The Decline of Stock Android Experience and Custom ROMs

Stock Android is no longer functional, as manufacturers dilute its core experience with custom features and apps.

### The Myth of Stock Android: A Deep Dive into AOSP and Custom ROMs
* 📱  The user's experience with a Pixel 8 Pro running a GSI of Android 15 revealed numerous issues with what was expected to be **"stock Android."**
* 🔍  Basic functions like the camera app, phone calls, and Bluetooth connectivity were **unintuitive or problematic**.
* 🔒  The experiment highlighted that "there isn't really a **functional stock Android anymore**," as even Google's Pixel devices have their own **UI customizations**.
* 🔧  AOSP (Android Open Source Project) serves as a base for manufacturers to build their own versions of Android, adding **drivers, UI changes, and apps**.
* 📊  Custom ROMs offer an alternative, with popular options like **Lineage OS, Pixel OS, Graphene OS, and Paranoid Android**.
* 🔓  Using custom ROMs requires an **unlocked bootloader**, and may not support all features of the original device (e.g., **Samsung's S Pen** or **secure NFC payments**).
* 💰  The user ultimately decides to switch to an iPhone, citing **frustration with the Android ecosystem** and the **expense of flagship Android devices**.
* 🌐  The video references various sponsorships and previous content related to the user's phone journey, with **links provided in the video description**.

what these guys are thinking. I can't hold to quickly uninstall apps. The search bar is where I want my time and weather to be, and I can't move the navigation buttons. What? Those are all stock Android features, man, right? I guess I have been kind of faithful to the Samsung ecosystem for a while. Maybe I don't know what stock Android truly is. Quick, somebody get me a phone with a stock AOSP image. Ah, perfect, a Pixel 8 Pro with GSI. I'm going to use this for a month, then I'm going to come back here and talk about what I learned. That's it, I'm out. How can anyone use this? I don't know when or how this happened, but it happened. Crappy vendor skins, that's the good Android now, and stock Android, it's a broken mess. And wait, wait, wait, before you shoot the messenger, give me a chance to explain and a chance to tell you about our sponsor, MSI. If you need a new entry-level gaming laptop or a powerhouse gaming laptop or an AI

capable laptop or a gaming handheld. MSI's got you covered with their summer sale event. Check out their sweet deals on laptops like this Cyborg 14 using the link in the video description. [Music] My first game-breaking issue hit me almost immediately. I wanted to take some pictures at one of my kids' birthday parties, and I was like, Oh, this is great timing. I can use the fancy Pixel camera instead of my old Note 9. But then I launched the camera, and I'm like, What even is this? Not only is the app shockingly bare-bones—I'm talking timer, grid lines, flash, and oh, you can switch to the front camera if you want to get fancy—but it's also super unintuitive. After I'd recorded some video, I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get back to photo mode without closing and completely restarting the app. I did eventually figure out that there's a gesture—ah, dang it, this is exactly what I'm talking about. There we go, there's a

gesture to bring up the mode select or to see your gallery, but if you start that gesture anywhere near the edge of the phone, as you guys just saw it, it just closes the app, and things like that just kept happening. Let's look at something even more basic: a phone call. I can start a call just fine, dial a number, bring up a contact, the Wes, but once the call is started, I am completely at the mercy of whoever I called because for the life of me, I could not figure out how to hang up a phone call. There's no gesture, and even pressing the power button to end the call is not enabled by default. As it turns out, there isn't any default app configured for phone calls, so when you make or receive a call, you're initiating some kind of dark ritual then that links you directly to the phone's brain stem. And okay, sure, no one talks on the phone anymore, lus you dinosaur, but come on, the app is there, why aren't we using it? Uh, what else? Bluetooth was weird. I could pair devices.

pretty reliably, but then actually making audio playback go through my AirPods Pro twos is a whole other story. The Bluetooth settings even crashed pretty often when I tried to open them while I was in the settings menu. I tried to switch the Wi-Fi hotspot to 5 GHz, and it would acknowledge I was touching the screen and even refresh the page, but would not register the change. 2.4 GHz worked fine though. Wireless emergency alerts appear to be totally missing. When you click the entry in the menu, it just drops you back a menu level. The screen saver was enabled but without a screen saver selected, so my screen was not saved. Okay, that last one's pretty minor, but one that really irked me was needing to hit enter after my pin. I hear this is finally changeable on Pixel devices with Android 14, but it's not changeable on this one, which brings us to the surprising revelation that this experiment brought us to. There isn't really a functional stock Android anymore. There is stock Android and

getting it is pretty straightforward. We used a Pixel 8 Pro thinking, well, I mean Google's own phone should surely be a good starting point for Google's own operating system. And we downloaded a GSI or generic system image of Android 15 that's built from the Android open-source project or AOSP. We picked up one with GMS or Google mobile services because I need Play Store apps. And that was it. We got stock Android. It just sucks so much that we kind of didn't even trust the results. So as a sanity check, we also loaded up a Pixel 8 non-PR with the same image so that the team could confirm that my problems were not user error without me having to give them my phone all the time. And they weren't. I'm speaking of pixels, by the way. Have you checked out our dead pixel collection at LTTstore.com? But hold on a second, let's back up. AOSP is the fundamental code that all manufacturers of Android phones build upon. It's a pillar of open-source purity. How could

it be bad. Well, whatever it may have been in the past, these days AOSP is less of an operating system, and it's more of a starting point. All manufacturers, yes, even Google themselves, add their own drivers, UI customizations, and apps that give their devices a unique flavor. And as this practice has become more common, it's clear that less and less effort has gone into maintaining stock apps and functions that no one's going to use anyway. Now, I've mostly been a Samsung boy in recent years, so I'm most familiar with their One UI, and I've seen your comments that it's clear that Liu's CES One UI is kind of a baseline for Android. And you know what? There's probably some truth to that. Maybe you have used Sony's Xperia UI for years, and you think of that as normal. We're both wrong. There is no normal Android. Even the Android that you get with a Pixel device is not stock. Google's Pixel UI may be their vision for what Android should be, but there's no money importing

all of their pixel-exclusive Visions back into AOSP, though of course, in some cases, that could be considered a good thing. Google does not generally include micro SD slots for expanded storage in their devices, but Android still has support for external storage in AOSP. I think the funniest thing about this for me is that while we still see people evangelizing the stock Android experience, it's actually been dead for a lot longer than most people realize. Even Google's older Nexus line of phones got progressively less stock as time went on, with apps for things like calendar, messages, web browsing gradually being replaced with similar Google Apps, and they even started using their own custom launcher that wasn't available for other phones. Luckily though, if you're not happy with the skin used on your phone, you might be able to switch it up with a custom rom that is a version of Android that's made by someone other than one of the major phone manufacturers. I wouldn't really recommend this on a device that's still being supported by the manufacturer, but

if your device is no longer supported, custom ROMs can give you access to the latest security patches or even entirely new versions of Android and help keep an old phone viable well past the manufacturer's end of support. Before you get too excited, though, you will need a device with an unlockable bootloader in order to do this. Thankfully, these days, that's many devices, with some notable exceptions like Asus, where there isn't currently an official unlock method. And it's worth noting that even if your phone works, certain features like Samsung's S Pen, for example, or especially secure features like NFC payments and bank apps, might not work the way you would expect out of the box. Once you've got your bootloader unlocked, though, you can choose a custom ROM, none of which are stock Android. And if anything gives me more appreciation for the incredible work that these teams have done over the years, it is the experience of using stock Android. Some of the notable examples of custom ROMs include Lineage OS, which is lightly customized, quite stable, and often used.

as a base for other custom ROMs, a Pixel OS is one that aims to bring a pixel-like experience to devices from non-Google manufacturers. Graphene OS and Calyx OS both aimed to prevent Google from tracking your location and other data but take kind of different approaches. Paranoid Android has been around almost forever, and I think is pretty self-explanatory. And of course, there's that one that you're screaming at your screen right now because I'm a terrible, terrible person who's ignoring what is clearly the best custom ROM, so I'll tell you what. I'm going to leave it out so you can be the one to write it in the comments and collect your precious upvotes. You're welcome. With that out of the way, I dropped my fold in the pool almost a year ago, and after letting you guys pick one, attempting unsuccessfully to switch to the Fairphone 5, the phone I wanted, and then going through this bloody mess, I still don't have a new phone. So you know what? It. I'm

getting an iPhone? Yes, finally! But man, they're expensive. How am I going to afford one? Maybe with some help from our sponsor, Rocket Money. It can be hard to take control of your bank account when subscription services seem to be piling up, and the amount of hoops you have to jump through to unsubscribe from some of them can be exhausting. But Rocket Money is here to help you jump back into the driver's seat of your finances. It's as easy as a couple of clicks to say goodbye to all the subscriptions you don't want and don't use. There's no need for you to fill out another survey where a brand tries to guilt-trip you for leaving. Rocket Money can even negotiate better rates for things like your phone or internet bill on your behalf. And with all that money you've saved, Rocket Money can help you create a budgeting plan to start saving for a new computer or finally pad out that savings account. So go to RocketMoney.com or click the link in the description to get started for free. You can also unlock more features

with premium. If you guys liked this video, why not relive how we got here, from dunking the phone in the pool to getting trolled by Reddit and the disappointment of a phone I wanted so badly to love. Uh, we're going to link a playlist down below.

I tried Stock Android and HATED it

Linus Tech Tips is a passionate team of "professionally curious" experts in consumer technology and video production who aim to educate and entertain.


Linus Tech Tips

Struggles with Stock Android on the Pixel 8 Pro

The speaker is frustrated with the stock Android features on the Pixel 8 Pro, having been used to the Samsung ecosystem.

They find the camera app unintuitive and bare-bones, making it difficult to switch between modes.

Additionally, the phone call feature is confusing, with no clear way to end a call, leaving the speaker feeling lost and frustrated.

Audio playback through AirPods Pro twos was problematic, with frequent Bluetooth settings crashes.

The 5 GHz Wi-Fi hotspot change didn't register, and wireless emergency alerts were missing.

The experiment revealed that there isn't a functional stock Android anymore, even on Google's own Pixel devices.

The Evolution of AOSP and Android Customization

AOSP has shifted from being an operating system to a starting point, with manufacturers adding their own drivers, UI customizations, and apps.

This practice has led to less emphasis on maintaining stock apps and functions.

Google's Pixel UI, while influential, is not truly stock Android, and the concept of a "normal" Android experience is a myth, as each manufacturer's customization varies.

Keeping Old Phones Alive with Custom ROMs

Custom ROMs can provide the latest security patches and new Android versions for unsupported devices.

An unlockable bootloader is required, which is common in many devices but not all.

Notable custom ROMs include Lineage OS, Pixel OS, Graphene OS, Calyx OS, and Paranoid Android, each offering unique features and experiences.

Affording an iPhone with Rocket Money's Help

iPhones are expensive, but Rocket Money can assist in managing finances and unsubscribing from unwanted services.

The platform offers to negotiate better rates for bills and provides budgeting plans to save for a new computer or build a savings account.

com and unlock more features with a premium subscription.