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Andrex

Do I have this straight?

Apple: no sideloading

Google: yes sideloading

Apple: no alternate app stores

Google: OS-native APIs for facilitating third-party app stores

Apple: no monopoly

Google: yes monopoly

Just wondering if I have this straight.

Edit-

> And it was all decided by a jury, unlike the Apple ruling.

Oh, OK.

Google will take this to SCOTUS, and their record there (The Author's Guild, Oracle) is pretty good. This is far from over.

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You're missing:

Apple: iOS only on iPhone. No way to get one without the other.

Google: Android is open source and everyone can build their own hardware. Play Store is optional for manufacturers.

> Play Store is optional for manufacturers.

Wouldn't that make it less of a monopoly then?

Not when you're paying for it to be non-optional.

Somebody else could pay them to put their store on? I don't understand. The fact that you get to make a deal for money seems strictly more free-market than the alternative.

As someone living in a third world country and seeing that happening in many sectors, it's the second quickest way to market degeneration (the first is straight up threats of violence).

You really do not want people paying to block competition from arising.

You would rather have them block competition without paying? I really don't understand.

Or are you saying the iPhone app store has competition?

Google pays for the OEM to pre-install the Google Play store, not for them to disallow alternative stores. "Paying for it to be non-optional" is a bit misleading. Users always have the option.

IIRC, manufacturers are required to install Play Services on either all of their devices or none of them. That's a pretty important anti-competitive bit.

So by enabling dozens of hardware companies to literally exist and make a ton of money, they are a monopoly? So they're being punished for being open and sharing their OS with others?

Nope, it's for blocking others to create alternative play stores on non-google devices.

So Google is free to block third party App Stores on a Pixel?

Epic agreed to no jury trial in the Apple case. They requested one for this Google case. I imagine they knew the battle against Apple was a much bigger hill given the lack of any evidence of direct harm to Epic, besides in the payment processors argument (which Epic won).

No, I think your reasons would be motivators for Epic to have insisted on a jury trial against Apple. I think the real reason is Epic’s lawyers thought the average American jury member would be more sympathetic to Apple than to Google.

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