New Delhi, Aug 18 : Originally intended to serve as an advanced operating system for digital cameras, Android OS has come a long way and its next iteration — Android Q is set to be officially introduced in the third quarter (Q3) this year by Google.
Google acquired Android Inc. for nearly $50 million in July 2005.
Since then, the OS has grown by leaps and bounds as the company continues to license the Android OS to third-party OEMs like Huawei, OnePlus, Samsung, Xiaomi, Oppo and Realme, to name a few.
In a bid to deliver better user experiences, the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are now using the same base code and adding their own skin atop the Android user interface (UI) — often using it as a selling point to stand out.
Custom Android UIs such as EMUI by Huawei, OxygenOS by OnePlus and One UI by Samsung — which has succeeded Samsung Experience and TouchWiz — offer a better experience to users with less bloatware than ever.
We take a look at some of the top Android skins and customisations available today.
OxygenOS: Developed by Chinese handset maker OnePlus, it is a customised version of Android mobile OS exclusively for their smartphones. The highly-acclaimed skin offers close to vanilla Android sans any bloatware. It also offers a number of useful performance optimisations such as iPhone XS-style gesture interface.
EMUI: Chinese tech giant develops this custom UI for its Huawei and Honor line-up of smartphones. Previously known as Emotion UI, this custom skin offers features like navigation gestures, customisable home screen, gestures to launch apps and more. OneUI: Samsung’s One UI is a crisp interface and a massive upgrade from TouchWiz that was full of bloatware. One UI offers a simple user experience while notes, emails and other Samsung apps have been customised to show only essential information.MIUI: Chinese handset maker Xiaomi’s skin is known as MIUI, which is a highly-customised version of Android. Its Redmi, Mi and Poco line-up of devices use this skin. The UI has some bloatware and has also faced flak for pushing ads into the MIUI apps, including the music app and even the settings menu.ColorOS: Oppo, another Chinese handset maker calls its custom skin ColorOS. It features gestures that can be used to launch apps, lock screen magazine among others.
