Android lead Andy Rubin has challenged rumors that Google is locking down the OS, taking to the official Android Developers blog to deny that there has been “a change in strategy” in how it deals with OEMs, modifications, or hardware. “Our approach remains unchanged: there are no lock-downs or restrictions against customizing UIs” Rubin insists. “There are not, and never have been, any efforts to standardize the platform on any single chipset architecture.”
Talk of a more stringent approach to Android modification broke last week, with insiders claiming Google had begun to prioritize vendors who would agree not to modify the OS or its UI. The so-called “anti-fragmentation clauses,” Rubin says, have however been in place since Android 1.0, and the only demands Google makes is that manufacturers hold to certain core specifications if they want to use Google’s own apps.
As for Honeycomb and the release of the Android 3.0 source code, Rubin says that “the Android team is still hard at work to bring all the new Honeycomb features to phones” and that “as soon as this work is completed, we’ll publish the code.”
It’s been the same message over and over. . . why people can’t get it I don’t know. . . oh wait, it’s because the sites saying Google is now “closed” with Android are pro-apple sites and want to take any cheap shot they can lol
On a serious note. .. I really do think Google needs to lock down the OS more. If they continue to allow UI alterations I’m sure fragmentation will still continue just as it has. How many of you want a different UI for every device you purchase? That’s one thing MS got right with Windows–consistency among devices. I think this has the potential to really bite Android in the butt over the long run especially when MS gets it together and offers an OS that works on phones, tablets, and desktops each with a standard UI which gets updates directly from MS. Because in the ends it’s the consumers that will ultimately choose the “winner” of these OS wars and I think the consumers really want consistency and updates asap and it will be hard to ignore all the software Windows has–of course that all rests on MS being able to trim Windows down to work properly on ARM chips, but if they do it well then we might see the mobile space go just like the netbook space did => Windows.