Did anyone read this article? The headline is misleading.
It clearly states in the first line:
> "Google’s contract with Lenovo Group Ltd.’s Motorola blocked the smartphone maker from setting Perplexity AI as the default assistant on its new devices"
They didn't block Perplexity AI from Motorola's devices, the agreement states that they allow them to preload the devices with Perplexity, but the agreement, that both parties signed, does not give Motorola the permission to set it as the default.
> "Motorola “can’t get out of their Google obligations and so they are unable to change the default assistant on the device.”
They signed the agreement, and now are going to courts to claim they had no choice.
I understand the premise, that they think they had no choice, but this article is misleading in its headline, and plenty of the comments here clearly show that a lot of "readers" didn't bother to read it.
And they really don't have a choice. if you don't abide by googles terms then they will not permit you to use google mobile services. That means (at the very least):
- No "play" services (breaks lots of apps and 3rd party peripherals).
- No app store (over 90% of apps are distributed solely through the play store. even major android players like samsung have tiny libraries in their own stores).
- No youtube app (and no way to natively play without play services APIs, you NEED to use a crippled iframe embed in a webview!!!)
- No push notifications (developers usually target the "built-in" option that is basically play services)
- Missing apps and api-level integration with loads of other stuff, maps, mail, search, calendar, casting, etc
- No widevine DRM (no hd/4k netflix, etc)
- Loads of other insidious stuff I cant recall or articulate right now
You cant even use the word "Android" to describe the OS.
Just look at how crippled Amazons fork is. Or how huawei pretty much lost their entire GLOBAL market share because of a US sanction preventing them having a GMS contract.
No matter what anyone says, android IS google. It is so riddled with google specific behaviours you cant use without a license that companies have even ditched android to make their own OS - because they literally aren't allowed to favorably position their own functionality over googles in any way.
The Play services thing is a major deal for banking apps and such. If anyone has tried dealing with third-party ROMs like LineageOS and GrapheneOS, they would know how much Google tries its best to screw you if you leave their gross leech of an ecosystem
Big shout out to Google Play Integrity/Safety Net (or whatever it's currently called).
Was the one thing which ended my couple of years without Google, as my banking apps started banning my phones fingerprint for being insecure.
Seems like in a major part of '''Pax Americana''' is needing to use a Google or Apple fingerprint to participate in society. Makes you laugh when people whinge about China.
They blocked Perplexity via agreements, amongst many agreements to fortify their monopoly, the legality of which has been challenged in court and this testimony is to demonstrate that this agreement also belongs in the "illegal" bucket.
Google Cloud has also gotten a huge boost from large retailers who, understandably, don't want to run their software on Amazon owned AWS.
When I asked out of curiosity why not Azure, especially given that these companies almost all use Office, Teams, Outlook, etc. several have told me it's because of Google Shopping and SEO. Though never formally stated or part of the contract it's often mentioned by Google that "They already have a relationship" with these companies via the feeds they provide for those products. And there are consistent talking point among the GCP sales reps about how they "help deliver you customers" and you "shouldn't fund a competitor".
Obviously not the same thing but it does indicate that Google isn't afraid to leverage their search monopoly in the other parts of their business.
> They signed the agreement, and now are going to courts to claim they had no choice.
Did the title change? They (Lenovo) are going to court? This is an antitrust case against Google and the witness is not part of the agreement signed. Is Lenovo suing Google?
The title is representing the witness (perplexity) stance, not Lenovo's. And given it's a antitrust suit it seems like a very valid stance.
It’s a little oversimplified, but I wouldn’t call it misleading.
There is little point to getting an app like perplexity AI pre-installed on a phone as a non-default. Changing defaults isn’t exactly trivial, and any user motivated enough to go through that will have no problems installing the app from the App Store.
So of course the deal fell through.
And it’s accurate to say that “Google blocked a deal to put Perplexity AI on Motorola phones”, and highly monopolistic.
Though… as an end user and occasional family tech support person, I’m thankful for anything that reduces pre-installed bloatware on phones. Thanks google.
Most online journalism relies on clickbait, and they know people aren't going to read too much past the headline to care (and 99% of threads on sites like HN clearly demonstrate that).
Sure a contract was signed, but as has been pointed out many times about Google's heavy-handed control over Android, it doesn't mean it was fair to all parties:
> Sure a contract was signed, but as has been pointed out many times about Google's heavy-handed control over Android, it doesn't mean it was fair to all parties:
The article is basically saying "if you don't use Play store and Google apps you'll have to build them yourself". I don't really understand - yes? You would have to. But you still got a load of stuff free. You only have to build apps on top. You get a working OS for free still, which is incredibly valuable.
Android is open source and Google play services is technically possible to avoid. What other major operating system vendor for consumer electronics goes out of their way to make this sort of thing possible? Apple and Microsoft sure don't.
