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

Google will develop Android OS behind closed doors starting next week

9to5google.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 245 posts

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

#221

Post by crossroadsguy »

chasil wrote: post #38
microtonal wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they can already do that, because most people and apps (outside China and maybe some other regions) expect Google Play/Play Services to be present.

Amazon maintains their Fire devices with their Android fork. Huawei maintains their Android fork that runs without the Play store. Google will not be able to close Android/AOSP without triggering a well-funded fork.

I doubt at this point corps are not looking at that option. But then I don’t know what kind of contract these corps have with Google. I have worked at Samsung and they are such a large incompetent but aware software clusterfuck that they would rather want an almost readymade OS on which they will smear paint and sell. Can’t speak of other OEMs.

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

#222

Post by crossroadsguy »

npodbielski wrote: post #206
avgd wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many banking apps will outright refuse to run on rooted devices, much less google-free forks. There are ways around that but those ways are unreliable and could break at any given time -- I am not risking losing the ability to pay for things online just for the sake of running an android fork. (in my country, all the banks switched to requiring 2FA from their app if you make online purchases with your visa or masterc…

That is sad. I do not have a problem with my 2 banking apps and Revolut. But I am running MicroG version of Lineage OS. So no google, but still works. I think this is worth a try, considering how many adds you have to see on Android running full Google (which I have just one to be able to use Android Auto inside my car).

What fork is that? Also, how easy peasy will it be to run it on a Pixel 5?

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

#223

Post by crossroadsguy »

mschild wrote: post #80
maelito wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, most "geo" applications depend on Google services and will crash without them. Local authority transit apps, etc.

I've been running GrapheneOS without any Google Services. Most things work without issue. In the past 2 years I've encountered a total of 3 apps that wouldn't run without Google.

How and why, any idea? Do they have some kind of backend check verified with Google that might return “naah, not a Googled device”? By the way which apps?

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

#224

Post by omnimus »

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…

Sorry but how that invalidates that in my country nobody uses WhatsApp? It doesn't matter at all if they are on Android or iOS.

And since iMessages are seamless they are used very often between iOS users.

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

#225

Post by omnimus »

birksherty wrote: post #211
oska wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that. My point was that the original comment was grossly overstating the supposed 'dominance' of WhatsApp.

Whatsapp is dominant in most countries in world, it's not overstating. Your 3 country example mean nothing in comparison.

If by most you mean 50% then sure. But the other 50% countries prefer to use different app. Be it Facebook Messenger or Telegram... In my eu country nobody has WhatsApp and its not uncommon. Network effects are at play so it's what became popular first.

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

#226

Post by viraptor »

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…

What's "camera roll"? WA images go into the "WhatsApp Images" folder. They're separate from "Camera".

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

#227

Post by [deleted] »

birksherty wrote: post #211
oska wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that. My point was that the original comment was grossly overstating the supposed 'dominance' of WhatsApp.

Whatsapp is dominant in most countries in world, it's not overstating. Your 3 country example mean nothing in comparison.

[deleted]

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

#228

Post by omnimus »

thebytefairy wrote: post #183
oska wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that. My point was that the original comment was grossly overstating the supposed 'dominance' of WhatsApp.

The real point of the original comment was that outside the US iMessage is not dominant and so nobody cares about what color a chat bubble is.

Did we read the same thing? There is nothing about color of chat bubble but there is "they all use WhatsApp". No they don't. Not all. More like half.

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

#229

Post by tharne »

bogwog wrote: post #106
rwmj wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But copyleft is bad and everyone should use BSD ... Code is turned proprietary by huge corporate with massive development resources. No one could have predicted this.

Stallman was right again.

> Stallman was right again.

He usually is, no matter how many times people write him off.

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

#230

Post by tharne »

cyanydeez wrote: post #200
soraminazuki wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

Sure, but in reality they have a legal monopoly on the use of violence, which is a very big deal and makes them qualitatively different from any other collective of people.

Post reply on HN