4 ms·

Baidu forks Android to introduce its own mobile OS for China

39 points by ashishgandhi 15y ago

chucknthem 15y ago
Is this much different from what MIUI (Xiao Mi) did with their android ROM, they replaced a lot of the default android services as well? They're also releasing an android phone soon [1] Any distrust of chinese technology aside, I'm actually really looking forward to what this OS will be like. imo MIUI is the most usable android ROM around, and it's much more stable than cyanogen. It proved to me that Chinese startups are capable of producing really awesome products. iPhone currently has the biggest smart phone market share in China by far, this looks like the beginnings of Android taking over China like it did the rest of the english world.
- dongsheng 15y ago
  I reckon it's not fair to compare Xiao Mi with Baidu, baidu is an evil company with evil history, they sort the search results based on how much clients would like to pay, similar with AdSense, but the ad supported results are blended with normal search results without indication. A year back they even publish fake medicines in search results. This is one of the story: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2011/08/16/baidu-slides-after-china-tv-finds-ads-for-fake-meds/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2011/08/16/baidu-slid... Baidu no longer a startup company, they control the search engine market in china, ordinary people don't have the concept of search engine, baidu it is...
  - ma2rten 15y ago
    I don't think that evil at all. I think people use that word way to fast. Killing people is evil. Lieing is evil. As long as they are open about it, which they seem to be, I think it's perfectly okay. Maybe if someone is willing to pay, that's often even a better indication of relevance then some random metric on links. I also think there was also a study about Google, which found that many people can not tell apart ads and normal results.
  - chucknthem 15y ago
    I was using Xiao Mi as an example of a great Android product from China rather than a comparison to Baidu (though I didn't know about Baidu's search result practices). My question still stands though, is it much more of an Android "fork" as what the modifications that Xiao Mi is making?
krosaen 15y ago
I'm not sure if "forks" is the right word, aren't they just another OEM adding their own skin ala HTC sense or Motoblur?
- icegreentea 15y ago
  Well, the details are lacking a bit, but at the very least they're going a bit further than most other OEMs by stripping out all of the Google goodness (and I presume the Android Marketplace) and replacing with their own (and thus avoiding the google licensing fees... and avoiding using a competitor's main product).
  - ashishgandhi 15y ago
    I think they even are replacing the Maps service not just Google Search. Just to mention this explicitly.
    - chucknthem 15y ago
      The maps app is blocked/isn't available in China, so it makes sense to replace it here.
imrehg 15y ago
And the Apache license means that we definitely won't get to look at the source code and any Chinese built in backdoors / trojans / other expected "goodness". Or should I give them the benefit of the doubt? I think that boat has sailed.
- grandalf 15y ago
  Do you really think there aren't backdoors in US made phones?
  - awakeasleep 15y ago
    Do you know how to find out more about this? I remember reading about how some Mafioso case in the early 00's included evidence recorded over a Nokia when it was supposedly off. It seems like modern devices would have similar capabilities, but I don't know of any place to learn about it. Shouldn't an employee of Apple or Google or Motorola have leaked the deets somewhere? Shouldn't there be a site catering to the hacker demographic listing, at the very least, court cases that use interesting information?
    - grandalf 15y ago
      Well one "back door" is that companies (Google, AT&T, etc.) log large amounts of info about your phone's usage, including GPS coordinates, etc., which are only a warrant (often an automated one) away from being obtained by authorities.
  - imrehg 15y ago
    I think I can trust more the CyanogenMod that I'm running on my HTC phone than anything coming from a Chinese closed-source firm.
    - vetinari 15y ago
      I don't want to spoil your day, but do you realize that you have no idea, what runs on the broadband core of your HTC (Samsung, Motorola, whatever) phone? That's the core that boots first and then loads SPL on your application processor.
scottchin 15y ago
Here's Baidu's official website for the OS. http://yi.baidu.com/ http://yi.baidu.com/
scottchin 15y ago
And now it sounds like Baidu will be partnering with Dell to make tablets and mobile handsets. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/06/us-dell-baidu-idUSTRE7850C820110906 http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/06/us-dell-baidu-idUS...
wisty 15y ago
Hasn't this been going on for about 12 months? Android has been blocked for a long time in China, and everything came from some fork. Maybe this is a new fork?
- jdelsman 15y ago
  Android has been blocked in China? Since when? I'm sure the 4,000-odd employees of Motorola in China developing Android phones for sale in China would disagree with you...
- chucknthem 15y ago
  I'm in China now and see Android phones on sale. A lot of google services are blocked, youtube, plus, the maps app, and others, but Android is alive and well.
  - wisty 15y ago
    developer.android.com was blocked in China. That didn't stop companies making the phones and installing the OS (through a third party or with special permission, or most likely through a proxy). There was some fork in Chinese, which could be accessed. Also, I think the App store was blocked, and a Chinese App store set up instead.
    - chucknthem 15y ago
      When was this? I'm able to visit developer.android.com fine here...even go to my android market publisher profile to publish apps.
      - wisty 15y ago
        There's google groups posts about this dating from 24 months ago. Also, python.org/downloads was also blocked (but not the rest of python.org). If you go to python.org now, there's a page labeled "Downloads" in Chinese for Chinese downloads which is not blocked. I guess it's easier to create a mirror than lobby to get a page removed from the banned list. It's weird though. I think there was some Chinese version of android.com, but I don't know how close to the original it was.
greggman 15y ago
It's my understanding this is really hurting android in China. Well, hurting is the wrong word. Android phones are selling great but no central market and no standard OS means Chinese app devs are finding it really hard make any popular apps because they have to target effectively different OSes and multiple markets ( > 20 IIRC) That means Chinese users aren't getting many apps. Might as well be a 2006 smart phone. I suppose a few versions and markets will eventually dominate so maybe it's just growing pains.
- ZeroGravitas 15y ago
  Are you sure?. It's just I've read so many people who desperately wanted this to be a problem for Android, usually with little to no evidence (or understanding of open source). Often this was reflected in dubious claims that Android's suprising sales surge was largely the OMS fork on low-end phones for developing nations and that real people weren't actually buying high-end HTC, Samsung or Motorola handsets. Actual figures show this to be wishful thinking on their part. Even if you accept that it is hurting Android, you have to compare it to the alternative, which is a rival pushing an OS that isn't 99% the same as yours. If anything Google (as a web company) is probably giddy about a fragmented smartphone market that is united (even across to Bada and iPhone) by webkit-based browsers.
- cageface 15y ago
  It's a 2006 smart phone with a really good browser and email client. That might be enough for a lot of people. I think Apple is secure as the luxury brand in Asia but the app market may just not matter that much for the second tier.

