Google's agreement with Samsung prevented Branch from launching: testimony • Hacker News Board

Re: Google's agreement with Samsung prevented Branch from launching: testimony

#61

Post by aicez » Fri, Oct 06, 2023, 11:35 AM UTC

ladyanita22 wrote: post #43

namdnay wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are much worse at Software than even Apple ?? > But they are smart enough to know their weakness If they were they wouldn't have insisted on building their UI layer on top of stock android

They need to differentiate, but given Samsung's clearly lackluster track record at OSes, it's obvious they're very bad at software and they know it. Plus their Android flavor (One UI) is extremely underperforming, even when compared to the Chinese OEMs. If we compared it against the cleanliness of Pixel software, you'd inmediately see Google is simply much, much better than Samsung at software even with the same foun…

One UI being far inferior to Google's own UI might have been true in the past, but not so much now. One UI has been quite decent from my personal experience for the past several years now. Perhaps it's time to give it another try.

Re: Google's agreement with Samsung prevented Branch from launching: testimony

#62

Post by DaiPlusPlus » Fri, Oct 06, 2023, 11:39 AM UTC

Xeamek wrote: post #58

GeekyBear wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not "just" the Play Store. Apps >If a company does ever manage to fork AOSP, clone the Google apps, and create a viable competitor to Google's Android, it's going to have a hard time getting anyone to build a device for it. In an open market, it would be as easy as calling up an Android OEM and convincing them to switch, but Google is out to make life a little more difficult than that. Google's real power in mobile c…

You only mentioned services in the last sentence, but the services are actually one of the most important part. ie. Google Play Services is the 'goto' way for ANY third party developer to implement push notification. So Samsung wouldn't only need to create their own, whole alternative for it, but they would also need to try and convince EVERY major app developers to now implement the alterantive in their own apps. Th…

> That's what Huawei was forced to do, and to this day there are apps that don't work or have less features on Huawei phones than on "google's" ones.

“Forced”? By whom and to what end?

Re: Google's agreement with Samsung prevented Branch from launching: testimony

#63

Post by DaiPlusPlus » Fri, Oct 06, 2023, 11:48 AM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #52

smallerfish wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Gmail, Maps, Google Now, Hangouts, YouTube, and the Play Store This isn't actually a very strong moat. (Non Waze) alternatives to maps are becoming increasingly credible. Google Now and Hangouts are history. An alternate client to Gmail is easy, since it speaks imap, and the Android app isn't particularly amazing by itself. Youtube's possibly the toughest nut, but there are alternate clients to it, the web UI works…

This is actually a very strong moat. Note that there is some precedent for this: Windows and Office. Those are just as strong and they've kept MS in business for the last 40 years modulo some non-competitive behavior and strong arming 'partners' in exactly the same way that Google does. Take that power away and suddenly you can have some actual competition. That of course would take a number of legal systems (laws, j…

Speaking for myself, as a silo’d SWE, but I’m starting to get the impression that MS Office (especially *.docx) is irrelevant today (excepting *.xlsx), outside of K-12 homework, at least.

I wouldn’t say it’s competition that’s involved, but that the state of the entire industry is such that all of the functionality present in winword.exe is now the minimum-viable-product in any information-system.

Or rather: anything you can do in Word, is now achievable in HTML; and given that no-one has a real need to print Word documents on paper, so it’s an ephemeral product that exists as a transition from paper-to-digital, living on borrowed time.

In conclusion, I see myself downgrading my personal Office 365 subscription from Professional Plus to just Excel in my next renewal.

Re: Google's agreement with Samsung prevented Branch from launching: testimony

#64

Post by jacquesm » Fri, Oct 06, 2023, 11:51 AM UTC

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #63

jacquesm wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually a very strong moat. Note that there is some precedent for this: Windows and Office. Those are just as strong and they've kept MS in business for the last 40 years modulo some non-competitive behavior and strong arming 'partners' in exactly the same way that Google does. Take that power away and suddenly you can have some actual competition. That of course would take a number of legal systems (laws, j…

Speaking for myself, as a silo’d SWE, but I’m starting to get the impression that MS Office (especially *.docx) is irrelevant today (excepting *.xlsx), outside of K-12 homework, at least. I wouldn’t say it’s competition that’s involved, but that the state of the entire industry is such that all of the functionality present in winword.exe is now the minimum-viable-product in any information-system. Or rather: anything…

A perfect illustration of my point, thank you.

Re: Google's agreement with Samsung prevented Branch from launching: testimony

#65

Post by nextaccountic » Fri, Oct 06, 2023, 12:13 PM UTC

smallerfish wrote: post #50

GeekyBear wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not "just" the Play Store. Apps >If a company does ever manage to fork AOSP, clone the Google apps, and create a viable competitor to Google's Android, it's going to have a hard time getting anyone to build a device for it. In an open market, it would be as easy as calling up an Android OEM and convincing them to switch, but Google is out to make life a little more difficult than that. Google's real power in mobile c…

> Gmail, Maps, Google Now, Hangouts, YouTube, and the Play Store This isn't actually a very strong moat. (Non Waze) alternatives to maps are becoming increasingly credible. Google Now and Hangouts are history. An alternate client to Gmail is easy, since it speaks imap, and the Android app isn't particularly amazing by itself. Youtube's possibly the toughest nut, but there are alternate clients to it, the web UI works…

