It clearly states in the first line:
> "Google’s contract with Lenovo Group Ltd.’s Motorola blocked the smartphone maker from setting Perplexity AI as the default assistant on its new devices"
They didn't block Perplexity AI from Motorola's devices, the agreement states that they allow them to preload the devices with Perplexity, but the agreement, that both parties signed, does not give Motorola the permission to set it as the default.
> "Motorola “can’t get out of their Google obligations and so they are unable to change the default assistant on the device.”
They signed the agreement, and now are going to courts to claim they had no choice.
I understand the premise, that they think they had no choice, but this article is misleading in its headline, and plenty of the comments here clearly show that a lot of "readers" didn't bother to read it.
And they really don't have a choice. if you don't abide by googles terms then they will not permit you to use google mobile services. That means (at the very least):
- No "play" services (breaks lots of apps and 3rd party peripherals).
- No app store (over 90% of apps are distributed solely through the play store. even major android players like samsung have tiny libraries in their own stores).
- No youtube app (and no way to natively play without play services APIs, you NEED to use a crippled iframe embed in a webview!!!)
- No push notifications (developers usually target the "built-in" option that is basically play services)
- Missing apps and api-level integration with loads of other stuff, maps, mail, search, calendar, casting, etc
- No widevine DRM (no hd/4k netflix, etc)
- Loads of other insidious stuff I cant recall or articulate right now
Just look at how crippled Amazons fork is. Or how huawei pretty much lost their entire GLOBAL market share because of a US sanction preventing them having a GMS contract.
No matter what anyone says, android IS google. It is so riddled with google specific behaviours you cant use without a license that companies have even ditched android to make their own OS - because they literally aren't allowed to favorably position their own functionality over googles in any way.
Was the one thing which ended my couple of years without Google, as my banking apps started banning my phones fingerprint for being insecure.
Seems like in a major part of '''Pax Americana''' is needing to use a Google or Apple fingerprint to participate in society. Makes you laugh when people whinge about China.
When I asked out of curiosity why not Azure, especially given that these companies almost all use Office, Teams, Outlook, etc. several have told me it's because of Google Shopping and SEO. Though never formally stated or part of the contract it's often mentioned by Google that "They already have a relationship" with these companies via the feeds they provide for those products. And there are consistent talking point among the GCP sales reps about how they "help deliver you customers" and you "shouldn't fund a competitor".
Obviously not the same thing but it does indicate that Google isn't afraid to leverage their search monopoly in the other parts of their business.
Did the title change? They (Lenovo) are going to court? This is an antitrust case against Google and the witness is not part of the agreement signed. Is Lenovo suing Google?
The title is representing the witness (perplexity) stance, not Lenovo's. And given it's a antitrust suit it seems like a very valid stance.
Try not to overthink it.
Saying Google has no part in this would be wrong, and the fact that the agreement was mutual doesn't change the restrictions.
There is little point to getting an app like perplexity AI pre-installed on a phone as a non-default. Changing defaults isn’t exactly trivial, and any user motivated enough to go through that will have no problems installing the app from the App Store.
So of course the deal fell through.
And it’s accurate to say that “Google blocked a deal to put Perplexity AI on Motorola phones”, and highly monopolistic.
Though… as an end user and occasional family tech support person, I’m thankful for anything that reduces pre-installed bloatware on phones. Thanks google.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/07/googles-iron-grip-on...
Given the recent judgements about Google's anticompetitive behavior in multiple other arenas, revisiting these licensing agreements seems justified.
If you care about the laws though you cannot really get rid of the play services.
Open source Android vs. closed iOS
Install apps from any source on Android vs. total restriction on iOS
Switch default app for browser (and many other things!) vs. No choice but Safari tech on iOS
Easy switch of search provider in Chrome vs. countless dark patterns pushing Edge and Bing on Windows
Google have slid back on this from day one. A pure-AOSP build of Android is borderline unusable, to the point that the dialer UI, various essential apps such as contacts and the like are now proprietary Google code, stripped out of AOSP. Additionally, AOSP has gone to a source-dump release pattern, rather than an open build. Last I knew, even basic things like the Camera and clock app had been made Google-Properietary.
