Since they released their first Android version, Google has moved many important features to its proprietary Google Play service. Therefore, the Google Android version installed on most Android phones cannot be called open source. Alternative services like microG try to solve this problem.
When people compare two dominant mobile operating systems iOS and AndroidAndroid, they usually point out that the latter's open source nature and the freedom it provides to users are advantages over the former.
Indeed, Android devices are easier to customize than iPhone, but this is mainly related to the different design concepts adopted by Apple and Google when developing operating systems. Like macOS for desktop , Apple sacrifices customization options to make iOS as simple as possible. Perhaps this decision is crucial to the great success of the iPhone.
Images are from Android Authority
Google has chosen a completely different path. Instead of forcing phone manufacturers to use a centrally maintained version of Android, they allow them to create their own version of the operating system and add and remove features they see fit. This not only led to the flood of software on many Android phones being reported by the British media, but what is more interesting is that after Huawei was banned from continuing to cooperate with Google, it was able to develop its own mobile operating system based on the Android open source project (AOSP)) .
Images are derived from CNX Software
AOSP Source code is still free to access, but it only accounts for a small part of today's mobile operating systems. To understand why, we have to see how Android actually started in 2007.
The birth of the Android open source project
When the iPhone was released, Google encountered a problem: What if Apple monopolizes the smartphone field and then decides to give up Google as its preferred search engine without major competition? What does this mean for its business model of selling data to advertisers?
Google must act quickly if it wants to enter the smartphone competition as soon as possible. Therefore, out of despair, it commissioned the developers of the recently acquired Android company to develop an open source mobile operating system based on the Linux kernel. At the same time, time recruited several major companies for their Open Mobile Alliance , including HTC, Motorola , Sony and Samsung , and the Android operating system will become its flagship software.
After the plan worked, as Android quickly ran on mobile devices from most hardware manufacturers, it surpassed Apple's iOS on .
But now Google has a new problem: Android is open source, so in theory anyone can fork the project, create their own version of the operating system, and have the chance to become more successful than Google. That's why after the mobile market gained some traction, Google changed its strategy and continued to reintroduce closed source software into the Android ecosystem: Suddenly, an improved version of the standard AOSP application acquired the Google brand and is no longer open-resources. This includes a calendar, a camera and even a keyboard.
Although there are now a large number of proprietary Google applications available, this does not herald the end of the open Android ecosystem. However, Google goes a step further to ensure that most developers have to rely on their services in some way.
Google Play Services
Images from The Verge
The original idea was sublime: Google could not easily push operating system updates to all devices as mobile phone manufacturers use many different iterations of Android. Instead, manufacturers first have to adapt them to their own version of Android, which can take a long time.
To solve this problem, Google launched Play Services, named after its application Play Store, through which updates can be pushed. Over time, more and more features have become part of this package, giving developers a way to access APIs for all devices while benefiting Google’s business model: Want to offer in-app purchases in your app? To do this, you will have to use Google’s API, which the company also takes fees from. Want to see the user's location? Google will do this for you and will use this data for your own purposes. The most important function of migrating
to Play Services is the ability to easily send and receive messages and push notifications. Being able to send notifications to users is critical to the running of many applications, so this is the last nail in the future open coffin of Android. Apps using alternatives are rare, but about email providers implement their own solutions for their mobile apps.
Alternative to Google Play Services
There have been commercial and non-commercial attempts to abandon dependence on Google services.
Amazon also created its own app store, map API and push notification service when developing Fire OS based on AOSP, which is largely independent of Google. However, users who want to use Google apps on their Amazon devices often need to skip technical barriers to get them to function properly.
Images are derived from Amazon
In terms of open source, microG provides API that deceives by signature to disguise as Google Play service. It has been used by some alternative Android operating systems such as /e/OS and CalyxOS, but requires access to system-level processes, which is too unsafe for some people. These include developers of GrapheneOS, who chose to the sandbox version of Google Play Services , reducing its permissions to any regular application.
All these alternatives have their drawbacks: Neither Amazon's Fire OS nor microG provide full compatibility with all Android applications, and GrapheneOS's sandboxing approach requires some technical knowledge to keep running smoothly. Still, new projects aimed at making smartphones more open are emerging, so we may see many new ways to solve this problem in the coming years.
Conclusion
Android, because it runs on most smartphones today, can no longer be called an open source operating system, because many applications now rely on Google's proprietary software to run properly. However, open source is the Android open source project, which means that some devices run an open source version of Android. Sadly, these make up only a small percentage of all Android phones.
If you still stick to a truly free and open source mobile operating system, you might be interested in smartphones running Linux , such as PinePhone. Projects like this that bring popular distributions like Ubuntu to small screens are still in the early stages of development and are far from being suitable for beginners to install, but never underestimate the Linux community’s ability to drive free software usage, even on mobile devices.
#Android# #Mobile# #ios# #Apple# # #Apple#
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