Shots Fired - Microsoft Blasts Google on How they Handle Android

Community Tech Policy & News
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Microsoft has called out Google. According to Windows Chief Terry Myerson who spoke during a keynote appearance at Microsoft's Ignite conference in Chicago,

Myerson knocked Google's Android update plans. "Google ships a big pile of shit code", with no commitment to update your device," Myerson said, with an intentional pause that left the audience laughing. "Google takes no responsibility to update customer devices and refuses to take responsibility to update their devices, leaving end users and businesses increasingly exposed every day they use an Android device.

The Irony of this statement, is that Microsoft hasn't said a word on how they plan on by passing carriers to update their Windows-Based Phones. AND on top of that, Windows 7 Phones never received updates to Windows 8, and Windows RT Based devices won't get Windows 10. So Someone blow some ass gas to Microsoft's Direction for a quick minute. I'll Wait...

Anyways To keep a long story short. You have one two "Sluts" calling each other "Sluts" and both of them have Evidence. and Some will argue that in Microsoft defense what Terry Myerson said is True, Google cannot deny it. but on a similar note Microsoft has no right to talk. BUT in all fairness to Microsoft. their update history isn't as bad as Google's.

Thoughts? I thought these were a funny reads.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-blasts-google-2015-5
Source: http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/4/8545917/microsoft-slams-android-security

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many people hate apple for their walled garden but gotta admit that when it comes to device updates they have the best record

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of course they do. there is only one iPhone. it's not like Android and Microsoft who have a bunch of phones with different specifications made by different OEMS. If dozens of OEM's were making a Phone with IOS. Apple would be in the exact same predicament.

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that might be one thing that microsoft does differently then. is limit an OEMs ability to modify it. leaving a very similar system on all devices that microsoft can control updating

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Can't wait for ubuntu phone.

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If it even bother to kicks off. Ubuntu Phone is Ironically, a reflection, of Linux Itself. It's amazing, it's going to take over the world.. but where is it? is it going to be like Linux as whole.. A "Work in Progress" or is actually going to be spread, promoted and be adopted by the masses? in all fairness Windows Phone doesn't compare to Android or the Linux Mobile Platform in the slightest. but Ubuntu Phone, i'm not sure it's going to kick off so well. i think Developers are going to stick with Android as their preferred Mobile developer platform.

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Yeah, but only time will tell. I don't think Windows Phone is going to do as well as Microsoft thinks it will. they need to fix that turd of an App store.

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All comes back to choice, do you want the walled garden with great updates and support? Or a open market with more flexibility? I kind of like seeing two options though, hopefully Microsoft will have some bite to go with all this bark.

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That really is what it comes down to. I have an off-carrier, Republic Wireless, who have their own features (wifi handover, text over wifi, etc.) that they integrate directly into the phone's kernel, which means they have to send their patches to Sprint (the network they run on) to get approved before they push out an update. I still don't have 5.0 or 5.1 for that reason.

If Google were to adopt the sort of business model for Android that Microsoft is proposing, all updates for all compatible phones would have to be delayed until all of them could be updated at once with all their necessary features, which means that it would add a couple of years to major release cycles. Considering the amount of kernel-patching that goes on inbetween Google/Android, the manufacturer, and the carrier, it would be a monster to try to control. It may have ended up that major releases would pack a lot more features in them, but you still need the updates available in order for testing and patching for each subsequent layer of control in order to make sure that each update works for all iterations of spec Android devices. In most cases, the major updates would be as obsolete as Apple technological upgrades (e.g. Apple Pay).

Even then, it would break some of the design philosophy that Google employs. The Nexus devices are on the bleeding edge of the Android platform, and are usually the first to get the updates. As such, it is a viable developer platform base for developers who want to have their software available for the latest update. They can have an actually functioning device that can be used outside of mere promise ("these will be the specs, here's the API") to deliver software that works and is relatively bug-free if done correctly. That way, when the mass of consumers actually receive the update to their own phones, there is already software available for all the users that wouldn't be available/confirmed/bug-free if the update rolled at once. It would be the sort of problem that Linux has in terms of gaming, "well, it doesn't have this yet, so I'll just wait around until it comes along, and then I'll consider."

That is excepting the fact that most consumers would be locked in a two-year contract, so if you're on a different platform, you're pretty much locking out the platform for that time period. If Android started pushing out updates all at once, it loses its bleeding edge, Google loses a source of income from Android (Nexus), and could potentially lose a lot of consumers within two years if Apple or Microsoft played their cards right.

