7 ms·

> I prefer the plain android look, and dislike the various skins manufacturers have used (I really don't understand the "pee in the snow" model of skinning andr

by mjfern 14y ago

> I prefer the plain android look, and dislike the various skins manufacturers have used (I really don't understand the "pee in the snow" model of skinning android to look and act horrible just so that the different manufacturers can make their mark on it - I'm pretty sure the majority of people tend to prefer plain android). Tablet and smartphone manufacturers are doing this because they are trying to differentiate their devices. With the Android OS (along with Android apps) and the hardware converging to a dominant design (ARM-based processors, similar form factor), tablets will become commodities (Armdroid). Competitors will be forced to compete on price. Their margins will collapse. This is what happened in the PC market. With the Wintel standard, PC manufacturers had little opportunity to differentiate their products. The OS and CPU are identical, as are the internal components and peripherals. What's left? The color of the case? Fingerprint readers? Ultimately, PC manufacturers were all forced to compete on price. As a result, while Intel and Microsoft earned margins in the double digits, PC manufacturers' margins were squeezed to the low single digits.

charliesome 14y ago
Why don't manufacturers compete on quality instead? I can walk into a store and see the Apple computers on one side and the Windows computers on the other. All the Apple computers look and feel beautiful, but the Windows computers are plastered with stickers and 'Beats by Dr Dre' branding. They're made out of what looks like the cheapest plastic ever. I can understand why Apple is absolutely killing it at the moment - it's because everything else is shit.
- Steko 14y ago
  From what I see they do differentiate on quality. There's a huge range of android devices and they are going to stand out in any way they can -- software is just one more way of doing that.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  This is kind of a chicken/egg perception problem. The perception is that if you want to buy a "posh" computer you should get a Mac. Therefor Mac=Expensive , PC=Cheap. This is I guess part of the reason that auto manufacturers will use different brand names for different market segments. Because it's difficult to signal "I am successful and buy nice cars" with a Skoda badge. An example of a "high end" PC would be Alienware, which whilst they have some nice hardware they just look horrendously tacky. Basically the equivalent of sticking florescent lighting all over your Subaru. There is also the potential patent minefield if you want to start manufacturing things that look like or use similar materials to Apple devices.
  - giulianob 14y ago
    Thinkpads have great quality but I have to say I have not seen any touch pads that come anywhere close to the quality of the ones on a Mac. Luckily I prefer the Lenovo "nipple" over a touchpad but most people hate it and bringing a high quality touchpad to a PC would be a big deal IMO.
    - Cieplak 14y ago
      http://xkcd.com/243/ http://xkcd.com/243/
    - w1ntermute 14y ago
      > I prefer the Lenovo "nipple" over a touchpad but most people hate it The problem is that no one gives the TrackPoint a chance. I've seen people who've used ThinkPads for years and have never even touched the TrackPoint. But if you spend about 30 minutes working with it, you'll find that it's superior to both mice and trackpads for 99% of tasks (gaming being the one exception, for which I keep a mouse on hand).
      - progrock 14y ago
        I find that the nipple requires a little too much pressure (T500), which is a little tiresome. You can be really light to the touch with some touchpads (including simulated clicks.) I'd prefer a nipple more like a touchpad - something like you get on the Blackberries (not the old trackballs.)
        jamesbritt 14y ago
        I run Kubuntu on a W500 and set mouse sensitivity way up: xset m 5 1 so that I can move the cursor with a fairly light touch.
        donatzsky 14y ago
        You can change the sensitivity in the settings (and of course, there's the usual mouse-speed setting as well). That said, I have found that some of the newer models have much more sensitive trackpoints than my T60. Edit: Changing the cap can be useful as well. The concave tip in particular.
- yummyfajitas 14y ago
