Cydia, the original app store, sues Apple on antitrust grounds
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I think Apple should either charge considerably less than they do for distribution via their App Stores (that is, even less than 15%) or allow competition. Even more importantly, they need to allow installation of apps via links without requiring an App Store altogether.
They also need to provide wider access to low level APIs (with user confirmation), instead of dumbing it down for developers while keeping all the powerful APIs to themselves.
The fees might suck, but the concern is spending a year on an app only to be denied or lose it once you gain popularity.
There's no "or" there. They need competition. The fact they were able to quickly halve their fee due to public sentiment and some lawmakers sniffing around means that competition was not working to even that out to costs plus some profit already. I would posit the reason is because there is no real competition because Apple's behavior and control of their platform (from hardware to customer transactions) is extremely anti-competitive. Monopoly or not, anti-competitive behavior that harms consumers is the problem, and the fact they could drop fees so easily and quickly and by an arbitrary amount (half) points towards harm to developers and by extension consumers due to inflated fees because of lack of competition.
I like the walled garden and have no interest in it going away. I like that my mom can install apps and not worry about them spying on her.
I like that developers aren’t allowed to use their own payment processors. I don’t want to input my credit card into your black box payment system that might or might not charge me correctly.
I see that it does harm developers, but that’s a different conversation entirely.
If you want to install whatever apps you want, buy an android phone! And have fun while their bloat ware and preinstalled crap spams you with notifications and scams you.
This is generally the conversation that's happening here. People talking about competition aren't talking about it as it relates to the quality of the product, they're talking about it from an economic perspective.
Your entire argument is refuted if Apple isn't allowed to abuse it's market position and you're allowed to have "Apple Pay +30% price" "Stripe Payment" "Payment X" - you would quickly see the real value of App Store and Apple Payment processing convenience - that 30% would probably come down to 10% where it provides the convenience value.
If consumers weren't harmed consumer choice would have no effect.
This "users are idiots and they need Apple to tell them what's best for them" is like Stockholm syndrome with Apple fans, it's especially entertaining to hear it so often on a "hacker" newsgroup. Good thing papa Apple decided you can't have that dangerous Fortnite scam tricking you in to using a different payment system, you're better off not wasting time on games anyway - really if you look at it that way they are saving you from bad choices two times - win/win for Apple users I'd say.
Windows/IE literally wasted hundreds of millions of person hours by being leaky, insecure, virus-prone crap. You could - if you chose to - make quite a nice income out of sending out phishing emails on our open email system. Likewise for randomsware, only more so. And so on.
iOS may have other flaws, but worrying that your iPhone is going to be locked by a Bitcoin hacker isn't one of them.
And realistically, users are idiots - at least technically. We've all heard of PC users who click on every random thing and end up with twenty-odd toolbars and almost every possible virus. The only reason phones aren't the same is because security is locked down.
These are consumer devices. They are not hacker devices. If you want an open hacker device, go build one and see if you can persuade people to buy it.
You won't - of course - because in userland locked down security is a feature, not a bug. And users care more about not having to pay a ransom to unlock their own phones than they do about running with root privileges. Not having to think about this is valuable.
Having said all that, there's definitely room to negotiate the costs of all of this, and also to open up selected services that can be proven to be secure. But those costs, the access to useful non-risky APIs for devs, and access for third party service providers, are all different issues to the core validity of the model itself.
And so your argument is that Microsoft should have forbidden anyone from using a different browser engine (like Apple does) to make things safer ? What if someone installed Chrome or Firefox - that could have leaks and then you would think less of the platform - right ?
It's that people aren't exactly stretching their imaginations to picture their phone ecosystem going to hell. They've all been there before, and have vivid memories of what they don't want.
They are also not crazy to have different preferences for a phone and for a desktop. Just like you have different preferences when selecting a hotel room vs a house.
I don't mind personally I see the value they offer - they make products that are better overall for a large majority of consumers and their ecosystem just works for many use cases - it doesn't fit me particularly well but I see the value proposition.
Pretending that these store policies are driven by security is nonsense, those kinds of arguments tick me off.
Clearly Apple wants to make money. The only argument being made is that some customers choose the walled garden because they want a telephone, not a part-time job keeping the weeds at bay. As you say, that's (a component of) what they are selling, and they do it because it sells (long-term, in their estimation).
The phone ecosystem has already gone to hell, and Apple paved the way there.
Got any sources on iOS-specific, in-the-wild malware?
iOS certainly has malware and vulnerabilities, like any software, but they end up patched pretty quickly. It's definitely not the malware landscape we had on Windows 2000-2015 (arguably when Windows Defender got good).
I keep having Apple users explain that Catalina is better than Windows 95. This seems in a similar vein.
This is enforced by the platform sandbox, not the App Store. They are entirely separate things.
Otherwise, the alternate App Store would be relegated to installing apps within its own sandbox. And people would continue to howl about it.
iOS exploits are cheaper than Android exploits because iOS exploits are so plentiful[1][2].
