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Comment by chipgap98 | Hacker News Reader

> creating an unnecessary risk for Android users in order to score cheap PR points

This seems like an accurate take. Why else would google disclose the bug so quickly?

Google seems in the right here. The disclosure was in line with their policy and I'm sure it made management feel oh so good to burn Fortnite in public for their decision to forego distribution in the Play Store.

But here's my personal take. As a consumer I want my phones to run secure apps on secure operating systems. This has a cost obviously which is fair to pass on to developers.

It's clear to me, with all the rogue apps and crap in the Play Store that Google is not investing enough in managing app store content.

Fortnite won this battle but in my book Apple will win the war.

Part of the point here is that you can run a secure store with quality controlled apps by charging companies to appear in the App Store.

That charge cannot POSSIBLY be 30% of sales. Not least because the cost of checking the apps that go into the App store is not in any way related to the revenue the app generates.

The charges for appearing in the store come from Google (a monopoly in the smartphone market in most places) rent-seeking.

You mean google? You're right though, Google does a crap job auditing the playstore. It's ludicrous how they'll allow apps get access to everything on the phone without any kind of serious warning to the user.

My kids install all sorts of crap. I've warned them that all their texts and photos will end up on the internet because of it. Not highly probable, but certainly possible. Makes for a useful double check they're not texting anything silly.

>> It's clear to me, with all the rogue apps and crap in the Play Store that Google is not investing enough in managing app store content. >> >> Fortnite won this battle but in my book Apple will win the war.

> You mean google?

He's saying that Apple, is doing a much better job of "managing app store content" than Google, and so ultimately it doesn't matter if Fortnite or Apple wins this battle: they're fighting over a mound of rubble while Apple builds a castle.

> they're fighting over a mound of rubble while Apple builds a castle

It doesn't matter. Apple doesn't win in the end.

In the other Apple vs mound of rubble fight (Windows), Apple lost.

Android is doing the same thing. Android 4.0 was Windows 3.1 (first Android version to be "modern", IMO), Android 5.0 was Windows 95 (better UX). Android now just needs Windows XP to be stable enough (I'd argue Android 8.0 was that) and Windows 7 to cover the security aspects (most likely wide spread adoption of new Android permissions). But the writing is kind of on the wall, outside the US Android has majority market share and it's only going up.

Would Apple's walled garden make more sense for more vulnerable users?

Google usually gives you 90 days for coordinated disclosure but if you deploy a patch to fix it, the disclosure happens earlier. Epic still requested the full 90 days and Google disagreed: https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/112630336

Because a week had elapsed since the batch became broadly available. Epic is missing a way to push out updates, so they wanted more time.

Google has very public disclosure deadlines that they followed in this case. The patch was out, Google told people to update.

Alternatively, Google could of let users continue running unpatched software until the 90 days expired...

To reinforce the idea that the only way to safely get apps on Android is through it's store.

"Safely".

https://venturebeat.com/2018/01/30/google-play-removed-70000...

Note that is not the same thing as "get safe apps" - just that the app hasn't been tampered with between the publisher and you. There seems to be a lot of spyware on the Play store still (or whatever it's called this week).

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