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Andy Rubin Steps Down As Chief of Google Android
Nerval's Lobster writes "Andy Rubin is stepping down as head of Google's Android division, according to the company. 'Having exceeded even the crazy ambitious goals we dreamed of for Android — and with a really strong leadership team in place — Andy's decided it's time to hand over the reins and start a new chapter at Google,' Google CEO Larry Page wrote in a March 13 note on Google's official blog. 'Going forward, Sundar Pichai will lead Android, in addition to his existing work with Chrome and Apps.' If Rubin had any other reasons for departing, the blog posting left them unexplained. Android has been activated on 750 million devices around the world, according to Google, on top of some 25 billion apps downloaded from the Google Play storefront. It remains to be seen whether 'start a new chapter at Google' is some sort of polite corporate euphemism for Rubin's eventual departure from the company, or if he really is taking over another project or division. Page suggested in his blog posting that Pichai 'will do a tremendous job doubling down on Android as we work to push the ecosystem forward,' which doesn't offer a lot about the operating system's future direction: Pichai does have direct control over three core platforms, raising the possibility that Google could try and exploit further crossovers between the three. But what form that will take is anyone's guess."
When I am asked whether somebody should be moved from their current position, where I know they are doing a very good job to something else, which may seem to be more prestigious, I generally advise to increase their pay and keep them in their current job.
I am not saying anything...
You can't handle the truth.
I use a Transformer Prime w/ keyboard dock as my primary laptop. Thanks to a great app ecosystem, it's more useful than a ($1300!) Chromebook.
Here's hoping Pichai works toward realizing the potential of Android, and phases out Chrome as an "operating system."
Maybe Sundar Pichai will be less of an arrogant idiot about certain things:
* Apps need a standard user interface way to exit. Really.
* Locking the Nexus homescreen to portrait is idiotic. Really.
* MTP looks great on paper, in practice it is dog slow and buggy. Back to the drawing board please.
* Maps crashes all the time. Surely you know that. Fix it.
* Pretending that Android is not Linux is intellectually dishonest.
* Support for unlocking and root access is still half hearted.
* Android is not a community project. Fix that.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Apps need a standard user interface way to exit. Really.
Home button. Or are you referring to applications that hold services open?
Locking the Nexus homescreen to portrait is idiotic. Really.
Android 4.2 fixed that on my Nexus 7 tablet.
MTP looks great on paper, in practice it is dog slow and buggy. Back to the drawing board please.
True, I had trouble copying files between my Nexus 7 tablet and my Xubuntu laptop. But other than MTP, what royalty-free protocol for transferring files is compatible with a Windows host without having to download drivers, become an administrator, and install them? FAT over MSC, the solution used in Android 2.x, was found not to be royalty-free; Microsoft has been winning lawsuits with its FAT patents.
Pretending that Android is not Linux is intellectually dishonest.
AOSP is a Linux distribution, but it is not GNU/Linux. If GNU/Linux had been marketed as RMS had suggested, there would have been no dishonesty.
Support for unlocking and root access is still half hearted.
Could you elaborate on what you mean by this? All popular Android devices, except for early AT&T devices (many of which have since been updated) and certain Nook products, have the "Unknown sources" switch, and Nexus devices can be reformatted to rootable using commands like fastboot oem unlock.
Android is not a community project.
In what way?
Using the home button does not end the app, it's still running in the background using memory.
So I close Firefox on my GNU/Linux laptop. When I open it again, it hardly accesses the disk at all; that's because Firefox is still present in the disk cache using memory. Likewise, in Android, when the user switches away from a particular application's activity, Android keeps the application in a "cached" state until another process needs the RAM, assuming that the user is likely to return to the application. It's like the early controversy over SuperFetch in Windows Vista and Windows 7: What use is RAM if you're not using it? Or are you assuming that a device can cut power to half the RAM?
Also on my 'grinds my gears' list are apps that reactivate themselves after being force stopped.
Including applications associated with background services that other applications use, or applications that receive notifications as part of doing their job?
And may well be why Rubin is moving out of Android; he may well be moving to a position in Google where he can create new things, rather than managing a relatively mature product.
Seems appropriate, for someone whose job is managing.
Android runs over QNX, at least in the Playbook / BB10. If they can do it, there is no reason someone else couldn't. Could probably port it over to any Unix-ish kernel assuming it had the drivers to power the hardware.
"Productized" is not a word, and if it is, it shouldn't be.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it