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Google contract prevented Motorola from setting Perplexity as default assistant

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Re: Google contract prevented Motorola from setting Perplexity as default assistant

#21

Post by disiplus »

xnx wrote: post #16

It continues to baffle me that Google gets harassed by the courts for being a better actor in almost every area it participates. Open source Android vs. closed iOS Install apps from any source on Android vs. total restriction on iOS Switch default app for browser (and many other things!) vs. No choice but Safari tech on iOS Easy switch of search provider in Chrome vs. countless dark patterns pushing Edge and Bing on…

i have a pixel phone, but google is not the good guy here. Like in this example, it basically bundles stuff in a way, so if you want for example the store, you have to take other stuff also and that other stuff has its own requirements.

Re: Google contract prevented Motorola from setting Perplexity as default assistant

#22

Post by braebo »

ivape wrote: post #17

Everyone's trying to fight for a piece of the AI walled-garden pie. I guess it's only getting divided up between a few players all over again. Nice try Perplexity, and I do see it as forewarning for the power play OpenAI will attempt (we just don't know what it will be yet).

Buying Chrome apparently.

Re: Google contract prevented Motorola from setting Perplexity as default assistant

#24

Post by mkhalil »

Did anyone read this article? The headline is misleading.

It clearly states in the first line:

> "Google’s contract with Lenovo Group Ltd.’s Motorola blocked the smartphone maker from setting Perplexity AI as the default assistant on its new devices"

They didn't block Perplexity AI from Motorola's devices, the agreement states that they allow them to preload the devices with Perplexity, but the agreement, that both parties signed, does not give Motorola the permission to set it as the default.

> "Motorola “can’t get out of their Google obligations and so they are unable to change the default assistant on the device.”

They signed the agreement, and now are going to courts to claim they had no choice.

I understand the premise, that they think they had no choice, but this article is misleading in its headline, and plenty of the comments here clearly show that a lot of "readers" didn't bother to read it.

Re: Google contract prevented Motorola from setting Perplexity as default assistant

#25

Post by kmeisthax »

xnx wrote: post #16

It continues to baffle me that Google gets harassed by the courts for being a better actor in almost every area it participates. Open source Android vs. closed iOS Install apps from any source on Android vs. total restriction on iOS Switch default app for browser (and many other things!) vs. No choice but Safari tech on iOS Easy switch of search provider in Chrome vs. countless dark patterns pushing Edge and Bing on…

They're being harassed for lying about being a better actor. Apple gets to be a controlling asshole because there's no legal requirement for tech companies to not be. Google tried to have their cake and eat it too.

iOS is a package deal: you use our OS on our phones with our App Store and browser. Very straightforward and honest, even if we rightly hate the deal. This all relies on basic protections of IP law that the state is so far unwilling to roll back.

Android is a confusopoly[0]. For every point you mentioned, Google has a hidden deal or catch that subverts the intention of the words in question and makes it as bad as iOS.

Yes, Android is FOSS, but the app store everyone uses is proprietary; and Google's licensing terms for the proprietary store contravene the licenses on the FOSS portion. You specifically agree not to ship devices with "Android forks", even if you don't put the proprietary store on those specific devices. And what's actually released in AOSP shrinks every time a Google engineer puts a Google client in an app. Let us also not forget Android Honeycomb, which actually was not released to AOSP. There is no legal requirement for Google to ship source, and they've already tried out a fully-proprietary release of Android in the past.

Yes, you could install non-Google-Play apps on Android, but updating them required you to manually approve every update. Third-party app stores were a nightmare to use until Epic sued about it and Google provided APIs to actually deliver updates in the same way that Google Play can.

Yes, Google Play lets Mozilla ship Gecko. But Google is also paying phone manufacturers lots of money to make Chrome the default. Oh, and to not ship any third-party app stores. Combined with Google Play not letting you distribute other app stores through itself, it makes actually finding and using an app store a pain.

And Chrome is specifically designed to make you use Google Search with the same dark patterns Edge uses.

Please do not fool yourself into thinking that any actor in this industry is good. They all suck, and you should be happy when any of them get their noses bloodied.

