Apple's App Store Grip Challenged by Bill Advancing in Senate (bloomberg.com) 117
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved legislation that, if passed into law, would force Apple to let users install apps from outside of the App Store. From a report: The bipartisan 21-1 vote is a strong endorsement for the bill from Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal, Minnesota Democrat Amy Klobuchar, Tennessee Republican Marsha Blackburn and eight other cosponsors, but it still faces a long road to get a vote in the full Senate. The bill seeks to loosen the duopoly that Apple and Alphabet's Google have over mobile app distribution, part of Congress's push to curb the power of U.S. technology giants. "If you're a consumer, what this measure means to you is cheaper prices, more innovation, better products and more consumer safeguards by opening the walled garden so that new entrants are willing and able to compete on values like privacy and children's safety," Blumenthal said during the hearing. Google and Apple "own the rails of the app economy, much as the railroad companies did at the start of the last century."
Blumenthal estimated the value of the app store market at about $100 billion a year. The measure, S. 2710, would require Apple to let users install apps on their phones and other devices from sources on the web or alternative app stores, a process that's called sideloading. This provision would most impact Apple. While Google offers its Play Store on mobile devices, it doesn't bar users from downloading Android apps elsewhere. Sideloading, which Apple has said poses security risks for consumers, would allow apps to avoid Apple's commissions, which range from 15% to 30%.
Blumenthal estimated the value of the app store market at about $100 billion a year. The measure, S. 2710, would require Apple to let users install apps on their phones and other devices from sources on the web or alternative app stores, a process that's called sideloading. This provision would most impact Apple. While Google offers its Play Store on mobile devices, it doesn't bar users from downloading Android apps elsewhere. Sideloading, which Apple has said poses security risks for consumers, would allow apps to avoid Apple's commissions, which range from 15% to 30%.
You know (Score:3)
Re:You know (Score:5, Informative)
An App is different. You can use undocumented APIs to access files, read messages, download photos, open the mic, get location info, suck up your contacts, run software in the background, and.. well, basically anything. Unlike a webpage, an App is compiled in machine code and run as a process on the bare hardware. The operating system ultimately can control and put guide rails around some of those things, but it would just devolve into a chicken and mouse game of finding new implementations and workarounds to get at what you want. Apple prevents this sort of abuse by reviewing all code that users get to run. They prevent the use of these undocumented APIs, because the documented ones don't need the App to ask "Is it OK if this app uses your location?". The API does that for you without relying on the App developer to be trusted to ask, and use it appropriately. Apple prevents things that are privacy invasive. It doesn't track you UNLESS you make an account with the app. It doesn't have access to your contacts UNLESS you grant it permission to access the contacts, through the documented API.
This is what ultimately costs developers a lot more money than the 30%, and what they really, really want to be able to do. Because, ad networks and nefarious companies would pay a lot of money for bulk data like that. A lot of money. If the App Store were still around, but there was a way to get Apps to work through just a bunch of prompts that did not go through the App Store, most of the Apps would get off the App Store. Why would a developer voluntarily have to go through the App review process? Even if they did not want to use the undocumented APIs, Apple requires your App to be well-written and not buggy. Crashing Apps are rejected, as are Apps that uselessly spin the CPU, and drain batteries. Good memory management, good conservation of network resources, and good backgrounding are required for Apps. It is a pain for an inexperienced developer to have to answer for shoddy work. They would rather throw a link on a website or an ad to get users, and have them circumvent the App Store. I would. You get a feel for what Apple wants to see after several rounds, but initially, it's a grueling process, but certainly a refining one of both the App and the programmer.
Throw in the fact that I could make more money selling your data in ways Apple denies, and I would be more incentivized to skip the App Store all together. Why would I want a group of users who get their apps from within the App Store who are less profitable for me? Programmers know this. When they advocate for going around the App Store, these are the underlying reasons why. Don't take my word for it. Hear it from Steve himself, who actually talks about the risks of these Apps to children.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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+5 Insightful
Thank You.
force apple to remove content censorship in store (Score:2)
force apple to remove content censorship in store if they want to keep it.
and no apple can't ban an app due to fonts that they do not like.
