Google’s Android is still free for anyone to use but the company has started asserting more control over the mobile platform by making its default home screen into a giant Google search app. As Ars Technica’s-Ron Amadeo points out, Google has changed its platform with Android 4.4 KitKat by turning “all home screen functionality over to the Google Search app,” which means that “the wallpaper, the icons, the widgets, and the app drawer — are all drawn by the Google Search app.” Amadeo-says that joining the search app to the home screen at the hip is the same strategy that Facebook used with Facebook Home: Just as the Home overlay turned Android devices into Facebook phones so does the KitKat



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