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"Google was terrified that Apple would end up ruling the mobile space. So, to help in the fight against the iPhone at a time when Google had no mobile foothold

"Google was terrified that Apple would end up ruling the mobile space. So, to help in the fight against the iPhone at a time when Google had no mobile foothold whatsoever, Android was launched as an open source project." This is not a quote from anyone because it's false. Andy started Android well before anyone knew iPhone existed (years). I say existed only because I don't know offhand when Apple started iPhone internally, so i can't say for sure he started it before Apple did, but i suspect that's true as well. Andy left Danger in 2003 to go start to create Android. The first iPhone was not released until mid-2007. Google was terrified, but it was terrified the carriers would end up owning the mobile space, because they already were. Andy also didn't open source Android to "get a foothold in something". He's literally said his reasons before. Given how poorly researched just this simple paragraph is (it literally can't be true), it would take a lot of time to point out how bad the rest is too.

everydaypanos 8y ago
How could Google be terrified of something which as you say was already happening? I am also pretty sure that Andy’s actions have absolutely no relevance here. I think that this first sentence is actually super true and maybe even captivating to read the rest.. Google CEO I think has admitted publicly that Google’s mobile-phone efforts at first were just by a simple fear of Apple :)
Mister_Snuggles 8y ago
That quote isn't attributed to anyone in the article. I took it to be the author's opinion. According to Wikipedia, the first iPhone was released on June 29, 2007 and Android had its initial release on Septebmer 23, 2008 with the first hardware (the HTC Dream) released on October 20, 2008. It seems to me that the iPhone beat Android to market by a year and a bit.
modi15 8y ago
Doesnt really matter what Andy intended - when Google bought it this is what they had in mind and it has been driven consistent with this policy. Google is absolutely at fault here and EU is the first of what should be many more cases against them.
blub 8y ago
I'm calling your bluff, I don't think you have any counter-arguments to the article and you're leading with your best argument already: nitpicking one paragraph. But we had this discussion before and I pointed out that Google, an online services provider with zero mobile experience and no name recognition had a very poor chance of convincing manufacturers to go for their unproven, inferior to pretty much anything OS (including Symbian and Blackberry). They might as well have just licensed Windows. Google not charging a license for the OS and making it open source must have been a big part of what convinced them to pick Android instead. It's just very logical that they would be swayed by price and the possibility of changing Android if they wanted to. Why on earth would they pick Android otherwise?
- DannyBee 8y ago
  "I'm calling your bluff, I don't think you have any counter-arguments to the article and you're leading with your best argument already: nitpicking one paragraph." No, i'm just not bothering. Really. For example: It quotes vic gundotra for why android happened, a man who literally was not at Google until after Android was released. (and who Andy Rubin definitely did not give a shit about or chat with until much much later. Vic may have left an SVP, but he did not come in as one) "But we had this discussion before and I pointed out that Google, an online services provider with zero mobile experience and no name recognition had a very poor chance of convincing manufacturers to go for their unproven, inferior to pretty much anything OS (including Symbian and Blackberry). They might as well have just licensed Windows." It was definitely not inferior, but i'll ignore your opinion on this one and stick with the substance. You conflate two pieces, one of which mattered, and one of which didn't: "Google not charging a license for the OS and making it open source must have been a big part of what convinced them to pick Android instead. It's just very logical that they would be swayed by price and the possibility of changing Android if they wanted to." The not charging was the main part of it (they actually mostly expect it to end up saving their low end from licensing fees), and yes, customization mattered. But ability for partners to have source is completely orthogonal to open sourcing. In fact, most of the partners were heavily against open sourcing it, because they felt it would cause them to lose their value add. They also didn't want to have to deal with the compliance aspects of android OSS licensing even a little bit! They were also strongly against having to non assert patents. I spent about a year of my life convincing htc and others it would be okay for them if we open source d it. (As mentioned elsewhere, because Andy wanted to help the world, not because it was critical to Google strategy). In fact, the open source release almost didn't happen at the same time as the SDK release, and was considered fairly secondary. The only critical piece was the compliance source. So again, I don't know why everyone is so stuck on the open source. Closed source worked fine for partners, and still does. It's even what they want. I'm going to state definitively a thing that is as true now as it was then: The hardware manufacturers do not give a crap about Android being open source. They did not care then. They still don't care. In fact, they still see it as a net negative. They want to be able to develop with Google in private branches that the other hardware manufacturers can't see. I'm not sure why this is so provocative to people. It's not like you see these hardware manufacturers running around trying to be pillars of the OSS community. In any case, I've said more than enough about this multiple times and I'm not going to spend more of a weekend arguing about this. You are welcome to rewrite history. Someday, I hope you are successful enough to experience this as well.
