Interview with Google's Android leader Sameer Samat | Hacker News Reader

Interview with Google's Android leader Sameer Samat

techradar.com

47 pointsgbil35 comments

I don’t care about any of the features mentioned in the article.

I want a Linux vm, and full desktop experience on the tablets. And when connected to a monitor.

Google are not in the laptop game the same way Apple is, so sell a phone and tell consumers they no longer need a computer too.

"I'm not the average user that make sales so here are my money losing demands"

The average users buy whatever the ads tell them is sexy and will make them sexy. The devices don't have to be intentionally gimped for them. You could still put a "press this random text 7 times" option that says "I'm not a complete idiot".

The average user, if told they can save $500 on not needing to buy a laptop as their phone/laptop connects to a monitor with PC level functionality, would be very happy!

Plus many are now content creators, and many would welcome editing their videos doing their streaming on 1 device/having it as an option.

You have less than zero way of ascertaining that.

This is what is coming with Android 16 these days no? https://youtu.be/Y4V2xtlHvjw

Thanks. I read about it months ago and been wondering when.

Guys in Android are so disconnected from reality, it's no wonder that Android did not get anything interesting released in years. As an user it is more the opposite, you are kind of hope that no update to your phone will come to crappify it. Unsolicited AI, useless interface rework, battery crippling...

Like seriously they are so self centered in US, they didn't realize that no one in the rest of the world care or want RCS. We want simple texts that will not go through Apple or Google, and for the rest, for our social life, we prefer indépendant cross-os chat apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, ...

Probably the most interesting topic in this article is trunk stable, although it only got a few sentences. The rest could have been written by Gemini and we couldn’t tell. Trunk stable, though, is a very big deal in Android land and I don’t think many people outside of the Android team or the OEMs understand or even know about it. It is a very significant change in the Android release model and I’m very curious to see how it goes with new phones.

It's going to present interesting challenges.

The scope to overlook/ not address certain things could easily make this a mess. For instance the difficulty distinguishing apps to install on your Android phone and a Google Watch is already pretty bad - checking on the phone directs the phone's Google Play Store to open, and you then can't tell if it's going to realise you're trying to install to the watch or to the phone. The mental models for each blur even though you need to be able to tell them apart for legitimate reasons.

What a boringly long article.

It doesn't feel that long ago that Google was being told to sell Chrome for antitrust reasons by the government. Now it's going to be even more integrated into the Google ecosystem.

So the rumors of Fuchsia OS from a decade ago were actually true?

I don't see how Fuchsia can be considered a rumor. It is developed in the open.

I mean Fuchsia replacing Chrome OS and Android.

No, this is Android taking over Chrome OS (embrace and extinguish). Fuchsia is unlikely to have a big future ahead of it.

i think in retrospect naming the OS after the browser was a mistake. the browser is like a public town square with god-knows-what going through it every day. its dirty, filthy, and totally chaotic.

which is precisely not what you want your actual personal computing environment to be like. my computer is mine - or, should be mine. when i close the browser, its like closing your front door. the world outside is gone for a bit so i can chill with my own private library etc.

as long as its called "ChromeOS", it will always be associated with landfill-ware, government-issued laptops that arent worth the box they come in. paperweights.

I never interpreted it as that; interesting way to look at it.

I think it did a good job of setting expectations. Most people would be (and, initially very much were) disappointed to find out the OS was basically just a web browser. At least the name helped make that clear.

It doesn't help that OS support is time-bombed either.

Is support not time-bombed on some other commercial OS? Can't recall any vendor that promises perpetual support.

I think its good tbh.

Chrome as a brand has a lot of goodwill / brand equity. Your association is negative but I think views will vary but be more positive than not. If I remember the stats right, the majority of users install chrome by choice on their computers.

And, the OS was actually built around Chrome, so it's an accurate name too.

> Chrome as a brand has a lot of goodwill / brand equity.

I am always dumbfounded by this.

For long time it was -- and maybe still is -- the gold standard in browser security.

Yes, but not in privacy, so it does not matter at all (to me).

> far more customization, including the ability to take a photo, set it as your wallpaper,

Clearly the first OS version that has those features. /s

> Android has always been about enabling you to personalize and customize your device.

Aren't those people required to take a drug test, when they are hired ? Did he ever used an Android phone, or just heard about it from a friend ? Because even Win 3.1 is more customizable than Android.

Instead of coming up with something innovative, they will clone iphones. Oh Well.

The attempt to replace action buttons with gestures is already making it worse for me... I disabled it immediately.

Also my first thought.. and my second thought - apple has worked on this for years and while the experience is “good enough” across devices it’s not “great”.

So that gives me little hope for Google doing a better job, given Android (seems) more fragmented from the get-go.

The cloning has been going both ways for years now.

slightly off topic: I wonder if in an equivalent interview, Craig Federighi would need the same hint in the title "Interview with Apple's OS Leader Craig Federighi ", or whether his name is considered well known enough: "Interview with Craig Federighi". I wonder when its considered "safe" for a personality to stop being referred to as their job title (Founder of FaceBook, CEO of Microsoft, CEO of Spotify, CEO of ___?), and instead using their name (Zuckerberg, Nadella, ___?, Karp)...

I personally don't know many executive's names outside of the CEO -- including at FAANG. So in your example, I wouldn't know who is being interviewed until I read the subheading.

It's a fuzzy science based on the author's estimation of how known a name is within their intended readership.

Nicely put.

From a brief look (https://www.techradar.com/uk/search?searchTerm=Craig+Federig...), it looks like Tech Radar expects more of their readers to know who Craig is - going from "Apple exec Craig Federighi" to just "Craig Federighi".

I couldn't find another article with Sameer Samat.

I wonder if a media outlets' intended or real audience could be inferred from indicators like this.

I've never heard of Craig Federighi.

I don't work anywhere near Apple-related coding though, so that's hardly surprising.

A google search shows that it depends on the outlet doing the interview: https://www.google.com/search?q=Craig%20Federighi%20intervie... Mac centric sites just do "An interview with Craig Federighi" or something like that but Wall Street Journal did "Apple's Software Chief Craig Federighi on Apple Intelligence"

This is a good observation, thanks for sharing. Interestingly, The Verge uses the title "Here’s Joanna Stern’s full interview with Craig and Joz." for a video WSJ called "Apple Execs on What Went Wrong with Siri, iOS 26 and More" (https://www.theverge.com/news/686948/heres-joanna-sterns-ful...)

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