All,
Universal Self-Service tweaking .... STOCK ROM can be CUSTOMISED to suit your own taste...your own custom rom !!
Mass Customization for real....
Uh, well, some way off, but proof of concept included:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2012770The OP has got a
Thanks Meter of 6172 and counting
Making "Modified-Stock" Custom ROMs Defunct - the Xposed FrameworkIntroduction
Recently it has dismayed me how, across the Android Community,
people seem to feel that it's necessary to run a "Custom ROM" in order to get improvements and changes to your ROM. Of course, some of you know it's possible to modify the APK files directly to change things, but these changes need to be done every time your base ROM is updated. Once Samsung starts leaking out updates to 4.2 like a sieve, you guys will be all over them, needing to update your patches and tweaks every time.
Anyway, seeing this displeases me, as it encourages people to see "Custom ROMs" as a commodity, and something you consume. In essence, users were getting their "fix" of tweaks from their "chef", but not learning how to do it themselves, nor realising their beloved chef isn't doing anything magical. In fact, their chef is likely decompiling the applications, and using baksmali/apktool to take apart the app, hard-code in their changes, then rebuild it. This method has worked well for 3 years, but it's been in need of an update for some time.
The Enlightenment
Then I saw this thread by rovo89. That man deserves a beer for every Android user there is, for his work on the Xposed Framework! His and Tungstwenty's work on this has made it possible to modify the core Android system, without doing any actual modifying of applications.
Carry on reading at link above...