Why don't manufacturers use some sense and...

[cazman]

I recently got my new LG Optimus 2X through the post, and I have to say it is a hardware beast, very nice camera if photo size matters to you thanks to the 8MP camera, but for overall camera quality it's what you'd expect from a phone. Tegra 2 processor, really good screen, front facing camera and whatnot. The phone looks and sounds amazing until you actually turn it on. Then you actually get to use the software LG have put on the thing, and my god does your opinion change quickly, laggy lock screen that takes three tries on average to use, very laggy screen transitions, force closes and unexpected reboots, and for a 1500maH battery the baseband makes sure the radio's drain that thing within half a day. Also there was an obscene amount of bloat ware on the thing. I was so upset that I'd spent so much money on this thing to have a poor user experience. But that was until Paul from Modaco released his ROM for the device, since it couldn't get any worse than it is i decided to take the plunge and try it out. It was like receiving a completely different phone!

After the ROM was installed the battery life went up to two days on one charge with medium use, no more bloat ware, screen transitions were better than an iPhone 4, no unexpected reboots yet, and because I'm using a stock lock screen no more troubles!

So my question is this: Why do manufacturers insist on spending money on developing a ROM based on what they think the public like rather than giving money to use a standalone ROM like Cyanogenmod which has been proven to be a HUGE success with android users? I really don't see the logic in what LG did with their UI and bloatware rubbish on the Optimus 2X, and I dont see the point in other manufacturers like Samsung putting touchwiz on their phones when a lot of people dislike it. What do you guys think about this?

 

[sonofaresiii]

I often wonder the same thing-- seems to me if some manufacturer embraced the real power of open source, they'd clean up, since there's such a demand for it. I mean, Nintendo makes good Mario games, but they don't try and keep Square off their platform.

But then, I've had little to no success in manufacturing/selling phones, and LG/Motorola/Samsung/whomever has... so maybe they know something I don't.

 

[cazman]

What would be the absolute worst thing for me would be manufacturers buying up these small teams of developers and just cannibalizing everything good about them, there's no way to win :'(

 

[zuben el genub]

Maybe they are getting kickbacks from the crap or just afraid of customers' reactions if Facetwit isn't on the phone.

What gets me is you also can't delete the crap w/o rooting!

 

[RiverOfIce]

The main problem is three fold.
1.) The old paradigm of create a complete user experience because there is no market or app store, still exists. Cellphone company final design choices are enforced by dinosaurs that really should lay down and die.

2.) There are always two sides to the addons with phones, the manufacture, and the cellphone provider, each suck in this is ancient user model.

3.) And here is the biggie, only 29% of all cellphone users have EVER downloaded an app. Out of all the phones that have apps pre installed, only about 68% of them actually use those apps. All totaled, only 24% of all cellphone users are consistent app users.

So the take away. Cellphone companies are led by just really ignorant people, that are locked in the mindset of 30 years ago. But besides that, only 43% of all cellphone can use apps, out of those only 68% of the people that have phones that can you apps do. Which means that the dinosaurs are still feeding to a group of consumers that like complete system on their phone.

In the end, the person that want to have apps and a phone as a "blank slate," is in the vocal minority.

 

[AngryHatter]

How to please a million people?
You can't, so you aim squarely for the middle.
Much of the "bloat" is paid rent. They pay to have their stuff packaged with our phones...why would they the manufacturers give that revenue stream up?

Pretty naive of anyone to think manufacturers sit around trying to screw things up as much as possible.

 

[RiverOfIce]

Pretty naive of anyone to think manufacturers sit around trying to screw things up as much as possible.

Then how do you explain AMD? Because every time the turn around they are shooting themselves, someone they care for, or a business partner in the face. I sometimes think that amd sits around trying to figure out how to ruin their business model. I mean they fired their, ceo, coo, hos, and a few other parts of the alphabet in the last few months.

 

[sonofaresiii]

The main problem is three fold.
3.) And here is the biggie, only 29% of all cellphone users have EVER downloaded an app. Out of all the phones that have apps pre installed, only about 68% of them actually use those apps. All totaled, only 24% of all cellphone users are consistent app users.

See, I get this. It's part of the reason why Linux didn't take off like Windows did: many people don't want to dick around and LEARN how shit works, they just want it to work. And I'm not knocking that. If I go fishing, I don't want to learn how to spool my own line and attach it to my rod... I just want to fish.

But why make it so damn hard for the people that DO want to do their own thing?

