Database Users

[Q] Why do we need devs? [Discussion]

Hi, don't know if this should be here or in a development thread.
My question is, and I know they are very important to this community etc
Why do we need devs?
What I mean is why do the original developers of the software, such as Google, leave it at such a bad state.
When XDA dev's get hold of it, their's no limit to what it can do.
E.g. Network mods, speaker mods, speed mods, theme's, custom drivers battery mods, heat mods, the list could go on.
Why don't the develops make it as good as it could be before they release it to us?
Some simple tweaks such as the networking ones to improve browsing/download speeds, why don't they just do it in the first place? Rather than limiting their users and therefor creating the need for so many underground developers.
Don't take this in the wrong way devs, I appreciate your work, just want to hear your opinions on why you think original devs leave it at such a state, where it could be deemed unfinished or totally lacking.

The oem thinks what is best for the device while other developer may have other opinions.
Eg, Google may think a kernel running at 1.3ghz is better than 1.6 ghz which Dev may think like wise. Also, the Google wanted promote cloud tech, and hence does not allow otg but Dev can unlock this feature.
Dev are there to do things not permit by company
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

sinple said:
The oem thinks what is best for the device while other developer may have other opinions.
Eg, Google may think a kernel running at 1.3ghz is better than 1.6 ghz which Dev may think like wise. Also, the Google wanted promote cloud tech, and hence does not allow otg but Dev can unlock this feature.
Dev are there to do things not permit by company
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
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Hey
Thanks for the reply, and I want this to be more of a discussion than answers
I don't understand why companies do it though.
And OTG is allowed for non-rooted devices. Just some of its features arent, if you get that. Like a mouse and keyboard works un-rooted, by a HDD doesnt.
I'm just curious as to why some of the devs here, such as Faux and Xmoo, havent got jobs at Google so they can teach them a thing or to. They know what the consumer actually wants, and pay attention to the needs of the tech enthusiast.

There is an diference between normal state and improved state. Its better. 1.3ghz processor runing normal and cooler than a 1.6ghz that could get warm and gives some trouble.
Im just glad that its not a locked device giving ours beloved devs the chance to improve it.
Sent from my LG-P500 using xda premium

maztahbr said:
There is an diference between normal state and improved state. Its better. 1.3ghz processor runing normal and cooler than a 1.6ghz that could get warm and gives some trouble.
Im just glad that its not a locked device giving ours beloved devs the chance to improve it.
Sent from my LG-P500 using xda premium
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I see your point
Basically "Better Safe than Sorry" right?

Exactly!
Sent from my LG-P500 using xda premium

How do you not see a need for developers?
Sent From My Toro+ via White Tapatalk

It's because people have preferences. And some people just like to tinker with their stuff.

The basic argumentative of yours seemed to be "if it's good enough, then we only need one". But, see , there is nothing in the world that's "best" enough to outsweep everything else. It's always nice to have options
I wouldn't say the stock rom and kernel is bad or "not enough" so the devs have to step out. I think google guys do a great job on stock rom. It's just nice for us users to have some other choices to play with.
In some sense it's kind of like buying flours. We wouldn't say,"well, if this brand of flours is good enough, we only need one brand in the world. Why so many brands out there?" Because different brands might grow in different places, use different breeds of wheats, have different moistures, use different ways to grind them, therefore different flavors. You simpy can't say anything would be that good that one is enough.
There is no limitation in improvement and imagination, and I think that's what devs here are doing.

The devs do amazing work, if only XDA was a tech company.

I know I won't be popular for saying this but I have tried a lot of different roms on a lot of different devices and in my experience it is best to stick with the stock rom, since custom roms inevitably have flaws which only present themselves at the most inopportune moments.
There's a reason why stock roms ship in the condition they're in; it's because all the variables are tried and tested and because a shed load of time has gone in to developing the software to work perfectly with the hardware. Dev's seem to have a knack of improving the software in some conditions at the expense of breaking it in others.
As an example, I once loaded a very popular custom rom onto a handset because everyone was raving about how good it was. Several days later I was at a wedding and took my handset out to snap some photos, only to realise that the camera didn't work in a certain configuration with this rom. The bug wasn't documented and the result was that I couldn't take any photos.
All too often this sort of thing happens; you'll read threads about the latest and greatest rom and how fast it is etc etc, only to then come across a comment about someone whose wifi keeps disconnecting, or someone whose battery life has halved and so on.
It's a bit like switching to Ubuntu from Windows, Ubuntu is fine if you like tinkering but if you want to get **** done, stick with Windows.
Happy to eat my words if someone recommends a fully working rom which is a genuine improvement over the stock rom.

Development can go on forever. My HTC inspire is two years old, and development is still going forward thanks to great devs (randomblame). Big companies just build for the masses. Devs tweak for us geeks that are always looking for more.
Sent from my Inspire 4G using xda app-developers app

Switchbitch said:
I know I won't be popular for saying this but I have tried a lot of different roms on a lot of different devices and in my experience it is best to stick with the stock rom, since custom roms inevitably have flaws which only present themselves at the most inopportune moments.
There's a reason why stock roms ship in the condition they're in; it's because all the variables are tried and tested and because a shed load of time has gone in to developing the software to work perfectly with the hardware. Dev's seem to have a knack of improving the software in some conditions at the expense of breaking it in others.
As an example, I once loaded a very popular custom rom onto a handset because everyone was raving about how good it was. Several days later I was at a wedding and took my handset out to snap some photos, only to realise that the camera didn't work in a certain configuration with this rom. The bug wasn't documented and the result was that I couldn't take any photos.
All too often this sort of thing happens; you'll read threads about the latest and greatest rom and how fast it is etc etc, only to then come across a comment about someone whose wifi keeps disconnecting, or someone whose battery life has halved and so on.
It's a bit like switching to Ubuntu from Windows, Ubuntu is fine if you like tinkering but if you want to get **** done, stick with Windows.
Happy to eat my words if someone recommends a fully working rom which is a genuine improvement over the stock rom.
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CM7 for the G2 is LOADS better than the stock HTC rom.
Android is a platform of options, our developers help give you more options. They allow you complete control over the hardware YOU purchased, keep you updated on the most recent version of Android, and let you tweak to your heart's desire. Microsoft and Apple lock you in, it's their way or the highway. But Android and it's developers give you the ability to say "I don't like this, and I'm going to change it".

