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Comment by hb3b | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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?

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