This is some sloppy reporting. The 'Android operating system' is licensed under the Apache 2.0 licence[0]. Nothing in that licence obligates handset manufacturers to 'load the free apps'.
Arguably many of Android's core APIs now flow through Play Store Services (e.g. Location Services).
[0] PDF warning: http://www.benedelman.org/docs/htc-mada.pdf
In Europe and the US. Worldwide, the majority do (cf. Xiaomi)
> By obligating handset makers to load the free apps along with the Android operating system
"Along with." It was enforced bundling.
The person above mistakenly claimed the article was wrong due to Android's license which is both a misreading of the NYT's story and also wrong in the larger sense.
No, I'm not.
"in order to bundle the Play Store and associated Google services you have to agree to MADA"
But "the Play Store and associated Google services" aren't part of Android. So you can ship Android devices without them.
"No major manufacturer, except Amazon, ships an AOSP variant without Google's Services."
Yup. Amazon shows that you can ship Android devices without the Play Store and Google services.
> By obligating handset makers to load the free apps along with the Android operating system
The NYC article said google was compelling handset makers to bundle free apps ALONG WITH the Android OS, they didn't say that Android OS's license required said bundling.
Google obligated handset makers via the MADA linked above. If you want the Play Store, Play Services, and all of Android's APIs to work, you have to agree to MADA which means bundling Google's apps with the Android OS.
Handset makers obligated _themselves_ by (voluntarily) signing up to the MADA.
Handset makers didn't really have much of a choice, they weren't big enough to compete directly with Google.
I find it hard to believe that they were too small in comparison with Google to compete with their own mobile OS and app market.
They already tried, more than once, and all their attempts failed.
I thought the case was about bundling (i) some set of Google services/apps and (ii) some other set of Google services/apps.
You can either ship every Android device with the Play store, or none. As a manufacturer, you don't get to pick and choose, thanks to the newspeak-ish Open Hardware Alliance (OHA).
Amazon could not get Foxconn to manufacture their Android phone for example because Foxconn would lose their license to MADA.
Bundling has two senses, one "physical" (Android OS and Google apps are part of the same disk image) and one business (like bundled pricing).
We're talking about economic tying[1], and they suddenly switched the physical definition of bundling. The reader would be justified in expecting them to use the word bundling in its business sense.
This ruling finally forces Google to decouple at least some of its apps from the package, and to sell some devices (but not all of them) with or without Google apps.
A) not selling non OHA approved Android devices
B) installing Apps X,Y,Z
Amazon is one of the few Companies thats not a member of the OHA and can ship their own modified FireOS.
If you do, you want to have access to the Google ecosystem. You will fail without PlayStore access. See Amazon phones.
I'm not convinced this is the case. Depends on definitions of successful. The absence of competition is not the same as the absence of the ability to compete, and regulating the latter under that assumption improperly assumes it will fix the former. There is more to success than the playing field.
Does it make more sense put this way ?
MicroG is a project aimed at developing open source alternatives to those android components. https://microg.org/
"Which Android experience do you want? Google, Tencent, Baidu, Microsoft, or EFF?"
The Play Store is not included in that license. And given the stranglehold it has on the app distribution scene in the US and Europe, shipping a phone without it is suicide.