Hacker News Reader

Comment by Razengan | Hacker News Reader

> but Apple is Apple-Centric at the expense of their customers

Apple has done a lot to curtail scummy developer practices and protect users.

You could go over each of their App Store policies and see how few of them are "at the expense of their customers."

Not the least are their privacy and anti-tracking protections. iOS 14 already caught many apps (including Discord and Instagram) stealing our clipboard data and secretly accessing camera, mic and location.

Claiming Google is "user-centric" and Apple isn't, usually means taking the side of the corporations that are hurt by limited access to user data.

View on HN

> Apple has done a lot to curtail scummy developer practices and protect users.

This is so true, and the magnitude of this is not immediately apparent unless you’ve worked in an agency / freelanced building iOS applications. You have no idea how many user-hostile and abusive things I’ve seen blown completely out of the water with the golden phrase "Apple won’t allow that". It wins arguments in favour of the user instantly and permanently.

I’ve run up against Apple’s capricious review process more times than I can count, so I’ve got more reason than most to complain about it. But it’s impossible for me to argue that these rules don’t help the user when I’ve personally seen it happen so many times. It’s a double-edged sword to be sure, and I believe the best way of balancing things in favour of the end-user is to be more open than Apple is, but there are undeniable benefits to the user with the current system.

> iOS 14 already caught many apps (including Discord and Instagram) stealing our clipboard data and secretly accessing camera, mic and location.

Not really, this has just been a PR exercise that I'm watching with fascination - the real news is that they've shifted focus away from their own shortcomings. The real news here is that iOs14 allows unrestricted clipboard access. Think about that for a moment. Instead of actually fixing the issue, they choose to highlight it and call out apps for using the platform in a way they have allowed.

Even if you gatekeep and hand-wave every positive thing they do as "PR" and "shifting focus away from their own shortcomings", it has benefited users.

> The real news here is that iOs14 allows unrestricted clipboard access.

Every OS does, no? Which steps has Android or Windows taken? (genuinely curious)

I would argue Apple is very protectful of their platform, at the expense of the users. Of course in some cases, such as with privacy, what is good for the user is also good for Apple, because they get an additional selling point compared to the competition.

In my opinion, an example of Apple practices which are bad for customers is their line on progressive web apps. Apple limits support as they cannot keep control of their platform and revenue stream. I would argue however, that installable web apps are great for user experience, especially since it helps less resourceful businesses provide a good product for mobile devices. I'll admit there are privacy concerns regarding access to phone features from a web app, so Apple's arguments in blocking some (but not all) of these have some merit.

If you look beyond just the App Store policies, this general practice appears to me to limit innovation on the web platform, as Apple is invested in keeping apps the only first class citizen on their platform.

Under Apple's clarified guidelines, if a University put out a remote learning app to help students deal with the pandemic better than a browser solution, Apple would be entitled to 30% of each user's tuition.

Once they have a few slow quarters and pull the lever on taking a cut of app mediated real-world services, we may see 10-30% of each Taxi ride going to Apple.

> Under Apple's clarified guidelines, if a University put out a remote learning app to help students deal with the pandemic better than a browser solution, Apple would be entitled to 30% of each user's tuition.

I think they have mechanisms for distributing apps within an organization.

That's within an organisation though via enterprise distribution, or managed devices

University students normally bring their own devices so don't fit into that model

Employee only:

https://developer.apple.com/business/custom-apps/

Would you care to clarify?

Do you mean that universities can distribute iOS apps to iOS devices without using the App Store?

Yeah that’s how companies like grocery stores that use iOS based devices for inventory management load their apps.

There is the Apple Developer Enterprise Program[0] but it suggests it's only for employees.

>Use the program only to create proprietary, in-house apps for internal use, and to distribute these apps privately and securely to employees within the organization.

Not sure if there is another programme that would work for universities

[0]https://developer.apple.com/programs/enterprise/

Apple only extracts that revenue from apps if you want to directly take payment through the app. Both Netflix and Spotify work on iOS. They just are not collecting payments or doing new signups there. So in your analogy the student is presumably registered already with the school and Apple doesn’t take a cut at all, even today.

> Apple only extracts that revenue from apps if you want to directly take payment through the app.

Even if you take payment through your app that you built with your own payment processor.

Why is Apple standing between me and my school again? They made a profit off of the hardware that I purchased from them and now they’re just standing there stopping me from paying for what I want on the device that I bought.

That specific carve out is limited to consume-only media apps and wouldn't apply to an interactive remote learning app with more than just a library of prerecorded lectures.

HEY acquired customers outside of the app but still wasn't allowed.

Anti-clipboard-abuse doesn’t feel like a good example. It’s a generic (albeit new) OS function that scales immediately to all apps, once implemented.

The argument for ongoing App Store funding is that it has to scale with the number of apps available, each requiring hours of human work to review and police.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com