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All of this. 100% all of this. Sometimes guard rails are useful. We regulate what you can sell in a paint can, what you can put in a mattress, and what you can label as "Food". It's absolutely idiotic to think we shouldn't regular what gets put in an "App" in exactly the same way. Unless the federal government plans on creating an FDA analog for data security and app design, I think we should allow Apple and Google to keep doing this for the safety of our users, our children, and frankly, our national secu
Re: You know (Score:2)
Easy solution in your case: Just don't sideload. Meanwhile, everybody else who wants to is free to do so. This model has worked very well for Android. The only reason Apple would have to fear anything is if their platform really wasn't actually that secure after all, and their current model is nothing more than security theater. Which may very well be the case.
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mod up :)
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I want the code I install on my device reviewed by Apple.
It's not reviewed by Apple. They do some automated scans. You could do the same on the binaries.
If you think that makes it secure, you're fooling yourself.
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It's about choice. If you want to choose to only use app store apps, that's fine. If you want to install apps from other sources, you should have that option.
Other sources are not inherently dangerous. On Android you might want to install Fortnight from the official site, or use the Amazon app store. Personally I like having F-Droid on my phone, so I can use open source apps.
If apps can use undocumented APIs then that's a pretty major security fail on Apple's part.
Re: You know (Score:2)
Unless of course you delete the Apple App Store and install the Disney App Store on your devices. In which case your children wonâ(TM)t be subjected to all the sports betting, face-swapping (for deep fake porn purposes) and scammy "free-to-play" apps that exist in Apple's App Store. Because of course one store can't be all things to all people, and choice is a good thing.
granstanding (Score:3)
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Re: granstanding (Score:2)
I fear that is how career politicians have exploited checks and balances to keep their coffers full...
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The US government wasn't really designed to make change. It was designed to not mess up too badly. That's why they have the tripartite separation of powers.
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I can think of almost no organization that has proven less effective at making any positive change to anything than our government
I presume then that you live in the Libertarian Paradise of the Congo? I mean it must be prefect what with no horrid government making everything worse.
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They won't do anything that will make anything safer, cheaper, or increase innovation.
Not commenting on the safer issues, but there's no way significantly reducing App Store fees wouldn't both decrease app prices and spur innovation. The App Store fees totaled an estimated $64 billion in 2020. The App Store fees have similar effects as government taxes in terms of either forcing consumers to pay more or vendors to lower their profit margins. This effect on the bottom line for vendors is one of the key motivators for innovation. Similarly, the $64 billion is a huge motivator for Apple to
Being used to take out competition (Score:1, Interesting)
Doesn't anyone remember what it was like to get software to market before the App Store?
You had to buy expensive developer tools, that kind of sucked back then, with just a
compiler/linker and maybe some rudimentary debugging.
Then, to get a box on the shelf, you had to sign away future rights and control, all for maybe a 25% cut,
if you were lucky. If you did sales management yourself, you had to deal with the credit card companies
and their different rules, availabilities, and charges.
Then, you had to try and
Re: Being used to take out competition (Score:1)
Don't conflate pre-internet with pre-App Store
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They didn't happen at the same time. The App Store didn't start until 2008,
a good ten years after the Internet took hold.
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Exactly. Software distribution had already been revolutionized beyond your strawman argument. So like they said - stop conflating pre-Internet with pre-App Store.
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The Internet made distribution easy, but there was still the issue of handing payments
and hosting a site for promotion and customer service. Though I agree that still exists for many.
People can Google to find some specific need, but there isn't the comparative view that
the App Store provides. Plus, when the App Store presents a product, you pretty much know
that it'll run on your device and can install it with that one click.
As a consumer though, I detest how Apple made in-app purchases a thing. Hate it.
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I had well over 200 games on Steam when the App Store first arrived. Apple didn't invent digital distribution and easy interfaces for it.
Re: Being used to take out competition (Score:2)
200 games. Thatâ(TM)s a very huge number!
Sarcasm aside, the App Store became the single biggest software store by revenue for a reason. It made it possible (and economic) to have relatively low price apps that one could sell to their customers without having to find multiple distributors to get said software into customersâ(TM) hands. I suspect that what will happen is Apple will allow competing app stores, and they will all not make a huge dent in the situation.
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Sarcasm aside, the App Store became the single biggest software store by revenue for a reason.
Your sarcasm is rooted in a poor intellect.
200 AAA PC titles is more money than the average App Store user will spend in the entirety of their life.
But otherwise, you're right- the magic of the App Store, is that it allows shit to proliferate at low enough prices that the average person is willing to throw away an inconsequential amount of money. It's harder when the average price per unit is $45.
