6 ms·

What are they talking about, exactly? It's perfectly possible to "unbundle" Android and Google's services. Google goes furthest in unbundling possibilities for

by DCKing 12y ago

What are they talking about, exactly? It's perfectly possible to "unbundle" Android and Google's services. Google goes furthest in unbundling possibilities for any popular operating system, since they give away the source code for the operating system to be freely modified and be bundled with other cloud services. Amazon, Microsoft+Nokia (Bing) and many Chinese smartphone vendors (Baidu mostly) have all shown that this is possible. People pretend that Android without Google Play Services is somehow worthless or necessarily incomplete, which I don't agree with in the slightest. It seems to me that what they're talking about is actually that Google's cloud services package bundles default Google Search, and Google does not provide the user or vendors with enough flexibility here. Okay, I'll definitely grant them that. So they want to use Google's cloud infrastructure selectively for the Play Store, but not for other profitable and integrated cloud services? Sounds a bit like eating your cake and having it too. If you look at this way, it doesn't seem such a reasonable request, although I guess it would be better for the market if Google was forced to give in.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
throwaway49873 12y ago
It's not Yandex that wants the play store, it's the device manufacturers. Google is using it's position as the leading android store to prevent competition in other areas. I think it's bad for the market, bad for privacy, bad for other companies and ultimately bad for the consumers.
solve 12y ago
The non-free Google Play APIs, which are heavily used by many Android apps. This makes it a real pain to run popular Android apps on Blackberry, for example. So in practice, very few users do. Edit: Warning - lots of downvotes in this thread, seemingly for any Google critical comments.
- DCKing 12y ago
  > The non-free Google Play APIs, which are heavily used by many Android apps. I think this is an exaggeration. Some developers make too many assumptions, sure, but I don't think you'll find many high-profile non-Google apps that don't run on a Kindle Fire tablet for this reason. EDIT: People seem to think that Google Services contain the bread and butter of the Android OS, but if you look at what APIs are actually provided by them [1], it doesn't contain anything that is not a client of Google's cloud services. [1]: http://developer.android.com/google/index.html http://developer.android.com/google/index.html
  - mkr-hn 12y ago
    The high profile ones have a properly adjusted version in Amazon's store. When I got my Kindle Fire in 2013, I ran into a lot of apps in Amazon's store that refused to run or broke in weird ways for lack of Google's APIs. I don't know if it's improved any since I gave up on low profile apps when using my Kindle.
  - kuschku 12y ago
    Even OpenGL extensions are now only available through the Google Play API. It is NOT an exaggeration.
    - DCKing 12y ago
      I think you misinterpreted some of Google's documentation here, or are deliberately FUD'ing. You made me look around in Android's documentation and the web and I did not find anything about this. Care to share a link?
  - solve 12y ago
    I my experience, this is not an exaggeration. Most of the top popularity apps expect the Google Play APIs to be present. Have you had the experience that this is no longer the case?
    - DCKing 12y ago
      You have to be specific here. 1) How many apps will flat out refuse to run if Google Services are not present, as opposed to have reduced functionality? Having a dependency on Google's Services library only means that the app will use it if it is available, not that the app will fail if it's not. 2) How many apps use more than the Location / Maps / In-app Purchases API, which are implemented in a compatible way by all of the other parties I mentioned?
- Oletros 12y ago
  It is developers fault not to use the other API's like the Amazon App store ones. Perhaps the downvoting is not from Google supporters but fro now accurate information
- aselzer 12y ago
