

What Kindle Means for Android - jstrimpel
http://blog.geekli.st/post/32424443957/what-kindle-means-for-android

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zmmmmm
It's kind of amusing to me how every now and then someone proclaims that
Google has "lost control" of Android and how this must be some kind of crisis
and portends a looming disaster.

Then we will have a series of people proclaiming how Android is not really
open and what a farce Google's pretense of openness is, and what fools we were
to ever believe that Google intended to make an open source operating system.

Frequently this will be followed by people lamenting "fragmentation" and
demanding that Google put a stop to it by putting tight controls on who can
implement Android and how they can do it.

These are all different sides of the same coin. Openness = fragmentation,
openness = loss of control, openness = diversity, choice, innovation and
endless possibility. It has benefits and downsides to be sure, but to think
Google didn't know they were giving up some control of Android when they
released it as open source is absurd - open sourcing something is by
definition giving up control of it.

~~~
Mythbusters
Actually I think Google's openness is a quasi. Otherwise you wouldn't see them
blocking the acer phone.

~~~
ajross
And yet they aren't blocking the Kindle. So how do you square that?

~~~
Mythbusters
I'm sure they would if they could. Amazon is not a member of OHA so google has
nothing to enforce that ban with.

~~~
ajross
So you agree with the flip side argument that Google is just enforcing
existing business agreements to which all parties are signatories, you just
choose to interpret it as uncharitably as possible for Google.

Yawn. Business is business. Using open source software doesn't magically
absolve you of responsibility to your contracted partners, nor give you the
right to jerk your suppliers around. The simple truth is that Amazon handled
this gracefully and produced a great product, and Acer screwed it up and
wrecked things for their partner Alibaba. Making Google out to be the bad guy
is just fanboism.

~~~
recoiledsnake
>Business is business

Funny, that reminds me of the scorn heaped on Apple for the patent lawsuits
against Samsung. Or on Oracle and Microsoft. Business is business, right?
Regardless of other companies getting hurt?

Also reminds me of this post by Gruber supporting Apple on in app purchases:

<http://daringfireball.net/2011/03/dirty_percent>

It's really ironic how people claim their favorite company is better than the
others because of blah blah blah reasons, but when it comes to power plays
hurting third parties like this, support it by saying "business is business".

~~~
eurleif
Samsung didn't violate a contract it signed with Apple. The situations really
aren't very similar.

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swang
First, can we stop with the FUD about Google "banning" Acer from releasing a
phone. This ArsTech article covers most of it but basically Alibaba was
planning to release an OS that could run Android apps but was not certified by
the OHA. And Acer as a member of OHA has to enforce Android compatibility on
their devices to enforce consistency in Android. The same thing people
complain about Android (fragmentation) is what they were trying to avoid.

[http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/09/google-blocked-
acers-...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/09/google-blocked-acers-rival-
phone-to-prevent-android-fragmentation/)

Regarding the article, whatever Google has controlled since the beginning they
have never lost, which is providing the "Google Experience" On Android.

~~~
bstar77
I think this is an extremely naive view... Devices that don't have gmail,
maps, chrome and play is a huge loss for google. It's very much in google's
interest to discourage these types of forks, but that's the nature of open
source.

~~~
swang
The article talks of "losing control" not "losing revenue" hence what my post
was talking about.

There will obviously be some lost revenue, but not really enough for Google to
care. At least for now. Mainly Kindle hasn't done much to scare Google.

I remember when the first Kindle Fire came out and people were hailing it the
end of Google and Android. Silk was going to eat Chrome for breakfast. Amazon
Appstore would be the defacto "Android Marketplace". etc etc. I've yet to see
any of that come to fruition.

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SCdF
Maybe this is just me, but if they have their own app store, their own UI,
their own idioms and their own devices.... from any useful user or branding
perspective, how are they Android phones?

And so more importantly, why does it matter for Android? It doesn't mean
Android is more fragmented, because those phones _aren't Android phones_ , it
just means one more competitor in the smart phone market.

If anything, it makes it easier for developers, because Amazon phones will be
easier to port to than another random smart phone brand.

~~~
mmanfrin
It is, essentially, a completely different OS which happens to run the same
applications.

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Mythbusters
The way android is used by Amazon is essentially how apple used unix core to
get the basics right when creating a new software platform. A smart move
obviously. What surprises me is how none of the big android players have not
seen an opportunity here and created their own experience on top of it. That
is the easiest way to differentiate yourself from the myriad of other cheap
android device makers.

Im sure there is a lot of hand wringing going on behind the scenes for this to
not have happened yet but its inevitable.

~~~
guelo
> What surprises me is how none of the big android players have not seen an
> opportunity here

I guess you haven't heard of HTC Sense, Motoblur, Samsung's Touchwiz, etc. and
how users mostly hate them.

