Hacker News Reader

Comment by add-sub-mul-div | Hacker News Reader

Unchecked Apple without real competition would be worse than the status quo.

That is a misrepresentation because Samsung, Huawei, and various Linux vendors each will have their own answer, their own alterative. In no universe will Apple be without competition. Apple is not even a consideration since it doesn't allow unapproved app installation anyway.

Android only ever had a chance because it is one ecosystem. Developers aren't going to develop for five slightly-different ecosystems in a trench coat.

> Developers aren't going to develop for five slightly-different ecosystems

The point, perhaps, is for one to emerge as the prominent choice, the correct one. Diversity however has its own value.

I wish Android manufacturers contributed to AOSP, so that it would still be one ecosystem, but with shared ownership. But I guess it's more profitable for all of them to let Google do it on their own. And it sucks for the user, because we have to live with Google's decisions.

But does Google accept third-party contributions for AOSP?

Yes, anyone is free to contribute to AOSP and many manufacturers already do.

https://source.android.com/docs/setup/contribute/submit-patc...

There already are multiple different android ecosystems today. For example Samsung has SDKs that have features when targeting their flavor of Android. There will still be a common base.

This ship has sailed, in the past Amazon's store did not succeed a lot, but there are already a few important enough offsprings: * Huawei with separate store and no Gapps * Samsung with importantly different browser and ton of extra features, also another store * in China the app-in-wechat and similar are a major thing

If you develop for a diverse set of user you need a lot of effort.

Apps that run on the Kindle Fire can't use Google Mobile Services, and the Amazon appstore is missing many well-known titles.

The Play Store is mostly absent from China, and I really don't know how that ecosystem works.

Was there one ecosystem?

You're too young to remember Symbian and Java phone ecosystem mess, are you? Or even Android of around 2.x era, where getting an app doesn't mean it works on your phone?

Oh, my sweet summer child, my first classroom exposure was CP/M.

Then you should know better :))

I am within a year of retirement, and you think I should care?

It is a shame that those companies don't contribute to AOSP (or fork it). Apparently Huawei decided that they would do better alone with their own HarmonyOS, but I don't get it. It could be so powerful if AOSP was actually shared between the Android manufacturers...

I would happily leave Android and go with such a fork. Instead, each (Samsung, Huawei, ...) try to make their own thing. And good luck to them to beat Android on their own.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com