[Moto Maxx Android Development] ChazzMatt:
@ jchisena -- Yes, the two ROMs are different and are intended for different users. And your comments are mostly correct.

However, [MENTION=6268841]vegetaz[/MENTION] comments weren't taken out of context. He basically said why can't you make this custom ROM as great as that tweaked stock ROM -- which by the way doesn't work on all Quarks? :rolleyes: Maybe it was lack of education about the differences between stock and custom ROMs and maybe it was lack of experience in forums like this?

1) Stock ROMs are boring for most real developers who actually CODE.

[MENTION=5747496]bhb27[/MENTION] has actually created apps from scratch, like the Clean Modem file or Turbo Toast app, available from the Play store or iSu (before Magisk came to our devices). That's a whole 'nother level of expertise.

2) [MENTION=6268841]vegetaz[/MENTION], if [MENTION=5747496]bhb27[/MENTION] made a tweaked stock ROM, guess what? It would be based on XT225 Marshmallow and wouldn't necessarily be compatible with your XT1254. I wouldn't mind. I own three XT1225. How about you? ;)

[MENTION=5747496]bhb27[/MENTION] could make such an XT1225 tweaked, stock ROM and make it compatible with XT1254, if he wanted. But that would be his choice. Since he owns XT1225 and lives in Brazil, any XT1254/XT1250 users are lucky he makes stuff compatible for your phones. He doesn't even have CDMA on his phone and sure doesn't use Verizon (and neither do I).

3) it's considered rude to go into another ROM/kernel thread and say how something else is "better".

First, in most such situation you would probably be wrong. Since everything is almost open source, real devs have access to almost the same tools and resources. What choices one dev makes is more a personal decision.

For example, there's a Quark ROM that shows Ambient Display locked screen notifications (even after you touch them) in black and white instead of color. Someone went crazy over that because it simulated Moto Display (which by the way is proprietary code, and not open source). Quark Ambient Display works just as well, and [MENTION=5747496]bhb27[/MENTION] and others have decided to show the touched notifications in color. But this other dev decided to go black and white.

This person declared this was SO MUCH BETTER and called out [MENTION=5747496]bhb27[/MENTION]! How is it BETTER? That's his opinion. (Motorola went with black and white for the 2013 Moto X because of particular chipset design they were using. That's no longer necessary. It seems they kept black and white, because it's their design decision to keep uniformity across models. But stock design elements are not necessarily "better". Microsoft makes "design" decisions for Windows all the time that are not necessarily "better". I change Windows stuff all the time that annoys me! A GUI design can be what you want.) And with notifications, if I decide to read the entire message, I still have to unlock my display anyway and read it in color. )

To clarify, the initial notification in Quark Ambient Display IS in black and white. But if you touch the screen to expand, it turns to color for a few seconds, a very few seconds. Then if you UNLOCK the display to read the message, that of course is always in color no matter if you are using Ambient Display or Moto Display. The difference between Moto Display and Quark Ambient Display is those few seconds where you actually touch the screen.)

It's like saying black and white Microsoft DOS is better than Windows. And YES, back in the early days of Windows many die hard users said that! They had memorized all the keyboard codes and suddenly it was all different! They didn't want to change.

And some photographers still use black & white vs color to be "artistic". Well, notifications aren't gallery-framed art, they're simply notifications.

There's nothing wrong/bad about color screen notifications for a few seconds on an AMOLED display. But this person wanted [MENTION=5747496]bhb27[/MENTION] to make notifications to be black and white like this other Quark ROM, and he said NO. Because it's not "better", there's no technical superiority, it doesn't really save battery -- it just a different dev choice.

Second, if somehow a dev did screw something up most times it's better to point out how it can be fixed than to compare. (There's exceptions... One dev left out Quark Ambient Display Gestures. Don't ask me why. But it seems to show he doesn't actually own the device. He also listed at least one hardware feature that doesn't exist on our device. After several such comments, and ROM updates to fix, he then de-listed the ROM and then re-listed it to start fresh.)

Bottom line, if you like that other ROM so much, then go use it? ;)

4) Tweaked stock ROMs have their place. I have recommended CF's ROM for many, many Droid Turbo owners owners on Verizon who unlock their bootloader/root and want to immediately improve their device.

Custom ROM choices can be overwhelming and a tweaked, debloated stock-based ROM is the very easy first step. CF's ROM is a very good tweaked, debloated Verizon stock-based ROM.

And for Verizon customers who need VoLTE, right now that's all they can use.

And for some people, that's as far as they want to go. That's OK.

But in these

Quark ROM info posts

, there's a reason the two "stock" Marshmallow ROMs are listed at the bottom as "other". (Go read that post if you haven't.)

Stock-based ROMs will have the limits of stock firmware. It's not under constant review, constant improvements with plethora of options. For instance, does stock-based CF ROM have the notification LED [MENTION=5747496]bhb27[/MENTION] enabled on our Quark phones? IF yes, thank dev [MENTION=5747496]bhb27[/MENTION]. If it doesn't, then why not? (Seriously, I don't know if it does or not -- but that's just one example of extra features.)

How long did it take for Verizon firmware to be fully patched against Stagefright? Like a year? In the meanwhile, Verizon released at least 2 or 3 "security" patches to try to stop Sunshine. But they didn't patch against REAL threats like Stagefright! You see where Verizon's priorities are. Not on real security! (Whereas CM-based ROMs were patched fairly quickly.) But any stock-based ROMs were vulnerable during that time, while CM-based ROMs were not.