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Andy Rubin Leaving Google

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Re: Andy Rubin Leaving Google

#51

Post by [deleted] »

joezydeco wrote: post #50
edderly wrote: post #16

I think it’s a good time to reflect on the massive impact of Android on the mobile OS market. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_operating_system#Market_... The Android team under Rubin executed extraordinarily well with a tiny fraction of Google’s engineering resources.

Um, there were a few helpers along the way: 1) Linux, from Torvalds onward. Android used Linux as the hardware abstraction layer and still does. How many developers there? 1B) The ARM Linux developers, especially. Russell King is an unsung hero in this space. 2) The sea of subcontractors that helped with device drivers, subcomponents, integration, and manufacturing. Remember that whole "Open Handset Alliance"[1] thin…

[deleted]

Re: Andy Rubin Leaving Google

#52

Post by oldxoog »

mbca wrote: post #12
oldxoog wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree it's a pretty trite comment - unless op meant he lasted so long ".. on the robotics junket" aka exit lobby, in which case I'd agree. Andy could be a pain but his accomplishments speak for him -- Android has long been seen as a massive success, warts and all, at the highest levels of goog.

Android is only a "success" insofar as being the only game in town for an open-source iOS competitor. I'm frankly amazed it ever gained any traction at all, but when your competition is non-free garbage like Symbian, Blackberry, and Windows mobile, I guess you can just win by default. Especially when you have the might of Google's multi-billion dollar support behind you. Android has already gotten miles better in the…

You don't win just by having google's pocketbook. I know some projects who wished that was true and I'm sure you do too.

You can complain about dalvik or webviews or the shitty ide or whatever, fact is there isn't a SINGLE company in the valley or Seoul or anywhere in the tech world who doesn't want to be in control of Android. How are those FB and MSFT and AMZN efforts going?

That tells you all you need to know about why Android has been and will be a "success" to google.

Re: Andy Rubin Leaving Google

#53

Post by coldtea »

72deluxe wrote: post #34
autism_hurts wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By riding the coat tails and blatantly copying Apple.

What about the underlying architecture of the OS though? Linux with a Java runtime and a new windowing layer that stops "normal" Linux apps running? Running each dalvik process in its own confined user process? What about the design for background services and foreground activities that can be switched to/from (multitasking) right from the beginning, with AIDL for implementing service definitions? What about Intents…

>What about the underlying architecture of the OS though? Linux with a Java runtime and a new windowing layer that stops "normal" Linux apps running?

What's impressive about that? Tons of companies did something similar. Heck, OS X/iOS is Mach+BSD based hybrid kernel with a UNIX (FreeBSD/GNU) userland and a new windowing layer that "stops normal UNIX apps running".

>iOS didn't have multitasking until a lot later

Actually it did. It just wasn't enabled for third party apps because Apple is not the company to give users some non-essential feature by sacrificing something more precious at the time (battery life). Android just went for the "whatever" option, and let users deal with that.

>What about access to the filesystem in a "normal" way?

What about it? If anything its worse that it being something copied from iOS: it is the standard way of doing things carried over from 40+ years of computing.

>Sure, the superficial layer on top (look! icons! rows of icons!) that children in a sweet shop would notice may look familiar, but underneath it is not anything alike is it?

No, underneeth it's worse. More battery draining, worse responsiveness, a Java runtime they had to axe, audio latency issues, 2-3 releases to get a anywhere near decent UI, bad malware issues, etc.

Re: Andy Rubin Leaving Google

#54

Post by edraferi »

xorcist wrote: post #42
nostrademons wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That could be an indication that building a viable mobile phone OS is really, really hard . While I'm also quite glad to see the recent Chrome/Android integration, I think Rubin should get a lot of credit for getting Android to the point where it's even worth integrating with. A bunch of competitors tried and failed; I'm glad that there's more than just Apple available in the mobile OS market.

It is. But something I never understood was the choice of Java. For the original Android it made sense as it was an excellent argument for an acquisition. But since Google it was just an invitation for trouble with Sun/Oracle. It's not like they don't have excellent runtime designers in house. They could have taken the opportunity to go with Python or something else entirely when they rewrote so much anyway.

