

What Is The One True Android & How “Open” Is It? - eevilspock
http://marketingland.com/what-is-the-one-true-android-and-how-open-is-it-21664

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blinkingled
Flamebaity nonsense about nothing. I almost thought I will see a "is this all
very confusing to you? Just use this other platform." somewhere. But the whole
article is just a bunch of made up crap that has no real consequences.

It doesn't matter if AOSP is called Androidium or iHateittum. So long as the
apps run (which they do - on the Kindle, on the Samsungs, on the ZTEs etc.),
it is still Android - kinda like a better, actually working J2ME.

And so long as you can make your own, fully functional OS out of AOSP,
sideload apps and other markets on what the OHA distributes, it is still very
much open - the fact that Google's non-open apps are only available to those
oha members under reasonable conditions (btw CyanogenMod, which is not part of
OHA, uses sideloaded GApps and Google isnt shutting them off) is no reason to
call Android closed. Google to my knowledge hasnt called their apps open.

~~~
vibrunazo
Pardon my ignorance, but what _exactly_ are the benefits of the OHA? What
exactly would HTC be missing if they abandoned the OHA and released the phone
anyway? Would there still be a play store and google apps on their phone?

~~~
blinkingled
Benefits of OHA are that the members get access to shared IP , Google's
Ecosystem and technical collaboration along with possibility of building a
lead device ala Nexus. For their part, handset manufacturers get to share
their IP when it makes sense and pass the compatibility test that helps Google
avoid incompatible implementations.

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sabret00the
I'm surprised at the sheer number of people that have struggled to grasp the
difference between an open Android and a closed OHA. Amazon aren't in the OHA
and as such are able to do what they want, Acer had the option of leaving the
OHA and using any fork they want, including the AOSP Android.

Yes Acer would be forced to launch devices later than the code would be
launching on the latest greatest Nexus, but should Acer have gone that route,
they'd probably be on to something. OEMs should stop making devices designed
to run the latest iteration of Android and simply run good stable devices that
require as little modification of the code to get running as possible. If they
then want to overlay that and add their own store, that's up to them.

HTC have been hedging their bets with Android in the completely wrong way,
hence the abomination that is the Sense framework and locked bootloaders. The
key is freedom and ultimately any discord comes from the OEMs trying to ensure
a future beyond Android.

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stephengillie
While balking at the insult of "fake Android", I think the author is in the
wrong about calling AOSP the secondary tree -- many of us depend on it for our
Android updates, after our carriers abandoned us and the devices they sold us.

With OS updates coming from carriers and not Google, they become essentially
non-existent, and each carrier's fork gets whatever spyware, adware, bloat-
ware, and network lock-in they desire, locking phones to their dumb pipe.

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cek
Google lost control of Android long ago. They are trying desperately to regain
control. But this is futile as the allowed it to become too successful.

[http://ceklog.kindel.com/2012/01/14/fragmentation-is-not-
the...](http://ceklog.kindel.com/2012/01/14/fragmentation-is-not-the-end-of-
android/)

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tkahn6
IMO there is no reason to get an Android phone not officially distributed by
Google (e.g. the Nexus 7).

I bought an HTC Droid Eris: EOL'd a year. Never saw a version update.

Then I bought a Samsung Droid Charge: EOL'd in a year. Will never see a 4.0
update.

Yes I've learned my lesson. I'm on Verizon so I can't get the Nexus. I'll be
getting an iPhone 5.

~~~
wollw
If you're talking about the Verizon Galaxy Nexus being dropped from the AOSP
you should know it was brought back into it. Personally I use a custom rom
anyway but the Galaxy Nexus is on Verizon and you can download the latest
builds from Google.

[https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/drivers#torojro0...](https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/drivers#torojro03h)

edit: I mistakenly linked to the binary drivers there and I seems you might
need to build AOSP yourself if you want to use it straight from Google. I
guess you're taking issue to the Verizon Galaxy Nexus being sold through
Verizon instead of via Google's store. Verizon's full retail price is pretty
ridiculous compared to Google's price but in terms of support the Verizon
Galaxy Nexus seems to be getting just as much from Google as the other
variants.

~~~
yareally
Yeah, it's fairly simple to compile the Android source. Plenty of tutorials
out there on XDA, Rootzwiki and from Google themselves.

Basically, one just has to grab the drivers you mentioned above and pull the
source using repo/git and compile using Linux (Debian/Debian forks are the
easiest generally to do it with) or OSX.

I compiled the source the day after it came out for Android 4.1 for my Verizon
Galaxy Nexus. Ran it all the way up until yesterday when I switched to
Cyanogenmod 10.

I'm an admin (yarly) at Rootzwiki, so if anyone has questions on how to build
the source or mod it, you can head over there and post questions in the
development forum. There's usually a few of us that reply in our free time.

