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Comment by chromedev | Hacker News Reader

Android Location API uses Google services to provide better location data using Wifi hotpsots and other devices. I wouldn't expect to be able to use Google services without Google. You don't have to use it and get accurate results without it as well.

As you can see they also provide examples of alternative apps that can be used that do not rely on Google, or you can install F-Droid and use apps from the open source marketplace that are open source as well.

This is much more than Apple, who won't even let you install apps outside their app store. While it would be nice for Google to open source their apps as well, they aren't necessary and there are plenty of alternatives and phone manufacturers who have built their entire reputation on providing an alternative to the Google experience while using Android.

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> You don't have to use it and get accurate results without it as well.

And this can be applied to nearly every 'improvement' in all Android releases. Can you name any improvements to AOSP in the past five years? All I see on every their presentation is more and more Google Services, FCM, Assistant, etc.

Almost all of the items listed here are improvements to AOSP rather than to Google Play Services, including the changes in the last 5 years:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_version_history

It doesn’t matter that it’s ‘more than apple’ or if some parts are open source.

Android as most people understand it is not open source.

Google promised an open alternative and have simply reneged on that promise.

It matters more than you think. No one expected Google to open source all their apps. Android has plenty of open source apps.

How does it matter?

Because they literally have an open source operating system that is being used by a multitude of phone manufacturers, kiosks, home security systems, developers, hobbyists, security experts, Amazon Kindle, etc without any licensing fees which can be audited by anyone.

This is simply false.

There is not a multitude of phone manufacturers using an open source operating system.

The Android that phone manufacturers use is largely closed source, and only part of it is open source.

This has been irrefutably documented elsewhere in this thread.

This thread is about phones.

The fact that you can use the open source components of Android to build a home security system, but not a phone, just proves the point, that Android as a phone operating system, as most people consider it to be, is not open source.

The operating system is open source. You are trying to say Google apps and services are part of the operating system, but they aren't. I take it you've never installed a custom Android ROM before, who frequently don't package gapps? Are you suggesting that before you have an operating system, you have to install the gapps APK?

Certainly some of the apps and especially services are considered part of the operating system by most people.

You only have to look elsewhere in this thread to see all of the features which have been moved out of AOSP into Google Play Services to see this proved.

So you're suggesting that without Google specific proprietary apps and services that Android doesn't boot up and the phone can't be used with third-party apps?

Third party apps won’t work if they rely on Google play services as many do.

Whether it boots or not is irrelevant if it doesn’t do what people expect a smartphone OS to do.

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