Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google is defragging Android

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 221 posts

Re: Google is defragging Android

#181

Post by pacofvf »

bsaul wrote: post #175

It seems that this article doesn't really separate between user concerns (having the latest google apps) and developper concerns (access to latest APIs). From what I understand, this means developpers will be able to rely on android "services" being updated more often and more consistently available. However, what about things like using new UI components ? For this, you still need the latest OS version, right ? If t…

Well it already happened before, with the tabs and other UI components, the solution is a third party library that implements the new UI components in older OS versions, google itself has released backward compatilibity libraries to support new APIs in older OS versions.

Re: Google is defragging Android

#182

Post by HPLovecraft »

TheZenPsycho wrote: post #134
corresation wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ad hominem? I am specifically criticizing the comment , so yet another showing of some ignorantly misplaced Latin isn't worthwhile.

You're right, it's not ad hominem, but your post is chock full of overly emotive (read, manipulative) language. To illustrate, I'll remove the emotive language and you can see the difference: >Android is no longer meaningfully open, other than a years old core of basic functions. This is wrong, and things I think are wrong don't belong on HN. I suspect you weren't voted down because of the (logically fallacious) appe…

what obnoxious, noisy prattle! (lol)

Re: Google is defragging Android

#183

Post by notatoad »

unicornporn wrote: post #168

Only boring updates in 4.3? Have you seen app ops [1] functionality? Hands down the greatest thing to happen to a mobile OS in a long time. I know there's Xprivacy, but having this thing built in is awesome. [1] http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/07/25/app-ops-android-4-3s...

The author of this Ars article is the same person as the author of that androidpolice article discovering app ops. so yes, i'm pretty sure he's heard of them.

App Ops aren't in android 4.3 though. it's not a released feature, it's just a development experiment that never got fully disabled prior to release.

Re: Google is defragging Android

#184

Post by samspenc »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #143
gaadd33 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, CUPS was around before Apple's involvement and they purchased the source + hired the developer.

It's always fun to remember a time when Mac OS X's printer support was so bad (mostly due to low marketshare) that they had to adopt the Linux printing solution, and it was an immediate and massive improvement. And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.

They bought Howl software, its developers, and renamed it Bonjour and made it open-source - that became the de-facto standard for their network "plug-n-play" support for devices because Microsoft was trying to convince standards groups to make its (failed) protocol the standard for this.

Re: Google is defragging Android

#185

Post by hisham_hm »

threeseed wrote: post #166
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always fun to remember a time when Mac OS X's printer support was so bad (mostly due to low marketshare) that they had to adopt the Linux printing solution, and it was an immediate and massive improvement. And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.

OSX printer support wasn't bad because of low marketshare. It was bad because it was a new operating system. And it wasn't just printers but everything. Drivers, applications, utilities. They all took years to move to OSX. And most technologically astute people (young or old) know that OSX relies extensively on UNIX software of which CUPS is just one part.

No, the parent comment is correct.

"It was bad because it was a new operating system." -- it was already bad in the pre-OSX Mac era (mostly due to low marketshare).

"And it wasn't just printers but everything. Drivers, applications, utilities. They all took years to move to OSX." -- for applications and most other things Apple had migration alternatives (Carbon APIs for pre-OSX Mac apps, the Classic environment for emulation of pre-OSX and even Rosetta for emulating PowerPC on Intel).

For the case of printers, they really just dropped whatever they had and went with the Linux solution.

Re: Google is defragging Android

#186

Post by ajross »

kalleboo wrote: post #128
ajross wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. "GPS" data is certainly available and part of the standard open source framework: http://developer.android.com/reference/android/location/pack... But access to e.g. Google's giant wifi-to-location database isn't part of that API. And it's a good service, and something that is hard to replicate and thus a competetive advantage. But to speak to the upthread parent: it has nothing to do with "drivers". The HAL…

> And it's a good service, and something that is hard to replicate and thus a competetive advantage. It's a service that Google will not let manufacturers replace even if they want to. Horribly anti-competetive. http://www.mobileburn.com/news.jsp?Id=14923

That may be true, but it's not an issue of denying "GPS" data, which is what the upthread parent was confused about. You can get location output from GPS (or in fact anything else that your platform has wired into the HAL -- it's not specific to GPS per se) data.

It's Google's extra, proprietary services that are, well, proprietary. And that's hardly notable IMHO. There are lots of players in this space, it just happens that Google has done it better and is using that (among other features obviously) to drive sales of its "Play Services" product to OEMs.

Non-free software is non-free. If you care about that stuff, you wouldn't use it anyway.

Re: Google is defragging Android

#187

Post by nutjob123 »

kevingadd wrote: post #31
habosa wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where has this changed? Google's apps are still built on top of the SDK. The only real change was the centralization of Google Play Services, but that doesn't change the level of OS access at all and 3rd-party developers can still tap in to these services.

Play Services having a custom updater and the ability to silently gain more permissions is definitely not something available to average 3rd party developers.

You could write an app which does this, it would just have a huge permissions list.

Re: Google is defragging Android

#188

Post by elteto »

e12e wrote: post #73
wpietri wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't Play. It's that people are being bound more tightly to the ecosystem. As a developer, one of the things that was more appealing to me about Android was that Android seemed to be a more level playing field. But this approach tilts things substantially in favor of Google. In particular, this solves fragmentation for Google, and maybe for Google trusted partners, but it doesn't seem to do so for any ot…

I don't see any reason why the play app shouldn't be Free software. So, while I might be a minority, I'd certainly like to see all of it opened up. I'd much prefer a reality where the play service and app is open, and which upstream source you trust is defined by which certificates you trust, and nothing else. That'd make it trivial to set up trusted sources for a company, for example.

Like other commenter said, only the Sith deal in absolutes :) In this regard, I'm okay with Google protecting their IP and internal infrastructure, I am not really interested in how they process payments or any of the other details. Open source philosophy does not entitle you to any of that info, you could write your own app store if you so want, like Amazon did.

Re: Google is defragging Android

#189

Post by klrr »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #152
klrr wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key problem here is that it's open source . The meaning of that term has become very vague, not that OSI's definition is unclear but rather since many people apply the term to so many things. Open source is usually applied for marketing and convenience now days rather than actually showing that this software provides the essential freedoms for the user.

"Open source" has always been about marketing and convenience. If you're looking for "freedom", you should join the "free software" movement instead, which is a distinct one. Back in the days, people argued that free software will not survive if they keep being idealistic. Instead, people argued that free software should market more, and compromise more with proprietary software. Well, here is the result.

I know the story behind it. I agree with you though, here's the result of open source and it ain't pretty.

Re: Google is defragging Android

#190

Post by cbr »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #136
fleitz wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean manufactures like Google themselves? It seems to be an issue with 'Android' as no one, including Google, makes an Android phone on which you can install a modified version of Android without voiding the warranty.

Geeksphone (the same folk that do a Mozilla phone) do.

Looking at www.geeksphone.com I don't see any phones available for purchase.
Post reply on HN