With Android management shakeup, Google reveals the broad sweep of its ambition | Hacker News Reader

With Android management shakeup, Google reveals the broad sweep of its ambition

qz.com

37 pointsslerner1721 comments

What might a fusion of Chrome OS and Android look like, from a technical perspective? This talk of a grand business strategy glosses over the technical differences between the two systems, which go deeper than the primary input method and full-screen versus overlapped windows.

I can think of two more salient differences:

1. Both systems are based on the Linux kernel, but Android is based on a custom libc (Bionic) and various Android-specific things (like SurfaceFlinger and AudioFlinger) held together by an Android-specific IPC system called Binder. By contrast, Chrome OS is much closer to a typical GNU/Linux stack; in particular, AFAIK, it's based on X11 and GTK.

2. Android supports persistent on-device storage, whereas Chrome OS only supports ephemeral storage.

My prediction from 2011: https://twitter.com/csabacsoma/status/68371971913687040

With NaCl, HTML5 audio and so on you can just obsolete Android after a while...

And Dart. The technology to replace JS+Java+Dalvik

So, my question is... to be forward compatible do I keep developing Android apps in Java, or Chrome apps in C++, or ...

If it were me, I'd develop in something like Xamarin/mono (http://xamarin.com) and if a convergence does happen, you'd imagine Xamarin would likely figure out a way to allow your apps to run on the new platform.

I'd say chrome apps in html/js

Has this not been known for years now? Google has been making motions to converge.

But a fused Android and Chrome OS opens up a number of new potential revenue sources for Google. Foremost among them is simply charging for future Google services. While Gmail might always be free, Google is happy to charge users to store their data. As people move more and more of their lives to the cloud, Google could potentially lock them into life-long subscriptions to its data storage and other services.

More or less, Android = Samsung. No matter what Google thinks, Samsung has their own agenda (as they should) and dozens of billions ready to be put to play. They can fork it in a year or two and take it from there.

No, they can't. Because two years ago Android was HTC. And then the Samsung Galaxy was better. And two years from now, it's entirely possible that people will be using Sony phones instead. Or LG.

What they won't do is move to a new Samsung phone that doesn't run their existing apps.

Was HTC's profit from mobile alone 50% greater than Google's entire profit at the time (as Samsung's is now)? I think some people have missed just how dominant Samsung has become.

I think you miss the point of the google play store. Certainly, Samsung could fork and offer their own storefront, but they would lose some of the core Google applications. Take for instance Google maps, we have already seen what happens when a company like apple dumps maps for an alternative..

But Google did eventually release their own maps app in the App Store. If Samsung forks android and create their own store front, will Google ignore all the users Samsung has which is comparable to or even more than what Apple has.

I don't think Samsung has the same 'fanboy' base as Apple does. And as AndrewDucker pointed out above, HTC was the dominant android name some time ago, who's to say another hardware giant like Sony or LG isn't the next android giant.

Furthermore Samsung isn't in the software business, its in the hardware business. Unless they find some giant profitable reason to fork and diversify into becoming a software business also, I see no reason why they would not simply keep riding the innovation coming out of google.

I don't think what ever fanboy base apple has is really significant. Sure they are more than what any other company has. But at 400 million users, it is not just fanboys buying apple products.

2 years back, it was a smaller and different market. Samsung has established brand now and has more power on android. They are moving around 100 million phones a year now. It's not the same market. Samsung doesn't need to do much to fork android. They recently announced a new wallet API for Samsung devices. If developer start doing apps for Samsung specific API and devices that's all they need. If those become popular enough that's a huge barrier for other OEM's to copy.

Few years back google forced Motorola from using a competing maps service. I don't think they can force Samsung from using or creating non google services.

I was not aware of the Samsung wallet API. That's an interesting move. However, I wonder if that isn't more of a hardware-software security piece (for financial transactions) then an outright play into the wallet marketplace?

It's just an Apple Passbook clone, as you'd expect from Samsung.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/27/4035064/samsung-wallet-app...

Exactly my point. Google cannot afford to, high end users (usually those with money) buy either iPhone or Galaxy. Google can ignore them, or cut their nose to spite their face, but Google will lose in the end.

Like Apple ? If you are going to lose it, bite the bullet, better now than later. Google is about to tighten the screws and Samsung et al will be on the losing end if they don't act now. They are no friendships or handshakes, Google has been fearing Samsung for a while and vice-versa, knives have been sharpened already.

What happened to Apple and maps? Nothing, a bunch of bloggers were pissed, iPhones still selling like hot cakes, Samsung did their part but still. Now Apple has their maps and all data goes to Apple, not Google. Soon enough they'll get better, meaning Google loses. It's in Google's interests and they'll pay to have Apple, and Samsung to run Google Search and other G apps. But would you develop if Samsung Galaxy was out of "Android" ? Only time will tell.

I don't think that maps fallout is fairly characterized as "bunch of bloggers were pissed".

Look how iPhone vs. Android sentiment changed over time.

At first the majority opinion was that Android was capable but slow and unpolished.

Around 4.0, the majority opinion was that Android was getting closer to iPhone but not quite there.

The most recent sentiments are: Android is starting to outclass iPhone in some important areas (Maps, Google Now).

Obviously, it won't suddenly cause everyone to stop buying iPhones and start buying Androids, but if things continue, the tide will turn.

Simply stated: Google is out-executing Apple on software. Press, bloggers and everyone else are noticing that and people do care about what The Verge writes or that people like MG Siegler go from "Android is crap" to "Android is really, really good".

So yes, things like Maps and Google Now are important and hard to re-create by a company like Samsung (or any company, period). That keeps Samsung (at least for now) from forking Android and trying to squeeze even more revenue out of it for themselves.

Google's future control of Android will depend on how many important and hard-to-recreate pieces they can implement, and given that they are cloud services company first, they are well positioned to execute on that.

I think I can trust Apple to eventually get their maps right and to the point of Google (or close). I'm not sure Samsung would ever get there. When it comes to software I am yet to see any Samsung product which did not suck.

"[Phil Schiller] shared data on the iPhone’s popularity and said Apple’s own research shows that four times as many iPhone users switched from Android than to Android during the fourth quarter"

–Today's issue of the Wall Street Journal

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