Oh let me count the ways.....
1) Its HUGE!!! AKA full of bloat
1.1) The features are gimmicky. See point 1
1.2) Samsung, we don't need a Samsung app to try and replace everything Google has that is already better. See point 1
2) It looks like crayola designed it
3) No red underline under misspelled text
I could probably go on... Needless to say, I run AOSP ROMS
Here is my take, I also found the mob comment made by an above poster VERY interesting.
On my galaxy ace which came with touchwiz, I looked for a different rom mainly on the basis that the rom that samsung shipped on the phone was very laggy and slow, I didnt have an immediate issue with the look and feel of touchwiz just the speed of it. CM 7.2 (whih is based on AOSP) on the ace is much faster on that phone and the UI was cool, dialer actually better than touchwiz.
However fast forward.
I got here now a S2 which I got of ebay for testing roms. Plus a new S3 which I planned to use as my new phone. The issue been with the S3 is it is ICS+ only so no GB roms on it.
Now remember the mob comment? People just seem to blindly copy each other in stating ICS is somehow much better than GB and JB beats ICS.
The first thing I noticed with ICS and JB is the dialer is bad. Its very bad. Lets do a basic recap of what I see as changed.
The favourites and contacts are no longer seperate tabs. So on GB there is a dedicated contacts which tends to be listed in alphabetical order, and there is a seperate favourites tab which shows favourite contacts on top and frequently used contacts below. There is also the call log and dialer tabs. In my view the design of this in both CM7.2 and TW (gb version) i spot on. The issue with the TW version is it was lag city, jerky scrolling, laggy usage etc. CM 7.2 dialer kept the TW features and added T9 functionality. But also important almost all lag removed using it. On ICS/JB there is just 3 tabs, dialer, call log and contacts. On the contacts tab favourites are shown on top (if any) and is no frequently called feature, its gone. Also the favourites now have very large size so they take a lot of screen estate, this appears to be so contact pictures can be blown up for more detail, to further highlight the extra focus on pictures the ICS/JB dialer does NOT allow disable display of these pictures so we have the first 2 disadvantages, lost recent callers and bad screen estate efficiency. the other changes are very notiable in that the configuration options on ICS/JB dialer is almost non existant, the app has been hugely dumbed down (google call it simplifying). On the galaxy S2 touchwiz doesnt address the dialer it seems samsung didnt feel the need to do this, but on the S3 I see the dialer is like on GB, so we have the first real advantage of TW on ICS and that is it uses the better old style dialer. Also the call interface (whilst in call), on ICS/JB the photo has been ballooned up in size so it takes 90% of the screen with the buttons squashed at the bottom with no text labels, this is a serious regression, TW on the S3 fixes this keeping the GB style. So point 1.2 isnt entirely valid in my view the google dialer and call app are pretty bad in ICS/JB.
Point 1 I agree with . This is why I am trying to avoid using a samsung based rom to work around the problem above, sadly I havent found a workaround yet, every single rom I have tried keeps the AOSP dialler/call app. So next thing is maybe to look for a samung TW based rom but with it slimmed down. In particular the battery drain type stuff removed. Such as the ever running software updater.
1.1 on gimmicks, I agree most of TW features are gimmicky but guess what, having looked at ICS and JB it has to be said pretty much all new featres in those are also gimmicks.
face unlock - 95% of people dont even put any lock protection on. If they do face unlock is too gimmicky and weak.
widgets on unlock screen. - lock screen is to lock everything off prevent accidental use of anything. with each new android version the lock screen is becoming like a clone of the home screen. eg. quick launch camers from lock scree, generally its a swipe to unlock, so the lock screen changes are near useless and gimmicky.
status bar widgets - useful but all cm based roms have a superior function already and if not then is apps, so in effect usless AOSP update.
I wont go through every ICS/JB feature but just giving an idea how those are gimicky as well.
2 - I agree the theme colours design are a bit like that. I wonder if not only a slimmed down samsung rom exists but also a rethemed one.
3 - Thankfully minor issue.
