It has been 2 months since I left google behind on my android, but there are a few things that bother me a lot. Why doesn’t android support davcal by default for contacts and calendar sync (it forces users to use google calenar sync instead, unless you use a 3rd party app like I did) and why google continues to push its bloatware inside android deviecs and their restrictions? From push notifications to other core things, if you don’t use google, your android doesn’t function properly and has a lot of restrictions.
My question here is, why isn’t Android OSP service agnostic and protected to the point where companies like google and ms can contribute to his code, but cannot restrict what it does, in other words, preventing rebranding and turning it closed source like chromium to chrome.
I know android is linux based, and the beauty of linux is doing whatever you want with it, but since android 2.3 that google has been asphyxiating the android platform. 3rd party app stores go through hell to get inside android devices, the app instalation is manual because the app store has no root (so it’s more clumsy than google play store or brand store like samsung or alcatel app store). If that wasn’t bad enough, getting another rom on android is sometimes a pita and has always the risk of turning your phone into a paperweight.
Just like windows xp, vista and 7 were forced to display a panel to show users that are more browsers than Internet explorer, the same should be done withe the app store and apps on android. This is becoming a nuisance and a not at all needed monopoly.
Some phone builders do some changes (mostly regarding the UI and UX, themes and icons), others go far beyond that and deploy their own store and bloatware. I’m from Portugal, my mobile carrier is Vodafone and my second most beloved phone was an old huawei ascend g300 with 2.3. **** was it fast back then, upgraded to 4.0 ICS, and it was like going from xp to vista. Mostly vodafone’s fault, since the update brought 5 carrier apps of no use (taking space from the phone, and hogging ram).
I know this sounds like a rant, but I do miss the old Symbian nokia times, or motorola times, or any other brand where all games and aps were java based and you would get virus just for trying to download an mp3 song or a 3gp porn movie, ah memories.