Calling the Google Apps agreement something phone vendors voluntarily agreed to is pedantic, reductive and useless. Yes, technically they didn't get physically forced into it, but that's not the whole story.
Google used their unimaginably deep pockets and several monopolies to make sure that no phone without Google Apps will sell. Look at what happened to Huawei after Trump's ban - there were articles in even mainstream media about how people are buying the P10 (was it?), starting it up, realizing nothing works and trying to return it. And literally the only reason that "nothing worked" was that it didn't have Google Play services.
If i remember correctly, it was similar argument when Microsoft in similar way blocked other browsers' pre-install - "if Dell wants to be MS Windows preferred partner ...". And ultimately that argument didn't fly. Though unfortunately a huge irreparable damage was still done.
Google have slid back on this from day one. A pure-AOSP build of Android is borderline unusable, to the point that the dialer UI, various essential apps such as contacts and the like are now proprietary Google code, stripped out of AOSP. Additionally, AOSP has gone to a source-dump release pattern, rather than an open build. Last I knew, even basic things like the Camera and clock app had been made Google-Properietary.
You have to go to a completely independent distribution like LineageOS, which has maintained a step by step fork of Android, in order to have a "google free" environment that is vaguely useful.
However, the thing the courts have gotten very angry with is that in order to use the Android trademark, you have to get certification, which requires you to exclusively ship a series of Google applications (Chrome, Gmail, Youtube, the Google Photos app, etc) even if you have your own replacement (e.g. Samsung's browser, a native photo app, email client, etc.) and you Must ship with the Google account system up front.
> Install apps from any source on Android vs. total restriction on iOS
Going with the previous one: The apps you install then are going to require the Google services that may or may not have been shipped with your phone. Additionally, the hoops that an application must go through to get the same level privileges as a Google application -- even for things on the local phone -- are far and above what most people would be willing to go through: Since Google apps are installed on the system software end, they are given privileges that no other application could have.
> Switch default app for browser (and many other things!) vs. No choice but Safari tech on iOS
See previous: If you want to ship with Google's blessed market, you must ship with Chrome and it must be the default. The power of defaults is strong here.
The requirement that amazes me they never gone absolutely done for was that to get certified (to carry the Play Store) you must not release any Android devices which are not certified.
i.e. a given manufacturer would not be able to sell Google based Android devices and separate non-Google based Android devices.
It's as if being able to bundle Windows OEM licenses were reliant on not selling any models with Linux.
Camera apps on Android are very loosely coupled to the OS. They are intentionally left to OEMs to provide because that's the most visible aspect of hardware differentiation, and that differentiation probably depends on software support. On top of that, it would be hard to design an API for every possible camera hardware, apart from a high level API for apps to acquire an image.
> However, the thing the courts have gotten very angry with is that in order to use the Android trademark, you have to get certification, which requires you to exclusively ship a series of Google applications (Chrome, Gmail, Youtube, the Google Photos app, etc) even if you have your own replacement (e.g. Samsung's browser, a native photo app, email client, etc.) and you Must ship with the Google account system up front.
The Daylight Computer doesn't ship with Google applications like this from what I can remember, and I noticed it doesn't actually mention Android on their home page, just that it can "run your favorite apps". It only mentions Android on the specs page under software. I wonder if they did that because of this.
i have a pixel phone, but google is not the good guy here. Like in this example, it basically bundles stuff in a way, so if you want for example the store, you have to take other stuff also and that other stuff has its own requirements.
Are you confused between open source and open development?
Isn't the source fully open?
Edit:
If I made a movie, and made the files freely available after I make it and let you do whatever you want with it
.. would you insist that it isn't "open" because you didn't see me argue with my editor or the 100 times I iterates on the end scene or whether your idea for chase sequence was not incorporated?
Android is not open source and has not been for years. There is AOSP that contains small part of Android source. But the product that Google sells to OEMs is not open source.
It seems the probability of being guilty in the current justice system is a function of how many persistent enemies you have and not how just or unjust your actions are.
For the record, none of those are objectively "better". You and I may think they're better. Lots, lots, as in billions of people, couldn't care less:
> Open source Android vs. closed iOS
Almost no one outside specific tech circles cares, and even if they understood what it meant, still wouldn't care.
> Install apps from any source on Android vs. total restriction on iOS
That's one of the primary reasons I suggest that my relatives buy iPhones. I have older family who would absolutely install an APK from hackerz.ru if they got a phishing email claiming they won the Facebook Lottery and that's how they claim the prize. For that matter, I'm glad my bank has to publish their app through the App Store, because otherwise they'd almost certainly be hosting it on sketchysounding.bankservices.biz if no one made them.
The walled garden is an enormous advantage for a huge chunk of the world. I understand why it's a PITA for others. I'd love to install unsanctioned software from GitHub on my iPhone, but I'll happily accept that tradeoff in exchange for my uncle not being able to install "Real Actual Gmail.apk" from god knows where.
