>From the manufacturers' point of view, virgin Android doesn't have anything to tie you to their brand. They're looking at the PC market, where Dell, HP, Lenovo

>From the manufacturers' point of view, virgin Android doesn't have anything to tie you to their brand. They're looking at the PC market, where Dell, HP, Lenovo etc. all have the same interface, consumers have no brand loyalty, there's fierce competition on price, and margins are razor thin. But is there anything actually useful in these software additions? It looks like it's just skins, and maybe some clock and weather widgets. Do people actually say, "I want to buy another HTC/Samsung phone because they have that widget."? Manufacturers actually do add their own software onto PCs as well, but it's all shit and bloatware. The closest to useful software from a hardware vendor that I've seen (outside of the exception of Apple) is software for individual components, like EVGA video cards or ASUS motherboards. It's like the hardware manufacturers usually don't think about the actual utility of the software they're putting on the PCs/phones, and the only point of it is some kind of brand differentiation. Which is absurd, when you think about it.