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

[Michael Scrip]

The vast majority of the Android OEMs other than the dozen or so recognizable brands are the cheap no-name stuff which replaced feature phones. Those other OEMs are throwing things together with spec parts and contract manufacturers. They have no R&D and no marketing.

Correct.

But those no-name thrown-together phones are still part of the market. A big part of the market, actually.

If we're gonna suddenly say that only certain parts of the market actually mean something... then that changes a lot about EVERYTHING we discuss here.

If we're only gonna count the "good" OEMs.... I'm gonna remember this the next time someone mentions anything about "market share" in the future.

Apparently only the top half of the market really matters... so we'll just disregard the bottom no-name half.

That's gonna make market share arguments fun next quarter. I'm bookmarking this thread.

People have no problem including those cheap no-name phones when talking about, let's say, Apple's (lack of) smartphone market share.

But it sounds like you don't even wanna claim those cheap no-name Android phones.

It can't be both ways. You can't include or exclude huge parts of the market to suit the narrative.

 

[convergent]

Correct.

But those no-name thrown-together phones are still part of the market. A big part of the market, actually.

If we're gonna suddenly say that only certain parts of the market actually mean something... then that changes a lot about EVERYTHING we discuss here.

If we're only gonna count the "good" OEMs.... I'm gonna remember this the next time someone mentions anything about "market share" in the future.

Apparently only the top half of the market really matters... so we'll just disregard the bottom no-name half.

That's gonna make market share arguments fun next quarter. I'm bookmarking this thread.

People have no problem including those cheap no-name phones when talking about, let's say, Apple's (lack of) smartphone market share.

But it sounds like you don't even wanna claim those cheap no-name Android phones.

It can't be both ways. You can't include or exclude huge parts of the market to suit the narrative.

Those other companies are not setting market direction and the people buying are not buying for those reasons.

 

[SurferMan]

Personally been using android for years, and never liked vanilla Android, way to basic, featureless, and boring. I preferred Sammy devices and would root and rom based off TouchWiz. But now they've done such a good job I never bothered playing around with my S7 and especially with it running Nougat, it's just awesome. I used to love the whole root and rom thing years ago, but now I don't see the point, TouchWiz is slick and full of useful features and excellent battery life.

Samsung has done an excellent job

 

[Michael Scrip]

Those other companies are not setting market direction and the people buying are not buying for those reasons.

Oh I understand that.

But the market is the market. Those crappy phones are being counted and they are fueling discussions on the internet. You can't just ignore the no-name phones in the market.

You either gotta accept the entire market... warts and all...

...or we have to figure out something different.

Honestly... I never understood why Apple's $700 phones are listed on the same chart with crappy $50 no-name phones at the end of every quarter. The only thing they have in common is that they are all technically smartphones. But they're not even in the same league and they have vastly different customers. (nobody walks into the store to buy an iPhone but walks out with a $50 cheapo phone instead...)

Maybe we need to finally have different segments of the smartphone market... kinda like how we do with "luxury cars" and "premium laptops" or whatever.

Who was the person who coined the term "$1,000+ computer market" ?

Maybe they need to do the same thing with phones.

Look... I'm fine with admitting that cheap Android phones sell in humongous quantities... dwarfing Apple in units.

But like you said... those phones have no market power and people are buying them only because they are cheap.

So we can't just simply "add 'em all up" at the end of the quarter and make some sort of conclusion.

Apple might only be 12% of the total smartphone market (including warts)... but they could be 50% of the market that actually matters ($600+ or whatever)

You're right... if an Android OEM sells cheap no-name "filler" phones that don't move the market forward... then they shouldn't be counted in whatever we're gonna call this new thing.

I'm game.

 

[Klyster]

A smartphone is a smartphone.
Who cares what it cost, it was purchased and makes part of the pool of smartphones.

I could walk into a store and buy whatever phone I want, it's more likely I'd walk out of the store with a mid range Android than an iPhone.

I'm just not going to buy an iPhone when I prefer Android, if I purchased a cheap Android (got one in the drawer) I still chose it over an iPhone, it's still a smartphone. The price is irrelevant when it comes to how many units are sold and market share.

If we were to discuss who makes the higher profit on smartphone sales then the price is a factor.

 

[convergent]

Oh I understand that.

But the market is the market. Those crappy phones are being counted and they are fueling discussions on the internet. You can't just ignore the no-name phones in the market.

You either gotta accept the entire market... warts and all...

...or we have to figure out something different.

Honestly... I never understood why Apple's $700 phones are listed on the same chart with crappy $50 no-name phones at the end of every quarter. The only thing they have in common is that they are all technically smartphones. But they're not even in the same league and they have vastly different customers. (nobody walks into the store to buy an iPhone but walks out with a $50 cheapo phone instead...)

