3 ms·

That was unexpected. Why would Google be so ignorant of Android China? China seems like such an obvious part of the mobile big picture that I can only assume "b

• yeukhon 13y ago
  Wasn't the problem has to do with small vendors, not big names? I would assume that was the issue? And if so, my guess is people just thought Chinese market was too complicated to handle (speaking from a Chinese perspective...) and particularly it was hard to deal with all the malware, links rewrite and law conflicts at all once, even with the powerful cash Google has. And since the Google China incident, Google doesn't seem to have any interest in the Chinese market anymore. It is a big market, but the effort to put into it to compete with local competitor is just way too much; plus Apple is already part of competition. I am actually amazed how Apple is able to succeed. To many people in China, owning an expensive phone like iPhone is a necessity (well, maybe I will call it a norm). Right now I think mobile market is shifting interest to developing regions like South America and Southeast Asia.
• leoc 13y ago
  Other ideas (all pure speculation): * A desire to protect Google's relationship with the big-name phone manufacturers: maybe the big players have hinted that Google getting too helpful to the small Chinese firms would tend to cool them on Android * Concern that the Chinese manufacturers might accept Google's technical help, then refuse to implement all of the G-suite or otherwise violate the terms of the certification. With Google's weakened position in China it might not be able to get effective redress * A specific form of the above: concern that Chinese-brand phones will contain trapdoors to allow clandestine Chinese government access to your Gmail etc. Google can't prevent this from happening on Chinese phones with "unofficial" G-suite access, but at least it can disclaim responsibility, never having certified the device
  • mcguire 13y ago
    * A perennial inability to support paying customers. Don't attribute to malice what is adequately explained by stupidity.
  • robk 13y ago
    These are more plausible explanations than many of the others here.