You have to go to a completely independent distribution like LineageOS, which has maintained a step by step fork of Android, in order to have a "google free" environment that is vaguely useful.
However, the thing the courts have gotten very angry with is that in order to use the Android trademark, you have to get certification, which requires you to exclusively ship a series of Google applications (Chrome, Gmail, Youtube, the Google Photos app, etc) even if you have your own replacement (e.g. Samsung's browser, a native photo app, email client, etc.) and you Must ship with the Google account system up front.
> Install apps from any source on Android vs. total restriction on iOS
Going with the previous one: The apps you install then are going to require the Google services that may or may not have been shipped with your phone. Additionally, the hoops that an application must go through to get the same level privileges as a Google application -- even for things on the local phone -- are far and above what most people would be willing to go through: Since Google apps are installed on the system software end, they are given privileges that no other application could have.
> Switch default app for browser (and many other things!) vs. No choice but Safari tech on iOS
See previous: If you want to ship with Google's blessed market, you must ship with Chrome and it must be the default. The power of defaults is strong here.
The Daylight Computer doesn't ship with Google applications like this from what I can remember, and I noticed it doesn't actually mention Android on their home page, just that it can "run your favorite apps". It only mentions Android on the specs page under software. I wonder if they did that because of this.
APIs themselves are hard to make, but why is a camera one especially so? The language is well understood, the math and science are well understood. There are only a few ways that cameras themselves work, and even few ways that cell phone cameras work.
Why is it hard?
In advance -- No, Sony/Panasonic/Toshiba/Apple/Whoever locking functions behind magic numbers and proprietary blobs and other 'un-Gentlemanly' things shouldn't count as difficulty in making a Camera API; that's just shit companies being shit to people, not an API problem.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/07/googles-iron-grip-on...
This article lays out in painstaking detail in one place most of the criticisms about Android you'll find in this comment thread.
And this was published in 2018! That Google still maintains "a better actor" aura despite all that we know now is the greatest trick they ever pulled.
Google used to be more permissive with OEM "customization" and the result was lots of Bad Product Differentiation. Phone OEMs suck at software.
Huawei has a phone OS not based on AOSP, but you can't easily get it in the US.
Making a coherent OS product that doesn't get horribly mutated by OEM licensees is not easy. Vide Windows bloatware.
Google flexing in this way, arguably for the benefit of the user, is nonetheless anticompetitive and the courts are reaming them for it.
Isn't the source fully open?
Edit:
If I made a movie, and made the files freely available after I make it and let you do whatever you want with it
.. would you insist that it isn't "open" because you didn't see me argue with my editor or the 100 times I iterates on the end scene or whether your idea for chase sequence was not incorporated?
The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable.
<https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html>
That's generally interpreted to mean that the build environment or build system is included in the requirements of the licence. This is included in FSF's Free Software Definition as well:
<https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html>
OSI's Open Source Definition includes substantively similar language:
The source code must be the preferred form in which a programmer would modify the program.
Answering your question then, no, source absent build prerequisites / systems does not satisfy either FSF's Free Software Definition or the subsequent Open Source Definition by the Open Source Initiative.
So no, Google made sure there is no open source Android. There are just some (incomplete) source dumps.
Are you saying because Google Maps isn't open source, the operating system is useless?
Simply said probably none of the apps you installed on your phone are going to work without Google Play services installed. Google Play services are closed source. Which is why manufactures like Samsung need to sign a contract with Google and can't simply "install opensource Android". Samsung could live without Google Maps being installed and they could even live without the Google play store but they can't live with none of your apps (like your bank app, your Netflix app, etc.) working.
> Open source Android vs. closed iOS
Almost no one outside specific tech circles cares, and even if they understood what it meant, still wouldn't care.
