this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2023

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371

While Android as a whole continues to shrink in the US, Google Pixel keeps growing (9to5google.com)

submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

226 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Android is struggling to keep its market share in the United States, as Apple continues to take over in the market. But, despite Android as a whole losing ground, Google Pixel phones are becoming a bigger slice of the US market.

Counterpoint Research reports that, in Q2 2023, US smartphone shipments dropped by 24% year-over-year. That includes both iPhones and Android phones, and virtually every brand saw a drop in shipments. Samsung saw US shipments drop by 37% while Motorola saw a 17% drop. TCL saw the biggest decline at just shy of 70% year-over-year, and even Apple saw a 6% drop.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Google keeps locking tons of Android features away behind their own privatized software stack.

Better for Google, but they are cutting their nose to spite their face here, as Android as a whole suffers for it.

Stuff like call screening in the android dialer would be possible on any brand of device. But no, pixel only.

The pixels have the very best android experience. It comes close to iPhone. But pixels aren't the whole market. Overall Google is trying to claw back control of the entire platform and I hate it.

[+] [email protected] 15 points 2 years ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

[deleted]

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 years ago

The problem of android is that it is "fake opensource". The OS itself is open source but google locks it down with GMS so google still controls everything.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

There needs to be a 3rd mobile platform that isn’t tied to Android

There wont be a 3rd platform for the same reason that America wont have a 3rd Political Party.

You'll never edge out the incumbents.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Actually there's a third platform being developed, based on Linux, by Puri.sm with their Librem 5 phone.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

And they're as likely to stay around as the Green party is.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Hello, it actually exists and they started developing it with crowdfunding (now it seems like they are self-sustaining with sales)..... Do you know Puri.sm?

They started some years ago creating a new Linux phone, the Librem 5, and they are developing firmware support and a mobile GNOME interface around it that also other project, like PinePhone, is using.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

RIP Windows Phone

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

If you have any corporate backing wouldn't it turn back into same situation as Android? Maintaining the app store, build tools, making new features, patching vulnerabilities e.t.c all require massive amounts of capital. Why would a company openly take initiative to do that? Meanwhile all others could free ride on it? Also any OEM's coming in and customizing it to their liking and not following the standards because they are not bound too like in Android, wouldn't that cause massive fragmentation. Back in the Symbian days this was the case where you need to customize your app slightly for each Symbian device, which meant you had to have the physical device. I remember back in the back in the day your office would be filled with these devices.

[+] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

First of all major corporations contribute to Linux kernel and there is very little contribution to a distribution. Why are they doing it? Because they benefit from their hardware being supported by Linux kernel(e.g Samsung contributing to Linux Kernel for SSD drivers) and now they can sell more, they can do this because it works with their business model. That is not the case with smartphones, in the smartphone world they are selling directly to a consumer and they need to do everything they can to differentiate themselves from other Smartphone makers. Mozilla tried the business model you mentioned but it didn't catch on. Lastly you forget to understand the number of apps available on Google Play vs on Flathub. Google Play has ~3.5 Million Apps vs ~2000 Apps on Flathub. We are talking a different scale here

Also speaking about Flathub, Flathub solves the issue of fragmentation by building an entire OS on top of another OS just to avoid the challenges of backwards compatibility. This has implications like huge app sizes because you are basically downloading the runtime and everything it depends on for each app. It works for most people because storage is cheap and can be upgraded at least in PC world. But still you will have issues with RAM because most flatpaks don't share the runtime and you need to need load each runtime to memory and this implications like higher memory usage, slower app start times because you need to load the entire runtime first before even you start the app.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Stuff like call screening in the android dialer would be possible on any brand of device. But no, pixel only.

Other OEMs also have their own features that are exclusive to their own phones. They can also implement them into AOSP, but they don't. Instead, they keep the features to their own devices. A lot of times when there's a new feature on Android in general, more often than not you'll see comments like "Samsung had this since years ago".

So if other OEMs are allowed to have platform specific features, Google is allowed to have theirs too. Or in other words, if you want to hold Google responsible for holding back Android, you have to also hold other OEMs responsible too.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Google owns the platform. You're not really comparing like to like.

It's like saying since Google can modify some files in Windows that Microsoft doesn't control the platform.

Sony upstreams many of its changes, but you're right that Samsung does not. This is both because of differentiation, but also because often the changes are in defiance of the "official" Google spec in android and merging is refused.

One plus for example offers further customization on gesture input that is missing in Android 13, allowing corner bottom swipes, hiding the little nav line, etc. But this cannot merge.

Google has decided a "solution", to hell with if your features are better. I would love to see these features in android mainline. But Google won't allow it. Sony made a theme system years ago, but Android wouldn't fully merge it, and took another 5 or so years to make something.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

It's like saying since Google can modify some files in Windows that Microsoft doesn't control the platform.

You complain that I'm not comparing like to like, yet you're taking Windows, a closed sourced operating system, as an analog to AOSP, an open sourced one?

This is both because of differentiation

But why are other OEMs allowed to differentiate, and Google is not?

Yes, Google has the "official control" of how Android should be, and not all OEM changes are in line with that. But contributing upstream is not the only way to make the Android ecosystem open.

Take for example, Galaxy Watch with WearOS. There are multiple features that the watch can do, ONLY IF ITS PAIRED WITH A GALAXY PHONE. I have a Galaxy Watch 4. It has ECG and Blood Pressure sensors. But I can't use it (officially), because I don't have a Galaxy phone. Why? Because Samsung is keeping that exclusive with a software lock that totally doesn't have to be there. Measuring ECG and Blood Pressure doesn't need anything from my phone, it's all on the watch.

Another example also regarding using Galaxy Watch with a non Galaxy phone, which is even more absurd, is that if you're using a Galaxy Watch with Galaxy phone, they will sync DND status between them, but if you're not using a Galaxy phone, it'll not sync. They literally added codes for it to not work on non Galaxy phone.

Also, the example you used in your original comment, the call screening feature, uses language models that Google paid for the development and trained. I think it's fair for them to uses that technology that they invested in to help boost their own profit instead of just giving out for free.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

I think it's beneficial for Google to distance itself from Android. By default, it's way too entangled with Google services. It would be nice to have Google call screening on every Android device, but is it really that far fetched to expect manufacturers to develop their own suite of features? I wouldn't expect iOS to have Android's features of vice versa.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The AOSP dialer is based on an older version. Google removed it going forward.

Agreed, but then why not make an api for your "open operating system" so users of Samsung/One Plus /Sony/etc could see the dialer with their call screening /assistants if they so choose?

Instead of just removing the dialer entirely. https://www.androidauthority.com/google-kill-android-aosp-dialer-messages-app-3334980/

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

There is a dialer api but you need signatureOrSystem protection level, which is why it does not work, unless a user on a rooted phone makes the app a system app. I haven't checked how it is now, but back in S3 days, I had a rooted S3 with Google Phone dialer and it worked fine.