Google loses control over Android app billing after Epic court win; Epic Store coming to Play Store
The decision comes from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which agreed with a 2023 jury verdict that called Google's practices illegal monopolies. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney called it a "total victory" and said the Epic Games Store will arrive on Android soon.
Epic CEO announces that the Epic Games Store is coming to the Play Store. | Image credit — @TimSweeneyEpic (X) However, this isn't just about Epic. The court's ruling forces Google to let other companies launch competing app stores on Android for at least three years. That includes giving them access to apps and preventing Google from requiring its own billing system.
This legal fight started in 2020, when Epic sued both Apple and Google after Fortnite was removed from their stores. Epic lost its case against Apple, but the Google case turned out very differently. During the trial, the jury saw emails and documents showing that Google made secret deals with phone makers and game developers to shut out rivals.
In a statement to The Verge, Google stated it plans to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court as the company believes the decision could hurt user safety, reduce choice, and slow innovation. Google argues that Android already allows more freedom than Apple's iOS, which doesn't let other companies run their own app stores at all.
But the judges didn't buy that argument and said Apple and Google work in different ways, and Apple's locked-down system doesn't excuse Google's control over Android. The court made clear that Google has a monopoly over Android app distribution and billing.
This ruling could definitely change the way the Android app market works from this point on. Developers might get more options for how to sell their apps and use their own payment methods. But there are also risks, like security problems, if Google has less control over what gets published.
For users, it might mean more choices. For Google, it means big changes. Whether Epic's store becomes a hit or not, this case sets a new standard for app stores and how they're allowed to operate on Android. We'll be paying close attention to Google's next move and how this will affect the Play Store.
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B DarlingYext, 49 minutes ago I work in a mobile phone store, people come here with complaints about phones every day. Those... more i work on mobile repair (until i finish my Engineering degree) as well, and a big reason i daily a Galaxy is the good, at least on S-Series, price of original parts, how easy and quick it is to obtain them, and how straightforward they are to service when it comes to software! That, and OneUI, although the latter is personal preference. DarlingYext, 5 hours ago What did Ice use to measure that battery? Whatever, it doesn't really mattery, that si... more This story now specifies a battery size In short Battery increase yes thinner NO Below is my post then to the the post Darling Yext has again repeat (No URL for the site he gets his misinformation from) Confirmed: The Galaxy S26 Edge will be thinner than the S25 Edge and have a larger battery thanks to new battery material technology. This is a rumour neither initiated by nor confirmed by Samsung, Samsung is NOT the party responsible, Ice Universe is. Your criticism of Samsung shows you don't understand the vectors at play. Multiple reasons to dismiss it out but don't let this clickbait campaign prevent Darling Yext from ignoring facts which will be another 10 months until the S26 Edge is released. #1) Let's not forget his prediction that this S25 Edge would be the S25 Ultra specs inside a thinner S25+ frame #2) There was a desire to get a thinner that desire had NOW been met #3 A now thinner phone than the S25 Edge (no longer 3900mAh Lithum ion) has a bigger battery #4 thinner phones have a limit so in 2027 the S27 Edge will have to INCREASE back to the (not going to happen) S26 Edge reduced size #6) UW camera cannot be improved upon the same reason #3& #4 battery Perhaps the SINGLE CRITICAL RESTRICTION is overheating. The S25 Edge uses Qualcomm's flagship SoC the 3nm Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. "The sustained performance isn't great, as one would expect from a thin chassis like this one. The Snapdragon 8 Elite's CPU started throttling within the first 5 minutes of the CPU test, while the GPU stability score is below 50%. You can expect considerable thermal throttling during long gaming sessions." It CANNOT get thinner as that would mean an ever smaller vapour chamber AFTER presumably upgraded to the latest Qualcomm flagship SoC The S26 Edge cannot and will not get thinner and at the same time improve specs. Phone sizes have increased to where they are now The S25 Edge was preliminary named the SLIM my post found here, using maths disproved the claim then & misinformation text by this "commentator' 99% of phones achieve a 50% charge in 30 minutes FROM FLAT. Darling Yext seems to have struggled with all aspects of charging phones. That appears to have been resolved when he via "Trial & error?" began using phones above 25W. It is laughable that he now attempts to lecture us on Faster