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2020/05/14/zerodium_ios_flaws/
How do you explain that I've been using mac os for decades, I am able to install third party software, and I have not run into any of the issues you are describing?
That might be good for developers but it does not necessarily also imply that consumers are harmed. You assume that if a store charged a lower rate that the savings would be passed onto the consumer, but this does not reflect the real world where developers might simply choose to pocket the difference instead.
As an example, the Epic Games Store is charging $59.99 for the new release of Cyberpunk 2077. What's the cost on Steam? Also $59.99.
Game streaming services do not exist on iOS. This is a harm.
You cannot sign up for Netlifx on iOS. This is a harm.
You can signup for Netflix on iOS via the web browser.
And the browser is limited to whatever Apple allows. If it doesn't support some web API that has a native equivalent, you're out of luck. There are many of those.
You Download the Netflix App and it Doesn't Work if you don't already have an account.
That's harm, too.
If checking a box buried three screens deep in Settings is all it takes to play Fortnite with your friends again, that box is going to get checked. And once it does, all the privacy and security of iOS devices goes out the window.
Although at the end of the day people will still sometimes self-XSS themselves with the browser developer console or get phished etc.
Human error/ignorance is always a possible issue, and I don't think we should restrict everyone else for it. Cars and knives are still allowed in the world.
If the warning box says THIS IS A BIG SECURITY RISK and you click anyway it's your own choice, but a choice given in every single product and market created by man. A stupid phone is not where you draw the line and give it up.
We decided to punish people criminally who betray our trust in that way in physical space, and that usually works well enough that we can have enough of a trust-based society that we can let someone else have unsupervised access to our car for short periods of time.
For a variety of reasons, that trust has completely broken down with cell carriers and app developers. So we have to resort to a feudal system in which we rely on the local Lord to protect our interests.
I hate it too, but I need someone looking out for my privacy and the security of my mobile device. Apple is the best I can find.
You're free not to buy an iPhone. Most people don't.
But that doesn't matter when it comes to antitrust laws[1]:
> Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors. That is how that term is used here: a "monopolist" is a firm with significant and durable market power.
[1] https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...
When there is no competition the prices are higher. That is one way the consumers are harmed.
> I like the walled garden and have no interest in it going away. I like that my mom can install apps and not worry about them spying on her.
And you can have your walled garden and your mom can still install apps without worrying if they are spaying on them. Just use apples app store, simple as that. This is a non issue.
> I like that developers aren’t allowed to use their own payment processors. I don’t want to input my credit card into your black box payment system that might or might not charge me correctly.
You still have the option of using the apples app store. Again, a non issue for you.
Except apps GP uses will leave the official App Store in favor of the jenky "type in your credit card to each individual app" app store. So it actually is in GP's favor for there not to be an option.
Not saying that is justification, but let's not just pretend it's all roses.
Couldn't Apple offer a reasonable compromise that they only allow competing App Stores on their phones if those App Stores don't allow exclusive apps? App stores would still be able to compete on prices and payment methods.
I suppose that all apps would still have to be approved by Apple, though, otherwise an app creator could just hide something that Apple objects to in their app somewhere, causing it to be disallowed from Apple's App Store but allowed in third party ones.
This would not be a reasonable compromise, as one of the primary reasons for wanting competing app stores is because of Apple's insane overreach in trying to control what you are and aren't allowed to run on your own phone.
When I last had an iPhone, I wanted to install a heavy computing application that I had previously used on Android. I found out from the developers of that application that they had been rejected from the App Store because their app used too much CPU power. Apparently you're meant to just use the phone for decoration?
Google has some similarly nonsense policies (good luck finding a good adblocker on the Play Store), but at least it takes all of five seconds to circumvent that. Apple allowing competing app stores while still having complete control over the content available on them does very little to solve the problems that their monopoly causes.
This is an assumption. A weird assumption, at that. Apps wouldn't tarnish their brands by being distributed on badly implemented stores, in the same way you don't see apps worth using being advertised on porn sites or 4chan.
They can also be lower (a monopsony), because the middleman in a two sided market can extract value from the provider and deliver it to the consumer. This is how universal health care, Amazon, etc work.
And how do you install other App Stores? Just visit epicgames.com/ios, see a popup asking "do you want to install this app store" and click "confirm"? That's no different than the exact thing that caused Windows to be known to need an antivirus (at least, until Windows Defender and smartscreen became good enough for 'common sense' users). Anything more is going to be met with criticism for 'too much of a barrier to install' for competing app stores.
You really think Apple not doing that?
Do you want to get your location without Apple also getting your location? You can't. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25355587
Do you want to install an app on your device without telling Apple? You can't.
Do you want to build apps for your own device and not have to reinstall them weekly without telling Apple your banking details? Tough luck.
Platforms that don't give users an escape hatch to run their own software have nothing to stop them from abusing their users. They will abuse their users' privacy just as much as they will abuse their users' wallets.
Until very recently (ios 13/14) apps did exactly this. There are arguments for the walled garden in terms of ensuring applications are built, signed, and distributed safely but developers (e.g. Facebook, etc) absolutely abused the system APIs to spy on users and collect data they had no right to.
