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Comment by stephc_int13 | Hacker News Reader

Having false choices (App store vs Google Play) is typical of a really bad monopoly situation.

I really hope to see them broken down, as I am pretty sure that we’ll all regret it if we let those giants left untouched.

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One major difference is that with an Apple device, they practically control the platform unless you are willing to take the risk and jailbreak - provided that your device is jailbreakable. With Google, you can at least install an external app or even connect an external app store like F-Droid (surprisingly, with time it looks better and better than the official Play Store).

You will of course still have Google insist asking to enable "Google Play Protection" with every app you install or update, without the possibility to reject it entirely.

If you accept, they'll never ask you again. You're only option to reject is "not now".

Distributing apps outside the Play store isn't really viable currently even though you can technically do it because there's no way to automatically update them. They are apparently fixing that in Android 12 but I seriously doubt they would have without Epic.

As much as like F-Droid, it is only for open-source apps, isn't it? However, the majority of apps is still closed source. I would like to see an alternative android app store, which can also serve closed-source apps.

Another problem is a missing alternative to Google Mobile Services (GMS), which are installed on virtually all android devices. For example, if you need push notifications or in-app purchases you are dependent on them as well.

IMO, it is the widespread distribution of GMS (and a lack of alternatives thereof) that make google a quasi monopoly.

> I would like to see an alternative android app store, which can also serve closed-source apps

Don't Amazon, Samsung and Huawei have their Android app stores, for any app?

Yes, you are right. The real problem is the ubiquity of Google Mobile Services (GMS) though, rather than the app store itself. For example, GMS are pre-installed on all Samsung devices, but Samsung's equivalent is not installed on all Google devices.

This means, that everyone will still use Google Play for in-app purchases out of convenience.

Neither Amazon nor Huawei is selling devices with Google Play Services right now. Both have their own alternatives to Google Play Services. Amazon offers an unnamed collection of APIs (the push notification one is called Amazon Device Messaging) for its Fire devices, and Huawei offers Huawei Mobile Services.

Amazon Device Messaging: https://developer.amazon.com/docs/adm/overview.html

Huawei Mobile Services: https://developer.huawei.com/consumer/en/hms

For Huawei this has only been true since the US-china trade wars. There are still a ton of Huawei devices with GMS pre-installed.

A service like GMS would be important for Samsung, too, as there are quite some Samsung devices out there. However, with GMS pre-installed on all Samsung devices, the Samsung Galaxy Store is completely useless as everybody and his brother will use Google Play for app and in-app purchases.

I think this is being less straightforward, although the developer community has been creative since the get go.

What about the Amazon App Store? When I had Android years go the Amazon was rather abysmal but usable.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/mas/get/amazonapp

Currently, there are four (more or less relevant) android app stores as far as I know:

- Google Play

- Huawei AppGallery

- Samsung Galaxy Store

- Amazon AppStore

But Google Mobile Services (GMS) are so widely spread and often pre-installed on the devices that there is no real competition for Google.

Currently, the most promising alternatives for GMS are:

- Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) [1]: more widely used now because GMS was banned from Huawei devices since US-China trade wars

- Amazon + Microsoft [2, 3, 4]: Microsoft is planning to serve android apps in Windows Store with Windows 11 in cooperation with Amazon

[1] Huawei Mobile Services: https://developer.huawei.com/consumer/en/hms

[2] Amazon in-app purchases: https://developer.amazon.com/docs/in-app-purchasing/iap-over...

[3] Amazon push notifications: https://developer.amazon.com/docs/adm/overview.html

[4] Windows 11 and android support: https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/24/22548428/microsoft-window...

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