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Comment by 0xmohit | Hacker News Reader

The government of India is making it mandatory for all new smartphones to be sold in India post lifting of the lockdown to not just have the app as a pre-installed service, but also ensure that individuals register on it and set it up, before beginning to use their new smartphones.

Source: Aarogya Setu Registration Will be Mandatory to Setup New Phone: Govt Sources

https://www.news18.com/news/tech/aarogya-setu-registration-w...

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I hope Apple will continue to win in the fight to keep third-party bloatware off iPhones, like they did versus AT&T when it first came out.

I don't have much hope even as an Apple user. Apple will bend over because it has done so before in case of China. Apple will be in no mood to let go of the huge inroads it has made into the Indian smartphone market in the past one year.

How does this work with Apple phones? Will apple make set up of their phones dependent on installing government spyware first? How do they handle this in China?

And does this mean that android permissions no longer work? What if people just make location and gps unavailable to the app after installation?

> How do they handle this in China

Surprisingly (depending the depth of your understanding of China), Apple phones come out with no extra apps installed.

The phone number on the other hand is tied under your name. You would need an ID to get a phone number and/or sim card, so there's that.

Apple was already in a fight with India about app store approval of government-developed apps.

> The government of India is making it mandatory for all new smartphones to be sold in India post lifting of the lockdown to not just have the app as a pre-installed service, but also ensure that individuals register on it and set it up, before beginning to use their new smartphones

That's abhorrent on a number of levels. Almost certainly won't work either.

No primary source listed in that news report, which makes the news highly suspect. Preinstall after pandemic would be easily challenged in courts. Govt can get away with it now because of epidemic emergency laws.

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