Will all manufacturers start to move over to Pure Android? surely its the way forward.

[deany]

With reviews coming out of the Pixel 2 being smoother than Clint Eastwood in a spaghetti western movie surely pure Android is the way forward?

Also the Mi A1 is getting great reviews, mainly because its Android One and guaranteed Oreo before end of 2017

Android is getting such good reviews, its really matured to be an iOS beater.
Now must be the time for Alphabet to say to manufacturers 'you cant tinker'?

 

[thering1975]

Having owned mainly Samsung and Nexus devices all i can say is i hope not.

Whilst getting faster updates can be seen as a plus for stock android i can honestly say i felt like a constant beta tester when i owned the Nexus 6. Each update would fix one thing and break another. However whilst Samsung updates are slower (faster now than they were originally) ive never had any problems with updates from them. And to be fair stock android in my opinion is dull looking but each to their own.

 

[Dave.UK]

I hope not as well.

I'm more then happy with what Samsung do and he extras they provide.

As for people wanting the latest os straight away, i'm more then happy to wait.

 

[Tsepz]

With reviews coming out of the Pixel 2 being smoother than Clint Eastwood in a spaghetti western movie surely pure Android is the way forward?

Also the Mi A1 is getting great reviews, mainly because its Android One and guaranteed Oreo before end of 2017

Android is getting such good reviews, its really matured to be an iOS beater.
Now must be the time for Alphabet to say to manufacturers 'you cant tinker'?

Your bigger Android OEMs are not going stock and instead are building smoother and faster versions of their UIs.

Stock Android is incredibly dull and boring, and will not help any OEM stick out.

Can you imagine if every single Android was running "Pure Android"??? It would be like Windows Phone, where every phone is the same thing, and can only compete on Hardware which some wouldn't be able to at all.

The very reason Android is so exciting is due to all the variations of UI experiences and hardware, you can select your favourite experience and run with it.

What has helped Android advance so quickly is all the UIs from different OEMs that brought all kinds of features that were eventually integrated in to Stock Android, I beleive everyone going "Pure Android" would absolutely kill it and cause confusion.

Having owned mainly Samsung and Nexus devices all i can say is i hope not.

Whilst getting faster updates can be seen as a plus for stock android i can honestly say i felt like a constant beta tester when i owned the Nexus 6. Each update would fix one thing and break another. However whilst Samsung updates are slower (faster now than they were originally) ive never had any problems with updates from them. And to be fair stock android in my opinion is dull looking but each to their own.

Agreed.

People forget the pain of early updates. As I use my Note8 I cannot believe how fault free at has been, I haven't had any weird software niggles with it.

Not all of us want "Pure Android". Remember when Google, Samsung and Sony did those GPE Devices??? What a disaster.

 

[KingslayerG5]

And become more and more like iOS? Never. The beauty of Android has always been about variety and more freedom. Some might prefer stock Android but it doesn't mean every OEM should follow suit.

Samsung is too popular to do it. How would Samsung Pay work without MST? They have their own ecosystem. I also like HTC's Sense UI. Variety is the spice of life. Android has been pretty polished since KitKat but you needed it to be stock and be a Nexus.

Only in recent times when Samsung has gotten better with updates. Android should never go one flavor. That's like Baskin-Robbins only offering vanilla ice cream. That's like Hugh Hefner (RIP) being married for 70 years to one woman but call himself a Playboy.

Be together. Not the same.

 

[Klyster]

Truth be told, if I didn't know I had an update, I don't think I'd notice much difference anyway. Id take baked in features over constant updates.

 

[jamezr]

One think I think everyone is missing is not just the updates or lack of.......
Google is starting to really blend the software and hardware together. That is making ti an great overall user experience.
Samsung makes great hardware and TW has gotten so much better over the years. They also add features and design not found anywhere else. But they can't match the hardware software blend like Google and Apple does right now.

 

[pika2000]

Android is all about openness. Each OEM wants to have some differentiating factor, and since everybody is using the same off-the-shelve parts and running the same apps, the OS "look and feel" becomes the differentiating factor.

Even the Mi A1, as great as it is, is not purely stock. Its camera app is Xiaomi's custom.

 

[Nilhum]

No. Most consumers do not care about the stock android experience. Hence the best selling phones Samsung, Xiaomi, LG are not even close to stock. LG is changing but it’s losing market share and thinks that tech nerds will buy their phones.

The last pixel did not sell well or even close to well compared to any of the brands mentioned above. Consumers don’t care for stock and the only people who do are tech enthusiasts, which includes the reviewers.

 

[Puddled]

It's only the bearded hipsters cooing about "pure" android. For actual use, you really want something a bit more involved.

Ill be buying another samsung again precisely for the reason its not stock.

 

[convergent]

With reviews coming out of the Pixel 2 being smoother than Clint Eastwood in a spaghetti western movie surely pure Android is the way forward?

Also the Mi A1 is getting great reviews, mainly because its Android One and guaranteed Oreo before end of 2017

Android is getting such good reviews, its really matured to be an iOS beater.
Now must be the time for Alphabet to say to manufacturers 'you cant tinker'?

