Looking to the day we can finally say goodbye to Google's SafetyNet.
Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge
311–320 of 607 posts
Re: Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge
#312Wait, so the Google Play Store, which you can install alternatives to (F-Droid, Aurora, Amazon,...), and where you can easily install apps through other means (such as downloading an APK through your browser and running it from the file manager) is an illegal monopoly while the Apple App Store isn't? Well, I guess Google's market cap is only 2 trillion compared to Apple's 3 trillion, so I guess that's fair.
While I agree with you in principle, in practice Google makes side loading so convoluted and scary that I think they do need / deserve some censure here. The fact you have to go deep into settings, toggle weird settings that tell you how dangerous it is to side load and then it toggles the setting back after you put it on without asking you - this is not all that different to Apple letting you use an alternative paym…
Convoluted how? I have literally installed third party app stores on Android many years ago and continued to have done so in the same manner to this very day. You download the APK and when you install it, you have to click two buttons to confirm (one to go to settings, and one to turn on installed apps from untrusted sources).
Re: Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge
#313Wait, so the Google Play Store, which you can install alternatives to (F-Droid, Aurora, Amazon,...), and where you can easily install apps through other means (such as downloading an APK through your browser and running it from the file manager) is an illegal monopoly while the Apple App Store isn't? Well, I guess Google's market cap is only 2 trillion compared to Apple's 3 trillion, so I guess that's fair.
The Epic v Google and Epic v Apple cases are a great showcase about how the law actually works in practice. Epic v Google was a jury trial, and also there was plenty of evidence in discovery to Epic’s favour[1], and also there was evidence that “Google destroyed evidence and repeatedly gave false info to court”[2]. There was a fair amount of coverage and analysis among legal commentators about why Google lost. It’s w…
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Re: Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge
#314Wait, so the Google Play Store, which you can install alternatives to (F-Droid, Aurora, Amazon,...), and where you can easily install apps through other means (such as downloading an APK through your browser and running it from the file manager) is an illegal monopoly while the Apple App Store isn't? Well, I guess Google's market cap is only 2 trillion compared to Apple's 3 trillion, so I guess that's fair.
> and where you can easily install apps through other means When the lawsuit started, apps installed like this couldn't be automatically updated without going through the scare screens again manually.
I don't remember how far back, but I remember third party apps working just fine at least, say, 5-6 years ago. The case was brought 2020, so I doubt this is true.
Re: Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge
#315According to Wikipedia [0]:
> The events and initial actions on Epic's lawsuit against Google were brought on the same day as Epic's suit against Apple, but Google stressed the legal situation around their case is far different. Google asserted that the Android operating system does not have the same single storefront restriction as Apple's iOS, and thus allows different Android phone manufacturers to bundle different storefronts and apps as they desire. Google said they are negotiating with Epic Games far differently from Apple in their case.
I have no idea how the two cases are different, but Google said they were. And it sure sounds like Google specifically chose to take a different path, which ended up being a loser. Cautionary tale of hubris and stuff.
Re: Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge
#316Epic's "First Run" program does all the things they got mad at Apple and Google about. You don't have to pay any license fees for Unreal Engine if you use Epic exclusively for payments. They give you 100% revshare for 6 months if you agree to not ship your game on any other app store. Let's not kid ourselves, Epic never cared about consumer choice or a fair playing field, they only want the ability to profit without…
I fail the see the correlation. Epic is synergizing with its platform that is a tiny fraction of its market and its engine that is also not a monopoly (Unity still the most used engine). This context does indeed matter a lot. Hard to lock out competition when your competition is 8x the market share. >Epic never cared about consumer choice or a fair playing field of course not. But enemy of my enemy. As of now their a…
> synergizing with its platform
That's some beautiful corpspeak.
"Your honor, it is not anticompetitive practice, it is synergizing with our platform"
Re: Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge
#317Earlier quoted context omitted.
If apple literally hadn't won their own case 2 years ago you'd be right. If the company that literally doesn't allow users to install ANY application, yet alone a whole store, is in the clear, it's mind boggling that Google's situation is the one they took issue with. Apple literally has a higher market share in the US.
Could Apple have Google-like restrictions in the future? Or are we kinda fucked because Apple already "won"?
Contradictory rulings are fodder for Supreme Court dockets.
Re: Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge
#318Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is ridiculous. From Google's reply ( https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/public-policy/epic-... ): "These Epic-requested changes stem from a decision that is completely contrary to another court’s rejection of similar claims Epic made against Apple — even though, unlike iOS, Android is an open platform that has always allowed for choice and flexibility like multiple app stores and sideloading."
It's probably not a great idea to point at a monopoly, as a defense of one's own monopoly, and claim "Yeah, but he did it worse." Both Google and Apple's platforms need to be cracked open to competition.
Two 'monopolies' in app stores aren't a monopoly. They are at most a duopoly..
Re: Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge
#319Earlier quoted context omitted.
Android has the appearance of an open platform that could accommodate alternate app stores, and so the court comes by with an order to allow alternate app stores. IOS never had the appearance of an open platform, so the court does not have the opportunity to do the same thing. What's the lesson for future leaders in tech companies?
Absent first mover advantage with the iPhone, it's extremely difficult to see Apple ending up where it is, with a closed ecosystem.
Only: the iPhone did not have first mover advantages.
There were plenty of mobile phones out there before that could download and run apps, and Apple didn't even have their famous app store at the beginning of the iPhone, either.
Re: Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge
#320For all the people commenting on the discrepancy between this ruling and the one in Apple’s case: now perhaps you see the value of good lawyers. Apple was able to convince the judge in their case to fairly narrowly define the market segment at issue. Google failed to do that here. And no, it’s not as simple as saying they’re the same so this will get overturned on appeal to stay consistent with the Apple ruling. The…
Good lawyers or BS legal system?
Cases aren’t decided purely by the law. They’re also decided on the facts, and the facts are what are entered into the court record.
It is also a fact observable to anyone outside any court of law that while Google sells phones, their main relationship with Android is as a vendor-neutral OS developer that licenses the OS out and takes responsibility for its maintenance and a services provider that required favoring their own software and services over that of their competitors as part of their agreement with phone makers.
Apple makes and sells phones, including the OS, and services for those phones including the App Store. They’re not telling Samsung they must favor Apple services in order to receive an iOS license because they don’t license iOS to Samsung for Samsung’s phones.
Google and Apple both chose their own business plans here, which is their right, but it also put them on different legal footing when Epic came calling in Court because in theory, Android was supposed to be an open ecosystem that third party app markets could thrive on and it just wasn’t that, in particular because Google was putting their thumb on the scale.