“The discovery that Google’s new Chromecast web streaming device is based on Google TV code stripped of Android features provides additional evidence that Google is working to distance itself from the Android platform that the company developed under the management of Andy Rubin,” Daniel Eran Dilger writes for AppleInsider.
“While Android has been widely deployed on smartphones globally and is almost universally considered a tremendous success, the platform and its close association with its namesake Rubin, who was himself nicknamed ‘Android’ while working at Apple in the early 1990s, has inflicted more liability and expense on Google than it has strategic opportunity, revenues or profits,” Dilger writes. “Evidence from multiple sources, including the design decisions behind Google’s latest Chromecast product, support the idea that the company now sees more future potential and interest in investing in Chrome OS than in continuing to support Rubin’s Android and defending the platform from ongoing intellectual property disputes, even if the company has no interest in publicizing those intentions.”
Dilger writes, “After Apple launched iPhone in 2007, the market position of existing smartphone makers Palm and BlackBerry along with the licensed mobile platforms of Microsoft and Symbian quickly eroded as Apple established itself as the market leader in smartphones. Apple’s iPhone came packed with first party software integrating Google features including web search, maps and YouTube… As Apple’s iPhone increasingly gained traction in the market, the overall conceptual design and features of Google’s Android platform under Rubin’s direction radically shifted to increasingly take on the appearance and functionally the iPhone, sparking tensions between Apple and Google. ”
Much more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: It’s highly probable that Google did not originally intend to become the free operating system developer for Samsung. And, yet, that’s precisely what Google has become.
Gotta love Karma!
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]
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Google’s Android chief Andy Rubin steps aside – March 13, 2013
Apple to ITC: Android started at Apple while Andy Rubin worked for us – September 2, 2011