Re: Less Homescreen options & customizations for Nexus running IC
People read this site and and other and are told such things as "motoblur sucks" and they believe it even before trying it. They see lag where none exists because they are told that it lags. How many of us have even USED stock Android since the original Droid? (and I don't mean playing with the Nexus S in the store, or custom roms made from the AOSP). I mean actually used stock android on a device that was designed for and optimized to use it? Watching videos on YouTube doesn't count either.
Xperia play, for one. I had one for a couple weeks when I thought my dinc had been stolen, then it turned up so i returned the play, I really liked the play but I obviously wanted my upgrade for something better (GN) Also, Why doesn't AOSP count again? tons of people use AOSP roms because its the only way to get vanilla android on their device? I used CM7 with launcher pro (because nobody is denying that vanilla gingerbread is ugly) for a really long time, but went back to sense because I wanted to try out sense 3 (i'll get to that in a moment) that didn't work out and it's basically been a rotating door of roms since.
I'm genuinely wondering: why do people hate oem skins in the first place? Is this the cool new hivemind mentality or are there really that many people who have tried a vanilla device and liked it enough to vow off skins forever? I know some like to blame skins for lag, but we're getting to a point where these phones' power outnumbers the amount of lag these skins can weigh it down with.
My rezound has none. No lag. I mean...despite the 0.1 second lag my new buddy in the other thread gets with his, this phone has been buttery smooth and everything htc sense brings is actually pretty awesome. The widgets, the lockscreen, the calender, etc.
I've always said sense adds some great functionality, but the bottom line is its bloated. I've tried a few different roms with newer version of sense on them, and yes custom roms are a little buggy, but 2.1 was laggy on my dinc, and 3.0+ are nearly unusable, as laggy is an understatement, and multitasking went out the window. now, the incredible may not be the newest greatest hardware, but when it came out it was king of the castle, and it's still no slouch. up until like 6 months ago, similar spec'd devices were still "high-end." There is no need for so much system resources to be hogged up JUST by the OS, It should be minuscule.
One thing I will miss about sense is the dialer, it is convenient to be able to spell a person's name on the alphanumeric keyboard. Though I don't call people very often, so I won't miss it that much.
I guess you'd need to poll to verify this, but I think that you are in minority. I don't know a single person that uses backup assistant and I believe that the vast majority of smartphones today are all using gmail to handle email (to include forwarding POP accounts), contacts and calendar. I would go so far as to say that not handling the storage of your phones data this way would be like buying a car so that you have a quiet place to listen to music, but using your bike to go everywhere.
I agree with this. When I got my first smarphone (which is my incredible) I took it as an opportunity to really clear out everything. I started a brand new gmail account and manually added all the contacts I wanted to keep off my phone. I realize most people would never do all that, but I hate backup assistant. I don't know if it's gotten any better, but back then it was impossible to delete a contact, which is something I do often, since I really see no reason to have 500 contacts when I only talk to a few daily and maybe a (edit:couple) dozen or so more at all.
To respond to OP: I'm not understanding your concern. Shortcuts for maps/navigation are part of the google maps app (which, on a side note, I can't imagine ever using, but I never use navigation in my town, and while traveling it's generally a one time thing so I wouldn't need a shortcut), shortcuts for contacts and bookmarks are just part of android, even froyo, probably eclair. I guess I just missed something.