#Google's competition lawyers claim that uninstalling is the same as "disabling" even though Android itself says they are not the same:
"If you disable this app, Android and other apps may no longer function as intended. Keep in mind, you can't delete this app since it came pre-installed on your device. By disabling, you turn this app off and hide it on your device."
There is no such warning when uninstalling:
"Do you want to uninstall this app?"
🇺🇦
@eighthave
Uninstalling is indeed technically impossible if an OEM bundled the app into any of the (read-only, compressed, integrity protected) system/OEM/vendor partitions. Disabling is functionally equivalent with the only exception of the storage space not being freed.
So the real option is only for OEMs not to pre-install these apps in the first place, but potentially only during first setup wizard.
@rene_mobile Disabling also differs from uninstallation on Android because disabling blocks any other app from claiming the Application ID. And the Application ID is often used as part of an API. For example, if YouTube's Mobile Live Intent:
https://developers.google.com/youtube/android/live#intent-format
That means disabling is blocking exactly these kinds of things that YouTube competitors want to do.
#Google #DigitalMarketsAct #YouTube #Android #Intent #gatekeeper
@rene_mobile If #Android's "disabling" actually just left some read-only files on the system partition, and the presence of those files had no other effect besides taking up disk space, then it seems like it could be called equivalent to uninstalling.
@eighthave
Yes, that's true - I didn't consider replacing the disabled apps with something conflicting. That _could_ however potentially be added to the disabling function.