Japan prepares regulation requiring Apple to allow sideloading::As the Digital Markets Act antitrust law passed in the European Union, Apple has until March 2024 to let users…
Having app developers be able to avoid Apples forced 30% fee is great. The fee is pure rent seeking masquerading as curation.
30% might be a bit much, but Apple and Google are offering ongoing services for the price you pay as a developer. From hosting, to payment processing and APIs you can use in your apps, I think what they’re offering has some monetary value that would be acceptable if it wasn’t so damn much. I don’t think it’s toxic rent-seeking in and of itself. What’s pretty toxic is that there’s no way around those fees on Apple phones and tablets.
The #1 thing they provide is exposure.
The vast majority of users simply won’t download and install something they find on a website on their phones.
Thankfully, it seems like places like the EU and now Japan are considering ALL use cases, not just the majority of them.
Unless it’s fortnite and has a giant marketing engine behind it
Even I don’t install random apps if they aren’t on the playstore or fdroid
Agreed, If it wasn’t a forced arrangement I wouldn’t necessarily nave a problem with the price
The high price is a result of monopolistic exclusivity.
I suspect you’re just repeating arguments you’ve heard, so don’t take this internet rage personally, but that is complete bullshit.
-
Hosting costs nothing. Devs will gladly foot the bill for that if given the option. Even if you distribute your apps on AWS (which is notorious for severely overcharging on egress), your expenses will be no where near 15%-30% of your revenue.
-
Payment processing is a competitive field outside the appstores. Even 15%-30% is ludicrous when “overpriced” processors like stripe charge 2%-3%
-
APIs are not something sold to developers. They build them as part of the operating system because they have to. That’s how it works. They could try selling licenses, but it would result in devs not building on their fancy new features.
(you didn’t mention the ones below, but people with your argument usually do, so I’m adding them for completeness)
-
Security is also bullshit. The Appstore and Play store are FILLED with malware. It is not physically possible to manually review the sheer volume of apps published to those stores. They also are not incentivized to improve the process much, because each time your kid or grandma accidentally activates a $40/week subscription, Apple/Google take a 15%-30% cut.
-
Curation/promotion is bullshit. Discoverability on these stores has always been bad, but has been particularly awful since both Apple/Google have started selling search ads in the store. The other day I almost accidentally downloaded a fake ChatGPT app because it was the first result when I searched, it had a very similar icon, “ChatGPT” in the name, 5 stars, and millions of downloads.
These stores also heavily incentivize devs to push subscriptions. I suspect (but haven’t confirmed) that the Appstore and Google Play both rank subscription based apps higher than others, and subs tend to pay a lower revshare fee than other monetization types.
I could go on all day about the rotten dumpster fires that are these disgusting stores. The only people who defend them are fanboys and people who have never actually had to deal with them professionally.
-
Their curation is terrible too. The app store has so much shovelware crap
Based Japan once again. I would love to see other countries requiring this too, but I’m not going to hold my breath unfortunately.
I mean, the EU has already done this and now Japan is doing the same. So i guess it’s very well possible that other countries besides Japan will also follow suit.
Hehe Brussels effect go brrrr
deleted by creator
I think India and Brazil have also made initial efforts.
I tried to install an old version of San Andreas recently on my phone cause the last update broke controller support (which I actually bought with money).
Apparently we don’t own our Android OBB directories anymore because of “safety”.
So far the “we Android users already have this”…
Yep, it’s unfortunate that manufacturers are taking more and more control away from users. That’s why open-source software like Linux is so important, you can do anything you want to with it.
Back in the old days, Android OS used to be Open Source. You can still get firmware built up from the last release, such as CalyxOS, but in order to install it you have to buy directly from Google with the Bootloader Unlocked as a feature.
Not really. Fairphone also has the Bootloader unlocked.
That’s true.
Are Fairphones feasible right now if one wants to play even intense games like emulating PS2 or Switch?
Idk. Give me your Emulator and i’ll try it for you
No shit, really? You’re the man.
The emulator is called AetherSX2.
