21–30 of 221 posts
defragmenting defragging It's just 3 letters saved. Vote me down if you must.
Three letters, a syllable, and sounding better to the technical crowd who understands the jargon (and, if you're outside that technical crowd, you won't understand "defragmenting" any better).
In one fell swoop they can resolve fragmentation, keep everyone up to date on functionality/APIs, bypass OEM/carrier update issues (be it carrier QA, OEM lack of interest, or just crapware). Most importantly google can keep any OEM's (ie samsung) in check and prevent them branching away from android.
The downsides: what happens when google break an entire range of phones/functionality with an update? Are they going to QA every android product in existence? Will older models slow down and become unusable as the baseline resource requirements increase? (I'm looking at you IOS7)...
Notably, Play services is totally closed. So Google has abandoned the open source part of Android and is now developing the operating system as a completely closed product. Edit: downvotes don't change the truth of the observation. Android is no longer meaningfully open, other than a years old core of basic functions. Just like OSX and Darwin.
I don't see the problem here. Play is part of Google's ecosystem, not the Android OS platform. I can download Android's source code, compile it and put it in any device I want (provided I have the technical capability to do so of course). In fact, this is what Android distributions like Cyanogenmod do, and they also provide a binary blob with Google's stuff as an option, if you want to install it. I don't see the rea…
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 other Android developers.
I don't think anybody's saying the Play app should be open source. But if I were making my living from Android apps, I'd worry that Android improvements would be few and far between. Both the technical and business incentives push to improving Play Services, not the base OS.
Notably, Play services is totally closed. So Google has abandoned the open source part of Android and is now developing the operating system as a completely closed product. Edit: downvotes don't change the truth of the observation. Android is no longer meaningfully open, other than a years old core of basic functions. Just like OSX and Darwin.
"So Google has abandoned the open source part of Android and is now developing the operating system as a completely closed product." Not sure what's new here.. Play always came with strings attached. OEMs can choose Play or use AOSP and roll their own Play analogue like Meizu or Xiaomi or Amazon.
So Rubin departs leadership of Android just before Android becomes "not open". Seems like there's a backstory here that I'd love to hear about.
Android Community's original description of Play Services as "In a nutshell, Google Play services allows app developers to integrate other Google services, like Google Plus, into their apps" is still accurate today.
It's worth noting how closely Android's apparent path going forward mirror's Apple's strategy with both OS X and iOS: closed end-user components built on top of an open source core. I guess Google's realized that "openness" isn't a meaningful market differentiator for the average consumer.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"So Google has abandoned the open source part of Android and is now developing the operating system as a completely closed product." Not sure what's new here.. Play always came with strings attached. OEMs can choose Play or use AOSP and roll their own Play analogue like Meizu or Xiaomi or Amazon.
Correct me if I'm wrong. From 4.0 Play is mandatory if you want drivers. That's why Barnes and Noble had to put Play on their devices.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"So Google has abandoned the open source part of Android and is now developing the operating system as a completely closed product." Not sure what's new here.. Play always came with strings attached. OEMs can choose Play or use AOSP and roll their own Play analogue like Meizu or Xiaomi or Amazon.
Correct me if I'm wrong. From 4.0 Play is mandatory if you want drivers. That's why Barnes and Noble had to put Play on their devices.
So Rubin departs leadership of Android just before Android becomes "not open". Seems like there's a backstory here that I'd love to hear about.
Moving some functionality into the Play Services package is a direction that Google have clearly been going in for at least a year: last year both Google+ integrations (understandably) and an updated Google Maps SDK being released. Android Community's original description of Play Services as "In a nutshell, Google Play services allows app developers to integrate other Google services, like Google Plus, into their app…
I found the Google memos from the Java trial absolutely fascinating… I imagine the story (going back a couple of years) on this would make great literature.