Great! Now do Apple
It was ruled previously that Apple don’t have a large enough market share
But if they force Google to open their app store, I hope that do it for fucking everyone.
At least on Google devices you still can sideload apps, and fairly easy TBH. My biggest annoyance is the "you can't buy stuff in apps without giving us a cut" which fucked up stuff like ebook apps etc
Yeah, the Kindle app pretty blatantly tells you why they removed in-app purchases.
In the US it does.
Yes, but US favour companies over people.
Yeah but they also have more rights than the consumer, rather than the other way about lol
Didn't Epic lose the fight against Apple? How is Google more of a monopoly than Apple? It is incredibly easy to sideload apps on Android compared to iPhones, and there are multiple dedicated unofficial stores. These verdicts are not coherent at all between them. I understand they are two separate judges, but the law should be the same for all, not at the interpretation of whichever judge you get.
Edit: for future reference, Verge answers this very question here https://www.theverge.com/24003500/epic-v-google-loss-apple-win-fortnite-trial-monopoly
EDIT: Added source from where I read it.
~~From some other comment I read,~~ it apparently was due to google paying companies to set Google's stuff as their default. Something Apple does not (have to) do.
This comment by AnalogyBreaker on the article seems to explain it pretty well:
The "this doesn't make sense" crowd are missing the point. Android is open source, anyone can use it. Google licensed it that way to spur adoption and (in theory) not solely be responsible for its development. They could make their own closed OS, kept it exclusive to Pixel phones and have a closed app store... but we can can all guess how well that would have went... not well. So the open source route makes sense.
Because Android is freely licensed to anyone, there is a market for apps that Google theoretically doesn't control and resides on non-google produced devices. They do control Play Services, however. That's not open source and includes proprietary apps basically essential for an operating smart phone such as Google sign in, Maps, and of course the Play Store. Google used their market dominance in those fields to prevent third parties from launching or installing competitors to the Play Store by denying Play Services to those who didn't comply; paying them off directly or brokering sweetheart deals. That's appears like an obvious abuse of their market position.
If Google wanted to be treated the same as Apple, they'd have to develop phones the same way as Apple. They didn't do that, instead they rely on third parties and those third parties have protections from Google abusing their monopoly position against them. To suggest they should be treated the same as Apple is akin to wanting to have your cake and eat it too. For the record, I'm not a fan of the Apple ruling, but there are clear differences between the two cases and seeing different outcomes shouldn't be a surprise.
There was another comparison I read using an example if Microsoft paid stores to not sell PlayStations, but I can't find it anymore.
Yeah, it seems Google is way more open to side loading and fdroid existing. Not sure how Apple got away with it when they are so much more restrictive.
Can this ruling be used in the future against Apple?
ITT: lots of people wondering why Apple won and Google lost, but not reading the article, which explains the difference of the cases.
ITC: Someone not understanding the difference between not understanding and not agreeing.
Yeah, fuck that. I definitely don't agree with the ruling. iOS is far more restrictive than Android, because at least Android provides the ability to easily install alternatives (F-droid app store is an awesome alternative for many types of apps and it's all free). Sure, Android dominates the market globally, but in the US--nd many other countries-- Apple has the majority of marketshare. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ios-vs-android-market-share-135251641.html
It's just bullshit to me that Apple gets a free pass for clearly being anti-competitive. I'm glad this trial struck down Google's app store monopoly, but all phone OS's should be forbidden from doing it.
No it doesn't, it just says that the case was different and that it wasn't in front of a jury, it doesn't give the details of the difference. You have to go read the entire article from a few years ago
About the only benefit I can personally see from this is the ability to fully integrate F-Droid as an app store in my device, with proper automatic background updates, and without requiring root solutions that void my work's security measures for mobile devices. On the other hand, I can see Huawei, Amazon, and Epic jumping to the fray with their own app stores and system services, and maybe Google Play being far more lenient with subscription services like Spotify's in their own App Store. Altogether, I personally loathe Epic's approach, but appreciate the consequences of their lawsuit.
Increased competition is ALWAYS better for the customer.
You're forgetting AppBrain from like 15 years ago.
I agree on the concerns, but it's a virtually universal truth, so long as they're actually forced to treat other app stores fairly. We might end up with a true third party stepping in to claim the throne, at least until the mega-corps reverse all the optimization they've created for their own benefits (even things like searches for apps are not fully intended to benefit the user right now, things most people don't really realize).
So odd that the open source platform that allows sideloading and doesn't even come with an app store by default is the one that is a monopoly but the locked down one with total control over your device is not.
