They also didn't give away the source code... Anyone can ship a phone without the Google Play store, but almost no one wants to buy one. Check out the Amazon Fire Phone as an example, backed by one of the biggest companies in the world and you can fit the number of Fire Phone users in a small room and still have lots of room left over.

No, not anyone can ship a phone without the Google Play Store: if you ship one device with it, all your devices must ship with it.

That isn't that far away from Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. v. Intel Corp. over Intel's exclusivity contracts.

Really? Didn’t know they did that.

MS had effectively the same rule too, didn’t they? Wasn’t that (one of) the reasons we didn’t see Linux as even a BTO option for the longest time?

> MS had effectively the same rule too, didn’t they? Wasn’t that (one of) the reasons we didn’t see Linux as even a BTO option for the longest time?

Until 1994: https://www.techrepublic.com/article/microsofts-1994-consent...

Note that the MS one was different: OEMs paid license costs based on computers shipped (with/without Windows), whereas Google requires complete exclusivity if you ship one device with Google Play Store.

I thought the MS one was cost based. “It’s nice and cheap until you sell one OS/2 box.”

Thanks.

Honestly there were so many things wrong with the fire phone I dont think adding Google Play would have made any real difference.

They’ve been pretty successful in the tablet market.

But go into anywhere that sells phones. Carrier store, Best Buy, Walmart, whatever. Find a single Android phone that DOESN’T have google services on it. I’d be surprised if you can.

People want Android. And by Android they largely mean the Google Play Store and related services.

“It’s an Android phone, but none of the apps you see advertised are available for it!” No normal user is going to be happy with AOSP.

Not a single Android phone in China ships with Google Play. So alternatives do exist!