close04 8y ago
Actually that's mostly true. Rubin's open source Android didn't have to stay open source. But there was no choice, unlike Apple Google didn't plan on making the phone. So they had to have a lot of partnerships with OEMs and carriers. And as Google was trying to sell that phone (with keyboard and no touchscreen) and OS to carriers Apple launched the iPhone. At this point Rubin and Google changed course and made their phone and OS less Blackberry and more iPhone because they were smart enough to realize that was the future. The only way to make it work, to convince carriers and fight Apple, was to keep it open source. Or to sign it away to the carriers :). Rubin himself said that the iPhone was the thing that made them reconsider their entire strategy and come up with the first Android phone as we know it. If you're curious about the story there's a good book with all the behind the curtain details: Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution.
- scarface74 8y ago
  Rubin's open source Android didn't have to stay open source. But there was no choice, unlike Apple Google didn't plan on making the phone. So they had to have a lot of partnerships with OEMs and carriers. There was nothing forcing Google to semi-open source Android. The competitive advantage of Android was that it was free not open source. Microsoft has licensed a closed source operating system to OEMs for decades.
  - close04 8y ago
    Again, if you want to get details read that book. It's validated by statements from Google insiders and more. The gist is that free wasn't enough. Right around the launch of the iPhone carriers didn't want to buy into anything that they didn't own. So carriers and OEMs got free reign to modify Android as they saw fit, not just get it for free. Which is why Rubin's Sidekick phone was only sold because T-Mobile agreed to rebrand it and sell it. And as far as anybody knew it was made by T-Mobile, not a Danger. Carriers controlled the industry and it was only the first iPhone that made a dent in that.
    - scarface74 8y ago
GeekyBear 8y ago
Agreed. Ars got this particular point wrong. Android wasn't developed to fend off Apple. It was developed to fend off Microsoft. Andy Rubin was already in Vegas at CES to show off Android to carriers and device makers (back when it was going to be a Blackberry knockoff) when Steve Jobs was on stage to demo the iPhone. >On the day Jobs announced the iPhone, the director of the Android team, Andy Rubin, was six hundred miles away in Las Vegas, on his way to a meeting with one of the myriad handset makers and carriers that descend on the city for the Consumer Electronics Show. Rubin was so astonished by what Jobs was unveiling that, on his way to a meeting, he had his driver pull over so that he could finish watching the webcast. “Holy crap,” he said to one of his colleagues in the car. “I guess we’re not going to ship that phone.” https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/the-day-google-had-to-start-over-on-android/282479/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/the-d... Google did change Android from being a Blackberry knockoff to being an iOS knockoff after seeing the iPhone demo, but Android was already long in development, because Google then feared Microsoft would engage in exactly the sort of behavior that Google was just found guilty of. >Google executives were convinced that if Windows on mobile devices caught on, Microsoft would interfere with users’ access to Google search on those devices in favor of its own search engine. The U.S. government’s successful antitrust trial against Microsoft in the 1990s made it difficult for the company to use its monopoly on desktops and laptops to bully competitors. It could not, for example, make Microsoft’s the default search engine in Windows without giving users a choice between its search engine and those from Google, Yahoo, and others. However, on smartphones, few rules governed how fiercely Microsoft could compete. It didn’t have a monopoly there. Google worried that if Microsoft made it hard enough to use Google search on its mobile devices and easy enough to use Microsoft search, many users would just switch search engines. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/the-day-google-had-to-start-over-on-android/282479/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/the-d...
- speedplane 8y ago
  Only partially agree here. Ageee that Android wasnt a response to Apple, but don’t think it was a response to MS either. It was a response to Oracle, and their tight grip of Java and the devices supported by it. At the time, Java owned most devices and Oracle had tight licensing requirements (you could either GPL all your code or pay Oracle a nice fee). Android created a (semi) compatible runtime that allowed companies to side-skirt Oracles licensing requirements. This of course brought a huge lawsuit from Oracle to Google (touching on fundamentals legal issues on whether large APIs are copyrightable), but Google seems to have come out on top. Android effectively unlocked Java from Oracle, turning it into a (sort-of) open platform, while gaining access to their huge developer base.

