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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

#141

Post by jdright »

dogma1138 wrote: post #51
harryf wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Really? Do you think Samsung and LG would be more likely to develop not to mention support an Android competitor? This ban is the best thing that happened to Korean mobile phone manufacturers for years. Huawei was breathing down Sammy’s neck things are looking much bright for them now.

After this fiasco, I'm more than ever willing to change to Huawei. Best yet if they change to a platform not based on Android. I'm done with Google (and Android soon) in every possible way.

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

#142

Post by kuschku »

0815test wrote: post #130
kuschku wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has spent the last decade cutting apart the open part of Android and making it more and more proprietary. Launcher, Phone app, Messages, Contacts, Calendar. All proprietary. Notification API, Location API, SMS APIs and step counter APIs, and even the new app format. All proprietary. It's a huge undertaking building an app for Android today without using Google's services, and sometimes even impossible. If you…

> It's a huge undertaking building an app for Android today without using Google's services, and sometimes even impossible. F-Droid developers manage to do it. Sure, they might not publish their apps on the Google-Play Store (some do, actually) but so what? Any Android user can freely download these entirely open apps and install them on their own, by pre-checking a box in the phone settings. That's still more than y…

I’m a publishing apps on F-Droid myself, so I’m speaking from experience there.

Right now I’ve spent months on getting a full clean-room reversed version of Google’s Firebase Cloud Messaging system’s client library working, and we’re still nowhere close to that.

The final goal being that we can have one, fully GPL app, which can utilize FCM if it’s installed on the phone, either through the proprietary Google Play Services, or through microG, but which can also work without it otherwise (while also avoiding any tracking or telemetry)

And trust me if I say Google’s making this for us devs harder with every update.

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

#143

Post by kuschku »

rapsey wrote: post #113
kuschku wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has spent the last decade cutting apart the open part of Android and making it more and more proprietary. Launcher, Phone app, Messages, Contacts, Calendar. All proprietary. Notification API, Location API, SMS APIs and step counter APIs, and even the new app format. All proprietary. It's a huge undertaking building an app for Android today without using Google's services, and sometimes even impossible. If you…

> Google has spent the last decade cutting apart the open part of Android and making it more and more proprietary. Replacing those bits is still less work than writing your own entire OS. There are even open source projects to replace those bits.

Yes, microG exists and is amazing — but even it is only replacing an absolutely tiny part of the APIs, and even those it can’t replace fully yet and a lot of work is still to be done.

I remember days when Android was still open, nowadays I’m fighting against the ever-increasing restrictions with my open source apps with every single OS update.

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

#145

Post by smadurange »

enitihas wrote: 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.

A propreiatry software is better than a bullshit opensource software. At least you know what you are getting into.

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

#147

Post by mhkool »

DeonPenny wrote: post #55
turtlecloud wrote: post #43

So they trigger the PRC gov to build their own OS. A temporary setback or worse? Who do we bet on in 10 yrs? State sponsored technology or Google? My bet is on China.

Lol do that seems like a strange bet. State sponsor rarely win in those cases

Do not forget that Huawei is ahead with 5G. So with plenty of resources Huawei has shown to be the leader in one area and there is no reason to assume it cannot do that in other areas.

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

#148

Post by 0815test »

nashashmi wrote: post #138
kuschku wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has spent the last decade cutting apart the open part of Android and making it more and more proprietary. Launcher, Phone app, Messages, Contacts, Calendar. All proprietary. Notification API, Location API, SMS APIs and step counter APIs, and even the new app format. All proprietary. It's a huge undertaking building an app for Android today without using Google's services, and sometimes even impossible. If you…

So that is a great bait and catch strategy. Start open source and after market dominance move over to closed source. We need anti monopoly measures to prevent this kind of thing.

Huawei did the same thing. Started out with their phones being unlockable (not that it did much good, the hardware was hell to work with), then took that away. Even on existing hardware. That's when people in the consumer tech community figured out "okay, these clowns definitely can't be trusted". We didn't need Trump to tell us that!

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

#149

Post by max_wen »

_Understated_ wrote: post #136
Roritharr wrote: post #9

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…

I wonder at what point it makes sense for Samsung, HP, Huawei, LG etc. to get together to make another OS... they sell a lot of phones across the globe. Hell, even include Microsoft in there too.

why would Samsung or LG want to partner with Huawei?

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

#150

Post by rob74 »

sbarre wrote: post #140
snaky wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huawei could make their own Play Services, API-compatible with Google, then all apps would work the same. Maybe that's what they actually do now.

As the article says, Amazon spent _years_ trying this approach and ultimately failed with their phone project. So sure it's possible, but it's not as easy as you perhaps think?

Well, yes, but maybe the failure was more due to not many users being willing to accept that much vendor lock-in, rather than issues with Amazon's Android version?
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