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I think those actions are for the best, this way all dirty secrets will come up sooner or later.

I like seeing companies bashing each other, its good view. Its a view of freedom.

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Does google have that kind of power over andriod? Theres a lot of stuff, some involving the kernel, that carriers and phone makers do to it that can cause problems.

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The problem with his statement is that google does not have the access to do any of this currently. The phones and tablets are updates by the manufacturers. So microsoft can take their shit and cram it right back where it came from.

It is worse as the hardware for WinPho6 could no support 7. They fixed that with WinPho7 hardware but then just plain did not update them anyway and now they are busy dumping ARM anyway.

Not taking sides but there are so many technical issues with his statement and he is WINDOWS CHIEF! I would not want that class of arrogant self righteous idiot in charge of anything with that level of competency.

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Droid Turbo user here, still waiting on Lollipop....

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A month ago or so, Google had criticized Microsoft for waiting a whole month before releasing a critical security update that should have passed 4 years ago, which Microsoft wouldn't release as soon as it was ready because "Microsoft only releases updates on patch Tuesdays".

It's true though that Google releases tons of shit code, almost as bad as Microsoft. Many open source repos won't even allow open source Google code any more because Google codes like Microsoft, no respect for existing packages, no respect for the golden rule to not break userspace, no respect for quality or minimizing code. What Google does is to use old snapshots of other open source projects and deliver it together with its code instead of respecting the maintained projects as they evolve.

As far as updates for Android are concerned, I've been getting all the updates quite quickly, and I haven't been experiencing many problems on my Nexus devices. Besides Nexus devices, there is no guarantee whatsoever that updates will ever come or when they will come. Most smartphone vendors are guilty in that respect, and Microsoft especially.

There is a definite evolution of commercial software and hardware+software vendors towards ever less quality. Look at Adobe products since 2013: even their golden eggs, Photoshop and Premiere Pro are becoming ever less stable, to the extent where the latest Premiere Pro causes random bluescreens on a daily basis.

That's the power of open source software: at least you know what you're getting. Ever tried to work on a professional level with Adobe Lightroom? Then you know what I'm talking about! The interface says that you're using sRGB or ProPhotoRGB colour spaces, but in reality, Lightroom internally uses the so-called MelissaRGB (named after the project leader), which is no standard at all. The amount of knowledge and corrective tweaking required to make these commercial softwares work in the real world where added value has to be created, has become too high, it's as simple as that... these softwares eat up all the added value and cause huge deficits. It's always the same with those US based commercial moguls: lies, lies, lies, and they're always bitching on one another lolz... it's become a comedy, a bad soap, none of them show any respect whatsoever for customers, professional or other.

Google has now allowed certain manufacturers to use their version of Android for image offloading through the default Google applications and cloud services, but has refused it to others. Which ones you might ask: well, easy, Sony, Samsung, Nikon, etc... have all engaged in competitive Android products in some form, so they are banned, but Fuji or Olympus are allowed... it's just crazy at what infantile level these big corporations do business. So you want to use a mobile device to offload valuable media data? What are you going to use? Android: will only work if you're either on your own GApps-less Android cocktail on a sufficiently capable device, or if you're using gear provided by the "friends of Google"... Windows... will not work at all, the autobackup feature for media to OneDrive only works on Android, where it hits the limitations set out by Google, cf. supra.... Windows 8 tablet... could do it, if there were software available that didn't suck balls, but that's not the case, so unusable... Linux tablet... works just fine if you know what you're doing, just like with the non-GApps Android tablets, because you can't buy these devices set up from the factory, you have to install everything yourself, but once you do that, you have a choice of high quality tools that offer incredible performance and reliability.

If you want quality, it comes at a lower cost these days, it only takes an initial time investment into open source software workflow learning... after that, all of the bitching by these companies against each other just makes one smile... especially since the devices required to achieve this, are dirt cheap in comparison to the highly marketed "high end" devices. 10" full HD IPS quad core Intel x86 based 2GB RAM full aluminium monocoque tablet with full rooting instructions and microSD slot for 128GB... 199 EUR incl. VAT these days in Germany... will run any full linux distro with all the trimmings... it's not like people don't have a choice, the real problem is that people make choices that are determined by marketing instead of common sense...

