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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

#201

Post by tgtweak »

bertomartin wrote: post #191

My feeling is that this whole silliness will backfire spectacularly! Huawei will develop their own OS. It's hard but not impossible. Who cares if there's buy-in from the entire developer community...nowadays people don't use apps that much anyways. Apps are just another way of consumption. Most apps can probably be replaced with webviews with little lost of functionality. I don't know enough about the technical diffi…

If there is an app compatability layer (API parity) I'm sure most users won't notice the difference, and app developers wouldn't cry too hard about missing Google play services, provided there is an alternative.

My bet is Huawei will pick up a team or company (lineage team start packing your bags) to move forward with minimal risk. That or partner with a few other b-list manufacturers and create an alternative.

Hell even Google itself is trying to drop Android.

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

#202

Post by eloisant »

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…

Google kinda pulled a "bait-and-switch" with Android.

When they released it, it was pretty much 100% Open Source, then they moved more and more elements to their proprietary GApps suite, included the Play Services required to run even many 3rd party apps.

At this point Android is barely more Open Source than iOS and its Mach kernel, but the difference is that Google got its market share by selling to manufacturers the fact that they're independant because it's Open Source.

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

#203

Post by axway »

max_wen wrote: post #156
lmm wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. But for South Korea and Japan it's less so; those nations already take a national security posture that leaves them exposed if the US were to turn against them.

South Korea and Japan have been allies of the US for quite a long time and have zero reason to think that would ever change.

There are lots of reason for a company or a country to have alternative independent supply chain (hardware or software or tech or anything).

Japan has to sign the Plaza Accord https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaza_Accord#Effects when it positioned to challenge US economy. It is attributed as the main reason to their Lost Decades. You bet that Japanese forgot about this, and Korean and Chinese do not know this.

What US gov initially wanted probably is something like Plaza Accord with Chinese, but they have the size to resist, so Trump showed the nuclear option. Like some commenters pointed out here, it may work in short term, but it will hurt US companies in long term.

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

#204

Post by harryf »

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.

Oh sure - short term yes this is a win for Samsung over Huawei but long term it sends a very clear message that the future of their business depends highly on Google and the winds of US foreign policy. You don't want to be the person presenting to the Samsung board "Future Risks: Donald Trump"

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

#205

Post by acct1771 »

macintux wrote: post #168
enriquto wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so google is pretty much oracle? No. They play an entirely different league of evil. Google is orders of magnitude more evil. Hint: it is very easy to live without oracle.

My only remaining dependency on Google is YouTube, and I could do without that in a pinch, although I’d definitely miss it.

What's your gMaps replacement, if any, out of curiosity?

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

#206

Post by ovi256 »

bertomartin wrote: post #191

My feeling is that this whole silliness will backfire spectacularly! Huawei will develop their own OS. It's hard but not impossible. Who cares if there's buy-in from the entire developer community...nowadays people don't use apps that much anyways. Apps are just another way of consumption. Most apps can probably be replaced with webviews with little lost of functionality. I don't know enough about the technical diffi…

30% of smartphones sold in the EU in 2019Q1 were Huawei.

You can bet that no bank or whatever will abandon such a large fraction of the users of their app, but is already calling people to get the Huawei OS version of their app started.

Especially given that Huawei OS looks to be a fork of AOSP with the proprietary Google Services replaced with proprietary Huawei services. The developpers will just fork the existing app, using Android studio, and the same language!

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

#207

Post by pmlnr »

gruez wrote: post #185
pmlnr wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... or just a Free platform that doesn't have a malware-able god process called zygote and all those insane layers of abstraction Android has.

>that doesn't have a malware-able god process called zygote What?

https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/triada-trojan/11481/

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

#208

Post by georgeecollins »

bertomartin wrote: post #191

My feeling is that this whole silliness will backfire spectacularly! Huawei will develop their own OS. It's hard but not impossible. Who cares if there's buy-in from the entire developer community...nowadays people don't use apps that much anyways. Apps are just another way of consumption. Most apps can probably be replaced with webviews with little lost of functionality. I don't know enough about the technical diffi…

>> nowadays people don't use apps that much anyways.

? WhatsApp, Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Uber, GoogleMaps, Twitter..

There are web replacements for all of these, but people are choosing to use them in app form overwhelmingly. Maybe that will change, but it would be a pain to try a cell today that couldn't run all of these apps very well.

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

#209

Post by kozhevnikov »

eloisant wrote: post #202
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…

Google kinda pulled a "bait-and-switch" with Android. When they released it, it was pretty much 100% Open Source, then they moved more and more elements to their proprietary GApps suite, included the Play Services required to run even many 3rd party apps. At this point Android is barely more Open Source than iOS and its Mach kernel, but the difference is that Google got its market share by selling to manufacturers th…

Embrace, extend, and extinguish.

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

#210

Post by rchaud »

kuschku wrote: post #79
EGreg wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t Android open source? So why can’t Huawei simply fork it?

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…

> If you want to verify a user by sending a code through SMS[..]you either have to use the proprietary API, or you'll be banned from the play store.

Is this only in cases where the app reads the SMS as soon as it's received, and authorizes the user without any further user input?

Because I've done similar authentication stuff for some website logins (like a real estate listings one) where they require me to punch in the code I received via SMS. This was an interaction that occurred independently of Play Services I would imagine.

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