Ok maybe the Indian govt can force Android phone manufacturers to pre install it's app store, how is this going to play out on iPhones? Are we going to see a ban on iPhones in India?
They have fantasy cricket now which is definitely gambling and my dad is getting spammed with messages that look exactly like scams. I am glad they removed it even if just for a few hours. They didn't comply after being requested to multiple times.
Justifying it as cashback can be used for almost anything in the way they have done.
No 30% is a big deal...
"The government's existing Mobile Seva App Store is expected to be refurbished to create the Indian App Store and all the applications in it, will not be charged for gatekeeping."
Apple has a history of complying with government requests. They opened up NFC stack when UK requested it. Added SMS spam reporting integration with TRAI in India. And all the changes they do for complying with PRC
The spam integration wasn’t done in the way TRAI was pushing Apple to. On Android, the DND (Do Not Disturb) app could get permissions to the call log and SMS, but this wasn’t possible on iOS. Apple pushed back on that requirement for privacy reasons and instead developed a way for the reporting to be done by the user and the information passed to the DND app to compose (not send) an SMS. No compromises were made to grant any permissions. To this day, the SMS permissions doesn’t exist on iOS.
I would love to see India government push for an open iPhone, giving people an option to have their app store if they choose to, and leave people want to stick with Apple AppStore the same as now.
When did Apple open up to alternative App stores and side loading?
I must've missed this, because this was my number 1 reason to avoid Apple products. Not that I'd buy any, reasons 2 through 10 are still deal breakers.
The first two sentences would’ve been perfectly sufficient to convey your point. The last sentence looks like flamewar bait which is why I downvoted your comment.
It’s possible Apple won’t have a choice if they want to sell phones in India. India is a huge and growing market, I’m not sure Apple can afford to give that up...
Actually Apple's market share in India is minuscule due to pricing effects, and they don't anticipate selling all that much in India for the foreseeable future
I beg to differ. They started manufacturing Apple phones in India and it has become a lot cheaper now. This is a solid move from Apple's side mind you.
I’m not sure Apple cares much about the market in India and would pull out of India before opening up the App Store. This won’t be popular.
I know plenty of my Indian colleagues who buy and bring home Apple devices for their friends and family. People will just start smuggling the devices in if they have to.
It doesn't work like that. iPhones weren't sold officially in Argentina for many years, but still there are many local iOS apps. There are many iPhones and most importantly, the wealthiest people generally have iPhones.
Apple's FY2019 revenue in India was ₹10,538.3 crore ($1.50 billion),[1] which is 0.58% of its global revenue of $260.17 billion.[2] India has a growing smartphone market, but it does not yet have a large market for Apple products.
I don't know, the growing wealth is still a good way off from becoming a ground for Apple to become very popular. Especially since the market has been heavily invested in Android devices due to the pricing disparity, it's a big jump and likely not one that can be alleviated simply by waiving some of the extra costs by manufacturing locally.
The most popular phones sold in India are low-midrange devices in the USD $80-400 range. It'll take quite a push from both the public and Apple to bring sentiment to a situation where Apple products have appeal. As it stands I'm not sure the demand will ever be there.
True, and companies spend a massive amount of their revenue in operations, whereas I would assume governments have much more disposable income for activities other than putting capital into daily production.
They will be forced to eventually. But from a technical/security standpoint it’s not at all hard for them to do. They use PKI for all apps and from the security standpoint, it’s a matter of adding another certificate to the trust chain. Obviously there are many UI considerations, but I’m just saying this doesn’t require some crazy core/kernel engineering revamp of iOS.
> Also, talks within the government indicate that it may ask Google and Apple to pre-install Indian App Store in all phones sold in India in near future. This particular request is likely to face counter from the American companies.
Other than the Pixel line I don't know why we'd expect Google to block this. There's already alternative app stores preloaded on many Android phones. To my mind this will be a fight against Apple
The pixel line is the only line Google preinstalls anything on. Either the journalist or the negotiator doesn't understand Android or is pushing harder than they need to, or they see sideloading (bad UX) as not sufficient as an antitrust measure.
When OEMs install Google service and other apps required to install Play store, they need a license from Google.
Look at custom ROMs not bundling Gapps (Google apps) because they do not have the license from Google to pre-install and ask you to install from open gapps.
There are 193 countries (footnote[0]), so that might mean 193 app stores, but then some countries might delegate the power to require their own app store to their own regions/"states".
You are used to Apple-style bureaucracy. It won't be even close. If 10 countries roll out their stores - most of them probably won't even be in English for a long time. Custom SDKs will add a lot of overhead on the development side. And app review madness will be like never before.
... or they could just create a PWA and publish it on the free and open web and have the app be available globally in 40s w/o any regulations or artificial restrictions.
There is no 'free and open web,' that's long in the past now, to the extent it ever existed (for about 10-15 years in a limited form).
Which countries partake in this supposed free and open web? None.
There are dozens of separately regulated prominent webs now and that's going to get a lot worse this decade. We're never going back, nations are not going to give up the control they're assuming, it will splinter further and further; complexity will grow, accessing foreign markets will become more onerous. It'll gradually fully mirror the physical world, where if you want to travel to another nation, or do business in another nation (access their market), you will have to comply with all of their myriad of local regulations (which will continue to grow rapidly in number and complexity).
Nations will fence off their citizens online, and you will have to comply to access them. We're already seeing this directional shift in many nations, it will spread comprehensively.
Turkey's web is not regulated the same as India's web which is not regulated the same as China's web which is not regulated the same as the EU's web which is not regulated the same as Brazil's web which is not regulated the same as Australia's web which is not regulated the same as the US web which is not regulated the same as Britain's web and so on.
