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Google Launches Private Android App Stores
Trailrunner7 writes "Malicious apps have emerged as perhaps the most serious threat to mobile devices at the moment, and the major players, such as Apple and Google, have tried several different methods of preventing them from getting into their app stores and into the hands of users. Now, Google is taking one more step with the launch of a new service called the Private Channel for Google Apps, which gives enterprises and other organizations the ability to create private app stores and control the apps their users can download. Private Channel is essentially a way for organizations to stand up their own miniature app stores inside of Google Play--the main app store for Android devices--and publish apps to it. That gives these organizations the ability to point their users directly to the apps they want users to download for their Android devices. The new service will include some of the security features built into Google Play, most notably the anti-malware system and the ability to authenticate users."
This is Facebook's idea. It might sue. Just saying.
and I'd use it and recommend it so long as it doesn't get abused and/or have the uncontrolled saturation like the regular store. Will be interesting to see how this plays out. (No pun intended!)
Google Apps Free Edition
Starting on December 6, 2012, Google will no longer offer new accounts for the free edition of Google Apps. Google Apps free edition is sometimes referred to as "Standard Edition."
If you already have the free edition, you can continue to use it for free. This change has no impact on existing users of the free edition.
Please see the Google Enterprise Blog for additional details.
http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com.au/
http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?answer=2855120
Area51 - We are watching...
Sounds like something SEAndroid should include if it doesn't, already.
Sounds like the device management in BlackBerry but not as sophisticated. With BlackBerry, you can manage what goes on the devices even more precisely. And with BB10 next month comes the private app store where different groups of users can see different sets of apps within your organization. You can also automatically push the apps (and upgrades) to the devices. You can also manage a firewall between personal and corporate content/apps within each phone (it's called Balance). Good to see Google helping the enterprise, but it sounds like they still have a way to go.
I like this. All privacy issues aside, this is similar to keeping to maintaining your own local, debian repository. But, 'in the cloud'. Have any Linux distros attempted this?
a REAL Steam client(or something similar, not necessarily by valve) for mobile games and platforms? Not the crap we have on iOS/Android right now. Someone must step up the gaming business on Android already. I though sony could do it with PSMobile program, but like always just wasted all that great potential. And browsing for games on the Google Play store is a nightmare. Live wallpapers and widgets are not gaming categories. Where is fighting/flight/SHMUP/simulator/platformer/RPG/strategy/etc sections?
I'm not sure why this is interesting. Apple has offered companies a way to upload their own private apps to IOS for years. Slightly different to this mechanism, but the same result.
Might be cool if the EFF or FSF put up a channel. EFF could identify apps that don't spy on you. FSF could list apps that offer their source code under a F/LOSS license. Either one could also create an "Approved by EFF" (or FSF) logo program to generate revenue to fund the channel administration.
Malicious apps have emerged as perhaps the most serious threat to mobile devices at the moment
It is true that I am much more likely to install software I believe I can trust,. For me, the EFF and FSF are organizations that I would trust to make the call, not a corporation like Google, Apple, MS, or Amazon. But Google does make it easy to get the software onto my rooted and rom'd Galaxy, and pay the programmers for their work.
It may not have mass market appeal, but it doesn't have to. It only needs to appeal to the hundreds of thousands of technophiles who know about the EFF and FSF; that's enough to make a successful channel. There'd be some decent revenue there, and it would raise the public image of the EFF and FSF as defenders of digital liberty.
Obviously there are EULA, DRM, and walled garden questions that must be contemplated, but there seems to be enough upside to at least go through the thought process and see if it can be reconciled.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
This is Facebook's idea. It might sue. Just saying.
I read your post, and thought "idiot", on reflection...and its off-topic. Facebook and Google are an inevitable clash. Google+ Continues to grow [500 million people have upgraded, 235 million are active], and Facebook is reportedly in talks to buy Microsoft's Atlas ad technology. They are very much in each others faces.
I had suggested this very idea about a year. The idea is that by having multiple stores, it is a certainty that Google will shortly offer one that is for SECURED apps. IOW, it will operate similar to Apple's. Now, I have zip desire to use this for my droids. However, for my 70+ y.o. parents, this is ideal. Likewise, I know a number of ppl that want the security of Apple's private store, but the phones that are available under android (bigger and better screens).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I wonder how much of this is to select a subset of permitted apps, and how much of it is because search is terrible in the play store.
I bought an O!Play, an Asus media player/NAS/UPnP renderer that sits under the TV, so that I can play videos and music from any computer in the house to the main TV and main speakers. I wanted to play stuff from Android and searched hard for something that supports O!Play and found nothing much. I complained to Asus that they should support Android, and they point me to a free app called O!MediaShare DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY FOR THE O!Play that's free and does exactly what I was looking for. Look at the keywords on the page, it mentions O!Play right there, yet it buries it right down in the listing. Yet the search in the Play store panel didn't find it.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bianor.oms&hl=en
Type in O!Play and it gives me 'Google Music Play', various Android players, Recipe apps (seriously?), Pool Master Pro. Glow Hockey, FoxFi wifi hotspot (why????)....
