The dirty word: 'Android' wasn't said a single time during the Google Pixel 3 event
Android is the world's most ubiquitous OS and one of the most important parts of Google's business. But it's becoming clearer that the company no longer wants the word associated with its phones. The latest evidence is in the transcript for its event this week in New York City.
"Android" wasn't said a single time during the Made by Google 2018 keynote. It marks the first time ever that Google has held a public-facing hardware event like this — since the introduction of the operating system in 2008 — without at least mentioning it by name.
[...] While Android went unsaid, Google had no shame talking Chrome OS, which powers the new Pixel Slate tablet. Google told an entire story around Chrome OS, where it's come from, why it makes sense on the tablet, and touted it as a great desktop alternative to Windows and macOS. To me it seemed Chrome OS was clearly marketed as a standout feature of the Pixel Slate. To add insult to injury for Android, the "universe" of Android apps that can now run on Chrome were referred to as simply "apps" or "apps from the Google Play Store" during the keynote.
[...] It's understandable that, given the Android brand's association with "lower quality" non-premium phones that Google doesn't want to associate the name of that OS with its phones — at least not in terms of the public-facing marketing message. Android phones are made by dozens of scattered manufacturers, all with varying approaches to their products, their design, their features, etc. — which has lead to an arguably good thing: immense diversity of phones running Android today. But that means "Android" doesn't really have much meaning other than just being not-iPhone. [...] And it doesn't want the baggage of the Android connotation mucking up the image of a phone that competes with the iPhone and costs upwards of $1,000.
Also at BGR.
Related: Now Is the Time to Start Planning for the Post-Android World
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Glyn Moody over at the Linux Journal brings attention to the idea that Android's days are probably numbered and that it is time to consider viable exit strategies and file them for when they are needed later. Android is currently on over 2-billion devices around the world but the EU, goaded by Microsoft partners and proxies, has decided to fine Google 4.34 billion euros over Android for breaching EU antitrust rules weakening its usefulness. With an obvious replacement, Fuchsia, nearing completion at Google, and with the smartphone manufacturers also exploring alternative plans, such as Tizen and eelo, Android is starting to get alternatives. Just as the ages of CP/M, MS-DOS, and MS Windows have ended, so too will the current age of Android draw to a close. Eventually. Someday.
Previously on SN, Google Hopes to Replace Android with Fuschia[sic] in Five Years
If you have a Pixel 3 phone, you should be aware that you can opt out of the built-in binding arbitration agreement. Boing Boing has a screen shot of the new Pixel phone's binding arbitration opt-out form. Pixel phone owners, insofar as they actually own the phone, are given a chance to avoid Google's attempt to get them to sign away your right to sue even if the company hurts, cheats, or kills them.
Earlier on SN: Google Avoids Talking About Android at Pixel 3 Event.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Friday October 12 2018, @08:41PM (4 children)
So they're going after the elitist snobs now? Right, got it. I guess the technically illiterate budget user often won't care what the OS is called and tech-nerds like us want to move onto something else like a pure OSS Linux phone.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Friday October 12 2018, @08:59PM (1 child)
Rule #1 of the cellphone industry : Copy Apple. Yes, they did just repackage some feature you did 2 years ago, then gave up, but now do it again.
Rule #2 of the cellphone industry : How's that copy going ?
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Friday October 12 2018, @09:17PM
Good point. Wouldn't you say in general you only love or hate Apple though? If so, Apple haters won't want their phone to be an iPhone knock-off. So then that leaves it as a market for Apple lovers that simply can't afford an iPhone (or had iPhones in the past, still love them but finally had to give up due to some major deal-breaker). Though I suppose, at least for smart phones and laptops, everyone is copying Apple, so it's not like the haters have much of a choice, so there's that...
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 12 2018, @09:52PM (1 child)
From TFS:
...except it definitely isn't. And likely will never be.
Even Windows and macOS aren't "great alternatives" to one another. And why? Because they can't natively run the applications from the other OS (but there are VM's for one-step-away operations.)
Yet Windows and OS X have one great strength each that Chrome does not have (and likely will never have.) And that strength is a huge spread of designed-for-them native applications they can run. Adding VMs to the mix makes it even more so. Not only can they then run older versions of their own OS's, but in many cases, they can simultaneously run non-native OS's as well.
People are being deceptively lured to the weak sauce of Chrome by Google. Google isn't doing them any favors at all.
As always, Google is either your evil nemesis or your co-conspirator. The very best thing you can do is steer wide of anything they do that would commit you to any part of their intentionally toxic, the-user-is-the-product ecosystem.
