

Google is losing control of Android - ryandvm
http://betanews.com/2012/04/28/google-has-lost-control-of-android/

======
jroseattle
I completely disagree with the article author's premise that Google must
"regain control" of Android.

The whole idea (according to the author) is that the strategy of open-sourcing
Android would serve as a platform for offering other Google services around
all these other devices in an effort to compete with Apple. I doubt that was
Google's plan, but if it was, what a phenomenally bad plan.

My favorite statement: "Google could take full control of Android, by not
releasing future versions to open source and changing licensing terms."

Yeah, that would be a great way to compete with iOS -- by restricting access
to future versions of the software? What nonsense.

Any manufacturer building on Android was not doing so to become a lackey for
Google services, plain and simple. Hence, Samsung and Amazon. The fact that
those two companies are now dominating the distribution numbers for Android
devices doesn't make Android less successful or endangered -- it only promotes
it. And that's good for Google.

Again, I doubt Google is thinking about Android along these lines. However,
I'd sure like to be in the room to hear the Android team respond to this
author.

~~~
ellyagg
You must not be familiar with some of the history of Google's management of
Android. It is documented beyond argument, including through leaked internal
emails, that Google sets Android policies intended to control vendors. This
is, for example, the reason for the "delayed open source" strategy.

------
cargo8
I'll admit that I TL;DRd around the middle, but I have trouble believing that
the Kindle's customized Android OS is the driving factor in its initial market
success.

It's much more likely to be the fact that it is supported by Amazon's
ecosystem (which is alluded to as a comparison to Apple) and the fact that it
debuted at an unheard of price ($200) for quality tablets, and ended up really
pushing the market price of tablets in general down.

~~~
nextparadigms
Yeah, it's not the UI. It's not that great of a UI. It's the $200 price
combined with good marketing and the promise that you have access to a lot of
content on it, be it books, music or videos.

If someone would compare them rationally, they'd see that a "real" Android
tablet that costs around the same would have almost no disadvantage and a lot
of advantages compared to Kindle Fire: a lot more apps, higher flexibility for
anything, better browsers, app sideloading, and on top of all that, they'd
also have all of Amazon's services:books, music and videos. So a $200 Kindle
Fire would have almost nothing over a $200 Android tablet.

The only problem is that so far none of the manufacturers did that great all-
encompassing marketing for a single tablet that offers you a lot of "benefits"
and not a list of specs. Amazon did that, and they saw success. I'd like to
see at least Google do that with their upcoming (rumored) Nexus tablet.

Being the first to $200 for a tablet that was seemingly as high-quality (or
close enough) to an iPad 2, was a big first mover advantage for Amazon, too. A
Google tablet that is $200, or even $150, would help. But it might get the
same level of impact only if Google is the first to a "quality" tablet that
costs only $99. If Google would do that first and promote the heck out of it
and what you can do with it, I think many millions of people would want one.

I doubt they could do it this year, but early next year with the 2nd
generation it might be possible. But they better do it before Amazon. Because
Amazon will definitely go that direction, since their intention is to only
sell a massive amount of such devices, to get users to pay for their content.

~~~
ImprovedSilence
The problem with that is, Amazon can sell hardware at a loss, fully expecting
to make up the cost from people purchasing wares (books/music/anything on
amazon) on their devices. While Google does make money from the Android
ecosystem, I doubt it's enough/direct enough, to begin selling hardware at a
loss.

------
casca
Before Android came out, each vendor had their own OS. Google doesn't care
about the OS, they just want a platform that will allow users to consume their
services.

In order to convince the manufacturers that they should switch from something
they completely controlled to something that another company controlled, they
needed to know that it would be cheaper and still allow them to generate a
strong brand loyalty.

For example, HTC has the Sense UI which makes their Android phones look and
feel a little different. You might think that this is a stupid waste of HTC's
time, but in 2 years when you get a new phone, they want you to get an HTC,
not an Android.

This is critical in understanding why Google cannot tightly control Android.
If the phone manufacturers see that they're losing the ability to
differentiate their own brand, they'll look at other options.

~~~
AkeleHumTum
> Before Android came out, each vendor had their own OS.

... which was Symbian. Android in the new Symbian - omnipresent but much more
capable.

------
trotsky
It's refreshing to know that all it takes to develop a winning mobile OS
strategy is a BA in journalism.

~~~
GuiA
Thank you for that much necessary snark. It's tiring to read articles on tech
sites by people who have never really worked in tech (reporting about tech is
not working in tech, much like writing movie reviews does not make you a film
maker) who think they know better than everyone else.

~~~
jusben1369
Me too! I hate it when those investigative journalists try and cover a serial
murder investigation. I only want to hear from other serial murderers on the
topic. Writing about serial murder is just not the same as having actually
been one.

~~~
GuiA
Covering a murder != saying "that's how the murderer should proceed for his
next victim" :)

------
dquigley
This article while citing some legitimate concerns fails to recognize that
Google wins as the mobile platforms being used continue to support Google
Advertising. From what I understand Google's biggest goal for Android is to
keep one company from becoming an monopoly and as a result keeping Google out
of the business of advertising to those consumers.

~~~
msabalau
Indeed. Google was already "won". Anything more in the mobile space is just a
cherry on top.

Even with tablets, Google is far better off with there being two players
successful in this space, rather than it being just Apple and irrelevant "also
rans" from Samsung, etc. Given the understandable lack of carrier interest in
subsidizing tablet marketing, Amazon stepping up to the plate is probably the
most cost effective win Google could hoped for.

------
Aissen
Ok, so on the conclusion:

\- Nexus tablet is on the way, don't worry, Google will put it out.

