[Johnny555]

One reason was mentioned in the article:

After all, the Rabbit R1’s launcher app is intended to be preinstalled in the firmware and be granted several privileged, system-level permissions — only some of which we were able to grant — so some of the functions would likely fail if we tried

And the statement from Rabbit in the article says essentially the same:

rabbit OS and LAM run on the cloud with very bespoke AOSP and lower level firmware modifications, therefore a local bootleg APK without the proper OS and Cloud endpoints won’t be able to access our service

[wmf]

Are these privileged system-level permissions in the room with us now? What specifically are they?

[jazzyjackson]

why are you so incredulous that android might have some annoying privacy restrictions that a custom AOSP can sidestep? I would google rabbit's reasoning for this but I don't care enough

[wmf]

Their official reasoning: "rabbit OS and LAM run on the cloud with very bespoke AOSP and lower level firmware modifications". https://twitter.com/rabbit_hmi/status/1785498453097009473 This reads like obfuscation to me. Just tell us in plain english!

[tredre3]

> why are you so incredulous that android might have some annoying privacy restrictions that a custom AOSP can sidestep?

I don't doubt that such restrictions exist. But I'm also curious as to what, specifically, they would be? Apps can access all sensors, cameras, microphone, network. So what's left?

[tripdout]

You can CTRL-F here https://developer.android.com/reference/android/Manifest.per... for "signature" and view permissions that are only granted to apps signed with the platform key, i.e. built into the system image as part of the AOSP build process.

There's a good number that might be useful for the R1.

[flexagoon]

Because people were able to launch the app on their Android phones.