Yup, I want to live in a universe where Android is built on Python3.

Re: Andy Rubin Leaving Google

#55

Post by 72deluxe »

coldtea wrote: post #53
72deluxe wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the underlying architecture of the OS though? Linux with a Java runtime and a new windowing layer that stops "normal" Linux apps running? Running each dalvik process in its own confined user process? What about the design for background services and foreground activities that can be switched to/from (multitasking) right from the beginning, with AIDL for implementing service definitions? What about Intents…

> What about the underlying architecture of the OS though? Linux with a Java runtime and a new windowing layer that stops "normal" Linux apps running? What's impressive about that? Tons of companies did something similar. Heck, OS X/iOS is Mach+BSD based hybrid kernel with a UNIX (FreeBSD/GNU) userland and a new windowing layer that "stops normal UNIX apps running". > iOS didn't have multitasking until a lot later Ac…

All of the points you make are correct!

But I was mainly pointing out the comment that stated that Android was a rip-off entirely of iOS at the time; it wasn't - the ability to have (battery-draining) multitasking for 'common' apps was missing on iOS. Android also introduced features not found on iOS (intents, notifications at the top, stuttering scrolling haha etc.) so it wasn't a "coat-tail-riding" exercise entirely.

I do recall the bad UI from early on; even 2.3 was pretty ugly, and every release said "now with smooth scrolling!" which sadly was lacking. The Java runtime axing is the funny one. One day Java will be as fast as C, right?

I am aware that many of the features could probably be found on Windows Mobile 6.3 or 5.0 or whatever was available at the time, but Android appears to have displaced the Windows phone market to a large extent.

Re: Andy Rubin Leaving Google

#56

Post by 72deluxe »

rimantas wrote: post #38
72deluxe wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the underlying architecture of the OS though? Linux with a Java runtime and a new windowing layer that stops "normal" Linux apps running? Running each dalvik process in its own confined user process? What about the design for background services and foreground activities that can be switched to/from (multitasking) right from the beginning, with AIDL for implementing service definitions? What about Intents…

> iOS didn't have multitasking until a lot later, and the > concept of background services is more aggressively > policed (that is, processes killed often) on iOS, as far > as I know? Ugh, of course iOS had multitasking from the very beginning as you would expect from unix kernel. The access to it from third party apps is entirely different question.

Yes I meant that it wasn't available to common app developers; of course the system did multitasking and time-sharing!

Re: Andy Rubin Leaving Google

#57

Post by lern_too_spel »

coldtea wrote: post #53
72deluxe wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the underlying architecture of the OS though? Linux with a Java runtime and a new windowing layer that stops "normal" Linux apps running? Running each dalvik process in its own confined user process? What about the design for background services and foreground activities that can be switched to/from (multitasking) right from the beginning, with AIDL for implementing service definitions? What about Intents…

> What about the underlying architecture of the OS though? Linux with a Java runtime and a new windowing layer that stops "normal" Linux apps running? What's impressive about that? Tons of companies did something similar. Heck, OS X/iOS is Mach+BSD based hybrid kernel with a UNIX (FreeBSD/GNU) userland and a new windowing layer that "stops normal UNIX apps running". > iOS didn't have multitasking until a lot later Ac…

This is coming from a hobbyist mobile developer, so take the following responses with the appropriate perspective:

"Actually it did. It just wasn't enabled for third party apps...."

This is, to my mind, the worst continuing failing of iOS, so bad that we see a front page HN post related to it at least once per month. Apple builds its apps on private APIs, while third parties must build their apps on inferior public APIs. Apple gets to create and use new UX, while third parties must wait until Apple uses it first. On Android, Google's apps use the same APIs my own apps use.

"Android just went for the "whatever" option, and let users deal with that."

That's funny. Apple copied wholesale the Android save and restore data bundles model that was in Android from the beginning, and said, "Look at our battery-saving multitasking."

"What about [normal filesystem access]?"

It simplifies porting. What does Apple's system gain that you can't get by alternate APIs on top of the filesystem? Nothing, as far as I can tell.