* You can use all the device APIs, not just the ones that have been exposed as web APIs.
* They're way faster and less janky.
* You don't to use endless workarounds to disable typical web behaviour when you don't want it.
PWAs are probably suitable for basic apps that just display information, e.g. an app for an event, or a pub or whatever. You would be insane to try and make a "real" app like Snapchat or Google Maps as a PWA though.
Google's Android UI toolkit is slower than Chrome building UI from HTML, sadly. So it's not a clear win for native apps (unless the native app is using HTML for UI, I guess).
That said, I don't think PWAs have a good way to get background data updates, which is unfortunate for apps that could work offline. You can't do a silent push to update data, last I checked, anyway. (Use case: I want a weather app that has current/recent data without loading when I start the app, because I often start the app in dead zones; also I want to have it background fetch the data when my location changes).
You mean slower to write? You're probably right for native Android. But I didn't say anything about development effort. Also it's definitely easier to get polished apps with Flutter than PWAs, so I think they'd still lose on that front.
No, I mean slower to run. It takes way too long for widget objects to be created, and you can only do it on the UI Thread, and you have to make most of your widgets when the app opens (otherwise there's nothing to see).
It was also slower to write for me, but I've never had a good time understanding UI toolkits, so I assume that's my own character flaw.
Erm. There's no way the web is faster than Android's native widgets or Flutter's. Your complaint about the UI thread makes no sense for a start - the web only has a UI thread.
I wish you were right. But for a reasonably simple (in my mind) weather UI, constructing the native Widgets on a cold start takes long enough that you get warnings for too much activity on the UI thread. But you can't build Widgets off the UI thread to get parallelism like you would do for other things that are slow, because Widgets have to be built on the UI thread if you want to show them.
A similar HTML layout shows up a ton faster in Chrome or a webview.
i guess there's a right number. I love the idea of having an alternate solution to reach your market whenever you don't want to comply with apple or google guidelines for some reason
Have you tried publishing apps for the App/Play Store? Last time I made a game with Unity then I had to export it to different platforms and for some of them, such as iOS, then I had to make additional code modifications with xcode to get e.g. ads to work properly. I’d easily end up spending a day on making sure each store listing looked good (required files in different formats, and tons of settings to setup).
I also struggle to think of a scenario in which you wouldn’t want your app published on all app stores (unless you for moral reasons wouldn’t want your app on Chinese-owned stores or something like that).
Yes, I do have applications on Android, iOS, macOS.
I want more competition in app stores, I want places where adult applications can be distributed which is completely impossible at the moment. I want app stores that offer different models than what Apple and google do. I want Apple to have to improve their developer experience because of competition (the google play store is way simpler to deal with in my experience). Etc.
That’s not the problem, it’s having to manage a bunch of sets of credentials, and the logistics of pushing updates through multiple stores. Both are obviously solvable problems but definitely annoying barriers to someone who really just wants to make their app.
Or more realistically, it means developers will have to start paying for a middle man saas thing that distributes apps in all the stores and aggregates reviews etc.
Is it? Indian and Chinese culture is very different. Apple benefits greatly from China's unquenchable thirst for luxury goods in general, not just phones but clothing, cars, etc. Signalling wealth through conspicuous consumption is important in China. I don't see that same characteristic in Indian culture; of course there is a market for luxury goods but it's not the same.
> I don't see that same characteristic in Indian culture; of course there is a market for luxury goods but it's not the same.
Can it be just because of the difference in disposable income in the countries? I don't know any reliable metric for income but the GDP per capita of PRC is five times that of India. The quench for luxurious goods comes with rising income.
Yes, but China only became rich enough that lots of wealthy young Chinese could be buying iPhones recently. I do not think it would be unreasonable to make the same bet on India being a decade or two behind.
" benefited from periods of global growth" -> China had incredible post-2008 growth, that is a large part of why there are so many people buying iPhones.
> India has different politics
What do you mean? It's more inequitable than China and has more political capture by private actors, but I don't see why the same couldn't occur in India.
There are no app-stores that are apolitical, that I know of at least. If they are opinionated in setting up barriers of entry for applications, it is a political decision. Even F-Droid choosing to be open-source only, is a political decision.
What is their aim by having an alternate app store? Maybe make the manufacturers install it by default as a system app with all the permissions enabled by default? It'd be pretty easy to have a control over what people are seeing or using if so. It's just guess work but I wouldn't be surprised if this is the idea.
> India is said to be considering a plan to make it mandatory for almost all new mobile phones to have government software pre-installed, raising the prospect of the state being able to closely monitor citizens.
It will never be easy to control what people use in India. Also if I won't have to pay $25 just to publish my free app to users, I will be much happier. And if I decide to monetize it, I will again perfer to pay Indian govt a cut than others. Google already knows what I think and what I am doing and it fulfills govt requests too, with precise details so it's better that India govt sees it directly. At least I know how I can stop that easily.
You really don't have to control though. Information itself is enough in the most part. As you said, Google already knows, but it has it's own procedure in fulfilling government requests. With the information directly in the hands of the government, that barrier is gone.
I know and that's what I think is better, at least for now. I know how to remove something a govt puts in phone but I can't use a lot of apps without Google Play services, which is a bigger issue for me. You turn on a VPN an govt is out but Google, gosh, it's everywhere.
I'm not sure if "you turn on a VPN and govt is out" is an accurate representation though, considering not all VPNs also resolve DNS requests, and a number of ISPs resort to deep-packet inspection and a number of tactics that would let them collect information on users. It's a matter of agreement, compliance, or force for the government to get their hands on that data.