> Switch default app for browser (and many other things!) vs. No choice but Safari tech on iOS
I might agree with that, although part of me is glad that there's at least one major platform that Chrome hasn't taken over.
> Easy switch of search provider in Chrome vs. countless dark patterns pushing Edge and Bing on Windows
Five years ago, I'd have agreed. Today Chrome seems like the King of Dark Patterns because it can get away with it. It's the one single app on my Mac that makes me specially configure cmd-Q to quit it. Manifest v3. Web Integrity API. Etc., etc., etc. Google does this because they can. They haven't been the better actor in ages.
I would agree with that in principle if it were remotely true, but on my iPhone, when I searched for chatgpt or openai when they came out, I got half a dozen fake apps before the real one. And that's been the case for so many search terms for popular apps or areas. There are 1.8 million apps on iOS app store! How do they get this aura and image of safety and reliability? Or, how do I find that safe walled garden? :)
With Apple, they are the manufacturer of the phone and the software, so they get to decide what goes on the hardware.
Google makes the OS, but not the hardware. Why should they be able to decide what another company puts on the hardware.
This is exactly the same playbook Microsoft tried in the 90s, and it is going to court for the exact same reason. It's using your market power to prevent competition.
We've decided that just because you are the maker of a piece of software does not mean you get to decide what runs on someone else's hardware.
So are you proposing that Google shouldn't allow other companies to install Android? What would Samsung, Motorola switch to and do app developers have to create apps targeting all of the different mobile OSes?
This seems like a far worst path than today, and to OP's point, though Google isn't perfect, they're doing better than their competitor in providing options. Pushing Google to only offer Android on their own phones is not a win for consumers.
They're being harassed for lying about being a better actor. Apple gets to be a controlling asshole because there's no legal requirement for tech companies to not be. Google tried to have their cake and eat it too.
iOS is a package deal: you use our OS on our phones with our App Store and browser. Very straightforward and honest, even if we rightly hate the deal. This all relies on basic protections of IP law that the state is so far unwilling to roll back.
Android is a confusopoly[0]. For every point you mentioned, Google has a hidden deal or catch that subverts the intention of the words in question and makes it as bad as iOS.
Yes, Android is FOSS, but the app store everyone uses is proprietary; and Google's licensing terms for the proprietary store contravene the licenses on the FOSS portion. You specifically agree not to ship devices with "Android forks", even if you don't put the proprietary store on those specific devices. And what's actually released in AOSP shrinks every time a Google engineer puts a Google client in an app. Let us also not forget Android Honeycomb, which actually was not released to AOSP. There is no legal requirement for Google to ship source, and they've already tried out a fully-proprietary release of Android in the past.
Yes, you could install non-Google-Play apps on Android, but updating them required you to manually approve every update. Third-party app stores were a nightmare to use until Epic sued about it and Google provided APIs to actually deliver updates in the same way that Google Play can.
Yes, Google Play lets Mozilla ship Gecko. But Google is also paying phone manufacturers lots of money to make Chrome the default. Oh, and to not ship any third-party app stores. Combined with Google Play not letting you distribute other app stores through itself, it makes actually finding and using an app store a pain.
And Chrome is specifically designed to make you use Google Search with the same dark patterns Edge uses.
Please do not fool yourself into thinking that any actor in this industry is good. They all suck, and you should be happy when any of them get their noses bloodied.
[0] A term coined by the writer of Dilbert, Hatsune Miku, for deliberately confusing marketing intended to make you sigh in frustration, open your wallet, and let the sales guy decide what product you buy.
The factual info in your reference "[0]" makes no sense. The writer (and illustrator) of the Dilbert cartoon is Scott Adams [1]. I have no idea what the name you referenced has anything to do with it, other than some Japanese software. Or was all of part of your comment written by an LLM?
And it's not an accident, or just an unthinking corporation with big divisions accidentally working at opposites, or just something looks bad when someone writes it up from the outside.
Google Maps must be the biggest value-add Google has built for their phone ecosystem, full stop. I see no reason they should give that away no strings attached. I am no Google fan but it's one of the few things they have done which positively impacts me almost daily.
E..g. Google recently announced that it will be moving Android development entirely to its private internal branch, no more development sharing. They say they'll still be open source, but Google has been caught lying about a lot of things lately.
> This does not mean that Google is making Android a closed-source platform, but rather that the open-source aspect will only be released when a new branch is released to AOSP with those changes, including when new full versions or maintenance releases are finished.
I might be missing something big here, but how does the consistency work in these scenarios? At one place, you are saying Google is not allowed to pay to be default, but at the same time you are allowing others to be default because they are not a monopoly. One would naively assume that rules should be consistent. I get that asking people to choose induces friction and yet people would gravitate towards the most popular option. But, giving the default to an objectively inferior product (not talking about perplexity, but you would agree bing/DDG is not on the same level as Google for most non tech users) is worse when it comes to user experience and increases the friction even more.
