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So the team that is in charge of the OS which is licensed to Hardware vendors in the world is the same team that's in charge to create competing Hardware? I'd

So the team that is in charge of the OS which is licensed to Hardware vendors in the world is the same team that's in charge to create competing Hardware? I'd say that creates a huge conflict of interest. That's one of the big reasons why Nokia Series60 didn't take off as a licensed OS: Whatever Samsung or LG or Lenovo wanted to build on that platform to differentiate, they had to involve Nokia during the development (who then developed the needed OS-feature in parallel to the Nokia product that will make use of it). Google is either very secure that their grip on all these HW-vendors is strong enough forcing them to stay, or they are no longer part of Google's long-term strategy for Android.

deleted 3y ago
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dheera 3y ago
Conflict of interest is a human invention, and not a law of the universe. There is no "conflict" unless you see it as one. You can play chess against yourself. AlphaGo can, because it wasn't brainwashed about this notion. ChatGPT can debate against itself. You can too, if you don't see it as a conflict. Humans might find it hard, only because they were brainwashed from a child that they need to pick sides. Your neural net is capable of operating on both sides simultaneously if you let it. The market is big enough for Google to create hardware AND other companies to create hardware.
- maximinus_thrax 3y ago
  > Conflict of interest is a human invention, and not a law of the universe. Lucky for us, we're discussing this in the context of humans building stuff for other humans to buy in a human society with human governments and markets, not in some metaphysical 'but what does meaning means' context.
- rickdeckard 3y ago
  > The market is big enough for Google to create hardware AND other companies to create hardware. You obviously didn't read the comment you're replying to. No one is challenging that. Having the same TEAM in charge of the OS and in-house hardware is an entirely different story. It's a conflict of interest because the person Samsung is talking to to have a feature implemented into the OS baseline may be the same person in charge of defining the competitive featureset for the next Google hardware. Now this person knows that the product he and his team is designing will compete with a yet-to-be-announced Samsung-product with a new feature. So his interest to support a licensee being successful with his product is in conflict with his interest to create a more successful competing product. And even if he isn't, for SAMSUNG just the potential of this situation to happen can be enough to NOT cooperate with this team and scale back communications with the Android team as a whole.
  - dheera 3y ago
    >It's a conflict of interest because the person Samsung is talking to to have a feature implemented into the OS baseline may be the same person in charge of defining the competitive featureset for the next Google hardware. The person can run two threads in their brain, one that deals with Samsung and one that deals with the internal product. > Now this person knows that the product he and his team is designing will compete with a yet-to-be-announced Samsung-product with a new feature. So? You're talking about the person, which is just the host hardware. There can be multiple threads running on that hardware at the same time in containers. > So his interest to support a licensee being successful with his product is in conflict with his interest to create a more successful competing product. They can both be successful at the same time. He can operate with an interest to optimize for an overall better world rather than interest to win over and kill Samsung. He can build a successful product AND help Samsung build a successful product at the same time.
    - coldtea 3y ago
      >The person can run two threads in their brain, one that deals with Samsung and one that deals with the internal product. There's a reason we don't make a police chief investigate their own misconduct. "It's a perfectly OK thing to do. The person is just the host hardware. There can be multiple threads running on that hardware at the same time. They can run two threads in their brain, one that deals with investigating the case and a seperate one that might or might not did it". "He didn't just declare himself innocent of misconduct and embezzelment out of self-interest. The independent investigating "thread" must have arrived to an impartial decision". "In any case, it's not blatant misconduct, you only see it as such. There's no notion of misconduct in nature, it's a made up thing we invented".
      - dheera 3y ago
