Don't/can't Android manufacturers provide alternative defaults here?
A new company probably still couldn't develop platform pieces if that chink in the armor was made available by the DOJ. But if Google were split along those lines into two or more companies, it would provide nice and healthy gradients on both the hardware/OS and the platform/software sides of the market.
We really do need a Google breakup.
Isn't core Android open source? As long as you do not need Google apps and Google services, you can use Android OSS right now without Google's platform components.
Manufacturers were contractually forbidden from doing that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitrust_cases_against_Google...
And Samsung does sell phones with customized UI and apps.
Counterpoint: the resources currently dedicated to Apple and Android would then be spread across a dozen operating systems, assuming constant consumer spending.
Maybe you think stasis is a good thing, but I (mostly) appreciate the progress iOS and Android have made over the past nearly two decades. I wouldn't want to currently be stuck at iOS 3 or 4 as opposed to iOS 18.
Assuming you actually mean a dozen phone operating systems. Because we already do have lots of phone companies, but they mostly all use Android.
Motorola is barely hanging out.
Turns out people tend to gravitate to a few choices....
Xioami/Huawei are in essence banned from the US.
i have the feeling that for anything in the US, everything has to end up in monopolies or bipartisan approach. People just seem to buy what their neighbors/coworkers/siblings buy without trying to do a bit of research. Some kind of deep vulnerability to virality. My mate has an iphone, I need an iphone, my neighbor beagged about their Thermomix, I need a Thermomix too immediately.
There's also Amazon, which is often cheaper, but I am a bit old school in the regard that I like to physically use the device before I purchase it.
Either way, the perceived restrictions are more of a self-imposed thing rooted in our consumer conditioning here, which is this weird blend of "customer choice" and "all choices are basically the same" that gets muddy very, very quickly. Most people I talk to, especially the non-technical ones, do not realize that my $150US Moto is serving me just as well as an $600US Samsung would, with my needs being all the common types of communications, reliable 5G, a decent camera and run specific apps I use to control some cloud infrastructure while on the go. It's difficult to feel sympathy when I hear people complain about paying Apple $1000US just to look at TikTok or use Discord. We are guided on what to buy via the marketing machine instead of examining our use-cases and researching a suitable product before purchasing.
It's all silly bullshit, really.
Please write your legislators and demand antitrust action against Apple and Google for the following:
- Lack of One-Tap Web Installs (without scare walls or buried settings menus). This is the biggest stranglehold they have. Web installs can be done safely and securely via app signing, permissions, and signature blacklists.
- First-party defaults for all the platform pieces: Messaging, Payments, Photos, Music, Media, Navigation, etc. Every single one of these lets Apple and Google squeeze another industry and forces us into a pit of no-innovation.
- Default search, in the case of Google, which ropes you into their search / ads funnel. They've also bought it out on Apple's end.
- Default browser tech, in the case of Apple. It prevents innovation on app runtimes and deployment and forces you to develop using Apple technologies.
Winning the mobile rights battle will not only liberate us from the "promo cycle" plague, it'll stop the tax on innovation and introduce healthy competition.
If American legislators and the DOJ / FTC won't act, then every other country should. If enough countries put pressure on Apple and Google, we'll start to see competition reemerge. Right now it's impossible to develop a new smartphone entrant. Even Meta and Microsoft with their nearly-unlimited capital couldn't fight off Apple and Google.
YCombinator would probably be happy if smartphones became open platforms. They'd see healthier margins for startups and less direct platform competition. a16z is pushing for this. Just because Apple and Google were there first twenty years ago shouldn't give them an eternity to rule the entire category.