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by hammock 2952 days ago
> what in the world do they know about building a mobile operating system?

They don't. Android was an acquisition and so was Waymo.

6 comments

My understanding of the story is Android was nearly completely re-written after the iPhone announcement. The first Android phone was very different from what Google purchased.
Waymo was not an acquisition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waymo#History

Android is not a good operating system, either. They still haven't figured out updates FFS.
Well, android is open source so manufacturers can add their stuff and manufacturers decide when to update their devices (if at all). Google is being more strict on updates, as well as adding Project Treble which makes updating a device a breeze.
That's like saying Linux hasn't figured out updates yet. It's a false argument.
I think you missed my point...
You think android and waymo is built by the people who came with acqusitions?
At the time... yes. That's the point of an acquisition - to buy talent/skills/tech when you don't have that talent in-house (or to augment existing talent).

Now, many years later and with normal amounts of turn over? That's a different question all together.

Yes of course. The parts of Android and Waymo that matter most were already built, or are being built, by folks from the acquired company.
Given that at acquisition, the android team was <30 people, and it had to be mostly rewritten before it was originally launched, and has been significantly changed since then, I think this is blatantly false ;)
>They don't. Android was an acquisition and so was Waymo.

What they bought likely doesn't even exist anymore in the current code base.

Additionally, the origin of iOS is based on Apple's acquisition of NeXT.

And no one loves Apple because of iOS...