Only if it becomes popular. Which means phones need to come with it preinstalled somehow.
If this starts to become popular I expect Google to take steps to lock it out. Changing things constantly (which google does all the time anyway) it the obvious one to make it a moving target that this cannot hit.
Making it a moving target they can't hit would be a lot harder a few years ago when customers were more demanding of new functionality.
These days people are less keen on upgrading on every iteration than they used to be and are happier using older kit for longer. If they upped the maintenance window, in fact, that would force google to compete even more fiercely coz users would have to reallyreally want the new features.
I, for one, would vastly prefer using this over the latest android even if it lagged a couple versions and cost a bit more.
They already did years ago. The PlayStore license prohibits manufacturers from providing Android based systems that do not come with Googles "services" preinstalled. Unsurprisingly this has been found illegal in many countries.
From what I can find, that's not accurate. The issue was that Google required manufacturers to include various Google friendly default choices in exchange for getting access to Play Services and other Google apps.
It was not about banning AOSP-based Google-less systems (like Amazon Fire, which hugely disproves your claim).
The EU antitrust findings definitely included Google banning device makers from manufacturing devices running a fork of Android.
>In particular, the EC has decided that Google:
has required manufacturers to pre-install the Google Search app and browser app (Chrome), as a condition for licensing Google’s app store (the Play Store);
made payments to certain large manufacturers and mobile network operators on condition that they exclusively pre-installed the Google Search app on their devices; and
has prevented manufacturers wishing to pre-install Google apps from selling even a single smart mobile device running on alternative versions of Android that were not approved by Google (so-called “Android forks”).
> like Amazon Fire, which hugely disproves your claim
The FireOS wiki page calls out how members of the Open Handset alliance (which includes almost all relevant manufacturers) are explicitly prohibited from using Android forks like it[1]. It exists in spite of Googles efforts to insert anti competitive language into any bit of legalese it gets its hands on. All its existence proofs is that Google sucks at being a knock of 90s Microsoft.
I have a vague feeling that if Google takes active steps to lock out a government project, the EU will find a way to motivate Google to play nice. I mean Google surely wouldn't want to give anyone an incentive to revive that $1bn historical tax debate or the $1.5bn antitrust investigation ;)
What's 1.5 billion for Google? Apparently they give something like 10bn every year to Apple to be their default search engine.
I much prefer the Japanese way: you get a massive fine AND you have to close shop for a certain amount of time. It's much more painful for a company not to work than to pay a fine.
You have a point there, but Google's profits from Android are at least one order of magnitude larger than the numbers you quoted [0], and it may be rational for them to risk the fight.
Maybe, but the counter is enough money is at play to create a successful competitor. Someone doing a smart phone with 1/10th the penetration of Android is somewhat significant and not to be ignored. (in absolute numbers that is more than the number of Mac users vs Windows users)
I don't know anything about it other than their site, but it states that it was supported "in 2019" by PrototypeFund ("a project of the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research") and/but "since 2020" supported by E Foundation.
They could change their server-side services constantly, but part of this is an implementation of important APIs they've put in Play Services instead of AOSP (e.g. location services). Can't change those without affecting apps that use them too.