  Here's what Google says about the location API: > This API is not the recommended method for accessing Android location. > The Google Location Services API [...] is the preferred way to add location-awareness to your app. http://developer.android.com/reference/android/location/package-summary.html http://developer.android.com/reference/android/location/pack... It seems like Google is intentionally encouraging developers to switch to their closed APIs. Most developers will probably follow what the red warning message says instead of spending more time building another solution. Google wants to keep control of all Android clone OSs, so they add convenience features to their closed-source libraries, encourage developers to use them, and force phone manufacturers to bundle them with their OS. Bundling an alternative implementation of the API is probably a bad idea because of copyright.
  - DCKing 12y ago
    They deprecated a mapping API in AOSP because AOSP is not tied to a cloud service and should not depend on cloud services. AOSP on its own cannot assume that a mapping service is available, and neither can Android apps. For the same reason, there are no app store, social networking or cloud storage APIs in AOSP. AOSP does not depend on a cloud service. They introduced a mapping API for Google Maps in Play Services because Play Services contains all client libraries for Google's services. The Google Services APIs are a container for all libraries to consume Google's cloud services. This is not symptomatic of Google's evilness.
  - icebraining 12y ago
    Bundling an alternative implementation of the API is probably a bad idea because of copyright. That'd be a fun case; you could just use their own arguments in Oracle v. Google against them.
  - lnanek2 12y ago
    Probably because Google got a lot of negative PR for forcing manufactures away from more accurate Location API implementations so now they need to use a private API as an excuse to kill location service competition in the future. You can see the internal Google emails here where they note SkyHook was more accurate than their implementation http://www.businessinsider.com/google-skyhook-emails-2011-5?op=1 http://www.businessinsider.com/google-skyhook-emails-2011-5?... And they force Motorola to stop shipping devices unless Motorola agrees to not use SkyHook.
guard-of-terra 12y ago
It is possible to unbundle Android, but if you are a phone manufacturer that makes Google Android phones, you get very strong pressure from Google if you try to also make non-Google Android phones. So any large manufacturer can not try new innovative Android variants at fear of being cut off from Google Android.
- ocdtrekkie 12y ago
  It's not just pressure. They outright cut you off. You cannot ship Google Androids and non-Google Androids. It's part of the MARA.
  - Oletros 12y ago
    > You cannot ship Google Androids and non-Google Androids. Any source for this?
    - ocdtrekkie 12y ago
      http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10000872396390444709004577652362341112898 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100008723963904447090045776523... and various other articles on the same incident. OHA members are required to agree not to ship devices running Android forks.
      - Oletros 12y ago
        That article doesn't say what you have claimed. And, apart that Aliyun store had pirated Google apps, it was not an Android fork. Still waiting those MADA clauses forbidding non Google Android
        ocdtrekkie 12y ago
        MADA is confidential unfortunately. (Wonder why?) And no, that incident had nothing to do with whether or not Google apps available in Aliyun's store were pirated. Acer was told they'd be removed from the OHA if they shipped Aliyun's fork of Android.
ocdtrekkie 12y ago
The MARA agreement Google mandates is very anti-competitive. It protects some services by mandating their inclusion in order to get others. Google now mandates almost 20 apps be packaged on devices, when the manufacturer really only wants the Play Store.
- revelation 12y ago
  If that is anti-competitive, then Apples locked down operating-system running only entirely Apple sanctioned code must make the FTC explode. Then of course, the market is smartphones, not Android phones. If something is anti-competitive comes down to the market situation, and has usually very little to do with any specific behavior.

