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Matthew Panzarino on Google’s relationships with mobile phone networks and why that’s the reason the Nexus 4 doesn’t have LTE:

The real question is why Google is so beholden to the carriers. And the answer goes back to the very beginnings of Android, when Google gave up control in order to speed adoption of the platform. Apple took the world by surprise completely with the iPhone and Google had Android in their pocket already. So they pivoted it from a BlackBerry clone into a full touch-screen OS and shopped it out to the carriers and manufacturers as a way for them to get a smartphone on the market to compete with Apple that they could still shove their crapware and carrier billing systems into.

It was a deal with the devil, made in a moment of desperation, and it’s been haunting Google ever since.


Weiran Zhang

Hi, I'm Weiran Zhang. I work as a Senior Engineering Manager at Capital One. I have a passion for technology and building thriving software teams. This blog is where I write about things I find interesting. You can follow me on Mastodon.