Switchbitch said:
I know I won't be popular for saying this but I have tried a lot of different roms on a lot of different devices and in my experience it is best to stick with the stock rom, since custom roms inevitably have flaws which only present themselves at the most inopportune moments.
There's a reason why stock roms ship in the condition they're in; it's because all the variables are tried and tested and because a shed load of time has gone in to developing the software to work perfectly with the hardware. Dev's seem to have a knack of improving the software in some conditions at the expense of breaking it in others.
As an example, I once loaded a very popular custom rom onto a handset because everyone was raving about how good it was. Several days later I was at a wedding and took my handset out to snap some photos, only to realise that the camera didn't work in a certain configuration with this rom. The bug wasn't documented and the result was that I couldn't take any photos.
All too often this sort of thing happens; you'll read threads about the latest and greatest rom and how fast it is etc etc, only to then come across a comment about someone whose wifi keeps disconnecting, or someone whose battery life has halved and so on.
It's a bit like switching to Ubuntu from Windows, Ubuntu is fine if you like tinkering but if you want to get **** done, stick with Windows.
Happy to eat my words if someone recommends a fully working rom which is a genuine improvement over the stock rom.
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On non nexus devices I would agree. All of the aosp ROMs on my fascinate and d2g had serious issues that really couldn't be overlooked and made the phone unusable on a daily basis.
On the other hand, ROMs on my Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 7 are a huge improvement over stock. CM is always a solid choice.
I haz no sig

I can't believe no one has explicitly mentioned this...Google and other OEMs have a responsibility towards their shareholders and the market, whereas "devs" (like on xda) have no such responsibility; this makes a huge difference in process and result. As an example, theres a hack for the n7 to get the sony bravia engine, which is kinda nice, but there is no way that sony is going to let google do that legally is there? OEMs have to do things proper and legal.
The biggest difference though, is one already alluded to in this thread previous (imo), testing. Now CM actually does go through a LOT of testing and so on, but there is a sense in which Google's (or other OEMs) hands are tied due to deadlines, whilst CM has no such thing. While it is perfectly understandable for CM to go "here is CM10, btw its beta, but have at it" to the whole world after months of testing, I'm sure if Google did that people would be pissed, because Google releases to general market, they have strict deadlines based on internal product cycles and market variables and shareholder crap , but most of all people EXPECT market products to be rock solid, whereas its okay for something like CM to be broken sometimes. The reason n7 runs at 1.3 in stock and not 1.6 like some other ROM is likely because the company that made the processor probably told google something like "based on our testing 1.3 is the safest speed", people OC all the time, even desktops etc, but there is a "this is what it was MEANT to do according to the dudes who made it" thing.
But, at the end of the day there is no such thing as 'best' which is likely the reason we have SO MANY ROMs and not just the one, doing different things.

The devs are here because people like their devices to do different things and think they can make them better, myself I love to tweak things and so do the devs. Myself I just like to run CM10 on my N7, at least until its stable then I may try out the other ROMs. Also without the devs I wouldn't be able to run my CPU at 500 MHz over what its sold at and same thing with the GPU.

Determining when the development is "done" is subjective. And companies can only support their product in a limited time. Therefore, we need developers to continue where they left.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda premium

Is rapid Upgrades killing Android Development?

Coming from the Epic, and then from the S3, I have noticed the fragmentation of Android with just the dilution of good development.
With that said, I acknowledge I am a user, not a Developer. I've tried to get interested in development, it is just not where my passion lies.
This is one of those useless posts you see on XDA, however, I feel like there is not much going on in this forum so maybe this is the best discussion we could have.
Take Apple, they have one product to focus on, no one to share the spotlight with. Android on the other hand has several, I have no idea how many, to share the spot light with. S3, S4, S5, Oppo, One, name your poison.
I say all this because I remember back to the Epic... It was Epic. The phone was amazing when it came out, the development was even better.
Now that I'm on the S4, while I don't want to take away anything from what the developers on this phone have done, it is not their fault, but developers will flock to where the demand is. And it just doesn't seem to be here.
Maybe this is Sprints fault? I stay with Sprint because they're the cheapest option I have. Certainly not the best, but definitely the cheapest.
Just trying to promote a discussion, not a flame war. Start now.

socos25 said:
Coming from the Epic, and then from the S3, I have noticed the fragmentation of Android with just the dilution of good development.
With that said, I acknowledge I am a user, not a Developer. I've tried to get interested in development, it is just not where my passion lies.
This is one of those useless posts you see on XDA, however, I feel like there is not much going on in this forum so maybe this is the best discussion we could have.
Take Apple, they have one product to focus on, no one to share the spotlight with. Android on the other hand has several, I have no idea how many, to share the spot light with. S3, S4, S5, Oppo, One, name your poison.
I say all this because I remember back to the Epic... It was Epic. The phone was amazing when it came out, the development was even better.
Now that I'm on the S4, while I don't want to take away anything from what the developers on this phone have done, it is not their fault, but developers will flock to where the demand is. And it just doesn't seem to be here.
Maybe this is Sprints fault? I stay with Sprint because they're the cheapest option I have. Certainly not the best, but definitely the cheapest.
Just trying to promote a discussion, not a flame war. Start now.
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With unified builds, awesome devs are still contributing to our device! Its cool that a talented dev who builds aosp but is with verizon can build for us too. There is no shortage of great development going on, but I'll admit the sprint s4 forums are not as active as I remember the e4gt forums being.
To address your other point, sure - the sheer amount of android devices available will mean the pool of talented devs are spread more thinly across the spectrum of devices, but this community rocks and with a little google-fu (xda helps those who help themselves) I don't think development has really stalled. The forums are just a little less active. What IS a shame is that users here will drive talented devs away from releasing their work publicly on the forums by driving them insane with questions that have been answered 100s of times, petty politics, and flame wars, etc.
But at the end of the day, I would rather have an open OS with a vibrant (or dull) community than a locked down device I can never truly have full control over. But frequent upgrades have always been pushed by manufacturers, at the end of the day profits are the bottom line for them. Thats what is so great about this community, is that the devs here do work that would have gotten them a decent commission or wage elsewhere, FOR FREE. God bless :good::highfive:

