In just a few weeks, Google will be pushing out one of its largest Android releases ever: Android 5.0, Lollipop. The update changes nearly every aspect of the OS – a new design for every app, a new runtime, lots of new features, and a focus on battery life. The company is also launching a pair of new Nexus flagships, the Nexus 6 and Nexus 9 aiming for a more premium market, and the first Android TV device, the Nexus Player. Together with the release of Google Inbox and a new Wear update, we’re in the middle of a very busy few weeks.
Unfortunately nothing on AOSP. It seems with all the unbundling going on there is not much left in the base OS… even the WebView component was removed. Great if you run CyanogenMod or Omnirom and don’t want to use the Google Play services/store…
It seems Android gets very close now to becoming useless without proprietary Google components. Rough times ahead for F-Droid.
I think the problem is your expectations of what a “usable” phone is have changed. The Play Store, Maps, Calendar, Chrome, etc. all use propriety Google services. Google would argue that they’re doing the right thing by keeping them out of Android AOSP.
AOSP is meant to be a Google free base that anyone can use to build a smartphone. The fact that you consider the Google components essential is something of an endorsement for Google’s Android.
What I meant was: app developers will use more of the proprietary APIs because it is easy and convenient for them. So, even if the developers make the source code of their app freely available it will become more difficult to get them running without Google’s proprietary APIs and involves porting to non-Google alternatives of those APIs, which is a shame…
You are making no sense dude… You want Google re-bundle their propriety shit into AOSP and this will make their API’s less convenient for app developers???
Nah, it makes sense. You’re reading his response wrong.
He’s saying that the current state of affairs, develoers write to the Google specific apis for maps, calandar, etc.
This makes their application incompatible with pure AOSP, even if all of the code for their app is released as open source under a license like MIT or BSD.
I agree it would be nice if there were basic versions of those api’s avalible in ASOP. Even if they did nothing but returned empty results.
function getMap (GPSCords myLoc) {
map = _getEmptyMapResult();
return map;
}
On the bright side, basic versions of these API’s can be implemented by 3rd parties. Unless Oracle has its way of course…
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing myself. Google can not possibly go after someone for re-implimenting its apis after that trial.
However, I kind of doubt that aosp would accept the re-implimentation of the apis. You’d most likely need to fork. (Feel free to chime in Eugina)
The only problem I have with the unbundling is webview. There is a security reason why it makes sense, but its history is kind of infuriating.
New webview uses chrome’s blink. Blink is a fork of webkit. Webkit was a re write of khtml.
Because of that heritage Blink contains some LGPL code. It kind of belongs more on the “open source” side of things. Or at least there should be a chromium-esque version of it that is there.
The good news is that everyone in the business knows Google is locking it down, so they can all work on backup plans!
App maturity and popularity will crystallize soon enough, so satisfying users with a new OS will not be the chore that it was in the past. Get the top 10 apps and it might be enough for the top 90% of users. There will not be 10 new must-have apps that you’re missing every year.
Samsung, Amazon, Facebook, Blackberry(+Lenovo?), LG, not to mention all those silent Chinese assassin manufacturers. There are big players who could be putting a hit out on Google’s Android right now.
And if you doubt this, consider the battle right now in India and China for the next billion users who don’t have a smartphone at all. It’s not a given that they’ll need or want Android.
Considering…. Nope. There is a difference between probability and possibility. Its possible, sure. But the probability of someone displacing Android is pretty small. Look at all the trouble Samsung is having with Tizen. They control enough of the supplier chain to make an alternative OS work, but they haven’t cracked the code yet.
Huh? They haven’t tried. Whether it would fail or not is unknown.
Yeah, I guess Samsung hasn’t actually released a tizen phone. But Tizen is essentially Bada, which they tried. Tizen phones keep getting delayed. They also released smart watches and cameras running the OS, to crickets.
To anyone who has lived long enough to see a leader toppled, the probability of someone displacing Android is 100%. The question is how and when. I’ve offered some possibilities there.
Personally, I always thought the Google services were the only good things to Android. Of course, now you can use Nokia’s Here maps, but I don’t think other apps (like the many sports trackers) will make use of those like they use Google Maps.
So tired of it, can’t hear this anymore