OK, you obviously inhaled some Pixel dust or something, but what would be the point of making all Android handset makers stop innovating and all sell identical stuff??? This is why I moved away from iPhone... I was frankly bored. I love the Note 8 and I'm using a lot of the Samsung apps, which are improvements on what Google produced. If you want to stick with plain jane Android, then buy from Google.

 

[FFR]

With reviews coming out of the Pixel 2 being smoother than Clint Eastwood in a spaghetti western movie surely pure Android is the way forward?

Also the Mi A1 is getting great reviews, mainly because its Android One and guaranteed Oreo before end of 2017

Android is getting such good reviews, its really matured to be an iOS beater.
Now must be the time for Alphabet to say to manufacturers 'you cant tinker'?

Definitely seems to be the trend with android oems going forward.

 

[deany]

OK, you obviously inhaled some Pixel dust or something, but what would be the point of making all Android handset makers stop innovating and all sell identical stuff??? This is why I moved away from iPhone... I was frankly bored. I love the Note 8 and I'm using a lot of the Samsung apps, which are improvements on what Google produced. If you want to stick with plain jane Android, then buy from Google.

Because Pure Android has now matured enough to be a Windows 7, fast, stable, reliable.
Bill Gates (Android user) knew what he was doing- OS is the single most important part of the user experience.
Also, I'm surprised folks have said that Android isn't confusing. With all the different skins its very confusing. I believe this is why iOS is so popular, its very user friendly.
Also Google are clearly serious about the Google ecosystem, as per recent Google Event.
So Pure Android would fit their game plan better.

 

[dallas112678]

With reviews coming out of the Pixel 2 being smoother than Clint Eastwood in a spaghetti western movie surely pure Android is the way forward?

Also the Mi A1 is getting great reviews, mainly because its Android One and guaranteed Oreo before end of 2017

Android is getting such good reviews, its really matured to be an iOS beater.
Now must be the time for Alphabet to say to manufacturers 'you cant tinker'?

No, because if they all ran stock, why buy from anyone but Google? These OEM's have their own skin to customize and add features to differentiate themselves from other OEM's. Add to the fact that many features that Samsung added, finally made their way into stock.

So ya, it'd be very bad if these OEM's all went stock, because eventually stock android will get very boring just like iOS.

 

[deany]

No, because if they all ran stock, why buy from anyone but Google? These OEM's have their own skin to customize and add features to differentiate themselves from other OEM's. Add to the fact that many features that Samsung added, finally made their way into stock.

So ya, it'd be very bad if these OEM's all went stock, because eventually stock android will get very boring just like iOS.

Symbian and Psion knew the smartphone revolution would happen. A case of not if, but when.
If I recall Symbian were looking at £5.00 per handset, that was about 18 years ago
With 1.5B Android phones in existence thats $7.5B in royalties (very conservative), less their Team's wages and Office cost etc, nice profit.
So it doesn't matter to Google if one buys Samsung et al, Google win. But importantly Android gets a reputation of being Safe, Reliable, Super Fast and Easy to navigate.

 

[FFR]

No, because if they all ran stock, why buy from anyone but Google? These OEM's have their own skin to customize and add features to differentiate themselves from other OEM's. Add to the fact that many features that Samsung added, finally made their way into stock.

So ya, it'd be very bad if these OEM's all went stock, because eventually stock android will get very boring just like iOS.

Really??

Other than Samsung with Touch wiz, which other oems ships globally with a heavily modified interface?

Again trend defiantly going vanilla android, it might ship with a custom launcher and an exclusive app or two but that’s about it.

 

[AustinIllini]

Problem is, manufacturers need to have differentiators. For most OEMs, those differentiators are in the software. A number of the features we consider built into android involved custom software.

The only thing we should demand of our OEMs is support for software updates deemed necessary for security. I don't want to limit the creativity across android.

 

[Michael Scrip]

Problem is, manufacturers need to have differentiators. For most OEMs, those differentiators are in the software. A number of the features we consider built into android involved custom software.

The only thing we should demand of our OEMs is support for software updates deemed necessary for security. I don't want to limit the creativity across android.

You're absolutely right. The OEMs have to find some way to differentiate.

But aren't there over 100 Android OEMs?

Can there be 100 different ways to skin Android?

We tend to only talk about the top handful of Android OEMs... Samsung, Huawei, Oppo, Xiaomi... and we know what their software looks like.

But 40% of all Android phones sold every quarter are from the "Other" category. And there are a ton of companies in there.

So what are they all doing? I'd be curious to know how "different" each of those 130 million Android phones sold every three months can possibly be.

 

[macjunk(ie)]

Everyone should definitely go stock and differentiate via exclusive apps. For example, only the Note 5 should be able to access the s pen app. The apps could be hosted either on the play store or every manufacturer can have its own play store bundled along with the phone.

Updates, in my view, is serious business. Security patches is important. And being able to provide a consistent platform for apps to run on is another. Imagine if all Android phones are running the same OS versions - becomes so much easier to develop high quality apps on. Better quality apps attract even more consumers.

 

[Shanghaichica]

And become more and more like iOS? Never. The beauty of Android has always been about variety and more freedom. Some might prefer stock Android but it doesn't mean every OEM should follow suit.

