Why can't Google force vendors and carriers in the Play license terms to open source their kernel and flashing technology so XDA and friends can take care of updates?
That would be the cheapest solution.
edit: added benefit, everyone is free to load on his device whatever he chooses. Google should have gone that path way earlier.
This overestimates the negotiating position of Google and underestimates the negotiating position of the manufacturers and carriers.
In the US, the business model for mobile phones is that carriers buy phones from the manufacturer and sell it to the end consumer. The carriers have ultimate influence on what they purchase which affects what the manufacturers produce. You, the end consumer, is a consumer of carriers rather than phone manufacturers.
Well, no Google Android, no phones - Google has a massive stronghold on the market, every consumer wants the latest and greatest phone.
Their stronghold is even enough to prevent ODMs (!) from building non-Play-licensed phones - either you only ship non-play-licensed phones or you ship only licensed ones. No in-between.
> Well, no Google Android, no phones - Google has a massive stronghold on the market, every consumer wants the latest and greatest phone.
It isn't that simple. Although creating a successful smartphone platform from scratch would be very difficult, if enough manufacturers got tired of the terms they might band together are create an app store to rival Play while maintaining Android compatibility. In this case, app developers would only need to change code for in-app purchases, licensing, etc. so a large enough group of manufacturers could draw a significant number of apps to the new store.
> added benefit, everyone is free to load on his device whatever he chooses. Google should have gone that path way earlier.
If Google had required this at the start, Android would never have gotten off the ground. Requiring hardware manufacturers to open source everything would have been a non-starter.
That would be the cheapest solution.
edit: added benefit, everyone is free to load on his device whatever he chooses. Google should have gone that path way earlier.