Sense didn't offer a whole lot of added functionality either, barring from a glorified RSS reader function on the main screen. Is it possible to retain Touchwiz's glut of features while keeping operation smooth? If so, I don't think stock Android would have remained as bare-bones as it currently is.
Sense has a huge number of improvements over stock android and I'm not talking just about blinkfeed.
It's the plethora of little things like ability to change homescreen and lock screen wallpapers independently. Ability to add folders in your app drawer and customise order. Ability to swipe between tabs on things like contacts/dialer.
These are simple but essential features and ones that don't add to the footprint but enhance consumer use.
Re: de bloating memory wise, I'm not talking about extra apps such as S-Note, Chat-on and such as they on the Galaxy Alpha remain optional - however it's the silly services that run even without these apps like ANT Radio, Samsung Print and many more which seemingly do nothing (as many of the debloated Roms only go to prove that you seemingly lose no additional functionality by removing them) and yet they are there even with nothing else running, and in process eating up memory for nothing but essentially harming performance rather than enhancing it.... These under the hood legacy services that go back 7 years or more are the things Samsung NEED to jettison.
Keep all the standard Launcher extra's as other launchers prove you can have them without bloating your system or memory footprint, and ditch all the detritus that is not needed.
There is NO reason why without any apps open your memory footprint should be upto 1.4gb on a 2gb device. This is without S-health open or S-Planner open etc. Just the launcher and background services (a lot of them legacy).
Sense and Stock manage to do the same with around 500-600mb.
Samsung need to get its memory footprint down to the same. That way we will finally see the performance gains from these new processors and gpu's. In the past few years Samsung have allowed raw power to muscle through the bloated detritus of an OS resulting in performance which can be sub-par ( app refreshing/reloading on the S5 for example) rather than clean out the clutter and give folks a truly exemplary performing handset that does the hardware inside justice.
If anything the Tizen Z1 goes to prove that if they did do what I am suggesting performance would be amazing. The Tizen based Z1 despite having significantly less ram and processing power than Samsung's android flagships is very smooth and fast OS offering many of the features of Touchwiz launcher itself. Now imagine Touchwiz as optimised running on powerhorse CPU and GPUs and then we truly would have something to smile about.
Alas, I fear Samsung will like the Galaxy Alpha, merely debloat it's storage footprint by making extra apps optional - rather than all the detritus that resides under the hood that we don't see - but certainly feel.
