When Android first came on the scene it relied on developers to push software to where they are at now. It was fun seeing phones that ran customized software. I stated before how important the rom community played in shaping my life.
It’s been years since I have taken custom software seriously. This was mainly because of how great a job Google has been doing with stock android. Almost everything I have been looking for in ROMs back in the day, I now have with pure stock android (minus a theme manager). But, unlike ROMs, I don’t have to deal with stuff not working, or constantly having to flash a new build. I personally grew tired of having to backup, wipe, flash new rom, and set up again. Even with Titanium Backup, it was just time consuming to have to restore everything.
But in a year where the most interesting phone releases have been from non traditional phones, it may be a great year for the rebirth in development. For those of us leaning away from the 1000 phones, our excitement may come from developers thinking outside of the box.
But ROMS in the way we knew them back during the old days may not work. I talked about how I grew tired of the bugs and constant wiping and flashing. Development may work better as an addition to stock software or built from the latest stock Google software. And with security being a big deal for certain apps to work (ie Google Pay), new development will have to play inside the box. ROMs or software that limits my ability to use my everyday apps are not going to keep me wanting to use the software. At the end of the day, I want my phone to just work. And anything that takes away from that will be counted unacceptable.
Question is will development be able to grow beyond the ROMs of the past?