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The problem with this statement, is that these "Android" or Linux-based Tablets. are for all intensive purpose media consumption devices. We have too many media consumption devices. what all these companies need to do is Develop, Productivity devices. Microsoft wishes to break that barrier of "One device for all to get work done" which, yes Ubuntu was the first to think of this idea, with Ubuntu Phone and Ubuntu Tablet. but Microsoft is the first to deliver. On a similar note. the only touch-based tablet or OS that i feel will make tablets strive in the productivity space, is Jolla / Sailfish OS. cause the productivity is impeccable. imagine running Sailfish OS on a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014) edition. that would be amazing.

Agreed. but the problem people seem to have with Open Source Software is the features versus these "Commercialized Software" all those features over-shadow the Open-Source Software. sure stability may be an issue. but the applications aren't broken just cause isn't using a Standard. they get what people need to do done.

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Any distro will work on any tablet, and that has been the case for years. Canonical didn't have any original ideas, quite on the contrary in fact, they just wanted to lock down an ecosystem by moving away from X and Wayland to make their own semi-proprietary display server, Mir, which isn't GPL licensed but rather has a modified BSD license, so that commercially licensed software can be built upon it, which is not possible for software based on GPL/GNU fundaments.

Gnome or KDE Plasma will work great (much better than Ubuntu Touch in fact) on tablet devices, and KDE even offers convergence with Android devices (and has done so for years, since the beginning of KDE4 development).

On an optimized non-Google-or-other-vendor-or-ISP-bloated-and-spyware-infected Android device, it's quite possible to get a lot of things done in terms of productivity. There are things like Kingsoft Office, now called WPS, the official office suite for which development is sponsored by the Chinese government, which is compatible with everything, is updated every single year with a big functional update since it first came in existence more than a decade ago, and which is free for private use. There is also wevideo, snapseed, pixlr, etc..., all of which are functional applications. Android 5 supports DNG raw files natively. All of these applications, even when they are local applications, work much more efficiently than for instance Adobe software for Windows or Mac, and almost have the same feature set since a couple of months. And that's only on Android, for users that install a full linux distro on their touch devices, Darktable is of course an option. Once you take a look at the raw processing quality of Darktable, the huge support for lens profiles and cameras, the extended tethering possibilities, the network capable management, the fast opencl accelerated processing, the extensive mask tools, the huge library of image processing tools, and the speed with which images can be edited through powerful easy to use graphical tools like the "equalizer" tool, which is none other than sublime and a huge improvement over old software like Lightroom in terms of efficiency and ease of use... and you realize that it will run perfectly fine on a 2 GB RAM tablet with a quad core Atom or ARM processor... then there is just no going back. Technology has come a long way, except all of the marketing everywhere is still for the old ways and wasteful expensive "traditional" devices. The world has changed, quite rapidly in the last couple of years. There is no holding back technology, and the commercial industry leaders in the IT industry are desperately trying to hold technology back because they have no "grip" over the newer better technologies that emerge, because they are all based on open source knowledge and development, both on the hardware and on the software level.

I have a Jolla phone. I agree that SailfishOS is great, and that there is a lot of potential for Android forks like SailfishOS and Tizen. My earlier comment was about the anti-competitive behaviour of Google with regards to those alternative, open source based, mobile operating environments. Microsoft is doing the very same thing. After Canonical tried to lure Cyanogenmod in bed, and failed, it's now Microsoft that's doing the very same. They want to buy stuff and then lock down the market and technological evolution. That's what they always try to do. The big US IT industries are plain anti-innovative. Instead of investing money into human capital that can develop innovative things, they invest million and billions into politicians to try to enforce their understanding of contractual rights and patent enforceability onto the world.

