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This is silly. It's a much better experience to use the Google suite of apps on Android than the random shit browsers/email clients/music players/etc... that S

This is silly. It's a much better experience to use the Google suite of apps on Android than the random shit browsers/email clients/music players/etc... that Samsung, LG and others put on their phones. At the end of the day, Android is open source and anyone is welcome to fork (Amazon)/not use Google apps (Chinese manufacturers in China), this is just handing Apple a massive advantage for being a closed ecosystem and a huge loss for consumers and OEMs.

asr 8y ago
> anyone is welcome to fork This is wrong. One of the three major pieces of this case is the allegation that Google has hindered those who wish to fork by preventing them from making phones with any of the major phone OEMs: "In particular, Google ... has prevented manufacturers wishing to pre-install Google apps from selling even a single smart mobile device running on alternative versions of Android that were not approved by Google (so-called 'Android forks')." http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-4581_en.htm http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-4581_en.htm
- Mikeb85 8y ago
  They can fork if they don't want to pre-install Google apps. Lots of Chinese phones have alternative app stores.
  - asr 8y ago
    No, until now, you were not allowed to fork just because you agreed not to install Google apps on that phone -- you were only allowed to fork if you didn't want to install Google apps on any phone you made. So, for example, Samsung couldn't decide to offer an Android phone without Google unless it was willing to shut down its entire current business. The allegation is that because of this, anyone looking to fork Android had a very hard time finding good OEMs to make their phones. E.g., maybe the Amazon fire phones would have worked if they could have gotten a Tier 1 OEM to make the phones so they could have put out a better product. But nobody would agree to stop making all of their current Android phones to see (I assume; there is no public version of the decision yet so I'm making up the example).
    - dirkgently 8y ago
      AOSP is completely open for anyone to work. It's as simple as that. Nobody is forced to use Google apps. They are free to fork and come up with a way for people to install apps from their own app store.
- PuffinBlue 8y ago
  Hmm, I wonder if that's somewhat what Fuchsia and the push to ChromeOS might be about. I guess looking forward the writing is on the wall that Samsung will eventually move to its own OS. An the 'anti-fork' attempts will eventually get beaten down by litigation. So really a proprietary OS on your own hardware like Apple would be the way to go. No surprise that Android apps will work on ChromeOS going forward, I'm sure they'd work seamlessly on Fuchsia too (don't they already?). Maybe in a few years this comment will look quite prescient. Or I'll look like a dumbass. I'd say 25/75
Markoff 8y ago
please don't tell me you believe Google apps are superior in any category than their alternative Brave it's superior to Chrome Nine/Aquamail is superior to Gmail Poweramp/Retro etc it's superior to whatever Google has just for categories you mentioned

asr 8y ago

> anyone is welcome to fork This is wrong. One of the three major pieces of this case is the allegation that Google has hindered those who wish to fork by preventing them from making phones with any of the major phone OEMs: "In particular, Google ... has prevented manufacturers wishing to pre-install Google apps from selling even a single smart mobile device running on alternative versions of Android that were not approved by Google (so-called 'Android forks')." http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-4581_en.htm http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-4581_en.htm

Mikeb85 8y ago
They can fork if they don't want to pre-install Google apps. Lots of Chinese phones have alternative app stores.
- asr 8y ago
  No, until now, you were not allowed to fork just because you agreed not to install Google apps on that phone -- you were only allowed to fork if you didn't want to install Google apps on any phone you made. So, for example, Samsung couldn't decide to offer an Android phone without Google unless it was willing to shut down its entire current business. The allegation is that because of this, anyone looking to fork Android had a very hard time finding good OEMs to make their phones. E.g., maybe the Amazon fire phones would have worked if they could have gotten a Tier 1 OEM to make the phones so they could have put out a better product. But nobody would agree to stop making all of their current Android phones to see (I assume; there is no public version of the decision yet so I'm making up the example).
  - dirkgently 8y ago
    AOSP is completely open for anyone to work. It's as simple as that. Nobody is forced to use Google apps. They are free to fork and come up with a way for people to install apps from their own app store.
PuffinBlue 8y ago
Hmm, I wonder if that's somewhat what Fuchsia and the push to ChromeOS might be about. I guess looking forward the writing is on the wall that Samsung will eventually move to its own OS. An the 'anti-fork' attempts will eventually get beaten down by litigation. So really a proprietary OS on your own hardware like Apple would be the way to go. No surprise that Android apps will work on ChromeOS going forward, I'm sure they'd work seamlessly on Fuchsia too (don't they already?). Maybe in a few years this comment will look quite prescient. Or I'll look like a dumbass. I'd say 25/75

Markoff 8y ago

please don't tell me you believe Google apps are superior in any category than their alternative Brave it's superior to Chrome Nine/Aquamail is superior to Gmail Poweramp/Retro etc it's superior to whatever Google has just for categories you mentioned