All good points, and I would have to say I agree with you, especially with the shame that developers sometimes are driven away by lazy users.
mxmr said:
With unified builds, awesome devs are still contributing to our device! Its cool that a talented dev who builds aosp but is with verizon can build for us too. There is no shortage of great development going on, but I'll admit the sprint s4 forums are not as active as I remember the e4gt forums being.
To address your other point, sure - the sheer amount of android devices available will mean the pool of talented devs are spread more thinly across the spectrum of devices, but this community rocks and with a little google-fu (xda helps those who help themselves) I don't think development has really stalled. The forums are just a little less active. What IS a shame is that users here will drive talented devs away from releasing their work publicly on the forums by driving them insane with questions that have been answered 100s of times, petty politics, and flame wars, etc.
But at the end of the day, I would rather have an open OS with a vibrant (or dull) community than a locked down device I can never truly have full control over. But frequent upgrades have always been pushed by manufacturers, at the end of the day profits are the bottom line for them. Thats what is so great about this community, is that the devs here do work that would have gotten them a decent commission or wage elsewhere, FOR FREE. God bless :good::highfive:
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I'm not a developer either (well of any roms/android mods at least). But as a long time computer power user and burgeoning programmer (3rd year comp sci major) the development on the S4 is very lack luster. We could get into comparing S4 vs development on older platforms, but I'd rather just discuss the generally bad development in the sprint S4 non-original android dev. forum. Most roms are not suited for daily drivers. I have personally tried 2-3 different versions of Sac's Rom and negalite's rom( as well as 1 try on various other roms) and none was with out major flaws.
The problem as I see it is this: The demand is for the newest rom with the most up to date android features. So as rom developers are getting closer to making a stable working version of their roms, Sprint releases an update at which point most developers switch and start working on new release with out ever making a fully functioning rom. To make matters worse most Rom's are presented as a finished product. Some have a known issues section in the first post ,but I challenge any one who disagrees with me to find a known issues section on a rom that actually contains all the know issues. It doesn't exsist. Instead each user is left to download an unfinished product and only after discovering an issue and digging though 10 pages of forums you find others have the same issue and that there may or may not be a soultion. How f'ing hard is it when a god damn issues is reported to update the orginal post?????? I understand these developers are doing this out of the good of their hearts, but anything worth doing is worth doing correctly. If it is to much work to keep an up to date list of ALL known issues, have one of the roms users do so. Not much work for one fan of a rom to keep list of issues if dev cant be bothered.
You help no one when custom roms break things working in the stock version and present it as a working rom. Custom roms used to add fucntion to a device now, it adds somethings and breaks others. Till this trend changes, the best rom is stock rooted + w/e mod a user desires. When a bunch of things dont work label your Rom alpha when most things work call it beta and only when everything works call it stable. This kind of common sense would improve everyone's experience greatly.

mysongranhills said:
I'm not a developer either (well of any roms/android mods at least). But as a long time computer power user and burgeoning programmer (3rd year comp sci major) the development on the S4 is very lack luster. We could get into comparing S4 vs development on older platforms, but I'd rather just discuss the generally bad development in the sprint S4 non-original android dev. forum. Most roms are not suited for daily drivers. I have personally tried 2-3 different versions of Sac's Rom and negalite's rom( as well as 1 try on various other roms) and none was with out major flaws.
The problem as I see it is this: The demand is for the newest rom with the most up to date android features. So as rom developers are getting closer to making a stable working version of their roms, Sprint releases an update at which point most developers switch and start working on new release with out ever making a fully functioning rom. To make matters worse most Rom's are presented as a finished product. Some have a known issues section in the first post ,but I challenge any one who disagrees with me to find a known issues section on a rom that actually contains all the know issues. It doesn't exsist. Instead each user is left to download an unfinished product and only after discovering an issue and digging though 10 pages of forums you find others have the same issue and that there may or may not be a soultion. How f'ing hard is it when a god damn issues is reported to update the orginal post?????? I understand these developers are doing this out of the good of their hearts, but anything worth doing is worth doing correctly. If it is to much work to keep an up to date list of ALL known issues, have one of the roms users do so. Not much work for one fan of a rom to keep list of issues if dev cant be bothered.
You help no one when custom roms break things working in the stock version and present it as a working rom. Custom roms used to add fucntion to a device now, it adds somethings and breaks others. Till this trend changes, the best rom is stock rooted + w/e mod a user desires. When a bunch of things dont work label your Rom alpha when most things work call it beta and only when everything works call it stable. This kind of common sense would improve everyone's experience greatly.
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To a degree, I definitely am with you on this. I have been with this forum since the days of my old HTC thunderbolt. There are AT LEAST 5 popular daily drivers that worked worlds better than the stock rom for that phone. My particular phone glitches out on the dialer/phone app for all Original Android ROM's meaning I am automatically limited to a TW rom. I've tried everything to fix this but nothing seems to. However, there is one that works flawlessly, Triforce 5.4. It's perfect, so far as I can tell, but is starting to show its age. It may be the only perfect ROM for our phones but is almost completely without bells and whistles, unlike the Thunderbolt, which you could save multiple working images to SD and restore if you felt like using sense one day, CM the next, and I do recall a few completely custom ones loosely based on CM that worked awesome. Anyway that's my say on it. I am sad NAE firmware capabilities don't have a nice Triforce release to go with it, but the PRL and firmware seem to work great with the ROM, so I guess I'll stick to it, even if it is boring. It definitely does everything I need for it to do. Still, finding the issues with each one and helping the developers is part of the process. It's fun and part of the reason why I do what I do. Take my ASUS Transformer. That thing is old as the hills, but has multi window, android 4.4.3, windowed apps, and all manner of other things and it runs super smooth. timduru is the dang wizard of that device and refuses to let it die peacefully.