Everyone's trying to fight for a piece of the AI walled-garden pie. I guess it's only getting divided up between a few players all over again. Nice try Perplexity, and I do see it as forewarning for the power play OpenAI will attempt (we just don't know what it will be yet).
Perplexity setting up talks with phone makers is itself an anti-competitive behavior to curb an already anti-competitive behavior. Either this should be banned in entirety or let the free markets prevail.
That's not happening. Everything that comes with a computer could be possibly construed as anti-competitive. Even the Start Menu - after all, if Start11 and StartIsBack exist, why should Microsoft have the right to ship their own start menu? How about calculators (Desmos)? The system that puts maximize, minimize, and close on windows (after all, WindowBlinds exists)? The login screen (LogonStudio)? What about the Task Manager (Process Explorer)? File Explorer (Total Commander)? The Media Player (VLC)? The PDF viewer (unfair competition against Adobe!)?
I agree that at some point, it crosses a line. Perplexity is nowhere near powerful or influential enough to cross that line.
No, what’s anti competitive is Google making an open source operating system that is worth absolutely nothing without the Google play services, and locking these play services behind contract that contains anti competitive rules, like « you have to set Google Gemini as default assistant », or « you can’t ever sell a phone without the Google play services or with any alternative than the Google
play services ».
Android at its core is free and open source, every company can ship it. But Google hold one key thing in its hands, the Google play services, and use that to force others to do whatever they want them to do.
Else they can go the huawei direction, good luck making a Google play services competitor outside of China. Maybe in Russia ? That’s nothing.
Maybe perplexity ai is just better than Gemini and that’s one of the reason Motorola wanted to ship it. Maybe it’s for money. Whatever the reason, Google is abusing its dominant position to prevent competitor from competing with them.
> Already in anti-trust related to ads, AI is probably in the clear.
"Already in trouble for committing monopolist behavior in market A, Google should be fine committing even more monopolist behavior in the very related and overlapping market of B"
This makes claim makes pretty little sense to me. AI search and Google web search (ads) are already stepping on each other. I see no reason that Google wouldn't be worried about antitrust on AI search if they're worried about antitrust action in general- which they clearly are.
Seems like the real issue is that Google is using proceeds from the core illegal monopoly to fund a dumping operation in another market in order to establish a monopoly there. They've been able to dump a free browser on the market and smother any potential competition in that space in the same fashion.
Someone at Google should sic an llm at the trove of documents from the Microsoft antitrust trial. This is directly from the 90s Microsoft playbook. I'm sure I'm by far not the only one with a sufficient attention span to remember that.
Motorola is one of the better phone manufacturers, though. Hardly any bloat, usually able to root easily, decent support from other operating systems, reasonably priced, and with decent battery life.
I still struggle to see what phones at 10x the price actually provide.
I got a Motorola Razr because it was an affordable folding phone and was shocked by how nice it is. As in I, a cheapskate, may actually have brand loyalty now.
Google/Alphabet's corporate death penalty (forced dissolution by the state) cannot come quickly enough.
Live by the sword (secretly cooperate with state-run intelligence agencies against the interests of their own users), die by the sword (swift and merciless forced corporate dissolution, by the state).
https://archive.ph/tAGxc
Did anyone read this article? The headline is misleading.
It clearly states in the first line:
> "Google’s contract with Lenovo Group Ltd.’s Motorola blocked the smartphone maker from setting Perplexity AI as the default assistant on its new devices"
They didn't block Perplexity AI from Motorola's devices, the agreement states that they allow them to preload the devices with Perplexity, but the agreement, that both parties signed, does not give Motorola the permission to set it as the default.
> "Motorola “can’t get out of their Google obligations and so they are unable to change the default assistant on the device.”
They signed the agreement, and now are going to courts to claim they had no choice.
I understand the premise, that they think they had no choice, but this article is misleading in its headline, and plenty of the comments here clearly show that a lot of "readers" didn't bother to read it.
> they think they had no choice
And they really don't have a choice. if you don't abide by googles terms then they will not permit you to use google mobile services. That means (at the very least):
You cant even use the word "Android" to describe the OS.
Just look at how crippled Amazons fork is. Or how huawei pretty much lost their entire GLOBAL market share because of a US sanction preventing them having a GMS contract.
No matter what anyone says, android IS google. It is so riddled with google specific behaviours you cant use without a license that companies have even ditched android to make their own OS - because they literally aren't allowed to favorably position their own functionality over googles in any way.
The Play services thing is a major deal for banking apps and such. If anyone has tried dealing with third-party ROMs like LineageOS and GrapheneOS, they would know how much Google tries its best to screw you if you leave their gross leech of an ecosystem
Big shout out to Google Play Integrity/Safety Net (or whatever it's currently called).
Was the one thing which ended my couple of years without Google, as my banking apps started banning my phones fingerprint for being insecure.
