If you pay close enough attention to these things, you’ve probably seen Google Play Services updating from time to time on your Android devices. If you follow the more technical side of Android, you’ll know it was announced a couple of years ago to introduce new APIs and features in a way that doesn’t require a firmware update. You could be forgiven for dismissing it as a dry and technical part of the OS, but in reality it’s a crucially important part of the way modern Android works.
Play Services is a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing because it makes the lives of developers easier and because it bypasses incompetent carriers and OEMs so that users get considerable updates. It’s a curse because they’re closed source – making it impossible to dig into the code. They make your device less your device, and that’s always a bad thing, especially in today’s world.
So much of this could be addressed if Google opened up as much of it, but that’s very unlikely to happen.
and got screwed for it. As a result we have the carrier/OEM situation because it’s so open. It sucks, but it’s true. I suspect that, in addition to wanting to protect their intelectual property, they were trying to avoid something similar happening with Play Services. Can you imagine what would happen is Samsung, LG, Motorola, etc forked Play Services and introduced their own APIs to it, all the while trying to keep compatibility with Google as well?
Where they want compatibility they make it a contractual part of including Google apps (as they do with other things anyway)
So there’s no technical reason they couldn’t have an open source generic services/api package (call it Android Services) providing local or generic APIs and a Google Play Services package providing google-backed web services and mandate including the unaltered versions in “Google-enabled” devices.
It would combat the fragmentation seen with non-Google devices whilst keeping the Google stuff proprietary.
Of course they wont do that because they don’t WANT the non-google devices to be too compatible – they don’t deliver google ads after all!
Most likely the only thing that would change is that their crap would depend on their flavored Play Services.
FWIW Android is long past the point when usage of stock firmware is worth considering. There are several aftermarket choices for nearly every device from big vendors, and the process of “flashing” them is pretty straightforward, however scary it may feel to non-technical people.
It is common knowledge for ages that after installing Windows you have to install antivirus software. It should be common knowledge by now that after buying a phone from big vendor you have to install aftermarket firmware. Period.
Two months ago, I bought a cheap Android phone (Elephone p6000, 120 USD).
I disabled all things Google and installed FDroid. Not only does everything run fine but also has my battery life improved significantly. What makes Google so special that you can’t live without it?
– Gmail -> no problem, I can use dozens of mail clients as long as they talk POP or IMAP.
– Maps -> I can use the web browser version, not ideal but workable. I have actually paid 25 euro for Copilot on Windows Phone but because I can’t download an apk file from Copilot direct, I haven’t transferred this yet. It looks like I can download a Copilot apk file from some internet sites but of course this is a matter of trustworthiness.
GoogleNow -> To be honest I don’t know what this does, I have never used it. I believe it is a mixture of personalised search and voice. It’s not that important to me.
Search-> webbased, DuckDuckGo or StartPage
Looking back I much prefer the old-fashioned Windows way, where you go to multiple websites and download programs from each vendor separately rather than put all my eggs in one basket and pay 30 percent extra to Google for every app I download *and* being tight to Google.
The only feature I miss is security. A clear benefit for having one central place. But even in the Windows days it rarely happened that you would download a virus if you download from a reputable vendor.
Edited 2015-06-25 10:38 UTC
You shouldn’t need AV. AV isn’t really security anyway but of course if you have to resort to downloading random programs from the internet you might need AV.
You are pointing out the negatives and they are mostly valid points.
My email arrives 5 minutes later than push. I don’t use my phone for business email, it’s not a biggie.
Totally agree on the maps. I wish I had a program that would work offline and can give me directions.
On GoogleNow: I don’t miss what I don’t know I miss.
I have the (unpopular) view that updates are overrated. When a program works well and I am happy with it, I don’t necessarily want to ‘upgrade’ my apps every week (it’s a security risk, it might screw up your phone, there is often feature bloating on a perfectly fine app and you can’t get back to a previous version to name a few negatives) and I like to be in control.
I still have 2 windows computers in my household, a laptop for my wife and a (gaming) desktop. Both don’t run any traditional AV and haven’t done so for the last 10 years. Yes I am mad
What I do install though is NOScript, Ghostery and Adblock. I believe this cuts off the biggest attack vector as boot and email virus are long dead since the floppy was killed and attachments are blocked.
Another example by the way of control by Google. In Windows (or for that matter Linux) you just install the Adblock extension. On Android you need to go through hoops, side load, manual configuration because Google does not allow.
In the end it is all about convenience. How much is one prepared to give up for convenience? In the end I still chose Android (over WP8 <- just as bad on privacy as Google but no control) because I can configure it without Google (like half a billion Chinese and a couple of million Amazon customers)
Have you tried Nokia’s Here maps? They do offline navigation. I downloaded my area of the country, turned it offline, and haven’t needed to go online with it since.
Sounds interesting, but can I install it without Google Play Services?
EDIT: Found this ( DDG
), I am going to try it.
http://www.nokiapoweruser.com/latest-here-maps-android-apk-download…
Edited 2015-06-25 20:46 UTC
If you use a IMAP client like “K9 Mail” that supports IMAP Idle you basically get push. So this is not true about losing PUSH by using an IMAP client.