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In the context of this story, mobile devices are mainly running Android and iOS. These two Unix-like operating systems were developed by people who are no strangers to package management repositories already being used on desktop systems such as Debian, FreeBSD, etc.
The app stores added icons, ratings, and payments. It's a straightforward application of e-commerce that was already happening on the web, like Amazon, and also in apps like iTunes, years before the iPhone was introduced.
It was an incremental im
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Any significantly good change looks like an obvious incremental improvement in hindsight. People say that about the single button on the bottom of the iPhone versus the plethora of slide-out, side-flippy, numerics-as-text keyboards that came before. It was anything but obvious until it happened, and then of course, it seemed obvious.
Re: Being used to take out competition (Score:4, Insightful)
That's true about obviousness in hindsight.
The idea of app store, or software repository, has a long history [wikipedia.org] before iPhone and Android, including app stores on earlier mobile devices.
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People say that about the single button on the bottom of the iPhone versus the plethora of slide-out, side-flippy, numerics-as-text keyboards that came before. It was anything but obvious until it happened, and then of course, it seemed obvious.
Why to people think Apple invented EVERYTHING? The single button, all touch screen design was completely obvious when the iPhone came out... because it had existed already for 13 years.
IBM thought of the all-touchscreen-one-button smartphone... in 1994. And they made
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The only thing Apple did to get to their position was to standardize the idea of pinch to zoom - making the non mobile friendly Internet accessible on a phone. And it was soon duplicated everywhere.
Everything else came from market share dominance and were features everyone already had.
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I think the App Store revolutionized the idea of digital distribution of apps on mobile devices... but definitely not in general.
Further, application distribution has nearly nothing in common with package management systems like ports, apt, yum/dnf, etc.
They have more in common with snap, flatpak, AppImage, and Mac Application Bundles.
And my overall point, was that digital distribution-for-money systems existed and thrived before the App Store.
The App Store may be the biggest, overall, but that's because mobile phones were the ideal market to sell $1
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Yeah I agree. Maybe I have a different idea of what revolutionized looks like. Thanks for being courteous.
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Maybe I have a different idea of what revolutionized looks like.
Maybe. I remember the old feature phones of the early 2000s, and... "apps" on them, though.
"App Stores" finally allowed us to use these little computers as if they were actually little computers.
I wouldn't say that conceptually speaking, they invented the idea of making phones into little computers, but they were the ones who had the resources to pull it off.
My last pre-modern-day-smart-phone was a Motorola RAZR.
It had an ARM7TDMI in it. No MMU. Can't run a "real" OS on it. Hard to develop a real "app
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I'd agree the iPhone was revolutionary. The high end specs (at the time) made possible what you mentioned, but it was expensive, and because of that some people scoffed and said it wouldn't be a success. I'd say that's a good indicator that it wasn't obvious.
But for the first version that came out, the direction given to developers was to make web apps for it. The app store was introduced with the second version of iOS [wikipedia.org]. The app store [wikipedia.org] concept already existed, even for mobile devices. This is why for me the a
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They're just the folks who moved us to something better than carrier-provided J2ME apps running on ARM's Jazelle.
If anything, I hate that Apple beat the world to the punch to provide that product. It's an indictment of capitalism if you ask me.
Everyone else was racing as fast as they could to provide the shiniest garbage.
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Well, thrived is one way to describe how well they did (or didn't do). Compared to the success of the App Store, they were failures though. I mean, in one month, the App Store has more revenue than some of those systems had over their lifetime - probably collectively too.
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It's the largest distribution platform in its market by such a large margin that the others are historical notes.
The fact that the mobile app market makes more money than the PC market is easily explainable: There are more phones, and there are more fart apps.
Ultimately, I'd love my private business to be a failure to the tune of $6,000,000,000 a year.
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Ya, it's not like there are any other entities out there on the web that could provide a similar competing app store to Apple if they were forced to open their walled garden. If the wall came down the only other option than Apple would be to build your own e-commerce site and handle all the payment and site upkeep yourself.
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Which is still 100x easier today than it was 20 years ago, because Stripe, PayPal, etc. have payment APIs that make it dead easy.
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I'm not. That's why I think that Apple's app store deal is reasonable for developers.
Not great, but reasonable. The whole $1 app market thing sucks, but that's a different problem.
As far as choice, ease of use, and security, the store has been terrific on the consumer side.
It's changed everything.
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And now, some politicians, just for a campaign contribution of a few grand, want to fuck it all up.
