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Android Co-Founder Andy Rubin Leaving Google

An anonymous reader writes: The Wall Street Journal reports that Andy Rubin is leaving Google. Rubin co-founded Android in 2003 and stayed on when the company was acquired by Google in 2005. Rubin led Android through the acquisition of over a billion users, until 2013 when he moved to Google's robotics division. He was replaced in the Android division by Sundar Pichai, who continues in charge of that, Chrome, Google+, and many other products. Rubin's robotics role will be filled by James Kuffner. "Mr. Rubin's departure is a blow to Google's robotics efforts. However, Mr. Kuffner is experienced in the sector, having worked on human-like robot technology for over two decades, including seven years at Carnegie Mellon University and five years on Google's self-driving car project."

8 of 82 comments (clear)

  1. More money to be made working for yourself by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If you can genuinely create good, patentable products, it's moronic to work for a large company and hand them the rights. Create and patent them yourself, and get all the financial windfall from doing so.

  2. Re:Did he leave or was he invited to leave? by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When I can plug in an iOS device into the USB port of computer and navigate its directory structure then I'll consider iOS as advanced as Android.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  3. Re:Did he leave or was he invited to leave? by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Informative

    Given the fact that Android, despite its technical progress, is still playing catch up to mainstream iOS

    Wait, what?

    I have two Android devices, and an iOS device ... and I've only recently retired my iPad 1.

    In what way is Android playing catch up with iOS? Are they features people actually use or even know about?

    Because, I would say pound for pound, feature for feature, my Android devices do as much as my iOS devices.

    I don't pick up my Android phone or tablet and think "boy, if it only had this feature that iOS has, it would be a complete device".

    In fact, I'm not aware of a single feature I ever use or care about that iOS has which Android doesn't.

    For that matter, I'd be hard pressed to tell you a feature that either has that the other doesn't that I've ever wished was there.

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    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  4. Re:Did he leave or was he invited to leave? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Ooooh, files and directory browsing. That's what I enjoy doing with my computer! Fun fun fun!

  5. Re:Did he leave or was he invited to leave? by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Informative

    What was the last version of Android that actually let you do that?

    What was the first version that didn't?

    No, seriously ... my up-to-date Nexus 7 allows this.

    So, either you know something I don't, or you're making an unfounded accusation.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  6. Re:Did he leave or was he invited to leave? by 0123456 · · Score: 3, Informative

    In what way is Android playing catch up with iOS? Are they features people actually use or even know about?

    Well, let's see: how about not letting Facetwitterlinkbook have access to absolutely everything on your device because their app demands so many permissions and you can't deniy specific ones?

  7. Re: Did he leave or was he invited to leave? by BitZtream · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Settings->Privacy->AppName

    Your just stupid if you didn't know this already since its regularly brought up as a shitty thing that android lacks.

    And you've never used an iOS device either ... Since the OS asks you before allowing the app to do things. It's a system that requires you to opt in, and the app has to work if you opt-out or it gets rejected from the App Store unless the functionality is central to the app.

    A camera app will not get approved if it won't work when denied access to your contacts, as an example.

    Android is designed to pretend you have options when you don't. It's all or nothing and the permissions aren't even fine grained anymore, they are broken into large groups so updates can do all sorts of stuff that they didn't originally.

    Android is decidedly anti-owner in this respect where as iOS is the opposite, decidedly pro-owner

    --
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  8. Re:Did he leave or was he invited to leave? by tangent3 · · Score: 3, Informative

    kio-mtp
    make sure usb debugging is disabled under developer options, that stumped me for a while