Now it is difficult to say whether such a category of products as smart watches and similar wearable devices will shoot. Nevertheless, this is the main trend of the modern mobile industry, and its giants are ready to tear each other to shreds in order to gain a significant market share. The hype rose a couple of years ago with the active spread of rumors about the Apple iWatch, and Samsung can be considered one of the pioneers in this area. Koreans try to be first everywhere, even if the resulting product is not very successful. However, it is an invaluable experience. Now the situation is especially tense, as the main players rushed into the market, including Microsoft and Google. But if you think that the latter is a corporation of goodness and it will bring all geeks a wild variety in the field of wearable gadgets, as happened with touchscreen smartphones and tablets, then you are most likely mistaken. The more Android takes over the market, the more Google wants to control it and all those who use the proprietary platform. Today we will not talk about iWatch, but let’s talk about competitors who began to quarrel with each other at a very early stage in the development of the smart watch market.
Google is starting to worry that the Internet giant’s largest license holder, Samsung, is now trying to sabotage Android. In turn, the Korean company and other representatives of the mobile industry are confident that Google has become an aggressor, imposing its own rules on everyone.
Reports of contention between Google and Samsung have ceased to be sensational news. But the growing animosity between the two companies was strongly felt at the recent Allen & Co media conference in Sun Valley, PA. Idaho. This was confirmed and Jessica Lessin in his article for The Information.
Specifically, her post described a tense face-to-face meeting at an event between Google CEO Larry Page and Samsung vice chairman. Jay Lee. During this dialogue, the CEOs discussed Samsung’s smartwatch strategy, focusing on Tizen and a heavily customized version of Android (rather than the official Google Android Wear product).
Samsung Vice Chairman Jay Lee
Google is unhappy with Android being used as an open platform
Before Samsung launched its first Gear watch last fall, Google challenged the gadget’s branding. And all because he worked on a very heavily modified version of Android, according to people who were aware of this situation. Google wanted the Koreans to delay the release of the Gear until the new Android platform for wearables came out — Android Wear. However, Samsung chose to follow their own strategy and plans.
Jessica Lessin, journalist for The Information
In 2010, similarly, Google tried to keep Samsung from using Android 2.x to create an iPad rival, the Galaxy Tab. Back then, Google representatives also insisted that all Android license holders should wait for the release of Honeycomb, adapted for tablets.
Despite requests, Samsung continued to work on its Galaxy Tab, diverting public attention from the Honeycomb project. At the same time, the imperfection of the firmware caused negative emotions among the early fans of Android-based tablets. Also, the Internet giant warned Koreans that their tablet is very similar to Apple’s iPad.
After the dramatic failure of Android Honeycomb tablets, led by Motorola’s Xoom, Google followed Samsung’s lead in 2011 with its original Tab, which was significantly smaller than the iPad. Although the Internet company’s partnerships with Asus turned out to be very complex, if not strained. The first demanded to create the cheapest, but functional and high-quality device, the second did it, but could not 100% cope with marriage and production flaws. As a result, I had to cooperate with Samsung against the backdrop of dreams of the success of branded tablets.
The Korean manufacturer also had problems selling its own tablets. Although sales of Samsung smartphones have grown by attracting consumers who prefer phones with huge displays. But now the competition in this market is becoming very strong, because Apple plans to launch two new iPhone models with a larger screen size this year. So Samsung is betting on a new product that will help keep sales on track. it smart watch.
Samsung’s Tizen platform threatens to halve Android’s market share
Initially, Samsung used a heavily customized version of Android in the Galaxy Gear. But the confrontation with Google over Koreans copying the Google Play app store and other services like advertising, which the Internet giant actively maintains a monopoly on, forced Samsung to bet on its own platform. Tizen. It will work on new generations of Korean smart watches.
Using a Linux-based platform, Samsung plans to get rid of the endless restrictions and control of Google and at the same time distinguish its products from the mass of cheap Chinese counterparts.
Documents released at the end of 2011 during the trial between Apple and Samsung showed the Korean company’s plans to increase production volumes. According to its management, nothing plays such a role in attracting consumers as the extent of market penetration. Due to its own mobile platform, it was planned to increase these scales.
Even then, Samsung understood that it would not be easy to do this. Two-thirds of the developers felt that alternative OSes had little chance of surpassing Android as the #2 mobile development platform. iOS is out of the question.
