When I look at different phones (HTC, Samsung, Motorola, etc.) that are running the Android OS, the home screen always seems to look different.

I always thought Androids had that standard large clock, and the weather widget underneath, etc. Can I customize any android phone to look like that? Some phones that I've seen simply have a Google Search Bar as the home screen.

(Note: I'm not talking about people who have customized their home screens, I'm talking about how the phones come standard, and the home screen looks completely different).

Each manufacturer loads the phone with their own 'flavor' of Android so to speak. They put some of their own stuff on top of the Android OS. I know for my Motorola ATRIX I have 'MotoBlur'. HTC has their 'HTC Sense' I believe and Samsung has 'TouchWiz'.
Each of these custom UI's have different features and so on like the widgets you described.

Regarding the clock and weather widget that you described I think you can easily create that using the app 'Beatiful Widgets'. You can get that from the Android Marketplace.

The beauty of Android OS though is your free to do what you want with your phone in terms of customizations. Once you root your phone, which is relatively simple, you can load up custom ROMs that devs cook up. These ROM's have tons of different themes, features etc. It doesn't just stop with the look of your phone either. There are tons of mods too like for instance I can start up my phone with the volume button if I like instead of the fingerprint scanner. Visit XDA for all you need to know on this stuff. Great resource!

Nice. So if I bought a Samsung phone, and rooted it, then I could make it look exactly like a HTC?

Yes you could! What particular features from HTC are you looking for though? I could point out some apps that could get the job done without the need to root maybe. If its just the weather widget than like I said Beautiful Widgets is what you want.

BTW Samsung is a great choice imo. I'm fairly new to the Android game myself and have realized that there is a ton more developers working with Samsung phones (Galaxy line in particular). So you'll have a ton of support and rooting and stuff is waaay easier (dl program, click button lol)

I basically think the HTC home screen looks cooler than the Samsung ones. So whatever widgets/apps I could download to make the Samsung home screen look like an HTC.

I don't really need the entire HTC Sense UI.

Thanks!

For the dock: Launcher Pro (then you can dl a theme to get entire Sense UI)
To switch b/w different homescreens (Samsung/HTC): Homeswitcher

BTW once you see some of the roms (CM7/MIUI) you'll change your mind about HTC being cooler looking =P.

Check out xda-developers, everything you need for customization is on there

Originally Posted by Allan

Nice. So if I bought a Samsung phone, and rooted it, then I could make it look exactly like a HTC?

Exactly, maybe not...coz HTC has its own messaging app and a few things.

Some of the things that the manufacturers modify is one of the core parts and they don't release the source code to it. Like HTC Sense, Samsung TouchWiz, MotoBlur etc.

But yeah, homescreen is just a trivial matter. You'll probably find widgets that are much better than what any of the manufacturers provide.

there are plenty of apps in the Android Market that help customize your homescreen to exactly what you want it to look like. I'm using "fancy widget" and I love it :p

Originally Posted by j0sh

there are plenty of apps in the Android Market that help customize your homescreen to exactly what you want it to look like. I'm using "fancy widget" and I love it :p

I didn't know about this app. It's a free alternative to Beautiful Widgets...nice!

This is because android is good and has variety unlike steve job's products.

I love beautiful widgets, i downloaded it for free using app planet. It is sick.

Recently tried go launcher EX on sgs. It is pretty sick.

EDIT: XDA is great. like all the previous posters have said.

I use LauncherPro EX. It's awesome.

Rooting an Android phone allows you to flash custom ROM's, so yes, to answer your question you can use other skins. I personally love the default skin, but that's just me.