Hacker News Reader

Comment by ocdtrekkie | Hacker News Reader

Arguably, it may only have made sense for Samsung to buy Viv if Samsung is planning on ditching Google entirely.

- Google's MADA agreement forbids OEMs from making anything but Google Now/Voice Search the default digital assistant on Android devices with Google Play.

- Google is telling it's hardware partners for Google Home and Google Cast they're forbidden from supporting competing digital assistants.

So, having Viv as a second digital assistant which isn't default on their own devices and doesn't support any of the products Google's does, doesn't make a lot of sense. But if they need something compelling on Tizen to launch an exodus from Google's platform, where the Pixel has just been declared to get a ton of exclusive features they won't have access to... well, that'd be a reason for Samsung to buy Viv.

View on HN

> Google ... forbids OEMs ... from supporting competing digital assistants.

~Wow, that kinda makes all the ire — including the comments on this page — directed towards Apple for its "walled garden" and "not allowing choice" seem a bit unfair.~

The end-user can still install them.

You can install other maps/browsers/assistants on iOS too, and other apps can interface with them if they want to. For example Chrome will automatically open YouTube links in the YouTube app. I agree that iOS is more restricted in that it doesn't let the user specify the default browser etc. for links from other apps, however.

Alternative browsers on iOS are forced to use webkit engine. Also, I don't think you can install alternative dialer/SMS apps, can you?

That's not the point. Default is king.

I meant to edit my post but the time ran out.

Yes iOS has fewer flexibility in its user-facing options than Android, but Google seems to be no less controlling than Apple.

For some cases, I'm glad that iOS has these restrictions for apps, especially when it comes to Google; on the desktop, when I sign onto YouTube, I automatically get signed in for Google Search and everything else as well. That is something I really hate and find alarming, so much that I only use YouTube in private browsing.

Google can't do that on iOS. They TRY to, in a very creepy way — when I sign-in with an email on their YouTube app, all the other Google apps on my device see that email too — but they can't force global-sign-in on iOS. That's good. Some walls are good.

That comes across as well... Pretty anti competitive. Akin to Internet Explorer on Windows.

If the future is dumb, commoditized devices that are basically sensor packages to feed an AI, Google has basically drawn a line in the sand for anyone that wants to use licensed Android and essentially sent the message of "you can only focus on hardware".

Reply on news.ycombinator.com