I have been an Android user since the release of the G. I was a Linux server admin at the time, and the idea of an open source environment on my phone was something I had been thinking about for awhile. Before the release of the G1, I was even considering diving into the OpenMOKO project, which nobody remembers (as a result of the G1 launch). For me, open source meant that, like my computer, I could adjust things at will that I wasn’t happy with. I followed the Android Open Source Project with eager anticipation, and watched as this community of developers modify and build and bolt on features to the Android that we know today.
In many ways, Android 4.0 was made less amazing as a result of already having many of the new features on my heavily modified Nexus S. Still, to this day there is one part of Android that is decidedly closed source, and it doesn’t seem like that is likely to change. Google is the least open part of Android.
As the steward of Android, a project Google acquired some time ago, the company has done their best to stay out of everyone’s way. Manufacturers can take Android, modify it to their liking, and release in under considerably few restrictions. Unfortunately, unless you are Amazon, manufacturers didn’t come to Android for the openness of the platform. Rather, they came to Android to compete with Apple and, by extension, each other.
But to compete in this fast-paced, app-driven world you need Google. Specifically, you need Google’s apps. The Play Store, Gmail, Google Music, YouTube… none of these are allowed to go on an Android device without Google’s stamp of approval. To get that stamp, your device has to meet a set of standards and pass a series of tests for things like software vulnerabilities and stability. When the device has passed through this gauntlet unscathed, you are approved to have Google apps installed on your device. Even then, however, you aren’t allowed to modify or even see the source code to those apps, you are only allowed to run the programs.
At this point, most people shrug it off and say “that’s not so bad, sounds like the cost of doing business with Google”. The issue here is not the process to which Google Apps are made available. Truth be told, in a world with such variety in terms of hardware quality, I find the notion of some stability reassuring. However, I do find it surprising, to say the least, that no one can interact with those apps at all.
Let’s take a look at Google Voice. I use Google Voice because, at the time, it was the only game in town that offered me the ability to access my SMS messages from my computer, and the ability to route calls to multiple numbers. As someone who reviews phones for a living, the ability to install an app and have my phone number temporarily on that phone was a huge deal. If you take a look in the Google Play Store, there’s a dozen SMS apps that all offer interesting new features to their users. My personal favorite is the Vlingo personal assistant, which allows me to wake the phone and send an SMS using just my voice. Unfortunately, none of these apps work with Google Voice. According to the app developers, Google has never and possibly never will release APIs for Voice.
This doesn’t stop at apps either. The lack of publicly available APIs makes using something like a MetaWatch awkward, since the Android-powered watch doesn’t have the ability to grab Google Voice notifications and display them the same way it can standard SMS.
Google’s apps are a critical part of the Android ecosystem. It is clear that, unless you can replace them (like Amazon did), your device is going to fail. The Google apps are great — all of the ones that I use work well and new features are rolled out all the time — unfortunately, they are not able to benefit from the open source ecosystem these apps are built on. This was clearly done by design.
At Google I/O this past year the room erupted into applause when Google announced that they would be releasing source to the I/O app to help developers understand what Google felt was the right way to being apps for Android. Unfortunately, that applause wasn’t enough to encourage Google to do the same with some of their other apps.
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