> The much more interesting recent news IMO is that Google is not allowing (non-Samsung) OEMs to sell devices with GrapheneOS:

To be That Guy, Apple is not allowing anyone anywhere to sell any devices with anything but MacOS/iOS.

> But this is really end-90s/begin-00s Microsoft levels of anti-competitiveness.

It's not even the most anti-competitive in the market of 2026!

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microtonal a day ago | parent | next [-]

To be That Guy, Apple is not allowing anyone anywhere to sell any devices with anything but MacOS/iOS.

Apple doesn't allow Apple selling Apple devices with other operating systems.

Google doesn't allow other OEMs selling the OEMs' devices with other operating systems.

Big difference.

(Yes, pedantics: I know that OEMs could sell devices with other OSes, but not being able to sell GMS Android devices would lose them most of their customers.)

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ajross a day ago | parent [-]

> Big difference.

Not from the perspective of competition, as I see it. Like, if you want to compete with Apple by using part of its platform for your own stuff, you can't at all. But you can with Google, just not all of it and in all ways.

Point being: this is just another platform flame. People with one kind of phone in their pocket are outraged at the maker of the other thing.

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NetMageSCW a day ago | parent [-]

No, it is different. They are using their market power over Android to prevent OEMs from selling other mobile OSs.

Apple doesn’t prevent other OEMs from selling phones.

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ajross 19 hours ago | parent [-]

> They are using their market power over Android to prevent OEMs from selling other mobile OSs.

That... is pretty spun, especially with regard to the Microsoft comparison upthread to which I responded.

They aren't trying to restrict "other mobile OSs", they're specifically saying GrapheneOS, and in general any AOSP-derived system which is designed to interoperate with the GMS frameworks.

Like, even AOSP alone would be fine, c.f. Fire or Harmony which never got this attention. GrapheneOS is specifically in violation because it includes a feature to suck down and essentially "pirate" an unlicensed copy of the GMS suite, thus making the phone into the practical equivalent of a Pixel.

That is what Google objects to, because they sell GMS as a product and aren't interested in their downstream OEMs "giving it away" for free by bundling a third party product that doesn't license it.

Basically GrapheneOS, as it exists right now, just can't be shipped as a commercial product. There's no license for the magic stuff they claim to support.

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grapheneos 14 hours ago | parent [-]

You're making up a whole phony story based on how you think GrapheneOS functions and your incorrect belief that Google has an issue with it. None of that is true. Google forbids every Android OEM licensing Google Mobile Services from shipping any fork of AOSP not certified by Google. Your claims about GrapheneOS are extraordinarily inaccurate.

GrapheneOS can be shipped as a commercial product and is going to be shipped as one on Motorola devices. It's only Motorola themselves which is unable to sell devices with it. Google's license doesn't say they can't provide official support for GrapheneOS and sell devices to other companies to sell GrapheneOS on those.

The approach to handling Google Mobile Services in GrapheneOS is entirely legal and Google has never raised any issue with it either with us or Motorola. We don't include it in GrapheneOS but rather only include a compatibility layer to make it run as a regular sandboxed app if users install it. We don't need to mirror it for the sandboxed Google Play feature to be usable. Mirroring freely available software is highly protected and no different from the many APK mirror sites. It's the Google Mobile Services licensing and Google's overall behavior with it egregiously violating antitrust laws which is illegal.

You're claiming providing a compatibility layer to run freely available software without privileged access it piracy. What we're doing is strongly protected under the law. Google's efforts to interfere with providing Android app compatibility elsewhere under the guise of a supposed security feature are going to have serious consequences for them. That's already coming in the EU and beyond. The bait and switch they've pulled with the Android Open Source Project and the coercive rules for their OEM partners is also going to have consequences beyond what it already has.

	▲	ajross 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		With all respect, and like I said, that's just spin. You're saying all the same stuff I did with different emphasis. You can't get a license for GMS if you want to make money shipping devices that allow users to run unlicensed GMS. You can make all the money you want shipping AOSP devices that don't/can't run GMS. We both agree on that much, right?

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GeekyBear a day ago | parent | prev [-]

iOS was never never an OS that was open to any device maker who cared to use it.

Google made the choice to announce that Android was open to all, in an attempt to take market share from Windows Phone.

Now they want to go back on their word.

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ajross a day ago | parent [-]

That may well be true. But the upthread point was that this was "anti-competitive", not "word-breaking". And in an argument about competition, Android is and remains by far (!) the most accessible platform. The restriction here is just that you can't get a license for Google's proprietary stuff if you also sell GrapheneOS, not even that you can't run GrapheneOS.

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GeekyBear a day ago | parent | next [-]

Google was already found guilty of antitrust, in part because they tried to contractually prevent device manufacturers from building devices to run forks of Android (like Amazon's Fire OS) if they also made devices for an OEM who used Google's Android.

> Alphabet's Google on Thursday lost its long-running fight against a record [€4.1 Billion] EU antitrust fine for using its Android mobile operating system to block rivals

https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/articles/2026-07-02/goo...

Now they are trying block Motorola from pre installing a different fork of Android.

They will either back down or face another enormous fine in the EU.

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ajross a day ago | parent [-]

Again, even accepting all that, Android remains more open to competition within its own ecosystem than it's main (heh) competitor. And being outraged in only one direction is a smell that tells me... we aren't talking about competition.

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fc417fc802 a day ago | parent | next [-]

You're missing the point. Selling a closed device is legally permissible whereas attempting to strong arm behavior of other companies is deemed anti-competitive. So apple is within the bounds of the law (regardless of whether you approve of that) while google is not.

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GeekyBear a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Apple never lied and claimed that iOS was "open" in the first place.

The important part is allowing users to make an informed choice, which requires you to be honest about what you are selling.

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NetMageSCW a day ago | parent [-]

Android is as open as ever (so far). Google doesn’t make or sell mobile phones for other OEMs, so their claims about Android openness can’t be applied to hardware from other OEMs being closed. Two different things.

	▲	GeekyBear a day ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Blocking Motorola from selling devices that run a fork of Android isn't open at all.
	▲	someonebaggy2 19 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[dead]

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grapheneos 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

No, you're completely wrong. Google forbids their OEM partners from selling any fork of the Android Open Source Project which isn't certified by Google. They forbid this as part of licensing Google Mobile Services but it applies to any fork of AOSP. GrapheneOS does not include Google Mobile Services and doesn't want to include it.