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KitKat’s primary interface is Google Search
- droopyEyelids 13y ago> The dialer and incoming call screen now automatically perform Google searches for phone number information (and will display Google Ads) Of course Android is still more 'open', but as a person who dislikes advertisements, I feel like Apple products might be the less user-hostile choice now.
- scott_karana 13y agoFollowing that link leads to a G+ post showing the relevant lines of UI XML, but the comments on the same Google+ page seem to indicate that the advertisement string has existed (and been unused, and continues to be unused) since Android 1.6. Disaster averted... for now? :/
- MAGZine 13y agoBut isn't the phone number information part intriguing? You dial a phone number (or just had been called from one), and it potentially provides you with company name, address, operating hours. Directions are just a touch away. After you complete a call, it could ask you if you'd like to insert a calendar item at the listed address. This is welcome functionality for me. Google's ads all said and done seem to be fairly unobtrusive, so I trust that if there are advertisements (beyond this), it won't be hostile.
- Brakenshire 13y agoThat means that Google will have information on its server covering all phone calls I make, and at what time. That is way beyond what is acceptable, for me.
- ZoFreX 13y agoReally? I make like... 3 calls a week from my phone, generally of low importance. I deal in hundreds of emails which range from the trivial to bank account details. Why would I trust Google with the latter and not the former?
- pedrocr 13y agoBeing an Android user doesn't imply being a Gmail user.
- e40 13y agoFor like 99% of Android users it does.
- gbog 13y agoHere in China people barely use emails and never use gmail, and most run android. Or maybe your note needs to add "in my little personal tiny slice of the world" context?
- Apocryphon 13y agoWait, what? What do people in China use instead of emails? Do they just use SMS all of the time?
- hayksaakian 13y agoeducate yourself http://news.yahoo.com/android-huge-china-google-control-035903534.html http://news.yahoo.com/android-huge-china-google-control-0359...
- alextingle 13y agoIn what way does that link answer the question? Just to reiterate: What do people in China use instead of e-mail?
- MAGZine 13y agoFor advertisments, maybe. If they were interested in privacy, it wouldn't be difficult to fetch top-10,000 information for municipalities you live in. It could pre-fetch data for future locales if it sees you have a plane ticket somewhere... just a thought. I doubt Google could provide you relevant feedback for a private phone number 2,000 miles away anyhow--that would basically be just trolling for information.
- ryanhuff 13y agoSince Google apps tie into Google plus, how long before Google touts how every phone call made to and from an android phone is a G+ activity? Sounds like a huge headline opportunity to me. [Edit] Thinking more about this, and how G+, gmail and hangouts are melding together, you have to wonder how Google plans to leverage this new feature/info. Will people who call me suddenly appear in my gmail IM list as contacts?
- redler 13y agoAre "phone calls" between Android users with sufficiently up-to-date versions of the OS routed entirely over the internet as G+ voice chats? iOS bypasses carrier SMS with iMessage, and, I think, Facetime audio-only calls between capable devices. Seems like the next logical progression.
- justincormack 13y agoNo. This would be rather noticeable as depends on data connection quality. Apple diverting SMS is somewhat less error prone.
- josteink 13y agothere are apps for that and have been for ages if that is what you want. they are all opt in and they don't automatically route all your phone call history and meta data to Google. this is user hostile in the same way mandatory Google+ was. it's also another step in a slippery slope of android being less open and more of a source to feed Google data pipe. what we're seeing here is the end of android as it was originally envisioned. and that makes me sad.
- GrinningFool 13y ago" so I trust that if there are advertisements (beyond this), it won't be hostile. " So often we make this decision based on obtrusiveness of the ads. What about the information you give away every time an ad is shown, or a search performed on your behalf?
- ryansan 13y agoThis was my reaction right away as well. But anymore when it comes to "convenience" there is certainly a price to be paid. Here, it is (at a minimum) perceived loss of privacy. Just as I intentionally inconvenience myself to avoid places like McDonald's, I'll do the same here.