> there are alternate clients to it

They are increasingly being killed off by Google in their march to outlaw adblockers in the Internet

Re: Google's agreement with Samsung prevented Branch from launching: testimony

#66

Post by wdr1 » Fri, Oct 06, 2023, 12:16 PM UTC

GeekyBear wrote: post #17

Roark66 wrote: post #14

Why is it that Samsung needs an agreement with Google in the first place? Is it about a permission to use androing with Google services or does Samsung want to be paid for setting Google's search engine as default? The answer to this question is really important, because if the first is true, Samsung is essentially forced to enter into whatever agreement Google puts in front of them (the alternative is it's own flavo…

> Why is it that Samsung needs an agreement with Google in the first place? They can't make Android devices without accepting Google's terms. Amazon attempted to sell phones with their own fork of Android without permission, but didn't have much luck. Interestingly, Amazon had to find a manufacturing partner that didn't already make Android phones for anyone, because one of the terms of Google's agreement was that yo…

> Amazon attempted to sell phones with their own fork of Android without permission, but didn't have much luck.

FYI - Amazon's Fire OS is based on Andriod:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_OS#:~:text=Fire%20OS%20is....

There was a Fire phone, but I thought the issue was it didn't find commercial acceptance.

Re: Google's agreement with Samsung prevented Branch from launching: testimony

#67

Post by deely3 » Fri, Oct 06, 2023, 12:22 PM UTC

Xeamek wrote: post #60

GeekyBear wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is it that Samsung needs an agreement with Google in the first place? They can't make Android devices without accepting Google's terms. Amazon attempted to sell phones with their own fork of Android without permission, but didn't have much luck. Interestingly, Amazon had to find a manufacturing partner that didn't already make Android phones for anyone, because one of the terms of Google's agreement was that yo…

Ofcourse You can make Android device without google. AOSP is open source and google can't prevent You from using it. What google can prevent you from using though, it's all the 'feels like core android but actually is google proprietary' stuff. That's what the whole Huawei battle was about.

Does it make sense to use AOSP without Google ecosystem? If you can't use Android Market, Gmail, YouTube, Google Maps what the point? And to use Market you have to accept Google license.

Re: Google's agreement with Samsung prevented Branch from launching: testimony

#68

Post by rglullis » Fri, Oct 06, 2023, 12:27 PM UTC

deely3 wrote: post #67

Xeamek wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ofcourse You can make Android device without google. AOSP is open source and google can't prevent You from using it. What google can prevent you from using though, it's all the 'feels like core android but actually is google proprietary' stuff. That's what the whole Huawei battle was about.

Does it make sense to use AOSP without Google ecosystem? If you can't use Android Market, Gmail, YouTube, Google Maps what the point? And to use Market you have to accept Google license.

yes, you can use android without google. Just ask anyone using MurenaOS, GrapheneOS, Lineage with microg...

Re: Google's agreement with Samsung prevented Branch from launching: testimony

#69

Post by dalbasal » Fri, Oct 06, 2023, 12:29 PM UTC

You can't scare google with antitrust.

The game is structured. If Google lose, they face an affordable fine or mandated adjustment to a single business practice. In this case, the business practice is "OEM Search Deals" which has been litigated before. The practices is profitable and strategic enough to take the heat.

IMO, antitrust was entirely declawed by the "US vs MSFT" settlement in 2001. It's a similar case. An operating system with 90% market share using their position to dominate key parts of the application market. We now know this as the "platform strategy." Something that investors demand from CEOs, as opposed to a legal risk to avoid.

For the young.... "US vs MSFT" was the high profile case(s) of the 90s. Software was known to be monopoly prone and the case was expected to reveal what was and wasn't allowed.

MSFT litigated similar antitrust cases in the early 90s, and settled. The key term of this era was "bundling." MSFT concluded that antitrust was a cost of doing business. MSFT continued bundling to reserve key application markets for itself. Gates rubbed it in. DOJ took offence and went on a warpath.

DOJ pursued real antitrust. MSFT was found guilty of monopolism and the court actually ordered a "breakup." Seems far fetched today. The model for monopoly "breakups" was the 80s breakup of Bell (telcom). Shock! Insanely aggressive by today's standards. We can't even conceptualise how a breakup of a big tech today would work.

Anyway... doj flinched. They settled the appeal. OEMs were freed from MSFT exclusivity. Real antimonopolism was off the table, and never returned.

I don't really blame them. Breaking the monopoly of a tech giant could, and likely would, decimate their value. Bell was a telcom. Physical and concrete. WTF does "breaking up Google" actually mean? How can a judge do this task.

Re: Google's agreement with Samsung prevented Branch from launching: testimony

#70

Post by bryanrasmussen » Fri, Oct 06, 2023, 12:30 PM UTC

cherryteastain wrote: post #54

GeekyBear wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not "just" the Play Store. Apps >If a company does ever manage to fork AOSP, clone the Google apps, and create a viable competitor to Google's Android, it's going to have a hard time getting anyone to build a device for it. In an open market, it would be as easy as calling up an Android OEM and convincing them to switch, but Google is out to make life a little more difficult than that. Google's real power in mobile c…

Huawei did it. Samsung can too.

maybe it would make sense for the two of them to put it together, that would be a reason for devs to support it, not just huawei but samsung too? suddenly the investment looks worthwhile.