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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

by 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?
- aselzer 12y ago
  > it doesn't contain anything that is not a client of Google's cloud services What about the Chromecast and Android Wear APIs? I know that Chromecast OS and Android Wear they are both (sadly) based on closed operating systems and somewhat rely on Google APIs, but that shouldn't be an excuse to prevent people that don't want Google Services on their phone from using smartwatches over bluetooth or mirroring the screen to their TV in their own local network.
  - DCKing 12y ago
    > What about the Chromecast and Android Wear APIs? The Chromecast does not operate over a local connection. It is actually operated 'through the cloud' - if you are controlling your Chromecast, you're sending operations to your Google account over the internet, which are then relayed to your Chromecast which is also tied to your Google account. Note that Google supports a non-cloud dependent sort-of-alternative for Chromecasting called Miracast in AOSP. Android Wear is heavily dependent on Google Now, Google Search's voice recognition techniques. An Android Wear device cannot do anything without access to Google's services - it is far more than 'somewhat dependent'. So yeah, both are in Google Services because they actually fully depend on Google's services.
    - ocdtrekkie 12y ago
      Both of these things being intentional choices to develop crippled hardware that's reliant on proprietary services. A huge disservice to consumers.
    - aselzer 12y ago
      Documentation for Miracast in Android seems very lacking. According to Wikipedia, Google decided not to support Miracast on the Chromecast, probably because it is an open standard that would have made the effect of selling the Chromecast cheaply weaker on their goal of raising Android adoption and locking in customers. I don't think that all commands are relayed over Google, since if that were true, Android should be clever enough find my Chromecast if I was connected to another WiFi network. The delay would also make it impractical for quite a lot of people. IMO chromecast should have been based on open standards. Android Wear would be just be as heavily "reliant" on Google Now as Android is. Google just decided to give it a proprietary version of Android that is heavily integrated with Google Now. Android Wear could do quite a lot without access to Google Services. It is actually pretty pleasant to use without talking to your watch. It seems like we both have different points of view on this, but in my opinion Google has acted in a way that favours their interests over their customers' freedom.
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.

by solve 12y ago

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?
aselzer 12y ago
> it doesn't contain anything that is not a client of Google's cloud services What about the Chromecast and Android Wear APIs? I know that Chromecast OS and Android Wear they are both (sadly) based on closed operating systems and somewhat rely on Google APIs, but that shouldn't be an excuse to prevent people that don't want Google Services on their phone from using smartwatches over bluetooth or mirroring the screen to their TV in their own local network.
- DCKing 12y ago
  > What about the Chromecast and Android Wear APIs? The Chromecast does not operate over a local connection. It is actually operated 'through the cloud' - if you are controlling your Chromecast, you're sending operations to your Google account over the internet, which are then relayed to your Chromecast which is also tied to your Google account. Note that Google supports a non-cloud dependent sort-of-alternative for Chromecasting called Miracast in AOSP. Android Wear is heavily dependent on Google Now, Google Search's voice recognition techniques. An Android Wear device cannot do anything without access to Google's services - it is far more than 'somewhat dependent'. So yeah, both are in Google Services because they actually fully depend on Google's services.
  - ocdtrekkie 12y ago
    Both of these things being intentional choices to develop crippled hardware that's reliant on proprietary services. A huge disservice to consumers.
  - aselzer 12y ago
    Documentation for Miracast in Android seems very lacking. According to Wikipedia, Google decided not to support Miracast on the Chromecast, probably because it is an open standard that would have made the effect of selling the Chromecast cheaply weaker on their goal of raising Android adoption and locking in customers. I don't think that all commands are relayed over Google, since if that were true, Android should be clever enough find my Chromecast if I was connected to another WiFi network. The delay would also make it impractical for quite a lot of people. IMO chromecast should have been based on open standards. Android Wear would be just be as heavily "reliant" on Google Now as Android is. Google just decided to give it a proprietary version of Android that is heavily integrated with Google Now. Android Wear could do quite a lot without access to Google Services. It is actually pretty pleasant to use without talking to your watch. It seems like we both have different points of view on this, but in my opinion Google has acted in a way that favours their interests over their customers' freedom.

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.