You don’t have to use Google Maps, HERE Maps or Waze can be used as replacements.
I agree that Google NOW can be nice, but you have to allow the phone access to all your information (mail, contacts, GPS location, etc etc). If you trust Google completely in handling all that information then sure it is a nice feature.
And it’s a battery drain if you want push for multiple folders, because it has to keep a TCP connection open for every folder that you want push for. (Each with its own keepalive, etc.)
This was not their original plan, they only ended up this way because the Android OEMs won’t do timely updates and they needed to bypass them.
It will be closed source forever. If were open source people would change it and then it wouldn’t be the same everywhere anymore. There aren’t any big secrets in it.
But now that they have fallen into this system by accident, it’s a pretty good system for them.
This does not compute. If it’s closed source, how can you, or I, or anyone not a Play Services developer actually know what’s in it?
The reality is, Google is only open-source friendly when it suits their bottom line. There is no good will, there is no “support the community” effort, there is no open source at Google without a hefty price tag attached. Sadly, they are becoming the new Microsoft while Microsoft is becoming…I don’t know what, but at this point they are almost as genuinely open-source friendly as Google pretends to be. And that’s a scary thought indeed.
Total BS. Google might care more for their bottom line than for FOSS, but they are lightyears ahead of MS in FOSS friendliness. Take any metric $ or LOC contributed and they will dwarf MS. Most of MS still mostly hates FOSS and is attacking FOSS all the time with patents PERIOD
Google does open source a lot and has much better history in Open Source than MS but everyone has compared to MS until recently.
But your argument doesn’t take away from Morgans point that Google only supports Open Source because it supports their bottom line.
Google open sourced Android because they knew developers would flock to it and critical mass at that point in time was vital to beat others in the market.
But of all of Google’s Open Source contributions, Android is the least open:
– you can’t submit code.
– there is no public governance to steer the future.
– there is no public source control
The only thing you can do is take the code and fork it.
Google Play Service remains one big trojan horse owned by one company that makes money from shoving ads in your face. I wonder, what could go wrong?
Well I run a custom ROM with Android 5.1.1 on my 4 year old Galaxy Note N7000 (without the Google shit, F-Droid is enough for me, btw it runs much much faster with ART instead of DALVIK)
The power of FOSS and openness right there. Whole different ballgame compared to MS/Windows PERIOD
Over and out
It may be the case that your comments are revealing a little bit of bias, but only slightly so PERIOD
Does the S-Pen work on a non-Samsung ROM?
Kind of. I’ve heard that it “works” but not with the same functionality.
Yes, because Google started out as an open source friendly company, and Microsoft did not. But for every project Google closes, Microsoft open sources at least ten since they started committing to it in the past year and a half.
https://www.microsoft.com/opensource/directory.aspx
And that’s part of the issue: Your bias allows you to ignore the fact that Microsoft has only become open source friendly since the Ballmer ousting. In a very short time they’ve release a ton of code and started new open source projects. Yet you are faulting them because they haven’t caught up to what Google started over 10 years ago, when both companies were headed in different directions than they are now. I’d be willing to bet that if we revisit this topic five years from now, Google will have closed up most if not all of their current (and dwindling) count of open source projects, while Microsoft will have likely reached the point Google is at now with open source, if not surpassed it.
The fact is, Microsoft is open sourcing projects as fast as Google is closing them up. Remember when Google had a messenger service based on an open protocol? Yeah, me too, but they closed that one up. Remember when they had a browser project that was available in a fully open source version with no sneaky binary downloads after compilation? They only fixed it because they were caught, and I don’t trust them not to try something like that again.
The big secrets are back on the servers.
I wonder if they would allow someone to audit the code under their control? I don’t know if anyone has asked to. Hey Thom – ask Google if you can look – see what they say.
I do believe the closed nature of this is simply to keep other people from changing it. The bulk of Play Services is just an API and RPC calls back to the server where the heavy lifting is done. Keeping it closed also lets them change the RPC interface however they choose. Since it gets updated every six weeks or so, it would be chaos if people were modifying it.
If the OEMs had kept their Androids up to date I don’t think it would have been created.
Edited 2015-06-25 11:31 UTC
Google Play Services is also an incommensurate consumer of the battery. I used to have a Galaxy S3 running MIUI ROM without Google Play Services, and the thing would literally last 8 days on a single charge.
Quote: “They make your device less your device, and that’s always a bad thing, especially in today’s world.”
Like your iCrap, which is *not yours*, you’ve just paid for *the privilege of using a wonderful masterpiece*.
Oh, oh, wait, or like when Apple decides *some files ain’t yours anymore and deletes them*.
Etc.
So, you’re saying Google is turning Apple, basically.
https://github.com/microg
Work out how to assist this project. To provide a operational clone. Now if you don’t then you must not be interested enough.
Nothing genius about it. It’s a band-aid. Android is a mess, so says my analytics.
It would already be enough if Google published the specifications and provided the possibility for anybody to implement their API.
Some third-party implementations already exist for location services (UnifiedNlp) and others.
Currently, Google is under antitrust investigation in Europe. Hopefully as a result of that, they will be forced to replace Google Play Services with a stub that makes it easier to use services from different vendors.