by DCKing 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

throwaway49873 12y ago

It's not Yandex that wants the play store, it's the device manufacturers. Google is using it's position as the leading android store to prevent competition in other areas. I think it's bad for the market, bad for privacy, bad for other companies and ultimately bad for the consumers.

solve 12y ago

The non-free Google Play APIs, which are heavily used by many Android apps. This makes it a real pain to run popular Android apps on Blackberry, for example. So in practice, very few users do. Edit: Warning - lots of downvotes in this thread, seemingly for any Google critical comments.

DCKing 12y ago
> The non-free Google Play APIs, which are heavily used by many Android apps. I think this is an exaggeration. Some developers make too many assumptions, sure, but I don't think you'll find many high-profile non-Google apps that don't run on a Kindle Fire tablet for this reason. EDIT: People seem to think that Google Services contain the bread and butter of the Android OS, but if you look at what APIs are actually provided by them [1], it doesn't contain anything that is not a client of Google's cloud services. [1]: http://developer.android.com/google/index.html http://developer.android.com/google/index.html
- mkr-hn 12y ago
  The high profile ones have a properly adjusted version in Amazon's store. When I got my Kindle Fire in 2013, I ran into a lot of apps in Amazon's store that refused to run or broke in weird ways for lack of Google's APIs. I don't know if it's improved any since I gave up on low profile apps when using my Kindle.
- kuschku 12y ago
  Even OpenGL extensions are now only available through the Google Play API. It is NOT an exaggeration.
  - DCKing 12y ago
    I think you misinterpreted some of Google's documentation here, or are deliberately FUD'ing. You made me look around in Android's documentation and the web and I did not find anything about this. Care to share a link?
- solve 12y ago
  I my experience, this is not an exaggeration. Most of the top popularity apps expect the Google Play APIs to be present. Have you had the experience that this is no longer the case?
  - DCKing 12y ago
    You have to be specific here. 1) How many apps will flat out refuse to run if Google Services are not present, as opposed to have reduced functionality? Having a dependency on Google's Services library only means that the app will use it if it is available, not that the app will fail if it's not. 2) How many apps use more than the Location / Maps / In-app Purchases API, which are implemented in a compatible way by all of the other parties I mentioned?
Oletros 12y ago
It is developers fault not to use the other API's like the Amazon App store ones. Perhaps the downvoting is not from Google supporters but fro now accurate information
aselzer 12y ago
Here's what Google says about the location API: > This API is not the recommended method for accessing Android location. > The Google Location Services API [...] is the preferred way to add location-awareness to your app. http://developer.android.com/reference/android/location/package-summary.html http://developer.android.com/reference/android/location/pack... It seems like Google is intentionally encouraging developers to switch to their closed APIs. Most developers will probably follow what the red warning message says instead of spending more time building another solution. Google wants to keep control of all Android clone OSs, so they add convenience features to their closed-source libraries, encourage developers to use them, and force phone manufacturers to bundle them with their OS. Bundling an alternative implementation of the API is probably a bad idea because of copyright.
- DCKing 12y ago
  They deprecated a mapping API in AOSP because AOSP is not tied to a cloud service and should not depend on cloud services. AOSP on its own cannot assume that a mapping service is available, and neither can Android apps. For the same reason, there are no app store, social networking or cloud storage APIs in AOSP. AOSP does not depend on a cloud service. They introduced a mapping API for Google Maps in Play Services because Play Services contains all client libraries for Google's services. The Google Services APIs are a container for all libraries to consume Google's cloud services. This is not symptomatic of Google's evilness.
- icebraining 12y ago
  Bundling an alternative implementation of the API is probably a bad idea because of copyright. That'd be a fun case; you could just use their own arguments in Oracle v. Google against them.
- lnanek2 12y ago
  Probably because Google got a lot of negative PR for forcing manufactures away from more accurate Location API implementations so now they need to use a private API as an excuse to kill location service competition in the future. You can see the internal Google emails here where they note SkyHook was more accurate than their implementation http://www.businessinsider.com/google-skyhook-emails-2011-5?op=1 http://www.businessinsider.com/google-skyhook-emails-2011-5?... And they force Motorola to stop shipping devices unless Motorola agrees to not use SkyHook.

guard-of-terra 12y ago

It is possible to unbundle Android, but if you are a phone manufacturer that makes Google Android phones, you get very strong pressure from Google if you try to also make non-Google Android phones. So any large manufacturer can not try new innovative Android variants at fear of being cut off from Google Android.

ocdtrekkie 12y ago
It's not just pressure. They outright cut you off. You cannot ship Google Androids and non-Google Androids. It's part of the MARA.
- Oletros 12y ago
  > You cannot ship Google Androids and non-Google Androids. Any source for this?
  - ocdtrekkie 12y ago
    http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10000872396390444709004577652362341112898 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100008723963904447090045776523... and various other articles on the same incident. OHA members are required to agree not to ship devices running Android forks.
    - Oletros 12y ago
      That article doesn't say what you have claimed. And, apart that Aliyun store had pirated Google apps, it was not an Android fork. Still waiting those MADA clauses forbidding non Google Android
      - ocdtrekkie 12y ago
        MADA is confidential unfortunately. (Wonder why?) And no, that incident had nothing to do with whether or not Google apps available in Aliyun's store were pirated. Acer was told they'd be removed from the OHA if they shipped Aliyun's fork of Android.

ocdtrekkie 12y ago

The MARA agreement Google mandates is very anti-competitive. It protects some services by mandating their inclusion in order to get others. Google now mandates almost 20 apps be packaged on devices, when the manufacturer really only wants the Play Store.

revelation 12y ago
If that is anti-competitive, then Apples locked down operating-system running only entirely Apple sanctioned code must make the FTC explode. Then of course, the market is smartphones, not Android phones. If something is anti-competitive comes down to the market situation, and has usually very little to do with any specific behavior.