Samsung is too popular to do it. How would Samsung Pay work without MST? They have their own ecosystem. I also like HTC's Sense UI. Variety is the spice of life. Android has been pretty polished since KitKat but you needed it to be stock and be a Nexus.

Only in recent times when Samsung has gotten better with updates. Android should never go one flavor. That's like Baskin-Robbins only offering vanilla ice cream. That's like Hugh Hefner (RIP) being married for 70 years to one woman but call himself a Playboy.

Be together. Not the same.

Yes you’ve said it in a nutshell. The philosophy of android is diversity. Be together not the same. This would be an awful move imo.

 

[thering1975]

I think people are also mixing up appearance with stock android.

Take a phones specific features e.g spen on note range or fingerprint sensors or dual cameras. These functions couldn't be added by an app from playatire as they would be poorly integrated they need low level frameworks and library files. So basically switching to stock look would not make the updates faster as each OEM would still need to integrate there unique drivers and functions. As they do now. If Google enforced stock android then android die pretty quickly.

I know people don't like hearing it. But Samsung's advertising budget dwarfs all other phone manufacturer's hence why they sit at the top. If they were forced to use stock do you think they would still advertise or even make phones any more. And before you say it. They pulled out of laptop market in Europe so they are not adverse at killing products. If there was no difference between manufacturer's os on phone then why bother.

Imo the fact android is so varied is why it has market share.

 

[deany]

I think if a company like Xiaomi move to 100% Pure Android and gain major market share ie overtake Samsung, others may follow suit.

 

[Tsepz]

Because Pure Android has now matured enough to be a Windows 7, fast, stable, reliable.
Bill Gates (Android user) knew what he was doing- OS is the single most important part of the user experience.
Also, I'm surprised folks have said that Android isn't confusing. With all the different skins its very confusing. I believe this is why iOS is so popular, its very user friendly.
Also Google are clearly serious about the Google ecosystem, as per recent Google Event.
So Pure Android would fit their game plan better.

Pure Android would suit Google and only Google.

How is Android confusing? It has given people a large variety of choice, hence why you have Android users who prefer Samsung,others who prefer LG, some who prefer OnePlus, others who prefer Huawei etc etc... The different experiences allow for great competition.

The part of the reason that killed Windows Phone was that every single device was the same thing, THAT causes confusion as nobody knows what differs one from the other and which is newer vs. what's older. Did you ever go to the Windows Phone section of a phone Shop? I know my phone's but this was one area that through me off.

It is interesting though, there is a trend with the manufacturers who have lost their marketshare such as Nokia, HTC, Motorola, BlackBerry and Sony who have gone near "Pure Android", yet the bigger guys who continue to grow:

Samsung
LG
Huawei
ZTE
OPPO
Meizu
Xiaomi

All use their own Custom UIs .

Is it coincidence that the older sort of "dying" OEMs have gone more "Pure Android" due to trying to cutback on development costs? I wonder, I had a good chuckle when I noticed this. Although Sony's UI still has a very 'Sony Feel' about it thanks to little elements they still customise.

 

[Michael Scrip]

Samsung's advertising budget dwarfs all other phone manufacturer's hence why they sit at the top.

Just to clear something up...

Yes... Samsung is at the top of the list as the top-selling Android OEM.

BUT... there are more non-Samsung Android phones being sold than those made by Samsung.

There were 300 million Android phones sold last quarter... but Samsung was only 80 million of those.

No doubt Samsung sells a lot of phones... but there are almost 3 times as many Android phones not made by Samsung.

This doesn't really change the discussion here... I just wanted to point it out.

Too often we hear "Samsung is the biggest" and then move on.

But I just wanted to reinforce how big the Android market really is.

While Samsung is the biggest single Android OEM... they only made about 27% percent of all the Android phones sold last quarter.

Again... a big number at first glance... but Samsung isn't the be-all-end-all.

If three people walk into a store to buy an Android phone... only one of them walks out with a Samsung phone.

The other two walk out with another brand of Android phone.

 

[Tsepz]

Just to clear something up...

Yes... Samsung is at the top of the list as the top-selling Android OEM.

BUT... there are more non-Samsung Android phones being sold than those made by Samsung.

There were 300 million Android phones sold last quarter... but Samsung was only 80 million of those.

No doubt Samsung sells a lot of phones... but there are almost 3 times as many Android phones not made by Samsung.

This doesn't really change the discussion here... I just wanted to point it out.

Too often we hear "Samsung is the biggest" and then move on.

But I just wanted to reinforce how big the Android market really is.

While Samsung is the biggest single Android OEM... they only made about 27% percent of all the Android phones sold last quarter.

Again... a big number at first glance... but Samsung isn't the be-all-end-all.

If three people walk into a store to buy an Android phone... only one of them walks out with a Samsung phone.

The other two walk out with another brand of Android phone.

Indeed.

You have:

Samsung
LG
Huawei
ZTE
OPPO
Meizu
Xiaomi

Who are all top Android OEMs, and all use custom UIs, interestingly enough.

Don't know where people get this strange idea that it's only Samsung.