Android varies slightly by Manufacturer?

[jimmyco2008]

So I look at Verizon's Droids and other Android-powered deives, and they all look different! I see HTC's droids have a giant clock and weather just below it (the home screen), the Droid X is like a blank home screen with the android logo guy at the top for help... And LG's android looks like totally different from the other two, its just like the enV Touch's home screen, but with teh Android status bar at the top. So do manufacturers modify teh open-source Android OS to their liking? Or is it just different ways of customizing your home screen? like could I change the HTC Incredible's home screen to look like the Droid X's as shown on verizon's website?

 

[NeverEndingXsin]

first of all its "the" not "teh" and yes they can modify it, for example HTC incorporates its sense UI into the android phone and thats how you can get the clock/weather widget on it.

 

[GolfProRM]

Wow - way to be helpful and correct a simple miskey.

Every manufacturer can put their own spin on Android, and as you've seen, most of them do. HTC has Sense, Moto has Blur, and Samsung has Touchwiz, just to name a few.

The good thing about Android is that pretty much all of it can be customized. If you like the HTC style clock, Beautiful Widgets or Weather & Toggle widget have apps with similar functionality. If you like the stock launcher and not Sense or Touchwiz, you can get ADW.Launcher or LauncherPro. You can pretty easily make any phone's homescreen look like any other phone.

 

[jimmyco2008]

Well when typing it's easy to hit the "e" before the "h", thus making teh. Fortunately, most people can figure out the person meant to say "the". But thanks for informative answers, both of you. And can all of this be done without rooting?

 

[hookbill]

Well when typing it's easy to hit the "e" before the "h", thus making teh. Fortunately, most people can figure out the person meant to say "the". But thanks for informative answers, both of you. And can all of this be done without rooting?

No, changes like that would require rooting. It's just teh way that it is.

 

[jimmyco2008]

lol nice. And thank you!

 

[takeshi]

So do manufacturers modify teh open-source Android OS to their liking?

That would be the point of open source. Google's intent, despite all the griping here regarding UI's, is for Android to be a platform for the manufacturers to use to build their devices.