Android Chief Has Non-Stop Excuses for Carriers

If I were to release an operating system that I claimed was open and that forced everybody to make [phones] all look the same and all support very narrow features and functionality, the platform wouldn’t win. It wouldn’t win because the OEMs have a lot of value to bring and the carriers have a lot of value to bring, and they need a vehicle by which to put their interesting differentiating features on these things.

And, um, what exactly is the value that the carriers bring? Their bloatware? Their rip-off self-serving apps? This sounds like it was written by the carriers for Rubin to read. I don’t think that anyone can argue that if Google had absolute power and held the carriers in check, the world would be a better place. For a while, it seemed like they were going to try to do that — then they folded (which was a smart business decision, but a bad decision for consumers).

When PC Magazine points out that it’s not like Google is taking a fully open approach with Android — they still have minimum standards for phones that will have their branding — and asks why they don’t simply say that the only app store should be the official Android one, Rubin says:

Well, it’s tough to draw the line, and we think about that a lot. First of all, we don’t like drawing lines. We like making exceptions, and we learn a lot in the process. … The point of being open is that I’ve given up control of what can be put on phones, and put it in the hands of everybody in the community.

Yes and no. It’s always going to be like that. I’m not trying to be a wireless carrier, I’m not trying to assert authority over the wireless operators, but I think it’s kind of like that 1.5 and 1.6 versus 2.2 scenario. I think over time they’ll learn what is good business and what is bad business.

The fact that when the Nexus One

PC Magazine then goes into the fact that when the Nexus One was announced, it was being billed as the device that could change the way carriers have a stranglehold on consumers in the U.S. market. Then Google backed away from that plan. Rubin is vaguely optimistic here about how Google can get back to selling an unlocked phone:

Making unlocked phones available in the U.S. is still a possibility. Whether that’s simply acquired only online or through traditional retail channels – that’s what got canceled. So we have to decide how to make unlocked phones available in the U.S.

PC Magazine then goes into the possibility that Android could get native VoIP capabilities by way of Google Voice and the Gizmo5 acquisition. That would be awesome. But what does Rubin say to that?

What Google Voice is

Today what Google Voice is, it’s a front end for your existing phone number, and it’s also an optimized voicemail system … whether we actually become a voice service provider, that’s probably a question for the Google Voice team, but also I’d have to think carefully about what that means for the wireless operators, who are our partners. You wouldn’t expect us to be a voice service provider for wireless.

At that point, PC Magazine switched gears and went into Windows Phone 7. I think they were just as tired as we are of hearing how great the carriers are.