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Andy Rubin Steps Down as Head of Android, Takes on New Role at Google

Question for the know-it-alls out there :),

If I buy an unlocked Samsung phone, install my own sim card, and do not sign up to Google, is it "activated" in Google's eyes?
 
So many people hating on Andy. What did he do, sleep with your wives? :rolleyes:

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OLDCODGER said:
Question for the know-it-alls out there :),

If I buy an unlocked Samsung phone, install my own sim card, and do not sign up to Google, is it "activated" in Google's eyes?
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If you set up any Android phone which comes with Google apps (as Samsungs of course do) then as far as I know that counts. It only doesn't count if it's an Android device without Google apps, such as the Kindle Fire.
 
0dev said:
So many people hating on Andy. What did he do, sleep with your wives? :rolleyes:

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If you set up any Android phone which comes with Google apps (as Samsungs of course do) then as far as I know that counts. It only doesn't count if it's an Android device without Google apps, such as the Kindle Fire.
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If you don't setup a google account it doesn't call home
 
Oletros said:
If you don't setup a google account it doesn't call home
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That information comes from an unverified source who claims to be inside Google so there's no way of knowing whether or not that's true. Google hasn't released any official statement to this effect.
 
Oletros said:
If you don't setup a google account it doesn't call home
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Thank you for the reply.

There are four Samsung phones in the house, with none of them signed on to Google. I wonder how many such "non-activated" Android phones are out in the wild.

iPhones, on the other hand, are rather pointless without activation.
 
MacRumors said:
In his post, Page also shares some new Android statistics, revealing that over 750 million Android devices have been activated worldwide and that over 25 billion apps have been downloaded from the Google Play marketplace.
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It would be interesting to compare these numbers (average of 30 apps per device) with the 40+ billion apps downloaded from the App Store on about 400 million iOS devices.
 
The tech media is already a buzz with feature stories on how this means Android and Chrome are merging and what kind of threat that will be to Microsoft. Doesn't take them long to read into things and start spinning stuff..
 
Rogifan said:
The tech media is already a buzz with feature stories on how this means Android and Chrome are merging and what kind of threat that will be to Microsoft. Doesn't take them long to read into things and start spinning stuff..
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That is because simply delivering information doesn't yield the highest number of page hits:D.
 
I wonder if we will be seeing Mr. Rubin at a new startup soon. He must be itching to move on now that Android has been around a while. I'm going to predict he leaves Google within 1 year from now.
 
SILen(e said:
No, it is kinda relevant.

On September 12th of 2012, Android reached 500 million activations and had 1.3 million activated devices per day.
In June of last year, they had about 0.9 million activated devives per day.

We are now at a point in time 182 days after Google posted the last activation numbers (the 500 million and 1.3 mio per day).

In that time they got about 250 mio new activations (if they were closer to 800 million, Rubin would probably have said "close to 800 million activations", but he didn't).

So in that time, they had only 1.37 million activations per day. (Taking 250 million new devices since last September as a basis for this calculation)

If you remember, they went from 900k per day in June to 1300k per day in September of last year, but in the last 6 months, they only managed to increase their daily activations by 0.07 million?

The growth seems to be slowing.
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Here in the U.S., the growth ain't just slowing, it's dead and in reverse.
 
This is ridiculous. Thought the big guys (Apple and Google) created their software. Turns out they just bought it. -_-
ie. Siri and Android.
 
Oletros said:
Why they are suspect?
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because so many of them are generic phones in countries where they arent even used as smartphones....android variants have become the new feature phone for people who dont care about their phone. thats why iOS has so many more content purchases, app purchases, web useage stats, etc..
 
mdelvecchio said:
because so many of them are generic phones in countries where they arent even used as smartphones....android variants have become the new feature phone for people who dont care about their phone. thats why iOS has so many more content purchases, app purchases, web useage stats, etc..
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And? If a smartphone is sold with Google Apps and activated through Play Store why it is a suspect activation?
 
6264374 said:
this may become one reason for increase of sales in India though..
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WTF does that even mean?

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John.B said:
Is this what caused him step down? Google evicts ad-blocking software from Google Play store (Ars Technica)
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That's because the concept of users having control over what they see and experience is in direct conflict with the core business of google: advertising.

Google is not your friend. Never was. It just managed to do a great job of selling its image to us prior to becoming really obnoxious. Even its basic "service" to users sucks now. Next stop: evil being.
 
dysamoria said:
That's because the concept of users having control over what they see and experience is in direct conflict with the core business of google: advertising.

Google is not your friend. Never was. It just managed to do a great job of selling its image to us prior to becoming really obnoxious. Even its basic "service" to users sucks now. Next stop: evil being.
Click to expand...

What you're forgetting is that, unlike iOS, Android lets you sideload apps outside of the Play Store even without rooting. You can already get those kicked out ad blockers on Android regardless of what Google has done by just changing one setting and downloading the APK from the browser.

While Google were *******s for doing this, the fact remains it's not the end of world scenario it is when Apple removes apps it dislikes from the App Store. Plus Google do this kind of thing a lot less often.
 
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