Because OEMs like Samsung have done such an incredible job modifying and skinning Android that I'm sure we can expect great things when they're responsible for the entire experience from the ground up?
You say that but I was playing with a (older) Nexus running vanilla ICS "as it was meant to be" the other day and moaning about something (I was attempting to add something to the home screen I think). A couple of the Android users in the office came over to see what I was moaning about.
After 60 seconds of looking at it they both admitted that the thing I was moaning about was horrible but that it wasn't something they had to deal with on their Galaxy S3s. When they showed me the S3 it's mechanism was definitely more intuitive (at least to the three of us).
While I'm not defending the skinning efforts of OEMs generally, I don't think the historical position of "it's all awful" is necessarily true any more. Sure there are bad things in there but there were plenty of bad things in early versions of Android. Just as Google learned there are signs that the OEMs are learning too.
I second this. I've gone back and forth between the vanilla CM9 build and the Samsung touchwiz on my Galazy S2. While the CM9 feels faster and cleaner, it's all lacks some key features. For example the vanilla music player doesn't support displaying ID3 MP3 lyrics, a feature my windows mobile phone could do back in 2003. This feature is critical for podcast courses with embedded lecture notes. And yes, the widgets work better in touchwiz too. In the end, I always go back to the more feature complete touchwiz.
I got a Nexus S specifically because I wanted stock Android... but is TouchWiz really that bad? What can you do on stock Android that you can't do on TouchWiz?
I've got an s3 and a nexus 7, so I can compare both in the long term. Touchwiz is not a bad product, though it adds actually very few to stock experience.
The main problem is that for such minor enhancements, you are condemn to be always late in android updates.
We are now fairly aware that updates are not only about getting new features and bugfixes, but also are the main mean to avoid security breaches.
If OEMs don't get that, what to expect if they build their own OS ? Not saying it will be bad, but they'll have hard time to alleviate my worries about that.
> Touchwiz is not a bad product, though it adds actually very few to stock experience.
Not anymore, anyway. But TouchWiz added quite a bit before ICS came out. Off the top of my head: a customisable dock bar, resizable widgets, a paginated app menu, the app switcher you get when holding 'home', power saving toggles in the notifications drop down...
Admittedly these days it's just a way for Samsung to put a unified, iPhone-like interface across all of its phones, but in the beginning it added a number of features missing from Android.
Yeah, a lot of what was in TouchWiz is now in stock Android.
This is probably kind of subjective, but my problem with TouchWiz is it's butt-ugly. I mean, if you think stock Android was a mess (and it's not so bad now with Holo) then TouchWiz is to stock Android as a 2 year old's art project is to the Mona Lisa.
It's a horrible mess of Holo, Gingerbread and just weird random stuff that doesn't fit with either.
Yeah, I agree. That's the reason why I stay away from Samsung phones. In practical terms they're great, but they're shockingly un-aesthetic. In hardware and software.
TouchWiz is ugly. That's my major problem with it. The cartoonish icons take up way too much room in the notification window, unnecessary and useless animations slow me down. Mainly though it just isn't very good looking.
I'm not so sure. Google is stronger for software, whereas companies like Samsung, Sony, HTC etc. are better at hardware, which is my their marriage with Android has worked so well. The likes of Sense and Touchwiz do add some nice features, but they also add a lot of rubbish. It will take ages for hardware-focused companies like Samsung to catch up with Google's software experience.
He was being sarcastic =P
From my experience with a galaxy s2, most of the software from Samsung is not that great (and can't be removed without installing something like cyanogen... quite annoying).