> Install apps from any source on Android vs. total restriction on iOS
That's one of the primary reasons I suggest that my relatives buy iPhones. I have older family who would absolutely install an APK from hackerz.ru if they got a phishing email claiming they won the Facebook Lottery and that's how they claim the prize. For that matter, I'm glad my bank has to publish their app through the App Store, because otherwise they'd almost certainly be hosting it on sketchysounding.bankservices.biz if no one made them.
The walled garden is an enormous advantage for a huge chunk of the world. I understand why it's a PITA for others. I'd love to install unsanctioned software from GitHub on my iPhone, but I'll happily accept that tradeoff in exchange for my uncle not being able to install "Real Actual Gmail.apk" from god knows where.
> Switch default app for browser (and many other things!) vs. No choice but Safari tech on iOS
I might agree with that, although part of me is glad that there's at least one major platform that Chrome hasn't taken over.
> Easy switch of search provider in Chrome vs. countless dark patterns pushing Edge and Bing on Windows
Five years ago, I'd have agreed. Today Chrome seems like the King of Dark Patterns because it can get away with it. It's the one single app on my Mac that makes me specially configure cmd-Q to quit it. Manifest v3. Web Integrity API. Etc., etc., etc. Google does this because they can. They haven't been the better actor in ages.
You're right. It's not "safe" in the sense that things clearly, demonstrably make it through that shouldn't. I do believe those are the exceptions that stand out, though. It doesn't mean that scammers can't still get malware into the store. It does mean they have to work harder for it than most scammers are willing or able to.
By analogy, Fremont, CA isn't "safe". They still have robberies and thefts and assaults and murders. But with a crime rate literally 1/10th that of St. Louis, I'd forgive people for describing it that way.
But yes, the App Store is a shit show
Google makes the OS, but not the hardware. Why should they be able to decide what another company puts on the hardware.
This is exactly the same playbook Microsoft tried in the 90s, and it is going to court for the exact same reason. It's using your market power to prevent competition.
We've decided that just because you are the maker of a piece of software does not mean you get to decide what runs on someone else's hardware.
This seems like a far worst path than today, and to OP's point, though Google isn't perfect, they're doing better than their competitor in providing options. Pushing Google to only offer Android on their own phones is not a win for consumers.
I'm proposing that Google can't decide what other hardware companies include in their devices just because they are including Android.
I think it is fine for Google to say you have to include the Play store, or you have to include Chrome, but to say you can't include firefox, or you can't include instagram, etc. etc. That shouldn't be up to Google.
This is what got Microsoft in anti-trust trouble in the 90s. They included Internet Explorer with the OS, and said that it had to be the default and only browser included by vendors. They weren't allowed to include competing browsers.
iOS is a package deal: you use our OS on our phones with our App Store and browser. Very straightforward and honest, even if we rightly hate the deal. This all relies on basic protections of IP law that the state is so far unwilling to roll back.
Android is a confusopoly[0]. For every point you mentioned, Google has a hidden deal or catch that subverts the intention of the words in question and makes it as bad as iOS.
Yes, Android is FOSS, but the app store everyone uses is proprietary; and Google's licensing terms for the proprietary store contravene the licenses on the FOSS portion. You specifically agree not to ship devices with "Android forks", even if you don't put the proprietary store on those specific devices. And what's actually released in AOSP shrinks every time a Google engineer puts a Google client in an app. Let us also not forget Android Honeycomb, which actually was not released to AOSP. There is no legal requirement for Google to ship source, and they've already tried out a fully-proprietary release of Android in the past.
Yes, you could install non-Google-Play apps on Android, but updating them required you to manually approve every update. Third-party app stores were a nightmare to use until Epic sued about it and Google provided APIs to actually deliver updates in the same way that Google Play can.
Yes, Google Play lets Mozilla ship Gecko. But Google is also paying phone manufacturers lots of money to make Chrome the default. Oh, and to not ship any third-party app stores. Combined with Google Play not letting you distribute other app stores through itself, it makes actually finding and using an app store a pain.
