits to having vanilla android on the evo over sense?

 

[Dave Blake]

Personally I have tried all the other launchers and I prefer Sense. HTC just has a way with making the OS run smoother and the Sense UI is a big part of that. MHO

Later,
Dave

 

[R32_Rocky]

I agree with Dave. I love Sense, period! I had the WinMo HTC HD2, and it spoiled me. When I wanted to dump T-Mobile (but still loved my HD2!), every phone I tried (could not find a Droid X, so tried the Samsung Vibrant and Captivate), the entire time spent with them was just trying to get TouchWiz to look like Sense. Beautiful Widgets was the best to do that with, but was always plagued with bugs.

But other than just eye candy, the Sense UI also has, IMHO, the best e-mail and sms/mms system out there! (though Handcent is excellent for sms too) Trust me, once you have tried the OEM mail in Samsung's TouchWiz, you will either pull out all your hair, or want to smash the phone into ring bits - not good if you want to return it later. I also tried the K-9 e-mail program and found it to just be a slightly tweaked version of the OEM one. And MailDroid, ugh!!!!!! Even worse yet, argh!

Then let's talk about keyboards. I have tried all the ones out there when using the Samsung phones. Not one keyboard had arrow keys like in Sense. Not a problem if you have a trackball or a slide out keyboard with arrow keys. But with a touchscreen only, without arrow keys it is an act of total frustration if you have to edit long amounts of text.

Perhaps those who hate Sense have a trackball, or slide out keyboards, and e-mail is not that important to them, because for the life of me, I don't know how I could do without Sense.

Oh, and hi Dave!

 

[dwaynewilliams#WN]

I like the Sense UI. It is a matter of personal preference, therefore I think that people should have an option to turn it off. I have seen some of the other skins that manufacturers have used and I will have to say that Sense is the best. However, if I had a choices today to either have Sense or vanilla, I would go with vanilla.

 

[davidnc]

Who's Andy Tomas?

You mean you don't know lol

 

[2CupsWithString]

Sense does come with some very neat widgets and apps (people, clock/weather, news readers, etc) that I don't get with stock android but I just like stock better, I don't know why. From the launcher to the dial screen, it's just my taste I guess. I would love to have the people application though, it's integration to facebook is way better than stock.

 

[youngzayiles]

Here are 2 things in which I dont see why people complain about.. Everyone says that stock android gets updates quicker which isnt always necessarily true... Even off the top of my head I can think of a example now... The evo had 2.2 before the original droid which is stock android.... I believe that the nexus one gets things so fast because its #1 googles main developer phone (I believe, correct me if im wrong) and #2 it has stock android.. Sooooo it seems to me that doesnt always necessarily mean you will get the update first... Also I do like Sense's Widgets... I think they are by far the nicest widgets out there imo.. (Especially the people widget) Which is why launcher pro & Beautiful widgets have borrowed lol some of htc widget ideas (weather and people widget) Also imo as stated above sense's facebook integration is top notch over stock...

Now my two main complaints about sense are within the launcher which I feel they can get a little more creative with... Something more like stock 2.2 may be a little better... The little ^ arrow and the app drawer pulling strait up is so g1 lol... Also that little plus button in the launcher is useless... Im sorry.. Holding down on the homescreen to add widgets is android 101... That button can be used for something far more useful like the browser for example... Thats just one idea.. I know u all could think of other things too... Maybe a choice of what u would like to be there would be nice... Other then that Im pretty happy... Especially if we get updates as fast as we got 2.2 that is a non issue for me...

 

[2CupsWithString]

Here are 2 things in which I dont see why people complain about.. Everyone says that stock android gets updates quicker which isnt always necessarily true... Even off the top of my head I can think of a example now... The evo had 2.2 before the original droid which is stock android.... I believe that the nexus one gets things so fast because its #1 googles main developer phone (I believe, correct me if im wrong) and #2 it has stock android.. Sooooo it seems to me that doesnt always necessarily mean you will get the update first... Also I do like Sense's Widgets... I think they are by far the nicest widgets out there imo.. (Especially the people widget) Which is why launcher pro & Beautiful widgets have borrowed lol some of htc widget ideas (weather and people widget) Also imo as stated above sense's facebook integration is top notch over stock...

Now my two main complaints about sense are within the launcher which I feel they can get a little more creative with... Something more like stock 2.2 may be a little better... The little ^ arrow and the app drawer pulling strait up is so g1 lol... Also that little plus button in the launcher is useless... Im sorry.. Holding down on the homescreen to add widgets is android 101... That button can be used for something far more useful like the browser for example... Thats just one idea.. I know u all could think of other things too... Maybe a choice of what u would like to be there would be nice... Other then that Im pretty happy... Especially if we get updates as fast as we got 2.2 that is a non issue for me...

If you're running pure stock aosp you can get updates as soon as Google posts them to Android. If you want it from the manufacturer/carrier it can take a very long while after.

