Andy Rubin Tells Handset Manufacturers What To Do

So is Android truly open, or is it not? It seems that Andy Rubin, SVP of mobile down at Google has been telling handset partners i.e. Samsung, LG, Sony Ericsson, Motorola what they can and can’t put into their devices.

Thanks to the hardworking folks at This Is My Next, they have tirelessly gone through 750 pages of unsealed court documents which apparently contains e-mails from Andy Rubin himself directly telling the leaders at Motorola and Samsung that they can’t release phones for reasons involving their GPS technology which apparently interfered with Google’s ability to collect data, which then led to Google ending up at the Congressional hearing regarding location services and privacy.

To sum it up, “So what does all this mean? At the very least, it’s now extremely clear that Google plays a major role in Android device development, to the point where Andy Rubin himself approves and denies requests from OEMs.” So much for being open source, doesn’t it? On one hand it does seem that it’s a good thing that Andy Rubin is taking such a personal hand in this as it is also a means to quality control but on the other hand it does seem rather hypocritical considering how Google marketed Android as being open source but yet all the evidence seems to point to the contrary.