  Lenovo certainly does compete on quality, it just aims for a different set of quality seekers. Apple targets people who want their computer to look pretty. Lenovo targets the people who want to get stuff done. Want to quickly scroll through a document? page up/page down/home/end buttons? Lenovo's got it. Want to change the volume easily and still have access to f1-f12? Lenovo's got dedicated buttons for it. Spill your drink? There's a good chance your drink harmlessly poured out through holes in the bottom (damaging at most the keyboard). Need more battery life? Buy a second battery and swap them when the first runs out. Need more ram? Just open it up and put it in. Same thing if you want a new HD/etc. Combine this with great linux support [1] and Lenovo is a clear win for me. [1] At work we have macbook pros, getting it to work with linux was a disaster.
  - generalk 14y ago
    > Apple targets people who want their computer to look pretty. > Lenovo targets the people who want to get stuff done. I'm no Apple fanboy, but this statement's ridiculous. > Want to quickly scroll through a document? page up/page down/home/end buttons? Lenovo's got it. Two-finger inertial scrolling on the amazing glass trackpad. Or, Command-arrow keys. Same effect. Not one-button, but it's not like the functionality isn't there. > Want to change the volume easily and still have access to f1-f12? Lenovo's got dedicated buttons for it. Macbooks have a "fn" key that can be held to modify the function key behaviors, and the unmodified behavior is a Mac OS X Preference option. > Need more battery life? Buy a second battery and swap them when the first runs out. > Need more ram? Just open it up and put it in. Same thing if you want a new HD/etc. I feel the need to point out that these are completely valid arguments against the new Macbooks. I have a Late 2008 Macbook Pro, the first unibody they made, and the only reason it still runs strong is because I've swapped the battery, RAM, and HDD (now an SSD). I love the new Retina Display Macbooks, but I don't know if I can put that kind of money down on a computer that isn't upgradeable. Not when it's my primary mode of earning a living.
    - sanderjd 14y ago
      Though I'm not familiar with the Lenovo trackpads in particular beyond playing with them on display models, the trackpad on MacBooks is a huge differentiator over any of the ones I've had on PC laptops. It works so well you forget how well it's working until you start using a different computer with a trackpad that now feels completely broken.
codeka 14y ago
I completely agree with him on this point. I had a friend ask me to install a Korean keyboard on their HTC the other day (I think it was an HTC One). On my own phone (Nexus), I just install the Google Korean IME from the markplace and it works fine. But on the HTC device, they've apparently replaced the built-in keyboard with their own thing and it took me about half an hour to figure out that I need to install a complete keyboard replacement (not just an IME) and totally replace the HTC one with this other custom one. In what way does any of this help anyone?
gxs 14y ago
Furthermore, they are actually doing a great job of this. I've used all flavors of android out there, to be honest, I recently flashed Jellybean on my Evo and sorely miss Sense UI. Tons of subtle little things that Sense gets right that are just plain lacking in Vanilla Android. Just my two cents.
- aw3c2 14y ago
  Same here. I vastly prefer it to stock android both in looks and bundled functionality.
- mrich 14y ago
  Fully agree. It always amazes me how Sense gets bashed so much. They have really delivered some handy improvements.
Steko 14y ago
It's easy in July 2012 for Linus (or whoever) to say "why mess with stock android" as if it's always been as good as 4.1. These layers were built not just for differentiation but for base functionality/gloss that stock eclair/froyo/gingerbread lacked. And try not to be shocked but many users preferred those ui layers and those phones way outsold the stock phones head to head. Also it's vaguely relevant to remember that users are not the primary customer, carriers are and if Verizon couldn't slap their bloatware all over the original droids they might not have pushed it so hard.
- potatolicious 14y ago
  This is a nonsensical analysis - there was a single stock phone on the market at any one time, which was always sold unlocked at full-price directly from Google, with little to no marketing. Compared with the "customized" Android phones which were the subject of international marketing campaigns, deeply discounted with contracts, etc etc. The notion that customized-UI phones outsold the stock, barely public-knowledge Nexus phones does not in any way imply consumer preference.
