Japan To Open Up Apple and Google App Stores To Competition (japantimes.co.jp) 38
A government panel in Japan drew up a set of regulations aimed at opening up the smartphone app stores of U.S. technology giants Apple and Google to competition. From a report: The two companies dominating the smartphone operating system market will be obliged to allow their users to download apps by using services other than their own app stores. The government hopes that the move will spur competition and lead to app price drops. The smartphone OS market is occupied almost entirely by Apple's iOS and Google's Android. The companies control how apps are installed and paid for on their iPhones and Android devices.
The government will create a list of what OS providers must not do in order to stop them favoring their own services and payment platforms. The regulations were drawn up at the government's headquarters for digital market competition, headed by Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno. The government aims to submit relevant legislation to the next year's ordinary session of parliament. Apple makes it impossible for iPhone users to download apps without using its App Store. Of Android users, 97% download apps through the Google Play store, although Google does not require them to do so.
The government will create a list of what OS providers must not do in order to stop them favoring their own services and payment platforms. The regulations were drawn up at the government's headquarters for digital market competition, headed by Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno. The government aims to submit relevant legislation to the next year's ordinary session of parliament. Apple makes it impossible for iPhone users to download apps without using its App Store. Of Android users, 97% download apps through the Google Play store, although Google does not require them to do so.
Looks like country after country other than the US (Score:4, Insightful)
do the right thing and finally try to rein in the dangerous out-of-control monopolies. But the very country those monsters hail from keeps doing nothing at all. That should tell you something of the level of collusion between government and big business in the US. Really sad...
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A single look at current China situation tells you very clearly that they're not one and the same. There has been a massive recalibration of the relationship with Trump and Biden taking everything that Trump did and actually getting it put into regulations and laws. And big business was dragged into this change by the hair kicking and screaming.
To the point where today business interests have been basically ejected from all important tables when it comes to US-China relations. As Xi Jingping himself put it
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"dangerous out of control monopolies"
You don't do your cause any service with extraneous hyperbole.
Are they monopolistic? Sure, maybe - if you're going on the basis of how Microsoft was decided to be a monopoly surrounding Internet Explorer - where MS prohibited third parties (resellers) from uninstalling IE or using another browser as a default.
There are, however, cases of people removing Google Play from phones and selling them that way without legal repercussions. This is not the same scenario as that, p
Re: Looks like country after country other than th (Score:3, Informative)
We use Apple specifically for its security approach. I can be confident that any app installed will be reviewed by Apple, and wonâ(TM)t have malware.
With the new legally mandated approach, there will be a plethora of App Stores that will be linked to via ads, that wonâ(TM)t have that protection. Iâ(TM)m sure the casual user will be super-careful to make sure the âoeapp storeâ they are linked to is the real one.
apple needs to let up on the rules that block apps (Score:1)
apple needs to let up on the rules that block apps.
Like
content in apps that they ban but google is ok with
why are lot's of emulators banned on ios?
why does remote compute game apps need to have each game be it's own app?
apps that promote independence for Hong Kong are banned
web browsers not useing webkit.
etc
Re: Looks like country after country other than t (Score:4, Insightful)
I can be confident that any app installed will be reviewed by Apple,
No you can't.
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On Apple's App Store?
Of course you can be sure it is reviewed by Apple.
There is no other way to get it into the App Store.
Perhaps you wanted to say: a review by Apple is not 100% bullet proof!
Re: Looks like country after country other than t (Score:4, Informative)
Honestly that's fine, but it's also putting way too much trust in Apple and technically it's completely wrong. Apple's review process really isn't designed to catch things like malware. Opening iPhones would have no impact on security, because it's the OS level protections which do that job.
I'm a long-time iOS developer and as embarrassing as this is, a company I worked for once released an app that literally crashed on startup, and surprise.. It made it through Apple's App Store testing without a hitch. On the other hand, we had another app and tried to do a promotion which gave money to charity, and Apple rejected it repeatedly because they were concerned they weren't getting their cut. Developers are generally jaded about the App Store for very good reasons.
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Bad news, malware gets through to the Apple App Store as well.
You have the worst of both worlds. You have to rely on Apple catching malware because most of the apps available to you are closed source. No F-Droid style open source app store, no freedom to choose what kinds of apps you want to run.