Some Android flavors even come with other app stores. Samsung phones have their own Samsung app store that even includes Fortnite.
problem here was that Google was doing deals to undermine those things
This is so wild. Google allows side loading and 3rd party app stores…and that is the reason they were found guilty.
Unlike Apple, Google allows people to download apps onto phones running its Android operating system without going through its official app store, but the company strikes deals with phone manufacturers to favor Google’s official app store.
So because they strike deals to favor their store, even though they allow 3rd party stores to begin with, they’ve violated the SAA.
Meanwhile, Apple who refuses to allow competition or 3rd party app stores is sitting pretty because…well, they haven’t “favored” their own store over rival stores. BECAUSE RIVAL STORES CANT EXIST. I don’t know how you could favor your store any harder than that??
The legal shenanigans around all of this are frustrating to watch as a lay person.
Fuck Epic, but this is a good decision for everyone.
Huh?? They won this one but not the Apple one??
Different case. This hung on the anti-competitive nature of Google’s backroom deals with big players. That’s what fucked Google. Different rules for different developers.
Apple: this is our system and we've always been upfront about it. We're dictators of our ecosystem. You can't compel us to open up. Yes there's less customer choice, but we have a right to say how our own system is run, and we've always made that clear to everybody. Forcing us to open up our system is like forcing Nintendo to allow Microsoft games on the Switch, bypassing paying Nintendo anything.
The courts say fair enough, that's correct.
Google: we claim to have an open ecosystem, but actually we don't. We're using our market position to impose terms on phone makers, if they're big like Samsung we might give them permission to have their own app store, with certain concessions. We have backroom deals not to take revenue from some large companies, but to take it from others. We have power over OEMs and we use it to further consolidate our monopoly. They will agree to our terms because they have no other choice than to comply.
The courts say whoa that seems like an abuse of your dominant market position.
You're looking at it from the perspective of user choice. That's not what the courts care about, they care about the law. The Google case was always more likely to be a win for Epic, despite Reddit and Lemmy not realising it.
But Epic v. Google turned out to be a very different case. It hinged on secret revenue sharing deals between Google, smartphone makers, and big game developers, ones that Google execs internally believed were designed to keep rival app stores down. It showed that Google was running scared of Epic specifically. And it was all decided by a jury, unlike the Apple ruling.
Finally a big W. Google backdoored Android with Google Play Services and gives itself special permissions that no other app can do. They should be under the same limitations that other apps are reserved to. That's why projects like Sandboxed Google play is really awesome.
I'm pretty sure this has nothing to do with the EU lawsuits, right?
Both Google and Apple would still have to open up soon (at least in EU)
Sorry if it's a stupid question.
It's something else. Here it's US antitrust monopoly.
Google made deals with games and special contracts with other apps in order to kill competition.
While I understand the concern over the single appstore monopoly that we have on any device, I think it's worth remembering what ecosystem android and IOS came into.
The old multimedia phones that were sold in the mid 00s were effectively "smart". Many of them ran java and you could install programs, and freely install ringtones, and browsers that actually worked like opera mini/mobile. The thing is you couldnt by default. At least not in the US. The devices were locked down and everything you did went through the carrier's store. And US telecom services are some of the greediest and scummiest companies out there so you couldnt even use your own mp3 files as a ringtone.
Apple combated this with their closed off ecosystem, but android did face issues with fragmentation in the early days and needed a way to prevent the telecoms branded phones from stinking up the ecosystem. They did this by leveraging the play services and play store. From the playstore they can also since mainline release various peacemeal updates which helps resolve their other issue with fragmentation and thats android device being abandoned.
Sure enough you can still release your own version of android without it, amazon's tablets and tv sticks do pretty well.
That said I do think it's a good to help people move past the default and open up the platforms more, I just wish it would apply to all smart devices,
I run e/OS, I don't have google app store or any of the related service software installed. Yet I am able to use a cleaned up version of android and still have access to the google app store through an anonymous account using the in built app.
Epic won this case against google...
Epic lost the same case against apple, with which none of the above would be possible.
I'm not advocating for google, obviously I avoid them. But that's BS, I hope this is used as precedent to bring a new case against apple.
So now Google will be forced to... allow third party app stores? Like F-Droid or Amazon and I think Yandex has a big one as well. If Epic aren't suing for damages I don't really see what the goal could be. Another win for all the lawyers I guess.
I imagine Epic doesn't really care about that so much as not giving Google 30% of in-game purchases in Fortnite.
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