  - Steko 14y ago
    I'm primarily thinking of Galaxy nexus vs Galaxy S II for head to head as that's been the first one that's been pushed by carriers. I suppose the Xoom qualifies here as well though or did you miss the international marketing campaign, massive coverage and then how it sold less units then tabs running gingerbread. The bottom line is in any of these had really caught fire with real consumers as opposed to the hacker commentariat we'd see a lot more of them.
  - lukeschlather 14y ago
    The Droid 1 was stock, and it was a great phone. I'm sorry Motorola started skinning it.
- generalk 14y ago
  > These layers were built not just for differentiation but for > base functionality/gloss that stock eclair/froyo/gingerbread lacked. Certainly! But then Android got awesome. 4.0 is good, and 4.1 is great. But manufacturers like Samsung and HTC continue to ship their phones with 4.0 upgrades that aren't upgrades! For example: my brother's Galaxy Note. He recently got the 4.0 upgrade from Samsung, which required him to download software (Kies) from Samsung and leash his phone to his laptop to upgrade. I have no idea why. Then, we did the upgrade, but he's missing features: the 4.0 panoramic camera comes quickly to mind. The stock dialer and people apps, which are amazing, aren't there. The new in-call UI I believe also isn't there. Seriously, they're shipping 4.0 but holding some of the better UX upgrades back. He even asked me what the hell was new about his phone. I said I didn't know. The menus look different, some of the UI controls are new, Face Unlock is a cool showoff feature, but besides that he's still running Samsung's diminished-experience crap.
jbrechtel 14y ago
I can understand this reasoning, but is it really the case? In practice does anyone actually stick to HTC or Motorola because of their skins? I know that the feedback I usually hear has a huge selection bias in this regard (almost all techies) which is why I'm asking the question. Even considering the selection biased, I'd be surprised if people preferred these skins. I think that people who are aware of these skins, and the options out there, probably don't like them. If they're not aware of them then they can't prefer them, right?
- nl 14y ago
  Some do prefer (some) of the skins. There are always active threads about reapplying the skins onto custom ROMS. HTC and Samsung skins are the most popular.
mtgx 14y ago
People chose the Lumia 900 because of the design, not because of the specs and the OS (it used the same hardware and OS version as others 6 months before it, so why weren't they so interested in those?). They also chose the Galaxy S3 because of its (mostly) top notch hardware, not because of its "Nature UX" skin. People also tend to buy the iPhone because of how good it looks. In fact I think there are 3 main reasons why people buy phones in general, and I'm thinking the mass-market here, not the "smartphone savvy" people, who fight over versions of the OS and new features: 1) price (most people have a price range in mind when they buy a phone) 2) design (most people want to either impress their friends or feel good themselves about using it everyday) 3) hardware quality (reliability, feel, display, camera, etc) I doubt how the software looks is even in the top 5 priorities for most people. Branding is probably a top 5 one, too. When people think of a company that makes "crappy" phones, they generally don't think about how the software looks or works, but about the hardware, and they tend to also buy on brand, just like with many other types of products because branding offers them a level of "trust" that the device will be "good", and won't break a day after purchase. So I think there's more to it than your simplified view of the market. Also with your logic, then the Windows Phone OS is dead on arrival because it both forces them to use the exact same looking OS, and even worse, it forces them to use the exact same hardware (pretty much).
- rahoulb 14y ago
  However, I do know of three non-technical people who have said they're never getting "an android" again because their [Froyo/Gingerbread] experience was so bad. But as they're on 24 month contracts they have had (and still have) a lot of time for this dislike to grow. I have recommended Windows Phone to the one whose contract is almost up.
  - ralfn 14y ago
    Were they using stock android or crappyfied android? Dont wait 24 months to suggest a windows phone. Suggest they flash a non broken version of android onto their phone.
    - 14y ago

by mjfern 14y ago

charliesome 14y ago

Why don't manufacturers compete on quality instead? I can walk into a store and see the Apple computers on one side and the Windows computers on the other. All the Apple computers look and feel beautiful, but the Windows computers are plastered with stickers and 'Beats by Dr Dre' branding. They're made out of what looks like the cheapest plastic ever. I can understand why Apple is absolutely killing it at the moment - it's because everything else is shit.

Steko 14y ago
From what I see they do differentiate on quality. There's a huge range of android devices and they are going to stand out in any way they can -- software is just one more way of doing that.
jiggy2011 14y ago
This is kind of a chicken/egg perception problem. The perception is that if you want to buy a "posh" computer you should get a Mac. Therefor Mac=Expensive , PC=Cheap. This is I guess part of the reason that auto manufacturers will use different brand names for different market segments. Because it's difficult to signal "I am successful and buy nice cars" with a Skoda badge. An example of a "high end" PC would be Alienware, which whilst they have some nice hardware they just look horrendously tacky. Basically the equivalent of sticking florescent lighting all over your Subaru. There is also the potential patent minefield if you want to start manufacturing things that look like or use similar materials to Apple devices.
- giulianob 14y ago
  Thinkpads have great quality but I have to say I have not seen any touch pads that come anywhere close to the quality of the ones on a Mac. Luckily I prefer the Lenovo "nipple" over a touchpad but most people hate it and bringing a high quality touchpad to a PC would be a big deal IMO.
  - Cieplak 14y ago
    http://xkcd.com/243/ http://xkcd.com/243/
  - w1ntermute 14y ago
    > I prefer the Lenovo "nipple" over a touchpad but most people hate it The problem is that no one gives the TrackPoint a chance. I've seen people who've used ThinkPads for years and have never even touched the TrackPoint. But if you spend about 30 minutes working with it, you'll find that it's superior to both mice and trackpads for 99% of tasks (gaming being the one exception, for which I keep a mouse on hand).
    - progrock 14y ago
      I find that the nipple requires a little too much pressure (T500), which is a little tiresome. You can be really light to the touch with some touchpads (including simulated clicks.) I'd prefer a nipple more like a touchpad - something like you get on the Blackberries (not the old trackballs.)
      - jamesbritt 14y ago
        I run Kubuntu on a W500 and set mouse sensitivity way up: xset m 5 1 so that I can move the cursor with a fairly light touch.
      - donatzsky 14y ago
        You can change the sensitivity in the settings (and of course, there's the usual mouse-speed setting as well). That said, I have found that some of the newer models have much more sensitive trackpoints than my T60. Edit: Changing the cap can be useful as well. The concave tip in particular.
yummyfajitas 14y ago
Lenovo certainly does compete on quality, it just aims for a different set of quality seekers. Apple targets people who want their computer to look pretty. Lenovo targets the people who want to get stuff done. Want to quickly scroll through a document? page up/page down/home/end buttons? Lenovo's got it. Want to change the volume easily and still have access to f1-f12? Lenovo's got dedicated buttons for it. Spill your drink? There's a good chance your drink harmlessly poured out through holes in the bottom (damaging at most the keyboard). Need more battery life? Buy a second battery and swap them when the first runs out. Need more ram? Just open it up and put it in. Same thing if you want a new HD/etc. Combine this with great linux support [1] and Lenovo is a clear win for me. [1] At work we have macbook pros, getting it to work with linux was a disaster.
- generalk 14y ago
  > Apple targets people who want their computer to look pretty. > Lenovo targets the people who want to get stuff done. I'm no Apple fanboy, but this statement's ridiculous. > Want to quickly scroll through a document? page up/page down/home/end buttons? Lenovo's got it. Two-finger inertial scrolling on the amazing glass trackpad. Or, Command-arrow keys. Same effect. Not one-button, but it's not like the functionality isn't there. > Want to change the volume easily and still have access to f1-f12? Lenovo's got dedicated buttons for it. Macbooks have a "fn" key that can be held to modify the function key behaviors, and the unmodified behavior is a Mac OS X Preference option. > Need more battery life? Buy a second battery and swap them when the first runs out. > Need more ram? Just open it up and put it in. Same thing if you want a new HD/etc. I feel the need to point out that these are completely valid arguments against the new Macbooks. I have a Late 2008 Macbook Pro, the first unibody they made, and the only reason it still runs strong is because I've swapped the battery, RAM, and HDD (now an SSD). I love the new Retina Display Macbooks, but I don't know if I can put that kind of money down on a computer that isn't upgradeable. Not when it's my primary mode of earning a living.
  - sanderjd 14y ago
    Though I'm not familiar with the Lenovo trackpads in particular beyond playing with them on display models, the trackpad on MacBooks is a huge differentiator over any of the ones I've had on PC laptops. It works so well you forget how well it's working until you start using a different computer with a trackpad that now feels completely broken.

codeka 14y ago

I completely agree with him on this point. I had a friend ask me to install a Korean keyboard on their HTC the other day (I think it was an HTC One). On my own phone (Nexus), I just install the Google Korean IME from the markplace and it works fine. But on the HTC device, they've apparently replaced the built-in keyboard with their own thing and it took me about half an hour to figure out that I need to install a complete keyboard replacement (not just an IME) and totally replace the HTC one with this other custom one. In what way does any of this help anyone?

gxs 14y ago

Furthermore, they are actually doing a great job of this. I've used all flavors of android out there, to be honest, I recently flashed Jellybean on my Evo and sorely miss Sense UI. Tons of subtle little things that Sense gets right that are just plain lacking in Vanilla Android. Just my two cents.

aw3c2 14y ago
Same here. I vastly prefer it to stock android both in looks and bundled functionality.
mrich 14y ago
Fully agree. It always amazes me how Sense gets bashed so much. They have really delivered some handy improvements.

Steko 14y ago

It's easy in July 2012 for Linus (or whoever) to say "why mess with stock android" as if it's always been as good as 4.1. These layers were built not just for differentiation but for base functionality/gloss that stock eclair/froyo/gingerbread lacked. And try not to be shocked but many users preferred those ui layers and those phones way outsold the stock phones head to head. Also it's vaguely relevant to remember that users are not the primary customer, carriers are and if Verizon couldn't slap their bloatware all over the original droids they might not have pushed it so hard.

potatolicious 14y ago
This is a nonsensical analysis - there was a single stock phone on the market at any one time, which was always sold unlocked at full-price directly from Google, with little to no marketing. Compared with the "customized" Android phones which were the subject of international marketing campaigns, deeply discounted with contracts, etc etc. The notion that customized-UI phones outsold the stock, barely public-knowledge Nexus phones does not in any way imply consumer preference.
- Steko 14y ago
  I'm primarily thinking of Galaxy nexus vs Galaxy S II for head to head as that's been the first one that's been pushed by carriers. I suppose the Xoom qualifies here as well though or did you miss the international marketing campaign, massive coverage and then how it sold less units then tabs running gingerbread. The bottom line is in any of these had really caught fire with real consumers as opposed to the hacker commentariat we'd see a lot more of them.
- lukeschlather 14y ago
  The Droid 1 was stock, and it was a great phone. I'm sorry Motorola started skinning it.
generalk 14y ago
> These layers were built not just for differentiation but for > base functionality/gloss that stock eclair/froyo/gingerbread lacked. Certainly! But then Android got awesome. 4.0 is good, and 4.1 is great. But manufacturers like Samsung and HTC continue to ship their phones with 4.0 upgrades that aren't upgrades! For example: my brother's Galaxy Note. He recently got the 4.0 upgrade from Samsung, which required him to download software (Kies) from Samsung and leash his phone to his laptop to upgrade. I have no idea why. Then, we did the upgrade, but he's missing features: the 4.0 panoramic camera comes quickly to mind. The stock dialer and people apps, which are amazing, aren't there. The new in-call UI I believe also isn't there. Seriously, they're shipping 4.0 but holding some of the better UX upgrades back. He even asked me what the hell was new about his phone. I said I didn't know. The menus look different, some of the UI controls are new, Face Unlock is a cool showoff feature, but besides that he's still running Samsung's diminished-experience crap.

jbrechtel 14y ago

I can understand this reasoning, but is it really the case? In practice does anyone actually stick to HTC or Motorola because of their skins? I know that the feedback I usually hear has a huge selection bias in this regard (almost all techies) which is why I'm asking the question. Even considering the selection biased, I'd be surprised if people preferred these skins. I think that people who are aware of these skins, and the options out there, probably don't like them. If they're not aware of them then they can't prefer them, right?

nl 14y ago
Some do prefer (some) of the skins. There are always active threads about reapplying the skins onto custom ROMS. HTC and Samsung skins are the most popular.

mtgx 14y ago

People chose the Lumia 900 because of the design, not because of the specs and the OS (it used the same hardware and OS version as others 6 months before it, so why weren't they so interested in those?). They also chose the Galaxy S3 because of its (mostly) top notch hardware, not because of its "Nature UX" skin. People also tend to buy the iPhone because of how good it looks. In fact I think there are 3 main reasons why people buy phones in general, and I'm thinking the mass-market here, not the "smartphone savvy" people, who fight over versions of the OS and new features: 1) price (most people have a price range in mind when they buy a phone) 2) design (most people want to either impress their friends or feel good themselves about using it everyday) 3) hardware quality (reliability, feel, display, camera, etc) I doubt how the software looks is even in the top 5 priorities for most people. Branding is probably a top 5 one, too. When people think of a company that makes "crappy" phones, they generally don't think about how the software looks or works, but about the hardware, and they tend to also buy on brand, just like with many other types of products because branding offers them a level of "trust" that the device will be "good", and won't break a day after purchase. So I think there's more to it than your simplified view of the market. Also with your logic, then the Windows Phone OS is dead on arrival because it both forces them to use the exact same looking OS, and even worse, it forces them to use the exact same hardware (pretty much).

rahoulb 14y ago
However, I do know of three non-technical people who have said they're never getting "an android" again because their [Froyo/Gingerbread] experience was so bad. But as they're on 24 month contracts they have had (and still have) a lot of time for this dislike to grow. I have recommended Windows Phone to the one whose contract is almost up.
- ralfn 14y ago
  Were they using stock android or crappyfied android? Dont wait 24 months to suggest a windows phone. Suggest they flash a non broken version of android onto their phone.
  - 14y ago