Savvy users seem to prefer taking Amazon's Android Kindles and installing
vanilla Androids on them.

~~~
fluidcruft
Amazon has what the others (including Google) don't have--an established
digital commerce solution that people use and amazing customer support. Goggle
falls flat but sort of seems to be trying to work on it, but I don't trust
them the way I already trust Amazon. There's zero reason for me to purchase a
book on Play instead of a Kindle as far as I can tell.

~~~
cma
You forgot to mention that the kindle app is available free on stock android.

~~~
nivla
And do you realize that you can't download kindle books on to them unless you
already own a kindle device. That app was only designed for portability of
your existing library. Amazon in no way give up their biggest advantage over
android devices.

~~~
gman99
That's not true. I don't own a kindle device yet I have books I purchased on
the Kindle store (when Amazon had a sale in the past) appear in the Kindle app
on my Nexus7.

Maybe it's just that the app does not allow purchasing (never looked)?

~~~
nivla
How do you manage to get the books the at the kindle sale price when you don't
own a kindle? Strange, when I got my Nexus 7, I did give the kindle app a try
but it wouldn't let me purchase any books unless I paid the hardcover price. I
have amazon prime, but without owning a kindle device, these ebook sales are
meaningless to me.

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guelo
Fortunately for developers Amazon hasn't forked the OS too much. The APIs for
the latest release are the ICS APIs which is OK since most devs will still be
targeting Froyo or Gingerbread for another year or so. The only problem is if
you use some of the Google APIs, mainly Maps, in which case you'll have to get
clever, either with reflection or your build system, to include Amazon's maps
in your app.

If Amazon ever tries to do a major fork at the API level we'll be in trouble,
but they have shown no sign of that as of yet.

~~~
Mythbusters
There is a reason they haven't forked because there is a value in the
ecosystem. What they have done is that the have starved Google of the revenue
it makes out of android and that is where the opportunity is for major device
makers which I don't get how they not see it.

~~~
enjo
I'm not following...why would major device manufacturers want to starve
Google?

~~~
Mythbusters
so that they can eat Google's lunch?

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esolyt
Yes. Google lost control of an operating system which they consciously decided
to release as open source and free software.

Somehow, I don't think they were trying hard to retain control of the OS.

~~~
chj
they're trying very hard these days:

<http://marketingland.com/google-acer-android-aliyun-21631>

~~~
esolyt
No. That's not trying hard. They could have just made Android closed-source,
which is easy and simple.

In this case, they don't want an OHA member to ship products with Android
forks that break app compatibility. Amazon is neither an OHA member and its OS
does not break compatibility. Even if it did, why would it hurt Google or
Android anymore than, say, using a completely different OS?

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seanschade
Charlie knows what's up! Amazon has all of the pieces in place to remain a
disruptive force in the industry.

------
michaelpinto
But didn't Google block Acer pretty recently? I understand that Acer was part
of an industry group, but if Google is delivering a stream of improvements to
Android can't they just lock up future updates?

~~~
fpgeek
Well, until 2017 there's a pesky promise to Chinese regulators:
[http://news.cnet.com/8301-32969_3-57437774-300/china-to-
goog...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-32969_3-57437774-300/china-to-google-
android-must-remain-open/)

Of course, Google's willingness to make that promise says something about
their current plans and the contingencies they foresee.

~~~
michaelpinto
that's interesting — i'd assumed they wrote off china, but that really goes
the other way

~~~
fpgeek
There's a limited market for Google's services in China (if only because the
government generally blocks them), but Motorola sells plenty of phones in
China and makes even more.

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programminggeek
The whole point of Android from Google's perspective was to give them the
ability to control search on mobile without having to buy their way in like
they did on the Windows desktop and they do on iOS. Every year Google spends
hundreds of millions of dollars to Apple, Mozilla, Dell, HP, etc. to be the
default search provider, have their toolbar installed, have Chrome be the
default, or whatever way they want to be the search default, and it is worth
every penny, but owning their own platform in Android means they control their
own destiny on the future computing platform - phones, tablets, tv's, and
other embedded computing systems.

Fragmentation is not a problem because Google still is the primary Android
services provider. If Samsung or HTC started doing what Amazon is doing and
selling Android phones without Google apps and search as a default, then
Google's in trouble.

Google's biz model is to give away Android for free, but make up for it in
money from the Play market, mobile ads, and mobile search.

~~~
flurpitude
"Fragmentation is not a problem because Google still is the primary Android
services provider."

Doesn't the article point out that some of the bigger companies using Android,
like Amazon and (in the linked article about TVs) Lenovo, are doing their own
versions of Android that use none of Google's services? So Google is left high
and dry - the other companies have taken the Android code but given Google
nothing in return. This is how I understood the claim that Google has lost
control of Android.