But I definitely agree on the point about Google Play Services. For a platform that is often touted as being open, Android isn't quite Android without Play Services, and that wouldn't be the case if Google wasn't systematically ensuring that specific outcome.
It’s at least somewhat possible, through open political means, to control what the government does with that information by having the government add regulations and controls on the data. To control what google does with that information, you’d have to spend a trillion dollars to buy google.
I don't understand this logic at all. It's so much more dangerous for a nation state with an army and the ability to disappear dissidents to know so much about you rather than a multinational company...
India has a following issue with Android ecosystem, almost everything not owned by Google, is owned by some Chinese co.
GetJar - sold to Chinese
PayTM - Chinese shareholder
Flipcart - Chinese shareholder
Zomato, swiggy, + 10+ others online delivery/logistics apps. Some used to be reskins of Chinese apps. Some only have Indian C-levels.
20 something messengers - all except FB, and Twiter are Chinese
...
I believe they quickly realised that to ban Chinese apps, they have to ban a lion share of apps in daily use, and here this app store comes.
---
P.S. As I understand, a huge amount of Android phones in the third world doesn't have Google App store pre-installed, as manufacturers don't bother to go through arduous Google certification for low end phones, or provide OTA updates. This is why things like GetJar are still a thing there.
Do you know reality, like at all?
GetJar: I am hearing of this app for the first time, and I have seen and used many indian phones.
Flipkart, Zomato, Swiggy are Indian companies with apps completely developed in India. Walmart has a major shareholding stake in Flipkart since a few years now.
PayTM is also fully developed and operated in India, but yes, it does have Alibaba backing it. However, it was not at all considered for an app ban. If at all, many cash less policies by government are aimed to help it to move the country to digital payments.
No, there are not 20 something messengers. There is one mainly used messenger called WhatsApp.
Yes, there were a few Chinese apps / chinese owned apps, widely popular. They were PubG, TikTok and UC browser. All of them were fungible, and have been banned.
Also, no, Indian Android phones are not "cheap third world phones without Google App Store pre-installed". A lot of them do come in the 150$-300$ price range, but all of them have fully certified Android, passing VTS. In the 100s of phones I have seen, I haven't seen a single such phone.
There are some phones (JioPhones) which do exist, but they are built on KaiOS which is a fork of Firefox OS. They obviously don't have Play Store installed.
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
Well you see, most US companies now have development centers in India and soon many of their products and services will also be developed here. But that won't make these companies Indian companies.
I think you may want to take your own advice first because you didn't write a complete sentence either. And, it's "those who live in" because others will throw stones back at theirs. I don't know where these kids came from, but they're not part of this idiom. I wish you better luck next time in the teachable moment department.
Vouched for this [dead] [flagged] message because, regardless of the tone, I belive, the ciritical information is highly valid for this discussion. Maybe you can edit out the jibes and we can get on discussing the facts?
Can you point out what was wrong with OPs post? I'm a native English speaker, got a perfect score on the SAT English tests, and I don't really see any spelling errors beyond typoing Twitter as Twiter.
Whether a company is "Indian" or not is not defined by where they developed their apps - it is defined by the ownership structure. The truth is most of these companies that you have pointed out have significant percentage of their ownership in Chinese hands.
While I personally dislike to see an App Store coming from the Modi government, I wonder if there's at least some virtue to the idea of publicly funded App Stores e.g. in the European Union.
Of course there's a risk of easier distribution of state-sponsored Malware and censorship - somewhat similar to state-level DPI - but there could be an advantage in enforcing local laws.
As it stands, software distribution to european mobile clients seems to be restricted by:
* U.S. laws and regulations
* Policies by Google or Apple
* European laws and regulations
Independent App Stores could probably help with at least the first, if not the second point one as well. At least from a governments perspective.
I think you can choose to not deny apps based on political reasons (e.g. BLM) but still choose to deny apps based on security (e.g. malware), deceptiveness (spam, abuse), or license (e.g. closed source).
Free as in free speech. The Gab app does not violate the four essential freedoms [1] or F-Droid's inclusion policy [2]. They even host Hentai apps where you can access lolicon pornography [3] and simply state that users should "be aware of any applicable local laws and regulations".
There is, of course. Government build ports, airports, customs etc. This is part of digital infrastructure (until the day comes that stores are no longer needed).
Corporations did just that in the specific part of the world under discussion here. I suggest you look into the East India Trading Company, Dutch East India and French East India companies.
It will be messy, it will open oportunities to corruption, lobbying, crappy user experiences, unsafe apps, government abuse, nationalism, ... it is really a Pandora box.
But mess can be a fertile ground for competition and innovation when excessive regulation blocks it.
Today's app stores are just feature development labs for Apple & Google. There is no chance that anyone will be able to create a big business within any app store and keep Apple or Google out. Just ask big players as Steam, Facebook and Microsoft how they feel about Google's and Apple's stores.
If you're in the apps development business then you're just looking for golden opportunities for Apple/Google and being very badly payed for that.
>The sources said, "Android has 97% market share in India so we should intervene and handhold Indian startups. Making it mandatory for Android phones to be pre-instaled with our apps in under consideration". [1]
Indian Government being arbiter of the app ecosystem on a phone and pre installing apps? Ominous vibes. Good luck with your desire for competition and innovation.
I'd like to think the Indian government will have the interests of its own citizens at heart better than Google or Apple. India has a long and not very pleasant history with foreign corporations.
Haha no. The Indian government will have the best interests of the ruling party at heart. I'd rather trust Google with all of my data, even the sensitive bits, rather than give even an iota to the government. And yes, I know how disgusting that sounds.
In the Delhi riots early this year, the government used data gathered from the national database to track and arrest protesters. Imagine what they could do if they could track your phones. At least Google is only selling me real estate ads (woefully inaccurate ones too) and not actively trying to imprison me or my family (bonus points if you're a minority).
