I miss the idea that a platform, applications, and marketplace were not a vertical stack owned by one entity.
As a consumer, I’d love to buy a phone, not a content distribution straight jacket.
As a consumer, I’d love to buy a phone, not a content distribution straight jacket.
I well remember the state of Windows during Win 98 and XP where most had no idea what they were downloading, and it seemed every machine had malware, hidden pop ups and 37 IE toolbars. I was constantly asked to clean up friend's machines from the damage done by Kazaa and its associated garbage or some other drive-by crap.
If a restrictive app store is the cost of avoiding that and gaining some minimum enforced standards, safety and confidence to avoid crapware, I've actually come to think it a price well worth paying.
The fact that Google are so laissez faire about the Android app store, and let so much crap in, just further highlights the potential benefits that Google aren't fully providing.
The fact that you are here typing this reply right now is entirely because of the state of Windows during 98 and XP. It's a balance between security and freedom. You are arguing for the benefit of security while ignoring the effect that freedom has had on the last 30 years of computing.
OP is establishing that there are different types of users with different usage requirements.
You and Grandma are very different users. Grandma is probably much better served by an iPad and App Store than a true general computing device. Grandma is also not going to invent the next internet.
Maybe we should embrace this dichotomy instead of pretending one size fits all.
Interesting aside: How much innovation does the world miss out on if we raise the next generation of users on locked down "Grandma" interfaces?
And secondly, since you can't install the next internet on the iPad, Grandma is never going to get to use it.
That's my point though. One size fits all doesn't work all that well in practice. As a technologist you seem to prefer the freedom of general compute. As a fellow technologist, I agree. We are a minority though. The vast majority of people don't seem to want much more from their devices than a working browser. (and maybe Instagram). To them things like root access are more a liability than asset.
> Grandma might not invent the next internet on an iPad but your kid is also never going to get that opportunity.
This is a real concern to me. What happens when whole generations view computers as black boxes of consumption rather than tools of creation / something to tinker with? Probably nothing good.
You're already seeing it. Most people under 35 have likely spent most of their "computing time" by playing games on game consoles, which are precisely black boxes of consumption. And this is the result: walled gardens.
But that's how every generation since computers existed has mostly viewed them; tinkerers have been a small minority, even if young tinkerers-of-computers were an iconic image associated with the first generation in which that was a possible thing. That wasn't because they were common, but because it amazed (mostly older) people that they existed at all.
But I really don't like the fact that they are fully gated devices. Apple has already keep useful, but competitive-to-them, applications off their platform. They've force developers to eliminate user-beneficial changes to their applications. This is not good even for non-technical users but it's much more difficult to quantify.
One real example is that all users would benefit from alternative competitive web browsers on iOS but they can't have it.
The company that owns both the original console and the copyrighted game is free to publish a game that runs on top of an emulator. Sega has plenty of games on the App Store that are basically the emulator bundled with the game image.
I do think both types of users can co-exist on the same platform. People of all knowledge levels use Windows & Android.
This is false.
An eco system can easily contain a locked down channel for installing programs as well as an open channel to side-load.
It doesn't really.
Actually Playgrounds is pretty amazing. And you can definitely spin up a development platform in AWS and then Remote Desktop from your iPad or access via Coda or similar Terminal tools.
Edit: :)
The point is that certain parts of our society are not technical and will never be technical. Despite the expectations and wishes of a tiny minority of technical people.
Perhaps a locked-down Microsoft store would have had all kinds of ancillary benefits such as freeing up all the money spent padding their bottom line and dealing with externalities (malware cleanup, etc) and redirecting it towards having competitive open-source/GPL products for regular users. Perhaps all the forgotten OSes that died out due to Microsoft's dominant position would have found their fanbases and survived (OS/2 Warp, AmigaOS, BeOS, etc.) and the web would have avoided the IE6 problem that was due to Microsoft's prevalence.
Microsoft may have brought computing to the masses in the 90's due to Windows prevalence in that era, but assuming the web wouldn't have happened without them is a bit much.
The web is such a killer app, that if MS blocked it, it would be a problem for MS, not the web, imho.
Also IANAL, but given that MS launched a competing service - The Microsoft Network - this seems like a huge anti-trust issue.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSN_Dial-up
The combination of consumer demand for web access + anti-trust would probably crush MS, and it would have to provide access.
Another factor is that Windows was always a target for hackers, so it's virtually certain there'd be some jailbreaking solution that everyone would use if MS started blocking access to killer apps like web access.
MS was a near monopoly, but there were enough exceptions that people were aware how amazing the web is.
Finally, if MS took the Walled Garden approach, it's easy to argue it wouldn't be the monopoly it was. MS benefited immensely from its platform being "free" (as in pirated) and "open" (as in hackable and insecure).
There was a company who took the other approach. Its name is Apple and it wasn't doing too well against MS in 1995.
But that's all beside the point, the web was a killer app because it was available. Microsoft could have killed it with the same policies as iOS long before it was ever popular. And not by targeting it specifically for competitive reasons but just because it would have been against the very same rules we take for granted now. It wouldn't have even had to be conscious effort.
