Just about a decade ago Microsoft faced similar charges for bundling IE with Windows OS. By the time the dust settled on all litigations, the competition was decimated or attenuated to stay in business.
I have to agree with him. I had to fix an app for a Huawei Honor 8x phone the other day. As the phone doesn't have Google Play Services and doesn't offer it in the app store - it's a huge pain using it. Enthusiasts can sometimes hack Google support on to an AOSP edition, but as app developers, we have to support what every day customers can do.
There are so many apps that won't work on it at all since Google has been steadily replacing AOSP services like location with Google Play proprietary versions. If you go to the open version of location services, you'll see there's a huge note at the top that you should really go use Google's version:
https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/location
And any app that requires that, isn't going to work on Android releases that don't have Google's blessing like Huawei.
The point regarding Play Services is valid, and if the parent comment had focused on that I would not have objected. But that doesn't mean AOSP is a "very small part" of Android or that it isn't open source.
The flip-side of your experience is that it highlights the existence of a large number of Android devices based on AOSP that don't run Google apps, particularly in the PRC. Aside from the Chinese market, you have a major company like Amazon selling millions of devices with their own AOSP fork on them. On an individual level, I can install Lineage OS on my unlocked devices and use apps from F-Droid as well as many others.
Play Services does have a significant foothold in many users' experiences, which bears discussion, but it doesn't invalidate AOSP. It is Android's open source nature that allows for forks and for apps to be shared across the Android ecosystem much more readily than programs developed for an actual proprietary operating system such as Windows.
And "Windows variants"? Comparing Windows backwards compatibility to the ability to run Android apps across different Android forks misses the point. All versions of Windows are proprietary operating systems owned by the same company: Microsoft. Amazon Fire OS, Lineage OS, and other Android forks are not.
Microsoft does license Windows to the same OEMs that are having fun with Android, which just like on Android are allowed to do a certain level of customisations.
Windows is not only what comes with a PC.
The only big difference is that AOSP costs zero dollars, euro, yen,.....
The difference is that it's free and open source. ROMs such as Lineage OS do not need to pay for a commercial license to fork the code, and an app such as F-Droid can run natively on any Android device.
For people who want this feature, consider NewPipe on F-Droid. A perfect example how a proprietary "app" does not do what you want whereas a FOSS app does.
That's a Terms of Service violation, not copyright law violation.
And enforcement of law and contract should not be built into programs - they're supposed to serve the user, not betray them to corporations and government.
But the status of the code is unclear (the readme just says it's unsupported), and the last public commit was months ago while the app on the Play Store (having been restored) was updated much more recently.
> Chromium-based Kiwi Browser attracted widespread attention last month after it added support for desktop Chrome extensions. The app recently vanished from the Play Store, and while some assumed it was due to the browser's new extension support, it was apparently removed due to its ability to play YouTube videos in the background — functionality that is supposed to be reserved for the native YouTube app with a Premium subscription.
Fuck this shit man. As a kid I always wanted to work for Google. And now as a teen I find it hard to believe how they turned on the whole "don't do evil" thing.
It's like a friend put it the last time I was ranting about this:
"Its like funding out your childhood hero was a fraud :/"
As an aside, if any body does want to play Youtube videos in the background on their Android phone, without using the Youtube app, install Firefox for Android and install the Video Background Play Fix extension.
Make it "punishable by up to 5% of global turnover over last three years" (kinda similar to GDPR) and stand back and see how quickly Google (I'm looking at you too Facebook, and Amazon) will change their shit show. India is at a position of strength wrt Google, Amazon, and Fb to easily force them to play nice. Now if only they realized it.
it's india, i doubt anything will happen besides some combination of judge/businessman/politician getting their hands nice and greased up. only reason they even care is because the EU got google to cough up already, they're in it for their pound of flesh.
I will disagree with you here. Cases which are in the public eye are settled without the things you mentioned. There are Indian government institutions which are honest. Financial regulator and watchdog SEBI is one such institution. I have worked in the financial services industry are we were scared of SEBI. Competition Commission of India is also nonpartisan and has never been in a corruption scandal as far as I know.
The irony is strong with this one considering a lot of Government apps do not work without Google Play Services. Including incredibly popular payment apps like BHIM which was developed by NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India). I know cos I have a phone without Play Services and using Government apps is out of question. Thankfully, there are web alternatives for all servuces
NPCI, contrary to what the name seems to imply, is not a government company or organization. It’s a consortium of government and private banks (including the likes of foreign banks like Citibank and HSBC). Its payment services are allowed by the RBI. Neither is the BHIM app a government app. It’s an NPCI app.
But is that due to NPCI or Google? I had read a while ago that Google was using Google Play Services as a way to enforce that certain things on the platform get done the way Google wants it to be (speaking loosely, do not have the link to what I read), although Android itself is open source (technically).
Indian anti trust mechanisms are weak and ineffective, many government owned companies are themselves indulging in activities which should invite anti trust measures, so I hardly see anything significant coming out of this move.
The fact that govt owned/regulated monopolies make sense in some industries does not contradict what the OP says.
A very obvious example in India is the Indian airline industry. As an intern I worked with an investment bank on preparing a pitch for the sale of a private Indian airline, and the entire thing basically hinged on what the government wanted to do with the national airlines (which since then have been merged). The Indian government’s recent inability to sell Air India has led them to take action that, at least to an outside observer who did some pretty in depth research, albeit a decade ago, appears to have been driven by reducing competition for the government airline.
Digital literacy is very poor in India. Most people in India wouldn’t understand what a browser choice actually means, even if Google is forced to provide it. I’m sure Google would also frame the browser choice with dark patterns to make Chrome the default, so that it can continue earning money from ads since Chrome doesn’t support extensions on Android (thwarting ad blocking).