 

[AngryHatter]

Because the number of people that want to mess around with the phone is very small.
Why pay any attention to them at all?

How many people are members here as a percentage of all the droid owners?

1/10 of 1/2 of 1%?

 

[cazman]

How to please a million people?
You can't, so you aim squarely for the middle.
Much of the "bloat" is paid rent. They pay to have their stuff packaged with our phones...why would they the manufacturers give that revenue stream up?

Pretty naive of anyone to think manufacturers sit around trying to screw things up as much as possible.

But it doesn't make sense for LG to put "MySpace for LG" and twitter and facebook for lg on a phone, that's not revenue stream to them most likely, and all those apps are available from the app store. What got me most is the f-secure app they preloaded there, sure that might be a source of revenue for them, but after the one year free subscription finished what did you end up with? A dead app that can't be deleted off the phone, it really got me annoyed

 

[takeshi]

So my question is this: Why do manufacturers insist on spending money on developing a ROM based on what they think the public like rather than giving money to use a standalone ROM like Cyanogenmod which has been proven to be a HUGE success with android users?

Why do forum users assume they're the majority? What's popular on forums isn't necessarily so in the larger consumer market. It's a common mistaken assumption to think that forum posts also represent the rest of users out there.

Then how do you explain AMD?

Is your explaination that their business plan is to fail spectacularly? You don't think it's possible for corporations to make mistakes or even bad decisions with good intent? The world isn't so black-and-white as you're trying to make it.

 

[LaFlavor]

Another aspect to consider is differentiation. Phone manufacturers (and most businesses who actually make stuff) don't want to make a commodity product. Right now, hardware across all phone manufacturers, while not standardized, is similar enough that if they all simply used stock android, the vast majority of people wouldn't really be able to tell much difference. This means that, if they didn't put all their bloatware and custom UI's on their phones, they'd basically be selling based on price...or they'd have to invest in new hardware technology. It's a lot less expensive, and a lot less risky, to invest in software development than hardware, so there you go. So, now they spend less money to create something that the their marketing department can brag about, and the average consumer doesn't know that he's getting hosed in the process.

 

[RiverOfIce]

Is your explanation that their business plan is to fail spectacularly? You don't think it's possible for corporations to make mistakes or even bad decisions with good intent? The world isn't so black-and-white as you're trying to make it.

Not to derail this thread completely, but it has seem to run it course.

Here is the thing about amd, and a lot of other companies including cellphone companies.

1.) IT WAS A JOKE, nothing more.

2.) Just when they get someone to turn the company around, they end up firing them because of "arm chair quarterbacking."

Cellphone companies, amd, and a few hundred other companies only seem to make decision about profit and only for profit. When you only care about money and how much you make, you gut the rest of you business.

Why do cellphone companies lock down their phones, because it make it so the can sell the bloatware, prevent miss use, and have a complete ecosystem on a phone that consumers will buy. It is not about good or bad intent it is about what they think can make them the most profit, regardless if it is good for them.

That is the foundation of the free market system, exploitation of everything to maximize the profit regardless of self harm.

Bottom line, cellphone companies are exploiting the system to make sure that they get back the biggest money return, regardless if people like it, or it is actually harming themselves. They are going to do it. When you have a ceo like the on at amd, that actually focused in production over profit, they get fired for someone that will bring in profit over anything.

In saying all that, it was a joke.

 

[gregs887]

Another aspect to consider is differentiation. Phone manufacturers (and most businesses who actually make stuff) don't want to make a commodity product. Right now, hardware across all phone manufacturers, while not standardized, is similar enough that if they all simply used stock android, the vast majority of people wouldn't really be able to tell much difference. This means that, if they didn't put all their bloatware and custom UI's on their phones, they'd basically be selling based on price...or they'd have to invest in new hardware technology. It's a lot less expensive, and a lot less risky, to invest in software development than hardware, so there you go. So, now they spend less money to create something that the their marketing department can brag about, and the average consumer doesn't know that he's getting hosed in the process.

I disagree to a point. If all phones were ruining stock vanilla android, you would probably see phone shopping turn into a similar experience to computer shopping with people making purchasing decisions based on RAM, processor speed, screen resolution, and battery etc. I would think that the hardware manufacturers would want to keep up with the latest and greatest to satisfy the power user crowd.

All of that being said, the vast majority of people don't want a tech product that they have to constantly mess with like a pocket computer.

 

[cazman]

All of that being said, the vast majority of people don't want a tech product that they have to constantly mess with like a pocket computer.

