The open nature of Android, and more specifically Google, is going to be called into question in a court of law soon. We know that Google asks a great deal of manufacturers if they want access to Google Apps and Google Play Services, including specific placement of Google products on the homescreen and recently even a “powered by Android” logo in the boot screen. The lawsuit being brought against Google accuses the company of wielding these agreements to be anti-competitive, and is seeking an injunction against the company to stop this from happening.
It has been said time and time again that if you want to use Google’s apps on your version of Android, you need to follow Google’s rules. The Google Mobile Services agreement is largely a secret between Android OEMs and Google, but over the last year several details surrounding the agreement have leaked out and caused an increasing amount of commotion surrounding just how “open” Android really is.
While there are no smartphones running Android that are both free of Google Mobile Services and actually selling in any significant volume, the same can not be said for tablets. Amazon in particular has carved a niche out for themselves with the Kindle Fire and Fire TV devices, both of which run Android and are completely free of Google apps and services. If the rumors of an Amazon smartphone are true, the company will have Google free versions of Android in three key markets, serving as a prime example that you can have Android without Google and be successful.
At the end of the day the question seems to be whether or not it is anti-competitve that Google forces the rest of their apps on the manufacturer when they want to provide the Google Play Store on their phones. Trying to sell a smartphone without access to some kind of giant app catalog isn’t going to be successful anymore, which is one of the big reasons that Windows Phone has been so slow to reclaim marketshare and Samsung’s Tizen has been laughed out of several carriers around the world before even being launched.
An Android phone without the Google Play Store is viewed by many as barely worth even looking at, which is the basis for this lawsuit in the first place. It’s not that you can’t make Android work without Google’s services, it’s that Google seems to have worked hard to make sure no one would actually want to.
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