From what I've understood from the local news (I'm a South Korean), It's not about blocking handsets with forked Android (that already happens regularly AFAIK), but the requirement of shipping Google apps like Chrome and Google Assistant. The big elephant in the room here is Samsung phones, which do ship it's own custom browser Samsung Internet (BTW, with ad blocking capabilities!) and a separate virtual assistant, Bixby. That's the part where the KFTC decided was monopolistic.
I don't have a personal opinion this, but seems that the comment threads are focusing on the wrong part. Manufacturers were always able to bundle up their fucked-up version of Android. They were always able to ship super-custom UIs. Google never prevented that... but they did force the UIs bloat by having two separate default apps.
[1] https://ftc.go.kr/www/selectReportUserView.do?key=10&rpttype... (in Korean)
If you're signed into Google etc on your phone and that is compromised, it appears to the average person that Google messed up.
We also need to clean-up the mess with all those "partitions" (some of them with critical informations e.g. calibration, IMEI, etc) so that only one partition would have all those static information (reasonably protected against overwrite, e.g. colocated with bootloader and device-tree). We should be able to re-partition the storage (like we do on PC) without bricking the device...
This is thought-terminating nonsense, constantly repeated. What my grandma wants is for me to pick what's best for her and install it. What she doesn't want is Google (or Samsung for that matter) keeping her grandson from doing what he thinks she'll like best.
edit: and to be clear, that's what all of my computer-illiterate family members want, although not all of them from me (there are other grandchildren, uncles, etc.). The radical idea that people would rather have decisions made by the people that they love and trust rather than companies that actively and constantly prey upon them should be accepted without question.
Here you go: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5.
If I’m Snowden, knowing my boot loader could be unlocked and a key logger side loaded isn’t reassuring.
[0]: https://android.googlesource.com/platform/external/avb/+/mas...
[1]: https://android.googlesource.com/platform/external/avb/+/mas...
Example: https://www.thecustomdroid.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Ho...
Perhaps what I mean is "locked bootloaders at POS". Selling them locked should be illegal, but locking them yourself with your own key should be trivial.
If I'm Snowden, I would be far more concerned about that.
For many essential and security critical apps to work, like bank apps or the McDonald's app you need to hide the fact you're using a modified system, because of SafetyNet.
This hiding/bypass works for now, because it tricks Google into thinking your device doesn't support hardware attestation, and fallbacking to Basic attestation, which is easier to bypass. Google can at any time flip the switch to require hardware attestation, and your apps will stop working, with no way around it, other than flashing back the stock ROM your device came with and locking the bootloader. At that point I will probably just buy a new phone.
If that disappears, you'll end up with apps that only work on Samsung Androids and your LineageOS will stop being compatible. We're essentially going back to horrorshow of SymbianOS, where different Symbian devices weren't compatible between themselves because the OEMs kept fscking up.
(Heck, in early Android versions Samsung tended to break core APIs all the time and caused a lot of churn on developer side to workaround their per-device fsckups. Having to import phones from half a world away so you could see why the video recorder hardcrashes when you call an API is NOT FUN.).
I did have to uninstall a load of bloatware using ADB and I added a custom launcher (Niagara).
Excuse me? McDonald's app considers itself security critical now?
https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/samsung-s-lee-receiv...
The Anti-fragmentation agreement google makes these folks sign HELPS consumers. Going to be a crazy situation if that goes away, the app you buy on samsung won't work on HTC etc.
Google held/holds the ability to allow or disallow all product releases Android manufacturers release, including products which do not use Google Play Services.
Tizen became critical to Samsung because Samsung couldn't release a smart fridge with Android in the background without Google's permission, even if they had no intent on it having a traditional app store... because it might constitute a fork of Android.
Who controls the browser controls the platform.
Nothing has changed since the mid-1990s.
Law moves so freaking slow, this is about a 2013 complaint. Dealing with tech industry crooks requires faster movement than this.
The article makes it clear this ruling is entirely to the benefit of Samsung Electronics.
Also, to even compare that Android phones are 'cheaper' is rather bold, there's Samsung flip phones selling for $2000.
[1] https://www.counterpointresearch.com/us-market-smartphone-sh...