Seems like in a major part of '''Pax Americana''' is needing to use a Google or Apple fingerprint to participate in society. Makes you laugh when people whinge about China.
Related: https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2025/04/a9b0beb4443a-urge...
> Just look at how crippled Amazons fork is
What has Google done to stop Amazon here?
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They blocked Perplexity via agreements, amongst many agreements to fortify their monopoly, the legality of which has been challenged in court and this testimony is to demonstrate that this agreement also belongs in the "illegal" bucket.
Google Cloud has also gotten a huge boost from large retailers who, understandably, don't want to run their software on Amazon owned AWS.
When I asked out of curiosity why not Azure, especially given that these companies almost all use Office, Teams, Outlook, etc. several have told me it's because of Google Shopping and SEO. Though never formally stated or part of the contract it's often mentioned by Google that "They already have a relationship" with these companies via the feeds they provide for those products. And there are consistent talking point among the GCP sales reps about how they "help deliver you customers" and you "shouldn't fund a competitor".
Obviously not the same thing but it does indicate that Google isn't afraid to leverage their search monopoly in the other parts of their business.
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> They signed the agreement, and now are going to courts to claim they had no choice.
Did the title change? They (Lenovo) are going to court? This is an antitrust case against Google and the witness is not part of the agreement signed. Is Lenovo suing Google?
The title is representing the witness (perplexity) stance, not Lenovo's. And given it's a antitrust suit it seems like a very valid stance.
Read it again perhaps? Without any of that context, it just reads like "google blocked [some/all] use of Perplexity AI on [some/all] Motorola devices"
Try not to overthink it.
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It’s a little oversimplified, but I wouldn’t call it misleading.
There is little point to getting an app like perplexity AI pre-installed on a phone as a non-default. Changing defaults isn’t exactly trivial, and any user motivated enough to go through that will have no problems installing the app from the App Store.
So of course the deal fell through.
And it’s accurate to say that “Google blocked a deal to put Perplexity AI on Motorola phones”, and highly monopolistic.
Though… as an end user and occasional family tech support person, I’m thankful for anything that reduces pre-installed bloatware on phones. Thanks google.
Most online journalism relies on clickbait, and they know people aren't going to read too much past the headline to care (and 99% of threads on sites like HN clearly demonstrate that).
You should just say 99% of material, because it has nothing to do with the "type" of site, what you're talking about is just a human behavior.
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well at least it is new information unlike your statement.
Sure a contract was signed, but as has been pointed out many times about Google's heavy-handed control over Android, it doesn't mean it was fair to all parties:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/07/googles-iron-grip-on...
Given the recent judgements about Google's anticompetitive behavior in multiple other arenas, revisiting these licensing agreements seems justified.
> Sure a contract was signed, but as has been pointed out many times about Google's heavy-handed control over Android, it doesn't mean it was fair to all parties:
The article is basically saying "if you don't use Play store and Google apps you'll have to build them yourself". I don't really understand - yes? You would have to. But you still got a load of stuff free. You only have to build apps on top. You get a working OS for free still, which is incredibly valuable.
Android is open source and Google play services is technically possible to avoid. What other major operating system vendor for consumer electronics goes out of their way to make this sort of thing possible? Apple and Microsoft sure don't.
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Calling the Google Apps agreement something phone vendors voluntarily agreed to is pedantic, reductive and useless. Yes, technically they didn't get physically forced into it, but that's not the whole story.
Google used their unimaginably deep pockets and several monopolies to make sure that no phone without Google Apps will sell. Look at what happened to Huawei after Trump's ban - there were articles in even mainstream media about how people are buying the P10 (was it?), starting it up, realizing nothing works and trying to return it. And literally the only reason that "nothing worked" was that it didn't have Google Play services.
If Lenovo wants preferential terms they have to sign.
If i remember correctly, it was similar argument when Microsoft in similar way blocked other browsers' pre-install - "if Dell wants to be MS Windows preferred partner ...". And ultimately that argument didn't fly. Though unfortunately a huge irreparable damage was still done.
Google is a convicted monopolist, so it has to play by different rules.
You could have simply written "I have no idea what anti-trust is all about", and saved yourself a lot of words.
It continues to baffle me that Google gets harassed by the courts for being a better actor in almost every area it participates.
Open source Android vs. closed iOS
Install apps from any source on Android vs. total restriction on iOS
Switch default app for browser (and many other things!) vs. No choice but Safari tech on iOS
Easy switch of search provider in Chrome vs. countless dark patterns pushing Edge and Bing on Windows
>Open source Android vs. closed iOS
Google have slid back on this from day one. A pure-AOSP build of Android is borderline unusable, to the point that the dialer UI, various essential apps such as contacts and the like are now proprietary Google code, stripped out of AOSP. Additionally, AOSP has gone to a source-dump release pattern, rather than an open build. Last I knew, even basic things like the Camera and clock app had been made Google-Properietary.
