Latest news with #Android-maker
Time of India
9 hours ago
- Business
- Time of India
Android is currently optimised for…: Why Perplexity AI CEO Aravind Srinivas wants Google to rebuild its operating system
Perplexity AI CEO Aravind Srinivas wants Google to rebuild its Android operating system. He noted that Android is more optimised for the tech giant's ad-driven business model than for enabling AI-powered experiences for smartphone users. Srinivas took to the social media platform X (earlier Twitter) to share his opinion that highlights a potential conflict as AI assistants become more common in smartphones. With this post, he questions whether current platforms, particularly those tied to advertising like Android, can evolve into intelligent, agentic systems that will primarily serve users. Srinivas questions whether Android's current priorities are aligned with the emerging era of AI agents , which are designed to interact proactively with users. What Perplexity AI CEO Aravind Srinivas said about Android In his X post, Srinivas wrote: 'Android needs to be rebuilt for AI. It's currently optimised for preserving Google's ad business rather than a truly agentic OS.' With this post, he suggests that to achieve significant advancements in AI-first mobile computing, Google may need to make some fundamental changes to the operating system itself, rather than merely adding AI features as layers. This suggestion comes as Perplexity develops Comet, an AI browser that will compete with Google by offering query responses with inline citations. This criticism comes at a time when Google is under increasing pressure on several fronts. According to a recent report by Bloomberg, Apple executives have internally discussed the possibility of acquiring Perplexity AI, with M&A chief Adrian Perica reportedly raising the idea with senior leaders, including services head Eddy Cue. Recently, Srinivas also suggested that Google's key weakness lies in its heavy reliance on high-margin search advertising , which remains far more profitable than its other businesses, like YouTube, cloud services, or AI initiatives. At the recently held Sohn Investment Conference, Srinivas explained how the Android-maker is trapped by its success. He noted, 'This is the first time in two decades that Google is extremely vulnerable.'
Forbes
30-04-2025
- Forbes
Google's Play Store App Deletion—What You Do Now On Your Phone
More than a million apps are now gone. NurPhoto via Getty Images Google's mission to clean up Play Store has gone further than expected. Coming just days after a new report highlighted an alarming escalation in threats targeting mobile phones, we have confirmation of the sheer scale of changes from Google. Last year, the Android-maker announced it was raising the bar for apps to get into its store — and even for apps to stay on its store. The change was presented as a quality threshold, with apps failing to deliver the right levels of performance, usability, reliability and even usefulness risking the cull. This quality mark is unarguably important, and Play Store's yellow warning labels target the same problem. But many low-quality apps are also high-risk apps, empty vessels used to hide malicious intent. They may not contain malware themselves, but such apps can direct users into dangerous territory once installed. Now we have a sense of the scale of this. 'From the start of 2024 to the present,' TechCrunch reports, citing data from Appfigures, 'the Android app marketplace went from hosting about 3.4 million apps worldwide to just around 1.8 million… That's a decline of about 47%.' At the same time, the number of apps on Apple's App Store increased, meaning this 'is not part of some larger global trend.' Play Store's deleted apps Google Google warned last year that the type of apps it would find and delete include those 'that are static without app-specific functionalities, for example, text only or PDF file apps, apps with very little content that do not provide an engaging user experience, for example, single wallpaper apps, and apps that are designed to do nothing or have no function.' Clearly, there were thousands upon thousands of such apps. This latest news comes with a new warning for users. If an app is one of those deleted, Google says 'the app will no longer be available to download on Google Play [but] And critically, 'the app will not be removed from your device. You can continue to use the app. However, you will not be able to update your app. If you remove the app from your device, you will not be able to redownload the app unless the developer is able to republish it to Google Play.' That means low-quality and potentially high risk apps remain on your phone and it's for you to deal with. It also means that even if an app is not dangerous by intent, any security issues cannot be fixed by the developer. The advice is simple. If you notice apps that can no longer update and find they're no longer on the store, then delete them on your device as well. Users now run an average of 80-100 apps on their phones, and if those apps have been cut loose by the OS you're running an unnecessary risk. The good news is any subscriptions associated with those apps will stop, as will their ability to link to Google's billing systems.