Even with the newer protections, apps randomly want to access my contacts or local network or location. The average user (like my mom and dad) are most likely just gonna click through those.
I'm not arguing for ios/android here but we should be factual. I will say I like the walled garden for other reasons, such as a consistent payment gateway, etc.
Aren't many of these protections at the OS level? Certainly apps installed from 3rd party App stores on Android still have to use the same permissions system/etc as those coming from the Google Store.
For example straight up fraud and phishing, or botnets, or Apps that abuse permissions.
Many of these have no technical countermeasures and have to either be rejected at review time, or removed when discovered.
Far more could be done with more sophisticated user controlled monitoring tools, which could say monitor the network traffic, application accesses to any information on the device etc. No reason it cannot be done, and they may be there already.
Also device does not need to have their applications mandatorily locked to an App Store to get the benefits. Optional use of the 'official' app store is fine too, which is what isn't there on iOS. You can choose to just get your applications through the 'official' app store. Someone else not getting their applications through the 'official' app store does not magically put those applications on your device, and thus does not decrease the security you may get from the app store for you.
As as for ‘you can just choose the official store’ - it’s not as simple as that. There will be a giant campaign to get people to install alternative stores because the official one is evil and locked down.
People will do so without having the ability to tell which alternative stores are legitimate and which are not.
You have been presented a single option, and find that you like some aspects of the outcome. What's being hidden from you are other options where the same or similar outcomes can happen which might have even more benefits you would like.
Right now you seem to have what you consider a benevolent dictator. What happens when the dictates are not as benevolent?
You desires matter less to Apple than they do to organizations that actually have to worry about users users leaving more. That's because there's so much you give up if you leave. How long until this is abused? Also, what of those that are already abused because of Apple's power? Where Apple makes arbitrary decisions dictated not by the rules they've put forth but by internal business decisions and the desire to prop up their own offerings?
What about a world where Apple was a clearinghouse for what was allowed on the phone, but followed a very clear set of rules that dictated what was allowed and not, and took a well defined fee to review apps, and allowed App stored to be registered and submit apps for review and apply their own additional rules on top? Wouldn't you get most the benefits you like out of that? Wouldn't that provide both competition and provide a similar level of security?
The simplest way to do this would be like on android devices when you want to unlock a bootloader - a one way, single step process, where the phone wipes itself and reboots and is then "unlocked". If you did that on iPhones it would be enough of discouragement to stop all the mums and grandmas from accidentally installing dodgy software off the internet, but it still leaves the final choice to you, the user. You want a bodyguard, not a nanny - there's a difference.
In your example: Volkswagen imposes quality controls on those parts, making sure they're not going to blow up or subvert the car.
As soon as other shops can install 3rd-party parts, you have a race to the bottom for shops, no one's enforcing quality controls, and you wind up with cars that, for example, get better performance by violating emissions standards except when they're actively being tested.
(So, maybe we should be using some manufacturer other than Volkswagen. :-)
Good. 95% of emissions standards are bullshit.
In any case, the ability to theoretically violate regulations isn't a reason to preclude people from DIY or third party repairs.
So, like almost everything you buy? This is why branding and reputation are important. You can be cheap, but you get what you pay for.
Do you feel the same way about all other things in life where you are presented with a choice? Would you prefer there to only be a single grocery store you get your groceries from, for example?
If you want a different App Store then market a different phone don’t drag down the iPhone.
Let's say that hypothetically, there was another store present on iOS. Does that stop you(or anyone) from only ever using the Apple App Store?? On Android, there are several other stores available, yet I have never felt the need to use any of them - they exist, they have their own customers.....but....that's it.
It's like if you already have one shop in your village, so you prevent others from opening even though literally nothing would force you to go to these other shops and you can still enjoy the original shop as much as you did before. Literally nothing changes in your life, but you want to prevent others from having a choice, even if you yourself don't appreciate the choice. That's mindboggling to me.
They’d be doing that instead of something else productive that I could use.
So it’s a loss to me and other Apple users who appreciate the curated system at the moment.
Your analogy is ‘prevent’ but really it’s ‘not want to do the work to enable’. See how that’s not the same thing? Instead of 'not preventing someone opening a new shop in the village' you're asking them to cut a hole in the side of their store so someone in a greasy food cart can connect up to it and sell smelly burgers with poor food hygiene standards in the middle of their boutique, and then maintain that hole going forward.
They don't want to do that! Many of their customers don't want that! Those customers that do want it can go somewhere else, like Android!
That's the same argument, word for word, that people used to defend businesses not serving coloured folk - after all, can't they just go elsewhere? And we as society decided no, they shouldn't have to go anywhere - if you run a business, you have to serve everyone, end of story. I think it's time to do the same for Apple - if you want to run an app platform, you have to allow choice. And if your choice is to stay with App Store and only install apps curated by apple - that's perfectly valid. No one is taking that away from you.
