After Google was slammed by the European Commission for forcing manufacturers to bundle Google apps on all Android phones, the search giant has changed up their strategy for licensing Play Services in Europe, according to a leaked document. Manufacturers will get more flexibility with what Google apps they want to pre-install along with the Play Store, but it’s not all great news.
The new licensing terms will cost up to $40 per device for Play Store access, depending on the phone’s display pixel density. Any device with a PPI higher than 500 gets stuck with that maximum fee, while devices below that only pay $20 and anything below 400 PPI is just $10 per phone. Lower tier devices in certain countries are eligible for a $2.50 per device licensing fee, too, so Google’s at least being flexible with things. Tablets are priced differently due to their larger displays and only cost $20 per device.
You might think that might unnecessarily drive up the price of phones in Europe, but Google will help out with some of the licensing costs if OEMs also install Chrome and Google Search alongside the Play Store. For those of you keeping score at home, that pretty much keeps things similar to how they are now, although it does give some companies the option to only install the Play Store and forego other Google apps in favor of, say, Bing or Yahoo search engines and browsers. I’ll let you decide if that’s a good or bad thing.
Additionally, a major facet of these new licensing deals will be how revenue from Google Search is distributed to manufacturers. In order to be eligible for that revenue split, a phone has to have Chrome preinstalled and it has to be placed in the phone’s home screen dock, and that’s probably going to be one of the biggest drivers to keeping Chrome preloaded on most phones.
These changes kick in starting February 2019, so we still have a few months to see if this will have an impact on the market and the prices of phones.
source: The Verge
About the Author: Jared Peters
Born in southern Alabama, Jared spends his working time selling phones and his spare time writing about them. The Android enthusiasm started with the original Motorola Droid, but the tech enthusiasm currently covers just about everything. He likes PC gaming, Lenovo's Moto Z line, and a good productivity app.