Does the public even know of Stock / Vanilla Android ?

Zorachus

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Everyone reading this website is already a [H]ard core tech geek, and will know about the Nexus line of phones and tablets, with stock AOSP Android, etc... Plus Google Play Edition ROM's that give the stock vanilla Android to standard manufacturer phones like the Galaxy line and HTC's phones, etc...

But just curious, of all the many millions of Android phones sold annually, how many Joe Blow Mr. Public, ever even saw stock Android, like a Nexus phone, or a GPE, let alone know what the fuck a custom ROM is.

I think most Jane Doe's just know Touchwiz or Sense, and would think a Nexus OS, is a different brand of phone altogether ?

I just hate the trend of the new Android phones all going with this Flipboard / Metro UI style, like Blinkfeed on the HTC One, and now rumors of the Galaxy S5 having a Flipboard type home screen.

Will we ever see AOSP stock vanilla Android ever gain traction beyond just the Nexus line ? Will a Galaxy phone or HTC phone, ever offer stock as an option, before you turn it on for the first time ? And I am not talking about the $650 GPE phones either, but the ones you can buy from carriers fro $149.
 
The majority has no idea. Most non-Apple users will know Samsung's TW and think that is Android. Show most people a Nexus and they will ask if it is a "Galaxy".

A lot of former Android users experienced Android with older phones running older versions of Android and had such a bad experience they went back to the iPhone when they were ready to upgrade. They still think Android is the same as it was a few years back and believe that it is still slow and buggy.

Samsung leads the world in smartphone sales (30.4%) to Apple at 13.1%, but Apple rules the US at 42% to Samsung's 26%.

When there are so many vendors selling Android based phones, it is difficult to distinguish one company from another by hardware alone as, again, most people don't have a clue what's under the hood. They just know what's on the screen, what it looks like, how long the battery lasts and if it takes good pictures.
 
Most buyers don't know, and don't necessarily care. They also rarely have the skill or inclination to install custom ROMs and launchers on their phones.

That's why I don't like it when some Android fans use "just install a ROM" to excuse bad interfaces, bloatware and a lack of updates. It's a cop-out. That won't change the experience for 95% of users, and buying the device still amounts to a formal endorsement of the company's strategy. If you don't like TouchWiz, buy a GS4 Google Play Edition. If you don't like non-removable carrier apps or OEMs that abandon phones after a year, buy an iPhone or a Nexus 5.
 
most "stock" android sucks and strips out functionality people use that the phone makers often include to make using the phone easier.

Sure some stock ROM's try to add this back in using 3rd party apps,. but they often lack as well.

I rooted and stock did my S4 and i love the fact i can get a week with out charging it, and i dont have some 98 processes running from the carrier and apps installed i cant remove!
 
Most people don't even know what they are running is called Android. I have friends who barely know the concept of going to Play store and getting apps, she thinks iTunes is the only way you 'add' apps or stuff and it no longer works with her phone so she just uses what it came with.

The idea of 'default apps' etc is simply too advanced for some people, and they find Android confusing because of this.
 
I don't think so, given how many people supported Ouya. If only they understand Android before funding a turd.
 
When there are so many vendors selling Android based phones, it is difficult to distinguish one company from another by hardware alone as, again, most people don't have a clue what's under the hood. They just know what's on the screen, what it looks like, how long the battery lasts and if it takes good pictures.
This "product differentiation" game with Android has always baffled me. Almost without fail, the changes OEMs make to AOSP to "differentiate" their phone make it slower/buggier than stock. I can maybe understand some TouchWiz features like multi-screen and eye tracking from a marketing perspective, gimmicky as they are. But most other skins, like Sense, have absolutely no marketable features that go beyond AOSP. It's simply an uglier, clunkier, slower skin that hinders the user experience in every way.
 
This "product differentiation" game with Android has always baffled me. Almost without fail, the changes OEMs make to AOSP to "differentiate" their phone make it slower/buggier than stock. I can maybe understand some TouchWiz features like multi-screen and eye tracking from a marketing perspective, gimmicky as they are. But most other skins, like Sense, have absolutely no marketable features that go beyond AOSP. It's simply an uglier, clunkier, slower skin that hinders the user experience in every way.

Sense is definitely not a example of it.

Out of every OEM, Sense is the best options you can have on Android. It's the smoothest and easiest UI Control out of anything else you can possibly find on Android. And less bloat of course except BlinkFeed, which it really depends on the user preference.
 
Most people don't care. If it calls and texts and can download an app or two whatever. Few people are interested in spending the time optimizing their computing experience whether it be mobile or desktop. Besides, its not like we can optimize everything in our lives anyway.
 
I hate what HTC does to their phones. Bloated, and useless. Upgraded an Inspire to an One. It's still full of the same junk from the Windows Phone era. Not to mention, all of the carrier bloatware. Luckily, it's a work phone, so I still have my own Nexus 4 and iPhone 4S to fall back upon.

