All Android smartphones mostly come with at least two pre-installed app stores. And these app stores use their own business model, having their billing policies and Android does not interfere in anything. For that matter, Android gives a lot of space to the developers also. They can put their apps across different app stores as they want, and Android does not make an issue out of it. And thankfully, moving forward, Google is also planning to allow other app stores on their Android devices.
“Some developers have given us feedback on how we can make the user experience for installing another app store on their device even better. In response to that feedback, we will be making changes in Android 12 (next year’s Android release) to make it even easier for people to use other app stores on their devices while being careful not to compromise the safety measures Android has in place. We are designing all this now and look forward to sharing more in the future!”
Apps that are put across the Google Play Store have to pay a service fee through Google Play’s billing system. It is much like Apple’s fixed 30% tax on all apps that are put across its App Store. The main difference between Apple and Android is that although Android charges a service fee too, however, if any developer does not want to pay that fee, Android does not make it a matter of ego like Apple does. Instead, these developers can go to other app stores and those app stores can still be installed in Android smartphones. For example, when Epic Games introduced its own in-app billing service, Apple threw out Fortnite from its platform until Epic Games discontinued its in-app purchasing. Google also followed suit and removed Fortnite from the Google Play Store, but the users can still download it on Android through other app stores. Google is going to give developers the liberty to let their consumers know about alternate purchase opportunities through site promotions and emails.
So, this is the kind of liberty that Android is going to expand and explore further with the upcoming releases.
For its service fee, Google is giving developers a deadline to come around and accept Google’s policies by 30th September 2021. So, they have a whole year in between to enjoy the services of Android, and once the deadline is over and they are still not ready to pay the service fee, then they will be moved out from the Play Store.
This sounds like a pretty lenient kind of ultimatum, but Google says that this grace period will help the new companies who have recently moved online; they can use this period to sell their services online without having to pay anything through the Google Play billing.
This is quite a noble and gallant gesture and truly appreciable.
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