- kkaiser 13y agoArsTechnica has redacted the statement about displaying ads.
- gcb0 13y agoSo you want to choose between a company that sells you ads for any service you want to use vs a company that limits which products you may use? thanks, i will go with the third option. I will stick with 3rd party androids, and when google acquire-shut 'em all (e.g. cyanogen) i will hope firefox phones have improved.
- victorf 13y agoDepends on the user, of course. Can't an Android user swap those out? And install ad blockers on their browser as well? You'll never get me to agree that the walled garden isn't user-hostile, but it is true that some users are unprepared or unwilling to make their way in the wilderness outside of it.
- fdb 13y agoSo are widgets still supported?
- jordanthoms 13y agoYes.
- crunchykeith 13y agoThis seems to fall in line with Google's Android strategy of moving functionality out of the core OS and into Apps. This makes updates easier and faster because users only have to download the new version of the app and not update the OS.
- jmcatani 13y agoI totally agree with your point. Not only does it bypass the need for an OS update, but it also allows more consistent experiences across all android devices. While the cynic in me is deathly afraid of Google having complete control over my digital interactions, I find myself in favor of a Google-controlled experience. Google Now is making contextual computing possible in a way that no other company is remotely capable of bringing to the market. For the time being, I invite Google to control Android this way.
- pwf 13y agoThe launcher already was an app, right?
- myko 13y agoIt was not available in the Play Store as a separate download, no - it was bundled with the OS.
- josteink 13y agoout of aosp and into proprietary Google apps. that's always a bad move. and they've been doing it a lot lately.
- freehunter 13y agoIt depends on how you view it. From a FOSS standpoint, yeah it might be a bad thing. From a user experience standpoint, being able to get new features for your existing phone without having to install a custom ROM is a pretty big bonus.
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- zokier 13y agoThe article is very light on details what sort of user-visible impact this change will have. I don't really care if homescreen is defined in GoogleHome.apk or GoogleSearch.apk, I care about how the homescreen is functionally merged with search.
- chimeracoder 13y agoDoes this mean that third-party launchers won't work, even on custom ROMs? If they do, will they simply sit "on top of" Google's launcher now? If so, I don't like the idea of Google having that much level of access to data about my homescreen. Even if they're not accessing this data now, it seems that they're setting the stages for that a few versions from now.
- magicalist 13y ago> Does this mean that third-party launchers won't work, even on custom ROMs? No, this is just an app launcher. You can still install a different one. > I don't like the idea of Google having that much level of access to data about my homescreen. Even if they're not accessing this data now, it seems that they're setting the stages for that a few versions from now. If you're running the default app launcher today, I don't know who you thought wrote "GoogleHome.apk", even if you didn't know the name. If you're not, then just keep running the one you are.
- chimeracoder 13y ago> If you're running the default app launcher today, I don't know who you thought wrote "GoogleHome.apk" Well, that statement was in the case in which the third party launchers are no longer available (or simply a layer on top of the Google launcher, in which case Google still would collect the data either way). If Google's launcher is fully replaceable, then that's not an issue, as long as it stays that way.
- hrjet 13y agoThat's good to know. Does anyone know good open-source launchers for Android?
- kefs 13y agohttps://android.googlesource.com/platform/packages/apps/Launcher3/ https://android.googlesource.com/platform/packages/apps/Laun...
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- jknightco 13y agoI believe this is primarily to fix the latency that existed when you tapped the little search bar up top. Before, the Search APK had to be launched—now its already running.
- Mindless2112 13y agoDoes anybody actually use that search bar though? Maybe I'm alone, but I have a sort of "banner blindness" to the search bar -- I always swipe up from the home button to do a Google search no matter whether I want to see my Google Now cards or not.
- graue 13y agoI never use either. I open Firefox and tap my search terms into the awesome bar.
