{"id":2066,"date":"2013-10-21T09:21:15","date_gmt":"2013-10-21T17:21:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iwasmisinformed.com\/?p=2066"},"modified":"2013-10-21T09:21:15","modified_gmt":"2013-10-21T17:21:15","slug":"the-transformation-is-complete","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iwasmisinformed.com\/?p=2066","title":{"rendered":"The Transformation Is Complete"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ars Technica (which is an everyday read for me, and it should be for you too) absolutely goes in on Google’s control of Android<\/a>, and how their much-vaunted “openness” is being modified (where by “modified” they mean “kicked to the curb”) for the sake of consolidating control. \u00a0The tl;dr version: while Android launched with open source for the OS and the apps, those apps are being replaced with closed-source alternatives and the old ones deprecated to the point of uselessness, and if you want to make a Google app-equipped Android device, you can’t make devices with any other flavor of Android.<\/p>\n

Those of you who remember the old days of Microsoft dominance will recall that if you wanted to make Windows systems, you couldn’t make anything else – Hitachi tried to install BeOS as a dual-boot option and had to engage in all kind of shenanigans to make it invisible unless you really wanted it to run, so that Microsoft wouldn’t strip their Win license. To date, the only Android device-maker willing to go that route – to eschew the Google apps and Google Play store and take a chance on going it alone – is Amazon, which has the money and the media library and the server back-end to make it feasible. \u00a0It also explains why so many phone makers – Samsung most prominently – are bundling their own versions of what seem like standard apps: it’s a hedge against the possibility that they’ll ever have to cut ties with Google and go it alone.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, this drives home how untenable the open-source model is for handsets – it’s no longer enough to have hardware and an OS; you now need services and applications. \u00a0Android may technically be “open”, but out in the real world it’s anything but. \u00a0There might be a niche for something like the Fairphone<\/a> or the Phonebloks<\/a> approach, but you’re really, really, really<\/em> going to have to want to roll your own to make it remotely worthwhile\u2026especially when a Nexus phone is only $350 off-contract or an iPhone 5C can be had for $50 on contract.<\/p>\n

It’s Linux all over again: it can be made easier and many of the edges filed off with the cunning use of Ubuntu, if someone’s willing to create the Android equivalent (maybe Ubuntu themselves?<\/a>) but for 99% of the world, the juice ain’t worth the squeeze. \u00a0Meanwhile, Google really has become the mobile Microsoft; the only difference this time is that when Apple got there first, they fortified their position a hell of a lot quicker and stronger than they ever did on the desktop. \u00a0If we’re going to have a virtual duopoly, at least they’re punching at relatively equal weight this time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ars Technica (which is an everyday read for me, and it should be for you too) absolutely goes in on Google’s control of Android, and how their much-vaunted “openness” is being modified (where by “modified” they mean “kicked to the curb”) for the sake of consolidating control. \u00a0The tl;dr version: while Android launched with open … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Transformation Is Complete”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iwasmisinformed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2066"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iwasmisinformed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iwasmisinformed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iwasmisinformed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iwasmisinformed.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iwasmisinformed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2066\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iwasmisinformed.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iwasmisinformed.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iwasmisinformed.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}