Even though Android is open source, virtually every Android device sold outside of China contains a chunk of closed code from Google in the form of Google Play Services and the GApps. These two deeply related software packages turn a rather stale mobile operating system into the full-on Google Android most of us know. There aren’t a whole lot of Android users (again, outside of China) who aren’t using these.
Since these packages aren’t open source, custom Android ROMs ship without them; you have to sideload them manually after installing your ROM image. Luckily for us, Google has always allowed this, but it’s always been a bit tenuous. It’s about to get a whole lot more tenuous, since Google appears to be blocking GApps from running on uncertified Android devices – but thankfully, they’re allowing custom ROM users to register their Android device to get an exception.
Earlier this week, we received an anonymous tip from a person claiming to be within the industry. This person, who said they worked for an OEM/ODM, notified us that Google has started entirely locking out newly built firmware from accessing Gapps. This change apparently went into effect March 16th and affects any software builds made after this date (Google Play Services checks ro.build.fingerprint for the build date apparently).
You can register your device to get an exception, and you can register up to 100 devices per user – which should be enough for virtually everyone, I assume.
I wonder if this is Google’s way of telling Amazon to suck it?
I wonder what the impact would be for a side loaded gapps on a fire tablet. I’m guessing it would block them. That might be the intent here, or at least a nice side benefit.
I suspect this is aimed at Kodi boxes and was pushed for by the RIAA and MPAA in the name of eliminating copyright infringement by Chinese STB manufacturers.
jonsmirl,
I don’t think it has anything to do with the RIAA or MPAA because it’s google’s own software that is getting blocked and not 3rd party content (as far as I know).
It seems as though open source has fallen out of favor at google, at least when it comes to android. This move shows that google wants to exert more control over 3rd parties (for better or for worse).
“It seems as though open source has fallen out of favor at google, at least when it comes to android.”
Or it’s no longer useful to Google.
When Android was a plucky newcomer up against proprietary platforms from Blackberry, Nokia/Symbian, Microsoft and Apple, open-source was a useful tool to get tech influencers behind them. Back then Google’s motto was still “Don’t be evil” and people tended to believe it. The long-term strategy and data-slurping got overlooked because Android was ‘open-source’.
As they started to gain marketshare, there was less focus on improving AOSP apps, instead focusing on proprietary apps that linked to Google services. If this is true, it’s just another step on that road.
The sad thing is that Google’s ongoing “embrace, extend and extinguish” approach has deprived the world of a real open-source alternative, as the duopoly is too strong for Firefox, Canonical, Sailfish or anyone else to break into.
Edited 2018-03-27 10:43 UTC
The big hope is Project Halium
If that can take off to the point where it can build functional base images for devices on the scale of what Lineage (& CM before that) has done, which should in theory be possible then that would allow the likes of UBPorts and Plasma Mobile to just add the UI and not have to worry about the hardware
That leaves apps, true but if they provide Android app support then at least we’d have something useful
If they can incorporate microG to simulate Play Services for those apps then it should all work with most of the stack open source
We have many of the jigsaw pieces,it’s just putting them all together
Probably in the name of quality control. Apple have always had the advantage that with the entire stack under their control, they have a relatively small set of targets to support.
By contrast, Google are expected to make their standard apps work on absolutely every possible flavour of Android ^aEUR“ and that’s pretty hard to live with considering how many companies are manufacturing Android devices, and the degree to which some of those companies are customising the OS.
Kodi is an Android app. If you can’t get Gapps loaded onto your Chinese STB you can’t run any modern Android apps since they app depend on Gapps.
Smart technical types can come up with an AOSP only solution but this will mess up the mass market.
On the plus side, maybe this will encourage further testing by developers to reduce the number of F-Droid apps which crash on devices where Google services are present but force-disabled.
(I tend to set that configuration up after doing a factory reset when I receive a retired phone or tablet that I don’t know how to root but want to use for testing my web creations.)
I wonder if this will result in:
– more users, with no access to the Play Store, getting their apps from 3-rd party sources
– more manufacturers shipping their devices with alternate stacks/stores such as those from Microsoft, Amazon
– more malware, more fragmentation
I think that on my secondary devices I will not install the google apps anymore. I only need contact synchronization on my main phone for all the rest I can find alternatives easily.
F-droid is pretty good.
Edited 2018-03-27 06:43 UTC
Checkout fruux.com for a nice contact & calendar sync alternative
I’m using it with a microG noGAPPS setup
My own anecdote is with an old Nexus 7 I revived recently for my daughter using a custom ROM: I needed the YouTube app and the PlayStore for a couple of games, everything else is F-droid.
Checkout NewPipe for YouTube client (on F-Droid) and Yalp Store (on F-Droid) to install games & the like from the Play Store without having Play Services