What monopoly…?
There’s multiple app stores for Android, and you can just download and manually install apps if you don’t like any of them… it’s Apple that doesn’t want third party stores in their phones…
Why is the Google play store a monopoly if you can sideload apps, but the Apple store isn’t one although you can’t sideload apps? I’m not pro-Google, I’m just trying to understand.
Can’t answer your question as I’m also trying to understand but recently Graphene OS has been in the news.
Basically there are apps that won’t work if they have not been authenticated by one of Google’s APIs. Which means there are apps that won’t work if it did not come from the play store.
Yeah, It’s a bit more complicated than that though. The service your referring to is called Google App Service (sometimes just called App Services) and is required for certain functions. Mostly to do with API calls to Google servers, so it makes sense that they would need to be verified. It ain’t as anti-competitive as it first sounds, it’s actually very reasonable.
There are also some apps that have versions that don’t need Google App Services in order to run, they use alternate open source solutions. The version designed to run on Google’s app store requires Google App Services, the other versions don’t. The problem comes if people try and sideload the wrong version.
If the app does not require App Services then it doesn’t matter what platform it’s installed from.
I’m going one step further, it’s not just Google app services that is the problem. What they’re catching fire for currently is the Google Integrity api, as Google is refusing to whitelist third-party ROMs onto the API which means that secure apps such as banking apps will use that API are not able to be run on third party custom roms. Their argument is since they can’t validate the security of the ROMs they refuse to integrate them, however there are a few projects including graphene OS that has done everything that they can to keep it a secure minimalistic environment but because it’s not Google they won’t whitelist it. It’s definitly anti-competitive.
Oh yeah I understand, but the trouble is it’s not a totally unreasonable argument from their point of view. They are been asked to essentially put their seal of approval on something they have no real control over.
Perhaps the solution is to have some sort of agreement where any compromises that result from third-party ROMs, are not Google’s responsibility and are they should be legally protected. I’m sure that the lawyers are the main reason for this position by Google.
Just to add, there are multiple app stores available for Android devices. I hate Google, but this seems like an odd attack at first glance
Because they make deals with manufacturers to ensure only google play is loaded on, and that the bootloader is locked so custom ROMs can’t be easily installed. If they decline, they lose the right to ship w/ google play, and therefore piss of the average user.
Not just a coincidence that the only flagship devices on the market with an unlockable bootloader are made by Google. If you want to use android without them in a secure manner, you’re going to have to pay them for it.
My OnePlus 7 Pro came with an unlockable bootloader. Or was that deal after that phone came out?
This makes a lot more sense, and was the information I was missing. Thank you. As others have pointed out though, last I knew Samsung shipped with their own store
I think there’s some leeway given for manufacturer owned appstores, especially for the big boys.
That being said its mostly controlled opposition IMO.
Yup, I use F-Droid for most of my apps, and Aurora as an anonymous FE to the Play store. I also have a couple apps sideloaded.
Half, if not more, of the apps on my Android phone come from F-Droid.
Good.
Don’t forget Playstation, Nintendo and Xbox stores as well.
Make no mistake, Google and Samsung are becoming increasingly hostile to installing apps from outside of their proprietary stores (I refuse to use the “sideloading” framing these corps like to use like it’s some foreign scary thing outside of the safety of their walled gardens). Further obfuscation of settings, multiple warnings about security, and hijacking updates for apps installed from other repositories. I don’t want to give them time to kill it like they keep trying with adblocking.
Both Apple and Google should be attacked for these things. But while we’re at it, they should really address Google Play Services, Google’s permanent, privileged, pre-installed presence on Android that will break things including notifications if you attempt to get rid of it. I really, REALLY want to be rid of that and Google Play, the last Google applications I have installed.
How about the Google Play as system app status? I would like to see that gone too.
The problem is that there are very good reasons to have specific authoritative app stores/package repositories. and it is a lot harder to have privileged and unprivileged accounts on a phone versus a computer.
But yeah. Something has to be done about that since it is the fundamental issue with mobile devices.
Is it though? I have three profiles on my phone:
- main - all my normal apps; no Google Play whatsoever
- work - work apps; Google Play services running
- google - Google stuff (like Google Maps and whatnot); Google Play services running
This is on GrapheneOS, and they basically just ship AOSP with some patches on top.
Congrats. You just volunteered to teach all the boomers (and the zoomers who can’t do anything that isn’t google docs) how to set all that up and maintain it
May Erastil have mercy on your soul
Eh, it’s not too bad:
- Settings
- System
- Multiple Users -> Allow
- Add User
Then to switch, there will be a new icon next to the Settings icon when you swipe down. Tap that and select the profile you want.
