Sony, LG, HTC, Motorola and Samsung all have their builds of Android. Some are loved and some are hated, each with their own pros and cons.
However does the additional features of any of them keep you loyal to one brand !? Im sure in the case of some Samsung users they like to keep all the tricks TouchWiz gives them at the expense of an extra few gig of storage being chewed up. As Motorola found out, over skinning (yes Im talking about Moto
After trying out TouchWiz for a number of months on a S3, I couldnt help but think the unit is over engineered, a fate a the similar LG G2 UI has although thats slightly closer to stock than TouchWiz is - but it still suffers. You play with the extra features for a short while but eventually turn off eye tracking because lets face it - its annoying. Changing the text bubbles is an option but finding one thats close to a classic text screen is near impossible. As for ringtones, doesnt anyone like ringring any more ?! If you do then you have to look hard for one, the LG G2 did have the worst default ringtone since the hearing DRRROOOIIIDDDD at 200dbs from a RAZR of some sort. Samsung and LG have their own app stores and Sony have their own Playstation Store too as well as Select, not to mention their own backing up software.
Humm doesnt Google do all that for you ?! Why re-invent the wheel, oh we know, money. It seems that skinning has potential for a fork, something Samsung are desperate to do with Tizen, Amazon have done so but by doing so and not allowing Google to make a few quid they risk the whole Android platform. As hardware vendors, maybe they can just jump onto the biggest ship thats open source at the time but the only reason I would buy from one of the vendors is because Im using a universal store than I can use on all devices. Therefore forking is bad, the same can be said for Cyanogenmod, while an interesting project - it does have draw backs. Google have asked their apks are not included in any build of the free ROM. A shame when this ROM mod can breathe new life into old abandoned handsets, still a forks a fork.
Anyway I digress, skinning, yes you can buy a handset with stock Android in form of a Nexus 4/5 but since vendors like to add something to make the handset standout, should it be small additions in software UI ? No, Id rather they stick to hardware changes because thats their business. I couldnt care less Sony change the grouping of icons into a box rather than the stock circle, something LG have done and it looks ugly. Stick to stock and add special hardware features. Apple have added features over the years but they have all been at an OS level, rather than part of a skin, Googles Android more than kills that with stock, so what can possibly be added to make Android more attractive - not by adding junk thats for sure. Id prefer a shift to more stock, and leaving the special stores off the handsets no more LG World, no more Sony Select, no more Samsung App Planet of the Apes.
Without crazy skins, then lag, updates to OS will come quicker as testing for each handset will be greatly reduced.
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