everydaypanos 8y ago

How could Google be terrified of something which as you say was already happening? I am also pretty sure that Andy’s actions have absolutely no relevance here. I think that this first sentence is actually super true and maybe even captivating to read the rest.. Google CEO I think has admitted publicly that Google’s mobile-phone efforts at first were just by a simple fear of Apple :)

Mister_Snuggles 8y ago

That quote isn't attributed to anyone in the article. I took it to be the author's opinion. According to Wikipedia, the first iPhone was released on June 29, 2007 and Android had its initial release on Septebmer 23, 2008 with the first hardware (the HTC Dream) released on October 20, 2008. It seems to me that the iPhone beat Android to market by a year and a bit.

modi15 8y ago

Doesnt really matter what Andy intended - when Google bought it this is what they had in mind and it has been driven consistent with this policy. Google is absolutely at fault here and EU is the first of what should be many more cases against them.

blub 8y ago

I'm calling your bluff, I don't think you have any counter-arguments to the article and you're leading with your best argument already: nitpicking one paragraph. But we had this discussion before and I pointed out that Google, an online services provider with zero mobile experience and no name recognition had a very poor chance of convincing manufacturers to go for their unproven, inferior to pretty much anything OS (including Symbian and Blackberry). They might as well have just licensed Windows. Google not charging a license for the OS and making it open source must have been a big part of what convinced them to pick Android instead. It's just very logical that they would be swayed by price and the possibility of changing Android if they wanted to. Why on earth would they pick Android otherwise?

DannyBee 8y ago
"I'm calling your bluff, I don't think you have any counter-arguments to the article and you're leading with your best argument already: nitpicking one paragraph." No, i'm just not bothering. Really. For example: It quotes vic gundotra for why android happened, a man who literally was not at Google until after Android was released. (and who Andy Rubin definitely did not give a shit about or chat with until much much later. Vic may have left an SVP, but he did not come in as one) "But we had this discussion before and I pointed out that Google, an online services provider with zero mobile experience and no name recognition had a very poor chance of convincing manufacturers to go for their unproven, inferior to pretty much anything OS (including Symbian and Blackberry). They might as well have just licensed Windows." It was definitely not inferior, but i'll ignore your opinion on this one and stick with the substance. You conflate two pieces, one of which mattered, and one of which didn't: "Google not charging a license for the OS and making it open source must have been a big part of what convinced them to pick Android instead. It's just very logical that they would be swayed by price and the possibility of changing Android if they wanted to." The not charging was the main part of it (they actually mostly expect it to end up saving their low end from licensing fees), and yes, customization mattered. But ability for partners to have source is completely orthogonal to open sourcing. In fact, most of the partners were heavily against open sourcing it, because they felt it would cause them to lose their value add. They also didn't want to have to deal with the compliance aspects of android OSS licensing even a little bit! They were also strongly against having to non assert patents. I spent about a year of my life convincing htc and others it would be okay for them if we open source d it. (As mentioned elsewhere, because Andy wanted to help the world, not because it was critical to Google strategy). In fact, the open source release almost didn't happen at the same time as the SDK release, and was considered fairly secondary. The only critical piece was the compliance source. So again, I don't know why everyone is so stuck on the open source. Closed source worked fine for partners, and still does. It's even what they want. I'm going to state definitively a thing that is as true now as it was then: The hardware manufacturers do not give a crap about Android being open source. They did not care then. They still don't care. In fact, they still see it as a net negative. They want to be able to develop with Google in private branches that the other hardware manufacturers can't see. I'm not sure why this is so provocative to people. It's not like you see these hardware manufacturers running around trying to be pillars of the OSS community. In any case, I've said more than enough about this multiple times and I'm not going to spend more of a weekend arguing about this. You are welcome to rewrite history. Someday, I hope you are successful enough to experience this as well.