Now, for ROMs… I’d gladly share the link for one here on Lemmy, but idk if I’d be violating any rules
I’ m sorry, bu you’re going to have to send me the links for the bios, game etc.
I really don’t think it’s against any rules here.
God I miss the old days of android…the OG droid, everything was unlockable, no fuckery. Google hadn’t yet slowly started adding data collection by ways of slowing moving functionality away from the core AOSP.
It still is open source, btw. But they’re just intentionally choking it to death. They’ve recently announced they’re not going to maintain the open source PHONE APP…FOR THEIR PHONES…for christ sake. They’ve even had a new replacement OS in the works for a couple years.
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish sadly
The old version of Android OS is still open source, but the new versions of Android OS are NOT open source, and I think that’s an important distinction to make because otherwise we might accidentally pander or market to people who put faith in that sort of thing.
Yeah Android is Linux. But Manufactures are limiting it so hard that it is sometimes nearly impossible to get a custom ROM on the phone.
Yes. The openess of the operating system is meaningless if the phone’s firmware isn’t open.
It’s open source so that anyone can manufacture a phone for it (good for business), not so you could install whatever you want on the hardware (bad for business)…
Yeah but unfortunately with Android it’s what Google wants and not what the end-user wants. That’s why Linux itself is very important, the user gets to decide what they want to do with it.
deleted by creator
Cool. This would be great. Hopefully a push to allow that in all other countries.
Now that’s what I’m talking about.
Life finds a way
Usb-C, side loading, what’s next? APK or snap packages compatibility?
Great, now force them to open up their NFC, so mobile banking apps can skip Apple Pay for their contactless payment feature
It’s happening guys, apple is start to a open source platform
I was against sideloading, because I’m in it for the walled garden and if governments were to use their own stalls to publish their apps, then, actually it doesn’t matter anymore! Our gov apps still invasive anyway, imo.
For the clueless, the particular app scans your face with various coloured screens being blasted through the phone screen, doesn’t matter if you have face ID enabled or not, its their own scan.
Power to sideloading.
You being paid by apple to fear monger about sideloading?
If you fear this, just leave the sideloading to others.
Wherever I ever see a comment complaining about sideloading, I just assume they’re an Apple financed marketing shill.
Even if they’re just a brainwashed moron, the argument is so stupid they deserve nothing but ridicule.
My biggest issue is cancelling recurring services. The Apple model requires that all your subscriptions appear on a pane of glass that you can notice if you signed up for a free trial and it’s been billing you $2.99/month because you wanted to read your kid Dr. Suess books on a flight when you were exhausted. Good luck figuring that out if you only have “$2.99 STRIPE BABELBOX INC” on your credit card bill.
Um, I said I believed before. I don’t believe it works anymore (walled garden). And that the government apps already doing this in the walled garden. Even said power to sideloading….
And I get downvoted to oblivion?
Probably also for the Q-Anon level lunacy with the government apps n stuff.
Sorry for wanting privacy then.
Wanting privacy is OK, and your link to the video on the face ID of the bank also helped explain what you where talking about.
It’s the way you wrote it that came across if you where some conspiracy nutcase and that causes downvotes.
Many people share concerns about the use and storage of PII by for profit companies and governments without any oversight on what actually happens with the data. It is good that waryness on who you provide what data to is Becoming more mainstream. I remember years ago people would look at me funny if I replied “no thank you” when asked my zip code in a store. Now a lot more people do it.
Your initial comment makes very little sense ( to me anyway)
Yeap its my mistake. Poor wording.
You guys downvoting me do realize that I’m fine with sideloading right?
Your first sentence, after the comma, should say “because I was in it…”. That was a bit confusing.
And then you went completely off the rails with some colored light government conspiracy stuff.
So I think that’s causing the downvotes.
Yeap that’s my bad.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=araYz3X2Q5g&pp=ygUac2luZ3Bhc3MgZmFjZSB2ZXJpZmljYXRpb24%3D 40 seconds in.
Yeah I know
That’s just financial apps using selfies for id verification. They’ve been doing that for years with crypto exchange apps.
