But yes, let's stop pretending that Google is an altruistic, benevolent and freedom-loving company. It's not.
*To be fair, Google provides various conveniences and services in exchange for your data, so it doesn't get it completely for free. But there are three general categories of people on this: 1) People who like those conveniences and services and have little idea or thoughts about what pays for it. 2) People who understand this exchange, and make it willingly, eyes open. 3) People who understand this exchange, don't like it, and avoid as many aspects of it as they can.
I'll be honest: With every purchase at every web site, every account created, every app installed that asks for this little permission or another, I begin to feel more & more that it doesn't really matter, and fall further into #2.
Furthermore, Epic helped highlight a very important point about Android and iOS: They're not actually competitors. For an OEM building a phone, Android is the only option, it has a complete monopoly on mobile OSes with respect to the market of OEMs who might choose it.
I can choose from 4 different supermarkets within walking distance, and an additional 3 if you count online supermarkets that deliver to my area. That is not the case when it comes to choosing a mobile OS/app store.
Having more than one to choose from is still an option.
And I also know a few that still use and buy feature phones with their OEM only apps, with "by invitation only SDKs".
Which makes the choice bigger than two actually, when one looks at the actual market distribution, something that a judge will care about.
Apple has maybe 25% of the market. I say "maybe", because that percentage is decreasing every day. Especially globally. The reality of the situation is that Google is killing Apple in terms of marketshare. And Apple is eating Google in terms of profit. It's a situation that is a bit unprecedented.
unless a company has a special deal with google, then it's either google or alternatives but not both.
i think the only reason there could be a special deal is that google made some concessions when trying to convince a manufacturer to use android. but that would be an older deal.
Everyone else has really no choice, and Google gives them the my way or the highway approach.
other alternative systems have more freedom than samsung because they are not bound by a license from google.
> they have their alternative OS
This is Tizen, and it doesn't support Android apps at all. It's a completely different operating system, so not entirely clear why Sumsung would want Android apps on it.
It would be impossible to launch a new platform without compatibility for existing apps. There's no way to gain enough developer mindshare to become a serious alternative otherwise.
Jolla had Android app compatibility from the launch in addition to the platform native apps, as they knew that's the only option really.
If you look at the linage of it (Intel Meego) and the time frame they started it (2011) the strategy of HTML5 support for apps kind of made sense.
Allegedly they are adding .NET support to it?
It is still around and actively developed. I believe it's had some success on watches.
on watches and appliances or tvs the android apps don't matter much so android support is less critical there.
tizen needs to support android because the tizen app market doesn't offer everything needed. some important apps are only on android. (namely chat apps for example. without those a phones usefulness is very limited) i had a tizen phone years ago. technically it was very nice, but not even having access to f-droid was a problem.
maybe samsung doesn't care, but as a consumer i do care.
technically it was possible to pack android apps into a wrapper to make them run on tizen. but it had to be done separately. a third-party service could do that, leaving samsung free from violating their android license.
Yes. Samsung and LG have both.
I might be wrong, but this is my take on this. Google has an agreement with OEM not to install any app store. What google objected was not default app of Fortnite. However, it was a Fornite's game store kind of.
Still Google does not object the user to install anything on their phone, though that is getting a bit difficult with Android 11.
TLDR; this article SEEMS to talk about Epic Games App Store, rather than Fortnite.
So yes, Google put a kibosh on an OEM pre-installing a competing store, not just the game.
For example,you are not forbidden from developing for some random Linux distro
They did not build their trust and ecosystem for free,so you should'nt have access to them for free
30% is not unreasonable,costs can be managed,since you are selling a digital product
When did I become Google's property to trade and bargain with? Because it sounds like i didnt buy the phone, Google bought me.
I think the OS is still kicking around and technically not dead yet, but it's really hard to believe that it would be able to break into the OEM side of things at this point. If Microsoft couldn't buy their way in to it I don't see much hope for a group that wouldn't be paying massive amounts of money to handset manufacturers and carriers to support the development & deployment. Though I'd be happy if it were simply possible to flash it onto most Android handsets with full hardware compatibility.
Here it is running phosh: https://youtu.be/mjaJJ6o-mbM
It's pretty close to being a usable GNOME Linux phone
> For example,you are not forbidden from developing for some random Linux distro
> They did not build their trust and ecosystem for free,so you should'nt have access to them for free
> 30% is not unreasonable,costs can be managed,since you are selling a digital product
If only Microsoft had been smart enough to demand a 30% cut of Netscape sales instead of going through all that trouble to create IE.
And Google inserts itself into the relationship between the business partner for that other ecosystem and bullies them into cancelling the deal.
Off course it's important to keep in mind that as of right now, we have only Epic's highly self-interested interpretation of events, and the truth may be far different. It seems LG for example had a pre-existing contract with Google to not do the sort of thing it was about to do with Epic.
It's time to stop lying: Google will absolutely abandon every single rule in the book to ensure they get 30% of Fortnite purchases. It's too lucrative, and Google is too greedy.
This has nothing to do with safety or security. It has nothing to do with playing fair and following their terms. It's about the money.