I use GrapheneOS, which ships w/o Google Play by default (installation process is a little trickier, but still easy), but most phones won’t have an option to uninstall Google Play since it’s a default system app. But if have managed to install GrapheneOS, setting up a profile to quarantine your Google Play apps is pretty easy.
Almost like those systems were designed to be monopolistic and anti-competitive from the very beginning…
I’m sure this will be done with consumers in mind and won’t contribute to enshittification of the phone ecosystem, like launching a game on steam launching a whole new launcher. Nah, companies want what’s best for us
Nah, companies want what’s best for us
They never did but we were stupid/naive enough to believe corpo propaganda for decades and some still larp it.
We? Not me, for sure 😂
we the collective… unless you crawled out of your mom’s vagine properly educated on modern economic and social systems to discern the fuckening the elites imposed upon wage slaves.
🤣WTF
Some are still good but most are not
Oh, I thought it was an epic judge saying that, but it’s just Epic’s judge.
Can they be both?
I wish every judge was epic 😭
I mean I’m all for knocking the legs out from underneath Google, but not with Epic. Nobody deserves to have to deal with them.
Now do Apple.
At least you can have a third party app store on Android. Samsung, Amazon, and Xiaomi have their own app stores on Android devices. And there’s F-Droid, too. But that’s flat out impossible on iOS still, right?
Apple has a larger share of the US smartphone market (55-some-odd percent vs. Androids’s 44) so not only do more people have Apple devices and are thus likely to be impacted by Apple’s stranglehold on their platform, but you literally cannot put any app on that platform without Apple’s approval and kowtowing to their policies for the same, in addition to them taking a mandatory cut. (Yes, I am aware of jailbroken devices which is a tiny statistically insignificant fractional corner of the iPhone user base). Apple has already provably stifled competition in the iPhone app space by, e.g., prohibiting any web browser that does not internally use the Safari rendering engine and previously banning emulators because they might allow “external code” to run on the device.
This case isn’t a “win” for anybody except one megacorporation over another. The crux of the issue originally was that Epic thought both Google and Apple were taking too big of a cut of their revenue, and didn’t want either tampering with their in-app microtransactions. Both Google and Apple retaliated by delisting Fortnite for having untaxed microtransactions in it, and then Epic sued both of them.
The decisions in the Epic vs. Google and Epic vs. Apple cases are basically opposites of each other, which makes zero sense when anyone could (and still can) sideload Fortnite onto an Android device if they wanted to and not deal with Google, but this is still not possible on an iPhone.
Apple already lost in the EU and need to allow other app stores
Other app stores that are approved by Apple while giving Apple a cut after a million downloads of an app.
You still can’t install whatever .ipa file you want on iOS, even in Europe. So if you want something like Revanced (uYou+ on iOS), then you have to go through the whole rigamarole of creating an Apple developer account, resigning the ipa file, and repeating the resigning process every week, optionally using something like AltStore to automate that process, or alternatively, jailbreak, which means that you have to stay on an old, exploitable iOS version and never update.
What really needs to happen is that the consumer needs to own the device they bought. What this means in the smartphone world (also other devices, like video game consoles, car computers, smartwatches, smart TVs, tablets, laptops, etc.) is a few things: root access, an unlockable bootloader, and replacable signing keys for the primary bootloader while providing a firmware package to go back to 100% stock (so no Samsung Knox that irrevocably triggers after unlocking the bootloader or DRM keys that get irrevocably wiped when unlocking the bootloader) (all of these being optional features that the user has to explicitly enable). Anything short of that is not ownership.
And also the ability to relock the bootloader.
Samsung & Amazon have had their own fairly successful stores for years. Compete if you feel so strongly
This is nothing like the situation on Apple devices
Amazon doesn’t sell devices with Google Play or other google apps loaded on them, they specifically don’t have a deal with google, and instead create a flavor of android based on the AOSP, which is increasingly minimalistic on purpose.
Samsung does have a store, but its not like Google didn’t try to stop it.
Basically your options are to do everything that google says, or reinvent the wheel trying to push AOSP.
It would be nice if maybe the judge is actually knew what they were talking about. I’m not entirely clear I understand what would change here you can already sideload apps in fact if you get an Samsung phone I’m pretty sure Samsung app store is pre-installed.
No one uses it, that’s because it’s terrible and doesn’t contain anything that isn’t in the regular app store but it’s allowed and you don’t have to do any hacking or anything.
Apple though…
Google | Microsoft | Apple
If we can break these companies into dozens of pieces we may be able to get back the world we lost
Google can be broken up into 40 different messaging companies at least.