It's a fact that a lot of people dismiss the ease of use and capabilities of modern open source software just because they heard it on youtube or from this or that self-proclaimed specialist. The reality is that a lot of open source solutions have evolved to a quality level that supersedes commercial solutions. Want to compare a typical productivity toolchain? e.g. 1. Windows/Mac: Red Giant Offload (50 USD), Photo Mechanic (150 USD), Adobe Lightroom 6 (150 USD)... result... mainstream at best, typical overblown Lightroom ACR look, very limited added value that can be turned into profit, 350 USD spent every two years or so when not using Adobe CC which is more expensive still. Dependent on the quality and reliability of a closed source commercial operating system that is ever less reliable and closed source commercial software that is ever less innovative and stable. Needs regular investments in extremely expensive hardware to keep up with the software deficiencies, and even then the software is incredibly slow. 2. Linux: Rapid Photo Downloader (free, has more functionality than Offload and Photo Mechanic together), or Digikam, which also has all of those functions, in another interface package, the user selects the interface type he/she likes best, there is choice, the user doesn't have to use a particular interface. Programs like Rapid are very easy to use, and instantly recognize memory cards and cameras. There is no need for something like Photo Mechanic in Linux because all editing and management softwares have extensive management features built-in, including extensive networking support, universal hardware support, support for native tethering of cameras that are not supported by commercial photo editing programs, etc... Digikam or Darktable (or Raw Therapee or Lightzone or whatever, because there is a lot of choice in open source and made-for-linux software that is free but not entirely free as in libre, or maybe not even free as in free beer, like the Corel photo editing software, which is available to buy for linux, but in comparison that software is really low grade consumer-level Lightroom-style in comparison to serious tools like Darktable or Digikam) have native support for all camera raw formats and support for camera tethering solutions (as in native tethering) within days to maximum a couple of weeks after a camera model is released, and they don't use proprietary color spaces or any of that crap, it's all industry standards throughout, with even the ability to convert and switch input and output profiles separately post factum, all through the GUI. Both run incredibly fast because the database technology used doesn't suck and because system resources are used in an efficient way. Darktable does processing extremely fast because of OpenCL acceleration. A batch instruction to export a bunch of edited raw files as jpegs or tiffs or whatever, just flies at well over 5 times the speed of any Windows or Mac software. Huge raw files are converted with optimizations in 2-5 seconds depending on the system with GPU OpenCL acceleration (which also works in ARM devices), editing and pre-press preparation can be done super fast on modest passively cooled devices like tablets or convertibles or small super silent super economical PC's that don't cost a lot and keep the working environment pleasant for the employees because they don't take space, they leave more profit to spend on employee benefits, they don't cause the room to become hot, they don't break because of thermal stress, they don't make noise, etc... and the results show great added value, because the files are so clean, the raw development is great, there is support for innovative hardware solutions like lens adapters for using old legacy lenses (e.g. former Soviet union made lenses, obscure handmade Japanese lenses, etc...) and cheap chinese cine-lenses from Zongyi or alike, things that offer true added value in modern productions.

Thing is, everything is better when it's open, when it's not locked down, when there is freedom in creativity. There are a lot of people right now that produce consumer-grade crap, because they all use the same consumer grade anti-innovative crap to produce the crap with. A lot of people just don't see the difference because they've never used advanced, evolved tools, but have only used what they saw in marketing and on YouTube, or what they got out of the box with the hardware they bought.

I can give examples here all day long, but only a few people will actually try out different tools, because they care enough. That's just the way it goes. The commercial offerings today by big IT corporations, just don't provide what's needed to create the added value necessary to stand out in the modern hyper-competitive productive industry of choice any more. The above was just an example of photo editing, but the same example can be given for just about anything else, from 3D prototyping to engineering to electronic design to industrial automation to production tooling to toolchain management to asset management to office productivity (communications, data management, data safety, data security, responsible customer data management, groupware applications, etc...), and there will be very little exceptions. In my opinion, the post-PC hardware offers a true opportunity to get into open source and really set up an individualized, tailor-made production environment that maximizes added value.

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Agreed, BUT, you can yell all day that something is better, that doesn't mean people are going to jump on the ball yet. Did you ever think that people just genuinely like these programs? Instead of assuming that they are blindly stuck to it or feel that they need it?

People need to use what's best for them. if they like the Adobe Suite, they are going to use it, and your words aren't going to stop them. similarly with the Open-Source Alternatives. if they like it they are going to use it. BUT i do agree, they should try both before just choosing a brand right away. which a lot of people tend to do, because of marketing.

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Its gonna be hard to make a production device that has a touch screen and nothing else for input as default. Laptops kind of fill the mobile production space. Its doable but I don't know if the masses will want that.

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I disagree, The windows tablets are pretty good, but what ruins the experience is the terrible scaling. if Windows had the perfect scaling that Linux has, i think it may have prospered a little bit more. then again, the Apps store was a turd, but who knows. but to get actual work done. i think the Windows tablets were pretty capable. i've been using touch-screens for so long it's actually difficult for me to adjust back to it. what i like about the tablet/laptop concept that microsoft is trying to promote, is the separation of work and play. when i need to get work done, i can carry the type cover. if i just want to enjoy some media consumption i don't have to carry the type cover. but if i want to do both, i can.

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I totally agree with this. They are a bit out of my price range but man, what they are aiming to do is awesome. I forgot about these so disregard my last comment, it was from a place of temporary ignorance and I apologize for making it. If I could get a surface pro for around $500-600 man I'd be all over it once I get the money put away.