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Yuppers! | 348 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Yuppers!
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 11 2013 @ 12:01 PM EDT

I haven't used that one myself, but I have used others.

And the apps install and run just fine - from my experience with the apps I've selected anyway.

So this shows that an "Official Android" device can utilize third-party apps outside of "Google Play". Outside of the Google Store.

What isn't - so far - legally available are the official "Google Apps". Those appear to be very proprietary.

So... proprietary apps per se aren't anti-competitive. So the "Google Apps" alone, can't be reasonably viewed as anti-competitive.

And Android itself can be third party built and make use of the third-party binaries being built. So that's certainly not anti-competitive - even though there's proponents that like to claim "enforcing a trademark is anti-competitive". The context is - of course - "within the meaning of the Law", not "philosophically discussed".

So the question comes down to:

    If someone wants to be "Official Android" and/or "make use of 'Google Apps'" - is it anti-competitive if Google requires them to have "Google Apps" installed as a requirement of being "Official Android"?
In answer to that I would think:
    If one can choose to remove "Google Apps" - then no, it's not anti-competitive!
But I hold the same view equally for others:
    If one can choose to remove and install the apps one wants - it's not anti-competitive.
And sadly, today most phones require one to root them in order to exercise that level of choice. Given Motorola started moving to make it available to people to unlock/root* their device soon after the deal with Google closed - I'd say Google is moving in the right direction.

*: I can't remember exactly what Motorola started doing and can't easily find a link to it at the moment.

RAS

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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