But ROM's like the one I'm using from Paul at ModaCo and most likely cyanogenmod have less issues than the official software? If companies think all about profit then why not save a ton of money by using a ROM like cyanogenmod and then playing that off as a huge marketing thing like "Super fast and secure software"? It'd be good for at least one manufacturer to think of this..

 

[dan330]

you (cell phone users).. are pulled in one way... what you want.

manufactures are pulled in all directions:
users
carriers
stock holders
cost
profit
new tech vs old tech
R&D

you cant please everyone.. all of the time.
so they have to find what "they think" is a good compromise to reach as many as possible.

for those that dont like that....
i am glad we have android community and developers to meet our needs.

 

[alextop30]

It always seems to me that we are not going to open source but to apple. Every company wants to protect their stupid patents while making tons of money. It is funny that if Nikola Tesla had not given his patents in the name of science they would not have all the these millions. When you open something you get great developments that are free and above all they actually work.

LG is known for horrible ui I agree with you that if companies figured on fixing android or rylee coherent ROMs created there would bre a lot more satisfied people. companies do everything for money so our greed as humans will destroy is instead of getting us to new fights like it is supoce to.

 

[lordofthereef]

Here's the thing, if consumers really thought vanilla android was the bee's knees then vanilla android devices would be the ones selling the best. Clearly people like different interfaces. For example, I love Sense and everything it offers. There are people that don't. That is why we have choice. What I would LOVE is the choice to freely go between vanilla android and whatever the manufacturer and service provider give me. As has also been said, the crapware is likely kickbakcs or advertisement. Take Sprint, for example (I pick on them because I have personal experience, sorry Sprint). They preload all of their NASCAR and NFL BS that I have no interest in whatsoever. But I am sure it gets subscriptions, so it is worth it for them. Same thing with the blockbuster app. I am sure they threw a chunk of money at Sprint as a last ditch effort to get people to use their services.

 

[BusaRider]

You also have to realize that the phones are locked down to prevent people from easily/accidentally bricking their phones. If every user was capable of deleting anything they wanted off the phone do you know how many people would delete vital parts of the OS without knowing what they were doing? They would be swamped with people looking for them to fix their bricked phones.

When you don't allow people to do things that can cause major problems it decreases the number of trouble tickets. The number of people that know these phones well enough and are careful enough to have root access and not brick them is minuscule compared to the number of everyday users. and even some of the advanced users will accidentally brick them from time to time.

 

[dan330]

^^^ very true...

how many would delete the stock sms app.. after they downloaded a replacement like handcent? and they would be sorry!!!!!!!

 

[sonofaresiii]

You also have to realize that the phones are locked down to prevent people from easily/accidentally bricking their phones. If every user was capable of deleting anything they wanted off the phone do you know how many people would delete vital parts of the OS without knowing what they were doing? They would be swamped with people looking for them to fix their bricked phones.

When you don't allow people to do things that can cause major problems it decreases the number of trouble tickets. The number of people that know these phones well enough and are careful enough to have root access and not brick them is minuscule compared to the number of everyday users. and even some of the advanced users will accidentally brick them from time to time.

But they refuse to service my phone if it's rooted. I can drop it, spray it down in water, I can smash the damn thing with a hammer if I feel like and get it replaced... but if I root it I can't? that's just punishment.

 

[dan330]

insurance and warranty is for things that are out of your control.

if they can tell you did the damage on purpose.. then no.. you can not get it replaced.



rooting is done on purpose.

ps.. you can load the ruu and unroot it for warranty/insurance claims.

 

[sonofaresiii]

insurance and warranty is for things that are out of your control.

Not according to the chick at the verizon store. Allegedly, *any* kind of physical damage is covered, no questions asked.





But then, the verizon store employees have a tendency to make stuff up if they don't really have an answer.

 

[BusaRider]

But they refuse to service my phone if it's rooted. I can drop it, spray it down in water, I can smash the damn thing with a hammer if I feel like and get it replaced... but if I root it I can't? that's just punishment.

That's because dropping it, getting it wet, etc is assumed to be accidental. No one ever accidentally rooted their phone. I think it they were sure you smashed it with a hammer they would probably refuse to service it.

 

[MrDrumngun]

Because the number of people that want to mess around with the phone is very small.
Why pay any attention to them at all?

How many people are members here as a percentage of all the droid owners?

1/10 of 1/2 of 1%?

Why didn't you just say 1/2000 or .0005% ?