This is largely irrelevant. The ART runtime is open, the class libraries are open. So, it is not very hard to add support for Android applications to another system. In fact, that is what Microsoft did with the canceled Astoria project[1], as well as Blackberry before. Of course, you need to build workarounds for Google Play Services, but that is a solvable problem.
The real reason why Windows Phone with Astoria would fail, is that the platform only provides marginal benefits for most consumers (if any). Add to that uncertainty created by exceptionally bad management (two OS rebases in just a few years) and you have a dying platform.
That said, I think the real danger for Android comes from within: Chinese OEMs providing Android without Google Play Services and/or Samsung being so powerful that it could fork Android.
[1] Some people were running Android apps using a leaked build.
[1] https://developer.amazon.com/public/support/submitting-your-...
Furthermore, running unmodified Android apps on Windows Phone would have conceded the developer share further. Sure, it would've gotten holdout apps on WP at the very least, but the experience would have been subpar, and WP owners would have been reminded daily with bad UX, and the whole thing would be a tacit endorsement that their platform is second-rate, practically running an emulator of someone else's platform.
Instead, Microsoft decided to bite the bullet, scrap Astoria, roll out (the same) Windows 10 to as many desktops as they can and see if that changes the app equation. So far, it hasn't yet, but after years of screwups and scrapping platforms they finally have a strategy, and some leverage. Google knows this all too well, which is why they finally brought Android apps to Chromebooks.
If Google brings Android apps onto Chrome on Windows 10 or macOS, it's over, everyone else has lost.
Having tried BlueStacks repeatedly I wouldn't say that's game over. Unless Google pulls off the most seamless emulation ever.
It would be nice to see Google having a taste of their own medicine by having forked Java in first place.
The only thing that can pose challenge now is Geopolitical entities like China or Europe etc start putting increasing restrictions on Google/Android etc
It is nice to see though Oracle with all their money and ambition and Java ownership could not make an Android competitor / compatible system. I think meagre relief from courts of law has dampened their enthusiasm about anything beyond enterprise market.
No sane app developer would invest into it.
I was just thinking of Android itself. Samsung already has quite a few extensions.
Currently Android Java is a mixture of Java 6, 7 and 8, doesn't implement 100% of any of those versions, which fails the Java TCK with a glorious score.
Both runtimes (Dalvik/ART) are still slower than industrial Java Embedded JDKs like J9 or PTC.
All for not paying licensing fees to Sun.
Does Google call it Java? No, and you clearly know this. So why is there a need to pass the TCK? As for the TCK itself, you need look no further than Apache to see what a farce it is.
>Both runtimes (Dalvik/ART) are still slower than industrial Java Embedded JDKs like J9 or PTC.
I'd love to see the performance and resource usage of the JVM on a mobile device. You see, there's a reason Oracle failed miserably trying to build their Java phone.
Surely it does
https://developer.android.com/index.html#q=Java
I see tons of references to it.
> I'd love to see the performance and resource usage of the JVM on a mobile device. You see, there's a reason Oracle failed miserably trying to build their Java phone.
I'd love to see Google fanboys accept the fact that Google has ripped off Sun of their work and brought fragmentation to the Java world with libraries that don't work on Android.
Of course Oracle and Sun failed, Google gave their work for free to OEMs.
Reference to Java libraries doesn't mean that Google calls it Java, and you know it.
> I'd love to see Google fanboys accept the fact that Google has ripped off Sun of their work and brought fragmentation to the Java world with libraries that don't work on Android.
I suppose that Java SE, Java ME and Java EE are compatible and they are not fragmented.
Calling others fanboys? The argument you have is insulting?
Are you saying that Apache ripped off Sun?
Microsoft doesn't implement C99, C devs bash Microsoft because they don't update the language.
Google doesn't provide a proper Java implementation, it is ok they are on their right to fork the language.
Java is the whole package, virtual machine, language and libraries.
Anything else is a plain fork and word games to workaround licensing issues.
"For more information about general practices to clean up your resources when programming in Java, refer to other books or online documentation about managing resource references."
https://developer.android.com/training/articles/memory.html
> I suppose that Java SE, Java ME and Java EE are compatible and they are not fragmented.
Yes, since Java 8 there is a notion of profiles, valid across all certified implementations.
Android is not even compatible with Java compact profile 1, the smallest of them.
> Calling others fanboys? The argument you have is insulting?
Yeah apparently we are not allowed to side with Oracle.
> Are you saying that Apache ripped off Sun?
They also did not have a license to use Java on embedded devices did they?
The LGPL with classpath exception license was only valid for desktop and server deployments of Java.
Again, they don't call it Java so they can do whatever they want with it.
>Android is not even compatible with Java compact profile 1, the smallest of them.
Good thing they didn't call their implementation Java.
>Yeah apparently we are not allowed to side with Oracle.
It's kind of hard to side with a company with a reputation like Oracle and even harder for one that thinks it can sue for 9 Billion dollars for the partial use of a API's SSO.
>They also did not have a license to use Java on embedded devices did they?
They didn't call it Java so they didn't need one.
But hey lets just shout to the wind the "do no evil" crap.
I use Android Studio with Gradle and Java to write Android applications, how come it isn't Java!?!
