Apparently Play Store is unaffected, but some other apps - banking, streaming, even Pokemon Go - will break. And your warranty (including hardware) is voided. So I stand corrected, and thank you, but I don't think the correction affects the main point.

Those apps are making a conscious decision to exclude phones/roms not certified by Google. That's their choice.

Generally hardware warranty will remain if it's purely a hardware issue - you can always flash back anyway.

Android is free software in the sense that you can make and distribute modified versions. If app vendors choose to discriminate against those versions that doesn't make it unfree any more than software supporting windows and not Linux makes Linux unfree

> Android is free software in the sense that you can make and distribute modified versions.

I don't think that's enough to make it free software, and "free software in the sense..." is nonsensical. Free software would guarantee the continuance of that freedom. Since that guarantee doesn't exist, Google could place limitations on the Play Store at any time. The fact that they haven't makes the example less clear, but it doesn't make Android free software. Even Google doesn't claim that it is.

Play store isn't part of Android. Even if it was only available to specific phones, that wouldn't make Android unfree.

Play store isn't open source at all.

Amazon was able to take Android and put it on their extremely popular devices with 0 support from Google, no play store. That's what I call freedom

Play store isn't part of AOSP.

> Play store isn't part of Android.

It is extremely well integrated into it, by design.

> Those apps are making a conscious decision to exclude phones/roms not certified by Google. That's their choice.

Isn’t the entire point of Google’s certification process to encourage app vendors to make that choice?

No, only for apps that value certified behavior over accessibility. Typically this is payments (high liability for fraud, higher fraud rates from non-certified users), DRM, and multiplayer gaming (prevent cheating).

It’s not legal to void your warranty because you changed some software, unless the software change actually caused the problem you’re trying to get fixed under warranty.

> It’s not legal to void your warranty because you changed some software, unless the software change actually caused the problem you’re trying to get fixed under warranty.

Citation, please?

I’m assuming the poster is referring to the Magnuson-Moss Warrany Act: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson–Moss_Warranty_Act

They work. You just need to install additional software. Magisk + safetynet fix.

Some Android OEMs will allow you to unlock the bootloader and makes changes to the OS without any warranty problems.

The problem with this is that the bootloader is now becoming more and more locked down and the consumers have to jump ever more hoops to unlock it.

Some years ago I had Samsung S2 where unlocking the bootloader was an offline activity. I don't remember how but doing that was quick and easy. Now I own a MotoG4 where unlocking means going to some website, entering my email address and then receiving unlock code in my email. If Motorola knows my email address, or can link the (supposedly unique) unlock code to my phone, what's stopping them from voiding my warranty?

I have a hunch that newer versions of some mainstream phones do not allow unlocking the bootloader, and this is going to become more and more common.

Newest Samsungs cannot be unlocked

Magisk takes care of that.

Yes, but for how long?

Does it matter? There are alternative stores (F-Droid, Amazon, Yalp) and microG for Google login/push notifications.