People can be justifiably afraid of the government without doing anything wrong, especially if the government has a track record of abusing tools at its disposal, enforcing unjust laws, or failing to maintain a good balance of civil rights (such as to peaceful protest - not the same as rioting) needed in a healthy democracy.
I'll ask you the same question when the INC is the ruling party, if there's still a democracy to play around with at the time. It could be any party at the center - the result would be horrid.
If you're a tech entrepreneur, this should worry you regardless. Any industry that the Indian government meddles in eventually gets regulated to death. You have to pay bribes for X or Y license or permission.
The tech industry thrived precisely because there is little regulation.
If your apps have to go through the Indian government to be published, be prepared to pay bribes to pass through the regulatory hurdles and needless paperwork.
No Indian government in my living memory has worked to reduce regulations and compliance, including the current one.
The fact that you mentioned "paperwork" for an app store application sums up exactly how this whole mess will turn out. :)
This Indian government has certainly reduced regulations and compliance - if you're in the B club. I have a distant grand uncle and an uncle both in the B club. They were essentially waved through to set up shop in UP - even though they're Muslim, openly religious and practicing, and have literally been photographed very often inviting Rahul Gandhi and other Congress leaders to their homes right before elections.
Money talks. I mentioned in another comment on HN, that if you are in the B club, you're likely the one ordering the gangsters in the government.
I run a very small online business incorporated as a Pvt Ltd. There is more paperwork now than ever with GST. What's worse is that the regulations keep changing every few months. Tax rates change, deadlines change, exemption limits change. One of the most flawed and confusing taxes I've ever had the displeasure of dealing with.
I am just puzzled about one bit of this, why the hue and cry few days back about this. Don't Android App stores like the Amazon one already exist? What's stopping these devs to even distribute the apps themselves?
iOS is a different matter but Android has always allowed this. Not sure if they exist in India, but I have seen Android phones come with non Google App Store as well.
Yeah alternate app stores exist but when something like this is driven from a nation stare, the Indian govt will most likely mandate inclusion of their AppStore on Android and iOS. Once it is loaded on by default, you suddenly gain 800 million strong distribution channel. It would be a no-brainer for devs to put their app on the strore. The same case could not have been made for Amazon's and Samsung's store.
> Yeah alternate app stores exist but when something like this is driven from a nation stare, the Indian govt will most likely mandate inclusion of their AppStore on Android and iOS. Once it is loaded on by default, you suddenly gain 800 million strong distribution channel. It would be a no-brainer for devs to put their app on the strore.
What is the problem with this? If the device manufacturers don't want to preload the Indian Appstore then they can prevent sale of their devices in India. If they agree, and this is limited to India only, then what is the problem?
Putting apps on Samsung's Galaxy Store gives developers access to the 893 million Samsung smartphone users[1] who have the app installed by default, so an ever stronger case can be made for it than the government's proposed app store. Yet it does not have anywhere close to the same number of apps or devs.
I would say that the government is not the right institution to take this up. They should support secondary app stores, or legislate to force Apple and Google to make their stores more developer friendly. Getting involved in this business, goes against their own narrative. On one hand, we are privatizing state owned companies and on the other, we are taking up vanity projects which the tax payer has to fund. Do check up on our new government building, that no one apart from the powers that be asked for.
Also, this announcement very much coincided with an attempt from some of the major apps in introducing a form of sports betting (see IPL), which was thwarted by the very same Google and Apple, in line with the laws of our country. All over, it seems like American tech. giants are more pro-indian-consumer than our own government, which is tremendously dissappointing in and of itself.
The thing is, why would anyone voluntarily use a censored/restricted app store?
For Apple hell yes, maybe their government app store will be less anal than Apple is with their own app store, and e.g. allow other payment channels and allow embedding other rendering engines than Safari.
For Google though ... why wouldn't one just use the Google store instead? It's pretty open, and if their government's motive is to just create a subset of the Play store that doesn't have Chinese apps, why the hell would anyone use it?
And if the government is forcing the entire population to use its app store -- do they have the authority to do that? I thought India was a democracy with free speech.
I disagree. It's the quite opposite. So many popular apps don't even get a notice before getting banned, let alone small indie developers trying to get some users.
>> why the hell would anyone use it?
Not sure about others but I definetly don't want a US company to put nose in everything I do online. Plus I don't want to give a 30% cut for a regional app that I can publish on some local platform for local users. And I would rather deal with low quality apps than popular apps disappearing every now and then just because Google doesn't like them.
>> do they have the authority to do that?
Yes but it's not practical in country like India to enforce it. Free speech and what govt can regulate about internet are different things as far I've seen.
You're confused. India has a populist, nationalist authoritarian who will stop at nothing to remodel the country somewhere between China and Nazi Germany.
The Indian government can block all other app stores, require
app developers and mobile OSes install spyware SDKs and turn over data about their users, and ban encryption. Then, the "subversives," academics, and journalists can be rounded-up.
You are the one who is confused here with all the fear mongering. With such a huge democratic country like India with all the decades old entrenched power centres one doesn't get to power just by getting elected to office.
all vc-supported , with huge money. not exactly the "indie studie that made it big" type. But more importantly, those are a decade ago (and TikTok reportedly bought its users).
At this point it doesnt seem there is any potential for making a profitable app company, the profit would be to be acquired
You welcome nationalism, racism, xenophobia, control, censorship, fragmentation, and authoritarianism under some rhetorical nonsense about "competition" and "regulation?" Clear the earwax out of your eyes libertarian utopianist and wake the fuck up to what's happening in the world. Big Brother isn't a solution to inverted totalitarian corporate control of public commons, it's the beginning of the end of individual liberties that you clearly don't care about, all you see is hypothetical dollar signs/rupees and mission statements.
