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Comment by Findeton | Hacker News Reader

Yes, it's a monopoly, but that doesn't mean it's bad per-se. People are freely choosing to buy iPhones and there are alternatives. If the situation on the App Store was so bad, there wouldn't be enough good apps and perhaps people would choose other devices. No one is forcing any company to publish into the App Store.

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Apple's cryptographic lockout of unsigned software and refusal to authorize any non-App Store distribution defacto forces people who want to publish iPhone software to agree to Apple's terms. I'd also argue that there are no practical alternatives here. Apple makes an industry-leading smartphone SOC and good operating system software designed to take advantage of it. If you want that, then you are also locked out of unauthorized third-party software unless you use an exploit to compromise the device's security.

Quite honestly, the software lockout business model has been deserving of government scrutiny ever since Nintendo put a lockout chip in the NES. If you own a device you should be able to run any software you want on it.

Good points. In fact, I'm guessing consumers ultimately want the App Store to be a monopoly. It gives us a central place where both devs and consumer can exchange with each other.

Break it up, and then you may hear people complain about how the mobile app marketplace is too fragmented (similar to how video streaming currently is).

Huh. I live in South Korea, and local Android app market is "fragmented", but approximately nobody complains, both users and developers. Local app market (owned by consortium of local mobile companies and local portals) takes less fee from developers, so developers love it. To let users use it, app developers do special promotion for the local app market, such as discount for in app purchases and special items for games, so users also love it. It is great.

> No one is forcing any company to publish into the App Store.

If I want iOS users to use my app, where can I publish it besides the App Store?

I like the Android implementation, allow users to install third-party apps but make them manually enable the feature, complete with warnings. Users don't have to enable the feature if they want App Store curation, but the option is there.

App Store is a two-sided market, which is known to persist even after it is extremely bad. Users go where apps are, and app publishers go where users are. The circular dependency can be broken by movement en messe, but that doesn't necessarily happen even if the situation is terrible.

"No one is forcing any company to publish into the App Store."

Yes Apple is, there is no alternative to the App Store on an iPhone.

I think the point is app developers can target other platforms to release their software, they don't have to target iOS.

Part of my confidence in the iOS app store is the fact that Apple controls it so strongly. If they were forced to allow third party apps I doubt I would install any. My phone is too critical a part of my life to risk it.

it would be on a different app store - you would still have full confidence if you used the Apple App Store only

But app developers can't make their own app store for iOS

No one is forcing anyone to write software for Apple.

"Nobody is forcing them to be iPhone developers" - HN

Well it's true isn't it? People make bad career choices all the time. And people also build failing business and we shouldn't save those companies because "they deserve it".

You can back up and always say that. Nobody is forcing you to use the Internet. Nobody is forcing you to live at all so ha!

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