arikdahn said:
To a degree, I definitely am with you on this. I have been with this forum since the days of my old HTC thunderbolt. There are AT LEAST 5 popular daily drivers that worked worlds better than the stock rom for that phone. My particular phone glitches out on the dialer/phone app for all Original Android ROM's meaning I am automatically limited to a TW rom. I've tried everything to fix this but nothing seems to. However, there is one that works flawlessly, Triforce 5.4. It's perfect, so far as I can tell, but is starting to show its age. It may be the only perfect ROM for our phones but is almost completely without bells and whistles, unlike the Thunderbolt, which you could save multiple working images to SD and restore if you felt like using sense one day, CM the next, and I do recall a few completely custom ones loosely based on CM that worked awesome. Anyway that's my say on it. I am sad NAE firmware capabilities don't have a nice Triforce release to go with it, but the PRL and firmware seem to work great with the ROM, so I guess I'll stick to it, even if it is boring. It definitely does everything I need for it to do. Still, finding the issues with each one and helping the developers is part of the process. It's fun and part of the reason why I do what I do. Take my ASUS Transformer. That thing is old as the hills, but has multi window, android 4.4.3, windowed apps, and all manner of other things and it runs super smooth. timduru is the dang wizard of that device and refuses to let it die peacefully.
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I just recently got off heavily modded stock and flashed Super S4 and so far it is awesome. Ktoonz's Kernel is baked in and after using recommended recovery to flash I've had no problems. It isn't heavily modded (mostly other mods baked in and some init.d tweaks) but is fast and stable and is one of the very few TW roms I'd recommend.
When I was on HTC Inspire 4G, There were easily 10 Roms (ASOP and Sense) suitable for a daily driver. For the S4 I'd be hard pressed to find 3 stable usable TW roms at a time.
I think android as a platform is changing a lot philosophically, as well. Older custom roms used to be a must have and were the main reason most users wanted root. Now everything is much more framework centric. Now root is used to add functionality through Xposed framework modules,or audio mods like Viper. Previously each and every mod had to be rom specific.

funny thing that older moto g's got cyan 14.1 but moto g4 plus didnt

Ok so cyanogenmod.org got all moto devices listed and they said moto g series getting cyanogen 14.1 but moto g4 plus not anywhere in cyanogenmod.org list:crying:
I hate unofficial buggy ROMs

mayank.bhola1 said:
Ok so cyanogenmod.org got all moto devices listed and they said moto g series getting cyanogen 14.1 but moto g4 plus not anywhere in cyanogenmod.org list:crying:
I hate unofficial buggy ROMs
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Official roms are buggy too if you ever tried nightlies or snapshots. And we will see, maybe official will come until cm statet it comes not

They didn't say all G family, they post this list:
falcon, peregrine, titan, thea, osprey
They are 1st 2nd and 3rd Gen.

FlaminisRex said:
They didn't say all G family, they post this list:
falcon, peregrine, titan, thea, osprey
They are 1st 2nd and 3rd Gen.
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If it's not in the list, it will be added, thats possible.
@mayank.bhola1:
No need to scared and say it will never come. If you didn't have a proof, don't open such scaring threads "no official cyanogen 14.1" that's really annoying to others, because some people trust it and won't buy the device maybe(just an opinion)

I avoid anything cm based. Always worse on battery life.

trsix said:
I avoid anything cm based. Always worse on battery life.
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That's not true that all cm based has "always" worse battery life. On my galaxy's I got more battery compared to Samsung roms(official or mod) and also on my other devices cm gives me more battery life then stock, even to aosp! Maybe you encountered bad experiences, but it totally depends on the device tree, drivers, modem, source, etc etc... And the knowledge of the dev :angel:

My experience with CM was that a lot of the features added where useless to me and they just added battery drain and new bugs. And when a bug was fixed in a nightly, there was a good chance that another two bugs would pop up.
Not cool if you really need to use your phone as a phone. Maybe OK if you don't have a job or you stay at home all the time.

SoNic67 said:
My experience with CM was that a lot of the features added where useless to me and they just added battery drain and new bugs. And when a bug was fixed in a nightly, there was a good chance that another two bugs would pop up.
Not cool if you really need to use your phone as a phone. Maybe OK if you don't have a job or you stay at home all the time.
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So you concluding that we must stick to stock ROMs ??

Depends of what you do for living... and if need a reliable phone line for that.

SoNic67 said:
Depends of what you do for living... and if need a reliable phone line for that.
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I knew a device which stock cos rom is the hell on earth(random reboots, bugs, freezes) compared to cm and nearly all people saying wow after flashing cm instead of staying on stock. CM is widely available for devices and always a chance to get more out of your device when the manufacturer gives up the development after launching the device or won't fix bugs in acceptable time.

Not the case here. Moto firmware is stable and not bloated.

CM is best after OEM leaves device support. I had Asus Zenfone 5 earlier but no official CM so developers made unofficial one but Asus had serious issues with bootloader unlock as no developer was able to resolve screen freeze issues. So running custom ROMs on that device was hell bad.

