One of the fascinating features of Android platform was the ability for 3rd party platform developers and OEMs to provide SDK Add-ons and the implementation too could have been closed source. Google used this to expose Google Maps API and as this approach had technical benefits like frequently used classes cloud be pre-loaded by Zygote, there by reducing application start up time, reducing memory footprint etc. This seemed fine and was based on the assumption that OEMs would be quick to upgrade platform images with new versions having potential bug fixes and new APIs for the SDK add-on and there promote the ecosystem serving application developers and end users.
Unfortunately, it wasn't necessarily in the best interest of the OEMs to do so and in some cases they wanted to promote an in-house developed API and services competing with Google. Google's approach to this was to distribute their API via Play store as an Play services apk and this works as OEMs are currently obligated to provide Play store as required by Android certification and the fact that end users wouldn't necessarily buy an Android device without play store. By doing so, google could continue to publish bug fixes and new APIs via Play store updates and end users get to take a call on the upgrade. This also places additional responsibility on 3rd party application developers to have a lot of run time checks for version, support etc. Technically, its a run time overhead but probably one of those cases where SDK Add-on developer's business interest gets more preference.
OEM's response to this to try and promote their own App store and in some cases they have even announced 100% revenue for application developers and yet this is not going to be easy simply considering the reach and popularity of Play store.
Meanwhile, what should 3rd party SDK developers be doing? Based on current trends, it looks like they are following Google's services approach and the in long run, the SDK Add-on might as well get deprecated.
Unfortunately, it wasn't necessarily in the best interest of the OEMs to do so and in some cases they wanted to promote an in-house developed API and services competing with Google. Google's approach to this was to distribute their API via Play store as an Play services apk and this works as OEMs are currently obligated to provide Play store as required by Android certification and the fact that end users wouldn't necessarily buy an Android device without play store. By doing so, google could continue to publish bug fixes and new APIs via Play store updates and end users get to take a call on the upgrade. This also places additional responsibility on 3rd party application developers to have a lot of run time checks for version, support etc. Technically, its a run time overhead but probably one of those cases where SDK Add-on developer's business interest gets more preference.
OEM's response to this to try and promote their own App store and in some cases they have even announced 100% revenue for application developers and yet this is not going to be easy simply considering the reach and popularity of Play store.
Meanwhile, what should 3rd party SDK developers be doing? Based on current trends, it looks like they are following Google's services approach and the in long run, the SDK Add-on might as well get deprecated.
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