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The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google’s Iron Grip on Android

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Re: The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google’s Iron Grip on Android

#31
post #24
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google bought this platform with every dollar invested over more than a decade, they didn't do this only so that Apple had a competitor, but so that THEY had control over mobile eyeballs. Google's biggest trick was developers. They leveraged the decaying state of Java, and it being the default CS language in a lot of places. They simple showed a more attractive opportunity to tenths of thousands of Java devs stuck…

Makes me think whoever comes up with a mainstreamed way to do cross-platform mobile apps in Python will easily capture a large share of recent college grads, too, then.

Jolla did and failed.

Re: The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google’s Iron Grip on Android

#32
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can trivially install Google play store and services on 98% of the non-licensed phones in China. You can. I can. My mother and 95% (99? 99.9?) of the android users cannot. > The fact that a $50B Chinese domestic Android market is thriving with zero control by Google proves the thesis to be untrue. In Western countries it's true. You also can't build an online business in Europe if you're blocked by Google becau…

If Europe mandates no preinstalled app store every phone maker will make sure that the grandmas could install the store on their own.

What is the timeline on this happening?

Re: The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google’s Iron Grip on Android

#33
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe could disallow preintalled app stores so everyone can install their own app store of choice.

Would they do the same for iOS too?

I would assume any regulation will need to be vendor neutral so yes. I am just pointing out that Europe is not powerless even though I think the odds isn't high that they will do something like this.

Re: The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google’s Iron Grip on Android

#34

Google invested Billions into Android. Samsung tried to hedge for this by building Tizen(Bada) and realized how much needed to be invested to get an Android competitor going, so they kept the development going, but focused for their Smartwatches, as this would have to be a "if the worst happens" plan, not something that could be a profitable venture. LG has the Palm/HP borne WebOS for their TVs, i suspect with a simi…

It’s possible that Google cutting off Huawei will actually backfire, because it makes having a viable alternative to Android a MUST HAVE instead of just NICE TO HAVE.

Perhaps it’s possible to resurrect Blackberry 10 ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackBerry_10 ) for example, which seemed to be an impressive piece of engineering that got trampled by Blackberrys failing business. I played with a demo once that could run Android apps and was amazing at multi-tasking thanks to its microkernel architecture. Plus would be governed by Canadian export laws I guess. Perhaps I’m just daydreaming though.

Either way think it’s going to lead to more mobile OS competition again, which is a good thing

Re: The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google’s Iron Grip on Android

#35
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes me think whoever comes up with a mainstreamed way to do cross-platform mobile apps in Python will easily capture a large share of recent college grads, too, then.

Jolla did and failed.

Well, Jolla was a meme company. The best shot a normal Linux had on mobile was during N9 era, and late Meegos.

After that things went sour:

  - GTK+/glib dev community began to wither simply because of older members retiring, and no new blood
  - DRM flamewar with record labels
  - Android diverted a great amount of community resources
  - Monopolisation of smartphone SoC market.
  - Elop...

Re: The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google’s Iron Grip on Android

#36
post #24
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google bought this platform with every dollar invested over more than a decade, they didn't do this only so that Apple had a competitor, but so that THEY had control over mobile eyeballs. Google's biggest trick was developers. They leveraged the decaying state of Java, and it being the default CS language in a lot of places. They simple showed a more attractive opportunity to tenths of thousands of Java devs stuck…

Makes me think whoever comes up with a mainstreamed way to do cross-platform mobile apps in Python will easily capture a large share of recent college grads, too, then.

What about webasm ?

Re: The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google’s Iron Grip on Android

#37
post #24
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google bought this platform with every dollar invested over more than a decade, they didn't do this only so that Apple had a competitor, but so that THEY had control over mobile eyeballs. Google's biggest trick was developers. They leveraged the decaying state of Java, and it being the default CS language in a lot of places. They simple showed a more attractive opportunity to tenths of thousands of Java devs stuck…

Makes me think whoever comes up with a mainstreamed way to do cross-platform mobile apps in Python will easily capture a large share of recent college grads, too, then.

There is the beeware project trying to do just that. I don't think it has enough people contributing to get there at a reasonable pace though.

Re: The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google’s Iron Grip on Android

#38
post #8
post #5

Yeah, and it also reveals what the world would look like if Windows phone won instead of android. Atleast for Android you have AOSP, which is atleast somewhat open source. If Windows phone and iOS were the only two alternatives, a ban on a phone company like huwaei would be a death sentence. Can't do much with windows or iOS.

The app ecosystem is a mess on AOSP. It feels like google just uses it to show a faux openness but there is no way that a non-enthusiast will get the experience they have in one of the 2 (formerly 3) major brand app stores. And that's really what this is about: app ecosystems. Making a good OS is easy, but getting mindshare/appshare is difficult (as microsoft learned the hard way). AOSP makes no difference I think. I…

> Making a good OS is easy, but getting mindshare/appshare is difficult...

Making a good OS is hard, and getting market share in an established market is very, very difficult.

Re: The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google’s Iron Grip on Android

#40
post #39

Can someone explained what happened recently to cause such aggressive action against Huawei with ARM , Google etc refusing to work with them. Is it related to arrest of their executive recently ?

It's part of the US/China trade war. Trump believed the existing tariff situation with China was unfair and wanted to negotiate a new trade deal. When negotiations failed he started to implement a bunch of tariffs and trade restrictions on chines goods and companies to try to force their hand. This is just a part of that 'negotiation' strategy.

Google, Arm etc. don't want to stop doing business with Huawei (since doing so no doubt costs them a lot of money), they're being banned from doing business with Huawei by the US government.

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