Again, how exactly does that inconvenience you, personally? No one is forcing you to use these other stores, no one is imposing anything on you. They will just exist somewhere for people who want them. Again, I'm on Android but I don't feel like I'm losing anything by the mere existence of the Amazon App store - it's there if you want it, if you don't then that's cool.
And yes, I absolutely think you are overexaggerating the technical difficulty behind allowing people to do this - all Apple needs to do it allow apps to install other apps from packages. It's hardly a groundbreaking architectural change, come on.
> if you run a business, you have to serve everyone, end of story
This isn't even true! You can deny service to anyone for any reason as long as it's not a protected characteristic! Apple already cannot deny your app based on your race.
If a restaurant doesn't like your attitude they can ask you to leave. Can't Apple do the same?
> Again, how exactly does that inconvenience you, personally?
Because the smartphone gets worse. Less locked-down, less simple, more complex, more avenues of attack. More expensive to make and maintain.
But why does anyone have to justify why they don't like it? I think 'I don't want to do this' should be reason enough for Apple to not do it. As long as they aren't impacting people who aren't their customers it's their business not yours.
> no one is imposing anything on you
Yes you are you want to impose that Apple change their software to suit you - it's selfish.
You want it your way, I want it my way. Hope can we resolve this? How about we let Apple choose who to market to?
We can't make it a legally protected right to have products designed for people's random whims.
Well, perhaps, my broader point is that the ability of businesses to govern themselves and set their own rules does end somewhere, and that line is decided by societies and can change with time. Things that were acceptable few years ago maybe aren't acceptable now, and vice versa.
>>Because the smartphone gets worse. Less locked-down, less simple, more complex, more avenues of attack
I just don't see that at all, sorry. The experience for 99.99% users won't change at all. Apple could have enabled this last week and you wouldn't have seen any difference at all.
>>We can't make it a legally protected right to have products designed for people's random whims.
Well, but it's not just a random whim, that's the crux of the issue. Once the size of a company and the market it controls gets big enough, it's only natural that they are forced to open to others. It happened to every industry before, why should apple be immune to this? It's the whole epic vs apple discussion again - if two sides want to engage in lawful business contract(sell each other software in this case) why should apple be the arbiter of these transactions? Or rather - why should you, the owner of your smartphone, be forced to use apple as the arbiter.
>>How about we let Apple choose who to market to?
They still can, literally nothing changes on that front. They still market to the same people, they still curate the apps like they used to, they still have 100% control of their app store and the device. The only thing that I would like to change is that ability to say "this is my device apple, I paid for it, let me install software that didn't go through your filter". Again, entirely optional. But we looped back to the first point that we are going to disagree on again - you think that will make the experience worse, I don't think it will.
I think we should agree to part ways on that - the discussion is as always enjoyable, but we might have exhausted the potential here :-)
You knew what you were getting into when you bought the iPhone. Trying to change it after the fact just seems like trying to profit off other people’s hard work and investments. Screw that.
Maybe a different example - until very recently, if you bought a BMW, you could only get Apple CarPlay as a subscription, you couldn't just pay upfront to have it. Which is not how this works literally anywhere else, every other brand has it as a one-time unlock and then you have it for life.
Surely, every person buying a brand new BMW knew this, it's clearly advertised. So....should they not have complained about this? After all, they knew what they were buying. But, people have been complaining, and BMW has finally changed it recently. Good riddance I say.
But back to the iphone dillema. The problem with your argument is that this is traditionally not how markets work. If company X wants to sell something to John Smith(let's say an app for their iphone), but cannot without going through some kind of licence holder(Apple in this case) - it's totally a valid question to ask if Apple is stifling competition here or not. In my opinion - they are. Maybe the company X is making a completely legitimate web browser, that John Smith wants to buy and pay money for - but Apple will say nope, you can't buy that, because that would compete with our own product. That's anticompetitive behaviour, and traditionally it does eventually get stopped in court. Like I said in my example several posts ago - volkswagen cannot do anything to stop the company X from selling brake pads to John Smith, yes they fit a car that Volkswagen made but Volkswagen doesn't get to say whether John Smith is allowed to purchase and fit those parts or not. Courts all over the world have decided, many times, that corporations shouldn't have that power. Why do smartphone manufacturers get to keep that power now then? That will change in my opinion, and they will be forced to open up.
End of story.
I don't care who makes money and how they do it. I don't care about any wider point. I care that my experience on the phone that I bought for that experience doesn't get worse. I believe that experience would get worse, if there was open-season on the apps that could be installed. Capitalists are going to capitalize. The walled garden comes with restrictions that I signed up for, and I'm happy about that. That was why I signed up in the first place.
I very do much care about the results of your proposals becoming popular, and I don't want what you're proposing to come about. I want it to be known that there are people who oppose your point of view, in case it becomes de-facto the "popular opinion".
I'm not trying to be nasty or anything - I just vehemently don't want what you're trying to say is a good thing. It's akin to me not wanting my right leg chopped off, and someone trying to persuade me to listen to the arguments on both sides. No thanks; I want both my legs - or in this instance... I want my unsullied app-store.