If you think making cm and make it official is easy then do it urself, we really want to see. Things are not same as 1st,2nd &3rd. The chipset are way different than the previous gen. So stop posting useless things. Dont open thread for you own satisfaction.

Just my $0.02 : The premise behind getting a custom ROM is that it's for those who have an above average idea about OS, customizations, working on a system level and such.
The whole argument about stability, and what one does for their living is a bit too far fetched in context of using a device that is dependable. Stock ROMs are made by OEMs keeping a novice end-user in view, who may or may not have sufficient time, knowledge or inclination of going beyond what the device came shipped with.
Custom ROMs and development is undertaken almost completely as a voluntary exercise by the devs, mostly on cost of their own resources and go far as to offer their work off forum threads which they'd personally support. Those flashing and modding devices are ones testing the work undertaken by devs, and even after a ROM gets official status, work on development continues with feedback from users and updating security, porting features from other devices, expanding customization et al.
Battery use, smoothness of UI, connectivity, stability, obviously are essential to one's experience of using their phone, but are highly dependent on how well one's put to use the abilities of their custom ROM, apart from what applications or settings one's gotten on, and that would come about only with experimenting, learning and keeping oneself updated with their device's software.
Stock ROMs, barring the few odd ones which run stock Android are almost always crammed with bloatware, uncustomizable UI/features and locked in to a mesh of regulatory compliances, OEM/vendor/third party interests and above all marketing the device as a product - which means you're good to go for just about as long as the OEM cares, and that isn't usually long enough given they'd obviously be focused on selling newer products.
So, it's just that mileage may vary but if you're willing to stick around to learn and experiment, customizing is the only way to truly own your phone.
Sent from my Moto G4 Plus using XDA Labs

Frances91 said:
...
Stock ROMs, barring the few odd ones which run stock Android are almost always crammed with bloatware, uncustomizable UI/features and locked in to a mesh of regulatory compliances, OEM/vendor/third party interests and above all marketing the device as a product - which means you're good to go for just about as long as the OEM cares, and that isn't usually long enough given they'd obviously be focused on selling newer products.
So, it's just that mileage may vary but if you're willing to stick around to learn and experiment, customizing is the only way to truly own your phone.
Sent from my Moto G4 Plus using XDA Labs
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I think the G4 is close to AOSP. Using Xposed you can get many fancy features found in custom roms. GravityBox gives you much of what CM offers.
Security features make it much more difficult to customize a phone. Pay by phone, i.e. "Wallet" will become important.
Custom roms are used more now for keeping old phones current. Not that much happening with new phones. Look at CyanogenMod https://download.cyanogenmod.org/ to view this.

king200 said:
I think the G4 is close to AOSP. Using Xposed you can get many fancy features found in custom roms. GravityBox gives you much of what CM offers.
Security features make it much more difficult to customize a phone. Pay by phone, i.e. "Wallet" will become important.
Custom roms are used more now for keeping old phones current. Not that much happening with new phones. Look at CyanogenMod https://download.cyanogenmod.org/ to view this.
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Click to collapse
If you're considering using Xposed for the 'fancy features' and use wallet, and yet vouch for stock Roms I'm not sure what you're on to. You'd need for more mods running on a stock ROM which would anyways take months or even years to get updated to run latest Android versions. Some times you'd just stick around with frequent updates which are still two SDK versions behind the current official release, basically cycling through bloat, partner apps and constant rooting, modding to just keep your phone worth it's use.
As for new phones, it takes a fair amount of time, effort and understanding to access available sources and build a device tree from which custom ROMs are built.
Besides, not many users, unless they've specifically bought the new device to work on development, adopt customization till about several months after their purchase. As for CyanogenMod site they list the official ROMs, which are painstakingly built after months of testing. What you see on there are mostly devices which are either usually a year old or are stock Android - both being fitting scenarios for system level modifications to drive both performance and customization. You'd be hard pressed to find Android OEMs updating devices or even offering security patches for long.
Also, do remember MIUI, Oxygen and several other OEM ROMs that run across some of the most successful phones evolved from the custom ROMs community development.
And yeah, there's the custom kernels as well which almost always need a custom ROM.
Unless you've hit upon a groundbreaking counter claim to all the benefit of custom ROMs you would be among a tiny minority of informed users who ascribe to that idea. I would really like to benefit from what you can share about it, I am sure I can hit up the devs in my subscribed threads and help them make better decision with their time and efforts.
Sent from my Moto G4 Plus using XDA Labs

Very Less DEVS

If i knew that this phone pixel xl has a very few ROMs and MODs i wouldn't really buy it, i prefer oneplus phones... it's just disappointing

driss.sadok said:
If i knew that this phone pixel xl has a very few ROMs and MODs i wouldn't really buy it, i prefer oneplus phones... it's just disappointing
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
7.x seems like it was a real challenge for developers with the a/b partitions etc. Hoping the 8 treble improvements will help that situation out. The Sony theming engine already has helped me via substratum.
Still I'm thinking the stock room hasn't given me any reason to move. In general the deviations from AOSP I like.
But yes, sure isn't a Nexus 5.

I think it's down to the price. I see no reason to buy this to Dev on over any other device Pixel just isn't value for money and nowhere near as popular as some of the other devices out there

People griping about "Very Less DEVS" certainly won't improve the situation. Thread reported to mods. If you want to complain, at least use the right forum.

I'd rather have "very less" stable quality software rather than the trash I see in some of the custom roms.

Android has matured a significant amount since the EZroot days of the Droid 1 days to the point where the OS already comes from factory with the customization that people used custom ROMs for.
That, plus the frequency of monthly updates and the need for the rom developer to keep up with the monthy updates PLUS incorporating new ways to circumvent the safetynet check has made modifying less sought after.
I'm pretty sure the majority of people people that rooted and ran ROMs were for the purpose of increasing functionality and not solely for the purpose of saying "I modified my phone".
Placebo init.d scripts and build.prop days flooded the "developer" community for some time until people caught up with it. If a company could incorporate ways to increase speed and battery life without losing functionality, wouldn't you think they would do it so they can have an edge against their competition?
So I ask, what are you looking for in a custom rom that isn't available right now?