What a POS, Googles Android search is. The results don't even relate to the word 'Play', let alone the name O!Play
So multiple stores will end malware and spyware apps? Ya right. What crack are they smoking? What a joke.
Obviously any company, just like anyone else, can load their own apps to their own device.
That is not what enterprise deployment is.
That's hardly the same thing as providing a central repository for employees to pull from.
In fact it is. With an enterprise signed app, you can put an IPA file anywhere you like, and have someone just point any iOS device at it to download and install. There is no need to know the device UDID ahead of time.
The restriction on this from Apple's end is that the people downloading and installing these apps must be employees of the account that has the enterprise license, or you risk revocation. They don't check though - how would they know a device is owned by an employee? They can't and Apple is as I said not even hosting the IPA to distribute.
The employee clause exists mostly to keep people from standing up general purpose app stores for any random user.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
TFA is also confused. The point of a private app store is to distribute apps that are for employees only. This won't stop users from installing malware, because they can stil install apps from the normal channel.
I don't why everyone is up in arms saying Android is insecure I am running Android 2.3 on my phone I am sending this from and I have no problems what so ever. I can download anything I want and not get any virus or malware. Heck I don't even feel the need to use common sense like I do on a PC to stay protected.
Hay have you heard if you go to thebigmoneymakingwebsitetotallynotascam.com you can make $120 an hour just browsing the web. My Aunt who has been unimployed for 10months make $27194 last month alone. You should try it, all you need is to download and instal a program which is easy 1 2 3. And a valid credit card so can effortlessly send you money!!
really Nice post i like it
Google can't be bothered to police their App Store so they've created an option to allow people to do google's job if they're keen on my being spied on by all their apps.
What a brilliant way to create targeted groups ! In fact I am sure apple will soon come up with it as well and sue Google for patent violation. I find it quite handy in that I could possibly subscribe to a group that I support their method of reviewing apps such as EFF or FSF. I wonder if I subscribe to two groups do I get what is common to both sets or a combination of the sets ? I suspect the first if the business model is to work.
Biggest problem I have is apps that want to snoop on my phone state (can get your phone #, see what calls you are making and when) and unnecessary geolocation (so they know where you are to profile you in their marketing database). Android does warn you what apps do, but I'd like to see these categories made clearer so I don't even have to see then when I'm searching.
Next annoyance is apps that have intrusive advertising. Google doesn't warn about this. You find out when you download. Download. Delete. Download. Delete. Maybe half of all apps are like that.
http://xkcd.com/66/
This sounds like a subset, rather than a fragment. The idea being to restrict what users can or can't install from the public appstore (i.e. to prevent PHB#528 installing 300 fart noise apps with 6 different keyloggers lurking in there), and restrict global users from installing company-specific programs while still delivering them to company users via the same distribution mechanism as the rest of their apps (e.g. no need to sideload each phone individually).
Can't fix it? Make someone else responible.
Found out today that a google PLUS account is required to rate google play / market apps. For a loving twist, your username, name and email address will be visible to any rating you give in the future using the google play store.
On one hand, I can understand why they did this. Wanting to tie feedback to actual individuals
On the other hand, fuck you google. I am not joining google plus just so I can rate applications on google market.
malware and malicious apps will be availlable.....
Rick B.
In fact it is. With an enterprise signed app, you can put an IPA file anywhere you like, and have someone just point any iOS device at it to download and install. There is no need to know the device UDID ahead of time.
I'm aware of this as we are developing an iPad app at the moment, but it's not really the same is it? I mean, should there be a new version of the app, the users must download the new version (and know about its existence in the first place). As far as I can tell, this "private app store" allows notifications of updates like Google Play does. This really doesn't concern us as the actual iOS app changes very seldom, we're able to update the data separately (TouchDB <-> CouchDB rocks), but I think the Google approach here has some merit.
Sounds to me like Google will setup stores for ATT, Verizon, etc.... Somehow the phones they sell will be locked into these stores. So that only ATT can determine what apps ATT users can get. Just watch.
if it got on slashdot.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Well, private stores is really what is available with Aptoide for the Android Platform, isn't it ? And it is open source (GPL v2).
I'm aware of this as we are developing an iPad app at the moment, but it's not really the same is it? I mean, should there be a new version of the app, the users must download the new version (and know about its existence in the first place).
They would have to download the app no matter what app store it was from.
As for auto-notification of updates, HockeyKit can handle that if needed, but an email to users with the update link also works.
this "private app store" allows notifications of updates like Google Play does
Do you mean Google's private app store or iOS enterprise deployment? Because you can do whatever you want with enterprise deployment.
It's true that Apple is not providing an App Store framework, but like I said there are already solutions that do that for you.
Im not saying the Google approach has no merit, I'm just saying you get the same functionality on iOS.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley