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First of all, my stance here is that Google is pretty reasonable with their guidelines compared to Apple. My biggest issue in the iOS vs Android debate is that
by zachruss92 6y ago
First of all, my stance here is that Google is pretty reasonable with their guidelines compared to Apple.
My biggest issue in the iOS vs Android debate is that apple is behaving monopolistically and Google isn't. Using the respective app stores give publishers an inherent audience to distribute/sell content through. I don't think it's unreasonable for Apple/Google to try to profit off of the audience they've built. Where I have an issue is that if you don't want to sell on the Play Store, you don't have to. You can install APKs from anywhere and there are even alternative app stores that are completely within Google's ToS. With Apple, you have to sell on the app store or not at all (I know Enterprise apps exist, but it's not the same).
I think Apple gets away with this because they're not selling digital content, they're selling a service/subscription.
One thing that drives me up a wall about Apple is that you cannot purchase a Kindle book in-app on an iOS device. So if you're in the kindle app and want to buy a book you need to actually go and check out on a web browser (true for both the Amazon app and the Kindle app). On Android, you can do whatever you want.
I'm pretty sure that Apple is going to lose this one. We need an open, fair ecosystem for publishing apps.
- ridiculous_fish 6y agoGoogle's stance here looks good on paper, but the reality is very different. Fortnite was the most ambitious attempt to distribute outside of Google Play. Here's what Epic had to say: > After 18 months of operating Fortnite on Android outside of the Google Play Store, we’ve come to a basic realization: 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. And Epic gave up and put it on the Play Store.
- cblades 6y agoThat all seems very reasonable. Apps downloaded from other sources are much more dangerous than apps downloaded from Google Play.
- ridiculous_fish 6y agoOk, sure. But the claim was that Google is absolved from "behaving monopolistically" because they permit ex-Play Store distribution. In practice, it's so onerous that not even a brand as strong as Fortnite can make it work. Whether you prevent ex-app-store distribution through fiat or through engineering, the result is the same. So I don't think the distinction is important.
- realusername 6y agoI don't know why you would think that, there's no additional guarantee on the Play Store.
- zachruss92 6y agoI didn't realize that epic came back. I also understand why Google is doing this. (1) the obvious money making reasons and (2) legitimate security concerns. Remember the days of accidentally undertaking a zillion browser tool bars? I feel like making it painful to install from 3rd parties help combat that. I do think there can be a better solution though. Like some sort of signing process by Google to make you a trusted app that can be revoked in the future if they find you to be malware or whatever. This is kind of sounding like an app store though :)
- Mindwipe 6y agoIf it makes some people in this thread feel better, Google also acts in many ways that are breaches of competition law, just in different ways!
- entha_saava 6y agoBut nothing compared to anti-competitive measures and dishonest marketing of apple. Apple puts severe restrictions on developers, that they should develop on macs, that they should use Apple's IAP features, that they should provide 'sign in with apple' (although last one may be reasonable). They even tried to prevent cross platform application frameworks some years ago, by mandating that apps should be written in C/C++/ObjC. And the dishonest marketing is well known. Apple promoted swift, fine. But, since they couldn't implement GC in swift because Cocoa interop, some apple people (or maybe fanboys, apple's negative cost marketing strategy is its cult) attempted to make it look like ARC is competitive advantage against Android. Apple is a patent troll. They sued samsung for some trivial things. They trademarked the word 'app store'. They patent trivial programming language features like optional chaining. Apple is much more harmful than Google. HN defends web technologies and apple apparently because many here are invested in it (although often they are at odds). But please don't support a patent troll like apple.
- cwhiz 6y agoApple is a minority player in every single market in the world, including the US. You can't have monopolistic behavior without a monopoly. You can't be a monopoly if you are not the market leader. People want this to be a legal issue but it's just a market issue. If people don't like these policies they shouldn't buy Apple products or release apps on Apple devices.
- bduerst 6y ago>You can't have monopolistic behavior without a monopoly This is wrong. Monopolistic behavior is anti-competitive behavior that doesn't require having a market monopoly. Think of it as a pattern of behavior that moves you towards having a monopoly.