Google and Apple have agreed to make required changes to their app stores to appease a UK regulator. They’ve agreed to make their mobile app stores fairer and more transparent to the benefit of thousands of developers.
Google and Apple promise to make their app stores fairer and more transparent
This information has been released by Britain’s antitrust regulator and relayed by Reuters. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said that the two tech companies have “strategic market status” in smartphones. That happened back in October last year.
It was said that nearly all smartphones in Britain run Android or iOS operating systems. Their respective app stores and browsers have a clearly dominant position on those platforms. Therefore, something had to be done.
Under this new commitment, which both companies made, the companies have to review apps in a fair, objective, and transparent way. Developers will have the ability to request access to more of Apple’s features in iOS to push competing products out there.
Both companies had something to say following this decision
Both Apple and Google had something to say. Apple said: “The commitments announced today allow Apple to continue advancing important privacy and security innovations for users and great opportunities for developers.”
Google, on the other hand, said that it believes its existing developer practices were fair, objective, and transparent. However, the company welcomed the opportunity to resolve the CMA’s concerns.
It remains to be seen if this will change things, and to what degree. It should make it easier for developers to do their job and create more competitive products. It’s not easy to compete with a company that is also maintaining a platform on which you’re publishing your software products, that’s for sure. Things have to be fair and objective.
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