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Google will develop Android OS behind closed doors starting next week

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Re: Google will develop Android OS behind closed doors starting next week

#191

Post by johnfernow »

overfeed wrote: post #101
johnfernow wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but if Google's Android becomes closed source and a well-funded FOSS fork becomes available, that changes the situation. If Samsung, Xiaomi, Motorola, HONOR, OPPO, etc. all agree to use a new FOSS fork as their base, well Google's new closed-source Android becomes irrelevant. Samsung alone is large enough to be able to maintain a fork of Android, and a large enough percentage of the smartphone market that what…

> Samsung alone is large enough to be able to maintain a fork of Android Samsung would rather not - they threated this card once before, while negotiating for Google to get rid of Motorola, and their bluff got called. Samsung tried to prop up Tizen as an Android alternative. Samsung since closed a number of its US OS offices - why sacrifice profits when they have a cozy arrangement: Samsung & other Android partners w…

I agree with you: they'd rather not. If Google's Android became closed source to the public, but Google gave Samsung and other OEMs the right to modify it (including a hard fork later on if they desired), then I agree with you that they'd almost certainly continue with Google's Android — they'd lose nothing and eliminate future competitors.

My comment was in part addressing the higher up comments in the thread stating OEMs couldn't do a hard fork. My thoughts are that they have the marketshare that if Google's terms were bad enough, they could. They'd love to take some of the Play Store revenue, but currently dropping the Play Store would tank hardware sales as competitors would keep it. But if Google's terms were to get bad enough that multiple OEMs wanted to hard fork, that calculation could change. I don't foresee Google ever putting forth that bad of terms though, in part because of the option to hard fork.

Re: Google will develop Android OS behind closed doors starting next week

#192

Post by ac130kz »

TexanFeller wrote: post #179
dineol wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what did you switch to?

The only reasonable alternative for now, Apple. Only thing worse about their devices than the competition is the price. One day they’ll turn as evil as Google, but hopefully other viable options will exist by then.

How come Android, that you can build yourself, is worse than Apple, which had plans to use CSAM?

Re: Google will develop Android OS behind closed doors starting next week

#193

Post by ksec »

nvllsvm wrote: post #60
mainecoder wrote: post #14

I hope they make it closed source and make us much money out of it as possible for shareholders that is their job and their duty, why are they giving this away for free they have already captured market share by claiming opensource and building a community now all they have to do is make it proprietary and the old opensource version slowly wither and become unstable, then they can charge money for the operating syste…

As much as I - a Pixel 7 (GrapheneOS) user - would hate that, doing so would essentially put Android on equal footing as iOS and would give me a serious reason to consider switching to an iPhone. Apple's hardware is just so much sleeker, faster, and better than Google's mediocre Pixel line.

>and better than Google's mediocre Pixel line

Pixel 7, or any android in that era would definitely be slower than iPhone. ( Google Pixel itself uses mediocre SoC ) But the recent ones are catching up fast and latest Samsung is Snapdragon Elite is actually faster than iOS.

I think that is partly because Google had to optimise the hell out of its software due to slower CPU performance. And partly just Apple's iOS has fallen a lot in quality.

Re: Google will develop Android OS behind closed doors starting next week

#194

Post by ksec »

colonial wrote: post #185
yurishimo wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you live outside of the US in which nobody gives a damn and they all use WhatsApp. After moving, I only get sms messages from the doctors office and my friends back in America.

True, but God does WhatsApp suck. They've got a billion-strong userbase and yet the Android app still dumped literally every attachment I received into my camera roll until I manually added '.nomedia' files in the right places. And, oh man, the API for businesses is a Kafkaesque nightmare. Maybe it was good before it got Zucked, but I had to fight with their support for over a week to get an automated ban-hammer over…

Dont know about Andriod but iOS you can select not to save images into camera roll.

