I'll never understand why manufacturers have to have skins. If a manufacturer made a skin that was basically stock android it would save them money, perform better, and I'm betting be very well received by us geeks. Power saving mode is the only feature I would miss if my S5 was stock android.
Posted via Android Central App
The whole idea of Android is based on openness. Google gives Android for free for a reason. They want their services on as many handsets as possible. That is the way Google makes its revenue.
OEM handset makers have every incentive to customize Android to differentiate their phones for the hordes of others in the Android market. They cannot differentiate on design since all phones are now boring candy bar design. They cannot differentiate on hardware since almost all of them use 801/805 SoC, 2 gigs of ram, and 1080 screens.
That leaves SD cards and removable batteries and the UI. That is all the OEMs have to make their phone stand form all the others in the increasingly crowded and profit less (Samsung being the exception) Android market. (The ASP of an Android phone has dropped from 441$ in 2010 to 254$ in 2014.)
If Google takes skins away from them, then the OEMs might as well fork Android and go their own way. It is dangerous for OEMs to do so because they can fail. But it is also dangerous for Google to take skins away because if OEMs succeed on their own google loses a source of advertising revenue. It is a mutually beneficial relationship.
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