[0] A term coined by the writer of Dilbert, Hatsune Miku, for deliberately confusing marketing intended to make you sigh in frustration, open your wallet, and let the sales guy decide what product you buy.

Re: Google contract prevented Motorola from setting Perplexity as default assistant

#26

Post by cyberax »

xnx wrote: post #16

It continues to baffle me that Google gets harassed by the courts for being a better actor in almost every area it participates. Open source Android vs. closed iOS Install apps from any source on Android vs. total restriction on iOS Switch default app for browser (and many other things!) vs. No choice but Safari tech on iOS Easy switch of search provider in Chrome vs. countless dark patterns pushing Edge and Bing on…

At this point, an Android phone without Google Play Services is mostly useless. You can't use maps, you can't even use notifications!

Re: Google contract prevented Motorola from setting Perplexity as default assistant

#27

Post by lostmsu »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #14
lostmsu wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could draw the boundary based on average worldwide usage rate (total hours per hour).

The Start Menu and Taskbar components of Windows Explorer is probably the most-used program in the world, and it's not even close. It also unfairly competes and damages competition from TaskbarX, Tabame, ObjectDock, RocketDock, Start11, and countless other small businesses. As a result, Microsoft enjoys a near-monopoly on the world's most used program, and even has the audacity to break compatibility with these compe…

I am not sure what is your point here. In Windows these components can be replaced. You even mentioned alternatives.

UPD. ah. I see. But Perplexity is an assistant. On Android AFAIK you can't just install another assistant.

UPD2. Actually, turns out on Android you can install a 3rd party assistant. AFAIK Alexa can just be installed from Play Store.

Re: Google contract prevented Motorola from setting Perplexity as default assistant

#28

Post by econ »

lostmsu wrote: post #13
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not happening. Everything that comes with a computer could be possibly construed as anti-competitive. Even the Start Menu - after all, if Start11 and StartIsBack exist, why should Microsoft have the right to ship their own start menu? How about calculators (Desmos)? The system that puts maximize, minimize, and close on windows (after all, WindowBlinds exists)? The login screen (LogonStudio)? What about the Tas…

Could draw the boundary based on average worldwide usage rate (total hours per hour).

The most capitalist thing to do here is to have the parties gathered in an app on the device and have the companies bid on the user and have the user pick their prefernce. That way the user can enjoy many dialogs and be paid for their time. You pick, ebay 10$ temu 12$ Amazon 2$ aliexpress 15$ etc or all 20 shopping apps for 80$

Should be fun to install 500 games for 60 cent each. It might even push storage forwards.

Who knows, maybe there are enough parties out there to fund the entire device.

Re: Google contract prevented Motorola from setting Perplexity as default assistant

#29

Post by xnx »

disiplus wrote: post #21
xnx wrote: post #16

It continues to baffle me that Google gets harassed by the courts for being a better actor in almost every area it participates. Open source Android vs. closed iOS Install apps from any source on Android vs. total restriction on iOS Switch default app for browser (and many other things!) vs. No choice but Safari tech on iOS Easy switch of search provider in Chrome vs. countless dark patterns pushing Edge and Bing on…

i have a pixel phone, but google is not the good guy here. Like in this example, it basically bundles stuff in a way, so if you want for example the store, you have to take other stuff also and that other stuff has its own requirements.

Right. So the courts seem to prefer not offering the user any choice in hardware or software like Apple.

Re: Google contract prevented Motorola from setting Perplexity as default assistant

#30

Post by pedalpete »

xnx wrote: post #16

It continues to baffle me that Google gets harassed by the courts for being a better actor in almost every area it participates. Open source Android vs. closed iOS Install apps from any source on Android vs. total restriction on iOS Switch default app for browser (and many other things!) vs. No choice but Safari tech on iOS Easy switch of search provider in Chrome vs. countless dark patterns pushing Edge and Bing on…

With Apple, they are the manufacturer of the phone and the software, so they get to decide what goes on the hardware.

Google makes the OS, but not the hardware. Why should they be able to decide what another company puts on the hardware.

This is exactly the same playbook Microsoft tried in the 90s, and it is going to court for the exact same reason. It's using your market power to prevent competition.

We've decided that just because you are the maker of a piece of software does not mean you get to decide what runs on someone else's hardware.

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