4 ms·
I like Android's openness and the freedom to hack it. I'm just concerned that Google may be too accepting of poor moves from hardware and network partners just
by heresy 16y ago
I like Android's openness and the freedom to hack it.
I'm just concerned that Google may be too accepting of poor moves from hardware and network partners just to gain market share and penetration.
HTC's Sense UI is a mild example of this, but I've seen what Vodafone does to phones in the name of branding and it sucks.
Disabling half of the phone's hardware capabilities for arbitrary PHB reasons, polluting the phone unboxing experience with their crapware apps all over the place.
Apple didn't stand for that, and I'm glad they didn't. I hope Google will have the balls not to, either, because Android is starting to grow on me and may be on my next phone, even though I'm still in the Apple camp.
- buro9 16y agoThis only relates to this one device, but I have a Nexus One on Vodafone and was pleasantly surprised to find Vodafone didn't mess with it in any way... it's virgin android. Lovely. Of course, they may revert to their old tricks on future models. Just don't let it hold you up getting one now.
- smokinn 16y agoThat's because it's a "Google experience" phone. Any phone that has the Google logo on it can't be messed with in any way. Vodafone couldn't mess with it if they wanted to since Google wouldn't let them sell it if they did.
- stcredzero 16y agoThen Google needs to back up "Google experience" with some customer service. Otherwise, that term will mean "nifty device, bad service" forever.
- Tichy 16y agoI don't see why another company couldn't do the service part, and it could still be the "Google Experience".
- stcredzero 16y agoThere's chicken & egg problems here that Google is in a better position to overcome. If no one buys a "Google experience" phone because the customer service is bad, then there isn't going to be a big enough market to make a 3rd party company profitable.
- Tichy 16y agoUsually when I buy something I speculate on there being no customer service experience at all. My N1 works fine, no need to get in touch with Google.
- enjo 16y agoMy HTC Incredible has a google logo on the back...
- gxs 16y agoI had a moto droid and now have an htc incredible. The droid is a "google experience" phone and the incredible runs HTC's sense UI. What exactly do you hate about the sense UI? Granted it's only my opinion, but I'm quite fond of the sense UI. On a phone as powerful as the incredible it runs smoothly and genuinely adds to the Droid's generic feel experience.
- heresy 16y agoI don't have any technical objections to it, but there is value to having a consistent experience across the platform. Right now, the difference probably is not that great between Sense and stock, but I'm sure HTC sees Sense as a competitive differentiator, and there-in lies the danger. I'm sure it will be tempting to keep tweaking it, until at some point you could hardly tell the phone was an Android device, and non-HTC apps looked wildly out of place. If I have any misconceptions please correct them, this is just my take from reading what information there is out there on it, I don't have a Sense device.