For what it’s worth, I didn’t replace that many of the apps. Mostly, I just downloaded widgets, because the native widgets are weird sizes and that there aren’t enough customization options. I did download Contacts+ to replace the normal contact manager, though, because it syncs people with Facebook profiles and other stuff Google apparently no longer wants to do.
From what I understand, that’s basically Facebook’s fault. The developers over there didn’t want to conform to the API Google had in place for its contacts app. Instead, they put out their own API and told Google to change their contacts app to work with them.
Google’s theory was “Hey, our contacts app is a system app. Third-parties conform to it, not the other way around.”
I might be wrong about that, or have the specifics wrong, but the gist of it boils down to Google and FB not getting along with each other.
Fair enough. It doesn’t really matter to me whose fault it is; I wouldn’t blame Google if they did it deliberately, given that they have a competing product.