Why does this link to the verge and not the original source? I hate clickbait.
Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge
601–607 of 607 posts
Re: Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge
#602Earlier quoted context omitted.
"That's an unfair characterization of the situation." Gonna strongly disagree on that one. 1. Apple is not next, which is the main point 2. The sanctions are 100% irrelevant here? Why do you think they mattered? 3. The legal portion would have still been decided by a judge anyway - juries decide facts, not law. The judge decided the relevant market, etc. None of your points seem to matter as to whether Apple is next…
> 1. Apple is not next, which is the main point Sure, I agree with that point. I disagree with the rest of your framing why, which was a dismissal that "Apple won on the same claims in front of a different judge". The judge in Epic v Google didn't render the verdict (as that was performed by the jury), while the judge in Epic v Apple did. > 2. The sanctions are 100% irrelevant here? Why do you think they mattered? Sa…
We're just gonna disagree on this, I think.
Re: Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge
#603Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep. Then consumers can decide which one is best for them. Then they can compete. Then the best features with the best pricing, no only for customers, but the cut for developers, can be discovered. You pay such a high price for living in the walled garden. I honestly can't imagine why you would _want_ it.
0 people outside of tech geeks want more than one app store. None.
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Re: Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge
#604Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not commenting on anything else about this but only pointing out that the law treats a company that sells a complete widget to the end user very differently from a company that sells a piece to someone who then sells the finished widget to the end user. A lot of people don't seem to appreciate reasoning from principles around any of this stuff. They just want to be able to do X, Y, or Z and any ad-hoc law or court ru…
"Principles" as in arbitrary precedents set by bribed politically-motivated lawmakers and judges. No, people are correctly pointing out the fact that this is blatantly unfair. You are claiming that 2+2=5 because a judge said so. If you are concerned about the "consequences" maybe you should start thinking about how open platforms are now legally disadvantaged to closed platforms.
After some reflection I'm not too proud of this comment :)
Re: Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge
#605Earlier quoted context omitted.
Microsoft also “incentivized” OEMs to not install competing browsers by threatening to remove their OEM licensing. Didn’t Google do something similar?
No. They just threatened to remove access to the Play Store.
So, something similar then. OK, not as onerous as removing the whole OS, which they can’t do because Android uses an open license, but the next big thing. No play store, no Google services. May as well remove the OS.
Re: Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge
#606Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, Apple has been consistently bad. Google is bad too but Android is still much more open than iOS today even if it has gradually become less open over time. I think punishing the more open platform and not the completely closed one will just incentivize companies to develop completely closed platforms from the beginning. And I don't see how that's actually good for consumers. The best outcome would be to force bot…
This is a bad understanding. First of all, it's much harder to develop a successful fully closed platform than an open one. If Google though they could build an iPhone, they would have. So the legal incentive is completely irrelevant here: with or without it, companies prefer to build closed platforms; with or without it, companies can't do it because it's too hard for them.
Not really. They didn't have to go the iPhone route. They could have gone the 1980s Microsoft route: a fully closed source, propriety OS that they license to hardware manufacturers.
The same forces that led to wide spread adoption of open source Android would have also led to wide spread adoption of closed source Android. Namely, the need for a fully touch optimized OS with enough reach to have a robust app ecosystem to compete with iPhone (and the need for it quickly so no time for home grown solutions). All the non-Apple manufacturers were always going to coalesce around a single platform. It could have just as easily been closed source Windows Phone had Microsoft released 3 years earlier.
Google could have also licensed it to manufacturers for free and funded it Play Store and mobile search revenues.
Re: Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge
#607Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a bad understanding. First of all, it's much harder to develop a successful fully closed platform than an open one. If Google though they could build an iPhone, they would have. So the legal incentive is completely irrelevant here: with or without it, companies prefer to build closed platforms; with or without it, companies can't do it because it's too hard for them.
Not really. They didn't have to go the iPhone route. They could have gone the 1980s Microsoft route: a fully closed source, propriety OS that they license to hardware manufacturers. The same forces that led to wide spread adoption of open source Android would have also led to wide spread adoption of closed source Android. Namely, the need for a fully touch optimized OS with enough reach to have a robust app ecosystem…
> Google could have also licensed it to manufacturers for free and funded it Play Store and mobile search revenues.
This is an interesting point, but it now does make me ask other questions.
Mostly about historical players... Specifically, Symbian and Blackberry's OS.
Both are good cases to consider because Symbian was pretty close to your suggested model (and I'd argue, feature wise, was a benchmark for some of Android's initial state, as well as likely helping the decision for the preferred app language to be a form of Java for the sake of adoption by existing players.)
> All the non-Apple manufacturers were always going to coalesce around a single platform.
My other statements aside, I feel like Android really started stagnating/enshittifying various policies once WP was fully killed. And TBH I hope the DOJ brings up the treatment of Youtube on WP8/10 if they go ahead with antitrust action [0]. Pre-downloading maps? Here Drive (part of standard WP app suite) let you do it way before others. A polite non-nagging "you're going more than 5 over" beep? Showing speed limits whether or not I have a destination set? Still don't have those in base apps.
And wow, WP never had me deal with all of this carrier bullshit more than once per phone, vs every Android update is a new "oh hey uncheck all these boxes for crapware or try to find the way we changed the 'dismiss and do not show again (but really till the next update)' workflow".
[0] - Short version, The level of shenanigans around Google 'approving/maintaining' a youtube app meant that for a lot of my time in WPland, I could only view youtube videos through a browser. [1]
[1] - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/appsblog/2013/aug/15/...