android allows is but its hidden away behind a setting and discouraged. in practice it is almost the same system, very few people have a big enough product that they can make money sideloading it. fortnite may be the only example

Even Fortnite gave up on distributing it independently and came back to the Play Store. That shows you how unfair those practices are, even the most well-known game in the world could not make it.

I'm sure the failure of distributing Fortnite independently will be a strong example against Google when the anti-trust lawsuit will inevitably come.

Epic's statement at the time:

>“After 18 months of operating Fortnite on Android outside of the Google Play Store, we’ve come to a basic realization,” reads Epic’s statement. “Google puts software downloadable outside of Google Play at a disadvantage, through technical and business measures such as scary, repetitive security pop-ups for downloaded and updated software, restrictive manufacturer and carrier agreements and dealings, Google public relations characterizing third party software sources as malware, and new efforts such as Google Play Protect to outright block software obtained outside the Google Play store.”

https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/21/21229943/epic-games-fortn...

as an expat you need this all the time, to have specific apps for two locations, including government apps, commute apps, even retail bonus apps, they all have those idiotic geographical limitations, and are often not to be found on common APK sites. So you need a friend with the "right" location setting to extract and send you the APK. Troublesome, but at least with Android its possible to do so.

Aurora Store is a FOSS Google Play app store client that can spoof the device model, language, and location. It does not a require Google Play Services or a Google account, and it might work for your use case.

https://gitlab.com/AuroraOSS/AuroraStore

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.aurora.store/

great tool, thank you!

Getting another store installed, or installing third party APK's isn't the hard part.

The hard part is the baked in dependency on Google Play services in most apps.

1. Secure

2. Open

3. Customer friendly

Pick two.

At least for me as a consumer, Apple’s behaviour is a feature I pay extra for, not a bug.

Apple's behavior is superfluous to marketplaces and your security. That's why they can promise security on macOS even though Steam is allowing users to buy and install games outside of the Mac app store. They even allow random unsigned software to be downloaded and installed without thwarting their security.

You pay extra for not being able to install apps outside of Apple Store?

Or more specifically, you pay extra so others couldn't do it on their phones (because you as I understand wouldn't, but you don't want others to be able to)?

I’m having a hard time phrasing this, but I also fall in the camp that views it as positive.

The gist is this: there is no app maker that can say “screw that” to Apple’s privacy/security rules and bypass them. As such I will never be in a position to choose between my privacy and using the app. By Apple’s removing the possibility of that choice, I get both.

Thats fine. They can have a locked-down by default setting that you can pay extra for. The rest of us would like an open store.

There have been numerous examples of apps in the App Store that have malicious behavior.

So, with Apple, pick none I guess?

Arguing that the safety of the Apple App store is equivalent to that of the Google Play Store, or any of the other Android markets (which are far worse), is pretty nonsensical.

Numerous suggests you can still count them, which is an incalculable win against any other platform.

Chromebooks are a great example of secure + customer friendly by default, with an option to go into very open mode.

(activate developer mode by proving physical control — in the past it was a screw, now it's sitting through a few minutes of pressing the power button when asked; from dev mode you can go further and flash custom CPU and EC firmware)

The market is big enough that you will see good quality competitors. Just think how the PC market would look like if it was closed to Microsoft.

Many times on the Internet I've read, that you can't really get security without openness. Both in software and in organisations.

Android does allow sideloading but I think there's an argument that competition is harmed due to Google's Play Store having special package-installation permissions that none of the others can get.

This results in competing app stores being required to obtain consent for every single app installation and update while the Play Store can do whatever it likes without any user interaction.

> It's obviously monopoly bundling.

But there’s obviously no monopoly here.

As you said yourself:

> Literally every other modern OS allows you to install apps from multiple sources, including Android.

Nobody is forced to choose iOS.

> Nobody is forced to choose iOS.

Oh, I didn't know one can install other OS on iPhones.

Same reasoning could be applied years ago: Nobody forces users to use Windows.

The comparison to Windows is laughable. IOS market share is less than 33%.

>Oh, I didn't know one can install other OS on iPhones.

Why does this matter? By choosing an iPhone you choose iOS.

A monopoly is not the same thing as a lack of choice.

No matter how you’d like to word it, Apple is not in a monopoly position in the mobile OS market.

You are over-relying on a dictionary definition of monopoly that runs counter to the legal standard.

Think "anti-trust" rather than "monopoly," if that helps.

There's no "anti-trust" for your own marketplace within your own devices.

The very "trust" in anti-trust is about companies in the "top-level" marketplace (the general market/economy). Not about what they can build for their own platforms, in the same way it's ok for Disneyland to give you Disney money...

I don't think your first statement is actually true. Historically, the US has found that companies that act in a way to favor themselves over competitors is a problem. Microsoft bundling its own web browser at the expense of Netscape, to name one semi-relevant example.

So Spotify claims that Apple favors Apple Music over Spotify in an anti-competitive way, and that they control 100% of "the iOS market," making such favor relevant.

Apple's argument will be basically the one you make: "our playground, our rules," and that they have made APIs available for Spotify to do all of the things Apple Music does. Which is true, but only very, very, very recently. Apple hopes that will reduce Spotify's argument to a monetary squabble over the 30/15% share. And that might work.

But it's not nothing, and it's entirely possible for a company to exercise in anti-competitive behavior in their own marketplace, running afoul of anti-trust laws.

> There's no "anti-trust" for your own marketplace within your own devices.

There certainly is in European law.

> There's no "anti-trust" for your own marketplace within your own devices.

Nope, it is not Apples device, it is a device of the user. Apple just produces them, users should have ability to use the devices as they see fit.

They do have the ability to buy which devices they see fit. That is the step that everyone neglects when making the above point. =)

So, you think that I can't use iPhone as a hammer, because I can do that with a Samsung? :)

Sorry, few countries agree with the claim I made - by investigating the lack of ability to have different app stores on iPhone, usually rights of the users triumph rights of the producer (at least in Europe, US is a different beast).

>Apple just produces them, users should have ability to use the devices as they see fit.

They have the ability to buy the device they see fit (Apple, Google, Samsung, whatever) -- they don't have the right to dictate other terms to individual brands.

The ability to dictate to the maker of the device how it shall be and who it should do business with and allow on its platform is not part of anti-trust law...

Could you maybe explain how apple/iOS fits the legal standard of a monopoly?

Apple is certainly engaging in anti-competitive activity, along with Google, as it is viewed through the lens of US antitrust legislation and case law. Your personal definition of monopoly is irrelevant here.

>Apple is certainly engaging in anti-competitive activity, along with Google, as it is viewed through the lens of US antitrust legislation and case law. Your

Not in anything that has to do with its app stores...