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Check out Urbit. It has a decentralized app store that anyone can publish to. Write once, deploy to all users.

echelon 4y ago
Doesn't help with Apple App Store and Google Play Store, which is how the majority of American consumers conduct their computing. Deploying software to mobile devices should be the same as desktop computing. Apple and Google argue their stance is for user privacy and security, but they can still maintain a central catalog of malware and remove bad apps by signature. Permissions flags and controls can work without a store. Apps can be required to report their provenance, which opens up means for manual or automated review. Google technically allows apk downloads, but they're "scary" and most users don't know how to perform them. This is as good as disallowing open installs outright. Google and Apple won't ever do this unless the DOJ tells them they must. I would argue that an antitrust action against these two app stores is essential to remove an undue tax on innovation and to strengthen the market for competition. It's not like money cannot be made on devices and services and that neither company doesn't already have the upper leg on these fronts as well.
- kitsunesoba 4y ago
  > Google technically allows apk downloads, but they're "scary" and most users don't know how to perform them. No matter what happens, this will continue to be true for some percentage of users because they've come to associate downloading software from random sites with things like malware and adware, and not without reason; while there are perfectly legitimate software packages that can't be distributed on the Play Store for one reason or another, by far and away the most common reason for APKs not being on the Play Store or users sideloading is because the app in question is doing something shady or the user is pirating apps from dubious sources that turn the apps in question into trojans. Even in the desktop world there's some level of trepidation with downloading from websites, particularly on Windows where search results are littered with things like shady SEO-optimized download sites, and that problem pre-dates all modern app stores. The question is how to solve that. I don't think the answer is to give up and say it's unsolvable and just has to be lived with, especially since doing so isn't going to engender support from those who cling to app stores for safety purposes.
- hinkley 4y ago
  > Deploying software to mobile devices should be the same as desktop computing. When the orders of magnitude change, so too do the solutions. We already know how much trouble the general public has experienced managing desktop computing. We even have app stores for that now. Market penetration for phones is even bigger, is a more uniform distribution by age group, and has many fewer options for troubleshooting if something goes wrong. Running homebrew on your phone is not the same as running it on your PC (and I avoid doing even that, because I care about configuration capture)
- intrasight 4y ago
  >Deploying software to mobile devices should be the same as desktop computing. It is the same: open your web browser. I really hope the government doesn't get involved. Because I desire the reverse. Software companies should stop making apps and just provide a better web experience. If consumers stopped installing apps, then software vendors would invest in open standards.

Doesn't help with Apple App Store and Google Play Store, which is how the majority of American consumers conduct their computing. Deploying software to mobile devices should be the same as desktop computing. Apple and Google argue their stance is for user privacy and security, but they can still maintain a central catalog of malware and remove bad apps by signature. Permissions flags and controls can work without a store. Apps can be required to report their provenance, which opens up means for manual or automated review. Google technically allows apk downloads, but they're "scary" and most users don't know how to perform them. This is as good as disallowing open installs outright. Google and Apple won't ever do this unless the DOJ tells them they must. I would argue that an antitrust action against these two app stores is essential to remove an undue tax on innovation and to strengthen the market for competition. It's not like money cannot be made on devices and services and that neither company doesn't already have the upper leg on these fronts as well.

kitsunesoba 4y ago
> Google technically allows apk downloads, but they're "scary" and most users don't know how to perform them. No matter what happens, this will continue to be true for some percentage of users because they've come to associate downloading software from random sites with things like malware and adware, and not without reason; while there are perfectly legitimate software packages that can't be distributed on the Play Store for one reason or another, by far and away the most common reason for APKs not being on the Play Store or users sideloading is because the app in question is doing something shady or the user is pirating apps from dubious sources that turn the apps in question into trojans. Even in the desktop world there's some level of trepidation with downloading from websites, particularly on Windows where search results are littered with things like shady SEO-optimized download sites, and that problem pre-dates all modern app stores. The question is how to solve that. I don't think the answer is to give up and say it's unsolvable and just has to be lived with, especially since doing so isn't going to engender support from those who cling to app stores for safety purposes.
hinkley 4y ago
> Deploying software to mobile devices should be the same as desktop computing. When the orders of magnitude change, so too do the solutions. We already know how much trouble the general public has experienced managing desktop computing. We even have app stores for that now. Market penetration for phones is even bigger, is a more uniform distribution by age group, and has many fewer options for troubleshooting if something goes wrong. Running homebrew on your phone is not the same as running it on your PC (and I avoid doing even that, because I care about configuration capture)
intrasight 4y ago
>Deploying software to mobile devices should be the same as desktop computing. It is the same: open your web browser. I really hope the government doesn't get involved. Because I desire the reverse. Software companies should stop making apps and just provide a better web experience. If consumers stopped installing apps, then software vendors would invest in open standards.