The only saving grace of HTC's bloat, is they still have the old browser. Its zoom function is much better than Chrome's Apple-like zoom... which is useless for many text-heavy websites. It could be worse, like my Windows Phones, and selectively choose what text to boost... that's somewhat amusing and frustrating on [H], for whatever reason.
 
Sense is definitely not a example of it.

Out of every OEM, Sense is the best options you can have on Android. It's the smoothest and easiest UI Control out of anything else you can possibly find on Android. And less bloat of course except BlinkFeed, which it really depends on the user preference.
Even if you find Sense less offensive than Touchwiz or others, it's still inferior to AOSP. Which means that HTC spent lots of money and time on a project that has all downside and no upside. I don't get it.
 
The stock Android look and experience is awful.

Google doesn't know anything about UI / UX.
 
It seems OP and a lot of other people in here are forgetting about Motorola, which sells the Moto X and Moto G right now and pretty much have a stock Android build/UI on them. While I know the Moto X/G isn't selling near as much as the Samsung or probably even HTC flagships, you can't say that there aren't other options available outside of the Nexus and GPE devices while Moto is selling stockish Android on their phones.

I know some people will attribute this to Google owning Motorola, but I know that has nothing to do with it. It has been said many times by both Motorola and Google that they will be operating as seperate entities for their own products; neither organization has any influence over the other in what they do. Motorola has chosen to do exactly what OP is complaining about and distinguish themselves from other OEMs by offering very few exclusive (but actually useful and practical) features on an otherwise stock build of Android, which also enables them to update their phones pretty much as fast as the Nexus devices (the Moto X actually got 4.4/Kitkat before the Nexus 4 did, even on Verizon).

So with that, I think OPs argument is almost moot. Samsung, HTC and LG aren't going to change anytime soon. They're too invested in their own UIs and useless features and are now trapped to retain those features else they may upset the 1% of users that actually use/enjoy them, plus they don't want to shrink that features list on paper at all, so their product looks much better on that spec sheet when compared to their competitors. But there is an option for people who want stock Android on their phones and can get it through their carrier or even off-contract for a reasonable price; the Moto X (free on-contract on most carriers now or $400 off-contract) and Moto G ($180 off-contract, or $100 off-contract on Verizon).
 
I dont think the average person has a clue, or cares.

This thread does a great job of highlighting the part of the conundrum that is Android; Choice. you can choose (via carrier) hardware or software that you like. The advantage is that people can get when they perceive they want. The down side is fragmentation and competition to be 'super more better different'. With Apple, it is pretty much take it or leave it. Sure you can jailbreak, but that is probably not the average user.

So manufactures will continue to push pointless features that sound cool to draw users in. I am still rocking my N4 and loving it and cringe at anything with bloatware. I at least like the fact that GPEs do exist and would consider one of those for my next phone, just to support the idea of being able to have more hardware to choose from with the vanilla experience.
 
I just hope we do see GPE versions of the S5 and One+ this March, and not have to wait months later for them to come out. But who knows if there any GPE phones planned at all this year ?

Or what I can see happening, the manufactures release GPE phones, after Google I/O this June, and these new phones will be the first with Android 4.5, shipped in July.

That's what I expect, the GPE phones for the S5 and One+ won't be out until after Google I/O 2014, but I wish we'd see them at launch when the S5 + One+ are announced in March.
 
The stock Android look and experience is awful.

Google doesn't know anything about UI / UX.
Maybe, but I'd like to hear one major phone UI maker (be it Apple/MS or HTC/Samsung/LG) who's doing it better. It's tough to argue the AOSP 4.x UI isn't the best thing available when even Apple has been chasing after it so much the past couple years. Unless you just prefer Windows Phone, which is off on its own island.

You know, back in the Android 2.x days, the UI really was pretty awful. I dare say TouchWiz/Sense might even have been necessarily evils in that era. But the day ICS dropped, that era was over. That was well over two years ago. The irony is that most of the big skins retain certain ugly elements of the 2.x days even now.
 
Will a Galaxy phone or HTC phone, ever offer stock as an option, before you turn it on for the first time ?

I think you answered your own question:

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Google play version of phones are becoming quite prevalent, so yes stock is a option for Galaxy and HTC One ones... and Motorola and Sony phones.
 
I think you answered your own question:

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Google play version of phones are becoming quite prevalent, so yes stock is a option for Galaxy and HTC One ones... and Motorola and Sony phones.

I know the special editions for $650, that are custom order offer this. I was talking about a $199 Galaxy S4 phone you buy at the Verizon store, which these GPE phones don't even work on.
 
The stock Android look and experience is awful.

Google doesn't know anything about UI / UX.

