All of us fans know that Android delivers. Sure it's not some super polished, appliance, plasticky -dare i say cartoonish feel, that our fruity competition does so nicely. Android grabs the user in a different way. A good analogy would be automobiles -isn't it always? anyway, lets remember were talking about a couple of the best mobile operating systems on the planet. Apple's iOS4 could be akin to say...a Cadillac, It is defiantly a good car, plush and comfortable, really a nice ride. The engine is smooth but most of the R&D seems spent on the finishing touches. Android is more like a Ferrari F50. Sleek and Stylish. a little rougher on the road but operating one makes you grin like a teenage boy at a wet tee-shirt contest. Get it out on the open road and give it some gas and all of a sudden it screams like a banshee and takes off so fast it rips your lips off of your face. Ok maybe automobiles don't always make the best analogy. Sure you got entry level phones, tablets etc. but the bottom line is this. Android works great and provides an awesome user experience. What is lost in shiny polish is made up for in responsiveness, multi-tasking and overall usability.
Here's the best part. with Android it doesn't have to be that way.
This is a screenshot taken from my Samsung Vibrant. Now if any of you are into theming, you most likely recognize some of the features here. I have an accurate round battery icon that displays the percent left as digits in the middle of circle. The notification bar is shiny with a couple of nice grooves. A large red Bluetooth icon that turns blue when a Bluetooth device is connected, new polished looking drawables in the TouchWiz quick menu. A blue Android in a new black metal pulldown and colored settings icons to name just a few mods. I have incorporated many different mods that all flow and match together into a complete theme. And the best part is this is NOT a "skin". A skin would suggest a layer on top of the OS needing ridiculous amounts of precious RAM to operate. Nope these mods are the actual drawables now embedded into the framework thanks to Stephan Stericson and a bunch of other brilliant folks at XDA developers.
The point is that even though android is pretty decent looking from the gate, i have to say there is something to be said for a little polish, and actually choosing that polish myself and in a few cases designing it myself. It's a much more rewarding experience. Not only does my device smoke the competition in performance it does so also in style..
If you like what you see head on over to the XDA forum and just look around. find your device, check out some of the really cool things you can do with Android.
I want to thank Stericson for making Metamorph, NinjaMorph, busybox installer and others. Junkdruggler for the tips, Mr_Tricorder for ClearBar, hockey for ibox and Androdena?, jr33(for the Swype mods not shown) and Fightspit for the battery indicator. And anyone else I may have missed.
