It's fine, it's their App Store and they can do whatever they want IMO.
What's not fine is not being able to install a third party App Store with different policies so that users can choose whatever they prefer.
What's not fine is not being able to install a third party App Store with different policies so that users can choose whatever they prefer.
Apple's main thing is security, and one important aspect of how they achieve it is by only allowing signed code, which Apple also does some basic tests on, to be installed on the device. Many think this is a valuable service.
In the third party App Store scenario, does the developer still submit an app to Apple for approval? How does Apple then make the approved app available to the third party? How is this different from a website that gives App recommendations?
[1] https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/open-a-mac-app-from...
MacOS gives up a lot of security for those extra abilities, and on MacOS I don't feel like I ever really had security. For example, I begrudgingly run shell injection attacks on myself every time I download some large codebase, which I am never going to review all of, or run brew, etc. It has been that way since the very beginning. Not so with iOS.
Can you elaborate?
Are you arguing that macOS users need less security than iOS users?
> It has been that way since the very beginning. Not so with iOS.
I have to say that "it's this way because it has always been this way" is a very poor argument.
That said, I would only agree (ideologically speaking) to Apple being as unreasonable as they are now if they allowed third party stores and let users chose which store they prefer. I really don't know how that would work but it would not be my first option.