It doesn't, although Epic simultaneously sued Apple over this in a separate suit. Their arguments against Google and Apple were different, and in the Apple case the judge sided with Apple on practically every count.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games_v._Apple

Notably, the one aspect that was not ruled in Apple's favor was their "anti-steering" policy, which prohibited developers from informing users about different app stores or payment methods within an iOS app. The crux of the ruling boiled down to Apple not having a monopoly over the smartphone market or mobile gaming in general since people can "just" go out and buy an Android device and do business with Google instead (while avoiding mention that Google has near identical policies re: the Play store and takes the same cut of a developer's revenue).

Needless to say, pretty much every sane person on Earth plus a pretty wide spread of other tech companies can clearly see that the ruling in the Epic v. Apple case was complete bullshit, especially in light of this ruling in the Google one.

You've always been able to side load apps you are correct.

However, this is not what Google wants. Over the years, Google has started to enforce more restrictions on third-party applications. They've been slowly making these options more difficult to find in the settings of certain OEMs. Just because they give you the freedom, doesn't always mean they care.

But yes you are correct that Apples monopoly on their app store is way worse. But Google would absolutely remove more user choice settings if certain things like the GPL didn't stand in the way of the Android OS.

If Android had never been open-sourced, they would absolutely not have any options for third party installations mark my words.

They only thing standing in their way is Linux and the GPL.

Google is just as malicious as Apple. They are just better at hiding it.

Here’s a comment from yesterday that explains it much better than I could. Quick and dirty tldr is that this has nothing to do with consumer impact, it’s like a business to business thing.

https://lemmy.world/comment/11794585

Side question, is anyone aware of how to properly link comments on lemmy? I know I can link communities with !technology@lemmy.world and users with @borari@lemmy.dbzer0.com, but I’ve just realized I have no idea how to post instance agnostic links to comments or posts.

Apple is also being sued by the DOJ for having a monopoly.

When Google Play services is required from many devices to operate, I'm not sure it matters where you get the apk from

Moar!

All marketplaces should be nationalized. App store, Amazon, food delivery apps. They are inherently anti-free market.

For what it’s worth, both Android and iOS are vulnerable to zero click RCEs, see NSO Group and their Pegasus spyware.

One of the reasons we don’t really have zombie phones in botnet swarms is because selling the RCE on the grey market is way more lucrative than burning it to infect some devices for a botnet since phones are way more attractive targets than computers if you’re actively targeting an individual.

A fully compromised smartphone is will give access to practically all of a target's communications: their phone calls, SMS messages, encrypted text messaging (Signal/WhatsApp/iMessages) and probably their email as well. You will also gain access to a good portion of their web browsing, and their is a very good chance you will gain access to their 2FA as well (Authenticator application or SMS) allowing you to further easily compromise any of their online accounts. Plus, you gain access to any files on their phone (which are often very good kompromat if your goal is to blackmail), their live location and the ability to spy on them covertly through the camera and the microphone.

Compare that to a laptop. You gain access to some of their web browsing, some files (often only professional in nature), and maybe access their camera and microphone some of the time, since the laptop isn't always on and beside you.

The only problem I see is Google already allows a lot of malware and junk in their store, this would only make it worse.

It might get expensive fast if their Google Play Services app is affected by the ruling.

They're being sued by the DOJ too.

I'm not disagreeing. Fuck apple.

But the issue here is that Google offers Android to competitors but to get all the services, you need to offer the entire Google Ecosystem. Which is why you see Samsung phones offering a Samsung store AND A Google Play Store.

Apple doesn't offer their OS to competitors.

Enough with the false dichotomy. Two things can suck at the same time.

It can be both my friend, and indeed it is both

Unlike Apple you can run an alternative app store (since Android 13(?) even with API for background updates) but on the other hand, Play Services are one big tracking engine.

It sounds like the judge believes the pre-installed Android app store, which is mandatory for typical operation (not really if you install a different ROM and tweak settings) needs to include easy ways for the end user to browse other app stores within it.

Note: I provide no sources to my claim and making a deliberately false statement to instigate someone else who knows more to post something true to correct me. Otherwise consider what I said as fact.