Charging when it is a problem he alone experienced. Spoiler Alert We can read % during charging and use (discharging). If we fully discharge our phone and do not notice Charging at home will be the principal charging place & many people just carry a charging cable ( if e.g not in their car already) there are multiple places/ports outside home, and those who can't adapt so a wild guess battery pack? I thank Darling Yext for not including Fast Charging protocols so as not to be too technical and overcomplicate matters, especially as the S25 is a 25W phone, so everyone will be unaware of the complexity that 45W brings. If and when Samsung will provide instructions. #2 There was a desire to get a thinner that desire had NOW been met. Thinner means bigger vapour chamber Not Again, 56 minutes ago Samsung's customer service is absolute rubbish in the EU. Especially if you have a foldab... more I work in a mobile phone store, people come here with complaints about phones every day. Those devices are mostly Xiaomi, Apple and Samsung ones. As for iPhones, they are pretty easy (but expensive) to repair at one of their official repair shops, so no issues with that. Xiaomi devices aren't that lucky, but some non-official stores can and will repair them as well, for not that much money. However Samsung denies warranty claims way too often according to customers I've talked to, thus their customers service is absolutely awful. Sailory, 1 hour ago Look, you can write anything you want with chatGPT, I owned a lot of phones and I also had the... more "Every SiC battery in any modern phone is rated at 1000-1200 charging cycles until it gets to 80% capacity. Samsung's batteries for years are rated at 2000 cycles" That's cool, until you realise that 75% battery health on a 6000mAh battery means 4500mAh, which is still more than 100% on a phone with a 4400mAh battery. Oh, well. N DarlingYext, 2 hours ago Samsung's customer service is absolute rubbish in the EU. Especially if you have a foldab... more Samsung's customer service is absolute rubbish in the EU. Especially if you have a foldable device, any tiny scratch anywhere on that thing and your warranty is void. You famously admit you don't and haven't owned any Samsung products for years Yext somehow you know nothing enough to post the nonsense now on a phone just two months old You haven't seen the phone, nobody in your circle owns a Samsung so can't cite one incidence. You post more unreliable comments than all of the collective rumours on X that are published here ? Am i just stupid because i do not understand with some oems making regular slab phones to be very thin instead of having bigger battery? Does people really want to buy these? Then oems will sell external magnetic Qi2 portable power banks which makes that super thin phone even thicker than regular slab phone. Of course with folding phones(especially tri folding phones) people want thinner more like 8-10mm but with slab phones? I do not see the appeal honestly. k Sailory, 1 hour ago Look, you can write anything you want with chatGPT, I owned a lot of phones and I also had the... more No, you didn't guess with your assumption about ChatGtp. I've banned all sorts of AI nonsense like Gemini, etc... I don't need them, I went to school and paid attention in class. Another one who fell for the marketing trick of 2000 cycles... It would be good if the battery was 6000-7000mA, not 4400-5000. Because these 2000 cycles don't give you anything more with a small battery that you will charge more often, which will degrade it faster, which will lead to even more frequent charging and even faster degradation. These 2000 cycles do not mean 2000 days of life, as you might think. I'll teach you something else. The mA on the batteries that the manufacturer gives you does not mean that you will have 5000mA for 2000 charging cycles. They mean that the manufacturer guarantees that for these 2000 cycles your battery will have a capacity of AT LEAST 80 percent of the one originally given to you. It doesn't matter if on the third, thirtieth or 1300 cycles your battery is no longer 100 percent healthy. As long as it is at least 80 percent everything is OK. So after 1000 cycles on a 6500mA battery and charging every day and a half, which will be equal to 1500 days of life, I will still have at least 5200mA battery. Which will still be more than your initial 5000 after 1500 charges once a day and even if it has degraded only to 90 percent it will be 4500mA. I have a 1+10 Pro with a fast 80 watt charger and I charge it to 100 percent every time, once a day, and after 4 and a half years I still have the original battery and it still lasts me 1 day. So what? I'm from Bulgaria, it's not colder than Germany. So what? Even my first Xiaomi Mi 3 from 2013 still has the original battery and some life left in it. S kdss, 2 hours ago You would be right about fast charging, if you weren't completely wrong. The fact that yo... more Look, you can write anything you want with chatGPT, I owned a lot of phones and I also had the OnePlus 12. You can convince yourself however you want that fast charging is better, but the device overheats like crazy. Maybe if you live in Norway where it's not that warm it's going to stay cooler, in Germany where I live it got really hot every time, so