Hacker News Reader

Comment by pedalpete | Hacker News Reader

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.

View on HN

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.

That's not at all what I'm proposing.

I'm proposing that Google can't decide what other hardware companies include in their devices just because they are including Android.

I think it is fine for Google to say you have to include the Play store, or you have to include Chrome, but to say you can't include firefox, or you can't include instagram, etc. etc. That shouldn't be up to Google.

This is what got Microsoft in anti-trust trouble in the 90s. They included Internet Explorer with the OS, and said that it had to be the default and only browser included by vendors. They weren't allowed to include competing browsers.

> Pushing Google to only offer Android on their own phones is not a win for consumers.

How can you possibly know that? Traditionally, competition + standards for interoperability has been a big win for consumers.

In a world without Google-android, maybe Samsung & Huawei get together and put in the polish to make https://postmarketos.org/ into a consumer-usable system? Maybe each fork LineageOS or KaiOS but collaborate on a standard apk format so developers can easily ship on different app stores?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com