A Judge Is Telling Google to Make It Easier to Install Other App Stores on Your Phone
A federal judge has ordered Google to make it easier for Android phone users to find and install competing app stores, giving the company just one week to make the changes. The order was issued on August 13, 2026, by Judge James Donato in a San Francisco courtroom. It is the latest step in a long-running legal battle between Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite, and Google. The Verge
An app store is the program on your phone where you download other apps. On Android phones, the main one is the Google Play Store. Google has been requiring rival app stores to jump through extra hoops before users can install them, making the process harder than it needs to be. Think of it like a grocery store that stocks a competitor's products but hides them on a hard-to-reach shelf and puts a security guard in front of them.
Judge Donato told Google to fix several specific things. First, when someone searches the Play Store for a term like "store for apps," competing app stores need to show up in the results. Right now they do not, and the judge called that "not acceptable." Second, Google must change a button that currently says "view" to say "install" when someone is trying to add a third-party app store. Third, Google must remove a pop-up screen that asks "are you looking for" something else when users search for rival stores. The judge said this pop-up serves no real purpose other than slowing people down. The Verge
This order comes about a month after Epic Games and Google seemed to have stopped actively fighting over how Android apps should be distributed. But even though the two sides may be stepping back, the judge is still watching closely to make sure Google follows through on the details. Donato had previously ordered Google to list rival app stores inside the Play Store and to give those rivals access to Google's full collection of apps for several years. Aptoide, another app store, was the first competitor to appear in the Play Store under that earlier ruling. The Verge
The case goes back nearly three years. In late 2023, a jury unanimously decided that Google had an illegal monopoly over Android apps. A monopoly means one company controls a market so thoroughly that competitors cannot realistically challenge it. That verdict opened the door for the court to order deeper changes. In October 2024, Judge Donato issued a permanent order requiring Google to open up the Play Store, with a start date of November 1, 2024. The case is formally called In re: Google Play Store Antitrust Litigation, case number 3:21-md-02981, in the Northern District of California. Reuters Courthouse News
Under the rules set by the court, Google must list apps in the Play Store as long as they meet Google's normal requirements, and cannot keep out competing app stores without a specific policy reason. On November 6, 2025, Judge Donato held a hearing focused specifically on what the experience feels like for users trying to install rival stores. That hearing clearly set the stage for the August 13 order. CourtListener
What makes this order unusual is how specific it gets about the design of the Play Store itself. The judge is not just telling Google to allow rival stores in a general sense. He is telling Google exactly what buttons should say, what should appear in search results, and which pop-up screens should be removed. Courts rarely get this detailed about how a piece of software should look and feel. The closest comparison is the European Union's Digital Markets Act, where regulators have made similar design demands on large tech companies. But the EU works through a formal rulemaking process that takes months. Judge Donato is doing this through a single court case and giving Google days, not months.
A one-week deadline is extremely tight for changes that affect how search results work and how the store's interface looks. Google will have to either have these changes already built and ready to go, or rush them through the process companies use to test and release software updates. Google could try to delay the order by asking a higher court for an emergency pause or filing an appeal, but with only a week on the clock, it would need to move fast.
The broader context here is that the future of how Android users get their apps in the United States is now being decided by a judge, not by the free market or by Google's own choices. Google has already been forced to host rival app stores and share its app collection. This latest order goes a step further, making sure that once a competing store is listed, the path from finding it to actually installing it is as smooth as the court can make it. Whether all of this courtroom intervention actually creates real competition will depend on whether rival app stores can give Android users something they cannot already get from Google Play.
