Google Android: Simple Explanations Ring True

February 14, 2020

I read “Why Google Did Android.” The author of the article is Tim Bray (OpenText, Sun Micro, Google, etc.) The answer in the write up is:

“The iPhone is really good. The way things are going, Apple’s going to have a monopoly on Internet-capable mobile devices. That means they’ll be the gatekeepers for everything, including advertising, saying who can and can’t, setting prices, taking a cut. That’s an existential threat to Google. Android doesn’t have to win, to win. It just has to get enough market so there’s a diverse and competitive mobile-advertising market.”

The person providing the answer is from Vic Gundotra, former Googler and now ex CEO of AliveCor.

The answer suggests to me that Google wanted to go from A to B in a pragmatic way. That’s what Google engineers try to do: Be pragmatic, logical.

Does this suggest that using Java was the logical way to make the journey from fear of the iPhone to Android? Maybe Oracle’s dogged pursuit of a legal resolution is more than a matter of principle? What’s the catchphrase about asking for forgiveness?

Stephen E Arnold, February 14, 2020

Comments

Comments are closed.

  • Archives

  • Recent Posts

  • Meta