Google's acquisition of Motorola approved by EU and U.S DoJ regulators
googleblog.blogspot.com
googleblog.blogspot.com
The bad: in the US, they still have to dicker with the wireless carriers.
The ugly: every Android manufacturer will suspect they are being disfavored.
I predict that there will not really be much change in Google's or Motorola's device offerings and that other manufacturers will actually feel better post-acquisition, because now they will be further-protected by Google's patent portfolio.
Is the hardware between devices really all that different? Phones are basically giant screens attached to giant batteries. Where do you go from there? Put in CDMA and GSM radios that each do a bunch of frequencies, and you're done developing phones forever.
(Even the iPhone 4 and iPhone 1 look approximately the same. Big screen. Home button. Power button / volume buttons / vibrate switch. Android devices are even simpler because they only need a power button.)
The problem with phones is that they are all the same in an abstract sense, but all different with respect to drivers and hardware bugs. That means you can never write phone OSes like you can write desktop OSes, which is a huge drag on innovation. Imagine if you could choose between Ubuntu and Mint on your phone. Instead, you're stuck with whatever you get from your carrier, which is worse than nothing at all.
Phones are all software these days, and the hardware manufactures cannot code their way out of a wet paper bag.
There are dozens of different form-factors. Take a look at the diversity of the Android or even the WP7 market. Landscape sliders, portrait sliders, 4.3", 3.7", 5", 3", some with dual core, some with quad core, some with AMOLED screens, some with SAMOLED screens, some LCD screens. Some with removable SD cards, various amounts of storage, various price points of the market.
>Even the iPhone 4 and iPhone 1 look approximately the same
That's because Apple designed them all the same. The way Apple designs their products does not have any relation to the amount of possible designs.
>Android devices are even simpler because they only need a power button.
Android phones are supposed to have four face buttons. This is not strictly required (allowing for variation), but the phones expect you to have four buttons. Windows has three. Apple has one.
>you're stuck with whatever you get from your carrier
Except there is a huge amount of variation in the custom ROM world, which many Android devices allow.
>Phones are all software these days
A common misconception that will at some point pave the way for true innovation in hardware like we've seen in the past when the smartphone market stagnated (then the iPhone was released and it was exciting again).
Is the special sauce added because they believe users appreciate it, or because they have some way to earn money from it?
(Actually, as someone who haven't used Android devices much, what are the common ingredients used in the special sauce?)
And if you are talking about the Nexus One or G1 in particular, no provider continues major-version support of 2+ year old phones.
It should be pretty obvious at this point that something is badly rotten in either the Android development or deployment model. Even Google can't get ICS ported onto their own previous flagship device, despite a huge incentive to do so (get ICS on real hardware onto as many developer's hands as possible) and having had access to the source code all through the ICS development cycle.
Sadly, the binary that is always locked down is the modem. That might not have anything to do with the manufacture. Who knows what code carriers and requiring manufacturers I hide in there.
This was just before the CDMA/LTE (Qualcomm) devices were eradicated from AOSP.
https://plus.google.com/112218872649456413744/posts/75aLL1dW...
What say does Google have over Infineon/Imagination/TI/Qualcomm/NVidia drivers?
It's probably more complex than that, but one can always hope.
Sadly, I think that it's unlikely that Google will really risk enabling this kind of freedom, because of the concern that it would just make life too easy for Amazon and Facebook.
They haven't come out and given it as a joint decision, but it seems too close to be a coincidence - had they just co-ordinated PR releases, or was one of them pushed into a decision by the other, or...?
So yes, it does sound like the Google/Motorola portion of the decision was coordinated. The DoJ was probably waiting for the EC announcement before releasing theirs, or maybe they just agreed to release them the same day and the DoJ one was released a few hours later due to the timezone difference.
The EC announcement, assuming that the Google blog is on Pacific time, would be around 5-6 PM GMT. That's after normal trading hours ends, which makes sense for announcements like this.
The DoJ announcement was at 5PM ET as well.
Think about every Law Enforcement vehicle in the US; every single one of them has a motorola comm system in them. Will Google be making these?
After the split Motorola Mobility went into "ah oh, somebody better buy me or I might do something stupid" mode playing Microsoft and Google against each other. This is also when Motorola was leaking the rumors of a full private Android fork that cuts Google out (replacing the market, gps/navigation libraries, etc), threatening to sue other Android manufacturers, etc. After Microsoft/Apple et al got the Nortel patents, Google couldn't afford for Microsoft to also get Motorola's.
Thanks!