ChongoDroid said:
I'd rather have "very less" stable quality software rather than the trash I see in some of the custom roms.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have to agree. I am running rooted stock and have all the mods I need with great battery life. I get the need for some people wanting to run custom roms for missing options from the stock rom, but with custom roms also comes with bugs.

Yea when I originally purchased this last year I figured the dev community would be huge. Don't get me wrong I appreciate the awesome ROMs we have just thought it would be a bigger scene. Seeing as how the phone is very expensive and if you want an unlocked bootloader you have to buy it through Google it makes sense (yes some Verizon models could be unlocked before updating). In general I still love the phone and it's by far better than anything I've had before. I don't upgrade phones often because I always wait for very good deals (Pixel for $140 new) so I'll likely have this for years.

ins5736 said:
People griping about "Very Less DEVS" certainly won't improve the situation. Thread reported to mods. If you want to complain, at least use the right forum.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
THANK U but i think this forum is the discussion too, so it's the right place to complain.. i wasn't complaining only for mods, roms too ... i think u get my point

scottjal said:
7.x seems like it was a real challenge for developers with the a/b partitions etc. Hoping the 8 treble improvements will help that situation out. The Sony theming engine already has helped me via substratum.
Still I'm thinking the stock room hasn't given me any reason to move. In general the deviations from AOSP I like.
But yes, sure isn't a Nexus 5.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i have substratum and i am always on swiftblack, i'm getting bored so can u please link the sony one ? hahahaha i think our phone is only limited in stock system.

richii0207 said:
Android has matured a significant amount since the EZroot days of the Droid 1 days to the point where the OS already comes from factory with the customization that people used custom ROMs for.
That, plus the frequency of monthly updates and the need for the rom developer to keep up with the monthy updates PLUS incorporating new ways to circumvent the safetynet check has made modifying less sought after.
I'm pretty sure the majority of people people that rooted and ran ROMs were for the purpose of increasing functionality and not solely for the purpose of saying "I modified my phone".
Placebo init.d scripts and build.prop days flooded the "developer" community for some time until people caught up with it. If a company could incorporate ways to increase speed and battery life without losing functionality, wouldn't you think they would do it so they can have an edge against their competition?
So I ask, what are you looking for in a custom rom that isn't available right now?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well i agree with u, and concerning your question i would say that if we can have a different room rather than the stock i would be happy, i used to have, nexus5, N6, N5x, N6P, 1+1 and 1+3.. i always look for something really different than the stock android, like miui or flyme os.. or at least a rom with plenty of features. i am just get bored to have always the same stock system as there is no other cutom oreo rom. i'm not a professional and i never tried to coock some here but i always change and flash my phone and even my family and friends phones . pixel xl is amazing especially with software updates and google things, even the camera app is the best so far and we recently have this new option of "AR STICKERS"... but i am bored that this phone doesn't really make me work on it.
i hope u get the message

aholeinthewor1d said:
Yea when I originally purchased this last year I figured the dev community would be huge. Don't get me wrong I appreciate the awesome ROMs we have just thought it would be a bigger scene. Seeing as how the phone is very expensive and if you want an unlocked bootloader you have to buy it through Google it makes sense (yes some Verizon models could be unlocked before updating). In general I still love the phone and it's by far better than anything I've had before. I don't upgrade phones often because I always wait for very good deals (Pixel for $140 new) so I'll likely have this for years.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
what u said is exactly what i meant by making this post, and honestly this phone is the best so far, i just expected more devs on it as it's a huge phone especially a google phone.

To the OP,
It's been pretty clear for some time that there aren't many rooms for the Pixel XL: are you sure that you really could not have known this before you got one?
I'm not that bothered that there isn't much development: less is more, there's less necessity than a few years ago and the pace of updates and safetynet make this a more intensive task (as mentioned by others). I have root and only use this for very specific features like adblocking.
I've had 3 OnePlus phones (2, 3 & 5) and each generation of Nexus/Pixel (bar two: GNex and N6... I had the Pixel 2 but returned it as faulty). A number of the roms/mods for 1+ are attempts to replicate Nexus/Pixel features, with the rest fairly pointless shortcuts and 'features' of little value (and often already accessible through an app). Substratum does most all you need for theming, and xposed (apparently almost ready for Oreo as the biggest jump was to Nougat) takes care of much of the other stuff.

driss.sadok said:
well i agree with u, and concerning your question i would say that if we can have a different room rather than the stock i would be happy, i used to have, nexus5, N6, N5x, N6P, 1+1 and 1+3.. i always look for something really different than the stock android, like miui or flyme os.. or at least a rom with plenty of features. i am just get bored to have always the same stock system as there is no other cutom oreo rom. i'm not a professional and i never tried to coock some here but i always change and flash my phone and even my family and friends phones . pixel xl is amazing especially with software updates and google things, even the camera app is the best so far and we recently have this new option of "AR STICKERS"... but i am bored that this phone doesn't really make me work on it.
i hope u get the message
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think you may have bought the wrong phone if u expected that you were going to need to be replacing the ROM... IMHO, none of the custom ROMs are going to be better optimisized, and its just a fact that none will be utilisizing the latest new android features, being as they are always months behind Google's releases....
custom roms tend to be far better suited for older phones, EOL devices, etc...
you can still get a ton of customizations on the stock ROM, but it comes down to custom kernels, launchers and root apps that can modify the ROM, etc....
I'm curious, what are the compelling features that u need out of rom that u can't get on stock?