I welcome the idea that Apple should be required to allow third-party app stores, but the only end game I see with a government app store is a legally-mandated requirement to have that app store installed on all citizens'/residents' phones. At that point the phones just become extensions of the state's intelligence apparatus, and that's a net negative for everyone's privacy.
Apple should certainly allow alternative app stores, and Google should make it easier and safer for customers to install alternative app stores, but I never want to see governments get into that market.
To outsiders, it's a democracy because they've been told that.
To Modi bhakts it's a democracy because they are in power.
To regular people, it's very clear it's a democracy like Russia is a democracy. The govt pays large amounts of people to misinform the populace online. The government uses martial law to impose Internet lockdown for over a year on any citizens who resist govt's crimes against them. There's no free press (check press freedom indices), without which democracy is in name only.
While I agree with parts of your comment, I don't think it is honest.
> The govt pays large amounts of people to misinform the populace online.
Are they using state apparatus to do that? Isn't this true in most parts of world now. The whole Brexit campaign was fueled by misinformation.
> There's no free press (check press freedom indices), without which democracy is in name only.
I have read a lot of outlets from India which are anti establishment. Though I definitely think the press freedoms are nowhere at the level of some countries.
> The government uses martial law to impose Internet lockdown for over a year on any citizens who resist govt's crimes against them.
I think this refers to Kashmir. While I don't support the restriction and definitely heavy handed and it wouldn't have been possible in say a country like US now. I think you are triviliazing the situation when you think all the "resistance" is against government crimes.
China would be a good example to predict what would happen. Since it bans Google, there are 11 Android app stores has >1% market share [1], most are from tech giants(e.g. Tencent), mobile operator(e.g. China Mobile) and phone manufacturers(e.g. Huawei). When Apple opens the gate for 3p App Store, it's safe to bet another 5~10 stores.
Maybe not every country will have as many app stores as China, but still that's gonna be a nightmare for developers (especially small developers) to manage.
Push notification might be another nightmare to watch out for consumers. When China bans Google service, app developers have freedom to implement push themselves or via a 3rd party vendor. And I guess if forced to open, Apple won't support non AppStore push either, hence consumers may end up with Facebook/Google/Epic/Tencent/YouNameWho have their push services running and connected on their phones with a burning battery.
I am glad that this will force a hard stop on Google's and Apple's monopoly on App stores and force them to be more competitive. India is too big a market for Google to walk away from - especially after they had to walk away from China.
However, it is entirely like that the Modi govt is probably trying to find a way to backdoor all phones in India through this. So thats bad.
It seems most people are arguing that the only alternative to 2 app stores is a large number of app stores. But what if the alternative is no app stores? Anyone can install whatever software they want on their device from wherever they want it. Just like it works for desktops. The need for app stores is an artificially created need (by the marketing brilliance of Jobs).
I would argue that an App Store, on mobile has helped avoid virus, and malware on phones, unlike how Windows was able to contain it. Having a trusted App Store by a company, who understands security, and has a financial backing to commit to a secure system, is beneficial all the way down.
Yeah, an App Store is in no way an artificial need. There’s a reason fortnite is on the Google Play store even when they had the option of only installing through other methods.
For non-savvy users it mostly solves the “evaluating installer maliciousness” problem. For all users it enhances convenience (unified method for installing and uninstalling software) and software discovery. It is not a perfect solution to any of the above problems, but IMO it’s very good.
In the absence of Google Play, uninstalling software would be in the same place -> settings / apps / needless tap to see all the apps / the app / uninstall. Installing would be download the apk and open it which works today, although you generally have to set a setting somewhere.
There's certainly a discovery benefit to Google Play, but anybody could build an app discovery site and make an app from that with an embedded browser, open the downloaded apks with the system intent and get the permissions prompt etc. You don't even need the special app management permission if you embrace the system tools that are already there. You would lose automatic updates without that though (but then, a lot of people in India have auto-updates off to conserve bandwidth or storage space).
Google play certainly does some small curation function, but I don't know how useful that is, and you could still have Google Play services running background scans and malware blacklists.
The App Store is an app delivery mechanism. The same application sandboxing, API access restrictions etc. can all apply even if they allow sideloading. In fact that's already possible today through their enterprise deployment program.
And believe it or not a Store does not have much to do with covering your ass when it comes to malware. There is the same security check on mac regardless where the application comes from (its done at the OS level) The only thing the App Store does is verify the developer because they have to be resisted with Apple (and makes sure Apple gets that 30 cut). Mac already does that btw (you actually cant download an app from an unknown developer by default) unless you choose to in the settings.
"Anyone can install whatever software they want on their device from wherever they want it."
This is the current situation on Android. It is similar to macOS or Windows. It comes with a store but users are free to install apps from whatever source they like.
>But what if the alternative is no app stores? Anyone can install whatever software they want on their device from wherever they want it
There was already an open, accessible, free app store called - 'Internet Browser' upon which Internet was built. These companies undermined it in collusion with the duopolies to hoard more data from their customers and are now crying wolf.
Do you mean web apps? Today they are powerful, but in 2008 browsers based web apps could not have access to a lot of things native apps could, I think, so native was inevitable, hence the AppStore.
The real problem with app stores is that selling your software direct to the user is a solved problem. In many casees the e-commerce platform you use to sell your own software
is better than the app stores for the seller (and in many cases the buyer). There really isn't much value until you start bundling the developer tools and libraries. Most of those libraries are derivative or are open source. So developers are trading no real (sorry but Apple's $100 is de minimus) up front costs for a percentage fee paid by the customer at each sale. This is probably optimal for small teams and solo devs...