In what way? What specifically are you asserting will be fucked up?
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I can almost guarantee that buying tools has always been cheaper than taking a 30% cut. Compilers usually range in the 1k to 5k range, some more some less. I would much rather pay 5k than take a 30% hit on a 5$ app that sells about 10k/yr
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Apple's storefront has brought you 10,000 sales a year, hosted your bandwidth, given you metrics,
and managed your transactions, and you're complaining about 30%?
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If there were two competitors for the the apple or google app stores, I don't think it would be 30%. There is no way to compete, it isn't fair.
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Steam launched in 2003 and it was hardly first. Once again, Apple was not even close to first to "solve" this problem.
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Doesn't anyone remember what it was like to get software to market before the App Store?
You mean where you downloaded all the software you needed for development for free, put the software on a website, and sold activation keys?
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Yeah, now (other than the $150-$200+ that those copies of Windows costs).
You don't recall what a MSDN subscription cost back then?
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As a coward that's "been in software" since the '90s(!!), you never had to pay $1200+ a year
for an MSDN subscription, or buy Code Warrior for Mac development, or remember when
being a Mac developer was the $500/yr club, or pay SGI upwards of $1800 for their C compiler.
You deserve a nice pat on the head and a gift certificate to Game Stop for never seeing
software on a shelf, sold in a box.
And young one, there was a time when Square and the others weren't around to make it
easy for Mom 'n Pop to run credit card
Wonder where Meta/Facebook will land on this one (Score:2)
If this law passes (and passes Supreme Court scrutiny, because you know that's where it will end up):
Google will use similar reasoning to get Facebook to allow Google to index it. Imagine how much more tolerable (and less profitable to Facebook) it would be to be able to go straight to content there without wading through the useless "related" stuff their internal search shows you.
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It's interesting. If they really are serious about this metaverse thing, Apple might be seen
as an ally and not a competitor. If you could just plug in a Quest into a Mac and have it
work as a no-fuss game GPU (which it doesn't do now), they might have a real interesting offering.
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If this law passes (and passes Supreme Court scrutiny, because you know that's where it will end up):
Google will use similar reasoning to get Facebook to allow Google to index it. Imagine how much more tolerable (and less profitable to Facebook) it would be to be able to go straight to content there without wading through the useless "related" stuff their internal search shows you.
That argument will be easily defeated because it isn't similar reasoning. The bill in question deals with manufacturers preventing device owners from doing something with the device that they own. Facebook being able to deny access to servers that Facebook owns is not the same at all.
I would rather Type-C ports! (Score:1)
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You mean Apple and iPhones? Just as a charging hassle with a cable?
That's not such a big impediment, and most every other Apple product already has Type-C ports.
Sideloading malware. (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes I know the App Store isn't perfect, but I can't wait until the government forces Apple to implement side loading so it can be abused to install malware and other garbage onto my phone. This will be a slippery slope. Once all the whiners get their way, Apple will have to open up their platform to third party payments and app stores. Then when very few people actually use that garbage, the next step will be to force Apple to include this crap in the default install of iOS. Then my phone will essentially be just like a junk Android phone. The customers will definitely benefit from this.
Re:Sideloading malware. (Score:5, Informative)
Nobody is forcing you to sideload
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Nobody is forcing you to sideload
A sideload-capable device necessarily has a larger attack surface, whether or not a given individual utilizes the functionality.
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A sideload-capable device necessarily has a larger attack surface, whether or not a given individual utilizes the functionality.
Why is that?
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Why is that?
The particulars are going to depend on which security mechanism they would bypass to permit sideloading. There's probably lots of different ways they could do it if forced to, but at minimum the sideloading mechanism would take away Apple's ability to revoke a compromised developer certificate. On top of that you'd have to consider the particulars of the sideloading mechanism -- does it provide unfettered access to the Secure Enclave? Does it allow the user to install new root certificates? Whatever it is,
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The particulars are going to depend on which security mechanism they would bypass to permit sideloading. There's probably lots of different ways they could do it if forced to, but at minimum the sideloading mechanism would take away Apple's ability to revoke a compromised developer certificate.
The whole point of side loading is running software not blessed by Apple. Apple not being able to control it is the point.
On top of that you'd have to consider the particulars of the sideloading mechanism -- does it provide unfettered access to the Secure Enclave? Does it allow the user to install new root certificates? Whatever it is, a bunch of hackers will immediately try to figure out how to leverage it in a chain of exploits.
