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Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

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Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#31

Post by digi_owl »

rtkwe wrote: post #26
digi_owl wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AOSP may be open, but on its own it is a skeleton of a OS. Most of the magic in Android today is housed in Play Services, one of two things Google can push an update for (the other being the Play store app) without any dialog or concent from the device user.

That's kind of a demon of necessity though. Originally they did things more in the base OS but getting manufacturers to actually push updates was horrible. Now they can do bug, (minor) security and feature updates through a side channel that bypasses the carriers who don't want to update their older phones when people might go buy new ones instead.

Thing is though that is proprietary to Google, anyone wanting to use AOSP for their own has to clone the APIs.

This makes a lie of the whole notion that Android is open source. Yes, the skeleton is open, but the guts are proprietary. And the skeleton on its own is useless.

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#32

Post by _wmd »

problems wrote: post #30
_wmd wrote: post #25

I guess this means we can officially stop hating on Microsoft for having such a lax attitude towards security, considering their last OS to suffer from that attitude was released 16 years ago, and it accounts for less than 3% of present day traffic according to statcounter.com Meanwhile according to the same stats, Android sits around 37.9%, and I have to wonder just how many of those devices are still impacted by fo…

> perhaps now is the time for us to begin holding Google to the same standard we applied to Microsoft a decade ago. The triggering factor for this was the worms though. No such similar thing exists in the Android space.

Stagefright is trivially weaponizable as an MMS worm, in fact it may already have happened

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#33

Post by digi_owl »

loudmax wrote: post #24
georgeecollins wrote: post #18

When I was younger there IBM, Apple, Be, and Microsoft were all working on these amazing new operating systems. Now the #1, #3, #4 most popular operating systems are all some variation on Unix. What happened? Why did no one except Microsoft come up with a new operating system worthy of mass adoption?

Well, Microsoft put OS/2 and BeOS out of business, and nearly did the same for Apple. While this was happening, FreeBSD and Linux emerged as excellent Unix variants, so when Apple and Google went to look for their own OSs to deploy, they leveraged what was already available. If you're looking for alternatives, there is stuff being developed. Google's Fuscia is intriguing, and there are other non-Unix kernels from oth…

Lets not forget that Google bought Android, it didn't start as a in-house project. Rubin and crew had picked Linux as their base, and Java as their main dev environment, before being bought by Google.

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#34

Post by digi_owl »

huxley wrote: post #27
georgeecollins wrote: post #18

When I was younger there IBM, Apple, Be, and Microsoft were all working on these amazing new operating systems. Now the #1, #3, #4 most popular operating systems are all some variation on Unix. What happened? Why did no one except Microsoft come up with a new operating system worthy of mass adoption?

A lot of Windows NT was based on work Dave Cutler had done on VMS and RSX-11, so while I'm sure most of the code was new, the ideas are of a similar vintage to Unix.

Frankly it seems like nothing really new has come out of computing in decades. Basically all the container hoopla happening right now were in use on mainframes before Torvalds released the first Linux source code.

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#35

Post by ashark »

sowbug wrote: post #21
psy-q wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always hoped for a more 30%/30%/30%/10% distribution, with two big proprietary players, one FOSS one and a bunch of other more experimental or niche systems. Guess that hasn't happened so far. The only place in technology where I remember three big and roughly equally powerful players was the console market, but only for a while. Would be interesting to find out details about these dynamics.

Developers seem to be willing to support two competitive platforms, but when there are three or more, they throw up their hands and support just the top one, or maybe the top two. Source: my own intuition.

They're willing to if they can bundle it in something large enough to be—and otherwise more resource hungry than—a (sane) minimal graphical OS. Electron, say.

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#36

Post by beaner »

digi_owl wrote: post #31
rtkwe wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's kind of a demon of necessity though. Originally they did things more in the base OS but getting manufacturers to actually push updates was horrible. Now they can do bug, (minor) security and feature updates through a side channel that bypasses the carriers who don't want to update their older phones when people might go buy new ones instead.

Thing is though that is proprietary to Google, anyone wanting to use AOSP for their own has to clone the APIs. This makes a lie of the whole notion that Android is open source. Yes, the skeleton is open, but the guts are proprietary. And the skeleton on its own is useless.

What makes it useless?

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#37

Post by digi_owl »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #23
georgeecollins wrote: post #18

When I was younger there IBM, Apple, Be, and Microsoft were all working on these amazing new operating systems. Now the #1, #3, #4 most popular operating systems are all some variation on Unix. What happened? Why did no one except Microsoft come up with a new operating system worthy of mass adoption?

Because the ideas on which Unix is based are sound.

Say that to the systemd devs...

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#38

Post by iainmerrick »

rtkwe wrote: post #26
digi_owl wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AOSP may be open, but on its own it is a skeleton of a OS. Most of the magic in Android today is housed in Play Services, one of two things Google can push an update for (the other being the Play store app) without any dialog or concent from the device user.

That's kind of a demon of necessity though. Originally they did things more in the base OS but getting manufacturers to actually push updates was horrible. Now they can do bug, (minor) security and feature updates through a side channel that bypasses the carriers who don't want to update their older phones when people might go buy new ones instead.

There's no technical necessity for it to be closed source, though. That's a business decision.

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#39

Post by digi_owl »

ashark wrote: post #35
sowbug wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Developers seem to be willing to support two competitive platforms, but when there are three or more, they throw up their hands and support just the top one, or maybe the top two. Source: my own intuition.

They're willing to if they can bundle it in something large enough to be—and otherwise more resource hungry than—a (sane) minimal graphical OS. Electron, say.

Effectively using web tech as a VM, dear deity...
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