Modi government to set up app store alternative to Google Play, Apple App Store • Hacker News Board

Re: Modi government to set up app store alternative to Google Play, Apple App Store

#361

Post by jolux » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 1:51 AM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #358

jolux wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And even if you don't, what are they going to do to a TLS connection? You misunderstand me. Tor Browser is based on Firefox ESR, which means it lags with security updates: https://medium.com/@thegrugq/tor-and-its-discontents-ef51648... Tor itself is not what I was referring to, although it has its problems as well, mainly that it's extremely identifiable. Tor is not a good idea for most people to use full-time. The…

> You misunderstand me. Tor Browser is based on Firefox ESR, which means it lags with security updates: https://medium.com/@thegrugq/tor-and-its-discontents-ef51648... The main point your link is making is that Tor Browser is purposely a monoculture to avoid fingerprinting and monocultures are bad for security because it gives attackers somewhere to concentrate their attacks. You're using this to argue in support of…

You didn’t read the whole thing if that’s what you drew from it. Safari on iOS is used by everyone with an iPhone, Tor Browser is used (typically) by people with something to hide or a lot at stake, which makes it a singularly desirable target that is especially dangerous because it doesn’t receive security patches at the same speed as mainline Firefox. The monoculture is only part of the problem, the bigger part is using a browser with an inferior security model and leaving it hopelessly out of date. Using Tor with an up to date version of Chrome is much less hazardous to your health, and I really recommend that approach if you want to use Tor.

> It's extremely identifiable as Tor, but that's exactly why most people should use it more of the time, so that it isn't regarded as suspicious when somebody has a more serious reason to.

No. That’s just not going to happen, for a number of reasons, and hoping it does happen is not a strategy for helping the significant number of people who are already using it because they do have a serious reason to, and are consequently at risk because of how vulnerable their browser is.

Re: Modi government to set up app store alternative to Google Play, Apple App Store

#362

Post by AnthonyMouse » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 2:53 AM UTC

parasubvert wrote: post #347

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Want a better situation? Build a new and better ecosystem. The problem is it's chicken and egg. To get users you need apps, to get app developers you need users. To overcome that you don't just need something which is as good as the status quo, you need something so much better that people will switch to it despite the apps conundrum. Apple got there by being first to market with a modern smartphone. Google got the…

> The problem is it's chicken and egg. To get users you need apps, to get app developers you need users. I didn't say it would be easy. :-) It is a huge can of worms to declare the current smartphone + app store design as a public utility to be preserved for 50 years, when this industry is barely 12 years old at this point. > To overcome that you don't just need something which is as good as the status quo, you need…

> It is a huge can of worms to declare the current smartphone + app store design as a public utility to be preserved for 50 years, when this industry is barely 12 years old at this point.

Who is making it a public utility? Just prohibit anyone from restricting users from using alternative app stores or sideloading their own apps. It's the opposite of making it a utility -- it's ensuring that competition exists.

> I don't think it will come from "the smartphone" market which has already been won. It will come by some disruptor that eats into adjacencies: AR, VR, wearables, etc.

You also have the problem that the successor need not be any better. If one of those things replaces the smartphone, but the new incumbent still restricts users in what apps they can install, unseating the old incumbents hasn't actually solved the problem.

> Alibaba group, Facebook, Valve, Tencent, Huawei, Amazon, and Microsoft.

Microsoft and Amazon already tried and failed, and none of those others are as big or even making an attempt.

> I think most users are broadly aware that Apple control things and take a cut.

They're vaguely aware that it happens, but not of what that means to them. The opaque and arbitrary criteria they use for rejections, or the implications for app price and quality of transferring wealth from small developers to the world's largest corporation. So it feels like somebody else's problem. And when Apple and Google both do it, something they have no meaningful choice in regardless.

> So does every other platform provider though. Publishers and retailers can't discount Nintendo switch games unless Nintendo approves it. This goes back 40 years to Atari.

And they should prohibit the lot of it. It was never different, it had just never been big enough to matter this much, because before it was only games and not everything.

> I think the bigger issue is if users actually prefer the current curated arrangement.

Which we could find out if the vertical integration was removed and the users could choose a curated store or not, independent of which phone they buy.

Re: Modi government to set up app store alternative to Google Play, Apple App Store

#363

Post by IshKebab » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 2:27 PM UTC

toast0 wrote: post #245

IshKebab wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean slower to write? You're probably right for native Android. But I didn't say anything about development effort. Also it's definitely easier to get polished apps with Flutter than PWAs, so I think they'd still lose on that front.

