Re:A Message to Our Customers
by thelibrarian on Wednesday February 17, 2016 @04:22PM
(#11121518)
Many Android apps include the Google Play Services framework in themselves, as they provide extra functionality that is not in the baseline Android API, e.g. a JSON parser.
I don't use them personally but I imagine Goole Now, GMail and Google Maps would need Play Services.
The apps I do use (non-google) tend to function well enough without Play Services though.