Interesting analysis but I think he overcomplicates the situation.
From a third party app point of view you can build your against Android API level X, or a corresponding ‘Google api’ release associated with the given API level. An app built against API level X will work seamlessly on the corresponding AOSP release.
So far, unless you’re interested in more tightly integrating into Google services, you don’t need to build your app against the Google api, but obviously Google are interested in app developers using their custom apis.
As far as the increasing integration of core applications into GMS is concerned, it is rather overblown to call the AOSP versions broken or buggy. AOSP remains the base platform for the hardware ecosystem to develop their reference designs, AOSP has to work and does work well.
The hardware domain is a big problem for rolling your own OS from scratch, the associated software stack to support a given piece of hardware is non-trivial. Even generic Linux is now being supplanted by Android variants in the embedded space especially if you’re interested in graphics or multimedia.
However, also consider that the most successful player in the Android space, Samsung, have pursued a strategy of lightly forking Android with their own features and customizations without breaking compatibility deliberately.
From a third party app point of view you can build your against Android API level X, or a corresponding ‘Google api’ release associated with the given API level. An app built against API level X will work seamlessly on the corresponding AOSP release.
So far, unless you’re interested in more tightly integrating into Google services, you don’t need to build your app against the Google api, but obviously Google are interested in app developers using their custom apis.
As far as the increasing integration of core applications into GMS is concerned, it is rather overblown to call the AOSP versions broken or buggy. AOSP remains the base platform for the hardware ecosystem to develop their reference designs, AOSP has to work and does work well.
The hardware domain is a big problem for rolling your own OS from scratch, the associated software stack to support a given piece of hardware is non-trivial. Even generic Linux is now being supplanted by Android variants in the embedded space especially if you’re interested in graphics or multimedia.
However, also consider that the most successful player in the Android space, Samsung, have pursued a strategy of lightly forking Android with their own features and customizations without breaking compatibility deliberately.