much so that I developed a habit of charging it face down to allow the heat to dissipate faster. There are studies on batteries where it's proven that heat degrades the battery faster and it did on my OP 12 and my older Huawei phones. Maybe the new technology will be better, it's yet to be proven for me. I gave my Galaxy s23 Ultra to my dad and that 2 year old device still lasts more than any device I have ever had. Also you say 80% capacity on 6000mAh is better than 80% on 4400. That's theoretically true but how many charging cycles is the battery rated for? I'll tell you. Every SiC battery in any modern phone is rated at 1000-1200 charging cycles until it gets to 80% capacity. Samsung's batteries for years are rated at 2000 cycles. And I witnessed it first hand on the s23 Ultra and I absolutely used that thing havily for almost 2 years, no overheating while charging, charges from 15% to 90% in around 50 min which is plenty fast, that's why I chose not to sell it. But sure, you can believe what chatGPT or some online article says without knowing yourself first hand k DarlingYext, 2 hours ago Samsung's customer service is absolute rubbish in the EU. Especially if you have a foldab... more My colleague waited about 40 days to have his Fold4 screen replaced. He was denied the warranty by the official service center, "mechanical damage". He paid, what could he do? He was either screwing up with the money for the display or had to forget about the money for the entire phone, and it was only 3 months old. k Sailory, 2 hours ago After owning almost every brand out there, I can honestly say Samsung is the most reliable. If... more You would be right about fast charging, if you weren't completely wrong. The fact that your battery is dead has nothing to do with fast charging. Stop fantasizing, and go read a little about batteries. Batteries degrade from: 1 - High temperature. The new technology allows you to charge your battery at least 2 times faster, which reduces its heating by half. 1+/Oppo even uses technology that allows the heat dissipation during charging to be mainly from the adapter. 2 - The smaller the battery, the more often you charge it, the faster it will degrade. Guess which brand still relies on small batteries? 🤣 3 - Charging from 80 to 100 percent. Can you guess which is better? Limiting a 6000+mAh battery to 80 percent or limiting a 4400mAh battery to 80 percent? 🤣🤣 4 - Each manufacturer generally uses their own protocols for charging their phones' batteries. If you use a charger that doesn't meet them, your phone will heat up and won't charge as fast as it's supposed to. This also leads to battery degradation. But you can continue living in the land of slow charging and small batteries, no problem. Sailory, 2 hours ago After owning almost every brand out there, I can honestly say Samsung is the most reliable. If... more Samsung's customer service is absolute rubbish in the EU. Especially if you have a foldable device, any tiny scratch anywhere on that thing and your warranty is void. S kdss, 2 hours ago You would be right about Lamborghini if Lamborghini sold cars for 200,000 euros with a top spe... more After owning almost every brand out there, I can honestly say Samsung is the most reliable. If any other brand will have the same software, same availability and same custome support in case of damage as Samsung does, then I'll gladly switch to that brand. I don't gieva crap what logo is on my device, as long as it offers everything, not just hardware. But sadly nothing compares to what Samsung (and Apple) provide in the US and Europe. You can go on and brag about something like fast charging all you want, that crippled my older phones batteries. I will always activate the slower charging and put battery protection on as I have very bad experience with fast charging. People, especially here in GSMArena, believe that hardware features are the only thing that matter. But it's not a coincidence that Samsung and Apple are the top sellers worldwide, they have the best update policy, best customer support and great deals consistently k Vale, 4 hours ago How are people getting milked? You know you don't have to buy anything if you don't ... more You would be right about Lamborghini if Lamborghini sold cars for 200,000 euros with a top speed of 100 km/h and 15.9s to 100km/h. But they sell cars that match the money they ask for them. And you are being milked by Samsung, because for the sixth year in a row they are going to offer you a phone with the same battery, the same charging speed, almost the same cameras, etc., but with an increased price. But it doesn't matter. The important thing is that you are happy with the name of it - Samsung. Vale, 4 hours ago How are people getting milked? You know you don't have to buy anything if you don't ... more The examples you took are so wrong. Lamborghini and arguably most watch companies put more thought into theirs products than Samsung. Not using S/Ci battery tech for a phone like this was already comical, but two gens in a row is properly despicable. But again, Samsung and innovation parted ways some time ago now. What about the s26 pro? k Strawhat, 4 hours ago Silicon Carbon technology? Next century. Maybe. S Silicon Carbon technology? T Great news if S26 Pro will get bigger...
