Simply Stunning, Bugless Beast, Sapphire, Ultimate Droid, Cyanogenmod, Chevyrom, Droidmod, Steel Droid, Liquid Roms, Jrummy, those were the biggest names that ruled our forum 5 years ago. Amazing if you think about it that at that time our favorite rom developers were able to take our devices and make it a little more than what we had. Everything from themed keyboards, smoked glass notification bars, and the option to choose what apps you wanted installed or left off before first boot. Seems like when you look back it feels like so long ago and that android software has moved so far forward since then. And in a way it has, as you look at Google Now launcher and compare it to what we had back then.
The excitement over OTAs and releases of new builds for a rom lit up the community. Servers struggled to handle the many fans wanting to experience the latest features themselves. And with that came those that loved it, those that hated it, and the people that loved it so much that they hated the people that hated it. But no matter what camp you were in we all continued to want more out of our phones; more speed, more features, more battery life, and more ROMs.
Here we are with more speed, more features, and more battery life at the expense of less ROMs. Both Google and android manufacturers updated their specs, cleaned up the interface, and added a few more features (Samsung being the leader of them all). Despite that I still have those times where I would like to break out the old droid and flash a rom for old time sakes. Because as nice as 6.0 marshmallow is with better battery life, a nicer interface, more features (pay), it still lacks the what excited android fans the most, and that is the ability to fully customize the device. Where Google (with the Nexus) allow more freedom for customizations it lacks the ability to theme (stock), other manufacturers like HTC, Samsung, and LG have the themes but are loaded with bloat, slow to update, and stop supporting the device after 18-24 months. One Plus was close to being the device that could have been what android fans have been looking for except they decided to settle.
As we are approaching 2016 and a new era of android with better cameras, faster processors, and screens with better resolutions, we can no forget 5 years ago when we were the few. The few to dare to try an operating system that lacked the apps, was new and unfamiliar, the few to Droid. We were the few that dared to dream for more and a few developers rose up and took the challenge to help us continue to dream. Let us not stop dreaming as there is still more places we can go as we can not settle for what we have now as the pinnacle.
In 2016 what is the minimum to expect from all future phones being released by manufacturers?