Dell and Baidu Introduce a Smartphone With Forked Version of Android

cortex writes "XDA developers is reporting on the release of a new smart phone which runs a forked version of Google's Android operating system: 'Dell and Baidu, the Chinese search giant with over 80% marketshare in its home-country, unveiled the Streak Pro on Tuesday (via Computerworld). The device has a 4.3 AMOLED screen with 960×540 resolution and packs a 1.5 GHz dual-core Qualcomm processor. Most notably, however, is the operating system it runs: a forked Android version dubbed Baidu Yi, which replaces Google's services with those of Baidu.' How will this impact Google's support for Android and open source in general?'

Comments

With the expected Chinese requirements.

[sethstorm]

Perhaps they want something onboard that makes Carrier IQ look tame.

Search for or have anything deemed subversive on the device, it reports you silently.

Re:With the expected Chinese requirements.

[InterestingFella]

Seriously, I'm tired of these stupid comments towards China. Especially when US government is much worse. Have you lived there or actually know it? Because it isn't like that. I have my own experience. Sure, do keep up with the "China == bad" bullshit, but you're only lying to yourself. Just like with communism == bad during cold war. It's bullshit without real experience.

Re:With the expected Chinese requirements.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your figures may be a little out of date - Baidu's current market share in China is 60.67%.

Source: http://gs.statcounter.com/#search_engine-CN-monthly-201011-201111

Re:With the expected Chinese requirements.

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the secret prisons INSIDE China? Villagers who exercise their "constitutional right" to come to Beijing to complain to the central government about corruption are detained in unofficial jails, often kept for weeks/months in crowded zoo-like cells, and are then "repatriated" back to the very people they were complaining about. Does wonders for reducing the number of complaints...

China's human rights record is a complete fail. Only the wu mao dang or the extremely naive would place their record in the same playing field with that of the US.

And only a fool would trust a Chinese government blessed "fork" of Android for use with anything but the most mundane of tasks.

It's only a short matter of time before this house of cards collapses. Try going to China outside of one of the silos of prosperity (20 or so major cities). The natives are VERY restless.

Best,

Re:Google will smile and laugh

[InterestingFella]

Google is really bad in Russia and China. Most people use Yandex or Baidu because it gives much better results. Google simply fails to give good results there. Google has ignored that market, and it will eventually bite them in the ass.

Re:Google will smile and laugh

[InterestingFella]

That was only last year. They had a minor market share to begin with, so gaining good publicity by "pulling out of china" was only good for marketing purposes. They weren't profitable there to begin with. Google has a good marketing team tho - instead of announcing that they failed to profit in Chinese market, they turned it upside down and told they're getting off for ethical reasons to make it look less failure.

Impact?

[NoMaster]

"How will this impact Google's support for Android and open source in general?"

Not at all, or possibly for the better?

If they didn't want people to fork Android (and, as noted above, it's debatable if this is really a fork or just replacing bundled apps / settings), they shouldn't have open sourced it.

If they get pissy and decide to close it off due to forks/mods like this, then we're still left with the previous versions of Android - and we're better off without a developer that wants to take their bat and ball and go home at the first little upset.

Re:Impact?

[Daniel Phillips]

"How will this impact Google's support for Android and open source in general?"

Not at all, or possibly for the better?

Definitely for the better. Truth be told, Google's attitude towards free software sucks in major ways, not least their overt campaign to undermine the GPL and copyleft in general. Yes, this is overt, and shameless. There is one loose cannon in particular whose name I will not mention whose personal vendetta includes not only the entire GPL ecosystem, but Debian too. Might as well have a serial puppy shooter on staff.