It would harm Apple, because when users try the third party app store and have problems, they will expect Apple to support it. If Apple doesn't do the support, it tarnishes their brand to that user.
Like, sure, it can happen. But if your parents can be convinced by someone to install a 3rd party store and download something from it, they can be equally easily convinced to go to a dodgy website that will scam them from something else and their magical iPhone won't save them from it. Besides, the whole idea that adult people should be prevented from having choice for their own good is almost offensive to me, like ....don't we believe in personal freedom and choice? Your parents should be able to choose to lock down your their phones(or you can do it for them) but equally, if they want to unlock it - they should be able to.
It's a bit like the cruise ship industry where you forgo choice (compared to traveling outside of a tour) but gain safety and the benefit of not having to research or make decisions. If anyone could open up a restaurant or organise an outing on a cruise ship, then that perceived safety disappears and the need to make conscious decisions arises.
As this seems to be a reasonably common theme in these posts I wonder if there's a market for more products that follow a similar purchase incentive, like a fridge that only allows you to insert groceries you've bought from the trusted supermarket.
Arguing for other app stores / unsigned apps on the iOS platform is counter intuitive to what made the ecosystem great in the first place.
I had android phones and did all the custom stuff & rooting from the G1 and forwards for many years, in the end i only regret not changing over sooner.
There is nothing great about the "freedom of choice" on the android platform, it all makes for a lesser experience unless you're really into it for other reasons - political/principle.
And they are free to do it. Have your own set of trusted dealers and vendors. Void warranty for off-branded parts. However, once I buy the car I am also free to go to any shitty unsafe vendor I want. VW can't tell me not to do that, because it's my car not theirs.
Do you think it would be okay if Volkswagen remotely shut down your car because they didn't like the brand of gas you put in it (for your own safety of course)?
>>As soon as other shops can install 3rd-party parts
But....they can. Of course they can. What's more, both EU and US law protects the ability of 3rd parties to make replacement parts, and your ability as the consumer to fit those parts. The law goes so far as forbidding manufactuers from voiding your warranty due to fitting of non-OEM parts unless they can specifically prove that the part that you fitted caused problems.
>>you wind up with cars that, for example, get better performance by violating emissions standards except when they're actively being tested.
Again, that's already a thing and has been a thing since forever. Modding is extremely popular in some circles. Just like flashing your phone with custom FW is popular in certain circles too, but that doesn't mean that once it's allowed everyone and their grandma will suddenly run some HAXXOR build of iOS.
More seriously, it's hard to know what all's installed on your phone, and what all it's doing; car parts are intrinsically sandboxed.
It'll be interesting to see what happens when always-connected self-driving cars have enough compute power to run self-driving systems and people are free to install random apps without great security (because car manufacturers seem to be awful at that). I'm predicting cutesy weather apps that quietly mine crypto all night long...
The whole point of Apps is that they are reviewed and therefore are safer than random stuff on the web.
It’s would be scaremongering if these kinds of threat were hypothetical, but of they are pretty widely known.
But.. the law also holds those 3rd parties responsible for damage caused by failures of their parts.
No such protection exists for software.
Let’s start with some working legal privacy and fraud protections for software.
Then we can compare software to cars.
Until then, let people buy into a walled garden if they want to.
Sure, you have a lot of good car choices today, but at some point it might be hard to find a car that has your other desirable specs in addition to being repair and modification friendly.
If everyone who bought a car was a well informed with at least a minimum of knowledge of cars, in addition to being able to calculate how repair costs will affect them over the time they own it, then sure. Let the market sort itself out. Since many aren't, let's keep regulations in place to ensure desirable properties.
Heck, imagine what safety features cars would lack if they weren't government mandated requirements...
What I don't get is why you're advocating for your own freedoms to be taken away. Don't carry water for the car companies, if they want more freedoms they can use their money and lobby for it. You don't need to do their job pro bono, leave that up to Citizens United.
It's like arguing that you should be able to enter an employment contract that stipulates physical punishment for making mistakes at work - surely, being able to enter such contract is freedom! If you don't like it, go somewhere else, market forces will sort it out! And yet, we as society have decided that no, physical punishment is not acceptable and you cannot waive your right to be free of it. That's freedom. Not what you are saying.
Physical punishment is just a terrible comparison.
Part of the trade-off that large companies accept in being allowed to become mega-players in a space is that to make up for the lack of individual power, the government may step in and make the world better for individuals at the expense of the larger companies by, for instance, mandating freedoms: freedom to repair (especially in the case of cars), freedom to re-sell (that's the first-sale doctrine in case you're curious), and so on.
We're talking about individual freedoms.
Let's be super clear, once you purchase the car, it's not their product, it's your car. That's how ownership works. Once it is in your physical lawful possession, it is your to do with as you please. The entire legal system is built around this idea.
For instance, if someone steals my car and wrecks it, does Volkswagen sue the car thief for damages, or do I? If you answered anything other than Volkswagen, it's not "their product" anymore.
