Updates won’t matter until Android skins die

Following the (albeit smaller than expected) avalanche of Android phone announcements at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) the first weeks of January, we heard countless numbers of representatives from every manufacturer say the words “…it’s currently running Gingerbread, but we’re updating it to Ice Cream Sandwich…” in regards to phones, and similar sentiments regarding tablets and Honeycomb (although I’ll be focusing on phones).

Now there’s a couple problems with this, the first of which being the absolute absurdity that large multinational corporations - we’re talking LG, Samsung, etc. - can’t even put together a Beta build of ICS to show off at a show months after ICS was released (and arguably they had it even earlier than that). It’s like they’re not even trying at this point.

Secondly, they seem to tout the upgrade from 2.3 to 4 as a selling point, as if we’re supposed to like the phone more because it’s being upgraded, and be willing to buy it over another phone that hasn’t been given the guaranteed go-ahead upgrade path. This shouldn’t be a selling point, it should be an absolute knock against the phone for not just launching with the OS it should have. These CES phones aren’t going to be hitting the market for weeks and months after they’re announced. If 2.3 is perceivably archaic now, how will it look at the end of Q1 and beyond when these are an store shelves?

Those statements aside, let’s get to the real meat of the story, which I suppose is related to the “promised upgrade as a selling feature” argument. Along with the fact that upgrades shouldn’t be considered an extra feature that a manufacturer offers, these upgrades will literally change nothing about the user experience of the device. Recently evidenced by the leaked SGSII ICS builds with TouchWiz 5, and various HTC Sense-laden ICS leaks, these phones will never look like the ICS that users and reviewers alike are raving about on the Galaxy Nexus. In an attempt to preserve their perceived “brand loyalty” and image, every single manufacturer will simply be putting their same skin from Android 2.2 and 2.3 straight onto Android 4 with mild improvements. Not only is this a travesty simply because it is delaying updates and keeping phones locked down, but mainly the fact that Android 4 is really, really good. By all accounts, Google outdid themselves here, and the idea that these manufacturers aren’t even going to attempt to bring that forward to the user is a shame.

This brings me back to referencing the title of this article: updates won’t matter until Android skins die. Every single person who puts emphasis on updates is just spinning their wheels. Whether its running Android 2.3 or 4 really does not matter if the user isn’t going to be getting any benefit from it because the skin is trying to maintain a consistent experience from 2.3 devices. No effort should be made complaining about pushing an update that will not change anything. I think that people seem to have some glimmer of hope that manufacturers will push an OTA and all of a sudden their device will have stock ICS on it. Well, that’s just not going to happen, so spend your energy elsewhere.

The problem with updates and fragmentation is a two parter. The first part is completely removing manufacturer skins - straight up, no ifs ands or buts about it. Only once that is accomplished can we then care about the second part - updating devices in a timely and efficient way.

Can I please have the option to remove Android skins?

I’ve been an avid Android user ever since I bought my first device, a Sprint Evo 4G, a little over a year ago. I loved that device, and I’ve been an Android fan ever since. The things I like most about Android, which drove me to it and kept me on it, is the customization, the styling, and the usability. Android has completely moved me into the Google ecosystem, as Google would hope. I now use Chrome, Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Analytics, Voice, Talk, and all of the other amazing Google services. At this point, I couldn’t imagine my daily routine without these great products.

Being that my first device was an Evo 4G, the experience was using HTC Sense, as is true for many other Android users. I thought that this skin and experience was great at first, but I quickly hit the ceiling of customization and usability in a couple months and wanted more. I bought an Android phone to escape the walled garden of the iPhone, why was I being given the same experience with Sense? After researching and trying basic customizations to change the look of Android, I got fed up trying to tack launchers on top of Sense. My realization at this point is that I would have to root my phone (voiding my warranty in the process), and re-flash an entirely new ROM just to get the general features of stock Android (2.2 at the time). This kicked into gear my desire for stock Android on my devices…

In a few weeks, I was deep into the rooting and ROM flashing. I spent a lot of time on XDA developers forums (www.xda-developers.com), which has an amazing community, especially for the Evo which is a flagship for Sprint. I was doing my research, learning how to mod my device, and flashing a new ROM every week or so. This is fun for a while, but the luster wore of quickly for me, especially considering that this was my daily phone. Its like trying to work on a race car every night and driving it to work every day; far from practical.

Finally, after months and months of constant re-flashing of ROMs and modding my device, I pretty much got fed up chasing stock Android. I wouldn’t have to root my phone if I could get truly stock, untouched Android out of the box, with the full functionality that Google has already baked in. In comes the T-Mobile HTC G2. I dumped Sprint, sold my Evo4G, and bought the device, which has about as fresh, stock Android as you’re going to get outside of a phone with the word ‘Nexus’ in the title. No skin, no extra apps, and unblocked tethering. Life is good.

This gets me down to my point: Please phone manufacturers, give us a switch to turn off the skin, and turn on stock Android.

There was a time in the past, I’m looking at you 1.6 Donut, when a third party skin may have actually added to the Android experience. But in the age of 2.3 Gingerbread, this really isn’t true anymore. I realize that the manufacturers (and carriers, for that matter) are very invested, with both time and money, in keeping their skins on the devices and having consistent user experiences. I’m not asking them to give that up, I’m just asking for them to offer the advanced users (I use that term lightly) to get down to the base Android experience and build it like they want it. Put it as deep in the settings as you want to hide from regular users, but there really is no physical limitation to keep this from happening at this point in devices, only manufacturer ego. Device ROM is plenty large enough to hold even the most behemoth software packages, like Sense 3.0, there is no reason why they can’t throw stock 2.3 in there next to it.

The bottom line for me? My next device is going to be a stock stock stock Google Nexus device. I still like to root and mod my phones, but it shouldn’t be a necessary step in order to make a phone your own, make it do what you want, and get the experience Google intended me to get with an Android device. Differentiation is great, but choice on where I get that differentiation is even better.

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