On Fri, 19 Dec 2014, Adam Bolte <abolte@systemsaviour.com> wrote:
You both seem to be talking about two different things. Ben was saying that you can run whatever app store you want - you are not forced to use Google. This is absolutely true. On my Sony Xperia Z1 Ultra "phablet" running Android, I had no trouble at all disabling all the Google Play apps and installing F-Droid. No firmware hacking or rooting, etc. The Humble Bundle also have their own "store" on Android for apps you have purchased, completely outside of Google's ecosystem, for example.
On the other hand, you seem to be saying that you can't avoid Google's ecosystem because Android is becoming increasingly proprietary. While I don't deny claims that Google is replacing free software apps with proprietary versions, Google does not force you to use them to date.
Google's lock-in at the moment is all about convenience. It's painful to avoid the Google programs but they make no attempt to make it impossible. Apply however design their iPhones and iPads to make it impossible to do anything other than the Apple way and it's only bugs that allow people to use the hardware they "own" as they wish. But I think that a large portion of the inconvenience of running non-Google apps is due to the lack of testing. EG if you use K9 mail then you still have the process for the Exchange connector running all the time because no-one in the development team cared enough to test that use case. Nexus devices are the most well known for having an unlocked boot loader. Lots of other Android phones and tablets can be unlocked if you search. I even heard that Sony had been quietly making it possible to run your own OS on their devices. It is quite possible to sell Android devices that are locked down and which require exploiting a bug to get root access. But there is no requirement that devices be sold in that way and there is a choice of vendors. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/