Why would access be any different than normal applications? The existence of the option to side load hurts nobody who does not enable it.
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The whole point of side loading is running software not blessed by Apple. Apple not being able to control it is the point.
Right, yes. By permitting ways to install alternate roots of trust, the overall security of the system is weakened. Those points are inextricably intertwined -- bypassing Apple as a gatekeeper also bypasses Apple as a security enforcer.
Why would access be any different than normal applications? The existence of the option to side load hurts nobody who does not enable it.
Even if it comes disabled by default, just the fact that a mechanism exists to enable it becomes a juicy target for hackers. They'll look for ways to either surreptitiously enable it without the user's knowledge, or they'll look for ways to social-engineer derpy users into en
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Yes I know the App Store isn't perfect, but I can't wait until the government forces Apple to implement side loading so it can be abused to install malware and other garbage onto my phone.
I don't understand the logic here. If you don't want to sideload software than don't do it. Nobody is forcing you. A simple latch in the device configuration to disallow sideloading solves the problem.
This will be a slippery slope. Once all the whiners get their way, Apple will have to open up their platform to third party payments and app stores. Then when very few people actually use that garbage, the next step will be to force Apple to include this crap in the default install of iOS. Then my phone will essentially be just like a junk Android phone. The customers will definitely benefit from this.
Yea just like all of those competing stores being bundled with Android phones out of the box... Talk about choice overload.
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I don't understand the logic here. If you don't want to sideload software than don't do it. Nobody is forcing you. A simple latch in the device configuration to disallow sideloading solves the problem.
It's another attack vector on my phone I don't want. Let's give the bad guys another feature to exploit.
Yea just like all of those competing stores being bundled with Android phones out of the box... Talk about choice overload.
Yeah, I mean all the carrier supplied garbage on an Android.
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It's another attack vector on my phone I don't want. Let's give the bad guys another feature to exploit.
If you can't count on the vendor to check a simple configuration option before loading unsigned software you have much bigger problems.
Yeah, I mean all the carrier supplied garbage on an Android.
The garbage is a function of Android being freely available to OEMs who bundle their shit on the devices. This does not happen with Apple because Apple loads their own shit on their own operating system on their own devices.
This is orthogonal to the issue you raised where somehow sideloading somehow becomes a backdoor to forced preloading of stores. Android has had sideloa
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I don't know how you think that an opt-in setting to allow 3rd party application sources would equate to "being abused to install malware and other garbage" - this has been a thing on Android for years, and in order to use it, you have to enable it. So just don't enable it.
Why is it a problem for you that other people would like to have the option? It's an option, so just leave it turned off.
Definition? (Score:5, Insightful)
So what's to keep Apple from causing real disruption now and saying those bills will also ensnare Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo and such? I mean, they are gatekeepers for their very popular platforms as well.
"Hurt Apple" might be popular, but it's going to be one avenue fraught with pain because you just cannot define things like "Games only store" or other nonsense (especially since all the consoles run apps, too).
And threading the needle to just hit Apple already runs afoul of the Constitution, so Apple will either force the law to be found unconstitutional because it's being targeted, or it'll be expanded so wide as to apply to virtually everything in ridiculous situations.
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So what's to keep Apple from causing real disruption now and saying those bills will also ensnare Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo and such?
If you mean game console manufacturers being prohibited from preventing owners from playing games that aren't sold by the manufacturer, I'm guessing that you would get a lot of people agreeing.
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If a law is intended to specifically target and punish a specific person (or company), it may be a "bill of attainder", which is prohibited by Article I, Section 9, Clause 3.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/co... [cornell.edu]
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I think he was describing a theoretical scenario where the bill was written specifically to affect only Apple, to the exclusion of other similarly-situated walled gardens like Nintendo, Playstation, Xbox, etc. I'm sure we can imagine a theoretical bill that runs afoul of the bill-of-attainder prohibition by laser-targeting Apple for punitive treatment.
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If one is arguing that a law couldn't be constructed that differentiated between say, a Playstation Store, and your cell phone's App Store without being considered a bill of attainder, then I've got a DMCA for sale.
Case law does not support their idea of bill of attainder.
Different types of business can absolutely be
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I dunno, it'd be an interesting case to watch. I imagine they might argue that, given that the device was designed from the hardware on up to explicitly prevent sideloading, it therefore isn't a general purpose computing device. And was never intended to be, and was never represented to be.