Re: Google will develop Android OS behind closed doors starting next week

#195

Post by ksec »

NBJack wrote: post #111
omnimus wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true at all. This effect is pretty common in countries outside of US. It makes sense. WhatsApp is just another messaging app thats popular depending on a local whim. Where as iMessages get sent automatically between iOS users.

Outside the US, and a handful of other countries, Android is far more dominant than iOS (75% vs 25%). [1] WhatsApp has an estimated active userbase of approximately 3 billion. [2] The number of iMessage users is estimated to be about 1 billion. [3] [1] https://explodingtopics.com/blog/iphone-android-users#iphone... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1306022/whatsapp-global-... [3] https://usesignhouse.com/blog/i…

On [1], If you only look at countries with decent GDP per Capita. iOS will have anywhere from 40 to 65% market share. Even in China iOS is well over 30%.

When you consider Africa + ASEAN + India has 3.5B population and has very low iPhone market share that sort of Skew the figures.

Re: Google will develop Android OS behind closed doors starting next week

#196

Post by g-b-r »

OneDeuxTriSeiGo wrote: post #187
g-b-r wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that attestation (Play Integrity) exists, and its usage by the apps on the Play Store seems to be increasing exponentially (if I'm not mistaken it only takes enabling a switch now to have it in your app).

Play Integrity and Attestation are distinctly different things. Attestation is a far better solution as it's not literally controlled by Google like the Play Integrity API is. GrapheneOS actually explicitly pushes for services to switch away from Play Integrity API or SafetyNet API towards the Android Attestation API for that reason. https://grapheneos.org/articles/attestation-compatibility-gu... And notably, long te…

Ok, yes, I meant Play Integrity indeed (which is an attestation system).

That's what Google has been strongly pushing to developers.

Re: Google will develop Android OS behind closed doors starting next week

#197

Post by cyanydeez »

ddingus wrote: post #145
bogwog wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stallman was right again.

The dude is solid as it gets on all this. Yet people ignore him and then realize that was one of those too late types

none of us have economic incentives to build global infrastrcture. Let me know what governments decide among the people that there's value in open source and it's software

Re: Google will develop Android OS behind closed doors starting next week

#198

Post by soraminazuki »

cyanydeez wrote: post #197
ddingus wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dude is solid as it gets on all this. Yet people ignore him and then realize that was one of those too late types

none of us have economic incentives to build global infrastrcture. Let me know what governments decide among the people that there's value in open source and it's software

Agreed, but I doubt governments would be good stewards of open source either. They engage in illegal mass surveillance, cyber warfare, and is constantly trying to undermine encryption.

Re: Google will develop Android OS behind closed doors starting next week

#199

Post by AlexKir »

virtualritz wrote: post #188
dividedbyzero wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure there are dozens of people in Germany who actively prefer iMessage but I haven't met one yet. Whatsapp achieved pretty much total market capture here back when SMS still were costly and the network effects that arose from that are among the strongest I've ever seen. I'm pretty sure if someone was to do a survey, almost everyone would say Messages is for SMS only and I think most of them wouldn't know it can…

In Berlin everyone seems to be on Telegram these days. People leaning more left and/or are privacy-aware and/or hate FB/Meta/big tech use Signal. WhatsApp seems only to be used by the elderly/old in my circle of friends lately. The transition has been gradual; started during the pandemic, I'd say.

It doesn't surprise me. Telegram is surerior both technologically and UX side.

I have impression that WhatsApp team just dont do anything for years.

Re: Google will develop Android OS behind closed doors starting next week

#200

Post by cyanydeez »

soraminazuki wrote: post #198
cyanydeez wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

none of us have economic incentives to build global infrastrcture. Let me know what governments decide among the people that there's value in open source and it's software

Agreed, but I doubt governments would be good stewards of open source either. They engage in illegal mass surveillance, cyber warfare, and is constantly trying to undermine encryption.

in the abstract, governments are indistinguishable from any other collective of people.

So yeah, if open source orgs can keep going, there's no reason to think government can't do the same. It's about public goods.

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