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Does anyone else have a suspicion that Google is about to completely screw this up?
by AJ007 8y ago
Does anyone else have a suspicion that Google is about to completely screw this up?
- giancarlostoro 8y agoIf they do I really hope the Surface Phone comes out or something. I don't want to be forced to iOS, but I wouldn't be too mad if I had it.
- Zigurd 8y agoYou can already experience non-Andorid Android in the form of a Pixel Slate.
- enos_feedler 8y agoIncluding the pixelbook and many other ChromeOS devices
- pjc50 8y agoWindows Phone used to be a thing. Quite a good base UI but a shortage of apps, because it couldn't run Android apps.
- ocdtrekkie 8y agoI still have a Windows Phone at home that can sideload Android apps. Was pretty awesome. Android apps seemed slow in comparison to UWP apps, but ran more or less as well as they ran on Androids.
- giancarlostoro 8y agoIt wasn't the lack of apps that held me from buying one, it was that they never advertised one or had enough Windows Phones available on my carrier with good battery life. I'm sure they had amazing battery life but they didn't advertise it well enough if they did.
- pjmlp 8y agoI still use my Lumia 650 as 2nd phone. It runs the apps I care about, and keeps getting OS updates, unlike my Android devices.
- ianai 8y agoWhat a weird stage we’re in currently. The continued effort by the parent company to maintain basic updates and patch security holes in a delivered product is a differentiating feature. We’re literally considering whether a company is going to ghost it’s cumstomers as an optional thing.
- ikeboy 8y agohas a vision of a world where mobile OSes look like their messaging app portfolio Prepare for 5 different Google OSes all of which support a slightly different featureset
- mey 8y agoChromeOS, Android, Fuchsia. You aren't far off. Hell Apple and Microsoft have less Operating Systems and it's their businesses (but that may just prove the point)
- xg15 8y agoI wonder if Fuchsia will really become a consumer brand though. If I understood it right, the original motivation was a desire to get rid of the Linux/GNU heritage in Android. If that is the case I could imagine that Fuchsia might not become a separate "product" for consumers at all - instead, Google could replace Android's implementation "under the hood" with it but still present it as just another Android version brand/UI wise. If they managed to do the same with Chrome OS, the'd actually have archieved consolidation on a technical level without causing consumer confusion. (Well, more than there already is)
- steelframe 8y agoGoogle still needs to replace literally millions of LoC in the Linux kernel from hardware vendors like Qualcomm before they can actually ship a real functional phone.
- mda 8y agoIf they limit their hardware choices (like Apple) it is actually not -that- difficult.
- Bombthecat 8y agoWasn't there a rumor that Google wants to build there own CPU?
- MentallyRetired 8y agoMy first thought is "Requires a paid google account to work between devices!".
- ocdtrekkie 8y agoYes, though Google likely views it as a chance to do-over their mistakes with Android such as allowing OEM and carrier control of things like updates and customizations, building on top of copyleft code (which requires a lot of code to be open sourced they and their OEMs would rather not) and code they stole from Oracle (which has caused them years of legal nonsense), etc.
- Someone1234 8y ago> code they stole from Oracle (which has caused them years of legal nonsense) Oracle wasn't accusing Google of using "stolen" code in Android. They were claiming that Google's complete re-implementation of Oracle's Java APIs was a copyright violation. The case itself will have long lasting impacts since it has established in US law that API interfaces themselves are a copyright/protected concept. That means that even complete clean room re-implementations or compatibility layers could be threatened. The ruling is quite problematic, but there's nobody technically literate enough in congress or the courts to do anything to stop it.
- ocdtrekkie 8y agoIt's pretty off-topic to pick a fight about this here, the point that I've made, that their fight with Oracle could've best been avoided, stands reasonable regardless of your opinion on the details of the case.
- max76 8y agoI think Google legitimately believed nothing was wrong with their implementation of Java and that implementing a language with so many developers was a smart move.
- pjmlp 8y agoGosling stated otherwise on his interviews, and Rubin emails also prove they were trying to do something fishy. As it stands, Android has pulled a J++ and is a pain for any Java library writer, that now is forced to either write two versions or keep using a common subset.
- 4ad 8y agoIn what way?
- pjmlp 8y agoThis already happend before with Brillo. It was going to be Android native userspace plus a subset of the Android frameworks redone in C++. Then suddenly, due to customer feedback as the main official reason, it got rebooted as Android Things, supporting even writing userspace drivers in Java. Then ChromeOS got to add Android support. I guess it is kind of clear which group is winning the internal political wars.