Since this probe may take a year or longer (things usually take longer in India), the impact on Google would be very less. Google could figure out ways to appease the CCI without sacrificing much.
Edit: I think that you're an Indian too, from a previous comment. I don't know what age bracket you're in or what demographics you're exposed to, but digital literacy is not poor here at all, and is rapidly on the rise.
Your qualification of being Indian isn’t enough (if it were, then this would be a tie). Knowing how to open Facebook or YouTube isn’t digital literacy (though it can be considered as a very basic thing). Many poorer people struggle with this fact.
Maybe your education, social/economic standing and your circle of friends/coworkers hides others in the society and their hardships.
Digital literacy may be on the rise, but even “basic” things like transferring money from one bank account to another is out of the reach of many people. How many understand basic security principles and follow them? As I pointed out, what percentage even knows what a browser is and what alternatives exist?
Your username proclaims your caste ... And shows a curiouss lack of sensibility. I agree with the point you are making but I find your caste signalling deplorable.
CCI, the government body in question, was formed about a decade ago. It already has couple of run-ins with Google:
1. They fined Google INR 1 Crore in 2014 for refusal to provide information relating to a "search bias" case
2. Later, on the same case Alphabet was fined INR 135.86 crores
52 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 113 ms ] threadAOSP is a very small part of what actually makes Android on the eyes of consumers.
At the same time, we're getting articles talking about how Microsoft is now an "open source company" because their proprietary operating system can run Linux and some open source apps: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/05/microsoft-the-open-s...
There are so many apps that won't work on it at all since Google has been steadily replacing AOSP services like location with Google Play proprietary versions. If you go to the open version of location services, you'll see there's a huge note at the top that you should really go use Google's version: https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/location
And any app that requires that, isn't going to work on Android releases that don't have Google's blessing like Huawei.
The flip-side of your experience is that it highlights the existence of a large number of Android devices based on AOSP that don't run Google apps, particularly in the PRC. Aside from the Chinese market, you have a major company like Amazon selling millions of devices with their own AOSP fork on them. On an individual level, I can install Lineage OS on my unlocked devices and use apps from F-Droid as well as many others.
Play Services does have a significant foothold in many users' experiences, which bears discussion, but it doesn't invalidate AOSP. It is Android's open source nature that allows for forks and for apps to be shared across the Android ecosystem much more readily than programs developed for an actual proprietary operating system such as Windows.
Microsoft does license Windows to the same OEMs that are having fun with Android, which just like on Android are allowed to do a certain level of customisations.
Windows is not only what comes with a PC.
The only big difference is that AOSP costs zero dollars, euro, yen,.....
Ok, this story is more about Google Play Store but I feel like there is maybe (in my opinion) some conflict and abuse of dominant position here too.
Felt like it was relevant will all the other Google stories in the last days (Nest for ex.)
And enforcement of law and contract should not be built into programs - they're supposed to serve the user, not betray them to corporations and government.
There are numerous reasons to use the application.
1) FOSS, available in F-Droid.
2) Multitasking.
3) No ghost touching
4) Saves battery.
My alternative would be using Firefox where I utilize uBlock.
I see that there's a repo on GitHub: https://github.com/kiwibrowser/android
But the status of the code is unclear (the readme just says it's unsupported), and the last public commit was months ago while the app on the Play Store (having been restored) was updated much more recently.
> Chromium-based Kiwi Browser attracted widespread attention last month after it added support for desktop Chrome extensions. The app recently vanished from the Play Store, and while some assumed it was due to the browser's new extension support, it was apparently removed due to its ability to play YouTube videos in the background — functionality that is supposed to be reserved for the native YouTube app with a Premium subscription.
Fuck this shit man. As a kid I always wanted to work for Google. And now as a teen I find it hard to believe how they turned on the whole "don't do evil" thing.
It's like a friend put it the last time I was ranting about this:
"Its like funding out your childhood hero was a fraud :/"
It wasn't: don't do evil, it was: don't, do evil.
As I said before, everyone loves Google until it stomps them on their face.
People have been permanently banned from everything on Google for their bots stupid algorithm.
Fuck Google and fuck everything they stand for.
How would India like to have a choice between iOS & BlackBerry? Android losing India as a market would suck a bit for Android, but life would go on.
you don't expect the water and power dept leaving out a neighborhood just so the free enterprise have a chance there, do you?
A very obvious example in India is the Indian airline industry. As an intern I worked with an investment bank on preparing a pitch for the sale of a private Indian airline, and the entire thing basically hinged on what the government wanted to do with the national airlines (which since then have been merged). The Indian government’s recent inability to sell Air India has led them to take action that, at least to an outside observer who did some pretty in depth research, albeit a decade ago, appears to have been driven by reducing competition for the government airline.
Since this probe may take a year or longer (things usually take longer in India), the impact on Google would be very less. Google could figure out ways to appease the CCI without sacrificing much.
You're very wrong here. Source: am Indian.
Edit: I think that you're an Indian too, from a previous comment. I don't know what age bracket you're in or what demographics you're exposed to, but digital literacy is not poor here at all, and is rapidly on the rise.
Maybe your education, social/economic standing and your circle of friends/coworkers hides others in the society and their hardships.
Digital literacy may be on the rise, but even “basic” things like transferring money from one bank account to another is out of the reach of many people. How many understand basic security principles and follow them? As I pointed out, what percentage even knows what a browser is and what alternatives exist?
1. They fined Google INR 1 Crore in 2014 for refusal to provide information relating to a "search bias" case 2. Later, on the same case Alphabet was fined INR 135.86 crores