Most of Android is licensed under the Apache 2.0 license. So while the word "owns" is true in a technical legal sense, there is nothing to prevent anyone from forking it and doing their own thing. Unlike with GPL code, they don't even need to license their changes under the same license as long as they abide the terms with respects to the original.
Personally I use GrapheneOS in order to "de-Google" without switching to the Apple ecosystem. No Google Play (you can install it but I choose not to), FOSS apps only. I don't recommend it for everyone but it made me not hate owning a smart phone for the first time since the "mobile revolution" passed my old grumpy self by.
Look how well Huawei smartphones are selling in the west (not well at all). And that's not because of lack of trying, I've been on a team where everybody agreed that supporting their phones had zero upside outside of the cash Huawei offered for a port of our apps. And we did it, only because they paid so much. And those were laughably unattractive apps (think yellow pages), I can't even start to imagine what they must have spent in other directions.
Because they used to have Google's play store and other services. Parent commenter's point is that a manufacturer having the open source parts of Android isn't necessarily worth much on its own.
Google have done a great job over the last ten years of making Android pretty unusable without Google's proprietary software on it.
Don't have Google Play Services (Proprietary) then no access to push notifications, maps APIs etc etc.
Yes, Vanilla Android works, but it's rough as guts. And who'd want to buy a phone where push messages for Facebook/Instagram etc don't work? Very few people.
> Personally I use GrapheneOS in order to "de-Google" without switching to the Apple ecosystem. No Google Play (you can install it but I choose not to), FOSS apps only.
This is only valid for power users. Normal users would probably never accept a phone without Google Play Services running on it, with Amazon's devices being the exception (and don't ask me why, because I don't get it.)
Of course this is true, that is why it's a real threat when a company like Samsung, with the resources and money to make these things convenient/unnoticeable to normal users is a real problem to Google
Yes that is ironic. As someone else said, Google made the best de-Google-able phone. But from what I gather they chose it because of the specific hardware features and they need to restrict what they support to keep the project manageable and maintainable.
I bought mine outright and wiped the Pixel version of Android and am pretty happy. To be clear, I wasn't trying to avoid giving Google money ... I just wanted a phone and operating system that I felt like I had control of, without having a ton of bloatware and spyware pre-installed by the vendor etc.
That's correct. It's my understanding that this is for two reasons:
1) google opened api/support for verified boot on the pixels (so you can tell if a border agent hacked your grapheneos phone, for example)
2) it's easier to support fewer phone models (given they are not a large team)
I bought a refurbished pixel 3a last year for a little over $100 and have been thrilled with my grapheneos experience. I don't run google play, but it is my understanding this can be done in a sandbox (allowing for more privacy than usual).
They did and I bought a used pixel6 just to switch to graphene. The problem is that the next pixel will likely be much more difficult to do this with because google is going to not not be evil.
Really?! You mean that my offering additional information and context didn't magically alter the very nature of time itself, thus causing the characters that they typed to change representation in Hacker News' database? You don't say! (do I need a /s indicator?)
And what value, exactly, does your comment add to the conversation?
> paying Samsung for staying on Android with Google Search
> google still owns android
> Personally I use GrapheneOS in order to "de-Google"
It doesn't matter that Google owns Android if Samsung can make their own fork of Android that doesn't use Google stuff by default. Is there something that would prevent Samsung from creating their own app store?
Samsung already has their own app store (Galaxy Store) alongside the Play Store. Have only used it personally to download/update Samsung specific apps however.
Personally I use GrapheneOS in order to "de-Google" without switching to the Apple ecosystem. No Google Play (you can install it but I choose not to), FOSS apps only. I don't recommend it for everyone but it made me not hate owning a smart phone for the first time since the "mobile revolution" passed my old grumpy self by.