You have to go to a completely independent distribution like LineageOS, which has maintained a step by step fork of Android, in order to have a "google free" environment that is vaguely useful.
However, the thing the courts have gotten very angry with is that in order to use the Android trademark, you have to get certification, which requires you to exclusively ship a series of Google applications (Chrome, Gmail, Youtube, the Google Photos app, etc) even if you have your own replacement (e.g. Samsung's browser, a native photo app, email client, etc.) and you Must ship with the Google account system up front.
> Install apps from any source on Android vs. total restriction on iOS
Going with the previous one: The apps you install then are going to require the Google services that may or may not have been shipped with your phone. Additionally, the hoops that an application must go through to get the same level privileges as a Google application -- even for things on the local phone -- are far and above what most people would be willing to go through: Since Google apps are installed on the system software end, they are given privileges that no other application could have.
> Switch default app for browser (and many other things!) vs. No choice but Safari tech on iOS
See previous: If you want to ship with Google's blessed market, you must ship with Chrome and it must be the default. The power of defaults is strong here.
The requirement that amazes me they never gone absolutely done for was that to get certified (to carry the Play Store) you must not release any Android devices which are not certified.
i.e. a given manufacturer would not be able to sell Google based Android devices and separate non-Google based Android devices.
It's as if being able to bundle Windows OEM licenses were reliant on not selling any models with Linux.
Camera apps on Android are very loosely coupled to the OS. They are intentionally left to OEMs to provide because that's the most visible aspect of hardware differentiation, and that differentiation probably depends on software support. On top of that, it would be hard to design an API for every possible camera hardware, apart from a high level API for apps to acquire an image.
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> However, the thing the courts have gotten very angry with is that in order to use the Android trademark, you have to get certification, which requires you to exclusively ship a series of Google applications (Chrome, Gmail, Youtube, the Google Photos app, etc) even if you have your own replacement (e.g. Samsung's browser, a native photo app, email client, etc.) and you Must ship with the Google account system up front.
The Daylight Computer doesn't ship with Google applications like this from what I can remember, and I noticed it doesn't actually mention Android on their home page, just that it can "run your favorite apps". It only mentions Android on the specs page under software. I wonder if they did that because of this.
> Open source Android vs. closed iOS
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/07/googles-iron-grip-on...
This article lays out in painstaking detail in one place most of the criticisms about Android you'll find in this comment thread.
And this was published in 2018! That Google still maintains "a better actor" aura despite all that we know now is the greatest trick they ever pulled.
the comment doesn't say that is good, it says that it is better than ios. do you think android is more closed than ios?
i have a pixel phone, but google is not the good guy here. Like in this example, it basically bundles stuff in a way, so if you want for example the store, you have to take other stuff also and that other stuff has its own requirements.
There are de-Googled phones based on AOSP, and not just in China.
Google used to be more permissive with OEM "customization" and the result was lots of Bad Product Differentiation. Phone OEMs suck at software.
Huawei has a phone OS not based on AOSP, but you can't easily get it in the US.
Making a coherent OS product that doesn't get horribly mutated by OEM licensees is not easy. Vide Windows bloatware.
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Right. So the courts seem to prefer not offering the user any choice in hardware or software like Apple.
Android is hardly open source if it’s developed behind closed doors and final version released. It’s pretending.
Are you confused between open source and open development?
Isn't the source fully open?
Edit:
If I made a movie, and made the files freely available after I make it and let you do whatever you want with it
.. would you insist that it isn't "open" because you didn't see me argue with my editor or the 100 times I iterates on the end scene or whether your idea for chase sequence was not incorporated?
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Android is not open source and has not been for years. There is AOSP that contains small part of Android source. But the product that Google sells to OEMs is not open source.
It seems the probability of being guilty in the current justice system is a function of how many persistent enemies you have and not how just or unjust your actions are.
Please add Dr.Evil's air quotes around open in "open source Android"
Yes, please break up Apple, too! Who do we have to call to start the antitrust suit?
For the record, none of those are objectively "better". You and I may think they're better. Lots, lots, as in billions of people, couldn't care less:
> Open source Android vs. closed iOS
Almost no one outside specific tech circles cares, and even if they understood what it meant, still wouldn't care.
> Install apps from any source on Android vs. total restriction on iOS
That's one of the primary reasons I suggest that my relatives buy iPhones. I have older family who would absolutely install an APK from hackerz.ru if they got a phishing email claiming they won the Facebook Lottery and that's how they claim the prize. For that matter, I'm glad my bank has to publish their app through the App Store, because otherwise they'd almost certainly be hosting it on sketchysounding.bankservices.biz if no one made them.
The walled garden is an enormous advantage for a huge chunk of the world. I understand why it's a PITA for others. I'd love to install unsanctioned software from GitHub on my iPhone, but I'll happily accept that tradeoff in exchange for my uncle not being able to install "Real Actual Gmail.apk" from god knows where.
