Asking ignorantly here -- are you saying that those API's are accessible to Google Chrome and not to other browsers? That Google is playing in an unfair playing field?
are you saying that those API's are accessible to Google Chrome and not to other browsers
Those APIs are available to all Android apps, including other browsers. The only complaints I've heard are about Push-style APIs and power saving essentially forcing you to use Google Services.
Yeah that's actually a good point. There is no assurance that your App's Service component will remain active and GCM is the only way to reliably push to an Android device.
However you can write an App that persists in the App Tray as an icon that could maintain the App's Service component. The drawback there however is the persistent notification.
> The drawback there however is the persistent notification.
Well, the actual drawback is that you end up with over a dozen such notifications, your entire UI is full with them, and there’s no way to get rid of them, even if you developed the apps yourself.
Developers could band together, build one such app that does the communication part and forwards any incoming message to the right destination using intents. (ie what GCM does)
On the phone they could then look if GCM is around (and use it) or if that other notification app is around (and use it) or propose to install said app.
It's negligible in terms of user confusion because people on non-GCM systems likely know what they're getting into (except for those using Amazon Fire).