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1) The issue is that Google is attacking competitors using the App Store as a weapon
Google Pay is one of the biggest payment apps in India
It attacked PayTm, another very big payment app, by making its app disappear
2) So lots of Indian companies are using it as an opportunity to do BOTH
A) Point out Google attacking competitors
B) Google taking 30% cut is unsustainable
*
Now, in INdia Android has 95% market share
So Apple gets a free pass by virtue of being so tiny in India
They have fantasy cricket now which is definitely gambling and my dad is getting spammed with messages that look exactly like scams. I am glad they removed it even if just for a few hours. They didn't comply after being requested to multiple times.
Justifying it as cashback can be used for almost anything in the way they have done.
I must've missed this, because this was my number 1 reason to avoid Apple products. Not that I'd buy any, reasons 2 through 10 are still deal breakers.
I know plenty of my Indian colleagues who buy and bring home Apple devices for their friends and family. People will just start smuggling the devices in if they have to.
1. https://tech.hindustantimes.com/tech/news/apple-india-s-reve...
2. https://www.statista.com/statistics/265125/total-net-sales-o...
The most popular phones sold in India are low-midrange devices in the USD $80-400 range. It'll take quite a push from both the public and Apple to bring sentiment to a situation where Apple products have appeal. As it stands I'm not sure the demand will ever be there.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/10/corporations-not-coun...
The raw data appears to be here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12Jdgaz_qGg5o0m_6NCU_...
And it seems that India just barely beats Apple on the list. But it makes clear that most countries have less revenue than the largest companies.
I don’t think it’ll work. But I don’t think asking Apple nicely would work for a single second either.
Sigh!
When OEMs install Google service and other apps required to install Play store, they need a license from Google.
Look at custom ROMs not bundling Gapps (Google apps) because they do not have the license from Google to pre-install and ask you to install from open gapps.
iOS on the other hand is slightly difficult to sideload apps compared to Android. Not too optimistic about an alternative App Store on iOS.
[0] https://www.getjar.com/
From the perspective of the Indian government that is exactly what is wrong with Getjar.
That would be such a big victory.
Personally I would not complain about the bureaucratic overhead.
0: https://youtu.be/4AivEQmfPpk
(Disclosure: I work for Google, speaking only for myself)
By which you mean, pissing off power users?
Or as Google puts it in equally bullshit terms:
> They allow your users to opt-in to timely updates and allow you to effectively re-engage users with customized content.
Which countries partake in this supposed free and open web? None.
There are dozens of separately regulated prominent webs now and that's going to get a lot worse this decade. We're never going back, nations are not going to give up the control they're assuming, it will splinter further and further; complexity will grow, accessing foreign markets will become more onerous. It'll gradually fully mirror the physical world, where if you want to travel to another nation, or do business in another nation (access their market), you will have to comply with all of their myriad of local regulations (which will continue to grow rapidly in number and complexity).
Nations will fence off their citizens online, and you will have to comply to access them. We're already seeing this directional shift in many nations, it will spread comprehensively.
Turkey's web is not regulated the same as India's web which is not regulated the same as China's web which is not regulated the same as the EU's web which is not regulated the same as Brazil's web which is not regulated the same as Australia's web which is not regulated the same as the US web which is not regulated the same as Britain's web and so on.
But I'm far from an expert. What would be the benefit of a non-pw app?
* They're way faster and less janky.
* You don't to use endless workarounds to disable typical web behaviour when you don't want it.
PWAs are probably suitable for basic apps that just display information, e.g. an app for an event, or a pub or whatever. You would be insane to try and make a "real" app like Snapchat or Google Maps as a PWA though.
That said, I don't think PWAs have a good way to get background data updates, which is unfortunate for apps that could work offline. You can't do a silent push to update data, last I checked, anyway. (Use case: I want a weather app that has current/recent data without loading when I start the app, because I often start the app in dead zones; also I want to have it background fetch the data when my location changes).
It was also slower to write for me, but I've never had a good time understanding UI toolkits, so I assume that's my own character flaw.
A similar HTML layout shows up a ton faster in Chrome or a webview.
That’s exactly what I want!
I also struggle to think of a scenario in which you wouldn’t want your app published on all app stores (unless you for moral reasons wouldn’t want your app on Chinese-owned stores or something like that).
I want more competition in app stores, I want places where adult applications can be distributed which is completely impossible at the moment. I want app stores that offer different models than what Apple and google do. I want Apple to have to improve their developer experience because of competition (the google play store is way simpler to deal with in my experience). Etc.
And you’re right, it’s a pain to deal with them.
Or more realistically, it means developers will have to start paying for a middle man saas thing that distributes apps in all the stores and aggregates reviews etc.
Can it be just because of the difference in disposable income in the countries? I don't know any reliable metric for income but the GDP per capita of PRC is five times that of India. The quench for luxurious goods comes with rising income.
> India has different politics
What do you mean? It's more inequitable than China and has more political capture by private actors, but I don't see why the same couldn't occur in India.
"Narendra Modi ‘wants state apps installed’ on new phones"
Source: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/narendra-modi-wants-state...
> India is said to be considering a plan to make it mandatory for almost all new mobile phones to have government software pre-installed, raising the prospect of the state being able to closely monitor citizens.
But I definitely agree on the point about Google Play Services. For a platform that is often touted as being open, Android isn't quite Android without Play Services, and that wouldn't be the case if Google wasn't systematically ensuring that specific outcome.
It's mentioned in the article that apps won't be charged for gatekeeping.