- synthos 13y agoWouldn't it be great if you could have Firefox as the home screen for your phone... Oh wait! https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/os/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/os/
- fpgeek 13y agoHonestly, the number of times I switch apps when I meant to switch tabs in Firefox, I'd be pretty interested in a Firefox-based launcher/recent apps picker. Especially since Firefox has gotten better with the "open in an app" option in recent versions of Firefox/Android, I think it might be a powerful new launcher paradigm.
- graue 13y agoHa. I just got a ZTE Open, mostly to hack on. It's cool, but not ready to be my primary phone yet.
- teleclimber 13y agoI was blind to it for a long time. Now I use it all the time. It's very convenient, really.
- ISL 13y agoIs Cyanogen or any other Android distribution ready for prime time? I happily run Debian everywhere but my phone, but it seems like hardware is still changing too fast for FOSS to keep up and maintain stability. If there's a sustainable and usable open solution, please comment. I can't make the time/expertise to contribute directly to a project, but I'm happy to bug-test at the level of Debian 'testing' and do contribute monetarily to software/distros that work. One thing that must work, always: 911.
- gbog 13y agoI'm running CM since my first android, works well. I had some issues but apps are responsible, and nothing some googling on sda didn't fix, eventually.
- Brakenshire 13y ago> If there's a sustainable and usable open solution, please comment. I'm looking at the Jolla/Sailfish phone. Seems to be a lot of ex-Nokia engineers trying to reboot the N9/Maemo. They're also shipping with fork of Dalvik (though I don't know how well that will work now that many APIs are moving into Play Services). I couldn't say much about the details, but at the least I'm happier buying a phone from a company that makes its money from selling phone hardware and software, rather than from data aggregation and advertising.
- brian_cloutier 13y ago> now that many APIs are moving into Play Services Which APIs are you thinking of? As far as I know, only a couple location services are in play service for no good reason.
- Brakenshire 13y agoThere are examples on the recent ArsTechnica article: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-android-controlling-open-source-by-any-means-necessary/4/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-... As you say, advanced location services, and then Cloud Messaging (an upgraded Push Notifications API), and some APIs which do accelerometer/sensor analysis. Maps API, Play Store In-App purchasing and Play Games (user accounts, cloud saves etc for game developers) are already there. You're right to pull me up on the post, though. It's not really correct to talk about moving the APIs into Play Services, so much as developing what's there, and creating new interfaces with new, advanced features. But still, that doesn't alter the basic point, which is that a lot of Android Apps won't work on systems which do not have Play Services installed.
- donniezazen 13y agoIt is to be noted that Google is often blamed for utilizing and presenting the user information that it holds. The only difference between Google and other companies like Facebook and Apple is that they also hold user information but choose not to use it in a creative way. In the end all companies are gathering information about users. I am okay with Google's decision as long as users benefit out it.
- da_n 13y agoFor about 2 months I have lived with almost no Google apps on my Android device, it has been crappy but I no longer trust them sadly. Looks like with 4.2 on this is going to be near impossible. I really want a decent open source, FOSS phone OS to come along. And before tin foil hat accusations are thrown at me, anyone who believes the relentless drive from Google to shove search, Google + and targetted advertising down people's throats is not getting out of hand needs a reality check, Google actually looks pretty desperate to me. Really hoping a decent Firefox OS phone or something else can come along, as it stands, I'll stick with CyanogenMod 10.1 and use F-Droid / sideloading.
- barrkel 13y agoI haven't used the stock launcher ever since the search bar became unremovable. I paid for Go Launcher to get rid of its ads, along with a couple of other bits and pieces to head off privacy leaks. As long as the Android stays as loosely coupled as it is, with replaceable components, I'm not too worried.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- newsmaster 13y agoSo where's the chocolate?
- buro9 13y agoIs it possible to use KitKat and to disable Google Now and avoid the search bar?