driss.sadok said:
THANK U but i think this forum is the discussion too, so it's the right place to complain.. i wasn't complaining only for mods, roms too ... i think u get my point
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The mods must agree with me, not you. Enjoy complaining in the correct forum.

kboya said:
To the OP,
It's been pretty clear for some time that there aren't many rooms for the Pixel XL: are you sure that you really could not have known this before you got one?
I'm not that bothered that there isn't much development: less is more, there's less necessity than a few years ago and the pace of updates and safetynet make this a more intensive task (as mentioned by others). I have root and only use this for very specific features like adblocking.
I've had 3 OnePlus phones (2, 3 & 5) and each generation of Nexus/Pixel (bar two: GNex and N6... I had the Pixel 2 but returned it as faulty). A number of the roms/mods for 1+ are attempts to replicate Nexus/Pixel features, with the rest fairly pointless shortcuts and 'features' of little value (and often already accessible through an app). Substratum does most all you need for theming, and xposed (apparently almost ready for Oreo as the biggest jump was to Nougat) takes care of much of the other stuff.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I miss Xposed. So. Freaking. Much.
But not enough to to go back to nougat lol

Last Xposed report was almost ready for Oreo.. a few weeks back

Thank u guys, i know my subject is annoying, but i think i am just addicted to changing all time, and to this forum too lol. but if really Xposed comes to nougat, that would help my sickness

I have had no urge to install a custom ROM or even a kernel since I got the Pixel XL (right after release). Besides my being annoyed by Google putting the search bar on the bottom of the home launcher page and making it non-deletable or even movable, I have been totally happy with bootloader unlocked and rooted stock. My only development frustration is the moving target that the TWRP devs seem to be chasing and the SuperSU transition. I am liking Magisk so far, but I had got used to Chainfire's apps and have a hard time accepting this change LOL.

2nd hand Pixel XL's will swell the user base
liam_davenport said:
I think it's down to the price. I see no reason to buy this to Dev on over any other device Pixel just isn't value for money and nowhere near as popular as some of the other devices out there
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cheaper 2nd hand XL's will make this phone more popular - I just got mine for £340 and am very pleased with it. (I should be as my previous phone was a Nexus 4 which I loved and nurtured for over 4 years!)
Having said that I'm on 8.1 stock unlocked but not yet rooted.
I'm waiting to see what Project Treble will bring.

why less custom roms

hii learned people
why now a days less ans less custom roms?. say it for samsung etc. look at our one plus no stable custom roms. i have a fear that after some years our xad must be irrelevant which i really dont want. the best place. i am asking from my heart. other than my profession i used to spend more time on xda before. now a days its becoming less. whch makes me very sad.
thank you
regards
dr.mouli

ayurmouli said:
hii learned people
why now a days less ans less custom roms?. say it for samsung etc. look at our one plus no stable custom roms. i have a fear that after some years our xad must be irrelevant which i really dont want. the best place. i am asking from my heart. other than my profession i used to spend more time on xda before. now a days its becoming less. whch makes me very sad.
thank you
regards
dr.mouli
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We have Resurrection Remix that is stable

There's a few stable OP 8 series Roms. I don't quite understand what you are going on about.

sir
FreshlyBaked 420 said:
There's a few stable OP 8 series Roms. I don't quite understand what you are going on about.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the amount of custom roms are getting lesser and lesser every day. we dont even have stable twrp of our one plus. rooting is getting difficult day by day. are we heading for ios scenario
thank you

ayurmouli said:
the amount of custom roms are getting lesser and lesser every day. we dont even have stable twrp of our one plus. rooting is getting difficult day by day. are we heading for ios scenario
thank you
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes custom Roms aren't what they used to be. There's still options though. We do have stable TWRP on A10, A11 is going to take time. Not everything happens overnight. Rooting isn't hard either really.

The overall OS have improved a lot...

ayurmouli said:
hii learned people
why now a days less ans less custom roms?. say it for samsung etc. look at our one plus no stable custom roms. i have a fear that after some years our xad must be irrelevant which i really dont want. the best place. i am asking from my heart. other than my profession i used to spend more time on xda before. now a days its becoming less. whch makes me very sad.
thank you
regards
dr.mouli
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can thank the dynamic super partition as the culprit behind this.
This is the real underlying cause of very few custom roms. It's also the cost of the device. many people can't afford a thousand bucks.

yes
Burt Squirtz said:
You can thank the dynamic super partition as the culprit behind this.
This is the real underlying cause of very few customer roms. It's also the cost of the device. many people can't afford a thousand bucks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
exactly the base of android os is open source but slowly we are reaching for the closed eco system. unfortunately

ayurmouli said:
exactly the base of android os is open source but slowly we are reaching for the closed eco system. unfortunately
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's right. I'm flashing roms since my galaxy S1. Ive never had a phone without custom rom. But nowadays stock roms starting to be better an better. Even MIUI is a great rom if you debloat it a lot! Today I'm only rooted with a custom kernel. I don't want to miss OEM feature and just want to have a stable rom! And with OxygenOS we have it!

There are ROMs and there is root, we really don't need twrp.
Root is extremely easy, as is unlocking the bootloader.
Personally I'm not a fan of the dual slot system, I think it just confuses the crap out of people, but what can you do.
I'm coming from a Huawei p20 pro. If you think it's bad here, just check out the "development" over there, and they were thriving not so long ago, now it's just as dead as death over there.
(They actually made a development section for the p40 Pro lol why? )
We'll have development for some time yet and will more than likely be root and development for many years to come.
Plus the developers we have here, a lot of them are self taught so why wait for someone else to do it for you?
Make yourself a ROM..
I've done it before (many moons ago) its a great feeling making a ROM you made yourself that boots, of course if it's a non OOS ROM you'll need twrp but that'll come in due course.
I agree in part that development has declined but we should be grateful for what we do have, which is more than a lot of other devices..
I think partly with 1+ it's because the OS is already pretty damn good, plus OnePlus haven't exactly made it impossible for us to mod things..

