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The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google’s Iron Grip on Android

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Re: The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google’s Iron Grip on Android

#341

Post by NikkiA »

Roritharr wrote: post #9

Google invested Billions into Android. Samsung tried to hedge for this by building Tizen(Bada) and realized how much needed to be invested to get an Android competitor going, so they kept the development going, but focused for their Smartwatches, as this would have to be a "if the worst happens" plan, not something that could be a profitable venture. LG has the Palm/HP borne WebOS for their TVs, i suspect with a simi…

Is not most of android open-source enough to fork? Sure you'd lose all the google integration and the binary blobs of the play store, but if you were 'going alone' you'd not care that much about the play store anyway as you'd diverge from android prime over time.

Re: The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google’s Iron Grip on Android

#342

Post by NicoJuicy »

pjmlp wrote: post #284
NicoJuicy wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, so an app store without: Netflix, YouTube, WhatsApp, Facebook, Gmail, Outlook, Chromecast, Dropbox, OneDrive, YouTube, Twitter, Google search ( or duck duck go), Amazon, Amazon video, 2fa authenticator, iftt, Wikipedia, Skype, messenger, Snapchat, Instagram, Waze, Google maps, Ted, Wolfram Alpha, ... I'm pretty sure there is one of them that you use recurringly. You're going to use that OS? The only Chinese app I…

Not everyone uses them.

Not all of them, some of them :) I'm just pointing out the "most regular used"

Re: The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google’s Iron Grip on Android

#343

Post by NicoJuicy »

ptx wrote: post #330
NicoJuicy wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, so an app store without: Netflix, YouTube, WhatsApp, Facebook, Gmail, Outlook, Chromecast, Dropbox, OneDrive, YouTube, Twitter, Google search ( or duck duck go), Amazon, Amazon video, 2fa authenticator, iftt, Wikipedia, Skype, messenger, Snapchat, Instagram, Waze, Google maps, Ted, Wolfram Alpha, ... I'm pretty sure there is one of them that you use recurringly. You're going to use that OS? The only Chinese app I…

You don't need apps for Google search, Wikipedia or Amazon, and I don't think this ban is going to extend to blocking websites for western consumers using Huawei devices. The others I don't use, so it would be OK for me.

Eg: Google is paying for being the default search-engine.

So Baidu will be the default search engine on any browser that will be used ( since they can pay).

Re: The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google’s Iron Grip on Android

#344

Post by gsich »

slrz wrote: post #254
ggg2 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which was a direct result of Google suing them to show it. oh the irony!

Pretty sure that it wasn't Google doing the suing. I remember it being Opera. Did Chrome even exist back then?

yes

Re: The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google’s Iron Grip on Android

#345

Post by ehonda »

birksherty wrote: post #324
ehonda wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have both an S9 and a BlackBerry Q10 on me every day. The BB10 OS, even though its now defunct, was designed in a way that it is FAR easier and more practical to use. I really, really hate the Android interface as a result. 1: BlackBerry hub is a lot nicer to view messages 2: Smart use of Bezel gestures makes it much easier to actually interact with the phone: -If you want to access the hub while using an app, you…

How the buttons that are always there cumbersome? I personally don't like gestures. You have to remember and get used to them. Then suddenly in a major update they will change everything to new "cooler" gesture, re-learn and get used to it again. Year after year that happens. Compare that to buttons. You can always see them, so no need to remember anything. Older people also able to use them. Of course new shiny mobi…

The android buttons in most cases these days are not hard buttons but soft ones that could just as likely change at the whim of Android, using your own hypothetical situation you came up with. They are cumbersome because usually it takes two hands to press them, as they are small buttons at the bottom. You end up needing one hand to hold the phone and the other to accurately press the button. With thumb-gestures, you can do it blindfolded in one hand. In addition, the buttons take up screen real estate.

Also, have you actually used the BlackBerry gestures? Upon getting a BlackBerry, the very first thing it does is a 1 minute tutorial explaining how to use the gestures. There are only a few. They really aren't complicated. They just take a brief explanation and the reward is you get a more functional interface.