GetJar - sold to Chinese
PayTM - Chinese shareholder
Flipcart - Chinese shareholder
Zomato, swiggy, + 10+ others online delivery/logistics apps. Some used to be reskins of Chinese apps. Some only have Indian C-levels.
20 something messengers - all except FB, and Twiter are Chinese
...
I believe they quickly realised that to ban Chinese apps, they have to ban a lion share of apps in daily use, and here this app store comes.
---
P.S. As I understand, a huge amount of Android phones in the third world doesn't have Google App store pre-installed, as manufacturers don't bother to go through arduous Google certification for low end phones, or provide OTA updates. This is why things like GetJar are still a thing there.
Flipkart, Zomato, Swiggy are Indian companies with apps completely developed in India. Walmart has a major shareholding stake in Flipkart since a few years now.
PayTM is also fully developed and operated in India, but yes, it does have Alibaba backing it. However, it was not at all considered for an app ban. If at all, many cash less policies by government are aimed to help it to move the country to digital payments.
No, there are not 20 something messengers. There is one mainly used messenger called WhatsApp.
Yes, there were a few Chinese apps / chinese owned apps, widely popular. They were PubG, TikTok and UC browser. All of them were fungible, and have been banned.
Also, no, Indian Android phones are not "cheap third world phones without Google App Store pre-installed". A lot of them do come in the 150$-300$ price range, but all of them have fully certified Android, passing VTS. In the 100s of phones I have seen, I haven't seen a single such phone. There are some phones (JioPhones) which do exist, but they are built on KaiOS which is a fork of Firefox OS. They obviously don't have Play Store installed.
Also you have really funny spelling skills.
Uncalled for.
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
That seems a bit uncalled for.
AFAIK Flipkart is actually not an Indian company. It is registered in Singapore.
https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Flipkart-registered-in-Singapor...
Given the poor grammar of your comment, I’d remind you that kids in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones
I think you may want to take your own advice first because you didn't write a complete sentence either. And, it's "those who live in" because others will throw stones back at theirs. I don't know where these kids came from, but they're not part of this idiom. I wish you better luck next time in the teachable moment department.
Can you point out what was wrong with OPs post? I'm a native English speaker, got a perfect score on the SAT English tests, and I don't really see any spelling errors beyond typoing Twitter as Twiter.
Of course there's a risk of easier distribution of state-sponsored Malware and censorship - somewhat similar to state-level DPI - but there could be an advantage in enforcing local laws.
As it stands, software distribution to european mobile clients seems to be restricted by:
Independent App Stores could probably help with at least the first, if not the second point one as well. At least from a governments perspective.For Free Software Users, https://f-droid.org/en/ is course preferable. Seems to be registered in the UK according to https://f-droid.org/en/about/
https://reclaimthenet.org/f-droid-bans-gab-app/
> F-Droid is taking a political stance here
I do not want any App Store to be taking political stances.
I don't think there is a clean separation between political and non-political when you're choosing whether to accept or deny apps to an app store.
[1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
[2] https://f-droid.org/en/docs/Inclusion_Policy/
[3] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/moe.feng.nhentai/
an app store would allow them to inject RAT into every app thus giving them the ability to spy on every indian device
If the idea was to help citizens, laws or regulations to stop said practices would be better, not that I agree with it.
But thats not the idea, they see Google's power and they want in.
Can you imagine thinking a government having all your data is better than a corporation?
People have forgotten the governments were the perpetrators of the worst thing in human history.
No corporation has rounded up people to be shot like governments did.
Governments have been killing people since their beginning and probably as we speak.
As have corporations.
governments do that and much worse.
Right now there are people in concentration camps.
I get that corporations can be bad, but they don’t have the monopoly on violence.
To conflate corporation’s violence with governments is a stretch.
It’s funny that people point at corporations being bad, while at the same time defending the worse offender.
I think people can be bad, and having a power form corporations make it worse, but the power government gives to terrible people is much worse.
* edited would with wouldn’t
It will be messy, it will open oportunities to corruption, lobbying, crappy user experiences, unsafe apps, government abuse, nationalism, ... it is really a Pandora box.
But mess can be a fertile ground for competition and innovation when excessive regulation blocks it.
Today's app stores are just feature development labs for Apple & Google. There is no chance that anyone will be able to create a big business within any app store and keep Apple or Google out. Just ask big players as Steam, Facebook and Microsoft how they feel about Google's and Apple's stores.
If you're in the apps development business then you're just looking for golden opportunities for Apple/Google and being very badly payed for that.
Indian Government being arbiter of the app ecosystem on a phone and pre installing apps? Ominous vibes. Good luck with your desire for competition and innovation.
[1] - https://www.timesnownews.com/business-economy/industry/artic...
In the Delhi riots early this year, the government used data gathered from the national database to track and arrest protesters. Imagine what they could do if they could track your phones. At least Google is only selling me real estate ads (woefully inaccurate ones too) and not actively trying to imprison me or my family (bonus points if you're a minority).
People can be justifiably afraid of the government without doing anything wrong, especially if the government has a track record of abusing tools at its disposal, enforcing unjust laws, or failing to maintain a good balance of civil rights (such as to peaceful protest - not the same as rioting) needed in a healthy democracy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument
Nor can they use ignorance as an excuse - they're Indian.
The tech industry thrived precisely because there is little regulation.
If your apps have to go through the Indian government to be published, be prepared to pay bribes to pass through the regulatory hurdles and needless paperwork.
No Indian government in my living memory has worked to reduce regulations and compliance, including the current one.
This Indian government has certainly reduced regulations and compliance - if you're in the B club. I have a distant grand uncle and an uncle both in the B club. They were essentially waved through to set up shop in UP - even though they're Muslim, openly religious and practicing, and have literally been photographed very often inviting Rahul Gandhi and other Congress leaders to their homes right before elections.
