/ Your Android home screen is about to change.
Mike Alvarez Joined TheTweaks as an emerging tech , startup and launches journalist. He comes up with those things or products which are not there yet and are hardly possible to come close to. He covers the latest technology, startups and new product launches and releases. He worked 4 years in a startup company in Austin and later he joined TheTweaks and he is proving himself here with his commendable writing performance. He is also the publisher of a small consumer robotics newsletter.
When it comes to app stores for Android, Google Play Store remains one of the easiest and simplest app stores on the market. It takes a few minutes to find, install, and use your favorite application. However, in 2023, this experience is likely to change. Third-party app stores are expected to start appearing inside the Google Play Store in the United States, and the future of apps on Android devices will probably change forever (Android Authority).
For a long time, Google and Apple have been considered the dominant players in the ecosystem of mobile applications. The only way to get on Android devices was to follow the company’s guidelines and pay them 30 percent of revenue from every in-app purchase or subscription.
It goes without saying that developers did not like such an approach and spent years trying to get rid of such limitations imposed by Apple and Google. However, the major changes in the policy of the corporation came not because of legal battles with major players of the market but as a result of anti-monopoly actions initiated by international legislators. For instance, Europe’s Digital Markets Act forced technology companies to give an opportunity for other firms to create rival stores and use alternative payment options.
Thanks to it, companies have a good opportunity to launch their stores and keep all of the revenue without paying any percentage of the income to Google. The only question now is not whether these changes will come to Android, but when.
Opening of Google Play Store will undoubtedly lead to the appearance of a number of new application stores, and it means losing the security that the current one provides. It should be noted that Google Play Protect scans billions of applications every day in order to avoid installation of harmful applications on the user’s smartphone.
Once the walled garden will be opened and apps from multiple sources will start appearing, a person will stop having this guarantee and will be exposed to all sorts of potential threats. Bad actors will start creating a lot of fake app stores with the aim to get your personal information. Here are the things to consider:
The previous problem will become only part of the bigger issue. At the moment, almost all payments and subscriptions are managed from the Google account, which makes it easier for a user to control all of his or her payments in one single place.
However, with the arrival of new app stores, a person will have to deal with payments from different companies and use several different wallets. Thus, instead of one place to manage your payments, you will have to go through the same routine with each app you want to download from another store. Besides, with so many different places where a person’s card will be used, there will be a bigger risk of losing it in case of one of the companies’ data breach.
In such a case, a user will have to use a finance tracker, password manager, or virtual credit card with a spending limit.
In the near future, it is highly possible to witness “exclusivity wars” that will happen to the apps in the same way as they happened to the streaming services in the past. A developer will be able to sign a contract with a rival app store and exclude a favorite app from Google Play.
On the other hand, competition may lead to better offers from the stores and better applications for users. In addition to it, it may significantly improve the process of sideloading. Thus, it will become simpler and may become a part of the main Android system.
To sum up, in the near future, Android may become a system similar to the desktop one, which gives full freedom to the user but requires more responsibility concerning the security of the applications and financial transactions.
From TheTweaks point of view, this move of Google is definitely an inflection point in the history of Android and not just a minor change in the policy of the company. On the one hand, it is definitely good for the user. Usually, the more competitors there are in the industry, the better conditions they offer. On the other hand, it means saying goodbye to the comfort and convenience that users enjoyed in Google Play Store. Therefore, our recommendation is not to start downloading every new app store that appears in Google Play. Stay only with those you know and do not disable Play Protect under any circumstances. And, of course, sort out your subscription management system before you start receiving bills from the companies that you do not even know.
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