According to the settlement, Android would have been opened up to installing third-party app stores \u2013 but only ones approved by Google as part of its \u201cRegistered App Stores\u201d program. And as an additional hurdle, these third-party app stores would have had to be sideloaded by the user.<\/p>\n
![\"Starting](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784176933_719_gsmarena_003.jpg\")
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Now, The Verge reports that Google and Epic have ripped up this settlement and the search giant will just open the doors \u2013 starting next week (July 22), third-party app stores will be installable from the Google Play Store for users in the US.<\/p>\n
There will still be a process to get a third-party app store accepted into the Google Play Store (more details here<\/a>). That said, many users are not comfortable with sideloading, so this is a major win for the likes of Epic Games (and we imagine that other big publishers will join in).<\/p>\n
Again, this is for the US market. For the global market, Google is moving forward with its Registered App Stores plan. This is still a good thing as Google will lower its service fees \u2013 in-app purchase fees will be reduced to 20% and recurring subscription fees to 10%.<\/p>\n Also, app developers will be free to use third-party billing for their apps and games \u2013 but if they choose Google Play\u2019s billing system, they will pay lower fees than before. Devs in the European Economic Area, the UK and the US are looking at 5% fees. More details here<\/a>. Note that the changes are already in effect in some regions<\/a>, but the global deadline is the end of September 2027.<\/p>\n Source<\/a> | Via<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Running an app store is a profitable business \u2013 one that platform makers are keen to protect. That…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":803234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[64,63,203,105],"class_list":["post-803233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mobile","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mobile","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=803233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/803234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784176934_786_gsmarena_002.jpg\"\/)
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The process of installing a Registered App Store<\/p>\n![\"Google](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784176934_207_gsmarena_004.jpg\"\/)
\nGoogle Play\u2019s revised fee structure<\/p>\n