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Of course Apple's own advertising would suggest otherwise.
Like it or not, Apple and Google changed the nature of a cell phone. It's not just some device for making calls. It's a little personal computing device- and they made it so.
End of the day, the Playstation still really only does one thing. Plays games. You can argue, "mine has a web browser!", but that wouldn't hold up in court.
I do agree that we're just speculating, but I also know that App
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Everyone demanding the government intervene in nearly every aspect of our lives these days have no idea the tyranny they are inviting.
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So what's to keep Apple from causing real disruption now and saying those bills will also ensnare Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo and such? I mean, they are gatekeepers for their very popular platforms as well.
If we're lucky, those will get opened up, too.
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I can go anywhere and buy a Nintendo game. iPhone users don't have that option.
The only Nintendo games available for purchase are ones that have been pre-approved by Nintendo.
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The only Nintendo games available for purchase are ones that have been pre-approved by Nintendo.
The point is there is an open market for the buying and selling of software not controlled by a single company even for console games.
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The point is there is an open market for the buying and selling of software not controlled by a single company even for console games.
The article specifically discusses sideloading. The Nintendo Switch doesn't allow sideloading. Any software running on the Switch has been licensed through Nintendo and Nintendo has taken their cut.
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You can only buy licensed game for the platform. You can buy the physical disk anywhere, but that developer and publisher had to get a license from Nintendo. For digital purchases you only have one choice. Same problem except it's not Apple.
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I was wrong about digital purchases, you can guy on Amazon and redeem codes. But Nintendo still get their cut due to platform licensing.
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So what's to keep Apple from causing real disruption now and saying those bills will also ensnare Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo and such? I mean, they are gatekeepers for their very popular platforms as well.
I can go anywhere and buy a Nintendo game. iPhone users don't have that option.
There is no -1 this person is wrong or -1 I disagree.
There is no negative mod that is equivalent to a social media dislike. If you don't agree with what someone has to then don't mod them up. Please respect the rules of this site and read the Slashdot FAQ prior to moderating.
What I can't figure out (Score:3, Insightful)
Is why so many apple supporters want the app store to charge 30%, it's coming out of their pockets and the pockets of devs. I guess if you love apple that much you don't mind it if Tim Cook buys another yacht, in fact, you want Tim Cook to have that yacht instead of thousands of devs being able to afford coffee.
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why so many apple supporters want the app store to charge 30%
WTF are you talking about.
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If you read the posts above you'll find out.
we want Apple to be like Linux??? (Score:1)
If apple devices could install apps from any store or web site it would be JUST like Windows or Linux. We need all platforms to be fragmented and have issues like the Windows DLL hell!
Bring it!
Just like some charging stations have 3+ cables to charge cars, that is awesome, I wish we could have 50!
Google (Score:2)
Why is Google being roped into this? They support sideloading and even alternative app stores on their platform! See: Amazon android app store, F-Droid, the Samsung app store.
Everyone who uses Apple knows this going in (Score:2)
Apple is a closed ecosystem and not a monopoly.
In a similar manner, Facebook and Twitter decide who gets to use its systems and how. Apple is doing the same.
NB: I don't use Apple products.
"For Security" (Score:2)
Yes. Apple absolutely needs a stranglehold on every app in their app store, and needs to check things themselves.
Because, you know, something along the lines of Pegasus might suddenly pop up! Oh wait..
The whole security argument sounds like such an incredibly convenient copout. If your OS is so utterly shit that any app can take over control of your device, then something is wrong with your device.
If you block apps from using things in the API, and your OS is built with proper elevations of privilege, then
Here is Androids chance to create/enforcestandards (Score:2)
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Bill has always been able to get his way with some well-placed bribes and monopolistic, predatory coercion.
Re:Uh-oh (Score:4, Insightful)
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Pretty much. I want to be able to disable this feature on my parent's phones.
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I am pretty sure that the same Senators will be calling for a full Congressional investigation of Apple once their phones get rooted because they installed shady apps from a shady store.
And it would be quite warranted given the only way a phone gets rooted thru an app is exploiting an operating system defect that should never have existed in the first place.
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Except of course their phones have already been rooted [indiatimes.com], because of course nobody [nytimes.com] should use an iPhone if you're worried about hackers [nytimes.com]. All we have now is a lack of consumer choice in the name of pretending our phones are safe. Real protections don't happen at the App Store level.