I also look at another flagship phone that released this year, almost low to none custom ROMs.

Yes thx, I've been on pixels for the last few years & always on a custom rom. I got kona soon as I could and have been loving it. While I have used magisk modules and custom kernel, this is the first time in a really long time that I've stayed on the stock os. The os has came a long way and am thankful to have kona and wouldn't change it for nothing. I've really enjoyed this device so far. Anyway thanks for sharing and just thought I'd share my thoughts.

ps000000 said:
I also look at another flagship phone that released this year, almost low to none custom ROMs.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Aye I've done the same, even the pixel seems lacking.
Are we looking at it wrong though? I mean back on the HTC devices I've owned sure I did a tonne of flashing but I usually settled on 1 or 2 ROMs and we do have more than that here, so do we have what we need rather than what we want?
Lol I'm sure we'd all prefer the latter, I would too, but it's something to think about, I mean Paranoid Android is here, sure it's had less updates than an rtx 3090 but it's here

To add to what others are saying... Cooking a ROM is a very time consuming project. Not a lot of people want to spend the time on it anymore. When I first got a smart phone, it was an HTC touch diamond. Windows phone OS. Back then, tons of people were learning to create custom ROMs and mods for them. That has slowly dwindled over time. On Android, ROMs were mostly created to get AOSP ported to most devices. Nowadays, all phones have custom hardware that needs a factory ROM to be useful. AOSP is not very desirable as it is the most basic form of Android with only basic functionality for mostly Pixel phones. Most people are now only concerned with using a debloated stock ROM and rooting for modules etc. This is the norm. I don't think it will change. It is what things have evolved into over time.

Also we can install treble ROMs can't we?
I've talked about this before.
There should be dedicated sections for functional treble ROMs where common issues can be laid bare so they can at least be worked on with specific device owners.
Asking a question about your own device in a treble thread seldom gets an answer.
AFAIK we'd need twrp unless Fastboot can be used? Not sure, have only managed to get one treble ROM to boot back on the p20 pro when I had it unlocked.
Most of it worked if memory serves..I'll give them a whirl next time I Bork my system or i get bored and will make a thread detailing which ones work.

i will never go for huawei
dladz said:
There are ROMs and there is root, we really don't need twrp.
Root is extremely easy, as is unlocking the bootloader.
Personally I'm not a fan of the dual slot system, I think it just confuses the crap out of people, but what can you do.
I'm coming from a Huawei p20 pro. If you think it's bad here, just check out the "development" over there, and they were thriving not so long ago, now it's just as dead as death over there.
(They actually made a development section for the p40 Pro lol why? )
We'll have development for some time yet and will more than likely be root and development for many years to come.
Plus the developers we have here, a lot of them are self taught so why wait for someone else to do it for you?
Make yourself a ROM..
I've done it before (many moons ago) its a great feeling making a ROM you made yourself that boots, of course if it's a non OOS ROM you'll need twrp but that'll come in due course.
I agree in part that development has declined but we should be grateful for what we do have, which is more than a lot of other devices..
I think partly with 1+ it's because the OS is already pretty damn good, plus OnePlus haven't exactly made it impossible for us to mod things..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
never allow us to open boot loader. u cant even root. i sold p30 pro after using it for 3 months. i always come back to android because we can root. other wise iphone is better in all the departments and it has value also. but if android is same as ios i.e closed eco system then who needs it. we do flashing etc because its fun. as a doctor this things makes me feel; good because i do something (rooting etc) which is beyond my profession. which is fun and entertaining

ayurmouli said:
never allow us to open boot loader. u cant even root. i sold p30 pro after using it for 3 months. i always come back to android because we can root. other wise iphone is better in all the departments and it has value also. but if android is same as ios i.e closed eco system then who needs it. we do flashing etc because its fun. as a doctor this things makes me feel; good because i do something (rooting etc) which is beyond my profession. which is fun and entertaining
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually I couldn't disagree more.
Point being the OS even without root is still better, still more open and content is still better.
Think Apple TV Vs Shield TV Pro, I can play Wii, GameCube, Dreamcast, arcade, neogeo, SNES, megadrive, Atari, Amiga, spectrum commodore, Amstrad, pc engine, pc games, Android games, can watch any movie, listen to any music, connect any controller (multiple controllers) wired or wireless, have it as a searchable Nas drive in my network, watch IPTV through it.
Apple TV can be used for apps like Netflix, that is it.
No file manager, no emulators, nothing.
iOS is not better than Android, not even close, maybe the camera and that's due to singular hardware.
Also Huawei/ honor devices DID allow bootloader unlocking, I know this as I unlocked my p20 pro they stopped it in July 2018 and then reopened it briefly in late 2018, nothing since.
Before this time it was always open, they partnered with XDA to promote their devices and then when they gathered ground they pulled the rug out from underneath everyone's feet, Huawei are slime, they deserve to be hit financially.
Anyone who bought a p30 or p40 is either not bothered about rooting or doesn't want the latest and greatest hardware (Mali GPU is horrific, Kirin is a joke)
If anyone does buy Huawei, they're contributing to the problem as they're still giving money to a company who went against everything that Android stands for.
There is literally no point of there being a P40 forum or P30. It's not even Android in my eyes.
The only way that will reverse is if people stop buying from Huawei/honor, if you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem.
Going back to Apple, the only device I like from them is their MacBook Pro simply for it's trackpad as I love the features it offers, but as an OS? No I'm always the phone nor OSX can cut it Vs Windows/Android..
And would you pay £2,500 for the privilege of using their trackpad? No I'd rather buy a top gaming rig.
It'll always be this way, Jesus iOS just got widgets lmfao,, welcome to 2007 Apple, haha.
And you think is better? You must be joking.