You're disappointed because HTC, Motorola and Samsung provide choice, or because the choices they provide suck?
I'd like to see some stronger innovation, but that some subset of the choices suck just provides a solid reason to pick the better option. Even a bad example is an example, in that we all learn what doesn't work, and we can cherry pick the best things from a number of different sources. The wider ecosystem in carrier-customized Android interfaces means finding out faster which featuers ones are not strong.
The best case scenario is a number of interfaces that are so good that people have a hard time choosing, and the competition between then keeps them all on their toes trying to out-do the other. This may not be the best thing for the businesses (re. profit margins), but it is the best thing for the consumer.
Why would they merge their improvements upstream. That would only lead to them losing their (hypothetical) competitive advantage. Handset manufacturers don't care about the android platform they care about their own implementation of the android platform. The battle isn't iPhone vs. Android, it's Apple vs HTC vs Motorola vs Samsung vs SE vs LG vs Nokia vs... Samsung is just as (un)likely to help HTC or LG as they are to help Apple.
And that, in essence, is probably the biggest issue I see with Android in its fight against the iPhone.
It's even worse than Mac vs PC as at least Windows (at a given revision) looked and behaved pretty much the same on every machine. The theming was light (especially early on, when there was no support for it) and manufacturers added crap, but didn't replace whole subsystems just because.
I also find that to be an incredibly stupid strategy (but in prisoner's dilemma terms considering all the player are bastards...): the first worry of the players in the mobile phone space should be to drive Apple out of it as fast and as soon as possible, avoid their repeat of the iPod and their conquest of a majority marketshare.
Therefore the long term strategy should be to collaborate and make the common platform as good as possible as soon as possible (on all aspects) in order to push Apple out of the market, using hardware to differentiate themselves, and when Apple is stuck into a small minority box (or entirely driven out) they can go back to bickering among themselves and releasing custom shells and stuff.
Actually, if you look back at the early days of Windows 3.0 and 3.1, it was very common for OEM's like Compaq, HP, Packard Bell, etc. to include their own proprietary "skin" on Windows (usually as shallow as just a replacement for Program Manager).
On a separate note, I don't know why everyone always casts this as an Android vs iPhone fight. Android doesn't need to "beat" the iPhone, the iPhone isn't (by a loooong shot) the largest player in the smartphone market anyway. (http://gigaom.com/2010/03/18/the-mobile-os-market/)
There's plenty of marketshare for both iPhone and Android to take away from RIM and Symbian, not to mention that smartphone market is growing very rapidly as a whole.
> There's plenty of marketshare for both iPhone and Android to take away from RIM and Symbian, not to mention that smartphone market is growing very rapidly as a whole.
Symbian is being eaten alive right now and fading fast, so that one's happening, and the iPhone (and Android behind it) have decided to shoot for the wider consumer landscape, not for RIM's entrenched "Enterprise" position. They're slowly adding enterprise-targetted features (VPNs and the likes) but that's secondary for now, they're not trying to battle RIM. Yet anyway.
But this is cast as a battle between iOS and Android because they are going head to head in terms of demographics, purpose, abilities, mindshare. The means are different but Google clearly aims Android at the target iOS opened, and it's not like they're shy about it.
My point being that there's plenty of marketshare for both platforms to succeed. The competitors are currently larger, and really don't have a compelling offering compared to Android and iPhoone.
