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Comment by andrewmcwatters | Hacker News Reader

This is cool, but I'm mostly sad the future of computing is so closed. I can already see that you're not going to be allowed to do a lot of things on these devices to the point that they're useless, like iPhones.

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Google's announcements around these things always scare me. So many references to Google Play and their own services, its hard to tell if this will be open like Android itself or some locked down appliance like the Vision Pro. Its no surprise Apple chose to follow the iPhone model since it's so profitable for them, I'm not sure Google has the same incentives so maybe they wont copy that part.

It seems like even Android being "open" these days is an incomplete story, as it's almost more like a barebones Linux kernel build with some bare UI and libraries now, rather than a mobile OS distribution with standard apps that vendors can build on.

You seemingly have to do everything yourself, which begs the question why not just go full blown Linux distribution, and throw on some sort of Android app emulation?

I largely agree, especially when focused on consumer devices. Professionally I'm building a product built on top of AOSP, and it's been really nice to have a standard target and all the tooling that Android brings. It could be better but the base AOSP does have a lot of value as a general purpose OS.

I'm in the midst of debating moving us to just Linux or sticking with Android, and the list of things to replace isn't insignificant.

you can blame the FTC for that, google is getting antitrusted because they built android as an open ecosystem and then tried to monopolize it, whereas apple gets mostly free reign over their walled garden. it reads to me that the message from the FTC is to vertically integrate and wall off everything, and open nothing.

That’s a weird way to say the FTC is being consistent. Google marketed Android as open but didn’t mean it, while Apple never promised otherwise. While I’d like both to be more open, there seems to be a clear message that you need to give consumers what you sold them.

Android (XR) is a lot more open than iOS (visionOS).

Is there any information on this or you simply mean they're working with out of house hardware?

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