Re: The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google’s Iron Grip on Android

#346

Post by ehonda »

ptx wrote: post #328
ehonda wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have both an S9 and a BlackBerry Q10 on me every day. The BB10 OS, even though its now defunct, was designed in a way that it is FAR easier and more practical to use. I really, really hate the Android interface as a result. 1: BlackBerry hub is a lot nicer to view messages 2: Smart use of Bezel gestures makes it much easier to actually interact with the phone: -If you want to access the hub while using an app, you…

> And you are also less likely to lose track of what windows you have open. I find lots of peoples android phones have like 30 windows open - this is a fault of its interface. There is no need to keep track of them or close them, since the app lifecycle is managed automatically by the system – having a window (called activity on Android) open doesn't mean that the app is running. Non-foreground activities are automat…

That does not at all change the fact that the user ends up with a mess of open windows, regardless of whether they are burdening the OS.

Re: The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google’s Iron Grip on Android

#347

Post by ehonda »

charlesdaniels wrote: post #236
ehonda wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have both an S9 and a BlackBerry Q10 on me every day. The BB10 OS, even though its now defunct, was designed in a way that it is FAR easier and more practical to use. I really, really hate the Android interface as a result. 1: BlackBerry hub is a lot nicer to view messages 2: Smart use of Bezel gestures makes it much easier to actually interact with the phone: -If you want to access the hub while using an app, you…

Agreed! I was a BB Classic user for about 2 years before jumping ship to iOS for practical reasons. Aside from what you mentioned, I would also bring up that, at least on the Classic, the little touch nub/joystick/trackpad thing was actually incredibly handy. It could act as a mouse, which meant that you could use "Desktop" websites very easily, since you didn't have to try to fat finger tiny little buttons. And sinc…

I totally wish my Q10 had a trackpad. They are very handy.

Re: The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google’s Iron Grip on Android

#348

Post by rurban »

EGreg wrote: post #72
harryf wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s possible that Google cutting off Huawei will actually backfire, because it makes having a viable alternative to Android a MUST HAVE instead of just NICE TO HAVE. Perhaps it’s possible to resurrect Blackberry 10 ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackBerry_10 ) for example, which seemed to be an impressive piece of engineering that got trampled by Blackberrys failing business. I played with a demo once that could…

Isn’t Android open source? So why can’t Huawei simply fork it?

They not only forked it, they also improved it. They are e.g. the only one who built their own secure Annex K C11 extensions, besides Android Bionic. Android first did it with an old HP stlport, and then Bionic did it with C++ (Google style). Huawei did it in 1998 already in C.

They also are using safer xen compartments, as Amazon did until recently or Qubes is doing. kvm is fast, but certainly not secure.

Personally I trust Huawei more than Google, and esp. LG, Sony or Samsung. The current war on Huawei looks like Huawei is denying the US their backdoors into the baseband layer on 5G. Loosing 5G would be big for US intelligence, and good for privacy. China getting access into 5G backdoors is not as worrying as continued US abuse.

Re: The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google’s Iron Grip on Android

#349

Post by shorts_theory »

ptx wrote: post #329
nextos wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BB10 is nice. Meego, as seen in the Nokia N9 was a really good UI too. Extremely elegant card interface, that meshed so well with a curved OLED screen. In 2011. I would love to see an alternative to the iOS / Android duopoly. One way to go would be a better F-Droid ecosystem, and pure AOSP. But perhaps, even better, a true Linux userland. Maemo lives on with Jolla. Although I hate they still have many closed componen…

Maybe the Purism Librem 5? https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ The UI is still very much a work in progress, though. But it's fully open source. Based on GNOME.

To my knowledge, this is based on Plasma Mobile which shares some features from the KDE Plasma desktop environment and uses Qt for widgets.

https://www.plasma-mobile.org/

Re: The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google’s Iron Grip on Android

#350

Post by lol768 »

josinalvo wrote: post #318
lol768 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the Play store is treated 'special' though - F-Droid can't install apps in the same way unless you're rooted and install the priv-app.

I did not root my phone yet, and I install apps with f-droid just fine. The only thing I had to do, if I recall correctly, was enabling third party apps instalation

Try it again and watch the process closely. You'll get an additional prompt when you use F-Droid that doesn't appear with the Play store.
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