No, I mean slower to run. It takes way too long for widget objects to be created, and you can only do it on the UI Thread, and you have to make most of your widgets when the app opens (otherwise there's nothing to see). It was also slower to write for me, but I've never had a good time understanding UI toolkits, so I assume that's my own character flaw.

Erm. There's no way the web is faster than Android's native widgets or Flutter's. Your complaint about the UI thread makes no sense for a start - the web only has a UI thread.

Re: Modi government to set up app store alternative to Google Play, Apple App Store

#364

Post by AnthonyMouse » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 5:08 PM UTC

zepto wrote: post #360

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course not, which is why I don't install their app and wouldn't use their store.

Neither do I but, there are 2.7 Billion monthly active users who trust them enough to use the service. Do you think some of them would end up using the store?

Would a non-zero number of people use the store? Of course. But voluntarily, and with the realistic option not to, which isn't tied to their choice of hardware or operating system.

And enough people wouldn't that Facebook would still feel a lot of pressure to have their app in Apple's store under Apple's rules, or at least some store and some set of rules that the users actually trust.

Re: Modi government to set up app store alternative to Google Play, Apple App Store

#365

Post by whimsicalism » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 5:21 PM UTC

return1 wrote: post #325

whimsicalism wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but China only became rich enough that lots of wealthy young Chinese could be buying iPhones recently. I do not think it would be unreasonable to make the same bet on India being a decade or two behind.

Its not automatic. China took decades of policy and benefited from periods of global growth. India has different politics

" benefited from periods of global growth" -> China had incredible post-2008 growth, that is a large part of why there are so many people buying iPhones.

> India has different politics

What do you mean? It's more inequitable than China and has more political capture by private actors, but I don't see why the same couldn't occur in India.

Re: Modi government to set up app store alternative to Google Play, Apple App Store

#366

Post by powerapple » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 6:32 PM UTC

franga2000 wrote: post #234

powerapple wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All we need is a proper way to tax these companies. It is totally okay that Google or Facebook is doing the work, the people can tax them and get a fair cut from the profit.

"All we need" == an entire restructuring of every major country's government from the ground up. Not that it would work anyways...

Fair enough. At least France is trying to push for some digital tax for internet services.

Re: Modi government to set up app store alternative to Google Play, Apple App Store

#367

Post by toast0 » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 8:35 PM UTC

IshKebab wrote: post #363

toast0 wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I mean slower to run. It takes way too long for widget objects to be created, and you can only do it on the UI Thread, and you have to make most of your widgets when the app opens (otherwise there's nothing to see). It was also slower to write for me, but I've never had a good time understanding UI toolkits, so I assume that's my own character flaw.

Erm. There's no way the web is faster than Android's native widgets or Flutter's. Your complaint about the UI thread makes no sense for a start - the web only has a UI thread .

I wish you were right. But for a reasonably simple (in my mind) weather UI, constructing the native Widgets on a cold start takes long enough that you get warnings for too much activity on the UI thread. But you can't build Widgets off the UI thread to get parallelism like you would do for other things that are slow, because Widgets have to be built on the UI thread if you want to show them.

A similar HTML layout shows up a ton faster in Chrome or a webview.

Re: Modi government to set up app store alternative to Google Play, Apple App Store

#368

Post by zepto » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 9:06 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #364

zepto wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither do I but, there are 2.7 Billion monthly active users who trust them enough to use the service. Do you think some of them would end up using the store?

Would a non-zero number of people use the store? Of course. But voluntarily, and with the realistic option not to, which isn't tied to their choice of hardware or operating system. And enough people wouldn't that Facebook would still feel a lot of pressure to have their app in Apple's store under Apple's rules, or at least some store and some set of rules that the users actually trust.

Right, so under these conditions developers would be forced to have their app in both stores.

And if Facebook bought some exclusive content, Users would be forced to use both stores if they wanted access to the full catalog.

Re: Modi government to set up app store alternative to Google Play, Apple App Store

#369

Post by dannyw » Wed, Oct 07, 2020, 1:40 AM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #134

dannyw wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their press release says: > F-Droid is taking a political stance here I do not want any App Store to be taking political stances.

> I do not want any App Store to be taking political stances. I don't think there is a clean separation between political and non-political when you're choosing whether to accept or deny apps to an app store.

I think you can choose to not deny apps based on political reasons (e.g. BLM) but still choose to deny apps based on security (e.g. malware), deceptiveness (spam, abuse), or license (e.g. closed source).