I wanted to know how Open Handset Alliance (OHA) works, it’s process and stuff…
Is it compulsory that I need to use default Google apps (Play Store, Google Chrome) if I’m using Android as my OS? Because, as Android is open source I can modify it anyway right i.e. I can even ship my custom Android OS with having default Google apps.
This is the first I’ve heard of it, and the last blog entry on their official site is dated to 2011. However:
I think the answer is no based on the fact that Kindle uses a modified version of Android (Amazon Fire OS) that doesn’t even ship with the Google Services Framework.
Basically yes as they use the Apache 2.0 license
Then why do companies (Samsung, Redmi, Oppo) still use Google Service Framework? They have their own apps (Samsung Store etc…) right, because, however underneath OS is the same and why simply allow Google to make money out of it?
The Google Service Framework is required by many (if not all) of Google’s apps as it’s responsible for backups, play store services, account management, and a few other things. You don’t need it to run Android - Amazon Fire OS doesn’t have it - but you need it to run most of Google’s other apps.
My guess as to why those companies use the framework anyways is that they would otherwise have to compete with Google on essentially every level. By not shipping with the framework (as Amazon does) they block off access to lots of hugely popular apps including Gmail, YouTube, Chrome, Google Maps, etc. This means that these companies would have to build their own services (or still rely on a 3rd party).
Many companies actually do build their own services. Amazon has the Silk Browser and Samsung has Samsung Internet, and I believe that they each have their own email and map services as well. The problem, I think, is that the smaller you are the more it actually costs you to not use Google’s framework.
This topic was automatically closed 91 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.