Maybe we need to finally have different segments of the smartphone market... kinda like how we do with "luxury cars" and "premium laptops" or whatever.

Who was the person who coined the term "$1,000+ computer market" ?

Maybe they need to do the same thing with phones.

Look... I'm fine with admitting that cheap Android phones sell in humongous quantities... dwarfing Apple in units.

But like you said... those phones have no market power and people are buying them only because they are cheap.

So we can't just simply "add 'em all up" at the end of the quarter and make some sort of conclusion.

Apple might only be 12% of the total smartphone market (including warts)... but they could be 50% of the market that actually matters ($600+ or whatever)

You're right... if an Android OEM sells cheap no-name "filler" phones that don't move the market forward... then they shouldn't be counted in whatever we're gonna call this new thing.

I'm game.

You are going into a lot of detail about something that doesn't matter. The premise of this thread is that because the Pixel 2 is so awesome, that all Android OEMs are going to drop their custom stiff and go vanilla. It's a gross overreaction. No Google phone has sold more than a rounding error of market share, and it remains to be seen if that changes this round. Google is the one company that benefits from vanilla. Samsung is never going to do it and they have the largest share globally by a large amount. The other top OEMs aren't going to either if they want to compete with Samsung and Apple. Whatever a cheap no name OEM does is irrelevant.

 

[Michael Scrip]

Whatever a cheap no name OEM does is irrelevant.

I'm starting to believe that cheap no-name OEMs are entirely irrelevant.

 

[ultravegeta1981]

Pure Android looks just too nude. The Samsung experience is just good enough. Looks, feels and runs great. Samsung has done it right this time and it will only get better.

 

[Septembersrain]

I'm sure my opinion is probably not very popular but I don't mind the custom UI of most devices.

I even like LG Home+.

Though if they all did vanilla android, we'd still be able to use a launcher.

 

[lowendlinux]

The skins themselves aren't always bad but it's all the extra software. Google requires them to carry all the stock stuff then they through their stuff on there it just makes me roll my eyes, stock android is already pretty fat. I'd love to just selectively download stuff as part of the setup process.

 

[Tsepz]

No, but overstating samsung’s Android market share doesn’t make that any more true aren’t Samsung’s sales declining or something too?

According to this, Samsung sales are rising year over year.

 

[SurferMan]

Ironically I'm seeing some friends leave iPhone for Sammy. Buddy just did, and he's had only iPhones since they came out, if he switched.... It's the end of days lol.

Maybe people are finally realizing how good the phones are and how good a job Sammy has done with TouchWiz? I think the problem is my friends that hated Android for whatever reason got crap phone versions, or something like Nexus that was buggy as hell, usually was gimped like the camera, and too basic unless you flashed a rom (had one as well, was junk vs my S5 back then), or knew someone with bad experience years ago and carried that notion of Android as years went by.

 

[convergent]

Ironically I'm seeing some friends leave iPhone for Sammy. Buddy just did, and he's had only iPhones since they came out, if he switched.... It's the end of days lol.

Maybe people are finally realizing how good the phones are and how good a job Sammy has done with TouchWiz? I think the problem is my friends that hated Android for whatever reason got crap phone versions, or something like Nexus that was buggy as hell (had one as well, was junk vs my S5 back then), or knee someone with bad experience years ago and carried that notion of Android as years went by.

I just left iPhone for Sammy - Note 8, and I've been iPhone sine the 3G. Prior to that, I was Windows Mobile, Pocket PC, Palm, etc.. On your point about possibly people getting crap Android phones, my only other attempt at Android was a Galaxy S5, and I found that to be pretty crappy... I hated it. I love the Note 8.

 

[SurferMan]

I just left iPhone for Sammy - Note 8, and I've been iPhone sine the 3G. Prior to that, I was Windows Mobile, Pocket PC, Palm, etc.. On your point about possibly people getting crap Android phones, my only other attempt at Android was a Galaxy S5, and I found that to be pretty crappy... I hated it. I love the Note 8.

I still have my S5 around as a back up, with rom, can't remember which one though but yeah it ran much better on rom (I know it was TW based) vs stock. I even took pics and vids underwater with that phone lol. Back when I had iPhones I would JB them and tweak, I don't think you even need to do that anymore, especially as Apple added features that were only done through JB before.

