Sean Hollister

For example: Lockheimer emailed Samsung Mobile president DJ Koh on July 11th, 2014, to say he was “surprised” that Samsung went ahead with a big Galaxy Store rebrand without his knowledge (technically, that one was called Galaxy Apps).

Koh was then cc’d on an email back to Lockheimer explaining away the change:

Lockheimer says he was surprised simply because he’d just been in Korea to meet with Samsung, and it didn’t mention Galaxy Apps.

He also agreed that he sometimes texted DJ Koh on the side as part of the business relationship.

Lockheimer won’t go that far. He says he doesn’t know. But he also says he can’t name a single phone that only uses AOSP without also bundling GMS (Google Mobile Services) apps on top — which requires signing a MADA contract with Google.

(When it’s Google’s turn, Lockheimer might get to explain that Google’s long used contracts to prevent Android fragmentation, giving users a better chance of getting their phone updated.)

“GMS is a highly sought after set of products, and it brings OEMs to the negotiating table. If we put all GMS in market, there’s less incentive for OEMs to negotiate for GMS,” Lockheimer wrote in a 2011 email.

Now, Epic is quizzing Android chief Hiroshi Lockheimer about it. If you’ve been following my dispatches from the trial, you probably know what’s coming next. (Epic will try to show that AOSP isn’t enough to make a phone viable.)

Maybe I missed something. Google didn’t object, so perhaps it happened.

He says Jamie Rosenberg, a former head of Google Play who took the stand yesterday, reported to him.

“That revenue is at risk already... but the opportunity costs for Youtube to move to Play is that instead of rolling out new features and whatnot, YouTube is spending time migrating to Play,” he told attorneys in the 2022 video deposition.

Now, we’re seeing that original Android app store boss Eric Chu helped defend that decision — for a time — when he joined YouTube in 2018.

“Data integration will significantly limit YouTube’s ability to innovate — significant eng efforts at the expense of moving our paid business forward,” he wrote. Later, in 2020, he suggested that YouTube would need to do so to achieve fairness for all developers, both first party and third party, but was still worried about the costs.

His YouTube comments are from a January 2022 deposition, not the original 2021 one I mentioned earlier.

I missed who wrote this one, apologies:

Google’s public blog post in October 2008 introducing the Android Market explicitly stated that “Google does not take a percentage.” I’m not completely clear if Google was already taking 5 percent at that time.

“As requested (re Eric Chu) we have changed the default developer revenue share from 95% to 70%. This is live in production now,” reads a June 2009 email.

Some employees thought Google was Being Evil (back when its motto was Don’t Be Evil) and protested the decision in internal emails. (That’s two bingo card stamps right now, if you’re keeping track.)

Here’s how Android engineer, Jean-Baptiste Queru, reacted in an email:

It’s not a discussion between Rubin and Chu, at least not in this part of the email thread. Chu asks, and Rubin replies: “70/30 worldwide.”

Rubin makes it even clearer in another equally blunt email: