As I find myself up at this early hour with the Nexus 4, there's indeed a feeling that I've just about been detoxed from years of TouchWiz usage on Samsung products. True, there are a number of additional tweaks and features to bolster those units over the Nexus line, but acknowledging (and accepting) that those aren't essential to my Android experience is quite freeing. Daily living with stock Android without the urge to root has certainly fostered a calming sense of pride as a Google fan, especially as I plan to venture or to the Mountain View HQ in the future. Have I turned into a Google kiss-ass stocked with my own name brand merchandise, or have I finally found an OS niche that suits my own digital lifestyle? Maybe both. :-)
There's certainly no denying that using stock Android on either a Samsung S4 or HTC One unit does awaken curiosity, but I'm satisfied with this LG Nexus 4 until I can read reviews on their performance. This brings me to another sense of pride with Android, pure openness. Being able to have an unrooted, out-of-box user experience with the purest iteration of the Android OS on MULTIPLE devices spanning various manufacturers surely seems to break the mold. The prospect of not only uplifting the smooth simplicity of this stock OS (that remains free to be further customized via user rooting), but also sharing it with capable hardware platforms willing to take it on...there can't be any better example of openness. The more I think on this, there is indeed an excitement that is conjured for what is to come in the mobile industry. With stock Android, there is no walled garden with locked down limitations, and that's what inspires me to no longer miss such an OS being f***ed over by TouchWiz, Sense, BLUR, or whatever other UI skins are out there.
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