I’ve been having some heated arguments with a couple of cool friends about one of the biggest draws of the Android platform: its open, customizable system. But having had the chance to use an Xperia Play on Android 2.3 (the most current release) as my main device for two weeks, I just don’t see it.

Or, rather, I do see it, but I don’t buy it.

I don’t think it’s for a lack of curiosity or an open mind, though. iSource may be an Apple-centric website, but I was a big fan of Windows Mobile smartphones before I picked up the original iPhone, and I’ve done my fair share of flashing ROMs and installing widgets, hacks, and skins.

Android feels a lot more at home on a touch screen than WinMo ever did, but the price of all of this openness seems too high. Somewhere between the ability to set live wallpapers, turn any selectable text into a text message, and select multiple software input methods, Android has lost a sense of unity and polish.

One major factor is the difference between the gooey Android core, and the candy shell that manufacturers like Sony Ericsson wrap around it. I sense that in its zeal to prove that its own branded version of Android is the one, true king of Gondor, Sony Ericsson forgot to sweat the small stuff – and the small stuff matters quite a lot. But it’s also very difficult to tell who is to blame when different versions of Android on different devices can offer such different basic experiences.

I’ve been thinking about this issue for a while now, and best I can do is point out a couple of areas where something in Android appears to have slipped through the cracks:

plugging your earphones into the device doesn’t automatically lower the volume (OW)

there doesn’t seem to be an easily accessible volume slider

no quick or easy access to apostrophes while typing with the default (Sony Ericsson) keyboard

default task manager, accessed with two taps of the home button, only shows eight most recently used apps

no way to easily scroll to the top of a given window; no way to get to the bottom, but iOS can’t do that either

no default rotation lock

no screenshots by default; you have to hope an app supports your device, find a way to root your device, or install the Android SDK and take pictures while tethered

no in-app browsers means links from other apps open within the browser; this slows it down after about a day or two and the back button doesn’t consistently bring you back to your app of origin

There is a lot of technical functionality to envy in the open Android OS, to be sure. Text and media are shared more easily between apps and you can tweak so much that you really can own and customise every digital inch of your device – but having spent two weeks with the Xperia Play, I’ve found myself questioning what all that openness really means for the user experience when nobody is overseeing the whole process.

I spent a number of hours scouring Google and various Android forums for the consensus of the best apps and found very few interesting Android exclusives. The DoubleTwist media player looks great and syncs wirelessly with the desktop app, Epistle offers a lovely text editing experience with Dropbox sync, and Plume is a busy Twitter app that also offers a lot of raw power. Unfortunately, these apps seem to be the exception, rather than the rule. I’m certain I missed out on a couple of Android gems, but after the many hours spent mining Google and various forums, I expected to find more.

The rest of the apps that I ended up using – SoundHound, IMDB, Evernote – were good, but they also weren’t anything that pulled me to Android. Evernote may have a different and more robust UI on the Play, but it’s the same core service that I can access on the iPhone or iPad.

But what about all the cool parts of openness? The ability of stock Android devices to do what only jailbroken devices can dream of accomplishing? Well, for starters, good ol’ corporate copying has taken care of a lot of my Android wish list items. It began with Wi-fi tethering, and continues well into iOS 5 with Notification Center, Twitter integration, wi-fi syncing and OTA updates, and Photo Stream (which reminds me a lot of Android’s cool Picasa integration). The “adaptation” of software concepts happens all the time, and these recent iOS 5 features really did a fantastic job of addressing many areas where Android held a very clear lead.

Finally, there’s Android’s option to select other keyboards or input methods, should you want them. All I can say is, Thank God this option is here, since I could barely make heads or tails of the default Sony Ericsson keyboard, which inexplicably took out the awesome Voice Input key that seems present on every other keyboard. I tried the famous Swype input method, which lets you simply draw lines between letters to spell words, but it didn’t quite suit my two-handed texting style. I spent the most time with the SwiftKey Beta and was impressed with how many keystrokes I saved with its intelligent predictive text. Unfortunately, the developers really do mean *beta*, and I experienced a number of instances where the keyboard simply crashed and had to reload, or crashed and wouldn’t let me enter auto-corrections.

There’s no question that users are allowed more freedom on Android, but it’s a misleading kind of freedom – the freedom to fend for yourself – that just doesn’t appeal to me as a mobile user any more. It isn’t that the system doesn’t work as a whole, but in my two weeks with the device I only ever managed to catch glimpses – glints in the open Android desert – of a smooth, polished user experience. It made me mighty thirsty for something more.

Apple flavoured Kool Aid anyone?

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