Money talks. I mentioned in another comment on HN, that if you are in the B club, you're likely the one ordering the gangsters in the government.
iOS is a different matter but Android has always allowed this. Not sure if they exist in India, but I have seen Android phones come with non Google App Store as well.
https://9to5mac.com/2020/08/17/indian-iphone-production-begi...
What is the problem with this? If the device manufacturers don't want to preload the Indian Appstore then they can prevent sale of their devices in India. If they agree, and this is limited to India only, then what is the problem?
1. https://www.forbes.com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2018/09/13/s...
They only collect a limited subset of taxes (VAT). The larger part of income is to the US and isn't taxed in India yet.
For Apple hell yes, maybe their government app store will be less anal than Apple is with their own app store, and e.g. allow other payment channels and allow embedding other rendering engines than Safari.
For Google though ... why wouldn't one just use the Google store instead? It's pretty open, and if their government's motive is to just create a subset of the Play store that doesn't have Chinese apps, why the hell would anyone use it?
And if the government is forcing the entire population to use its app store -- do they have the authority to do that? I thought India was a democracy with free speech.
I disagree. It's the quite opposite. So many popular apps don't even get a notice before getting banned, let alone small indie developers trying to get some users.
>> why the hell would anyone use it?
Not sure about others but I definetly don't want a US company to put nose in everything I do online. Plus I don't want to give a 30% cut for a regional app that I can publish on some local platform for local users. And I would rather deal with low quality apps than popular apps disappearing every now and then just because Google doesn't like them.
>> do they have the authority to do that?
Yes but it's not practical in country like India to enforce it. Free speech and what govt can regulate about internet are different things as far I've seen.
The First Amendment is radically unprecedented and unique, in its text, judicial upholding and cultural backing.
While India technically has freedoms of speech, in practice it is heavily regulated [1].
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_expression_in_Ind...
The Indian government can block all other app stores, require app developers and mobile OSes install spyware SDKs and turn over data about their users, and ban encryption. Then, the "subversives," academics, and journalists can be rounded-up.
Do you have any good examples where you think innovation has been stifled on the play store? (Apple's app store aside)
examples?
At this point it doesnt seem there is any potential for making a profitable app company, the profit would be to be acquired
Apple should certainly allow alternative app stores, and Google should make it easier and safer for customers to install alternative app stores, but I never want to see governments get into that market.
While I don't like censorship of any form, if that violates Play Store or AppStore's TOS, the violating app would get removed.
https://daliaresearch.com/blog/democracy-perception-index-20...
To Modi bhakts it's a democracy because they are in power.
To regular people, it's very clear it's a democracy like Russia is a democracy. The govt pays large amounts of people to misinform the populace online. The government uses martial law to impose Internet lockdown for over a year on any citizens who resist govt's crimes against them. There's no free press (check press freedom indices), without which democracy is in name only.
> The govt pays large amounts of people to misinform the populace online.
Are they using state apparatus to do that? Isn't this true in most parts of world now. The whole Brexit campaign was fueled by misinformation.
> There's no free press (check press freedom indices), without which democracy is in name only.
I have read a lot of outlets from India which are anti establishment. Though I definitely think the press freedoms are nowhere at the level of some countries.
> The government uses martial law to impose Internet lockdown for over a year on any citizens who resist govt's crimes against them.
I think this refers to Kashmir. While I don't support the restriction and definitely heavy handed and it wouldn't have been possible in say a country like US now. I think you are triviliazing the situation when you think all the "resistance" is against government crimes.
They will strictly block everything they don’t like. I have a bad feeling about it
Maybe not every country will have as many app stores as China, but still that's gonna be a nightmare for developers (especially small developers) to manage.
Push notification might be another nightmare to watch out for consumers. When China bans Google service, app developers have freedom to implement push themselves or via a 3rd party vendor. And I guess if forced to open, Apple won't support non AppStore push either, hence consumers may end up with Facebook/Google/Epic/Tencent/YouNameWho have their push services running and connected on their phones with a burning battery.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1058612/china-android-ap...
However, it is entirely like that the Modi govt is probably trying to find a way to backdoor all phones in India through this. So thats bad.
For non-savvy users it mostly solves the “evaluating installer maliciousness” problem. For all users it enhances convenience (unified method for installing and uninstalling software) and software discovery. It is not a perfect solution to any of the above problems, but IMO it’s very good.
There's certainly a discovery benefit to Google Play, but anybody could build an app discovery site and make an app from that with an embedded browser, open the downloaded apks with the system intent and get the permissions prompt etc. You don't even need the special app management permission if you embrace the system tools that are already there. You would lose automatic updates without that though (but then, a lot of people in India have auto-updates off to conserve bandwidth or storage space).
Google play certainly does some small curation function, but I don't know how useful that is, and you could still have Google Play services running background scans and malware blacklists.
Not sure if this stands true for the current Indian government.
And believe it or not a Store does not have much to do with covering your ass when it comes to malware. There is the same security check on mac regardless where the application comes from (its done at the OS level) The only thing the App Store does is verify the developer because they have to be resisted with Apple (and makes sure Apple gets that 30 cut). Mac already does that btw (you actually cant download an app from an unknown developer by default) unless you choose to in the settings.
This is the current situation on Android. It is similar to macOS or Windows. It comes with a store but users are free to install apps from whatever source they like.
There was already an open, accessible, free app store called - 'Internet Browser' upon which Internet was built. These companies undermined it in collusion with the duopolies to hoard more data from their customers and are now crying wolf.
That's my point here -
>in collusion with the duopolies to hoard more data from their customers