39 points by ashishgandhi 15y ago

Is this much different from what MIUI (Xiao Mi) did with their android ROM, they replaced a lot of the default android services as well? They're also releasing an android phone soon [1] Any distrust of chinese technology aside, I'm actually really looking forward to what this OS will be like. imo MIUI is the most usable android ROM around, and it's much more stable than cyanogen. It proved to me that Chinese startups are capable of producing really awesome products. iPhone currently has the biggest smart phone market share in China by far, this looks like the beginnings of Android taking over China like it did the rest of the english world.

dongsheng 15y ago
I reckon it's not fair to compare Xiao Mi with Baidu, baidu is an evil company with evil history, they sort the search results based on how much clients would like to pay, similar with AdSense, but the ad supported results are blended with normal search results without indication. A year back they even publish fake medicines in search results. This is one of the story: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2011/08/16/baidu-slides-after-china-tv-finds-ads-for-fake-meds/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2011/08/16/baidu-slid... Baidu no longer a startup company, they control the search engine market in china, ordinary people don't have the concept of search engine, baidu it is...
- ma2rten 15y ago
  I don't think that evil at all. I think people use that word way to fast. Killing people is evil. Lieing is evil. As long as they are open about it, which they seem to be, I think it's perfectly okay. Maybe if someone is willing to pay, that's often even a better indication of relevance then some random metric on links. I also think there was also a study about Google, which found that many people can not tell apart ads and normal results.
- chucknthem 15y ago
  I was using Xiao Mi as an example of a great Android product from China rather than a comparison to Baidu (though I didn't know about Baidu's search result practices). My question still stands though, is it much more of an Android "fork" as what the modifications that Xiao Mi is making?

krosaen 15y ago

I'm not sure if "forks" is the right word, aren't they just another OEM adding their own skin ala HTC sense or Motoblur?

icegreentea 15y ago
Well, the details are lacking a bit, but at the very least they're going a bit further than most other OEMs by stripping out all of the Google goodness (and I presume the Android Marketplace) and replacing with their own (and thus avoiding the google licensing fees... and avoiding using a competitor's main product).
- ashishgandhi 15y ago
  I think they even are replacing the Maps service not just Google Search. Just to mention this explicitly.
  - chucknthem 15y ago
    The maps app is blocked/isn't available in China, so it makes sense to replace it here.