And Chrome is specifically designed to make you use Google Search with the same dark patterns Edge uses.
Please do not fool yourself into thinking that any actor in this industry is good. They all suck, and you should be happy when any of them get their noses bloodied.
[0] A term coined by the writer of Dilbert, Hatsune Miku, for deliberately confusing marketing intended to make you sigh in frustration, open your wallet, and let the sales guy decide what product you buy.
As for my comment being LLM slop, it's not. LLMs are way too corporatized - yes, even the local ones - to put in-jokes or references in citations.
Vouch. (modulo Chrome aping Edge dark patterns)
And it's not an accident, or just an unthinking corporation with big divisions accidentally working at opposites, or just something looks bad when someone writes it up from the outside.
I'm really struggling to see where the consumer harm is.
E..g. Google recently announced that it will be moving Android development entirely to its private internal branch, no more development sharing. They say they'll still be open source, but Google has been caught lying about a lot of things lately.
(Sent from my Android.)
https://9to5google.com/2025/03/26/google-android-aosp-develo...
> This does not mean that Google is making Android a closed-source platform, but rather that the open-source aspect will only be released when a new branch is released to AOSP with those changes, including when new full versions or maintenance releases are finished.
I agree that at some point, it crosses a line. Perplexity is nowhere near powerful or influential enough to cross that line.
Should be fun to install 500 games for 60 cent each. It might even push storage forwards.
Who knows, maybe there are enough parties out there to fund the entire device.
It also unfairly competes and damages competition from TaskbarX, Tabame, ObjectDock, RocketDock, Start11, and countless other small businesses.
As a result, Microsoft enjoys a near-monopoly on the world's most used program, and even has the audacity to break compatibility with these competitors regularly.
And how can we be sure that the EU’s silence on the lack of competition, isn’t because Microsoft crushed all competitors before they even had a chance?
In my competitive world, in my competitive dream, car dealerships will be offering free taskbars when you refinance. The market for the world’s most used program should be open to competition from anyone.
UPD. ah. I see. But Perplexity is an assistant. On Android AFAIK you can't just install another assistant.
UPD2. Actually, turns out on Android you can install a 3rd party assistant. AFAIK Alexa can just be installed from Play Store.
Android at its core is free and open source, every company can ship it. But Google hold one key thing in its hands, the Google play services, and use that to force others to do whatever they want them to do.
Else they can go the huawei direction, good luck making a Google play services competitor outside of China. Maybe in Russia ? That’s nothing.
Maybe perplexity ai is just better than Gemini and that’s one of the reason Motorola wanted to ship it. Maybe it’s for money. Whatever the reason, Google is abusing its dominant position to prevent competitor from competing with them.
Trying to figure out the argument.
As opposed to Apple, Android is free and open like you said. It’s the Google Play Store that has limited access.
Google killed competition by first making a free operating system that all phone manufacturer could use, lowering their production cost, and when competitor like windows phone or Samsung tyzen died, slowly tightened his grip by pushing more and more core feature in their third party services, hence forcing manufacturer to agree to their terms if they want to have a play store, Google pay service or just pass play integrity so that bank app can run.
That’s in my opinion completely different strategies, one is fair, the other is deceptive and manipulative.
1. Already in anti-trust related to ads, AI is probably in the clear.
2. If they are thought to violating a law they will get like a $10,000,000 fine and pay it, still less money than they will make from harvesting data.
"Already in trouble for committing monopolist behavior in market A, Google should be fine committing even more monopolist behavior in the very related and overlapping market of B"
This makes claim makes pretty little sense to me. AI search and Google web search (ads) are already stepping on each other. I see no reason that Google wouldn't be worried about antitrust on AI search if they're worried about antitrust action in general- which they clearly are.
I still struggle to see what phones at 10x the price actually provide.
Title is misleading
Live by the sword (secretly cooperate with state-run intelligence agencies against the interests of their own users), die by the sword (swift and merciless forced corporate dissolution, by the state).