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Published in Mobiles

Android makers tell Google to fork off

by on09 April 2012



That Motorola thing has got their goat


Manufacturers using Google are so miffed that the search engine outfit has bought Motorola Mobility that they are rushing to develop their own forms of the operating system.

MIT Technology Review recently ran a yarn which quoted Skyhook Wireless CEO Ted Morgan said "a lot of companies" are forking Android; that "nobody wants to just be a manufacturer for Google." He predicted that  Android manufacturers are "mutinying" and a non-Google Android device is coming out later this year.

He said that manufacturers are tired of making commodity devices that are merely vehicles for Google's Android OS, each indistinguishable from the other because of Google's rules about how Android can be used. Apparently the only thing that has kept them tied to Google has been a desire to be part of the official lineup of Android devices.

Morgan does not name names but one of his revolting manufactuers could be Sony who does work with his outfit. This could mean that the next Xperia handset as its own forked Android with content only from the Playstation store, which sells music, movies, and games/apps, similar to Amazon and Google.  Sony has already sent its Xperia S handset access to the PlayStation Store. Another possible Skyhook forker is Chipzilla which  has its own Android fork that runs on x86-based processors.

So in other words what he might be describing is not so much a mutiny, but  just an increase in Android competition from forkers like Sony and Intel.

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