There's a bit of a story going on between Google, Acer, and Alibaba, a Chinese mobile operating system vendor. Acer wanted to ship a device with Alibaba's operating system, but Google asked them not to, and Acer complied. The reason is that Acer is a member of the Open Handset Alliance, which prohibits the promotion of non-standard Android implementations - exactly what Alibaba is shipping. On top of that, Alibaba's application store hosts pirated Android applications, including ones from Google.
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Member since:2008-09-21
It is even very clear. See the Android compatibility terms linked in this article. That terms arn't exactly new but maybe, in the case of Haier, where not enforced that stri t so far. Now they are and maybe Haier got the same choice but unlike Acer/Alibaba they stay silent and not drag all the dirt into public. Original chinese business style.
The oPhone seems to be based on a Android version that existed before the OHA was formed and was since then driven forward by Chinese Mobile with an own SDK and incompatible ecosystem (eg no google or Android apps) which has only 600 apps so far but those are highly tailored to the chinese market. Hardly the same or even in a similar situation.
Member since:2011-04-25
My point is nothing is clear. Your theory is that Haier is okay, they can disregard the OHA requirements, just because they are quiet? Nonsense. I'd really love to see that clause: you don't have to exclusively support Android by using AOSP code as long as you stay quiet about it and don't become too successful... we will tell you when you ar being too loud or too successful.
Secondly, oPhone is made with old parts of Android but it is not pre-OHA, it is post-OHA. It is an Android-derived but not-Android-compatible OS. Also, Lenovo also makes the lePhone -- also Android-derived, also not fully compatible.
You are now shifting excuses just an Android is: is it because it's Android derived? Is it because it runs Android apps but not all them (which is true of virtually every Android phone; Google claims BB is fine, but BB claims to run Android apps but not all of them)? Is it because the store has pirated copies of apps (this could be remedied far more easily than banning the OS)?
Google has thrown 4 or 5 reasons against the wall. All of them are inconsistent and not clear.
Edited 2012-09-17 12:59 UTC
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Member since:
2011-04-25
It's not clear that the OHA actually forbids what Acer is doing. For one thing, another OHA member is already producing both Android and Aliyun phones -- Haier. Secondly, Lenovo was one of the first OHA members to sell Android devices while selling an incompatible fork at the same time, the oPhone, several years ago.
At best, Google either doesn't know what their own rules are for the OHA or they've been doing a shit job applying them or they are arbitrarily creating new rules now for some members based on their significance.