        If there's accusation of misconduct, there's a bug in the system so you isolate it and investigate it from the outside. There's no investigation happening here, just two happy parties trying to create great products that can both be successful and be even happier. Lawyers can stay out of this happiness, inventing and injecting "conflicts" that never existed in the first place.
- coldtea 3y ago
  >Conflict of interest is a human invention, and not a law of the universe. There is no "conflict" unless you see it as one. That could be said for anything in the moral and judicial sphere. "There's no theft, property is a human invention", "There's no rape, animals don't have that concept", and so on.
  - dheera 3y ago
    That's true, but there are good reasons for calling theft and rape crimes in civilization. Conflict of interest, on the other hand, was invented by some lawyer and HR types just to make life harder for the rest of us. I'm an optimistic engineer, believe in win-win situations, and don't see everything as a conflict.
    - coldtea 3y ago
      Conflict of interest has been a thing way before lawyers and HR types existed, they understood it and tried to prevent it at any point in history, from ancient Babylon to Rome, and from Amazon native tribes to imperial China. It's of course also the explicitly expressed reasoning for why there are independent branches of government (legislative, executive, and judicial in the US). >I'm an optimistic engineer, believe in win-win situations, and don't see everything as a conflict. Yes, it's called naivety :)
    - BlueTemplar 3y ago
      Civilization is already an unnatural situation, in the sense that we have to coexist in groups (and with other groups) bigger than Dunbar's number.
spankalee 3y ago
The first priority for Android is competing against iPhone. Any self-dealing to get Pixel to have more of the Android pie would be far down the list, and probably counter-productive. It was already possible under the previous structure anyway.
- rezonant 3y ago
  Correct, and it's clear that this isn't an outdated strategy from Google, just in the current cycle we saw Circle to Search launch on both Galaxy and Pixel, and most of the new AI stuff that differentiates Pixel is now coming to Galaxy as well. This might be a headscratcher if you think Google is trying to make Pixel the dominant Android phone, but that's not it. Google wants Android to be the dominant phone OS, and despite it being massively popular globally, in the US the numbers are dire, with 50-60% overall going to Apple, and as high as 80-90% of young people choosing iPhone. I love Pixel, but it accounts for approximately 5% of the market in the US, with Samsung at 22%. Those stats about young people nearly universally picking iPhone is a bad sign for Android and a bad sign for competition in the phone market as a whole.
  - Rinzler89 3y ago
    >as high as 80-90% of young people choosing iPhone It's not really choosing, it's more like being handed over form parents or being force to due to iMessage network effect with teens in the US. Which teens wants to choose to be left out of group conversations? As an adult you can give fewer fucks about normie conformism, bubble colors and people being petty over it, but as a teen it would be a death sentence for your social life. Hence why the regulatory bodies are starting to twist Apple's arm over it.
    - boplicity 3y ago
      > as a teen it would be a death sentence No wonder teens these days have extremely high rates of anxiety & depression.
      - 3y ago
pjmlp 3y ago
It took off for Sony and Ericsson.
- rickdeckard 3y ago
  What took off? (Sony) Ericsson used UIQ, a pen-based OS built on top of the core of Symbian foundation. Nokia developed Series60, a key-based OS built on top of a Symbian core. They were not compatible operating systems, and most of all Ericsson didn't license it from Nokia.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    As Nokia alumni I disagree. They weren't compatible at UI widgets level, but were at the underlying layers. It is like telling Samsung, Huawei or Xiomi aren't Android, because they use another GUI framework on top of AOSP. And as many Android developers are painfully aware, that isn't the only customisations to AOSP standard behaviours.
    - rickdeckard 3y ago
      Let's not fetch too far, this becomes a strawman argument. They weren't compatible operating systems because applications compiled for one of them were unable to be executed on the other without heavy modifications. At "underlying layers" the OS of a Tesla is compatible with that of a Nintendo Switch, and yet no one would say they have a compatible OS. > It is like telling Samsung, Huawei or Xiomi aren't Android, because they use another GUI framework on top of AOSP. No it's not, because they all use the same GUI framework as AOSP, hence they can run the same precompiled application.
  - awiesenhofer 3y ago
    Maybe you are mixing up your Sony Ericsson phones? There were loads of key based S60 phones too from them, not just UIQ.
    - rickdeckard 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

