You may suppose a Google telephone could be your best option to regulate your Google-branded audio system, however that’s not essentially true: Google’s actions have probably opened the door for different producers to do what the Pixel legally can’t, writes Android sleuth Mishaal Rahman at Esper.
Final week, we wrote how “Your Google residence audio system are about to get barely worse as a result of Sonos sued and received.” In the event you’re utilizing a Google Pixel, that’s true — amongst different issues, you received’t have the ability to management the amount of a multi-zone Google Solid speaker group. That’s as a result of the US Worldwide Commerce Fee dominated that Google copied Sonos’ know-how and threatened to dam imports until Google applied 5 particular software program tweaks. One of many Sonos patents particularly handled controlling quantity of a multi-zone speaker group.
However when Rahman dug into the Android 12 code, he discovered that the method Google disabled distant speaker group quantity management is extremely fundamental: Google merely set a single worth from “true” to “false” by itself Pixel telephones. Rahman writes:
the second patch appears tailor-made to permit Google to ship Pixel telephones with out the power to regulate the amount of distant speaker group periods. But it surely additionally leaves a simple method for OEMs to ship their very own gadgets with the characteristic enabled. All an OEM must do is construct AOSP with GMS and depart the default worth (‘true’) for the config_volumeAdjustmentForRemoteGroupSessions flag in place.
It feels like if Samsung or Xiaomi (at present the world’s high two Android producers) need their telephones to regulate the amount of a complete speaker group (one thing a Google Pixel can not do as of the most recent replace), they don’t must carry any further fingers. They only must keep away from deliberately turning it off. And Rahman says that — a minimum of in beta — the upcoming Android 12L works this fashion as nicely.
(For the uninitiated, “construct AOSP with GMS” merely means to take the fundamental model of Android that Google gives free to producers, with the Google companies that the corporate typically licenses with it, which is what most Android telephone makers do anyhow earlier than they pores and skin Android with additions of their very own.)
None of which means that any telephone maker will essentially take Google up on this risk. For all I do know — I’m not a lawyer — Sonos may simply flip round and sue them, too, utilizing its victory in opposition to Google as precedent. But it surely’s all very intriguing to consider.
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