These permanent discounts are a bold move. They essentially incentivize avoiding Apple and Google’s in-app payment methods. On mobile, players will see the App Store or Google Play payment option next to the Epic direct payment option. The side-by-side comparison makes it pretty clear how you’ll be ripped off if you buy through Apple or Google. Epic says it’s simply passing on the savings it sees by not paying the Apple-Google fees to players.

Epic Games

Epic isn’t the only company to push back against Apple and Google’s fees for in-app purchases. Spotify, Basecamp and Telegram have complained, too. The US federal antitrust probe is taking a close look at Apple’s App Store policies, and Apple and the App Store are facing an antitrust investigation in the EU.

“We do not have control over when platforms release and surface the app to their users, but the app is now live,” a Peacock spokesperson said in a statement provided to CNET. “We have a large marketing and promotional plan with Google, which you will see across Google platforms starting today.”

In contrast to Google, Apple is promoting Peacock in the App Store, and the app does appear in App Store search results. 

Google has not yet responded to Engadget’s request for comment.

Microsoft’s support for Android is going beyond native apps and devices like the Surface Duo. Thurrot reports Microsoft is collaborating with Google to help bring more (and importantly, better) progressive web apps to Android devices through the Play Store. Apps built using Microsoft’s PWABuilder tool will use Google’s Bubblewrap utility and library to take advantage of new features, including a new standard for web shortcuts, “deeper” push notifications and visual customizations. Web apps should feel more at home on your phone, to put it simply.

The expanded features shouldn’t require significantly more effort to implement, Microsoft said.

As is the case in many other nations, TikTok is a huge deal in India. The short-form video app has more than 200 million users in the country, and parent company ByteDance had expected to cross the 300 million mark there by the end of this year.

All of the apps are still available on Apple’s App Store and the Google Play store, according to TechCrunch. It’s unclear at the moment how India actually plans to enforce the bans. The move will surely deepen tensions between the planet’s two most populated countries. Earlier this month, at least 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a border clash with Chinese troops.

“The Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN) has also received many representations from citizens regarding security of data and breach of privacy impacting upon public order issues,” the government said. “There has been a strong chorus in the public space to take strict action against apps that harm India’s sovereignty as well as the privacy of our citizens.”

It’s no secret that some games are designed to riff on others’ ideas, but Ubisoft believes one title is far too similar to let it go unchecked. Bloomberg reports that the publisher has sued Apple and Google for selling Area F2, a game it claims is a “near carbon copy” of Rainbow Six: Siege meant to “piggyback” on Ubisoft’s success. The mobile title from Alibaba’s Ejoy and Qookka Games allegedly borrows “virtually every aspect” of Ubisoft’s character-driven team shooter, right down to the interface layout. Drones, destructible walls and rappelling down walls are also staples of both games.

Ubisoft said it had alerted Apple and Google to the reported copyright violations, but that both had so far declined to pull Area F2 from their respective app stores.

This isn’t the first time Epic has railed against Google’s insistence on a 30 percent take. It pushed for an exemption to the rule and went so far as to call the practice illegal for any platform with a majority of the market. Google rejected the argument, maintaining that its policy lets it “invest” in the platform and that it doesn’t want to play favorites. Epic sells Fortnite on iOS, where non-App Store titles aren’t allowed outside of exceptions like beta tests and enterprise rollouts, but Apple also has a minority of the market.

Whether or not Epic has a case, there’s also a simple business reality at work: it’s easier to bring Fortnite to Google’s store now than it was when the Android version shipped 18 months ago. Many of those who wanted to play on Android have already downloaded it. This is reaching out to that relative minority of people who either couldn’t install from third-party sources or refused to go elsewhere. This may be less a matter of survival and more a bid to scoop up those players who couldn’t (or wouldn’t) download the game before.

“After 18 months of operating Fortnite on Android outside of the Google Play Store, we’ve come to a basic realization:

“Google puts software downloadable outside of Google Play at a disadvantage, through technical and business measures such as scary, repetitive security pop-ups for downloaded and updated software, restrictive manufacturer and carrier agreements and dealings, Google public relations characterizing third party software sources as malware, and new efforts such as Google Play Protect to outright block software obtained outside the Google Play store.

“Because of this, we’ve launched Fortnite for Android on the Google Play Store. We’ll continue to operate the Epic Games App and Fortnite outside of Google Play, too.

“We hope that Google will revise its policies and business dealings in the near future, so that all developers are free to reach and engage in commerce with customers on Android and in the Play Store through open services, including payment services, that can compete on a level playing field.”

Fortnite is now available on the Google Play Store.
Check it out now! pic.twitter.com/EOA3jpMIu8

— Fortnite (@FortniteGame) April 21, 2020

Google is joining Apple in requiring honesty with app subscriptions. A newly instituted Google Play policy bans apps that use deceptive language or imagery to trick you into subscriptions. Apps now have to be clear about a plan’s cost, frequency and terms, including whether or not there will be an automatic renewal. They should also outline the features you can use without a subscription, and explain how you cancel service before your free period is over.

The company has improved the Play Store’s approach to subscriptions to match. You’ll now get a email reminder before your trial or intro offer is over, as well as for any plans that last 3, 6 or 12 months. The checkout is now more transparent, and you’ll be alerted if you delete an app with an active subscription.

Google defines disruptive ads as ones that either interfere with device usability or display when the user isn’t actively using the app. For example, an app could serve a full-screen ad when a user unlocks their phone to make a call. These popups affect more than just users — advertisers end up paying for inadvertent clicks, which wastes their budgets. (Google will refund advertisers who were impacted by the removed apps.)

Google says that it used a new machine learning algorithm to detect when apps violated the disruptive ad policy. This helped the company hone in on which apps to analyze — and to determine if developers and publishers were repeat offenders. “We give [developers and publishers] a notice and a warning [the first time a violation is detected] and allow them to correct the problem,” Per Bjorke, Google’s senior product manager for ad traffic quality said to BuzzFeed News. “And if it’s a repeat offense, then it will gradually be a stronger reaction.” As an example, Cheetah Mobile — which has been in hot water before — has finally been banned from the Play Store and all of its apps have been removed.

It’s encouraging to see that Google is making some efforts toward improving the Play Store experience. Hopefully this new machine learning strategy will help stop malicious and disruptive apps before a lot of people install them.

Google confirmed to TechCrunch that it did remove ToTok from the Play Store, but didn’t say why. The company did, however, make it clear that the app wasn’t pulled due to an outside request from, for example, a government agency. TechCrunch speculates that a policy violation is what caused the app to be removed. The updated version of ToTok that appeared in January added a prompt to allow the app to access users’ contact list, according to Vice. Just because ToTok was removed from the Play Store doesn’t mean Android users can’t access it — it’s still available on third-party app stores, and ToTok’s website offers an APK file to install the app directly.

The internet pioneer also pointed to “improved vetting mechanisms” that stopped 790,000 policy-breaking apps from reaching the Play Store, and a May 2019 policy that asked developers to say whether or not apps were targeted at kids. Malware appeared to have ben kept at bay, too, with Google Play Protect blocking over 1.9 billion instances of non-Play Store malware.

As in the past, Google is painting a somewhat rosy picture. Malware remained a problem on Android in 2019, including rogue code delivered through compromised Play Store apps. It may also be difficult to completely stop permissions abuse even with Android 10 providing more control. Even so, this suggests that developers are getting better at respecting your privacy and reducing the amount of data they collect.