I believe Google also licenses seemingly standard applications such as gmail and gcal - they are not part of Android itself. Google makes money from (presumably most) vendors every time someone buys an Android phone.

As will said, it doesn't matter when Google makes the money, they still make it. So each of those phone sales means more for Google, more marketshare and more money to be made. Google doesn't have to beat the iPhone with their own device, they win as long as ALL the Android devices outnumber all the Apple devices. And the longer that Android outsells the iPhone the harder it will be for Apple to claim that spot back and there is nothing Apple can do about it.

Google's Strength is that they don't have to make a single phone to win, Motorola, HTC, Samsung, and LG, as well as others, do that part for them. Its all about marketshare, and while the iPhone may outsell each individual phone it doesn't outsell all of them, and thus Google's Strategy wins.

Yes. This is why those "standard" Google apps are not available on the Kindle Fire as it's not Android proper but Amazon's forked version.

I also wouldn't be surprised if companies bought support for development, like with redhat.

For the bajillionth time, Google and Google Handsets are two completely different things.

In terms of number of devices:

Android > "Google" > Google Handsets (aka, Nexus + GED)

Pretty much every Android phone in the US is a "Google" powered device, NOT a vanilla Android device, and the few notable tablet exceptions are the Kindle Fire, Nook Color, and Nook Tablet.

What about all those chinese knockoff tablets you can get for $100-$200?

dealextreme.com has quite a few. Would those count as "Google Powered"? Not contesting, just curious.

Yeah, which is why I'm talking about Google Handsets.



Something I've been saying this entire time



And that's the Obvious News Headline for the evening.

Most of the shitty Chinese android tablets don't have the Google experience installed since that requires licensing and meeting certain requirements.
There are, however, communities developed around hacking things such as the Google Experience apps onto these devices (XDA-Developers, SDA Developers, any of the >9000 other android forums, etc...).



Know what feels like a hack? Dragging a bastardized folder to your applications folder and having it run a (sometimes) contained program. I can't think of a single other OS that has the application installation and tracking model of "Well, hell, just put it wherever and remember where it is."

Doesn't OS X has a similar mechanism? To install, just drag the app into your applications folder.

That's exactly the hackey crap that I was talking about.

what? That is how you install stuff? That sounds... dumb... even to me.

Indeed. But when you pay $3000 for $600 worth of computer hardware, it creates a God complex where the product must be worth it because you paid so much for it and therefore you're a better person than that stupid PC user who built his own machine for much much less. Humans in general don't like to acknowledge and admit their own mistakes, bad purchases included.

Well, 99% of the time, you just double click on the .dmg, and you're done. It's actually a really nice install process (or rather, seeming lack thereof). To actually launch an app, you can use Spotlight (search), the applications folder thing on your dock (small grid of icons), or launchpad (giant sauce grid of icons).

@DShiznit I love my current gen Air. It's no gaming rig, but for my purposes, it's totally worth it.


*Edit*
Guy next to me made a joke about non-terminating threads. I laughed.

Not quite. 99% of the time you double click a .dmg which opens a window (actually Finder, but whatever) which says something along the lines of "to install drag from here to here". Of course after you do that you then need to close the window, and then unmount the .dmg. OS X's install process is incredibly stupid (largely due to there not actually BEING an install process, you are dragging a folder from a virtual disk to your applications folder)

Launching apps is equally stupid. If it isn't in your dock it's a pain to find until you learn that you just have to rely on Spotlight and all of its many failures.

You can also install with one click.


#trolololol

I've added the Applicaations folder to my dock for show, but I always use Spotlight opening applications, it's the perfect tool. You type in what you want it to find, and it displays results. I've placed my applications at the top of the results list so it's a tad more convenient for my use.

I also empty my dock of all applications, so the ones running are always present (on the other-worldly rare occasion I just don't glimpse at CMND+TAB).

Regarding the "install" process, that drag-n-drop style install is primarily on small apps or those downloaded from independent developers. Larger applications and/or those with more robust security do a proper install. I personally find the "install" process to be attractive. It's quick and simple. Pressing "eject" also closes any open windows with the image. It's a pretty silly system, though. Sometimes I'll mount the image to run an app then eject it because I don't wish to actually "install" it.

That app store is disgusting.

Also, the issue isn't just with installing (or copying files over) sucking, but with uninstalling too. The install process provides absolutely nothing in terms of tracking applications as they install. On every other OS there is either a settings window or a command to uninstall/install a package/program that is fairly uniform across the board.

On Linux you have apt,yum,rpm,pacman,etc...
On Windows you have add/remove programs
On Mac you're screwed.

Uninstall is actually insanely easy - just press and hold on an app until it goes into "jiggle mode" ala iOS.



Also, AppZapper is slick.

That effectively deletes the icon unless the app is kind and keeps to itself.
Also, I'm not talking about iOS here, that's a more controlled environment where applications are kept track of; at least I hope it is.

ha, too bad jiggle mode is a huge area to screw up. The amount of times I have accidentally uninstalled an app like that on my brother's iPod.... I think it would be more efficient to just keep the add/remove program method... takes a tad longer, but in the long run, I think it is the better method