S7 was the first one I've had where I didn't feel the need to root or rom. Honestly don't even see the point today unless someone just wants to play around as look on XDA how many issues there are now, roms being way more glitchy then before, battery life sucking etc. I have the att S7 and just reading that board and complaints and glitches, no way would I rom it. Plus its not like it was years ago with the locked bootloaders now

 

[Tsepz]

Ironically I'm seeing some friends leave iPhone for Sammy. Buddy just did, and he's had only iPhones since they came out, if he switched.... It's the end of days lol.

Maybe people are finally realizing how good the phones are and how good a job Sammy has done with TouchWiz? I think the problem is my friends that hated Android for whatever reason got crap phone versions, or something like Nexus that was buggy as hell, usually was gimped like the camera, and too basic unless you flashed a rom (had one as well, was junk vs my S5 back then), or knew someone with bad experience years ago and carried that notion of Android as years went by.

True. I have grown up with Android, in its infancy I was fresh out of highschool going to university and got the top of the line Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 at the time (2010), and so I loved how Android was built on powerful hardware while the OS was rough around the edges, allowed for tweaking and ROMs etc... I had plenty of time for all that.

Come 2014 we get Android KitKat, where Google had really tamed and gained control of the beast, this same year I was starting my 1st job and doing my post grad, Honours Degree, suddenly I had to balance between school and work, and the Note 4 was so perfect for this as it was a productivity beast. Truly amazing how far Android has come.

Now I have been working for a few years, some of the programs I use at work have mobile versions that I can use to get smaller tasks done and heck my Android Smartphone has a desktop feature that allows me to get some heavier tasks done with a BT mouse and keyboard.

I can't even take iOS on my iPad seriously anymore.

 

[Tsepz]

"Pure Android" just got owned by Oxygen OS and TouchWiz.

 

[v0lume4]

I personally wish that we'd simply see "Play Edition" phones sold alongside the standard models, like we used to see years ago. Stock Android IF you want it. There was a Play Edition of the Note 4, for example.

 

[AustinIllini]

"Pure Android" just got owned by Oxygen OS and TouchWiz.

Uhhh. When would you ever do this? This is a test for uneducated fans.

Also, OxygenOS is barely a skin anymore and the OnePlus 5 has so much RAM.

 

[840quadra]

Pure android won my interest in this ecosystem, even touchwiz of today is just too much extra coating that I am not interested in. I almost got an S8 as opposed to the Pixel 2, but just didn't like the experience with the loaner I had.

I would say that Pure Android is attractive to some users, while others (similar to OEM PC software) like the extra toys / features that something like TouchWiz brings.

That said, I have always used super basic window managers on my Linux builds, and only added in what I needed. Even on my Pixel, I have quite a few things disabled, and even turn off features such as Assistant and most location services. Android attracted me more for the freedom to do such things, as opposed to it's customizable aspects.

 

[Spotsby]

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.

I think he made it pretty clear that getting updates weren’t his main reason for thinking this way.

All the extras Samsung adds creates too much stutter. I don’t know if they just push the hardware to the limits or if they’re not optimizing their stuff. Either way, if it wasn’t for this I’d probably be a pretty loyal Samsung fan cause I love their hardware.

 

[kasakka]

I think he made it pretty clear that getting updates weren’t his main reason for thinking this way.

All the extras Samsung adds creates too much stutter. I don’t know if they just push the hardware to the limits or if they’re not optimizing their stuff. Either way, if it wasn’t for this I’d probably be a pretty loyal Samsung fan cause I love their hardware.

I would say lack of optimization. Their Tizen platform on their smart TVs is also a huge mess with constantly crashing apps and other anomalies.

 

[convergent]

I think he made it pretty clear that getting updates weren’t his main reason for thinking this way.

All the extras Samsung adds creates too much stutter. I don’t know if they just push the hardware to the limits or if they’re not optimizing their stuff. Either way, if it wasn’t for this I’d probably be a pretty loyal Samsung fan cause I love their hardware.

I have experienced no stuttering.

 

[Tsepz]

SPOILER ALERT, the Note8 does to the iPhone X what it did to the iPhone 8 Plus

 

[Michael Scrip]

SPOILER ALERT, the Note8 does to the iPhone X what it did to the iPhone 8 Plus

My favorite line:

"If you want the fastest device you can possible get... and you don't really care which operating system you're on..."

Do people choose their phones like that?

App loading speed first... then operating system?

Damn... I had this ecosystem thing ALL wrong...

 

[AustinIllini]

My favorite line:

"If you want the fastest device you can possible get... and you don't really care which operating system you're on..."

Do people choose their phones like that?

App loading speed first... then operating system?

Damn... I had this ecosystem thing ALL wrong...

Full disclosure: I haven't watched the specific speed video mentioned but how are they ready world tests of anything?

And ecosystem lock-in makes it impossible to just buy the fastest device