> Switch default app for browser (and many other things!) vs. No choice but Safari tech on iOS
I might agree with that, although part of me is glad that there's at least one major platform that Chrome hasn't taken over.
> Easy switch of search provider in Chrome vs. countless dark patterns pushing Edge and Bing on Windows
Five years ago, I'd have agreed. Today Chrome seems like the King of Dark Patterns because it can get away with it. It's the one single app on my Mac that makes me specially configure cmd-Q to quit it. Manifest v3. Web Integrity API. Etc., etc., etc. Google does this because they can. They haven't been the better actor in ages.
I would agree with that in principle if it were remotely true, but on my iPhone, when I searched for chatgpt or openai when they came out, I got half a dozen fake apps before the real one. And that's been the case for so many search terms for popular apps or areas. There are 1.8 million apps on iOS app store! How do they get this aura and image of safety and reliability? Or, how do I find that safe walled garden? :)
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With Apple, they are the manufacturer of the phone and the software, so they get to decide what goes on the hardware.
Google makes the OS, but not the hardware. Why should they be able to decide what another company puts on the hardware.
This is exactly the same playbook Microsoft tried in the 90s, and it is going to court for the exact same reason. It's using your market power to prevent competition.
We've decided that just because you are the maker of a piece of software does not mean you get to decide what runs on someone else's hardware.
So are you proposing that Google shouldn't allow other companies to install Android? What would Samsung, Motorola switch to and do app developers have to create apps targeting all of the different mobile OSes?
This seems like a far worst path than today, and to OP's point, though Google isn't perfect, they're doing better than their competitor in providing options. Pushing Google to only offer Android on their own phones is not a win for consumers.
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They're being harassed for lying about being a better actor. Apple gets to be a controlling asshole because there's no legal requirement for tech companies to not be. Google tried to have their cake and eat it too.
iOS is a package deal: you use our OS on our phones with our App Store and browser. Very straightforward and honest, even if we rightly hate the deal. This all relies on basic protections of IP law that the state is so far unwilling to roll back.
Android is a confusopoly[0]. For every point you mentioned, Google has a hidden deal or catch that subverts the intention of the words in question and makes it as bad as iOS.
Yes, Android is FOSS, but the app store everyone uses is proprietary; and Google's licensing terms for the proprietary store contravene the licenses on the FOSS portion. You specifically agree not to ship devices with "Android forks", even if you don't put the proprietary store on those specific devices. And what's actually released in AOSP shrinks every time a Google engineer puts a Google client in an app. Let us also not forget Android Honeycomb, which actually was not released to AOSP. There is no legal requirement for Google to ship source, and they've already tried out a fully-proprietary release of Android in the past.
Yes, you could install non-Google-Play apps on Android, but updating them required you to manually approve every update. Third-party app stores were a nightmare to use until Epic sued about it and Google provided APIs to actually deliver updates in the same way that Google Play can.
Yes, Google Play lets Mozilla ship Gecko. But Google is also paying phone manufacturers lots of money to make Chrome the default. Oh, and to not ship any third-party app stores. Combined with Google Play not letting you distribute other app stores through itself, it makes actually finding and using an app store a pain.
And Chrome is specifically designed to make you use Google Search with the same dark patterns Edge uses.
Please do not fool yourself into thinking that any actor in this industry is good. They all suck, and you should be happy when any of them get their noses bloodied.
[0] A term coined by the writer of Dilbert, Hatsune Miku, for deliberately confusing marketing intended to make you sigh in frustration, open your wallet, and let the sales guy decide what product you buy.
The factual info in your reference "[0]" makes no sense. The writer (and illustrator) of the Dilbert cartoon is Scott Adams [1]. I have no idea what the name you referenced has anything to do with it, other than some Japanese software. Or was all of part of your comment written by an LLM?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilbert
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Worked on Android from 2016-2023.
Vouch. (modulo Chrome aping Edge dark patterns)
And it's not an accident, or just an unthinking corporation with big divisions accidentally working at opposites, or just something looks bad when someone writes it up from the outside.
At this point, an Android phone without Google Play Services is mostly useless. You can't use maps, you can't even use notifications!
No one is forcing these other companies to make and sell phones. They don't even have the choice with iOS.
I'm really struggling to see where the consumer harm is.
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Google Maps must be the biggest value-add Google has built for their phone ecosystem, full stop. I see no reason they should give that away no strings attached. I am no Google fan but it's one of the few things they have done which positively impacts me almost daily.
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Aren't those first two points being phased out?
E..g. Google recently announced that it will be moving Android development entirely to its private internal branch, no more development sharing. They say they'll still be open source, but Google has been caught lying about a lot of things lately.
(Sent from my Android.)
They said they're going to merge their private branch after their full releases, as opposed to merging many times on the way to a release.
https://9to5google.com/2025/03/26/google-android-aosp-develo...
