Facebook Home: Another Android Lock Pick | Hacker News Reader

Facebook Home: Another Android Lock Pick

mondaynote.com

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Until now Google didn't really care about manufacturer skins/customizations, because at the end of the day, they were still getting growth with Android, and to put their services on each one of those devices. So no matter what they might've said to the users that they care most about them, it's been pretty clear that they didn't care enough to force out all OEM customizations.

But this time - well, this time it might be different, because instead of being complementary to their services, this one actually threatens them. It might finally make them ban OEM/3rd party customizations, and get everyone to use stock Android, just like every PC out there has to use the same Windows interface.

As an Android user who would like to see more phones without OEM customizations, Facebook Home couldn't make me any happier, if it actually forces Google into banning it and any other such customizations, starting with Android 5.0.

the OS in AOSP stands for open source.

They can't stop anyone from customizing Android outright, but they reserved the right to ban them from the Open Handset Alliance, a lá Amazon.

The closest I've seen to straight up bans from Google are against malware/virus apps and selective bans against violators of their ToS (some ad-blocking apps were banned for using a workaround, but other apps that used that workaround were not banned).

Don't forget that Windows is closed source.

While they could potentially close off the platform going forward, they can't retroactively un-open source code.

They control the ability to add Google services (Maps, Gmail, Google Play Store, etc.) on top of Android. So they do have some power that they can exert without destroying the open source concept.

What exactly would they ban, though? Custom app launchers? Because users are going to be pretty annoyed about that.

Facebook Home will sell more Androids. Maybe a lot more Androids.

Amazon saved Google from having Apple run away with the tablet business.

Tighter grip, more star systems slip through, and all that.

Not only that, but a "Facebook phone" easily becomes an "Android phone" with the installation of one app.

But why would anyone buying a "FB phone" remove Home? I mean what's the point of buying a Home phone in the first place?

Because it's going to be reasonably priced and running something closer to stock Android than almost any other device by a major manufacturer.

There's a chance that the new Motorola's will run close to stock but apart from the Nexus range and the more obscure brands, nothing else does.

So - word might get around that these are worth buying ironically - to avoid custom skins.

Most people who buy Android devices don't know what a skin is, and certainly don't buy a particular phone because its easier to remove the skin. It happens, but not enough to matter at this scale.

This article seems to miss the main threat of Facebook Home - it's pushing aside Google+ integration and subverting Google's strategy to weave G+ into their user's experience. While that is eventually about advertising, the advertising is a far removed long term goal.

Nonetheless, the Play Store is the beating heart of an android phone, and as long as all the Facebook phones are running it I think Google's going to be pretty philosophical about this. It's a lot better than Facebook launching their own phone or teaming up with Samsung on Tizen or something like that. And while ever Facebook is playing on Google's turf, Google can afford to give them a pretty long leash, knowing they always hold the reigns through the Play Store requirements, and their ability to out code Facebook on their own platform is always going to give them a big advantage.

>Google+ integration and ... Google's strategy to weave G+ into their user's experience.

does this exist? i've got the google+ app on my phone, and i quite like it, but i wouldn't call it an integrated experience. i get notifications and it installs itself as a sharing option, but that's just like any other app. google+ isn't deeply integrated with android at all.

This certainly advances an interesting argument. That Facebook Home could capture an Android device. It raises a really interesting question of where the ad revenue goes. Which is to say if Home starts showing you ads ("Your friend Johnny just got a copy of Halo9 want to buy a copy and play him?") that ad revenue won't go to Google obviously any more than Ad revenue collected by web sites that happen to be accessed by Chrome.

Here's my off the wall prediction, Google makes an equivalent product for Google+ but some how figures out how to credit you with the bandwidth you use while its on your home screen.

Interesting times indeed.

" some how figures out how to credit you with the bandwidth you use while its on your home screen."

This is the bothersome part of the ad proposal: who pays for the bandwidth? And I'm guessing facebook is expecting users to bear that cost.

Facebook has deals with carriers in countries where mobile data is hard for the average customer to afford that enables free access to Facebook Zero even without a mobile subscription.

A lot of smartphone stuff seems to work on the basis that users have unlimited data deals. Which is fine until the networks buckle under the strain and start charging big bucks for it.

The bandwidth costs are there regardless right? If you're running something that is getting pushed from the Internet on your home screen its going to chew through your bandwidth over time.

My guess is that at some point people will be incented to run ad-bearing programs by some sort of bandwidth credit. The change may be slow or fast, I don't know, but it could be as easy has having the ad provider send some SMS type message to the carrier when their ad appears on your phone.

... if google somehow manage to reap their 30% of the ad revenue, they may think it's all good

That's the thing though, unlike Apple which has their AppStore tax which they keep because the only way to get on to an IOS device is through that portal, Android devices can side load. And while even Apple doesn't get ad revenue from ads someone clicks on in web pages presented by the Chrome browser on iOS they do force people through their ads channels in the iOS store.

Google is much more exposed in this regard (if you can call it that).

> they do force people through their ads channels in the iOS store.

iAd is not required for apps on the App Store: you can use any ad network you want, like AdMob from Google itself.