Before ICS/Duarte, stock Android was a godawful mess of inconsistent settings and missing basic functionality. Which is oem's had to develop their own custom skins, which users then got used to.

ICS made everything much better, but to this day, Android doesn't have a consistent theme - half the apps are dark, half are light, they use different controls/menu schemes, e.g. some have hamburger nav, others don't.

Today, stock Android is a faster/more consistent UI. It was not always the case.
 
There were interviews with Google where they discussed offering stock as an option on any Android phone. Doing so would be trivial, its basically just switching a few apk's/frameworks in memory. But Google said they have no interest in doing so, they actually view the fragmentation caused by oem skins as a good thing.
 
I like the new Google Now launcher in the Nexus 5, but I would like to customize it a bit. I want 5 apps per row in the app drawer, and for the drawer to remember what page I was at instead of restarting at the front every single time. Another thing is hiding the navigation bar like notification bar in apps, but that could be the app developer thing...
 
I like the new Google Now launcher in the Nexus 5, but I would like to customize it a bit. I want 5 apps per row in the app drawer, and for the drawer to remember what page I was at instead of restarting at the front every single time. Another thing is hiding the navigation bar like notification bar in apps, but that could be the app developer thing...
Yeah, I have to admit the Google Experience Launcher that comes with CM11 is a bit lacking in customization after using Nova Launcher on ICS/JB for so long. I'm sure custom launchers like Nova will come out with versions that are visually consistent with the KitKat UI soon enough, though.
 
There were interviews with Google where they discussed offering stock as an option on any Android phone. Doing so would be trivial, its basically just switching a few apk's/frameworks in memory. But Google said they have no interest in doing so, they actually view the fragmentation caused by oem skins as a good thing.

LMAO.

Trivial? A few APKs? TouchWiz is top to bottom rewritten every revision.
 
My father went from a Galaxy S2 to a Moto G(pretty much stock), and it was like learning a new phone for him. People rave about the stock Android, but it is not so much easy to use when going from Touchwhiz/sense, etc. Unless you have time to look around and add your own apps, etc it's not that great out of the box. The techies can learn it and appreciate the speed boost, but the general people doesn't want to and just want a good experience out of the box. So unless stock android can start to do that, it will never catch on.
 
My father went from a Galaxy S2 to a Moto G(pretty much stock), and it was like learning a new phone for him. People rave about the stock Android, but it is not so much easy to use when going from Touchwhiz/sense, etc. Unless you have time to look around and add your own apps, etc it's not that great out of the box. The techies can learn it and appreciate the speed boost, but the general people doesn't want to and just want a good experience out of the box. So unless stock android can start to do that, it will never catch on.

Stock Android is far simpler in terms of layout. Things are just there. Unlike say TouchWiz which completely rewrites the Settings APK to hide and obfuscate what once was a simple list of categories (in stock Android) into 4-5 different tabbed pages sorted in a barely sensible manner.
 
Stock Android is far simpler in terms of layout. Things are just there. Unlike say TouchWiz which completely rewrites the Settings APK to hide and obfuscate what once was a simple list of categories (in stock Android) into 4-5 different tabbed pages sorted in a barely sensible manner.

It's the little things I would say, for example, on the old S2(and I am only using samsung as an example as that's what we've had im sure its same for any other skin), it was so easy to pull down the menu and turn on gps, now I have to go to location settings, slide the gps and then hit yes to that pop up.
Can I find apps and widgets to do all that stuff for me? Sure probably yes, but you can't expect people to go out there looking for those things.

To me I like stock android and I will take the speed over little better things here and there that the skins give, but the ease of use of the skins out weight the speed for normal folks.

And you're right the settings menu is shit.
There is no perfect thing, maybe leave it at that? haha
 
It's the little things I would say, for example, on the old S2(and I am only using samsung as an example as that's what we've had im sure its same for any other skin), it was so easy to pull down the menu and turn on gps, now I have to go to location settings, slide the gps and then hit yes to that pop up.
Can I find apps and widgets to do all that stuff for me? Sure probably yes, but you can't expect people to go out there looking for those things.

To me I like stock android and I will take the speed over little better things here and there that the skins give, but the ease of use of the skins out weight the speed for normal folks.

And you're right the settings menu is shit.
There is no perfect thing, maybe leave it at that? haha

No you don't. The stock Android quick settings tiles can be found by sliding the notification drawer, and tapping on the icon. Sammy Touchwiz has only added things stock Android has had for a long time.

The recent 4.3 update is a poor stripped down non-customizable and then bloated remake of stock 4.3 and 4.4

The same probably applies to all the other OEM skins. I rant about TW because I'm familiar with its hassles and moronic design decisions and shittly written code that takes forever to update because SAmsung chooses to completely rewrite TouchWiz every single time there's an update...and I do mean completely rewrite. All 3rd party ROM features need rewritten to work.
 
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