Will Google offer an iOS compatibility layer for running Android apps?

Question

If/when there third party stores on iOS become available, will Google try to provide a compatibility layer for running Android apps on iOS? Maybe even provide its own store that offers everything available on the Android Store?I think that would be beneficial to Google; they&rsquo;d see much more of what iOS users do on their machines, and could keep pressure on Apple to open up their OS more for those Android features that can&rsquo;t be implemented well on top of iOS.I wouldn&rsquo;t know how hard it would be to provide it, though.I also may overlook a reason why that would trigger investigations into Google&rsquo;s App Store. Maybe it wouLd become too powerful, triggering investigations into it? Do they want to open that can of worms?

dangus · Accepted Answer

Why go through all the effort to make a compatibility layer when they could just have a storefront with iOS native apps?
Are there a significant amount of mobile app developers who only make Android versions of their apps and completely eschew iOS?
Out of those developers, what percentage generate a significant amount of revenue to provide royalties to Google? (I.e., I imagine there are plenty of open source and hobbyist apps that don’t make their way to iOS because they don’t have the budget to buy a Mac and pay Apple developer fees, but those are the types of apps that stand to make very few royalties from a potential Google iOS App Store).

mvdtnz · Answer

Sounds like a losing proposition. Why pour resources into making your competitor's platform better?

captn3m0 · Answer

They already have Flutter which runs on iOS. They could optimise such a future store for Flutter apps perhaps.

hackerbrother · Answer

Is there a real chance of third party app stores on iOS anytime soon?