(Score: 3, Informative) by darkfeline on Friday October 12 2018, @10:12PM
Well, Chrome OS can run Android apps (which is what most normal people use) and Linux software, and wasn't there talk about dualbooting Windows too? Your "likely will never be" doesn't hold much weight.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Friday October 12 2018, @09:00PM (11 children)
Google's future is vivid purplish red* [soylentnews.org]
*#FF00FF [google.com.au]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday October 12 2018, @09:35PM (9 children)
I don't think it would be too hard to transform ChromeOS (running on laptops and tablets) into Fuchsia. ChromeOS can already support Linux and Android software. All that's left is to replace the kernel, introduce whatever security enhancements are planned for Fuchsia, keep the UI looking like existing ChromeOS, and fix the bugs.
The bigger question is whether or not Fuchsia will make it onto phones. The smartphone manufacturers are wary of Google, and Google can be considered a competitor with their Pixel devices. Moving to Fuchsia could give Google more control over the device. Maybe Google will stop development of regular Android and prevent manufacturers from using the trademark if they don't move to Fuchsia "Android".
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Friday October 12 2018, @09:53PM (7 children)
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Friday October 12 2018, @10:37PM (5 children)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Fuchsia [wikipedia.org]
It'll run Android apps (which are written in high-level languages), it will run Chromium [9to5google.com]. It will run Linux out of town.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Friday October 12 2018, @11:09PM (2 children)
OK now this is awesome. It's something I've often wanted to hack together on other OSes but never quite found the time. I figured you could maybe fake it if you read the second mouse's state with a custom driver and then either very rapidly alternate the pointer between the two locations or just draw the second pointer with some graphics code and spoof all the extra mouse events. I got stuck thinking what would happen if an application tries to read the pointer location at a given moment and gets the "wrong" pointer. Maybe you could get around it by ensuring that each window was associated with the closest pointer to it but it would be a challenge to code up.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by PocketSizeSUn on Saturday October 13 2018, @03:33AM
Well if you consider multi-point touch effectively multiple 'mice' as each touch point behaves very well like that .. then it's been around for a long time. Several USB HID drivers for multi-touch screens could be used as a basis for this ... and hacking the HID input to what you want via xinput isn't very difficult .. although building and testing X is a bit of pain.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Unixnut on Saturday October 13 2018, @10:19AM
> OK now this is awesome. It's something I've often wanted to hack together on other OSes but never quite found the time.
Linux X-server has supported multiple pointers for years. I remember using it with two mouse pointers on the same screen in the 00's. First time was actually by accident, I plugged a mouse in at the front panel without knowing there was one tucked in behind the PC, and got very confused when there were two pointers on the screen, but I could move only one of them. Thought it was a graphics corruption at first..
After that I used it with a mouse pointer and a tablet (which pretended to be a mouse for compatibility) for graphics work just fine.
There is even an entry about it here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Multi-pointer_X [archlinux.org]
The link says it came about in version 1.7, which was in 2009. So multi-pointer support has existed on one of the 3 main OSes (without needing to hack anything together) for almost 10 years now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @08:11AM (1 child)
.. err, Google Fuchsia? F-u-ch-s-ia? Did the goog really just release a product that sounds like "Google Fucksya"? ROFL .. Zune hard peepz!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @08:39AM
To be fair, it's not a product, and Google can just put it onto devices without normies realizing that the internal OS/kernel is called "Fuchsia".
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Saturday October 13 2018, @01:54AM
That's a funny way to say 'backdoors'.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday October 12 2018, @10:49PM
The moment Oracle starts charging Java licenses [theregister.co.uk], those manufacturers will fall in line.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday October 12 2018, @09:59PM
That's a better color than Azure [wikipedia.org] #007FFF.
Bing would describe Azure as the color of a bluish choking smoke belched by the dying engine of a dying machine running a Microsoft OS.
It's not blue smoke. It's Azure smoke!
It's not pink. It's Fuschia!
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jasassin on Friday October 12 2018, @09:48PM
If this did make it on a phone, would a person be able to get more updates (you know how most manufacturers never update android) or would it be the same?
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Friday October 12 2018, @10:32PM
They're leaking like crazy. This should NEVER have happened but we are learning more and more by the hour. An EMBARRASSMENT to our Country!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 12 2018, @10:33PM (2 children)
Android has been in the news for spying on users when they were told they weren't being spied on. It was quite intentional by google. Google is spyware and Android is spyware. Google wants to distance itself from the negative image that Android represents and the latest spying exposure was not the last. There is more to come and google knows that.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Friday October 12 2018, @11:24PM
Why don't they change the company name? Something generic and unrelated. How about Alphabet? Oh, wait!
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by bobthecimmerian on Saturday October 13 2018, @03:23PM
ChromeOS is spyware too, and I guarantee whatever Google might introduce next is spyware too. They make their money through data collection, asking them to give that up is like asking Microsoft to open source Windows and Office. They'll never voluntarily, willfully put themselves out of business.