- solarkraft 8y agoAndroid is a pretty huge brand they invested a lot into. Makes sense, I guess (even though Android for me mostly means buggy and slow).
- AJ007 8y agohttps://9to5google.com/2018/10/11/the-dirty-word-android-dead-made-by-google/ https://9to5google.com/2018/10/11/the-dirty-word-android-dea...
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- jbigelow76 8y agoI don't know about screw it up, but I am wondering what is the upside in adopting this new OS in lieu of Android for all phone makers not named Apple?
- obmelvin 8y agoTheoretically you could replace the AI layer (Topaz? IDR) with your own assistant (e.g., Samsung could integrate Bixby into the OS) I should note that I have only glanced at what implementation details are public and it is entirely possible that this is not feasible
- untog 8y agoGoogle will just make it a requirement in order to provide the Play Store and other Google apps on your device. Then most will be forced to follow along. I could see it being the straw that finally breaks the camel's back for Samsung, though. They have their own assistant, web browser... they could just choose to go it alone.
- max76 8y agoThis sounds like a cost to phone manufacturers, not a benefit.
- toast0 8y agoAt this point manufacturers don't have a lot of choices. To a reasonable approximation, the options are Android with google's blessing, android without play store, beg microsoft for windows mobile 10?, KaiOS, Tizen?, don't make phones. About the only one that will sell the final product in the US is Android with Google's blessing.
- max76 8y agoCorrect, Google has all the leverage to dictate what non-Apple smartphone manufacturers sell. Moving to Fuchsia would be expensive for everybody involved. Google is developing a new OS. Chip manufacturers will have to write new driver code. Cell manufacturers will have to integrate a new system. Everyone loses the work they put into the Android Open Source Project and their private branches of ASOP. With all this cost, who's getting the upside? Google is clearly getting the lion's share.
- karmakaze 8y agofuchs-ya
- burtonator 8y agoMan. I came here to post the same thing. Google has been screwing up EVERYTHING lately. Every recent Google product launch that I can think of has been botched. They're REALLY checked out over there. Serious question. What's the last major successful Google project that was built within Google and not acquired? I can't think of one.
- modwilliam 8y agoGoogle Photos Edit: Also Google Home devices, especially the Mini
- mtgx 8y agoIronically, I think Photos was a product of Vic Gundotra, which Google higher-ups gave the boot because he failed in social (as if anyone else would have succeeded in beating Facebook - he gave it a good shot anyway). Google wasn't even savvy enough about social to know to buy Instagram.
- leoc 8y agoOthers might at least have failed in a way that was less damaging to Google's reputation.
- joshuamorton 8y agoHow do you define "major"? How do you define "product"? If my "major" you mean "more than 100MM users", it's been a while, but then what was the last (new) product launch by any established company that has 100MM users? If you drop that to a smaller number, there are tons though. If by product you mean "consumer product", again, perhaps a while, but I'd argue that there are tons in the business space. (ML, cloud, etc.)
- neolefty 8y agoGMail — still the anti-social network that I both rely on and ignore every day. No friend discovery, funded by ads, people mostly ignore emails I send them, but everyone has it and depend on it being rock solid. It's like air.
- jayd16 8y agoWhats to screw up? They haven't really promised anything, or announced Fuchsia in a consumer facing way. Some tech people seem hyped about Fuchsia but I still get the feeling its mostly an experiment that Google will roll back into Android or ChromeOS.
- AJ007 8y agoAndroid is what could get screwed up. ChromeOS could too, but it isn’t as important. Relevant hint: https://9to5google.com/2018/10/11/the-dirty-word-android-dead-made-by-google/ https://9to5google.com/2018/10/11/the-dirty-word-android-dea...
- tree_of_item 8y agoI'm really baffled by this question. Screw what up? Fuchsia is not a product; some people at Google are working on a project and it's gotten a bit of attention. I'm just confused as to the level of entitlement that would presume there is something here to "screw up".
- zymhan 8y agoYou're being willfully naive if you think that Google wouldn't take an internal project, productize it, and then proceed to screw up said product. This is literally the past 15 years of Google.
- Jyaif 8y ago> This is literally the past 15 years of Google. Other than for Gmail/Chrome[OS]/Android/Photos/Youtube/Music/Maps, I totally agree.
- tree_of_item 8y agoI'm not sure what your point is though. Yes, Google could take an internal project, turn it in to a product, and then "proceed to screw up said product"...over the course of, what, 5, 10 years? What is the point of speculating about something so far off with no data? They could also turn it in to a product and then not "screw it up". What am I being naive about? Do all of the wildly successful Google products not count here?