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Netflix is the latest company to try bypassing Apple’s app store

marketwatch.com

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Re: Netflix is the latest company to try bypassing Apple’s app store

#11

Post by slivym »

orf wrote: post #2

> Epic Games will be launching its hit game Fortnite for Android on its own website, and fans will only be able to download the game there, not on Google Play ... while the setting that blocks third-party installations can be disabled on Android phones. If they are talking about disabling it system wide vs disabling it for a single application, is this not pretty irresponsible? Lots of kids play Fortnite, saying "hey…

You're right that it's a bad situation for millions of kids to be told to turn off security settings, it seems like that's a bad situation for Android/Google/Samsung than it is for Epic Games. It's kind of Google's own fault for tying their 'security' into a huge tax. If Google offered certification for a fixed cost then this wouldn't be an issue - you could distribute certified apps yourself and not have the problem. The problem is they tied certification into a tax and appearing in the appstore.

Re: Netflix is the latest company to try bypassing Apple’s app store

#12

Post by [deleted] »

bepotts wrote: post #10

Apple and Google not only created the device and funded the R & D for the features, but also created the APIs, the tools, the infrastructure, and attracted the (hundreds of millions of) users. The 30% cut they ask of developers is more than reasonable. Want to bypass that cut? Build a web app and make it play well on mobile. If you want to run it on Android and iOS devices, then I don't really see how anyone can say…

[deleted]

Re: Netflix is the latest company to try bypassing Apple’s app store

#13

Post by MiddleEndian »

orf wrote: post #2

> Epic Games will be launching its hit game Fortnite for Android on its own website, and fans will only be able to download the game there, not on Google Play ... while the setting that blocks third-party installations can be disabled on Android phones. If they are talking about disabling it system wide vs disabling it for a single application, is this not pretty irresponsible? Lots of kids play Fortnite, saying "hey…

Hopefully these kids will be exposed to the idea that they can choose what software they use rather than being limited to a curated store.

Re: Netflix is the latest company to try bypassing Apple’s app store

#14

Post by dragonwriter »

orf wrote: post #2

> Epic Games will be launching its hit game Fortnite for Android on its own website, and fans will only be able to download the game there, not on Google Play ... while the setting that blocks third-party installations can be disabled on Android phones. If they are talking about disabling it system wide vs disabling it for a single application, is this not pretty irresponsible? Lots of kids play Fortnite, saying "hey…

> If they are talking about disabling it system wide vs disabling it for a single application, is this not pretty irresponsible?

It's not a system wide setting, it's an app-specific setting (that is, it's for the app you wish to be able to install other apps.)

Setting it to “allow” for the default browser and leaving it that way is something of an issue, though.

Re: Netflix is the latest company to try bypassing Apple’s app store

#15

Post by mscrivo »

orf wrote: post #2

> Epic Games will be launching its hit game Fortnite for Android on its own website, and fans will only be able to download the game there, not on Google Play ... while the setting that blocks third-party installations can be disabled on Android phones. If they are talking about disabling it system wide vs disabling it for a single application, is this not pretty irresponsible? Lots of kids play Fortnite, saying "hey…

This is not much of an issue with newer versions of Android. see Tim Sweeney's tweet about the situation: https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/102553539172465049...

Re: Netflix is the latest company to try bypassing Apple’s app store

#16

Post by toast0 »

orf wrote: post #2

> Epic Games will be launching its hit game Fortnite for Android on its own website, and fans will only be able to download the game there, not on Google Play ... while the setting that blocks third-party installations can be disabled on Android phones. If they are talking about disabling it system wide vs disabling it for a single application, is this not pretty irresponsible? Lots of kids play Fortnite, saying "hey…

Installing a downloaded APK means you miss out on Google's identity verification process, and maybe on Google's malicious code scanning -- but Google Play Protect says it will scan all apps on your device, and may upload your apps to Google[1], so it might not be that big of a difference in practice, if you get linked into the appstore by a shady website, you can get a shady app.

There's a bigger difference on iOS, if a similar setting was even available, because Apple curates much more strongly than Google.

[1] https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/2812853?hl=en

Re: Netflix is the latest company to try bypassing Apple’s app store

#17

Post by tusharsoni »

Apple and Google should update their policies where they take a much smaller cut if the user got to the App Store page directly (via external link) or a direct search. They deserve the 30% cut if users find the app by browsing the store (which doesn't happen nearly as often).

Re: Netflix is the latest company to try bypassing Apple’s app store

#19

Post by phobosdeimos »

orf wrote: post #2

> Epic Games will be launching its hit game Fortnite for Android on its own website, and fans will only be able to download the game there, not on Google Play ... while the setting that blocks third-party installations can be disabled on Android phones. If they are talking about disabling it system wide vs disabling it for a single application, is this not pretty irresponsible? Lots of kids play Fortnite, saying "hey…

Android doesn't have system wide sideloading anymore, if I allow sideloading for one app its still disabled for other apps.
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