Programming版 - Meet AOSP, the other Android, while you still can |
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发帖数: 1500 | 1 http://www.infoworld.com/print/236070
Meet AOSP, the other Android, while you still can
By Galen M. Gruman
Created 2014-02-14 04:00AM
No doubt you've seen the stat showing how much more popular Android
smartphones are than iPhones in much of the world. But many of those Android
smartphones aren't the Android you're thinking of -- the kind you'd get
from Samsung, HTC, or Motorola. That's because there's more than one Android
. In fact, some analysts believe that about half of the Android devices in
the world aren't ones you'd consider to be Android.
The other Android is called Android Open Source Platform (AOSP) [1], and it'
s the truly open source part of Android, used as the basis of smartphones
and tablets throughout the world.
[ No, a phablet version will not save the iPhone [2]. | iOS vs. Android:
When a smartphone is not a smartphone, and a tablet is not a tablet [3]. |
Keep up on key mobile developments and insights with the Mobilize newsletter
[4].]
You can also think of AOSP as akin to DOS: the embedded core OS in Windows
before Windows NT came along. In that thinking, the Windows GUI is analogous
to Google Mobile Services (GMS), the set of services that runs on top of
AOSP to deliver the complete Android experience. GMS is as proprietary as
iOS or Windows Phone. Google doesn't charge money for it, but it comes with
a lot of requirements that give Google a lot of control over Android devices
. It's also part of all those Google services, from the Google Play app
store to the Google Maps APIs that many Android devices rely on to provide
their Androidness.
If you live in North America, Europe, Japan, Australia, or South Korea and
other rich Asian nations, chances are you're using Android devices based on
both the AOSP core and the GMS services that together represent the Google
Android experience. Sure, manufacturers can add their own services and APIs
on top of these two, but once you scratch those skins' surface, you're back
to the Android experience.
In the rest of the world, chances are greater that your Android device is
running AOSP. Thus, it doesn't provide much of the Google experience.
AOSP is used by most of the really cheap Android devices, such as those in
China and India, as well as large parts of the rest of Asia, Africa, and
Latin America. AOSP is cheaper to use because its services are so basic that
it can run on inexpensive hardware better suited for the small incomes of
poor countries. It also ironically is a good fit in countries like China
where the government doesn't want a foreign company to have that much reach
into citizens' data and communications -- where the government wants to keep
that pile of riches for itself.
AOSP is also what Amazon.com's Kindle Fire tablet OS [5] is based on and why
it offers none of the Google services you'd expect from Android. Amazon has
to replicate any of the GMS services such as an app store that it wants to
offer -- and Amazon is one of the few companies that can do that.
In China, Xiaomi is in a similar position [6] to make such technology
investments, and that's why it hired a key Google exec, Hugo Barra [7], last
year. If Microsoft's soon-to-be-subsidiary Nokia announces an Android
device next week as rumored [8], it may also be an AOSP-based device, not a
"real" Android device -- Microsoft also has the resources to replicate key
GMS features using alternative technologies. (Why it would do so is another
question!)
AOSP is a bare-bones OS that Google has been updating less and less, and at
some point it may not be a viable Android OS any longer. In fact, AOSP's
chief, Jean-Baptiste Quéru, quit in disgust [9] at Google's neglect last
year. A neglect-inflicted death is certainly what competing open source and
Web-based platforms [10] such as Firefox OS [11], Ubuntu Touch [12], and
Sailfish [13] are counting on.
You can see the progression of Google's shift from AOSP to GMS in the
various Android OS versions. The early Android versions, like 1.6 "Donut"
were mostly AOSP, whereas the 4.4 "KitKat" version is predominantly GMS.
That may explain why the most recent Android version's adoption by device
makers has been slow -- it puts them in the position of making me-too
Android devices (or at least me-too-er ones) and be more and more locked
into Google's proprietary aspects. The increasing proprietariness of Android
via GMS also explains why Samsung continues to dabble with the often-
promised but as-yet-undelivered Tizen [14].
All this adds up to a strange brew. Half of the Android devices out there
run on AOSP, which seems to be on its way to abandonment. The other half are
less able to differentiate themselves from each other.
For those into the mobile horse race [15], the non-AOSP-only Android
smartphones still outsell the iPhone; the iPad still rules in tablets even
if you include them. But once the industry recognizes that AOSP isn't really
Android as DOS really isn't Windows, the mobile horse race will look to be
a lot closer, a near tie between iPhones and "high end" Android phones. In
the tablet arena, the iPad will still be the leader, and Android remain a
distant second place, followed by the AOSP-based Kindle Fire, whose sales
have fallen [16] in the last year and no longer threaten "real" Android
tablets from Samsung and others, whose sales are growing. When all is said
and done, we'll experience a psychic change in that horse race.
For those who don't really care about market horse races, the bigger
implication is that much of the developing world is using a platform whose
longevity is uncertain, and those regions may be ripe for a big shift in the
mobile platforms it uses. The developing world has already largely
abandoned BlackBerry and Nokia's Series 40 OSes (and is doing the same to
Nokia's Asha follow-on) in favor of AOSP Android. Will it step up to AOSP+
GMS Android or to iOS as it becomes richer? Will it shift to another simple
mobile OS? Or will it remain a complex stew of OSes even as the developed
world moves further into becoming a Samsung-Apple duopoly?
It'll be interesting to see how this all goes. But the next time someone
talks about "Android," you'll know it's not necessarily what he or she
thinks it means. The Android you see may not be the Android you're looking
for -- and a big chunk of the Android world may not be around much longer. |
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