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This is just wrong. Android forks were never successful (see eg Amazon's fire phone) an will never be - the lock-in factor is incredible. In the opposite direc

by jpdus 12y ago

This is just wrong. Android forks were never successful (see eg Amazon's fire phone) an will never be - the lock-in factor is incredible. In the opposite direction, more and more customers want "pure" software and good hardware is increasingly available from many different manufacturers. Nokia arguably has made the best hardware and hardly sold any phones with WP because customers wanted Android. Google knows this and moves more and more parts from AOSP in its proprietary play framework because manufacturers are way more dependent on Android than Google is dependent on any single manufacturer (including Samsung).

gbog 12y ago
This depends. If Google is able to run ahead of the others fast enough and have very compelling updates to force competitors to follow them, then yes, their grab on Android is still strong. But my feeling from having looked at Android 5 (which is apparently superficial) is that Google still try to run fast, but there is not more any very compelling innovation to propose. So quite soon a normal two years old version of Android will be just good enough for manufacturers and users. Then Android will still be the main player, but it will exist as multiple forks and Google will have to adapt and propose apps compatible with the most successful forks (just like they propose apps on Apple store).
- bad_user 12y ago
  Google's lock in is more about Google Play than about what is coming in Android. Basically as a manufacturer, if you don't play nice, then you don't get Google Play (or YouTube, or Gmail, or GMaps), which then means that your smartphone is just an expensive brick with no apps on it. iOS is special because it is popular and was here first. But do you see Google giving a shit about Amazon's stuff or about the Windows phone? You know, i'm an Android user because of its openness, because of its ability to be forked, but Google practices a kind of lock-in that is very hard to escape. Basically everything they do is technically excellent, plus they end up dominating the underlying platforms.
kngspook 12y ago
Just because a past fork was shitty doesn't mean all future forks will be shitty. There were other issues aside from lock-in.

by jpdus 12y ago

gbog 12y ago

This depends. If Google is able to run ahead of the others fast enough and have very compelling updates to force competitors to follow them, then yes, their grab on Android is still strong. But my feeling from having looked at Android 5 (which is apparently superficial) is that Google still try to run fast, but there is not more any very compelling innovation to propose. So quite soon a normal two years old version of Android will be just good enough for manufacturers and users. Then Android will still be the main player, but it will exist as multiple forks and Google will have to adapt and propose apps compatible with the most successful forks (just like they propose apps on Apple store).

bad_user 12y ago
Google's lock in is more about Google Play than about what is coming in Android. Basically as a manufacturer, if you don't play nice, then you don't get Google Play (or YouTube, or Gmail, or GMaps), which then means that your smartphone is just an expensive brick with no apps on it. iOS is special because it is popular and was here first. But do you see Google giving a shit about Amazon's stuff or about the Windows phone? You know, i'm an Android user because of its openness, because of its ability to be forked, but Google practices a kind of lock-in that is very hard to escape. Basically everything they do is technically excellent, plus they end up dominating the underlying platforms.

kngspook 12y ago

Just because a past fork was shitty doesn't mean all future forks will be shitty. There were other issues aside from lock-in.