I like how quickly they were ready for this, it’s like they knew it was coming lol.
My question is how is apple getting away with it while google has to open the store? Both apple and google have strong armed their partners just as much or if not more than microsoft did in the 90’s.
Apple is still able to claim their store is on their devices much like the consoles. Google doesn’t own the Android phones out there as they are made by different companies so it makes no sense why their store is able to dictate on another company’s hardware. I think if other companies were using ios on their hardware it would be much easier for the courts to intercede.
This makes the Xbox app more like Steam. To me it’s looking more like Microsoft would just migrate the Xbox console to the Xbox app fully making it a digital platform.
It’s because Google shot themselves in the foot. At first, they were like the Windows of mobile OS’s, semi open and allowed 3rd parties to do their own thing, including their own app stores.
Then came Amazon and Samsung with their app stores and they realised they had to wall their gardens to stop bleeding revenue. They restricted android so you couldn’t fork it like Amazons fire OS, made deals with phone manufacturers for Google search bar and mandated google apps.
In essence they were open at first and then made changes and deals to make android closed so they could solely enjoy the benefits of software sales and data. Apple was closed from the beginning to its harder to force them to change, but it will happen at some point.
but even then, Apple is closed on their own hardware, it’s crazy to wall of your OS on another’s hardware.