The best example of this that demonstrates what you'd end up with is the cost of key fob programming. The actual cost of the hardware is trivial but a dealership will charge you $250-500 to program a new one because they have a monopoly on programming the fobs for their brand. Those things should cost $50 max IMO.
The scary thing is the vehicle industry is moving this way for everything and if nothing changes it's eventually going to become extremely difficult / expensive to own a vehicle that's not under warranty. I wouldn't be surprised if they start serializing parts and then sell service plans that increase in price as your car ages. You'll pay forever.
It is indeed scary that even car manufacturers are moving towards central control of every little thing in your car.
The last thing I want to see with all these tech companies following Apple's footsteps in a lot of things, is to see the auto industry becoming like Apple.
Media systems locking due to the lack of power is not a new problem. I do remember having the exact same problem on my 1994 Passat, where the radio would lock itself and you had to go to the dealer to have it unlocked.
>>And we do not have the pin, we were never given a pin
Literally the same problem, except 25 years later :P Manufacturers almost never issued these special pins to unlock radios.
And like, disconnecting the battery has always been a problem in cars, BMWs, Mercs, Opels, Peugeots, Fiats - I've had them all and they all did something weird if you disconnected the battery - more often than not, a check engine light would pop up and you had to bring it to the dealer to clear it. This is not new.
There's a risk-benefit question to be weighed even with cars; Lots of parts in a Volkswagen are sealed for safety reasons, and (in many countries) your car will get inspected regularly (here in Portugal it's an annual occurrence) to make sure your modifications don't impact the safety of your car and to others you meet on the road.
Having to re-tether your phone periodically to a diagnostic device to rekey and verify the trusted base seems like a reasonable analogue to me and that's largely where unlocking on iPhone is at the moment.
> like on android devices when you want to unlock a bootloader - a one way, single step process
I think "single step" is a bit disingenuous here: It's many little steps that all have to be performed correctly, and that then need to be sealed by relocking the bootloader (wiping the phone again) or you'll end up with a phone that cannot any longer protect your data from physical access, and may have a diminished capability to protect you from remote access.
There's a case to do this in the lab, but I think nobody in their right mind should put their banking details in an unlocked phone -- and yet that's exactly where most guidance about unlocking various Android devices leaves its users...
> There's a line here - and it should end at customers choice, always.
> it still leaves the final choice to you, the user
If I woke up to find my bank account suddenly $100k lighter, I'd want my money back, and giving the bank any opportunity to say well Geo, you made a choice to rip out the trusted base we were relying on would fill me deeply with regret for letting the Internet convince me this was something as simple as choice.
Right now, there are relatively few people in the world who would be confronted with that dilemma -- precisely because iPhones don't make this easy. Do you agree? Or can you explain why you think it would make our society better to have more people face that?
Well, I think you grossly overestimate the impact iphones have on financial security of people world wide. iPhones are a minority of all phones, in some countries less than 1% of all, and yet people aren't losing their life savings left and right. Yes it happens, but it also happens to iphone users - they are just targetted in different ways. And I think you are, like many others in this thread, assuming that it's all or nothing - android has a reputation for dodgy security, but I really don't think it's deserved. No bank app will allow installation on android if you have root enabled. None of them allow screen capture or 3rd party text input while the app is running. And yet, you have the freedom - you can choose(important word here) what you want to do with the product that you own.
I just don't think this would be anywhere near as large problem as people think, and I would prefer the personal freedom gained by it. Again, on Android, you can flash custom firmware to your phone, yet how many people(outside of HN) ever do it? In cars, you can absolutely reflash the ECU and break every regulation under the sun, and yet how many people(outside of enthusiast/modding circles) do you know who do so? There is no regulation there, no big brother stopping you from doing that - and yet 99.9999% of people never do it. And yes, I come from a country that has annual inspections too - that has absolutely nothing to do with fitting your own parts to a car. Even if I don't buy the OEM brake pads for my mercedes, it will still pass the annual inspection with flying colours. The whole argument that car manufacturers make of "we seal our parts so we know they are good" has been an utter nonsense repeated for at least 70 years now - most parts are not manufactured by them and can be bought directly(like OEM brake pads for mine are actually made by Brembo, so I can either pay £150 to mercedes for a set, or buy them directly from brembo for £90....exact same product).
https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/uk-banking-apps-for-roote...
> I just don't think this would be anywhere near as large problem as people think,
That's clear, but:
> you have the freedom - you can choose(important word here) what you want to do with the product that you own.
isn't using the definition of "choose" that I'm using, and I'm trying to make a point to you on this that I'm not entirely sure came across, so I'll try another way: Yes, you can choose to run someone over with your car, and it can happen by accident because of drink, but if you choose to install HideRoot, are you really aware of what you're choosing, or is the potential loss merely the same kind of accident?
I think speaking of the population who roots, probably not, and although most of the rooters I've met aren't on HN, I can imagine if you think most of them are, you might have a different perspective on that.
You can similarly think banks are wrong to try and override your "choice" to root things that you own, but they're also making an effort to try and keep their customers safe, and I think this is an important motivation to consider when asking why Apple makes it difficult to replace parts of the trusted base as well.