At the end of 2009, Samsung introduced its own development bada (also based on Linux). Then there was a partnership with Intel to resurrect a mobile version of Linux, which the latter had previously worked on with Intel. Nokia. As a result, the Korean manufacturer got the Tizen system, which combines the results of the work of all three companies.
Should Samsung be able to effectively adapt all of its Galaxy products to the Tizen platform, Android consumer market would halve. Fortunately for Google, the Koreans have not yet made any significant progress in developing this OS.
Google demands submission from Samsung
Earlier this year, head of Android at Google Sundar Pichai demanded that Samsung stop work on its Magazine UX tablet interface. Then the resource The Information reported that Google was ready to ban Samsung from using the open Android platform if the Koreans did not entrust control over their work to an American Internet company.
In turn, Google planned to force its license holders to use the original Material Design interface design language, just as it tried to force Android tablet manufacturers to use the Honeycomb 3.0-compatible design language Holo. Both interfaces were developed Matias Duartea designer poached by Google from the Palm webOS team.
Ironically, Google’s original plan for Android was this. The platform was expected to give different companies a chance to openly experiment and innovate. Moreover, it was understood that enthusiasts and amateur programmers would also be able to openly work with any part of this operating system. In that Google’s idea was the exact opposite of Apple’s iOS concept with its secrecy, security and certain conditions for certification of third-party applications.
However, Google’s current plans for Android include strict restrictions and rules for licensees, as well as strict security requirements similar to the conditions for working with iOS. These efforts are aimed at getting rid of freelance developers with their audacious endeavors and at attracting corporate consumers and other elite users who are willing to pay a high price for well-protected gadgets and services.
At the moment, the Tizen platform is not able to support smart watches in the form that modern consumers need. So Samsung had to agree to Google’s demands earlier this year and even shared its Knox smartphone security platform with the internet giant. (The Koreans developed it to differentiate their mobile products from others.)
Google’s requirements for Android Wear are getting tougher
Having shattered Samsung’s hopes for its own original software for smartphones and tablets, Google is now demanding that the Koreans stop developing the Tizen platform for its smart watches. Instead, Samsung is allegedly supposed to create a wearable accessory that supports Android Wear. At the moment, only one of the four models of smart watches supplied by Samsung to the market works on the basis of this platform.
Mr. Page’s annoyance over Samsung’s wearable accessory strategy puts the Korean company in a difficult position. Company executives talk about their doubts about Google’s tougher policies. At the same time, they are also concerned about the dependence of their products on Android, and the ability to differentiate their gadgets in such conditions.
Jessica Lessin, journalist for The Information
However, Samsung is not alone in its problems.
CEOs of media, technology and advertising companies have repeatedly expressed concern in personal interviews about the growing power of Google in the field of advertising and the production of mobile devices.
Jessica Lessin, journalist for The Information
After Larry Page unveiled his vision for the future of Google, Lessin believes that in private conversations, corporate executives prefer to call Google the aggressor and are already considering ways to counter the growing power of the Internet giant.
An aggressive policy towards third-party partners does not work in Google’s favor. As a result of the internet giant’s appropriation of TV networks’ content and advertising features on Google TV, broadcasters have begun blocking their content on the device. This helped hasten the failure of an already doomed product.
Banks, mobile operators and other companies also decided not to support Google’s selfish plans for the introduction of NFC technology and the Google Wallet payment system. As a result, these ambitious projects also failed. [ai]
What does all this mean for us ordinary users? First of all, the fact that Android is becoming increasingly closed platform. There are many examples. For example, Google prohibits companies from embedding the function of hiding the bottom block with system buttons in the firmware of their devices. In addition, with the release of Android 4.4, the Internet company introduced a ban on writing files to an external SD card by third-party applications. This is just the tip of the iceberg regarding the smartphone platform, and Android 5 looms ahead with a new original interface and, probably, a new portion of restrictions.
Google has long sought to gain such control over the platform and force its partners to reckon with its decisions. Start the company «tighten the screws» in the early days of Android, partners simply would not support it. And now it is the most widespread mobile OS on the planet with a huge army of users and developers who support it. There are no alternatives for Sony, Samsung, HTC, LG and a host of other manufacturers, like it or not, but you have to support it.
Accordingly, with such a huge user base and leverage on partners, it is unlikely that Google will let them roam with Android Wear. The corporation of good has turned into a dictator and, in principle, is now following the same path that Apple originally chose — total control. The only difference is that Apple itself creates software and creates devices itself, while Google has managed to entwine hundreds of third-party hardware manufacturers with its networks.
