Re:The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google’s Iron Grip on Android
by jklinger410 on Friday May 24, 2019 @10:20AM
(#20001798)
>Fire is at least one example
/thread
To answer the big question in this thread. Yes, Huawei can simply fork Android. It will be a pain in the ass, expensive, and not as usable, but they certainly can.
Google's "iron grip" in this instance is only ostensible, not literal and complete. HN is not immune to clickbait.
Re:The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google’s Iron Grip on Android
by seniorivn on Friday May 24, 2019 @10:48AM
(#20002097)
They kind of actually already did, like all the chinese companies. Because CCP banned google from chinese market years ago. Banning all CCP related corporations should have been implemented as a part of opening to china. or at least as an answer to CCP's censorship protectionism, etc.
Re:The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google’s Iron Grip on Android
by kuschku on Friday May 24, 2019 @09:30AM
(#20001222)
> different version of Android on each phone (with the apps replaced)
No, their action actually lead to this in the first place — previously, each manufacturer slightly modified the AOSP apps, now each manufacturer actually builds their entirely custom apps for this purpose, as most can’t or don’t want to license Google’s apps for that purpose (they license the base Google Play apps, but e.g. not messages or the phone app or the launcher).
Note too that they could have gone the Microsoft IE route and declared various apps as part of the OS. Instead they made their apps separate from Android, and let them succeed by bundling them together. Amazon Fire is at least one example where the Play Store et al. are not installed.