56
votes
US judge rules Google must give rival third-party app stores access to the full catalog of Google Play apps — and distribute third-party stores
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- Title
- Google must crack open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge
- Authors
- Sean Hollister
- Published
- Oct 7 2024
- Word count
- 479 words
Also, If it did go through, I’m wondering what “access to the Google Play catalog of apps” would mean in practice. Shouldn’t app developers get a say in which stores distribute their apps?
From the article (emphasis mine):
Still seems bizarre. Like is the Epic Games Store getting access to the full Google Play catalog? Do the stores have to re-host the files themselves or do they act as a pass-through directly to Google servers to download the apps?
Thanks! Yeah, I skimmed.
I was more in favour of this when it happened to Apple than I am now that Google's on the hook. Don't get me wrong - I'm a libertarian (the actual kind, not the anarchocapitalist one) and I believe that everyone should have the right to download whatever they want on whatever device they own, and as an EU citizen I'm very proud that we bullied Apple into giving us that option (with caveats, grumble grumble).
But... I mean, have you used android lately? Even apart from the manufacturer installed malware on basically every phone these days, the app situation is just hateful. Most apps aren't bespoke solutions, but Flutter or (not to reveal how old I am by mentioning it) Xamarin affairs that interface with a specific service, like Uber, or Doordash, or Spotify and so on. There's no real indie app scene like there is on macOS and iOS, so the few times when I am prompted to manually install an APK package there's an 80/20 chance it's straight up malware. Also, Play Store guidelines are laughably lax when it comes to stuff you can upload, and the license to distribute is 25 dollars, paid once. I don't see that as restrictive at all.
Also, this decision is just straight up too much government overreach for me. Force them to offer third party stores? Fine, if you want, there's plenty of precedent for that (See Amazon App Store, F-Droid, Aurora Store etc.) – but making the Play Store catalogue accessible in other app stores? At that point, it becomes a utility in a sense. Why should Google pay for everyone's backend?
The whole point of the Epic v Apple case to begin with was that Apple's insistence on their own stores hampers competition. I'm not sure I agree, but that battle is fought and won, so who cares. More options are better for the consumer anyways, and Apple is demonstrably a gatekeeper in that sense.
But... Android? The OS that didn't give two shits about what you installed, provided it's valid android runtime code? How's that restrictive? It's only restrictive if you are, say, a large corporation with a lot of revenue and, hm, don't want to pay for the systems you use to distribute your software, and downloading an APK manually would deter a large userbase of... oh, I don't know, maybe young users...
It's just another corpo hissy fit. On iOS, they have a point, because it prevents sideloading and everything has to go through the App Store. On android, this is pathetic, because sideloading was built in from the start, and it's just Tim Sweeney's ego at play here. Any and all pretense of "oh, this is a benefit for the consumer" is just propaganda.
The Google Play store might be awash with all sorts of low-effort and / or malicious entries but that doesn't, to me, indicate that a higher barrier to entry (such as absurd developer fees, certification requirements, and such) is necessary. In fact, too much of a push in that direction seems to be putting off the kind of developer that actually contributes well to the store (see iA writer- https://www.androidpolice.com/popular-writing-app-goes-offline-on-android-after-struggles-with-google/).
A number of modifications to the way permissions are requested and partitioned in Android in the last few years have improved the safety of the app ecosystem and there is definitely a large selection of developers / publishers with reasonable reputation and history in the space. As long as one is sensible and at least a little proactive in researching the apps they install there is unlikely to be any issue.
Personally, as somebody who refuses to use any Google service I can get away with, including using a de-Googled LineageOS device, I welcome any changes that attempt to reverse the increasingly walled-garden approach that Google is taking. If I can fetch the small handful of Google provided apps that I still use (such as banking apps) without having to fetch them in increasingly convoluted ways, I'll be a lot more satisfied with my mobile devices.
It feels at times like Google have been watching Apple's fight and taking notes on what they themselves can get away with. Apple attempts to game the rules at every step, and the consequences aren't enough to dissuade that behavior.
Well, for one, Google tethered immense amount of functionality behind apps and services it owns and distributes on the app store.
And this quote sums it up well:
This is a critical part of the punishment, in order to break Google's hold on network effects. It would allow an indie upstart store to offer tighter curation without having to court every single app developer.
Much how Microsoft was forced to put up a browser choice screen in the EU, as pennance for illegally leveraging their monopoly to push IE.
In the end, I feel if we're not going to break up the billion/trillion dollar tech oligopolies, we can at least break their strength and force them to subsidize some competition.
There's a Dutch website focused on technology and gadgets and on news like this, and also Apple's recent app store news, there are these clowns that are vehemently against consumer rights and find a way to make this sound like it's bad news.
No, this is almost entirely good in practice. Competition breaking up the hegemony of the likes of Google and Apple is always good for you as a consumer.
That's where I'm at. I'm not a lawyer and can't speak to how that aspect of things. But I'll take literally any action that hints at the breaking of huge megacorps.
Oh, yay.
So many app stores are full of malware. This is not actually that beneficial although Amazon might be happy about it.
I wonder if this means that Meta now has a whole lot of Android apps they can put into 2d VR space now? What does this mean for the ROM space or Kindle tablets? Google Play Store was always the hardest part to sideload, would that no longer be an issue? If Windows or Steam, or even Apple for some reason has Android stores, are they then able to run everything from the Google Play store unless the Devs say no?