.......
Note that by saying this I mean no disrespect to the cookers or kitchen teams. Their work is highly appreciated.
Is it just me? Am I missing something?
Well, back in the old days, things were hopping. New Mods, new features, look cool things...
But that was a few years ago.
Little by little, Google modified the AOSP code, adding features (more than likely from XDA). But Google is not concerned with "look good" things. They leave it up to manufacturers with skins and such. Apps progress, hardware gets better, new features are added (and mods for shortcomings that nobody thought of).
But eventually, you get to a point where you just cant change the way things look. Just add on to it. Honestly, the stock look is ok with most, as mostly users are within apps, not the interface.
Any changes to the UI or Frameworks, required decompiling, changing xml and smali code. Most folks have never ventured into this aspect. Not to mention the diversity in APKTool versions running from a CMD window.
Then comes "Exposed" modules. Now all the look cool features, mods, tweaks, etc, can be done without changing any of the apks (for the most part) to get the desired look, and add features that the manufacturers just didn't put in.
Things have become so much easier to cook ROMs. Now, we need not mess with APKTool, and can use a windows interface to decompile, alter, and recompile in a manner of a minute. Compare, copy and paste all from within the same app (explains why lots of ROMs pretty much have the exact same features) It's too easy to do now days for folks who really don't know how to cook.
So do all ROMs look the same? Pretty much, until you add the features via exposed modules. After all, ROMs are all derived from AOSP from Google.