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This is analogous to banning the denial of car warranties to those who get their oil changed at locations other than a car dealership. For that matter, it's analogous to the ban of movie studios owning theaters. It's all about restraint of trade. I'm sure the automakers intended for their dealers to do all servicing, as the movie studios intended to make every ounce of revenue right to the refreshments at the theaters. But it was ruled in restraint of trade, and they were forced to divest or change thei
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But, it is different.
You aren't prohibited from side-loading or removing the official stores. You can get Android phones without the Play store.
Automakers were prohibited from warranty denial for oil changes because it's the same service from a different vendor. Likewise, non-studio theaters playing movies are playing the same movie.
Even if you were to have a mechanism to make sure that the software would be installed in the same fashion, with the same stringent security requirements mandated by the devices
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I'm envisioning the judge in the case asking the question, "Why can't the same security be applied in a multivendor environment?" You could say it wouldn't because the very existence of a second vendor implies lesser security, but i'm sure someone else will testify otherwise, say by using a public key generated against Apple's secret, to oversimplify the structure.
I wouldn't want to be on your side in that courtroom. The judge is probably going to rule against Apple in that case.
That said, I agree the wal
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That secondary key provided by Apple could and does imply that Apple is legally culpable for anything signed with the key. You can't have authoritative key management without some single point of key management. Apple would still be on the hook.
How would it be any different than, say, a contract? If I am signatory to a contract, I am culpable for the enforcement of that contract and liable for any damages resulting thereof.
It's not that simple (Score:4, Insightful)
I haven't read the proposal, but there are a few places where this would still be helpful.
I recently tried using an android phone to supply maps to my car using Android Auto. I didn't want to use a Google account on the device, and I didn't want to have to get a data plan for the device. Google Maps requires the latter to download maps offline, and at that, it has limits as to how much map data can be kept on the device.
So, I came up with two apps: Sygic GPS and Here WeGo that allow offline map downloads, and work with Android Auto. ...but no Google Account means sideloading. Okay, easy enoigh to adb install sygic.apk. Only...it wouldn't show up on my car's dashboard, because you can't do that with sideloaded apps.
It took a week for me to figure out the correct combination of rooting, installing LSposed and Magisk, and an Xposed Addon that bypassed Google's "yes this came from the app store scouts honor why do you ask" check. Now, I'm fairly smart, and *I* had to stand on the shoulders of giants (all of whom I donated to) in order to make this work.
If this proposal reduces the effort required to use advertised functionality without an account, I'm in favor of it.
Also on the list is the Aurora Store. I have no idea to what extent Google considers it a threat, but I know that searching in it gets tricky pretty quickly. In fairness, my understanding is that Aurora literally pulls from Google servers, and I can understand Google taking exception to someone pulling data from Google servers at the relatively high rate that must appear to happen, but I think that there's a threshold somewhere, at which point Google is going to put the kibosh on Aurora. If this proposal either increases that threshold, or requires Google to find some compromise with Aurora (e.g. You handle the search traffic and we'll give you the APKs you ask for once every 24 hours), I'd be thrilled at the improvement. Constantly wondering whether today will be the day I have to manually adb install my updates isn't a wonderful feeling.
So, if these legislative efforts ultimately provide some middle ground between "validating Google's stance on data collection" and "assume you're going to spend a weekend rooting and modding your device in order to limit Google's data collection, *if* you even have that option due to rooting still involving either exploit or cellco's giving you their blessing"...I'm excited.
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The government aims to submit relevant legislation to the next year's ordinary session of parliament.
It's a proposal, at best. It has to be "submitted." Then it has to be passed. A year from now. Neither will happen because in Japan nothing that matters happens without the blessing of the US establishment. The payoffs will go to the right families and this shakedown will have served its purpose.
Should also go after Windows in S mode. (Score:4, Interesting)
Apple says App Store protects against malware (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course it may not be perfect protection, but it's a lot better than an open free-for-all
That's what Apple would say. Is that not a valid perspective? Should phone purchasers not be able to opt for (or be defaulted to) such a relatively safe (child's playground with rubberized floor) closed app ecosystem?