You can't even get another web browser on iOS! We literally can't even invent the "next web" on mobile. There's no point even trying.
This right here.
I wonder if anyone at Apple even cares. Maybe they’re so pompous they don’t think anyone other than them even could invent the next web.
Whoever does, will have to invent their own hardware too I guess.
There is plently of room for inovation.
Emabrace network protocols and native apps.
Also you had more technical users back then as the majority of the base who really wouldn't have stood for that. Hell, most probably wouldn't have stood for mandatory OS activation via modem if Microsoft had required it.
You could not see AOL pages from CompuServe and vice versa.
I agree that Android is worse, but that doesn't make Apple's store "Good".
As it turns out, giving the user ultimate control is really the best way to handle these types of things.
iOS, on the other hand, restricts its apps heavily - they are sandboxed, can't access other apps' files (no ransomware) and need explicit user permission to meddle with their private data.
Now, yes, exploits exist, but look at macOS - Apple still controls developer certificates and can pull the plug on misbehaving developers. An alternative to the app store wouldn't be nearly as devastating as win32.
You raise an interesting point about Android malware. Does it stem from the fact that Android apps can access the filesystem?
Since Android 7, apps cannot any longer access filesystem outside their APK installation directory. All accesses must be done via SAF APIs.
I still prefer that personally than the crippled smartphones.
Some people agree with your views and there are products and software distributions in the market to satisfy them. Some people prefer the way Apple does things. Everyone's preferences are being catered for, and that is wonderful.
There were viruses? Yes. 37 IE toolbars? Of course! But consider for a moment what we have today instead: Instead of the simple and (comparatively) mostly harmless viruses we now have ransomware. Instead of kazaa installing spyware we have the OS itself trying to phone home. Instead of having a virus to delete random files, you now have one of the Big 4 delete stuff from your device without asking you.
You say we had crapware we had to avoid back then, I see that today we install the crapware ourselves and consider it a treat. Back then when you bought a piece of software you owned it. You didn't have micro transactions and DLCs and all these "innovations" that drive "engagement". You didn't have to have data connection to sync something with bluetooth.
Sure there were also some crappy things, but things are not all that better today. We just got used to it.
The reality is >95% of the population don't want to be, don't know how to be, or simply don't have the spare time to be the systems administrator for all of their technology. The computing model that Apple offers with iOS and the App Store is—in effect—the outsourcing of systems administration to a competent third party.
For most people this is not really any different to outsourcing the maintenance of your house to a cleaning service, or the maintenance of your car to a mechanic, or the minding of your children to a daycare provider. For most people the notion of "computing freedom" is not useful or helpful.
I'm the "computer help guy" for my extended family, and believe me, I am very thankful for Apple's approach because the amount of sysadmin-style assistance I've been asked to provide has absolutely plummeted. For many people who just want to browse the internet, an iPad is way better than a Windows PC. There are people in my family for whom I would fear for their bank accounts if they still used a Windows PC. I don't spend a moment's time worrying about the possibility of malware on their iPads.
Personally I enjoy having the ability to write and run programs for the hardware I paid for without having to beg some company for their permission and blessing. As long as I always have that option, I don't mind.
I love that I buy an iPhone and Apple doesn't allow any non-trusted binaries to run on my phone, enforces strict style guidelines (the average app just looks better on my iPhone than Android IMO), has one place where all possible apps are, maintains a distribution channels that allows all my apps to be updated easily, and builds hardware and software that is designed to work together.
I love my iPhone because Apple is such sticklers about apps, design, and creating a consistently nice user experience. The average user doesn't care about how "open" Android is. They just want something that works.
Even if you didn't want to go the walled garden approach, who could look at how Europe treats Android and come to the conclusion that Google made the right decision by being open?
I can see the value in the vetting service to a lot of people, but I just don't understand the idea of embracing a forced restriction on other people that you happen to like yourself.
Here are some benefits to the one-size-fits-all policy Apple uses:
* Developers are forced to comply with Apple's rules. Otherwise companies could develop shitty apps that use private APIs to work around Apple's restrictions and then force customers to open up their devices to use it.
* Apple and every 3rd-party support person/company/family member in the world isn't forced to deal with a steady stream of "Somebody told me to change this setting and now my phone has a virus" support requests.
* People aren't misled (more than they already are) about the safety of the iOS ecosystem by a steady stream of news stories about people who changed the setting and got their phone infected.
This. Apple consistently chooses to make workaround options complex for the purposes of discouraging this sort of activity.
See:
* Deprecated APIs are actually obsoleted and removed; your app won't run in the new OS version and that means people buying hardware can't run your app.
* Right click has long been a hardware feature but off by default, so that apps wouldn't build in non-standard mouse 'gestures'.
* New ITP anti-tracking features in Safari have no off switch The solution to cookie issues is to change how your app works (such that you don't use hidden cross-domain redirects/frames)
* Side loading apps onto iOS devices is not possible without a business profile or the end user having a development environment - and misused business profiles are revoked.
* The option to turn off app signatures has been removed from the UI (not always the case - Minecraft for instance used to tell users to turn app signature verification off globally to work around their lack of app signing).