That being said, I'm not even remotely naive about the fact that the App Store revenue is probably an important factor as well for Apple, I just think that the solution has to be better/more-thought-out than you initially suggested -- for Android as well.
I buy another phone.
Because there is plenty of competition in the smartphone market and companies willing to take my money.
But I stay with Apple because right now their walled garden is exactly what I am looking for.
Yes I know there are other hobbyist ones, but I don't see them at Carphone Warehouse.
Consider this passes and then the Facebook app (or, probably even worse, Amazon) immediately becomes an app store. At that point what's to stop them from loading and running literally any arbitrary code on the phone's of everyone who updates the facebook app? Same goes for an "utility class" app where consumers have limited choice of competitors. Sure, technically inclined people might figure it out and try to raise a stink, but I guess I don't feel like the public understanding of this is good enough for this not to end badly? Remember the "Facebook Research" VPN[1]? And as a society we would be trading this massive surveillance liability for... the opportunity for a handful of developers to make a killing creating a competing store? an upper middle class group to make more money? Apple to make less money?
Sorry, but we live in a world of Titans, and me, the little guy, can't really stand up to them. At least for the moment I can stand behind Apple.
[1]https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/29/facebook-project-atlas/?gu...
With respect to point (2) nobody's saying you can't continue to shop exclusively in the walled garden. On macOS you can opt for the walled garden via App Store, or download from anywhere else. Being able to download from anywhere else doesn't devalue or detract from thew walled garden. If you like your little nook you can keep it.
Think back about a decade ago when there were a number Smartphone platforms. They were backed by (back then) industry heavy weights such as Palm, RIM, and Microsoft. If one didn't like Apple or Google Android, there were plenty of options out there. As the market matures through, consolidation happens, and now we are left with two platforms.
What happens if, tomorrow, both those platforms decided to not play nice? Are the Chinese Android phones with no Google Play Service or the Pinephone really viable and reasonable alternatives?
If the market becomes less competitive, can't we deal with that issue then?
Rather, I just want point out that, for smartphones, we are well into maturity stage of the industry life cycle, which means it is hard for new companies to enter the market, and where existing companies are focused on generating profit (meaning companies will no longer be playing nice).
It would naive to believe that companies would continue to play nice after they are done building their marketshare.
OP literally answered this question. Buy a different phone.
It's not just a phone, it's a whole ecosystem.
Many people just stream these days though.
Modifying the software so that it permits third party apps makes the software worse - more complicated, less simple and clear.
So I don't want that.
> but followed a very clear set of rules that dictated what was allowed and not, and took a well defined fee to review apps
What makes you think whoever does this will be more benevolent than Apple, though?
> You state those preferences as if there's no possible way they could be provided while allowing competition.
In theory, sure. In practice, Apple's closed, walled-garden business model has produced outcomes that I really like. All manner of more open and competition-friendly business models have produced outcomes I find extremely unappealing.
My intuition is that many of the things I like about Apple products come from their unique, closed business model. Is something better theoretically possible? Of course. Do I want to risk screwing up one of the few tech giants whose products I can actually stomach by having the government strong-arm them into using a new business model? Not a chance.
> You have been presented a single option, and find that you like some aspects of the outcome.
No, I have been presented with several options: iOS on an iPhone, Android on phones of all shapes and sizes, and (over the years) various other configurations like webOS, windows phone, and so on.
> Right now you seem to have what you consider a benevolent dictator. What happens when the dictates are not as benevolent?
Then I'll have to switch to a different phone maker.
> You desires matter less to Apple than they do to organizations that actually have to worry about users users leaving more. That's because there's so much you give up if you leave. How long until this is abused? Also, what of those that are already abused because of Apple's power? Where Apple makes arbitrary decisions dictated not by the rules they've put forth but by internal business decisions and the desire to prop up their own offerings?
These are all trade-offs caused by Apple having total control over the system, and I'm ok with it.
> What about a world where Apple was a clearinghouse for what was allowed on the phone, but followed a very clear set of rules that dictated what was allowed and not, and took a well defined fee to review apps, and allowed App stored to be registered and submit apps for review and apply their own additional rules on top? Wouldn't you get most the benefits you like out of that? Wouldn't that provide both competition and provide a similar level of security?
As above, all of this sounds nice in theory. Maybe it would be great. But I am not interested in forcing Apple to make a change, because I like what I have now and the law of unintended consequences will certainly apply.
> Then I'll have to switch to a different phone maker.
That's great for you, and that you can afford that, but what of the person that's already invested a few thousand dollars into apps and accessories for the iPhone and iOS? Many, possibly every single one of those things won't work anywhere else. And that's not a coincidence, or people making informed choices, Apple in many of those cases has enforced their will on those components or how they are allowed to interact.
If I want something other than iOS can I put it on my iPhone? No. Not because nobody values that, but because Apple has arbitrarily restricted what you can do with the hardware you purchased.
If I want to run iOS on non-Apple hardware. Also a nope.
