Good job japan, corporations should not be allowed to lock you out of using competition on a device you own.
Tell them to ask the same from Nintendo or Sony, lol
Japan has so many unique store that operated in their country with region-locked apps/games.
As far as I remember, even DMM and DLsite already has their own game store on Android.
This is truly a win for Japanese customer and company.
As a Canadian I thank you Japan
Google allows that though or do they mean access of Google Play via 3rd party apps?
Not that I am saying it might not be necessary to include Google from the start, sets a good precedence and prevents a future where they might go the Apple route.
Just hope both Google and Apple won’t restrict opening up to Japanese market only. But who am I kidding, they will.
I think this means allowing the listing of third party app stores inside the Google Play Store - so you could search for F-Droid in Google Play for example instead of downloading and installing the
.apkmanually.Downloading F-Droid from Google Play kind of defeats the purpose of F-Droid.
You can still verify the install even if it went through the play store no? Or are apps on the playstore not signed by the developer?
I don’t like that, if I am going through the play store, I only want things that have gone through googles vetting process, flawed though it may be.
F-Droid could go through it, the thing that is prohibited is for Google to bar them just because they are a competitor.
If they didn’t open up to anyone else when EU implemented it back in March/April, they won’t do it now.
Apple: ‘Mobile platform? Nah this is just a game console’ winks at Nintendo and Sony
Japan: Checkmate
:: Reveals 10X more laws regulating game consoles ::
How so? Honest question, I can’t seem to find anything that is not super pro-corporations like the prohibition on modding consoles with tens of thousands dollar fines or even prison sentences…
Doesn’t Google already let you do this?? My Android phone doesn’t even have Google Play Services, I just only use 3rd party stores. If I want an app from Google Play I get it through Aurora.
Ah wait, I should’ve read the article lol:
The law allows local authorities to name “designated providers” of a certain scale – currently only achieved by Apple and Google – and require those providers to do three things:
- Allow third-party app stores on their devices;
- Allow application developers to use third-party billing services;
- Enable users to change default settings with simple procedures, and offer choice screens for tools like browsers;
And it forbids them doing three more:
- Engage in any form of preferential treatment of their services over those of competitors in the display of search results without justifiable reason;
- Use acquired data about competing applications for their own applications;
- Prevent application developers from using features controlled by the OS with the same level of performance as the one used by Designated Providers.
So Google already allows 3rd party app stores and lots of settings (although these are always hit and miss, even in the custom ROM scene - I can’t get pocket detection right now and my phone keeps doing things in my pocket), but the 3rd party billing and choice screens applies to them.
How do you acces your bank account without an app that requieres Google Play Services running? All bank accounts in Europe require a smart phone app for 2FA even when you log-in on a browser. I can install bank apps via Aurora, but almost all of them won’t run without Google’s Software.
Run Magisk in Zygisk mode with the deny list hiding itself from banking apps.
However I would advise not using the banking app if you can help it, they’re not clean. Hell, even accessing online banking via a website seems to require connections to google.com and gstatic.com to perform hidden captcha (you don’t have to do the picture thing but it still does the server side tracking).
There’s no way anyone in Europe can use a bank account without a banking app. As I said, even if you log-in on a browser on a laptop, authentication still requires you grab your phone and use the banking app to authorize the log-in from that laptop once in a while, or any transaction.
Unfortunately, the solution you propose is technically too advanced for most people, including me. Is using GrapheneOS with its sandbox feature good enough of a protection?
I’m in Europe, and I don’t use banking apps. For the most part anyway, one of my credit cards pissed me off by switching to app only, then eventually I relented with one bank because I wanted a 2nd account that required the app.
Banks either verify by SMS (lol) or provide a passkey fob.
GrapheneOS should provide some measure of protection. You can also perhaps disable some tracking features using something like Warden (requires root) - although this hasn’t been updated in years and probably misses stuff now.
The picture says “No Smartphones Allowed.” Doesn’t seem entirely right…
Reminds me of that meme of Asian people with random English words tattoo’d on them.
You have to share it now…
🤖 I’m a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:
Click here to see the summary
Japan’s parliament has passed a law that will require Apple and Google to allow access to third-party app stores and payment providers on devices running their mobile operating systems.
The Act on Promotion of Competition for Specified Smartphone Software passed Japan’s upper house yesterday and will be enforced once Cabinet rubber-stamps it at some point in the next eighteen months.
The last item on the list is a shot across Apple’s bows, as the iGiant has been reticent to allow third-party developers to use the NFC chip in iPhones for payments.
Requiring the same level of access is a big deal – especially as non-compliance could result in fines that represent “20 percent of relevant turnover.”
As it implements the law, the JFTC will seek comment from relevant ministries and agencies on matters including security, privacy, and protecting kids.
Apple has sometimes argued that security is a major concern if third party app stores are allowed to access iThings – but has complied with requirements to open its devices to competition under the DMA.
Saved 56% of original text.
Not directly related to mobile devices, but I found it really weird that lots of Japanese games on steam have a Japanese only version, that can’t be sold outside of Japan. I’m really not sure if the benefit of that partitioning, but it probably comes from some of the issues they’re facing in the mobile market
It’s like reading interdimensional news from a world that is still sane. I’m glad Japan exists
The funny thing is that this is probably lobbying from NTT Docomo, who lost their own app store monopoly for feature phones the moment smartphones arrived.
If this means that I might be able to use NFC payments because alternatives to Google Pay will exist, I am very happy. Hopefully this will also make possible to F-droid to provide auto updates.
Until earlier this year, I could make NFC payments with the app of my credit card company. AFAIK contactless payments on Android were never locked to Google Pay/Wallet. But I have no idea why there’s no competition in this space. I’d expect e.g. PayPal to have something, but if they do I never heard of it - and I did look once, briefly.
Paypal has a nfc feature
For generic contactless payments at shops? Or some closed system that only works with other PayPal users?
For the most generic grocery shopping you can imagine
Alright, good to know.