imrehg 15y ago

And the Apache license means that we definitely won't get to look at the source code and any Chinese built in backdoors / trojans / other expected "goodness". Or should I give them the benefit of the doubt? I think that boat has sailed.

grandalf 15y ago
Do you really think there aren't backdoors in US made phones?
- awakeasleep 15y ago
  Do you know how to find out more about this? I remember reading about how some Mafioso case in the early 00's included evidence recorded over a Nokia when it was supposedly off. It seems like modern devices would have similar capabilities, but I don't know of any place to learn about it. Shouldn't an employee of Apple or Google or Motorola have leaked the deets somewhere? Shouldn't there be a site catering to the hacker demographic listing, at the very least, court cases that use interesting information?
  - grandalf 15y ago
    Well one "back door" is that companies (Google, AT&T, etc.) log large amounts of info about your phone's usage, including GPS coordinates, etc., which are only a warrant (often an automated one) away from being obtained by authorities.
- imrehg 15y ago
  I think I can trust more the CyanogenMod that I'm running on my HTC phone than anything coming from a Chinese closed-source firm.
  - vetinari 15y ago
    I don't want to spoil your day, but do you realize that you have no idea, what runs on the broadband core of your HTC (Samsung, Motorola, whatever) phone? That's the core that boots first and then loads SPL on your application processor.

scottchin 15y ago

Here's Baidu's official website for the OS. http://yi.baidu.com/ http://yi.baidu.com/

scottchin 15y ago

And now it sounds like Baidu will be partnering with Dell to make tablets and mobile handsets. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/06/us-dell-baidu-idUSTRE7850C820110906 http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/06/us-dell-baidu-idUS...

wisty 15y ago

Hasn't this been going on for about 12 months? Android has been blocked for a long time in China, and everything came from some fork. Maybe this is a new fork?

jdelsman 15y ago
Android has been blocked in China? Since when? I'm sure the 4,000-odd employees of Motorola in China developing Android phones for sale in China would disagree with you...
chucknthem 15y ago
I'm in China now and see Android phones on sale. A lot of google services are blocked, youtube, plus, the maps app, and others, but Android is alive and well.
- wisty 15y ago
  developer.android.com was blocked in China. That didn't stop companies making the phones and installing the OS (through a third party or with special permission, or most likely through a proxy). There was some fork in Chinese, which could be accessed. Also, I think the App store was blocked, and a Chinese App store set up instead.
  - chucknthem 15y ago
    When was this? I'm able to visit developer.android.com fine here...even go to my android market publisher profile to publish apps.
    - wisty 15y ago
      There's google groups posts about this dating from 24 months ago. Also, python.org/downloads was also blocked (but not the rest of python.org). If you go to python.org now, there's a page labeled "Downloads" in Chinese for Chinese downloads which is not blocked. I guess it's easier to create a mirror than lobby to get a page removed from the banned list. It's weird though. I think there was some Chinese version of android.com, but I don't know how close to the original it was.

greggman 15y ago

It's my understanding this is really hurting android in China. Well, hurting is the wrong word. Android phones are selling great but no central market and no standard OS means Chinese app devs are finding it really hard make any popular apps because they have to target effectively different OSes and multiple markets ( > 20 IIRC) That means Chinese users aren't getting many apps. Might as well be a 2006 smart phone. I suppose a few versions and markets will eventually dominate so maybe it's just growing pains.

ZeroGravitas 15y ago
Are you sure?. It's just I've read so many people who desperately wanted this to be a problem for Android, usually with little to no evidence (or understanding of open source). Often this was reflected in dubious claims that Android's suprising sales surge was largely the OMS fork on low-end phones for developing nations and that real people weren't actually buying high-end HTC, Samsung or Motorola handsets. Actual figures show this to be wishful thinking on their part. Even if you accept that it is hurting Android, you have to compare it to the alternative, which is a rival pushing an OS that isn't 99% the same as yours. If anything Google (as a web company) is probably giddy about a fragmented smartphone market that is united (even across to Bada and iPhone) by webkit-based browsers.
cageface 15y ago
It's a 2006 smart phone with a really good browser and email client. That might be enough for a lot of people. I think Apple is secure as the luxury brand in Asia but the app market may just not matter that much for the second tier.