Re:Apple says App Store protects against malware (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow Apple has a reason to justify Apple making more money I'm shocked.
Apple should be free to convince people use the their app store if they wish it. However they should not be able to force people to use it. If tomorrow someone came out with an app store that was more secure then they should be able to compete with Apple.
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Phone(iPhone) purchasers can just choose to not install those 3rd party app stores.
Re:Apple says App Store protects against malware (Score:4, Insightful)
Should phone purchasers not be able to opt for (or be defaulted to) such a relatively safe (child's playground with rubberized floor) closed app ecosystem?
Sure they should, but one shouldn't need to jump through hoops to get around that. A simple click is all that should be needed. What Apple is really against, is people selling their apps directly and cutting them out. They play the security card, but isn't most, if not all, software downloaded directly from the maker generally secure? The "bad-stuff-might-happen alternative app store" is just misdirection.
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The quality vetting, functionality restrictions, and software vendor identification serve to protect phone users and the network from malware apps.
Of course it may not be perfect protection, but it's a lot better than an open free-for-all.
I see this line trotted out quite often by Apple apologists. They seem to make this huge leap of logic that Apple being forced to allow third-party stores or sideloading is forcing them personally to accept apps from third-parties.
If people want to continue to allow only apps from the Apple App Store on their iDevices they are free to do so. Other people will have the option of doing something different. All people need to do is not flip that preference switch to allow "untrusted" apps. Maybe they can ask t
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I think I'm turning Japanese (Score:2)
Consumers: Meh (Score:2)
At the risk of stating the obvious, most users don't care about app store choice, and never will. The only app store they'll ever use is the one that came with the device. Most people don't have an ideological axe to grind on things like this. They just want their $2 Candy Crush app with as little fiddling as possible.
Regulators can do whatever they want but economics wins out in the end. The app stores are natural monopolies.
Good . Keep going (Score:3)
Oh No! (Score:2)
This might result in low-quality copycat apps, unscrupulous fraudsters, or apps that track the user and invades their privacy!
No thank you, I prefer to be safe!
In fact, I dream of a day we have a single-source for software on all of our computers, and I wish manufacturers would kill that pesky root access thing that all of the russian hackers use!
I know people are all like but it is my property but just like freedom of speech, ownership of stuff is not absolute. Sometimes those who are better than you need
Nationalistic and competitor envy (Score:3)
Not to mention, they told everyone UPFRONT about the 30% cut they was going to take. You (app developers) got 70% Seems perfectly reasonable in exchange for not having to develop and maintain my own store. But again, if this was going to be an issue, why was this not addressed BEFORE it was deployed or in its early phases?
I mean, competition is nice, but it sounds like drink of pure Hator-aid if you're gonna complain because you didn't develop / implement it first.
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Only when they became a leading (if not the leading) competitor to certain products does everyone have an issue. Seems like a penalty for being successful (i.e. sour grapes).
There may well be some degree of sour grapes and/or nationalist protectionism at play here. I can't say what's really in the hearts of these law makers. But one reason why this wasn't done "earlier" as you suggest may also come down to legal technicalities. I don't know what the monopoly laws are like in Japan but in the US at least there are two key requirements
"First, the alleged monopolist must possess sufficient power in an accurately defined market for its products or services. Second, the monopol
Significant overhead for low-volume apps (Score:2)
Not to mention, they told everyone UPFRONT about the 30% cut they was going to take. You (app developers) got 70%
It's not quite 70 percent for low-volume apps because of the device upgrade treadmill, particularly for low-volume apps. In addition to Apple's 30 percent cut, each developer must pay for a replacement for a Mac that can no longer run the latest Xcode, a replacement for an iPhone and iPad that can no longer run the latest iOS, and periodic renewals for an expiring Apple Developer Program membership. These overheads become significant for small-time solo developers whose apps fail to break 10,000 USD per yea
Hypocrites (Score:2)
Targeting foreign companies or phones? (Score:2)
It could be selective enforcement of competition law against foreign brands compared to Japanese brands. Or it could be selective enforcement of competition law against makers of phones compared to video game consoles. These are hard to distinguish in practice because the only major non-Japanese console maker is Microsoft, whose Xbox lacks anywhere near market power in Japan.