The app ecosystem is a mess on AOSP. It feels like google just uses it to show a faux openness but there is no way that a non-enthusiast will get the experience they have in one of the 2 (formerly 3) major brand app stores. And that's really what this is about: app ecosystems. Making a good OS is easy, but getting mindshare/appshare is difficult (as microsoft learned the hard way).

AOSP makes no difference I think. If you are locked out of the official store, you are locked out of "Android" as people recognize it.

Yeah, the entire Chinese android ecosystem is doing Okay with the official store. Would the same have been possible without Windows Phone? What would huwaei be able to do at all if they were selling Windows laptops. Android may not be linux but it is miles better than other mainstream mobile OSes.

Europe could disallow preintalled app stores so everyone can install their own app store of choice.

And everybody will still install Play, Because many apps need Google Play Services.

Just remember the shit Microsoft had to do with the browser selection screen.

which was a direct result of Google suing them to show it.

oh the irony!

Pretty sure that it wasn't Google doing the suing. I remember it being Opera. Did Chrome even exist back then?

yes

That would be fine since people will have the choice of the hardware they want.

Then you think those people will avoid being able to install 90% of apps?

Wouldn't help. The only 2 viable stores out there are the apple and google official ones.

Would they do the same for iOS too?

I hope so. It's not a technical reason that there is only 1 store on iOS.

I would assume any regulation will need to be vendor neutral so yes. I am just pointing out that Europe is not powerless even though I think the odds isn't high that they will do something like this.

So basically making the mobile OSes more windows like in easily allowing people to install malware?

This is an intellectually dishonest argument as it conflates the definition of "malware" between platforms.

Mobile application permission systems don't cease to exist in the absence of a sanctioned app store. The only thing that disappears is the ability for Google or others to completely remove an application that is abusing the permissions a user granted: but the permissions are still there.

Even in the worst-case scenario, malware on modern phone operating systems is substantially more limited in disruptive and destructive power than what one can achieve on Windows without a UAC grant.

>Mobile application permission systems don't cease to exist in the absence of a sanctioned app store.

Permissions systems definitely do not anything against malware. See: all the flashlight apps with every permission under the sun.

>Even in the worst-case scenario, malware on modern phone operating systems is substantially more limited in disruptive and destructive power than what one can achieve on Windows without a UAC grant.

Sure, but it can still collect all your pictures, have access to your microphone/cameras, and tarck your location. It's better than full control of your device, but it's not that much better.

> Making a good OS is easy, but getting mindshare/appshare is difficult...

Making a good OS is hard, and getting market share in an established market is very, very difficult.

I assume a large company like Huawei can replicate the play store experience. Is there anything stopping them from creating a mirror of the most popular .apks?

Copyright?

AOSP is fully open source. What is not is google services.

There shouldn't be any problem than. Huwaei or anyone else can make their own "proprietary" operating system, since it is better than "a bullshit opensource software", and they can happily get higher margins there and be happy forever.