BlurSandwich? SenseCream?

[mrmoe110]

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?

I was just talking to someone about this yesterday. The positive response that people have shown to the ICS features and UI that was shown is going to make OEM's think twice about how much they "skin" their Android phones. From what I've seen the features and UI of ICS make all the "skins" out their look like doggy-doo. I think Android has reached a point where real Android fans are really going to be turning against all "skins," even more than we do now. HTC, Samsung, and Motorola really have their work cut out for them if they're going to try to "improve" ICS with their skins.

 

[guruffl]

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

Shut up!

 

[d1c1ple]

Google needs to MAKE The IHV's stick to the code and provide updates; otherwise what was the point of the Android Alliance onstage this year touting 18 months of device support. 7 Month old HTC Thunderbolt needs some ICS love! Should not have to root or wait on the community to provide a AOSP ROM for my device

 

[skyboxer]

I think the best solution would be to do what most rooted users do already. Go ahead and load the phone with what ever your special ui is but leave a stock Android ROM backup on the phone also. Let the end user choose what he wants to use and switch back and forth at will.

 

[xAGx#AC]

As much as I love Sense, I would love it on ICS if it was just a widget sets, wallpapers, ringtones, etc. The stock ICS UI is definitely the best stock we've seen. I dont really think it needs much tampering. The core apps look good too.

 

[djwyman]

I really don't like the brand versions of android in fact I kick my self in the butt for getting an evo a month before the nexus s 4g came out...I have been running cm7 for a long time because I can't stand sense after playing with vanilla android.

However I do play with the tablets every time I walk into a store that has them on display and must say they all did a much better job of not ruining 3.x as they did the 2.x devices so hopefully if they do keep on messing with android they will keep it to a min like on honeycomb. That being said I am going to be getting the galaxy nexus just to be sure to get raw android the way it is supposed to be so I don't have to hope...In fact I talked to verizon and at&t to make sure I i didn't need a deposit for either of them yesterday so when they figure out which of them are getting the nexus I am going to one of those 2 since it is obvious there wont be a wimax version at least not at first and my evo is almost on its last legs.

 

[SpaceHippie]

I think if they gave users the option of using the oem skin or stock, things would be alot better. I'd buy a moto phone if i could disable blur.

 

[jjt981]

I always thought it be great to have the manufacture keep the stock experience but add their own widgets, i understand the reason for the ui to set htc apart from samsung but it be a cool thing, also if they allowed the option of turning off the skin, and for either of these options you can pick your favorite manufacture but still get stock

 

[crankyd00d]

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

Well they only "put a stop" on the heavy skins for Honeycomb because Honeycomb is not open source so they're able to tell manufacturers what to do with it. I would like to be wrong of course but with ICS being open source the OEMs are going to go nuts with the heavy skinning all over again :-(

 

[Cyrilmak]

Well Motorola really hasn't fussed with the UI other than color options here and there since version 2.2. In fact on the X and X2, the only real 3rd party thing is the added motorola widgets. Other than that, it's pretty stock. They did at MTP support on their Droid line of phones, since Android didn't natively support it until 3.0 for tablets and 4.0 for both tablets and phones. Their implementation has been buggy, but it's been useable and is much better than using mass storage to sync a large library of music and movies.

Samsung on the other hand, and LG, and obviously HTC have REALLY fussed with their UI's, to the extent you'd be hard pressed to realize they are Android devices, especially to new people.

In the end though, I think the Nexus devices are the way to go, especially the new Prime as it now has a proper amount of memory. I like how ICS uses one partition for everything like iOS does, makes life easier for people who sync lots of media, and no more need for app2 sd support, which has always been buggy on most of Motorola's Droid phones, and from what I've read Samsungs. Don't expect SD cards unless they are using 3rd party mods from here on out.

 

[DWR_31]

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.

They did, just look at Sense 3.5. Only two bubbles at the bottom = phone and appdrawer.

 

[Cyrilmak]

OH for those interested...

Why Google uses MTP instead of USB file transfer on Android 3. ? glasskeys.com

This explains what Google is doing with Android memory wise. And since ICS is an evolution of such, and from all I've read in the SDK, it looks like ICS will be the same.

 

[Treknologist]

As much as I love Sense, I would love it on ICS if it was just a widget sets, wallpapers, ringtones, etc. The stock ICS UI is definitely the best stock we've seen. I dont really think it needs much tampering. The core apps look good too.

This is exactly what I was thinking. ICS adds features that HTC added through Sense. It would be ok if they simply added a Sense theme which does not re-write the code (as that allows them to still give their phones the HTC look) in addition to the full set of HTC widgets. If they went this way, it would make the update process much easier on everyone.

 

[thebizz]

I hope that whatever these manufactures decide to do they don't break from the ii elements set by google like the swipe left and right the news print/ magazine layout. If they do it just will be all bad and bring us right back to were we are now

 

[aweaver33]

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

Shut up!

Guys, FD2 is right. Sense is not a skin. A skin is a UI tweak that doesn't prevent me from running an AOSP kernel underneath. What HTC has done with Sense is tightly integrated the UI tweaks with changes IN THE KERNEL. They've replaced no only the skin but also the guts.

 

[FD2]

Shut up!

Sorry E-Thug. I won't. PM me and we can meet up in person so you can make me.