And shareholders were originally happy with their profits
Narrator: They never were.
Said no Google exec ever.
I heard Google was a non-profit and they care about us very much.
Remember Open Handset Alliance (https://www.openhandsetalliance.com/)?
Or when it was actually possible to make an app for Android using open source tools?
Or when it was actually possible to make an app for Android using open source tools?
Is it not now? There are lots of actively-maintained apps in F-Droid, and as I understand it anything in F-Droid must at least be buildable with open source tools.
Android SDK source code is available, in theory and in theory you can build yourself. In practice binaries provided by Google come with restricting licence how you can use them while source is so scattered around weird control systems that noone knows if it’s actually complete source and possible to use.
There was a project to provide FOSS builds of the SDK, but is unmaintained. https://gitlab.com/android-rebuilds/auto Debian also has android-sdk in it’s repos, but 23 is the max API level now.
I don’t know how F-Droid build apps today, it seems like a big problem.
I’m not sure, but F-Droid does state:
We cannot build apps requiring Non-Free build tools, including Oracle’s JDK or some pre-release toolchains.
They’ve been pretty consistent about their requirement that everything be open source.
I mean they make money syphoning personal data, they could have left everything free I guess
That’s the thing with big mega corps. They could lower prices, make some products free, give more to app makers in this case - and it won’t hurt a single person in their firm.
But they won’t. They just want a higher green number, that’s so high it’s not possible to spend in a lifetime.
And you get nothing, because they won’t even pay their taxes.
I miss 2008 Google
25% went to carriers
2008 was different. It’s amazing how much power carriers had at the time.
Hahahahaha
Of course they make bank on their app store. It’s a monopoly.
It is not a monopoly. They have Apple as a major competitor and Google allows sideloading within their own ecosystem.
Apple is the one where a monopoly is starting to become a concern, especially as their app ecosystem is completely locked down.
It is not a monopoly. They have Apple as a major competitor
Thank god! Where can I download the Apple App store on to my Android phone? I can’t? Then it’s irrelevant to this conversation around Google’s monopoly on Android.
Google allows sideloading within their own ecosystem.
As @logicbomb points out, just because a ecosystem is open, doesn’t mean a monopoly doesn’t exist. All the other stores are pretty niche and Google controls 90%+ of the market, so by definition it is a monopoly. A monopoly on it’s own isn’t illegal or even bad, and we have to dig in further to determine that. As you pointed out, it’s pretty clear-cut that Apple has a forced monopoly where users have to actively work against the system to load apps outside of Apple’s ecosystem. While Google’s case isn’t as clear many have argued that Google’s Android has kneecapped alternative stores like Amazon’s, possibly in anti-competitive ways.
I personally love f-droid, but Google does not make it an easy process to sideload!
The fact that it is called sideloading implies the monopoly. It’d just be “installing” otherwise
Your device can’t run the iPhone apps, and the Apple app store is an iPhone app
I downloaded this Lemmy client from an alternative store called IzzyOnDroid and I’m using it to type from my Android phone
Your device can’t run the iPhone apps, and the Apple app store is an iPhone app
I think you missed the sarcasm in my comment.
I downloaded this Lemmy client from an alternative store called IzzyOnDroid and I’m using it to type from my Android phone
Technically IzzyOnDroid is an f-droid repository, not the store itself.
I’m using the izzyondroid app, not the f-droid app because it’s janky
The IzzyOnDroid App is an f-droid client…