Look at the difference between the N1 and the Evo getting FroYo, the N1 is a true stock device, both made by HTC, but it was the N1 to get the updates faster because no overlay had to get cooked in to it (from sense to sprint tv).

For me personally, It's not so much about the updates but the efficiency and look and feel. I'm the kind of person that uses the windows 2000 taskbar on windows vista, that's just me.

 

[capnhowdy18]

@Evo soul: No there is no "technical" benefit. Some claim the vanilla os is snappier as sense is just another layer of abstraction on top of android.

The biggest downside of Sense, in my opinion(even though I like it) is that it does delay the update process. If done properly and with no added skins, updates could be rolled out within a week or two of the official launch of a new android update. This would also require a bit of work on googles side.

The other downside is we don't get certain features of the vanilla android because HTC overwrites them. For instance we didn't get the new stock gallery. You can still get it, and its not for everyone, but it could be considered a downside.

 

[youngzayiles]

If you're running pure stock aosp you can get updates as soon as Google posts them to Android. If you want it from the manufacturer/carrier it can take a very long while after.

Look at the difference between the N1 and the Evo getting FroYo, the N1 is a true stock device, both made by HTC, but it was the N1 to get the updates faster because no overlay had to get cooked in to it (from sense to sprint tv).

For me personally, It's not so much about the updates but the efficiency and look and feel. I'm the kind of person that uses the windows 2000 taskbar on windows vista, that's just me.

Yeah I understand what your saying with the nexus one because it is true stock android and googles official developer phone... But what about the regular droid?? Correct me if im wrong but isnt that true stock android as well?? Were they able download the update from google as well or for example the samsung moment which was a stock google experience phone on sprint. Didnt the manufacturer still have to release updates for those 2 stock android phones?? Im just trying to learn a bit..

I do know what u mean when it comes to efficiency though.. They say stock is faster but to me its not really noticeably different but to some I could imagine it is depending on what you do with your phone and in alot of tests I see the nexus one seems to run faster..

 

[youngzayiles]

@Evo soul: No there is no "technical" benefit. Some claim the vanilla os is snappier as sense is just another layer of abstraction on top of android.

The biggest downside of Sense, in my opinion(even though I like it) is that it does delay the update process. If done properly and with no added skins, updates could be rolled out within a week or two of the official launch of a new android update. This would also require a bit of work on googles side.

The other downside is we don't get certain features of the vanilla android because HTC overwrites them. For instance we didn't get the new stock gallery. You can still get it, and its not for everyone, but it could be considered a downside.

Now this is some stuff I can see for certain people because some say HTC has alot of bloatware... Doesnt seem that my phone is slow and I had a nexus but I sold it after about 2 weeks so I cant say that I was able to see the difference in speed compared to a sense phone... I also have the stock froyo Gallery though.. I like it excepts it adds some of my album art to it which buggs me but other then that I like it better then sense's version..

 

[2CupsWithString]

Yeah I understand what your saying with the nexus one because it is true stock android and googles official developer phone... But what about the regular droid?? Correct me if im wrong but isnt that true stock android as well?? Were they able download the update from google as well or for example the samsung moment which was a stock google experience phone on sprint. Didnt the manufacturer still have to release updates for those 2 stock android phones?? Im just trying to learn a bit..

I do know what u mean when it comes to efficiency though.. They say stock is faster but to me its not really noticeably different but to some I could imagine it is depending on what you do with your phone and in alot of tests I see the nexus one seems to run faster..

Well with Moto or Samsung, even if they're not putting a UI over a phone, they still add to it with their drivers and/or bloatware, etc. It's not just aosp. The reason an update can hit the N1 so much faster is because it's just aosp. So when google makes a code commit to android it will work fastest on builds of android that are closest to what google committed code to. Even things like dialer codes, prl, pri updates change the stock android experience and add another step in taking an updated piece of google code and making it work for a moment or droid, etc.

As far as efficiency for me it's not so much performance but more just knowing that the only things that I use are what's there and anything I don't want is gone. I don't have to remove sprint TV or amazon mp3 because they weren't their in the first place. I equate it to what I do with a new computer, I wipe it and perform a clean install of the OS and only put what I want there, sure my computer can handle more but I just want to use what I want.

As far as the aesthetic for me, I really dig Launcher Pro and didn't want the sense launcher running (even blank) in the background. I also like having home screens that can rotate so I can use the phone natively horizontally and on the kick stand. The lock screen was huge for me as well. These are things that can all be removed from a rooted sense rom, it's not even a lot of work, there are also apps that be installed to change your lock screen. for me though I just dig it.

Everyone's going to have their own opinion and from motoblur to sense to stock android there are plus and minuses, that's the great thing about android though is everyone is working to have what everyone else has and it only means better things everyday for us end users who like to tinker around a bit.