They liked Android partly because it enabled them to isolate the Linux core from being easily accessible, so conventional Linux tools wouldn’t be easily used. This is all part of their path toward a fully locked down device for DRM.
This was a discussed a fair amount early on in my group at work. We had seen the Linux phone (that later became Android) and were excited. Then we were disappointed to see Android layered on top like Posix or Win32, rather than just the shell. All we could think is “wtf”, you have an OS, and a layer based on html/scripting is gonna be sluggish, bad on battery, etc. And it was for quite a while.
I doubt they would’ve gone Linux.
They liked Android partly because it enabled them to isolate the Linux core from being easily accessible, so conventional Linux tools wouldn’t be easily used. This is all part of their path toward a fully locked down device for DRM.
This was a discussed a fair amount early on in my group at work. We had seen the Linux phone (that later became Android) and were excited. Then we were disappointed to see Android layered on top like Posix or Win32, rather than just the shell. All we could think is “wtf”, you have an OS, and a layer based on html/scripting is gonna be sluggish, bad on battery, etc. And it was for quite a while.