dheera 3y ago

Conflict of interest is a human invention, and not a law of the universe. There is no "conflict" unless you see it as one. You can play chess against yourself. AlphaGo can, because it wasn't brainwashed about this notion. ChatGPT can debate against itself. You can too, if you don't see it as a conflict. Humans might find it hard, only because they were brainwashed from a child that they need to pick sides. Your neural net is capable of operating on both sides simultaneously if you let it. The market is big enough for Google to create hardware AND other companies to create hardware.

maximinus_thrax 3y ago
> Conflict of interest is a human invention, and not a law of the universe. Lucky for us, we're discussing this in the context of humans building stuff for other humans to buy in a human society with human governments and markets, not in some metaphysical 'but what does meaning means' context.
rickdeckard 3y ago
> The market is big enough for Google to create hardware AND other companies to create hardware. You obviously didn't read the comment you're replying to. No one is challenging that. Having the same TEAM in charge of the OS and in-house hardware is an entirely different story. It's a conflict of interest because the person Samsung is talking to to have a feature implemented into the OS baseline may be the same person in charge of defining the competitive featureset for the next Google hardware. Now this person knows that the product he and his team is designing will compete with a yet-to-be-announced Samsung-product with a new feature. So his interest to support a licensee being successful with his product is in conflict with his interest to create a more successful competing product. And even if he isn't, for SAMSUNG just the potential of this situation to happen can be enough to NOT cooperate with this team and scale back communications with the Android team as a whole.
- dheera 3y ago
  >It's a conflict of interest because the person Samsung is talking to to have a feature implemented into the OS baseline may be the same person in charge of defining the competitive featureset for the next Google hardware. The person can run two threads in their brain, one that deals with Samsung and one that deals with the internal product. > Now this person knows that the product he and his team is designing will compete with a yet-to-be-announced Samsung-product with a new feature. So? You're talking about the person, which is just the host hardware. There can be multiple threads running on that hardware at the same time in containers. > So his interest to support a licensee being successful with his product is in conflict with his interest to create a more successful competing product. They can both be successful at the same time. He can operate with an interest to optimize for an overall better world rather than interest to win over and kill Samsung. He can build a successful product AND help Samsung build a successful product at the same time.
  - coldtea 3y ago
    >The person can run two threads in their brain, one that deals with Samsung and one that deals with the internal product. There's a reason we don't make a police chief investigate their own misconduct. "It's a perfectly OK thing to do. The person is just the host hardware. There can be multiple threads running on that hardware at the same time. They can run two threads in their brain, one that deals with investigating the case and a seperate one that might or might not did it". "He didn't just declare himself innocent of misconduct and embezzelment out of self-interest. The independent investigating "thread" must have arrived to an impartial decision". "In any case, it's not blatant misconduct, you only see it as such. There's no notion of misconduct in nature, it's a made up thing we invented".
    - dheera 3y ago
      If there's accusation of misconduct, there's a bug in the system so you isolate it and investigate it from the outside. There's no investigation happening here, just two happy parties trying to create great products that can both be successful and be even happier. Lawyers can stay out of this happiness, inventing and injecting "conflicts" that never existed in the first place.
coldtea 3y ago
>Conflict of interest is a human invention, and not a law of the universe. There is no "conflict" unless you see it as one. That could be said for anything in the moral and judicial sphere. "There's no theft, property is a human invention", "There's no rape, animals don't have that concept", and so on.
- dheera 3y ago
  That's true, but there are good reasons for calling theft and rape crimes in civilization. Conflict of interest, on the other hand, was invented by some lawyer and HR types just to make life harder for the rest of us. I'm an optimistic engineer, believe in win-win situations, and don't see everything as a conflict.
  - coldtea 3y ago
    Conflict of interest has been a thing way before lawyers and HR types existed, they understood it and tried to prevent it at any point in history, from ancient Babylon to Rome, and from Amazon native tribes to imperial China. It's of course also the explicitly expressed reasoning for why there are independent branches of government (legislative, executive, and judicial in the US). >I'm an optimistic engineer, believe in win-win situations, and don't see everything as a conflict. Yes, it's called naivety :)
  - BlueTemplar 3y ago
    Civilization is already an unnatural situation, in the sense that we have to coexist in groups (and with other groups) bigger than Dunbar's number.

spankalee 3y ago

The first priority for Android is competing against iPhone. Any self-dealing to get Pixel to have more of the Android pie would be far down the list, and probably counter-productive. It was already possible under the previous structure anyway.

rezonant 3y ago
Correct, and it's clear that this isn't an outdated strategy from Google, just in the current cycle we saw Circle to Search launch on both Galaxy and Pixel, and most of the new AI stuff that differentiates Pixel is now coming to Galaxy as well. This might be a headscratcher if you think Google is trying to make Pixel the dominant Android phone, but that's not it. Google wants Android to be the dominant phone OS, and despite it being massively popular globally, in the US the numbers are dire, with 50-60% overall going to Apple, and as high as 80-90% of young people choosing iPhone. I love Pixel, but it accounts for approximately 5% of the market in the US, with Samsung at 22%. Those stats about young people nearly universally picking iPhone is a bad sign for Android and a bad sign for competition in the phone market as a whole.
- Rinzler89 3y ago
  >as high as 80-90% of young people choosing iPhone It's not really choosing, it's more like being handed over form parents or being force to due to iMessage network effect with teens in the US. Which teens wants to choose to be left out of group conversations? As an adult you can give fewer fucks about normie conformism, bubble colors and people being petty over it, but as a teen it would be a death sentence for your social life. Hence why the regulatory bodies are starting to twist Apple's arm over it.
  - boplicity 3y ago
    > as a teen it would be a death sentence No wonder teens these days have extremely high rates of anxiety & depression.
    - 3y ago

pjmlp 3y ago

It took off for Sony and Ericsson.

rickdeckard 3y ago
What took off? (Sony) Ericsson used UIQ, a pen-based OS built on top of the core of Symbian foundation. Nokia developed Series60, a key-based OS built on top of a Symbian core. They were not compatible operating systems, and most of all Ericsson didn't license it from Nokia.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  As Nokia alumni I disagree. They weren't compatible at UI widgets level, but were at the underlying layers. It is like telling Samsung, Huawei or Xiomi aren't Android, because they use another GUI framework on top of AOSP. And as many Android developers are painfully aware, that isn't the only customisations to AOSP standard behaviours.
  - rickdeckard 3y ago
    Let's not fetch too far, this becomes a strawman argument. They weren't compatible operating systems because applications compiled for one of them were unable to be executed on the other without heavy modifications. At "underlying layers" the OS of a Tesla is compatible with that of a Nintendo Switch, and yet no one would say they have a compatible OS. > It is like telling Samsung, Huawei or Xiomi aren't Android, because they use another GUI framework on top of AOSP. No it's not, because they all use the same GUI framework as AOSP, hence they can run the same precompiled application.
- awiesenhofer 3y ago
  Maybe you are mixing up your Sony Ericsson phones? There were loads of key based S60 phones too from them, not just UIQ.
  - rickdeckard 3y ago