Thanks for the update. Did this change at some point? I distinctly remember them requiring iAd when I was getting my developer id but that was a few years ago now.

It's never been required, as far as I know. AdMob and several others existed and were in use before iAd.

Don't forget that Google's primary goal with Android was to avoid an Apple (or anyone else's) monoculture. That was a serious risk when the iPhone came out and it no longer is.

We're now looking at a market likely split between Apple, Android proper, Android forks and maybe some market share for RIM and Microsoft.

That's a lot less horrific than Google being shut out of mobile entirely which was a not-implausible scenario at one stage.

Android started before the iPhone was announced. Google's stated goal with Android was to build a rich, common phone platform to enable the smartphone revolution. Remember that before Android, most phone's came with shitty little browsers and little-to-no room for third-party software.

When Google bought Android, very few people had done any amount of mobile web browsing. Now, mobile makes up a notable fraction of total web usage.

Google's accomplished its goal so far with Android, but it certainly didn't start out to prevent an iOS monoculture - it did to prevent a carrier-dominated oligarchy of shitty web-less feature phones. (More strategically, it's made sure that when the mobile web became important, Google services were still front-and-center.)

"Android started before the iPhone was announced."

That's true. They were actually worried about Microsoft and Windows Mobile. I believe Android's runtime was influenced by .NET Compact Framework and the mobile .NET VM. At the time, it was by far the coolest mobile app runtime architecture. ndroid took it several steps farther by figuring out how to run multiple VM instances in (relatively) small memory, among other innovations.

Now that's kind of funny.

This is interesting for Google. It one way it's huge validation. Afterall, Facebook is working with Android and not Apple. Android still in general suffers from at best apps on par with Apple's and usually they feel a little behind. So this is significant from a simple PR coup perspective. Facebook's big announcement evolves around Android!

Yet as noted in this article it comes with it's own set of challenges which are well documented here. In general, I think Google is the winner here - only because I don't see Home being that much of a threat as a concept. I think Facebook has now positioned itself as a "necessary evil" in our culture. In general people use it to keep up on friends and family. But embracing the entire experience a la home probably makes you look like more of a dork than a hipster.

By my understanding, only the HTC First will have Facebook's lock screen. Without that, Home is just another Launcher.

The upside of HTC First: will be the first HTC device to have native Android UI - if you turn off Home.

That is probably correct. There is no kosher way to replace a lock screen if you are not the OEM (or have rooted).

Home is more than another launcher, though. In some ways it defines a new class of application software for Android - a cooperating suite of apps, with a coordinated set of interfaces.

I would not say rooting your phone is not kosher. A little inconvinient maybe but nowadays you don't have to be a hacker to unlock your phone. Every tech literate person should be able to do this (as annectodatly wittnessed by me, a couple of my friends flash CW when purchasing a non Nexus Android and they aren't software devs)

I should be more specific since there are plenty of apps, even on Google Play, that outright require you to root your phone.

There is no way for an app that expects to be installed normally, using the normal system of permissions, to change out the lock screen. In practical terms, Facebook could not insist their users root their phones. For some debugging tools, that's much less of a problem.

There are "pseudo lock screens" but those are very hacky.

I believe Facebook has OEM support from both Samsung and HTC. That's why they're launch partners.

> The upside of HTC First: will be the first HTC device to have native Android UI - if you turn off Home.

How soon we forget. HTC did make a little phone called the Nexus One. Prior to that they also made the T-Mobile G1 / HTC Dream.

That being said, I don't know if the HTC First will really have a native Android UI underneath. It could just as easily be "Sense themed to look AOSP" like the (US) T-Mobile G2. That probably depends on how much Facebook cares about what's underneath.

Edit: Apparently HTC's OpenSense SDK includes lock screen APIs (see http://www.htcdev.com/devcenter/opensense-sdk/lock-screen/lo... ). That seems like another argument for a Sense-derivative.

Got one - it's bare bones Android OS.

TechCrunch made a good point: Home introduces chat multitasking. That's as innovative as webOS' Synergy.

And we saw that both iOS and Android incorporated Synergy.

So I don't think it'll be too long before both iOS and Android introduce multitasking chat.

If anything, we should thank FB for forcing their hands and moving everyone forward.

Home's advantage might not last for long, in other words.

Inqmobile ( http://www.inqmobile.com ) were doing this for a while (Deep FB integration into android). It never really took off.

FB is in direct competition with Google. So Google has to respond. If they ban it, then everyone will fork the source and it'll be the end of Android as we know it. If FB is successful (which I have serious doubts) then, I suspect the same thing will happen. Everyone will fork and "brand" their version.

And since Android is already Google branded their only choice is to integrate Google +. Google + isn't exactly a runaway success now.

Now that FB has changed the rules.... if I was Verizon I'd be thinking "why the hell am I giving Google ad revenue"?

Google is gonna get squeezed. And the funny thing is, they did it to themselves.

Why has this changed the rules? It's a launcher. Google still has a zillion other hooks into the Android ecosystem.

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