Google's new developer verification requirements starting September 2026 will force ALL Android app developers to register with Google - even those avoiding the Play Store entirely. F-Droid, the tr...
This will face legal hurdles, especially in the EU and China. It reminds me of the time Microsoft played shell games with Chrome and Firefox and then lost eventually. That being said, it will kickstart a new mobile OS arms race, not necessarily to beat Android but for choices.
I’m surprises at how SailfishOS has a limited presence. This could be that moment. HarmonyOS is sick. I’ve seen it in action and it is on another league.
The markets authority and antitrust offices are different people than the chat control people, they aren’t a unified organisation, they will probably argue about it.
Above all, the organisation behind it must be or become sufficiently robust, like GNU/Linux, in order to take up the torch, but that requires a lot of financial backing.
It’s not impossible, but in my opinion it won’t happen right away and is likely to take time to implement. Once that’s done, the only issue left will be installation (for users, that is).
As far as I understood from Graphene, when Google released the source code for Android 16, they also stripped all the reference code for Pixel devices.
Historically, Google would ship the code for Pixel and a software emulator as “reference designs”. Now, it’s only shipped with the emulator.
The Graphene Team needed to reconstruct the pixel code from the Android 15 release. Fortunately, the divergence between Android 15 and 16 was minimal, but I’m certain the division will widen as time goes by.
This will face legal hurdles, especially in the EU and China. It reminds me of the time Microsoft played shell games with Chrome and Firefox and then lost eventually. That being said, it will kickstart a new mobile OS arms race, not necessarily to beat Android but for choices.
HarmonyOS already exists in China as a fork of android, I wonder if something similar may spawn from the EU
I’m surprises at how SailfishOS has a limited presence. This could be that moment. HarmonyOS is sick. I’ve seen it in action and it is on another league.
would love it if some viable linux based alternatives came out of this.
This will definitely not be challenged in the EU. It’s the whole basis that makes chat control possible on a technical level.
The markets authority and antitrust offices are different people than the chat control people, they aren’t a unified organisation, they will probably argue about it.
Android can be forked at any time
Above all, the organisation behind it must be or become sufficiently robust, like GNU/Linux, in order to take up the torch, but that requires a lot of financial backing.
It’s not impossible, but in my opinion it won’t happen right away and is likely to take time to implement. Once that’s done, the only issue left will be installation (for users, that is).
I am not really sure, but i think i have read that google and android has to split up because of cartel laws at some point,
and i hope this might make things better (considering that like a lot of different companys do rely on android after all), but it is a fragile hope
… except for the binary os blobs, that’ll need to be reverse engineered to run it on… well… any real hardware /s
but these are firmware and drivers from the hardware manufactures and not the OS
As far as I understood from Graphene, when Google released the source code for Android 16, they also stripped all the reference code for Pixel devices.
Historically, Google would ship the code for Pixel and a software emulator as “reference designs”. Now, it’s only shipped with the emulator.
The Graphene Team needed to reconstruct the pixel code from the Android 15 release. Fortunately, the divergence between Android 15 and 16 was minimal, but I’m certain the division will widen as time goes by.