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I wonder if App Stores (Apple, Google, whatever) serve a purpose no one seems to mention. Do these app stores (try to) verify that apps behave appropriately on

I wonder if App Stores (Apple, Google, whatever) serve a purpose no one seems to mention. Do these app stores (try to) verify that apps behave appropriately once given access to carrier cellular networks?

WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
I don't think that's a purpose but I know that Google does run automated tests on the apps themselves... We submitted an app with access to Firebase and immediately started seeing data being added and deleted from a non-test IP.
heavyset_go 6y ago
> Do these app stores (try to) verify that apps behave appropriately once given access to carrier cellular networks? It's automated, but sometimes underpaid contractors are given a few minutes to inspect an app. However, due to the lack of competition, there's no pressure for better screening of apps. A free market for mobile app distribution would gives users more security, better efficiency and experiences, and lower prices as companies competed to provide better mobile app distribution methods.
- zepto 6y ago
  > A free market for mobile app distribution would gives users more security, better efficiency and experiences, and lower prices as companies competed to provide better mobile app distribution methods. Or it could just end up as a race to the bottom as the market for paid apps is completely eliminated by a few ad based platforms.
  - heavyset_go 6y ago
    And yet that hasn't happened on macOS despite existing for two decades. The same can be said for Android and Windows, as well, with their respective lifetimes. It could also just end up that the community, or even non-profits, step up and provide great distributions methods. In fact, I'd say this is the one of the most likely outcomes based on the past, given Maemo's user-supplied apt repositories[1], webOS's Preware[2], or Android's F-Droid[3]. We can also look at the prevailing commercial app stores on platforms with multiple app distribution methods to see what's most likely. They aren't ad based platforms, like Ubuntu's Snap Store[4], Amazon's AppStore[5] for Android, and Samsung's Galaxy Store[6] for Android. Game distribution stores aren't like that, like Steam, GOG, Humble Store, Microsoft store, etc. Even on iOS, Cydia[7] wasn't an ad based platform, and you could purchase paid apps on it. [1] https://maemo-leste.github.io/maemo-leste-repositories-and-community-packages.html https://maemo-leste.github.io/maemo-leste-repositories-and-c... [2] https://webos-internals.org/wiki/Application:Preware https://webos-internals.org/wiki/Application:Preware [3] https://www.f-droid.org/ https://www.f-droid.org/ [4] https://snapcraft.io/store https://snapcraft.io/store [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Appstore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Appstore [6] https://www.samsung.com/us/apps/galaxy-store/ https://www.samsung.com/us/apps/galaxy-store/ [7] https://cydia-app.com/ https://cydia-app.com/
    - zepto 6y ago
      > And yet that hasn't happened on macOS despite existing for two decades. Hasn’t it? Pretty much everyone else seems to think it has. The cottage industry of high quality Mac software makers is practically dead and even the Omni Group is struggling. As for Cydia, that was too small to be a model for anything. It’s also from another era. Remember Facebook was just a web app in those days, and nowhere near the behemoth it is today. Android stores other than Google play are all second class citizens and so not relevant. The proposals for alternate app stores on iOS are all explicit that they cannot be second class citizens. Facebook would love to approve apps that have a tracking identifier and don’t ask permission to track. What would stop them if they ran their own store?
jjtheblunt 6y ago
downvotes for a question?

WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago

I don't think that's a purpose but I know that Google does run automated tests on the apps themselves... We submitted an app with access to Firebase and immediately started seeing data being added and deleted from a non-test IP.

heavyset_go 6y ago

> Do these app stores (try to) verify that apps behave appropriately once given access to carrier cellular networks? It's automated, but sometimes underpaid contractors are given a few minutes to inspect an app. However, due to the lack of competition, there's no pressure for better screening of apps. A free market for mobile app distribution would gives users more security, better efficiency and experiences, and lower prices as companies competed to provide better mobile app distribution methods.

zepto 6y ago
> A free market for mobile app distribution would gives users more security, better efficiency and experiences, and lower prices as companies competed to provide better mobile app distribution methods. Or it could just end up as a race to the bottom as the market for paid apps is completely eliminated by a few ad based platforms.
- heavyset_go 6y ago
  And yet that hasn't happened on macOS despite existing for two decades. The same can be said for Android and Windows, as well, with their respective lifetimes. It could also just end up that the community, or even non-profits, step up and provide great distributions methods. In fact, I'd say this is the one of the most likely outcomes based on the past, given Maemo's user-supplied apt repositories[1], webOS's Preware[2], or Android's F-Droid[3]. We can also look at the prevailing commercial app stores on platforms with multiple app distribution methods to see what's most likely. They aren't ad based platforms, like Ubuntu's Snap Store[4], Amazon's AppStore[5] for Android, and Samsung's Galaxy Store[6] for Android. Game distribution stores aren't like that, like Steam, GOG, Humble Store, Microsoft store, etc. Even on iOS, Cydia[7] wasn't an ad based platform, and you could purchase paid apps on it. [1] https://maemo-leste.github.io/maemo-leste-repositories-and-community-packages.html https://maemo-leste.github.io/maemo-leste-repositories-and-c... [2] https://webos-internals.org/wiki/Application:Preware https://webos-internals.org/wiki/Application:Preware [3] https://www.f-droid.org/ https://www.f-droid.org/ [4] https://snapcraft.io/store https://snapcraft.io/store [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Appstore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Appstore [6] https://www.samsung.com/us/apps/galaxy-store/ https://www.samsung.com/us/apps/galaxy-store/ [7] https://cydia-app.com/ https://cydia-app.com/
  - zepto 6y ago
    > And yet that hasn't happened on macOS despite existing for two decades. Hasn’t it? Pretty much everyone else seems to think it has. The cottage industry of high quality Mac software makers is practically dead and even the Omni Group is struggling. As for Cydia, that was too small to be a model for anything. It’s also from another era. Remember Facebook was just a web app in those days, and nowhere near the behemoth it is today. Android stores other than Google play are all second class citizens and so not relevant. The proposals for alternate app stores on iOS are all explicit that they cannot be second class citizens. Facebook would love to approve apps that have a tracking identifier and don’t ask permission to track. What would stop them if they ran their own store?

jjtheblunt 6y ago

downvotes for a question?