The Nexus 4 and the Nexus 10. I hate memes but....

Okay so if you're as obsessed with mobile technologies as I am you've likely already seen the incredible video documentaries posted by The Verge earlier today in relation to evolution of Google Now's voice search efforts and of course the highly anticipated new nexus devices, the Nexus 4 and the Nexus 10.

Now I have to admit I was a little hesitant when I first learned that LG would indeed be the company behind the next Nexus phone considering that I've been burned by those b*sterds in the past however when I sat and thought about it for a second it dawned on me that the idea of having LG's admittedly beefy hardware specs and Google's stock Android experience could prove to be a match made in geek heaven (That's a real place.)

The actual device itself looks incredibly polished and well manufactured yet still retains the classic Nexus monolithic design. It's sports a 4.7 IPS+ Display at 1280x768, 1.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro processor, Gorilla Glass 2 (front and back), 8MP camera, wireless charging and Android 4.2. I won't lie to you. I want one.

The highlight of these videos however (at least for me) was the reveal of the Nexus 10 tablet developed by Google in conjunction with hardware partners Samsung. This thing looks absolutely gorgeous and is the Android tablet I've been waiting for. The screen resolution is an awe-inspiring 2560x1600....

...Yup. You read correctly.

And underneath the hood is the lightning fast Samsung Exynos 5 5250 chip.

#Drool

If I haven't made it clear already. I'm excited. Very. Very. Very excited. It's great to see just how passionate Matias Duarte and the rest of the Google crew are about these new innovations and they manage to convey their elation without plonking themselves in front of a white background and pontificating endlessly about the minor steps forward they've taken in order to try and sell you what is essentially the same product...*cough*...Apple...*cough* *cough*.

Anyway. Enough of my rambling. Check out the links below for the full interviews.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66-4uMQqerA&feature=g-user-u

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXtudZl5mzM&feature=g-user-u

The Skin I Live In

I hate HTC's Sense UI. I also don't particularly care for Samsung's Touchwiz, am able to barely tolerate the latest variants of the overlay formerly known as Motoblur and am entirely apathetic to whatever it is Sony and even LG are doing with their Android UI skins.

I don't believe that manufacturer designed custom overlays are any longer necessary on the Android platform, especially since the arrival of the latest Ice Cream Sandwich update. Although I'm sure many of you will disagree I believe that Android should always provide a stock experience for each of their devices out of the box.

Then, if you insist on hampering you phones performance by adding carousel effects to your page swiping and lord knows what other kitsch crap, that's your prerogative and you should be able to do so via the Android Market. It's what makes Android great. Kinda like, I may not agree with what your doing but hell, I'll fight for your right to do it.

The Android Market is where manufacturers should house their overlays (for free of course) or perhaps they could simply have a specific app dedicated to transforming UI of the phone, similar to the HTC hub found on HTC's Windows Phone devices. I don't know, I don't particularly care what they do with them. I would prefer they binned them altogether to be quite frank.

Google acquisition of Matias Duarte, the man who pioneered the webOS interface, has clearly proved a wise move with Ice Cream Sandwich feeling more polished and clean than ever. I just think that this desired stock experience is the one we should all get to enjoy regardless of what hardware it's on.

HTC Sense 4.0

The whole thing that ignited this train of thought by the way were the shots I saw of the leaked Rom Update Utility for the forthcoming ICS powered HTC Endeavour which of course featured the updated Sense 4.0 skin. As you can see by the shots HTC have once again successfully warped the clean stock experience into something unashamedly overbearing which will no doubt lead to lag, force closes and crashes and what I like to call 'battery rape.'. Hey perhaps this is what people want but I for one could quite happily do without.