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On the lockdown of Android Honeycomb

During a keynote presentation at Google’s IO developer conference last year, Google VP of engineering Vic Gundotra proclaimed that the search giant created Android in order to bring freedom to the masses and avoid a “draconian future” in which one company controlled the mobile industry. Looking past the self-congratulatory rhetoric, Android’s poor track record on openness is becoming harder to ignore.

The company revealed Thursday that it will delay publication of the Android 3.0 source code for the foreseeable future—possibly for months. It’s not clear when (or if) the source code will be made available. The decision puts Android on a path towards a “draconian future” of its own, in which it is controlled by a single vendor—Google.

via [ars technica](http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2011/03/android-openness-withering-as-google-withhold-honeycomb-code.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss)
I think the mistake everyone is making here is assuming that this is some sort of change in Google’s intentions. Google is only “headed toward” a less open platform if you think that they ever intended the platform to be open in the first place.

For-profit companies are only open when it suits them to be open. Apple, for instance used the open AAC format in iTunes because it knew a proprietary format would never be able to compete with the open MP3. It gave away Webkit as an open platform, because it knew no one would adapt web sites to suit the Safari browser if it used a proprietary engine. The same goes for adopting USB, DVI, Display Port, and Thunderbolt. Apple could use open standards in these cases because it makes its money elsewhere.

Open is what you do when you’re the underdog and you need to get your product into as many hands as possible. And when using the open standard doesn’t interfere with your ability to profit from your own intellectual property. There’s nothing wrong with that, in practice, as long as you are clear when you are being open vs. when you are not.

What Google has done is dupe the open zealots into cheerleading the platform by making elaborate speeches about the free exchange of ideas, the need for standards, etc. All the while keeping its own search algorithms, Gmail, etc. locked up tight. The whole thing is a ruse. A sham.

And the open fanboys fall for it every time.

“Don’t be evil is marking bullshit.” Right as usual, Steve. He wasn’t criticizing, so much as pointing out the obvious.

Now that hardware manufacturers are taking advantage of the “open” Android by adding their own user interface tweaks, and more offensively, cutting deals with Microsoft to add Bing search instead of Google search, Google is clamping down Android 3.0. Suddenly the pure numbers game isn’t working out so well. After all, a world full of Android devices that make more money for Microsoft than for Google doesn’t help Google much.

So this move should not be surprising at all, if you’ve been paying any attention. Google will open anything so long as that openness helps it make money. Otherwise, it’s closed, closed, closed. And that’s no different from Apple, or Microsoft, or RIM, or anyone else. So I’m not even knocking Google for that.

Being a hypocrite, though. Well for that, I’m happy to knock Google quite a bit.

RIM takes Android's place as the iPad killer who couldn't

> RIM is entering the tablet market as an underdog and will have to work hard to gain credibility and be viewed as a serious contender. Honeycomb’s incompleteness and Android’s early stumble out of the tablet starting gate have created a window of opportunity for another player to stake a position.
via [arstechnica.com](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/03/android-apps-on-playbook-tablet-could-be-a-mixed-bag-for-platform.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss)
I love how quickly the story has changed from “Android will soon overtake Apple in tablets just like it did with phones” to “RIM has a real shot now that Android has stumbled out of the gate”. How long before RIM becomes the stumbler, and the next loser gets lined up as the “true iPad killer?”

The press sure has ditched their favored son Android, haven’t they?

Well, we have HP’s new tablet in June, at the very least. I imagine there will be at least two other big tablets between now and then. And then maybe early next year, right about the time of the iPad 3, we’ll be hearing about Amazon’s iPad killer.

It really is the iPod all over again.

AT&T, T-Mobile, and monopolies • Joshua Topolsky

> But that seems unrealistic. I don’t think we can have our cake and eat it too. I don’t think the carriers will work together, and I don’t think we can let 25 different carriers have 25 different spectrums — that’s ultimately bad for business *and* the end user. I know this is a more complicated idea that requires bigger brains than mine to be tackled, but I also know (or at least strongly feel) that it’s something that needs to happen if we’re going to move forward from a technological standpoint. We need something better, something smarter. But is there any way we can remove politics and greed from this debate and actually do what’s best for human beings for once? I don’t see that on the horizon just yet.
via [joshuatopolsky.com](http://joshuatopolsky.com/post/4064633675/at-t-t-mobile-and-monopolies)
I couldn’t agree with this article more. The current political climate in the US is going to cripple our ability to move forward technologically. We’re in serious danger of losing our ability to innovate, mostly because of low-level infrastructure that the government isn’t stepping in to build, and companies are unwilling to fund.

A company like Apple can’t continue to make the iPad and iPhone better if our connection to the Internet remains at the same speed and limited to the same places. As I’ve told many friends many times, until I can stream a full HD movie with no stuttering wirelessly while sitting in the middle of a corn field in Iowa, the true promise of the “cloud” won’t happen. Apple can’t fix that. AT&T can’t fix that.

There are simply too many situations where people don’t have access.

Some things are too big for any company to do. The government really does need to step in on the big necessities. And the Internet is surely one of those necessities at this point.

Motorola is not "devoted" to Android long-term

> **Motorola Mobility, which has been Google’s only major licensee fully committed to Android, is now working on a new web-based mobile operating system apparently intended to give it more control over its future, enraging Android advocates anew just weeks after Nokia opted against adopting Google’s mobile OS.** > > Word of Motorola’s new project was [reported](http://www.informationweek.com/news/development/mobility/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229400097) by *Information Week*, which attributed “a source familiar with the matter.” > > While the company issued an email statement insisting that “Motorola Mobility is committed to Android as an operating system,” it did not deny that it was also working on its own competing mobile operating system project.
via [appleinsider.com](http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/03/23/motorola_hedging_android_bet_with_new_web_based_os.html)
Translation: We don’t like the looks of Android’s future, particularly on tablets.

This is not surprising at all to me. Companies are finally coming around to the idea that trading Microsoft for Google is not a smart long-term strategy. If you want to succeed in the “Post-PC” era, as Apple calls it, you have to make the whole widget. Get the software and the hardware tightly integrated. Can’t do that when you let Google run the software side.

The only question is, when will someone out there succeed with an alternative operating system? I’d love to see Palm’s WebOS succeed, but they still seem to be severely lacking developer interest. I just don’t see any other companies out there with a credible track record in mobile software.

Bertrand Serlet's Departure From Apple

> In other words, Serlet isn’t leaving because because Lion heralds some subsuming of OS X to iOS and the setting of his star at Apple. He’s leaving because he feels it’s time and likely because Lion seems a perfect monument to his legacy at Apple.
via [digitaldaily.allthingsd.com](http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20110323/mac-daddy-serlets-surprise-departure-more-of-a-planned-transition/)
I’ll miss Serlet, because he was an interesting personality on the Apple team. But I agree, there’s no reason to read too much into this. By all accounts, this retirement is a long time coming, as the keynote appearance of Federighi last year suggests. We might be surprised, but Apple’s executive team has been aware of this for a while.

For guys like Steve Jobs, your career and your life are basically one in the same. The guy will likely never be satisfied that he’s done enough to change the world. But for a lot of others, once you’ve made the dent on the universe, and you’ve made more than enough money to live happily ever after, why not part ways with your job and move on to something less demanding? The man is a brilliant engineer; he probably has some other interests that he’d like to pursue.

He says he’d like to focus more on science and less on products. I take him at his word.