Every other company in this planet is fine to play by the rules of the Java world, just Google not.
Instead they fill the Android documentation with the Java word everywhere, rely on Java compilers and libraries, but just because they don't put a coffee cup it isn't Java.
On top of that they cherry pick features from Java, slowly making it impossible to write portable libraries without having multiple code paths.
Which is going to become increasingly harder with Java 9 and 10 features.
Just because they play word games by putting Android on the box, it doesn't make it less Java.
Really? Now it is clear that you're just not being serious
Android is a fork of the Java eco-system that prevent 100% of Java 8, 9 and upcoming 10 features to be used on the platform.
Anything else that Google states is a plain game of words to avoid paying Oracle for what they did to Sun.
I really don't see the appeals court overturning a jury verdict. Keep dreaming, though.
>Android is a fork of the Java eco-system that prevent 100% of Java 8, 9 and upcoming 10 features to be used on the platform.
I find it funny that you think that a fork must adhere to the rules of the open source project they branched away from.
>Anything else that Google states is a plain game of words to avoid paying Oracle for what they did to Sun.
It would seem the only company getting paid is Google. First from Oracle's incompetent legal team for disclosing confidential information and secondly by Oracle for court fees and possible legal fees.
I like how you conveniently leave out the facts to try make your argument relevant. Microsoft used the Java trademarks and modified the way Java worked. Sun was justified in suing them for this.
>I use Android Studio with Gradle and Java to write Android applications, how come it isn't Java!?!
You use the Android SDK to write Android applications.
>Every other company in this planet is fine to play by the rules of the Java world, just Google not.
Why does Android/Google need to play by the rules of the Java world when they don't call their implementation Java? Android doesn't use any of the code/IP in the JVM and it doesn't use any of the concrete code implementations from the JDK (pre 7.0). The only argument you have is the SSO of a subset of API's and we all know how that went down.
>Instead they fill the Android documentation with the Java word everywhere, rely on Java compilers and libraries, but just because they don't put a coffee cup it isn't Java.
So you now have a problem with Google using a compiler, of an open source project, to generate JVM bytecode that is then translated to DEX bytecode so that it can run on a device that processes DEX bytecode into native ARM machine language?
>On top of that they cherry pick features from Java, slowly making it impossible to write portable libraries without having multiple code paths.
What's wrong with cherry picking features? Forked projects do it all the time. Do you have an issue with forking open source projects. As long as Google doesn't call their implementation Java they can cherry pick whatever they like. If Oracle has a problem with this then they should update their OpenJDK license.
>Which is going to become increasingly harder with Java 9 and 10 features.
Not really. I'm sure they'll "cherry pick" the good stuff like Value Types and discard what they don't deem necessary for their implementation.
I think you're a little confused, what the heck has to do siding with one company with you insulting the people that don't agree with you?
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/fanboy
"a boy or young man who is a fan of someone or something such as an actor, a type of music, a piece of technology, etc.:"
Unless you consider an issue being called "boy or young man", then I excuse myself.
Again, please point to me a proper link where Google calls their implementation Java. For obvious trademark violation reasons they don't.
>I'd love to see Google fanboys accept the fact that Google has ripped off Sun of their work and brought fragmentation to the Java world with libraries that don't work on Android.
And I'd love to see Oracle supporters gracefully accept defeat. Google didn't rip off anything and the SSO of the API's they used were ruled fair use. Why is this so difficult for you to accept?
Samsung already maintains a (bad) fork(s?) of Android, as Android Devs who have have been fixing Samsung-specific bugs for years know very well.
This is only true in theory, it's much more difficult in practice. Look at the Jolla phones for example, they have a non-Android OS (called Sailfish) but it "can run" Android apps (without Google services, IIRC).
However, the quality is lacking. Not all apps work, many have annoying glitches and it's just not as good as advertised.
Also, I wouldn't exactly call Android "open". The source is available, but the development and the decisions are taken behind closed doors. Things can and have changed without advance warning. It takes a great amount of effort, time and money to maintain a non-Google Android version like the Chinese Androids.
>The real reason why Windows Phone with Astoria would fail, is that the platform only provides marginal benefits for most consumers (if any). Add to that uncertainty created by exceptionally bad management (two OS rebases in just a few years) and you have a dying platform.
It's already a dead platform. They simply cut their losses and pressed the eject button because they suddenly realized their implementation would have been fraught with endless problems. So they decided to go with Project Islandwood to make the process of porting iOS apps to Windows Phone easier. Unfortunately, this too has been a failure as no iOS developer is going to waste their time porting to a platform with a market share that is hovering at about 0.05% and gradually declining by the quarter.
>That said, I think the real danger for Android comes from within: Chinese OEMs providing Android without Google Play Services and/or Samsung being so powerful that it could fork Android.
I really think you underestimate the power of the Google ecosystem and Play services. Selling an Android phone outside of China without Google Play Services is just a recipe for failure.
She didn't get another SIM though, so she tethers it to the Windows phone in her handbag.
Her experience has been that an app-less Windows phone actually has quite a lot of useful features built in, especially the social network integration. It's just that as soon as you need an app for something specific it's not there.
EDIT: I stand corrected due to having misunderstood that the claim refers specifically to the status of Windows Phone.