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https://android.googlesource.com/platform/packages/apps/Brow...
Obviously you can create the gui for a browser to access the webkit renderer if you didnt want this.
Anyway, this is meaningless. No one ships commercial phones without the Play store and Chrome will be just another app bundled with the deal.
http://blog.chromium.org/2013/11/introducing-chromium-powere...
as much as I despise Google for closing up a lot of bits of android, this doesn't seem much of an issue...
also: every OEM worth its salt should just build their android from the AOSP (or some fork)'s sources
If only there was a free, completely open source browser with more than 4.5 stars in the Google Play store which could be bundled without any business deals... Bonus points for a cool project codename like Fennec.
Well, I'd say one advantage of the "store" model is that you don't need a browser to download a new browser (well, in the back it probably has a lot of Webviews, still)
From thereon, if a vendor wants to call their device an Android[tm], they'll have no choice but to ship a browser they no longer control in order to have access to Android app arketplace. I'm not sure if this is laying groundwork for a pre-emptive strike against competing marketplaces or just an attempt to unify the browser experience for all future Androids.
Could be both. They are not mutually exclusive.
This is fud. Browser is still in AOSP. Pretty sure this is it here: https://android.googlesource.com/platform/packages/apps/Brow... Obviously you can create the gui for a browser to access the webkit renderer if you didnt want this. Anyway, this is meaningless. No one ships commercial phones without the Play store and Chrome will be just another app bundled with the deal.
I don't think this matters much anyway. Firefox is a more than capable browser. Possibly better than Chrome on Android. It's certainly smoother.
Are the additional terms for licensing Chrome beyond what was already needed for OEMs to get the Play Store? Unless there are and they're onerous in particularly new way, this feels like a non-issue getting attention because the business agreements around Android are relatively public compared to other OSes.
Are they? Where can we see them?
The page at [1] about the Open Handset Alliance contains a lot of noise about openness etc. but there are no details of the agreements or how much it actually costs for a Google apps license.
I remember everyone was surprised when Google forced Acer to pull phones based on Aliyun OS because of the OHA agreement, which IIRC, is under NDA and secrecy.
This is fud. Browser is still in AOSP. Pretty sure this is it here: https://android.googlesource.com/platform/packages/apps/Brow... Obviously you can create the gui for a browser to access the webkit renderer if you didnt want this. Anyway, this is meaningless. No one ships commercial phones without the Play store and Chrome will be just another app bundled with the deal.
Yes, the truth is that the AOSP Browser is now abandonware - Google have stopped developing it in favour of Chrome, and likely won't accept non-security patches for it. I don't think this matters much anyway. Firefox is a more than capable browser. Possibly better than Chrome on Android. It's certainly smoother.
From http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-...
>Any OEM hoping to license Google Apps will need to pass Google's "compatibility" tests in order to be eligible. Compatibility ensures that all the apps in the Play Store will run on your device. And to Google, "compatibility" is also a fluid concept that an Android engineer once internally described as "a club to make [OEMs] do what we want." While Google now has automated tools that will test your device's "compatibility," getting a Google apps license still requires a company to privately e-mail Google and "kiss the ring" so to speak. Most of this is done through backroom agreements and secret contracts, so the majority of the information we have comes from public spats and/or lawsuits between Google and potential Android deserters (see: Acer).
>Another point of control is that the Google apps are all licensed as a single bundle. So if you want Gmail and Maps, you also need to take Google Play Services, Google+, and whatever else Google feels like adding to the package. A company called Skyhook found this out the hard way when it tried to develop a competing location service for Android. Switching to Skyhook's service meant Google would not be able to collect location data from users. This was bad for Google, so Skyhook was declared "incompatible." OEMs that wanted the Google Apps were not allowed to use them. Skyhook sued, and the lawsuit is still pending.
If only there was a free, completely open source browser with more than 4.5 stars in the Google Play store which could be bundled without any business deals... Bonus points for a cool project codename like Fennec.
Bonus points for calling it the "Open" Handset Alliance agreement.
http://www.theverge.com/2011/05/12/google-android-skyhook-la...
Without this change we'd be left with Android Browser & clones as the IE6 of the mobile web. I'm hoping all the OEMs build their own browsers off the Chromium WebView that ships in KitKat; then at least we only have to worry about Chromium and Mobile Safari.
Speaking solely as a web developer: good riddance, the pre-KitKat stock Android browser is a piece of shit. It relies on an old fork of Webkit that has none of the features of the modern web, no GPU support, and a lot of outright bugs (like it would flip back to the first frame of a CSS3 animation right before the animation completes, creating an ugly flicker). Without this change we'd be left with Android Browser &…