The role of ROMS and modders after Froyo, what next?

[angelman]

Personally I feel Froyo is so good and fixes so many issues that the reason to mod and download new Roms is increasingly becoming less relevant. Before Froyo I was running simply stunning and before that bugless beast. These were big improvements over stock, many nice features, snoke glass theme, o/c etc.
I now have the Froyo ROM with the oc kernel and it is so good I find it hard to imagine what could be done to improve it without significantly changing some of the standard features.
The camera has at last been dramatically improved but no ROM or app developer had really addressed that problem anyway (dark images, crappy interface etc.)
The extra screens and persistent icons at the bottom make the need for things like helix launcher less important.
I imagine it is going to get harder for modders to come up with cool new things without doing a lot more work. Most mods now seem to just include a bunch of scripts to move around some of the built in apps and remove apps you may not want. The overclocking kernels are great but maybe not too much more scope for improvement.
Some mods like smoked glass add some nice little touches with some fun icons etc. but I think google has done a lot to clean up the standard interface anyway.

Personally I would love to see someone address some of the still missing features: a graphic equalizer that works across any apps. A faster keyboard (maybe some sort of clone of the iphone keyboard). A completely new, slicker camera app again maybe a riff on the iphone camera app might be fun.
Improvements to the built in calendar ap. Combining the corporate calendar with the google one is fine but I would love the month view to show events from different calendars in different colours.

I know that all the talented ROM developers have great imaginations and probably have great plans for the future, I just wondered what people's thoughts were on how custom ROMS might develop as the stock feature set gets increasingly stable and improved...

 

[clucernoni]

I think eventually ROMs will become less about "making things the way they should work" and instead will be "making things work to fit my preferences".

What I mean by this is that ROMs and their developers have been perfecting Google's work since the DROID came out and making things work the way they should have from the beginning. But now they will allow users to tweak the usage of their phone to fit their preferences rather than having to polish the OS itself. I still think ROMs will be relevant and have lots to offer (things we haven't even thought of yet)...and I think the ability to customize and mold your phone into what you want it to be is the most valuable part of them.

 

[Darkseider]

This exact same question was asked when 2.1 was released. With the official OTA release will also come the updated AOSP source. Once that source is sifted through, tweaked and recompiled you will see things that will make the OTA look like yesterday's news. Remember what we are running now is a leaked ROM with some tweaks. Once the source code is available there will be alot more magic to come.

 

[bad4u]

Interesting point. Once the OS becomes rock solid, well it may never be that, but once devs no longer have to spend time fixing the OS what will their attention go to?

Apps that we have access to with out root are the ones you need to jailbreak the iPhone for. One reason I kicked apple to the curb almost a year ago. There are plenty of home replacements and ways to customize the UI straight from the market.

The scripts like in BB are still much needed till Moto or Verizon stops locking apps onto our phone. I.E. Visual Voicemail, Amazon app and such.

Overclocking is fun, but its been done, and soon with all the new moto Beasts coming out we wont need it.

Makes you think...

 

[Darkseider]

Interesting point. Once the OS becomes rock solid, well it may never be that, but once devs no longer have to spend time fixing the OS what will their attention go to?

Apps that we have access to with out root are the ones you need to jailbreak the iPhone for. One reason I kicked apple to the curb almost a year ago. There are plenty of home replacements and ways to customize the UI straight from the market.

The scripts like in BB are still much needed till Moto or Verizon stops locking apps onto our phone. I.E. Visual Voicemail, Amazon app and such.

Overclocking is fun, but its been done, and soon with all the new moto Beasts coming out we wont need it.

Makes you think...

OK. We will NEVER not need overclocking. The simple reason is that if it can be done and be done well then there is a need. Why? Simple. Because we can. I look forward to they day a dual core Cortex A-9 is released at 1Ghz and it can be OC'ed to say... 1.25 Ghz safely. That right there is reason. As for software and tweaks plenty. Look at the recent thing with the Nexus One where some XDA devs hacked 720p HD recording into Cyanogen 5.0.8 for the Nexus. Progress and new discoveries will NEVER stop.