This actually is an issue on Android. There's the Samsung store for example, where I have to create yet another account just to get my internal phone apps updated. Same shit with Xiaomi and Huawei.
I mean apps like Camera, Calculator, Contacts... Not bloatware. They are much better than the AOSP defaults (on Samsung).
I don't see how it's so different. App vendor is forcing me to use an alternative app store that I don't want to use, don't trust and don't want to share my data with - the same thing.
I think Apple should be forced to allow sideloading, but forcing them to allow alternative appstores to integrate into the OS seems like a road to security/privacy and UX hell to me. I always saw single App Store as the better thing - finally someone learned from the Linux Desktop lessons.
Fair. That does suck that these OEMs gate essential apps like that. I didn't know that those are actually ever preferable to AOSP or Play Store equivalents. But again, hard to see how this situation could apply to iOS, regulators aren't going to force Apple to license it out to other phone manufacturers.
It's not going to happen with Contacts and Camera, but why wouldn't it happen with Adobe Reader, MS Office, Avast antivirus, etc?
And yes, the Samsung apps are miles ahead. Fast, no ads, low resource consumption, small sizes, great UX and nice UI design. Nothing in Play store comes even close, and I tried practically everything. Play store is a catastrophe in terms of app quality, you can't find even a decent calculator there.
> why wouldn't it happen with Adobe Reader, MS Office, Avast antivirus, etc?
I don't believe it's possible, partly because already on Android you don't see Adobe or Microsoft starting their app stores. On iOS it would be even more difficult, because the sheer overwhelming amount of users already find the App Store to be good enough, and I simply don't see those other companies as competent enough from a product perspective to entice users over to their own third party app stores (as I discuss in detail elsewhere in my comments).
Play store has much less demands on your app UX, much easier and faster review process, takes much smaller fee and doesn't claim any earnings out of the platform and the OS isn't locked down too much. It's not 1:1 comparable. There's not a big good reason to do it on Android, there are many on iOS.
Still, you would think they would've done it as a trial run. You really believe Facebook likes Google and they're not competitors? If they were interested and committed in running their own app stores, they would have tried it already. Facebook is simply not good at running their own app ecosystem, see the collapse of Facebook Apps as a platform.
I don't think it's going to be a real App Store anyways. It's going to be updater for their own apps - one without fees, reviews, UX demands and API restrictions, just like Play store.
Facebook doesn't care about Play store on Android. They have deals with most operators on the planet to preinstall their app and Play store is a nice updater only. A user never installs Facebook, it's already there.
I think you're onto something with the installer idea. Curious to think how it would work technically and UX-wise on iOS. Maybe users go to Facebook's mobile website to download the installer's binary. (Apple would probably just ban apps that are just installers for unreviewed apps, so Meta couldn't host the installer there.) Interesting to imagine how'd that go for them, as going through a webpage does complicate things for casual users. (And savvy users who might be turned off by it.)
Makes me wonder too if Apple might end up enforcing indirect app review outside of the App Store. They could bundle the iOS equivalent to Microsoft Defender, basically Apple's built-in security tool. It could mark binaries found in the wild as unsafe if Apple discovered them to be misusing permissions or to be malware. If iOS apps can just be sideloaded, they should still be inspectable...
Again, I don't believe they are capable from a business/product perspective of luring customers into their stores. And if they try to force customers, they will have to deal with both angry users and regulators.
Eh, so regulators explicitly force a platform to open up, and then they will go after people making use of that just in spirit of the law? That seems super weird to me, much weirder than the opposite - that MS/FB/Google stores are being planned right now during the celebration party thrown because of this regulation.
I don't think regulators will allow Facebook to take crucial apps like WhatsApp away from the main App Store. That seems like an act of monopolistic power and overreach as well. We're not talking about a simple Contacts app here, of which there are innumerable alternatives on the main store. And even if they did allow it, they would immediately probe Meta's third party app store, because are already concerned with privacy violations and data collection.
> MS/FB/Google stores are being planned right now during the celebration party thrown because of this regulation.
I hope they are getting their PR team ready too with mea culpas once a vengeful public backlashes against third party exclusivity.
I don't see how regulators could forbid them without making a joke out of themselves. The whole point was to let apps choose - there are dozens of legit points Big Tech can claim as the reason. From fees to UX demands to review process too expensive to supporting banned (but otherwise legit) functionalities.
The whole point was to rein in Big Tech, and to protect consumers. Facebook or other companies forcing exclusivity into shady third party stores to suck up user data does not follow the spirit of these antitrust actions. I don't think regulators will just accept them doing that at face value. At the very least, the public outcry of "where's my Instagram?! Why do I have to sign up for this new thing?" will force some sort of inquiry.
Ultimately I have faith that both the public and public institutions will do the right thing, and that we shouldn't put all of our trust into one private corporation to check the power of other private corporations.
