Comment by keeda

> The article is basically saying "if you don't use Play store and Google apps you'll have to build them yourself".

The article says a lot more. A key point about the Open Handset Alliance, OHA (emphasis theirs):

"If a company does ever manage to fork AOSP, clone the Google apps, and create a viable competitor to Google's Android, it's going to have a hard time getting anyone to build a device for it. In an open market, it would be as easy as calling up an Android OEM and convincing them to switch, but Google is out to make life a little more difficult than that. ...

The OHA is a group of companies committed to Android—Google's Android—and members are contractually prohibited from building non-Google approved devices. That's right, joining the OHA requires a company to sign its life away and promise to not build a device that runs a competing Android fork."