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While this is cool, I feel that this will always be a second class citizen at whims of Google, who can break or change their APIs any time. What would it take t

While this is cool, I feel that this will always be a second class citizen at whims of Google, who can break or change their APIs any time. What would it take to provide a proper API replacement that apps can target instead of google play services ? i.e., not spoofing but providing a legit alternative. If I have a spare server for instance, can I set up a GCM like server that can relay messages instead of them going through Google ?

anilgulecha 9y ago
It's not going to be completely at Google's whim, as disabling a certain API/interface means older proper-android devices will also fail. So microg is banking on it's API interface being fine, given Google's interface, for business reasons, has to be fine.
- amelius 9y ago
  But isn't Google auto-updating on all devices, including old ones?
  - Arnt 9y ago
    Only mostly. I don't know why. Lack of space on some phones maybe, or they could be configured to autoupdate via wifi only but never see wifi. Whatever the reason, if you use google play services, you'll see a few devices with old versions that don't update even though there is a newer version for that OS version.
  - s17n 9y ago
    This allows developers to use new api calls and have their apps work on old devices, it doesn't let google break existing apis without breaking apps. They aren't like recompiling the whole play store against every new google play services build or something.
amelius 9y ago
What I basically want, and have been wanting for years, is to run Linux on my phone, and run Android apps (∗) inside a sandbox (that works on both my phone and my desktop computer). But I guess it is too much to ask. (∗) for the occasional banking/railway app
- cyphar 9y ago
  One of the "stretch goals" for Purism's Librem 5 [1] (which is a pure GNU/Linux smartphone platform -- designed to work with upstream distributions) is to be able to run Android apps under an emulator. [1]: https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/ https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/
  - bubblethink 9y ago
    That is completely unrelated. This is about propriety Google play services. Not about android or aosp. You can anyway run aosp on any number of devices.
    - cyphar 9y ago
      If you re-read the comment I was responding to[1], you'll find that it is very much related (in fact I was providing an answer). [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15618507 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15618507
  - Brakenshire 9y ago
    Their funding goal was $1.5m, and the stretch goal for Android app support was $10m! That says to me they are not interested, putting it as such a ludicrously high goal. Still, I suppose a phone which runs on the mainline kernel will have access to the kernel features necessary to run Anbox. I'd be interested to hear how difficult people think it would be to get Anbox working for this kind of device.
    - cyphar 9y ago
      Yeah, I anticipate that Android emulation will be something the community jumps on rather than being a built-in feature for v1.0.

anilgulecha 9y ago

It's not going to be completely at Google's whim, as disabling a certain API/interface means older proper-android devices will also fail. So microg is banking on it's API interface being fine, given Google's interface, for business reasons, has to be fine.

amelius 9y ago
But isn't Google auto-updating on all devices, including old ones?
- Arnt 9y ago
  Only mostly. I don't know why. Lack of space on some phones maybe, or they could be configured to autoupdate via wifi only but never see wifi. Whatever the reason, if you use google play services, you'll see a few devices with old versions that don't update even though there is a newer version for that OS version.
- s17n 9y ago
  This allows developers to use new api calls and have their apps work on old devices, it doesn't let google break existing apis without breaking apps. They aren't like recompiling the whole play store against every new google play services build or something.

amelius 9y ago

What I basically want, and have been wanting for years, is to run Linux on my phone, and run Android apps (∗) inside a sandbox (that works on both my phone and my desktop computer). But I guess it is too much to ask. (∗) for the occasional banking/railway app

cyphar 9y ago
One of the "stretch goals" for Purism's Librem 5 [1] (which is a pure GNU/Linux smartphone platform -- designed to work with upstream distributions) is to be able to run Android apps under an emulator. [1]: https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/ https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/
- bubblethink 9y ago
  That is completely unrelated. This is about propriety Google play services. Not about android or aosp. You can anyway run aosp on any number of devices.
  - cyphar 9y ago
    If you re-read the comment I was responding to[1], you'll find that it is very much related (in fact I was providing an answer). [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15618507 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15618507
- Brakenshire 9y ago
  Their funding goal was $1.5m, and the stretch goal for Android app support was $10m! That says to me they are not interested, putting it as such a ludicrously high goal. Still, I suppose a phone which runs on the mainline kernel will have access to the kernel features necessary to run Anbox. I'd be interested to hear how difficult people think it would be to get Anbox working for this kind of device.
  - cyphar 9y ago
    Yeah, I anticipate that Android emulation will be something the community jumps on rather than being a built-in feature for v1.0.