"Worse responsiveness"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPhkPXVxISY The Android apps are running on Dalvik on year-old budget hardware pushing more pixels. In a same-generation test, I would expect the outcome to be even more lopsided.

"A Java runtime that they had to axe"

How does this matter? It's as transparent to the developer as switching from Sun's client JVM to server JVM. It doesn't require so much as a recompile, unlike on iOS.

"Audio latency issues"

This is true, but it doesn't affect 99.9% of apps, unlike the first issue I pointed out. If you're developing an app for DJs, you already know about it.

"2-3 releases to get a [sic] anywhere decent UI"

It was many more releases than that.

"Bad malware issues"

Not by default -- only if you install apps from websites (requires users to click through a dialog that tellls them it's dangerous) or use a phone with a Chinese app store. You're buying Tim Cook's lazy marketing. None of the manual testing that Apple does before allowing an app on the App Store stops malware any better than the automated testing that gates publishing on the Play Store.

Looking at allowing installation of apps from unknown sources from the other side, this lets me develop apps for my own phone for free, without paying a $99 / year tax. Even more than the private APIs issue, this is what made me jump on the Android bandwagon early on and makes it hard for me to understand why a person who enjoys software development would choose the iOS ecosystem.

Re: Andy Rubin Leaving Google

#58

Post by nostrademons »

edraferi wrote: post #54
xorcist wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is. But something I never understood was the choice of Java. For the original Android it made sense as it was an excellent argument for an acquisition. But since Google it was just an invitation for trouble with Sun/Oracle. It's not like they don't have excellent runtime designers in house. They could have taken the opportunity to go with Python or something else entirely when they rewrote so much anyway.

Yup, I want to live in a universe where Android is built on Python3.

I would love that too, but Python is a poor choice for mobile environments where every CPU cycle costs you battery life. Python code often takes up to 30x more CPU to accomplish the same work. I already get annoyed at how quickly my Moto X drains the battery when navigating or playing games; if that were 30x faster, the phone would be useless.

Now, you could argue that maybe Google should just make a more efficient Python interpreter. They did that for Android Java anyway, with Dalvik. But the design of the Python language makes it hard to optimize; witness the failure of Unladen Swallow, and all the incredibly talented engineer-hours that have gone into PyPy. A lot more happens, semantically, in each expression or function call than happens in Java or C.

Re: Andy Rubin Leaving Google

#59

Post by slantedview »

xorcist wrote: post #42
nostrademons wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That could be an indication that building a viable mobile phone OS is really, really hard . While I'm also quite glad to see the recent Chrome/Android integration, I think Rubin should get a lot of credit for getting Android to the point where it's even worth integrating with. A bunch of competitors tried and failed; I'm glad that there's more than just Apple available in the mobile OS market.

It is. But something I never understood was the choice of Java. For the original Android it made sense as it was an excellent argument for an acquisition. But since Google it was just an invitation for trouble with Sun/Oracle. It's not like they don't have excellent runtime designers in house. They could have taken the opportunity to go with Python or something else entirely when they rewrote so much anyway.

Java has the biggest community of application developers, so the decision made perfect sense.

Re: Andy Rubin Leaving Google

#60

Post by DannyBee »

elpachuco wrote: post #29
DannyBee wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Google employees were implying that Andy Rubin got bored of Android and left to work on robotics and people suggesting the opposite were getting downvoted. It still could be true but looks less likely down." Andy definitely got bored and went to work on robots before. He even says that in the article. As for what happened this time, no idea. I have some guesses though, and none of them are "forced out".

Well don't leave us hanging. Let us know your guesses. I'm really interested to know. Several other people in this thread seem to know and yet are not saying anything. Edit: I found this quote from [1]. "Jessica Lessin at The Information tweeted that Rubin wanted more freedom for his robotics group. She said he wanted a structure like Calico, which is the anti-aging company Google has started. Our guess is that Page…

My best guess is similar: He wanted to keep independence They were not willing to give it He took his ball and went home.

But this is a wild guess. Andy, from what I've heard/known, never particularly liked the "CEO" aspect of his job. So having a more traditional structure would probably be more than just "not enjoyable" to him.

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