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Google forced OnePlus to decimate a Fortnite launcher deal, claims Epic Games

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Re: Google forced OnePlus to decimate a Fortnite launcher deal, claims Epic Games

#31
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any idea how much utter garbage Google forces vendors to ship with a phone simply to have access to a web browser and the Play store? Or perhaps you're one of the lucky few who haven't been woken at 4am to an urgent notification: "YOUR PHONE HAS TOO MANY MEMES. WOULD YOU LIKE TO DELETE MEMES?" Prohibitions on bloatware, my arse!

My experience with the stock Android experience from Pixel phones is a dream of zero bloatware. What I hate is the bloatware that nearly every handset maker puts on their phones, and the additional bloatware wireless providers add on to it, almost none of it uninstallable.

How its dream of zero bloatware when Google itself adds tons of Bloatware starting from Play Music, Books, Duo, Drive what not.

I am even ok shipping them by default and giving an option to uninstall. Any app which I cant uninstall is Bloatware.

Re: Google forced OnePlus to decimate a Fortnite launcher deal, claims Epic Games

#32
post #10

Hardware/OS vendors should not be allowed to include app stores out of the box, much less prevent sideloading. We'd be nowhere near where we are today if PCs couldn't run Linux, and earlier PCs couldn't run whatever you wanted from a floppy. The fact that consumers are lazy and stores are easy shouldn't prevent decisions beneficial to everyone.

I like the idea, but then you have specific-purpose hardware like game consoles, although they're becoming more general purpose devices so I see them less and less as an exception.

But there's still other devices like Fitbits that I'm not so sure about.

Re: Google forced OnePlus to decimate a Fortnite launcher deal, claims Epic Games

#33
post #24
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pixel 3a. Google assistant. You can't disable it without breaking other things. You can't disable the shortcuts that open it without unnecessarily regressing the rest of the UI. It's bound to "swipe up from a corner" which is an action you accidentally perform on a semi-regular basis. It's utterly and completely useless (to me).

You can literally disable it by setting the assistant app to "None".

Really? Where do I find that setting? I've looked, hard. Edit: Found it - I wonder if this is new or if I missed it when I got the phone - thanks!

Doesn't stop it from being bloatware...

Re: Google forced OnePlus to decimate a Fortnite launcher deal, claims Epic Games

#34

But Andy Rubin told us.... the definition of open: "mkdir android ; cd android ; repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git ; repo sync ; make"

He's been gone from Google for six years, so I don't think we can paint him as a hypocrite or going back on his word over this.

EDIT: In fact it was around the time Android was changing a little bit away from its open source roots that Rubin was sidelined out of the Android division and into robotics, shortly after which he quit.

Re: Google forced OnePlus to decimate a Fortnite launcher deal, claims Epic Games

#36
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any idea how much utter garbage Google forces vendors to ship with a phone simply to have access to a web browser and the Play store? Or perhaps you're one of the lucky few who haven't been woken at 4am to an urgent notification: "YOUR PHONE HAS TOO MANY MEMES. WOULD YOU LIKE TO DELETE MEMES?" Prohibitions on bloatware, my arse!

My experience with the stock Android experience from Pixel phones is a dream of zero bloatware. What I hate is the bloatware that nearly every handset maker puts on their phones, and the additional bloatware wireless providers add on to it, almost none of it uninstallable.

Stock Pixel, at the very least, is _packed_ with Google apps that you cannot fully remove.

Re: Google forced OnePlus to decimate a Fortnite launcher deal, claims Epic Games

#37

I think in the last thread a bunch of people were adamant Google wasn't a monopolist because plenty of phones shipped with app stores outside of Play. Seems like Google picks and chooses which of those are okay. It's time to stop lying: Google will absolutely abandon every single rule in the book to ensure they get 30% of Fortnite purchases. It's too lucrative, and Google is too greedy. This has nothing to do with sa…

Their customers are not your right

For example,you are not forbidden from developing for some random Linux distro

They did not build their trust and ecosystem for free,so you should'nt have access to them for free

30% is not unreasonable,costs can be managed,since you are selling a digital product

Re: Google forced OnePlus to decimate a Fortnite launcher deal, claims Epic Games

#38

I know that decimate is a colloquialism nowadays but I feel like a publication should know better. Unless Google asked for ten percent of the proceeds or something, as a headline it makes absolutely no sense.

It would be pretty interesting if all Google had asked was to reduce the apk size by 10%.

Omg, user story “decimate the binary by next release”

Re: Google forced OnePlus to decimate a Fortnite launcher deal, claims Epic Games

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience with the stock Android experience from Pixel phones is a dream of zero bloatware. What I hate is the bloatware that nearly every handset maker puts on their phones, and the additional bloatware wireless providers add on to it, almost none of it uninstallable.

How its dream of zero bloatware when Google itself adds tons of Bloatware starting from Play Music, Books, Duo, Drive what not. I am even ok shipping them by default and giving an option to uninstall. Any app which I cant uninstall is Bloatware.

Don't forget that Google embedded Duo into the Google Play Framework so even if you disabled or uninstalled the app, people could still call you via Duo.

Re: Google forced OnePlus to decimate a Fortnite launcher deal, claims Epic Games

#40
post #37

I think in the last thread a bunch of people were adamant Google wasn't a monopolist because plenty of phones shipped with app stores outside of Play. Seems like Google picks and chooses which of those are okay. It's time to stop lying: Google will absolutely abandon every single rule in the book to ensure they get 30% of Fortnite purchases. It's too lucrative, and Google is too greedy. This has nothing to do with sa…

Their customers are not your right For example,you are not forbidden from developing for some random Linux distro They did not build their trust and ecosystem for free,so you should'nt have access to them for free 30% is not unreasonable,costs can be managed,since you are selling a digital product

It's all negotiation on a grand, publicly viewable scale
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