> This does not mean that Google is making Android a closed-source platform, but rather that the open-source aspect will only be released when a new branch is released to AOSP with those changes, including when new full versions or maintenance releases are finished.
This comment demonstrates many just read the rage bait headlines and don't really get much useful news these days.
I might be missing something big here, but how does the consistency work in these scenarios? At one place, you are saying Google is not allowed to pay to be default, but at the same time you are allowing others to be default because they are not a monopoly. One would naively assume that rules should be consistent. I get that asking people to choose induces friction and yet people would gravitate towards the most popular option. But, giving the default to an objectively inferior product (not talking about perplexity, but you would agree bing/DDG is not on the same level as Google for most non tech users) is worse when it comes to user experience and increases the friction even more.
Everyone's trying to fight for a piece of the AI walled-garden pie. I guess it's only getting divided up between a few players all over again. Nice try Perplexity, and I do see it as forewarning for the power play OpenAI will attempt (we just don't know what it will be yet).
Buying Chrome apparently.
I wonder how the relationship is after Google sold Motorola to Lenovo in October 2014.
Perplexity setting up talks with phone makers is itself an anti-competitive behavior to curb an already anti-competitive behavior. Either this should be banned in entirety or let the free markets prevail.
That's not happening. Everything that comes with a computer could be possibly construed as anti-competitive. Even the Start Menu - after all, if Start11 and StartIsBack exist, why should Microsoft have the right to ship their own start menu? How about calculators (Desmos)? The system that puts maximize, minimize, and close on windows (after all, WindowBlinds exists)? The login screen (LogonStudio)? What about the Task Manager (Process Explorer)? File Explorer (Total Commander)? The Media Player (VLC)? The PDF viewer (unfair competition against Adobe!)?
I agree that at some point, it crosses a line. Perplexity is nowhere near powerful or influential enough to cross that line.
Could draw the boundary based on average worldwide usage rate (total hours per hour).
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Why can't business talk to their leads?
No, what’s anti competitive is Google making an open source operating system that is worth absolutely nothing without the Google play services, and locking these play services behind contract that contains anti competitive rules, like « you have to set Google Gemini as default assistant », or « you can’t ever sell a phone without the Google play services or with any alternative than the Google play services ».
Android at its core is free and open source, every company can ship it. But Google hold one key thing in its hands, the Google play services, and use that to force others to do whatever they want them to do.
Else they can go the huawei direction, good luck making a Google play services competitor outside of China. Maybe in Russia ? That’s nothing.
Maybe perplexity ai is just better than Gemini and that’s one of the reason Motorola wanted to ship it. Maybe it’s for money. Whatever the reason, Google is abusing its dominant position to prevent competitor from competing with them.
So if Google closed sourced their OS and access to their store is only via their OS, is that anti competitive ?
Trying to figure out the argument.
As opposed to Apple, Android is free and open like you said. It’s the Google Play Store that has limited access.
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Why wouldn't they?
1. Already in anti-trust related to ads, AI is probably in the clear.
2. If they are thought to violating a law they will get like a $10,000,000 fine and pay it, still less money than they will make from harvesting data.
> Already in anti-trust related to ads, AI is probably in the clear.
"Already in trouble for committing monopolist behavior in market A, Google should be fine committing even more monopolist behavior in the very related and overlapping market of B"
This makes claim makes pretty little sense to me. AI search and Google web search (ads) are already stepping on each other. I see no reason that Google wouldn't be worried about antitrust on AI search if they're worried about antitrust action in general- which they clearly are.
Seems like the real issue is that Google is using proceeds from the core illegal monopoly to fund a dumping operation in another market in order to establish a monopoly there. They've been able to dump a free browser on the market and smother any potential competition in that space in the same fashion.
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"Google Tries To Be Microsoft, According To Witness"
Someone at Google should sic an llm at the trove of documents from the Microsoft antitrust trial. This is directly from the 90s Microsoft playbook. I'm sure I'm by far not the only one with a sufficient attention span to remember that.
[dead]
"Google blocked phone-making also-ran from preinstalling crapware their own users don't want, doing them a big favor."
Every Android phone comes preinstalled with Google made crapware
Motorola is one of the better phone manufacturers, though. Hardly any bloat, usually able to root easily, decent support from other operating systems, reasonably priced, and with decent battery life.
I still struggle to see what phones at 10x the price actually provide.
I got a Motorola Razr because it was an affordable folding phone and was shocked by how nice it is. As in I, a cheapskate, may actually have brand loyalty now.
Not Google's decision to make.
But Motorola is actually the party that made the decision, as per the article.
Title is misleading
Google/Alphabet's corporate death penalty (forced dissolution by the state) cannot come quickly enough.
Live by the sword (secretly cooperate with state-run intelligence agencies against the interests of their own users), die by the sword (swift and merciless forced corporate dissolution, by the state).