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To be fair, it _is_ Google's operating system they're using. Those restrictions are basically the price of using Android, in lieu of an actual monetary cost for

To be fair, it _is_ Google's operating system they're using. Those restrictions are basically the price of using Android, in lieu of an actual monetary cost for licensing the OS.

dcow 9y ago
No. That's the price of using Google Play Services--Google's platform framework (which supports the Google apps including YouTube). Android can forked and built and deployed entirely independent of Google's framework services. What's even funnier, all the restrictions to Android recently aimed at solving battery life.. guess who the worst offender is: Google Play Services. Guess who's excluded from all the anti-competitive restrictions Google is sliding into Android: Google Play Services. (Now to be fair you could also vendor your own framework services/components/whatever and delivery them with your build of Android, but Google certainly has the upper hand in that in order to be licensed to use googles framework services and thus their apps, you have to pass a set of compliance tests, among other things.)
- Ajedi32 9y ago
  > Guess who's excluded from all the restrictions Google is sliding into Android: Google Play Services. Do you have a source for that? Because I'm pretty sure that's false. In fact, the Android 8.0 changelog even [explicitly says][1] that Play Services is affected by the new background location limitations: > This behavior change affects all apps that receive location updates, including Google Play services. [1]: https://developer.android.com/about/versions/oreo/android-8.0-changes.html https://developer.android.com/about/versions/oreo/android-8....
  - dcow 9y ago
    That's location, not execution. Effectively Google is preventing 3rd party apps from running persistently in the background by limiting location (because that's how some apps would "cheat"--you could get around a user explicitly stopping your app if you registered for background location updates, similar scenario on iOS until they added the extra status bar informing the user when apps are using background location). Because play services can run persistently (how do you think GCM works) it doesn't really affect their stuff. But it's good to see Google closing that gap because it's one of the ways naughty apps would piss in the pool for everyone else. And it's one of the criticisms a lot of people had against Google's upper hand.
    - Ajedi32 9y ago
      Ah, fair point. I looked into it further, and I believe you're correct that Play Services is currently excluded from the background execution limits (but not location limits) in Oreo. That's not an arbitrary exception on Google's part though; the reason it's excluded is because Play Services targets Marshmallow, not Oreo, and the new background execution restrictions are currently only enforced for apps targeting Oreo (though there's a switch in settings to manually enforce them for individual apps, and you can flip that switch for Play Services if you want).
      - dcow 9y ago
        I'm curious how they'll handle GCM. Maybe it will get registered as a VOIP or messaging app meaning the system will not remove its Services.
- obmelvin 9y ago
  Google Play Services is the 'worst' battery offender because it provides services to many other apps. If there was no such central service then other apps would be polling location independently etc and battery drain would be even worse. Am I missing something?
- bitmapbrother 9y ago
  >What's even funnier, all the restrictions to Android recently aimed at solving battery life.. guess who the worst offender is: Google Play Services I'm looking at my battery stats and with 10% battery remaining, Google services has used 4% of the battery. So you're either being disingenuous or you have an issue with your device.
scarface74 9y ago
So is Chrome “Apple’s browser” since it is a fork of WebKit? Android is open source.

To be fair, it _is_ Google's operating system they're using. Those restrictions are basically the price of using Android, in lieu of an actual monetary cost for licensing the OS.

dcow 9y ago

No. That's the price of using Google Play Services--Google's platform framework (which supports the Google apps including YouTube). Android can forked and built and deployed entirely independent of Google's framework services. What's even funnier, all the restrictions to Android recently aimed at solving battery life.. guess who the worst offender is: Google Play Services. Guess who's excluded from all the anti-competitive restrictions Google is sliding into Android: Google Play Services. (Now to be fair you could also vendor your own framework services/components/whatever and delivery them with your build of Android, but Google certainly has the upper hand in that in order to be licensed to use googles framework services and thus their apps, you have to pass a set of compliance tests, among other things.)

Ajedi32 9y ago
> Guess who's excluded from all the restrictions Google is sliding into Android: Google Play Services. Do you have a source for that? Because I'm pretty sure that's false. In fact, the Android 8.0 changelog even [explicitly says][1] that Play Services is affected by the new background location limitations: > This behavior change affects all apps that receive location updates, including Google Play services. [1]: https://developer.android.com/about/versions/oreo/android-8.0-changes.html https://developer.android.com/about/versions/oreo/android-8....
- dcow 9y ago
  That's location, not execution. Effectively Google is preventing 3rd party apps from running persistently in the background by limiting location (because that's how some apps would "cheat"--you could get around a user explicitly stopping your app if you registered for background location updates, similar scenario on iOS until they added the extra status bar informing the user when apps are using background location). Because play services can run persistently (how do you think GCM works) it doesn't really affect their stuff. But it's good to see Google closing that gap because it's one of the ways naughty apps would piss in the pool for everyone else. And it's one of the criticisms a lot of people had against Google's upper hand.
  - Ajedi32 9y ago
    Ah, fair point. I looked into it further, and I believe you're correct that Play Services is currently excluded from the background execution limits (but not location limits) in Oreo. That's not an arbitrary exception on Google's part though; the reason it's excluded is because Play Services targets Marshmallow, not Oreo, and the new background execution restrictions are currently only enforced for apps targeting Oreo (though there's a switch in settings to manually enforce them for individual apps, and you can flip that switch for Play Services if you want).
    - dcow 9y ago
      I'm curious how they'll handle GCM. Maybe it will get registered as a VOIP or messaging app meaning the system will not remove its Services.
obmelvin 9y ago
Google Play Services is the 'worst' battery offender because it provides services to many other apps. If there was no such central service then other apps would be polling location independently etc and battery drain would be even worse. Am I missing something?
bitmapbrother 9y ago
>What's even funnier, all the restrictions to Android recently aimed at solving battery life.. guess who the worst offender is: Google Play Services I'm looking at my battery stats and with 10% battery remaining, Google services has used 4% of the battery. So you're either being disingenuous or you have an issue with your device.

scarface74 9y ago

So is Chrome “Apple’s browser” since it is a fork of WebKit? Android is open source.