The thing is, this would all be moot if even one of these manufacturers changed one thing about their addons: make them optional. I can't for the life of me think of one reason, other than arrogance, why these alterations they make are so deeply integrated with the OS.

To begin with, there are only two reasons I can think of that they put these alterations to the OS:

1) To differentiate: clearly, to the average consumer in a phone store, if 6 different Android slate phones look the same, the one with the different home screen is going to stand out. Plus you can advertise your UI on the spec sheet. But that doesn't explain why you make the add-ons unremovable. Perhaps...

2) They honestly think they offer a better user experience. The problem is this is clearly bulls**t, they're just too proud of their own stuff to admit it's awful. Plus, they could still make the add-ons removable.

I will say one thing: HTC actually has very good customer support:

- Their free phone lines are open from 6am to 1am EST
- There are no prompts (you go straight to an actual person)
- The wait times seem very short (10 minutes this morning and almost instant last night around 8pm)
- The support technicians are far better than the usual tier 1, and the woman I spoke to even got a Thunderbolt, added the Exchange account, and waited for everything to sync while spending an hour on the phone with me

Too bad their software blows big time.


You'll like this, Bruno. On the AndroidForums, I said the following:

- That the rooting community, while doing a lot of good work, simply wasn't very clear on procedures for new users.
- Besides, it's not very practical to root a client's phone,
- There are no plain vanilla Android phones sold by Verizon anymore (the OG Droid was the last/only one).
- After this experience with Sense UI, why would I risk trying out a Motorola phone with MotoBlur?
- The only conclusion was to go with an iPhone.

You know what the a** "helping" me out then said to me? To paraphrase: "I should have known you were an iPhone troll." Yeah, he accused ME of that wink
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Matt