APIs haven't truly moved from AOSP to Play services. Location services are fully functional in the Android Open Source Project and do not require cloud infrastr

APIs haven't truly moved from AOSP to Play services. Location services are fully functional in the Android Open Source Project and do not require cloud infrastructure. Network-based location and geocoding are in AOSP as APIs and require an app implementing it. In GrapheneOS, we have our own app implementing both. We host geocoding via Nominatim. We currently use Apple's location service as an opt-in feature via either direct usage or our own proxy but we plan to provide our own database instead of only a proxy. Google Play services is nearly entirely for using Google services rather than functionality independent of Google services. Certain functionality such as security key support was put into Play services to make it available on all devices despite not shipping with it. In the case of security keys, AOSP now has a standard API for it with apps able to provide it. There are multiple apps providing security key support as a supplementary credential manager which can be used alongside a main password manager. It is true that Play services sometimes ships new functionality unrelated to Google services, but they didn't move functionality from AOSP to it. It's new functionality which wasn't previously in AOSP. Our main issue with it was what they did with security keys but they promised us it would be resolved and years later it was resolved. It took a lot longer than it should have and it's wrong that it happened the way that it did but it's not an issue anymore. The main issue are the licensing terms for Google Mobile Services and the Play Integrity API device and strong integrity levels enforcing licensing it. That's how Google locks out competition and locks in OEMs with them. It's the massive problem which needs to be addressed by regulators, not any of the things they focus on instead. Android gained market share through being an open platform with open source code. Google should be forced to stop degrading that and locking out competition. If they want to implement fancy things in Play services tied to their services, that's fine. People can compete with them. On the other hand, what they're doing with the Play Integrity API and beyond it is not fair and prevents competition. Unfortunately, regulators largely don't understand how Google harms competition and solves the wrong problems. The remedies for their anti-competitive behavior consistently don't address the core issues and allow it to continue getting worse.