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Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge

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Re: Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge

#411

Post by klez »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #275
xethos wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For years, OEMs were made to install a number of Google apps onto the homescreen at predefined places. One of which is the Play Store. Amazon (for example) absolutely did not have this advantage, despite this kind of thing happening on non-Google hardware. Or we can look at why Google's Play Store is allowed to auto-update apps without user interaction, and... that's it. That's the only store that's allowed to do tha…

> Amazon (for example) absolutely did not have this advantage Google incentivized the OEMs to do that. Amazon could have incentivized OEMs to do that also, but the business plan that Amazon pursued did not involve third parties building their own Kindle devices. > Or we can look at why Google's Play Store is allowed to auto-update apps without user interaction, and... that's it. This has never been true for Android i…

> This has never been true for Android in general. This hasn't been true for phones that only ship with the Play Store since Android 12

I'm on Android 14 here, shipped with Play Store by default. It still auto-updates apps.

Re: Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge

#412

Post by throwitaway1123 »

eru wrote: post #388
WanderPanda wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+ being early on capacitive touchscreens and multi-touch

Yes, though touchscreens weren't exactly an Apple invention either. I seem to dimly remember that they had some early lead on multitouch. But that one specific nifty technology is a far cry from a general 'first mover advantage' in phones with apps.

Apps weren't what drove people to the original iPhone (the original iPhone didn't have an app store). Apple was essentially the first mainstream company to commit fully to the current smartphone design — a flat, rectangular, portrait aspect ratio brick, with a single slab of capacitive multi-touch glass. There were many other competing form factors at the time. Apple correctly deduced that touching your screen is the most intuitive way to interact with smaller devices, and they had a huge first mover advantage by committing to that paradigm early.

Re: Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge

#413

Post by dmvdoug »

SllX wrote: post #320
gerash wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

What do you think litigators do? Their whole job is figuring out how to elicit, marshal, introduce and connect the facts that will prove their case. That’s just what being a trial lawyer is.

The facts are not just out there and whoever happens to have the better facts on their side wins. Litigators have to be able to identify and interrogate relevant facts, prepare witnesses and documents to introduce them, then shape them in a convincing enough way that they can argue the facts and law are on their side.

Hell, even appellate lawyering is really all about the facts in the end. We have legal doctrines and lines of authority for this or that legal proposition, but the letter of the law only receives its full shape in light of the various fact patterns they’ve been tested by. (This, by the way, is where the modern Supreme Court tends to show its cracks. Arguments before the Supreme Court are almost inevitably a step or two removed from the facts of the actual case that the Court is supposed to be adjudicating. Yes, appellate courts and the Supreme Court have to take into account that whatever they rule is going to have precedential effect and other courts will look to their decisions to guide their own work. But it’s striking how often like 7/9 Supremes deflect argument away from the particular facts of the case they agreed to review and focus on hypotheticals and “first principles” (which they don’t even agree on amongst themselves) and so on. Yet they always trumpet that Article III jurisdiction requires there to be a live case or controversy. Which they promptly themselves ignore. Can’t let, you know, actual judging get in the way of one’s shaping of the law!)

Re: Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge

#414

Post by Dylan16807 »

SllX wrote: post #374
Dylan16807 wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is a rendering engine still a web browser if you remove all the chrome and extra features built around the rendering engine? Is that supposed to be a counterargument? If you can't replace the rendering engine, then you're not able to install your own web browser. If you can only replace the rendering engine, then you're not able to install your own web browser. Both of these can easily be true at the same time. > A…

>>> Is a web browser still a web browser if you remove the rendering engine? >> Is a rendering engine still a web browser if you remove all the chrome and extra features built around the rendering engine? > Is that supposed to be a counterargument? Only as much as what I was responding to was an argument. > If you can't replace the rendering engine, then you're not able to install your own web browser. Except that is…

> Only as much as what I was responding to was an argument.

What you said could be the start of a counterargument to someone that says renderer==browser.

But they never said that. Their argument only depends on replacing the renderer being a sometimes-necessary component of installing your own browser. Talking about replacing the renderer but not the UI is a thought experiment that doesn't counter that.

> Except that is literally not true if a rendering engine is available to you to use.

Only if everyone agrees with your personal definition of browser. Many people don't.

> “Removed” would imply there was ever another rendering engine in use on Chrome for iPhones.

No, it just implies their starting point for making their iOS browser included the chrome codebase.

Re: Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge

#415

Post by frizlab »

wiseowise wrote: post #97
frizlab wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

THIS. And this is the main reason why I hate the EU decisions. Apple was always 100% clear on their message. The App Store is a closed ecosystem. You hate it? You don’t have to use it. You can do PWAs. If they attacked Apple on their PWA support, I’d have backed the case (though nobody cares, obviously). But the case as it is now is dumb.

You hate EU decisions because they cracked down on clown monopoly?

How is the iPhone a monopoly? You don’t want an iPhone you don’t buy an iPhone, there’s literally thousands of alternatives…

Re: Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge

#416

Post by wiseowise »

frizlab wrote: post #415
wiseowise wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You hate EU decisions because they cracked down on clown monopoly?

How is the iPhone a monopoly? You don’t want an iPhone you don’t buy an iPhone, there’s literally thousands of alternatives…

When it occupies half the market and life is increasingly dependent on your phone it’s no longer “don’t like - don’t buy”. How about “don’t like the changes - stop using Apple”? Huh? What’s stopping you from finding another Apple if there are thousands of alternatives?

Re: Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge

#417

Post by bryanrasmussen »

ethbr1 wrote: post #217
wolpoli wrote: post #191

Earlier 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.

this sounds close to:

gosh, if they hadn't basically created the market for phones like this it's hard to see how they would be dominating the market for phones like this, given their behavior.

because that's what first mover advantage is in this case. They created a market, in hardware - that's pretty difficult.

regarding other posts saying Apple wasn't first mover in smartphones:

Hey, I remember what those old things looked like. There was such a qualitative difference between the iPhone and its competitors at the time that it seemed like a whole new category of product.

Re: Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge

#418

Post by [deleted] »

wolpoli wrote: post #191
ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #92

Earlier 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.

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?

[deleted]

Re: Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge

#419

Post by kristjank »

xnx wrote: post #9
tmtvl wrote: post #6

Wait, 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.

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 has allowed it, but it intentionally cripples alternative markets. For example, I cannot allow F-Droid to autoinstall and autoupdate apps on my phone if I don't have a rooted device.

Re: Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge

#420

Post by mvdtnz »

burnerthrow008 wrote: post #373
mvdtnz wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just want to install the damn software and be done with it So use the built-in app store, like you are doing today.

Prey tell, how will I do that when, as has been extensively explained in this thread, every app will be in its own store?

We all know that's not going to happen.
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