\- Chrome is already on Android, and the codebases are being merged _right
now_ in the chromium tree.

\- Chrome will _never_ be on iOS as long as Apple doesn't change the rules.
Simply because it can interpret other programs via internet (with javascript)
and this is forbidden by iTunes TOS.

\- we might see a preview of Android 5 at Google I/O, but will have to wait
the end of the year to see it ship.

~~~
frio
With respect to your third point, there are already a stack of other browsers
on iOS. I don't see why Chrome would explicitly be excluded, compared to them.

~~~
X-Cubed
I believe all the existing iOS browsers are just wrappers around a Safari web
view. While Chrome and Safari do have a lot in common through their Webkit
heritage, I doubt Google would bother shipping a build of Chrome for iOS, if
it was limited to being a re-skin of Safari.

~~~
__float
This is not the case for Opera.

~~~
Aissen
Because, AFAIK, it's Opera _Mini_ , not Opera Mobile. Opera Mini doesn't do
any JS client-side. I'm not even sure it does all the rendering client side
(needs Opera's servers to work).

------
mertd
[http://betanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Tablet-
foreca...](http://betanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Tablet-forecast-
Forrester.png)

This graph is apparently from the Forrester report quoted in the article. How
does one come up with this? So in 2015, Windows8 (9?) will all of a sudden
gain some good traction at the expense of Android market share but not iOS?
How do you interpolate constant demand for iOS devices 4 years into the future
when the first iPad is only 2 years old?

------
pspeter3
I think the issue with Android is that without CyanogenMod, most android users
would have no way to go to the stock experience that Google has designed

~~~
nextparadigms
That's why I'm hoping that starting at least with 2013, _all_ of Motorola's
devices will use stock Android. It would make no sense to have a separate
division inside of Motorola that once the Android team develops a certain
version of Android, then it runs through them so they add more modifications
before they release it to market. They should just use it as it is from the
Android team, and ship it to market fast.

It would even be a (pretty major) competitive advantage if you think about it,
considering nobody does that, and there are quite a lot of people that want
stock Android. The other manufacturers have no reason to complain, since they
can always do the same, too. And if they were so against a stock version of
the OS, they would have never used WP7. But they did, so that tells me that
they wouldn't be _that_ upset about it.

~~~
msabalau
To build on this point, once stock versions of Android are generally
available, having a non-stock version of Android would only be an advantage to
manufacturers if they were adding something of genuine value to consumers, or
to a segment of consumers.

Of course, the carriers will still find it in their interest to shove
bloatware onto people.

~~~
ericd
I think the last part hit it on the head. The average android phone buyer
likely isn't savvy enough to know the difference while doing a quick run-
through in the store, and the manufacturers know this. Bloatware increases
their razor thin margins, so they're strongly incentivized to put it on there.

------
jsz0
Google's inability to get new software into user's hands is definitely going
to be a problem going forward. I'm actually surprised it hasn't burnt them
worse already. Take ICS for example. It was a very good update for Android yet
by the time it reaches even 25% marketshare iOS6 and Windows Phone 8 will
probably be out. It's quite possible iOS7 will be released before ICS/JB
comprise even 50% of the Android market. Is that really sustainable?

~~~
zanny
This I feel the meat of the problem. When it is easier to upgrade an IOS
device over a Windows PC, and Apple supports the same devices for longer than
Android (which being a tiny bit open source opens up easy backporting) it is
strange that people wonder why no one likes classic Android as much.

Hint: When Siri came out, everyone with a Droid phone wanted it too. When the
feature complete competitor comes out in full force, probably in Android 5?
they will all be hilariously frustrated with how they can't use it because
they have a 2 year old phone.

~~~
myko
Any reason Google's Siri counterpart would be limited to new versions of the
OS? Most (all?) of Google's core apps are available on older versions of the
OS.

In fact I'm not sure I understand why Siri isn't available on the iPhone
4/iPad 2, etc.

------
geoffhill
> _Google could take full control of Android, by not releasing future versions
> to open source and changing licensing terms. The logic: Android is too big
> to fail, that OEMs would have no other choice but align their customized
> platforms with the broader Android ecosystem._

There is yet one more option for Google: instead of moving towards more
copyright, move towards copyleft. At the _very least_ , requiring derivative
source code to be published would allow the various Android derivatives to
build off the work from each other, and allow work to be reintegrated back
into the core. Taking it even further, prevention of hardware restrictions on
software modification (GPLv3) would encourage modifying and swapping Android
derivatives.

Again, Google has to worry about adoption if they make their license more
restrictive (and GPLv3 is _definitely_ more restrictive for the makers of
derivative works). But if they continue to release excellent software, and
there continues to be a lack of viable alternatives, they might get away with
it.

------
btipling
I wish Google would add some of its apps to the Amazon App Store so I can have
a nice gmail reader on my Kindle Fire.

~~~
Stochasticity
You should be able to install g-apps from .apk - It's possible to do on other
android devices and unless amazon did something curious to the Fire it
shouldn't be any different. There are gmail, calendar and other google apks
floating around that you could use.

~~~
CrazedGeek
Except you lose out on (semi-)automatic updates. If you want to get the Market
(and thus, GApps), there's a handy little Windows utility to do just that:
<http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1399889>

------
ktizo
Losing control of android could be a boon to Google, they could focus on core
development more and the android ecosystem would be even more scalable.

------
cnbeuiwx
You mean we wont have someone tracking us, watching us, recording us 24/7
anymore? What a shame.

Google is creepy. I think the web would be better off without their prying
eyes. Specially since they are in bed with the US government just like
everybody else in America.