* Android has a list of permissions you must grant apps in order to install them. iOS on the other hand requires the application to prompt for individual permissions (location information, microphone access, etc), requires a description of why they want that permission, and per App Store guidelines must run with (reduced) functionality should the user say no.
Forcing a perceived "best path" means that the path is going to be the easiest / only way for everyone to follow, and therefore can receive the most attention / most bug fixes / most thought from executives & developers / etc.
Now of course, some people will still disagree about whether that was indeed the best path, and whether it should've been forced. These people strangely never seem to become Apple executives. :)
Supporting obligatory 30% tax on any developer work makes my blood boil. If Apple model wins it will be a disaster for innovation and salaries. I will never buy or recommended Apple products for this reason. It's worth it to me a stand even if user experience is temporarily better.
If it can be used by a major brand, some unscrupulous actor will gently guide my parents through whatever convoluted steps are required to enable it for their seemingly useful app loaded with badware.
I'm glad there's no side channel.
Dev sells app for $0.69, Apple adds a 43% tax on top ($0.30), for a cost to consumer of $0.99 before paying the state/local tax.
> who could look at how Europe treats Android and come to the conclusion that Google made the right decision by being open?
Google was fined on antitrust grounds. I don't see which direction to leap to make that sentence relevant to them being fined.
From the EU’s competition commissioner
> Fine of €4,34 bn to @Google for 3 types of illegal restrictions on the use of Android. In this way it has cemented the dominance of its search engine. Denying rivals a chance to innovate and compete on the merits. It’s illegal under EU antitrust rules. @Google now has to stop it
It's unequivocally a positive if they play by the rules. They fell foul of Europe(who was protecting it's consumers).
Google's not a charity and made the choices they made to get to where they are. Making Android free ensured they quickly became relevant in the emerging mobile market without having to invest massive amounts in designing/making/manufacturing devices (alongside the risks), if doing Apple way. Or if they went the MS way and tried to sell a closed source OS to device manufacturers, those device manufacturers may instead have chosen a different, more polished OS from a company who had more experience/better reputation in that field.
> Google places some terms of use to their software and suddenly they're being "anti-competitive."
You can drop the scare quotes, it's not "anti-competitive", it's just anti-competitive.
That's my point. They chose the option where everyone wins the most, especially themselves. The alternatives would have set the smartphone industry back several years as Google would struggle to make phones and phone manufactures would struggle to make a halfway-decent operating system. Google's policies are "anti-competitive" in the same sense that charging money for their operating system or enforcing copyright is "anti-competitive." In one case, you're forcing companies to pay for your product. In the other case, you're forcing the companies to follow a set of rules to use your product.
They'd have bought from one of the other mobile OS vendors(Symbian, MS) or made their own (Nokia w/Maemo). It could be argued that Google distributing Android for free(so as to ensure the continued dominance/inclusion of Google Search) did set the smartphone industry back. Who the hell wants to compete against free? Even more so when that "free" is coming from a XXX billion dollar company. Which is maybe why MS gave up on mobile OS, or Symbian no longer exists or Maemo.
> you're forcing the companies to follow a set of rules to use your product
...and Europe found those rules broke the existing law.
On iOS, you can't do any of that.
How is that not infinitely more anti-competitive? Somehow licensing software to other manufacturers makes you more anti-competitive then owning the entire pipeline?
Yes, giving out a product for free to kill off existing competitors and prevent potential competitors from gaining a foothold is anti-competitive.
I don't support either, but there is a clear reason why what google did got caught by anti trust laws.
Apple consistently gives its apps more permissions than normal developers they get. They also reject apps that interfere with business fields they are in/eyeing.
This how software engineering works.
If I have a publicly released module, I define a public methods that are my interface and private methods that my interface uses.
Of course as the implementator I’m going to have “private APIs” that only I use. In the next release, I might change the entire underlying implementation get rid of private methods, etc. but still not change the public api. You as a developer shouldn’t depend on “private apis” and Apple should have no obligation not to break apps that depend on them.
To be even more blunt. There is no such thing as a “private API”. The Application Programmers Interface is the published spec that developers should use. By definition, if it’s private, it’s not an “API”.
Post-Gingerbread, Google has put the vast majority of their development into the Google Play APIs, which are not open and are only available to partners. This means that use of things like chromecast (for instance) are restricted to apps distributed through the Play store, and handsets running partner builds of Android.
I'm tired of signing up for subscriptions and going through a series of dark patterns on a zillion websites to figure out how to manage and cancel my subscriptions. The worst is when there's one click to subscribe and they make you phone in to an annoying retention specialist to cancel.
As a developer I hate it :/
+1 = I will never build (or invest into) business that is built on a single platform controlled by someone else.
That's roughly $40 per year that goes into Apple's pocket on an $11/month subscription in the name of marginal security.
That all falls apart if you're an over-thinker, penny-wise, or a skeptic, though. By virtue of having some tech-savvy, you are automatically sort-of excluded from the target marketing for most platform/app/marketplace stacks. You want to pick and chose to try and gain efficiency or cost-savings or whatever.