close04 8y ago

Actually that's mostly true. Rubin's open source Android didn't have to stay open source. But there was no choice, unlike Apple Google didn't plan on making the phone. So they had to have a lot of partnerships with OEMs and carriers. And as Google was trying to sell that phone (with keyboard and no touchscreen) and OS to carriers Apple launched the iPhone. At this point Rubin and Google changed course and made their phone and OS less Blackberry and more iPhone because they were smart enough to realize that was the future. The only way to make it work, to convince carriers and fight Apple, was to keep it open source. Or to sign it away to the carriers :). Rubin himself said that the iPhone was the thing that made them reconsider their entire strategy and come up with the first Android phone as we know it. If you're curious about the story there's a good book with all the behind the curtain details: Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution.

scarface74 8y ago
Rubin's open source Android didn't have to stay open source. But there was no choice, unlike Apple Google didn't plan on making the phone. So they had to have a lot of partnerships with OEMs and carriers. There was nothing forcing Google to semi-open source Android. The competitive advantage of Android was that it was free not open source. Microsoft has licensed a closed source operating system to OEMs for decades.
- close04 8y ago
  Again, if you want to get details read that book. It's validated by statements from Google insiders and more. The gist is that free wasn't enough. Right around the launch of the iPhone carriers didn't want to buy into anything that they didn't own. So carriers and OEMs got free reign to modify Android as they saw fit, not just get it for free. Which is why Rubin's Sidekick phone was only sold because T-Mobile agreed to rebrand it and sell it. And as far as anybody knew it was made by T-Mobile, not a Danger. Carriers controlled the industry and it was only the first iPhone that made a dent in that.
  - scarface74 8y ago

GeekyBear 8y ago

Agreed. Ars got this particular point wrong. Android wasn't developed to fend off Apple. It was developed to fend off Microsoft. Andy Rubin was already in Vegas at CES to show off Android to carriers and device makers (back when it was going to be a Blackberry knockoff) when Steve Jobs was on stage to demo the iPhone. >On the day Jobs announced the iPhone, the director of the Android team, Andy Rubin, was six hundred miles away in Las Vegas, on his way to a meeting with one of the myriad handset makers and carriers that descend on the city for the Consumer Electronics Show. Rubin was so astonished by what Jobs was unveiling that, on his way to a meeting, he had his driver pull over so that he could finish watching the webcast. “Holy crap,” he said to one of his colleagues in the car. “I guess we’re not going to ship that phone.” https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/the-day-google-had-to-start-over-on-android/282479/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/the-d... Google did change Android from being a Blackberry knockoff to being an iOS knockoff after seeing the iPhone demo, but Android was already long in development, because Google then feared Microsoft would engage in exactly the sort of behavior that Google was just found guilty of. >Google executives were convinced that if Windows on mobile devices caught on, Microsoft would interfere with users’ access to Google search on those devices in favor of its own search engine. The U.S. government’s successful antitrust trial against Microsoft in the 1990s made it difficult for the company to use its monopoly on desktops and laptops to bully competitors. It could not, for example, make Microsoft’s the default search engine in Windows without giving users a choice between its search engine and those from Google, Yahoo, and others. However, on smartphones, few rules governed how fiercely Microsoft could compete. It didn’t have a monopoly there. Google worried that if Microsoft made it hard enough to use Google search on its mobile devices and easy enough to use Microsoft search, many users would just switch search engines. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/the-day-google-had-to-start-over-on-android/282479/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/the-d...

speedplane 8y ago
Only partially agree here. Ageee that Android wasnt a response to Apple, but don’t think it was a response to MS either. It was a response to Oracle, and their tight grip of Java and the devices supported by it. At the time, Java owned most devices and Oracle had tight licensing requirements (you could either GPL all your code or pay Oracle a nice fee). Android created a (semi) compatible runtime that allowed companies to side-skirt Oracles licensing requirements. This of course brought a huge lawsuit from Oracle to Google (touching on fundamentals legal issues on whether large APIs are copyrightable), but Google seems to have come out on top. Android effectively unlocked Java from Oracle, turning it into a (sort-of) open platform, while gaining access to their huge developer base.