What if I want to move to Android and use my chargers or peripherals that connect to my iPhone? Not if they use Apple's proprietary lightning connector.
What about any apps you purchased through the App store? Sorry, even if they wanted to many couldn't offer you a tree version even if they wanted to, Apple has started completely anonymizing users and emails and ids for people using their apps. They say it protects users, and it does in some respects, but it also means that Apple is right there between all interactions, enforcing whatever rules they deem prudent.
It's obviously not as simple as just deciding that the next time you buy a new phone, you'll opt for the other one and spend roughly the same amount of money. You are literally at the same time likely obsoleting hundreds or thousands of dollars of investment in a platform. These are forces that work to stifle and manipulate a free market, where people choose the best choice given the attributes of what they are buying. Our current economic system is predicated on the idea that the free market works and should be unfettered unless it's to protect the system or consumers from abuse. Placing barriers to people making informed choices or acting on the choices they would like to make because or arbitrary limitations is hurting us all by extension.
> because I like what I have now
This is ultimately what it comes down to in all these comments. "You want change, but I'm happy and comfortable, so I don't care if this is problematic for others or causes harm or is setting up a problem for down the road, I'll fight you all the way". How is this different than climate change, or civil rights? The scope on those may seem larger, but what we're ultimately discussing is consumer rights, and while not as important, it's still important, and why are the incentives and behaviors any different?
That's not do equate you to specific bad historical behavior, but that mindset is specifically responsible for horrific things in the past. The "I like what I have, so leave me alone" position should always be dissected for what it might unintentionally be allowing. In this case, maybe it's not that bad. But maybe it is pretty bad. That's what we're discussing. I surely won't take that position alone as reasoning for why to relent on my side of an argument though.
My taking an airplane trip adds carbon that effects everyone's atmosphere. My supporting a company I like (Apple) makes it more difficult for competitors (including more open ones) to succeed.
But unless you are arguing for a totally planned economy where the default is that the government makes all market decisions, our mindsets are the same. i.e. That we should weigh the costs and benefits of government intervention vs leaving the market alone.
If externalities or market failures are very bad (the climate, human rights, etc...), of course I support government intervention. However, government intervention has many costs and far from a perfect track record, so it's not a solution I want to throw at every problem.
I don't think we have a difference in mindset, we just weigh things differently. I don't think the things you've mentioned (app-locking, hardware incompatibility, etc...) are anywhere near bad enough to justify anti-trust action.
But in a typical “customer harm” perspective I think it’s very hard to make a case.
Apps aren’t really that more expensive on iOS nor is the catalog smaller.
However much we want a freer iOS experience, competing App Stores will just make iOS like modern gaming with a crappy custom App Store for each vendor. It would be more reasonable to have easier side loading for enthusiast or stuff Apple doesn’t want in its store.
That means the breakeven for the 30% fee is at 27000 sales for a $3 app _in average_, but many apps make no sales, many others are free, many are cheaper than $3.
So the 30% fee is effectively the bigger apps paying so the smaller apps can exist, and so a market can exist, with low-cost apps, which makes it interesting for customers to come. Therefore I don’t personally think the 30% cut is unfair; just that « the bigger paying for the smaller » is a debatable choice (which is the same idea as the bigger taxpayers paying for the poorest).
The current situation sucks, but it's worth mentioning that this alternative sucks equally as well. Specifically, games from these distributors often install dodgy kernel drivers rendering computers useless for purposes other than gaming for anyone who are conscious about security and privacy.
Furthermore, advertising, entertainment, and gaming industries are known to be hostile towards users when they're given control over user devices. They would most certainly force users onto their own app stores when given the chance and proceed to install whatever invasive piece of software they seem fit.
So while I'd love to have an easy way to install community-run app stores for free and open source software, I'd be wary of any attempts by user-hostile industries to create their own app store. I'd really like to be proven wrong, but it seems we currently have a choice between two evils.
> no music besides iTunes store (no spotify)
FYI you can install the Spotify app from the App Store at https://apps.apple.com/us/app/spotify-music-and-podcasts/id3...
I think OP is aware that competing music apps are allowed. They're making an analogy about banning competing app stores, just because itunes is good doesn't mean we don't want competition ... the same concept applies.
Given the past and current track record of the advertising, entertainment, and gaming industries, would you really want to be forced to install an app store run by any of them?
If this was purely about getting something like F-Droid into iDevices or side loading for power users, it would be very beneficial for users. Apple deserves some of the negativity for not letting that happen.
However, known user hostile players trying to have a go at people's personal devices under the guise of competition is something that we as consumers should be equally wary of. Because in the end, we won't be given much choice. Monopolies are not something exclusive to Apple, and big players will use their own monopolistic power to coerce users to install their privacy invading app store.
> However, known user hostile players trying to have a go at people's personal devices under the guise of competition is something that we as consumers should be equally wary of.
Is epic user hostile? Other than offering temporarily exclusive applications their store does not seem hostile ...
> Because in the end, we won't be given much choice. Monopolies are not something exclusive to Apple, and big players will use their own monopolistic power to coerce users to install their privacy invading app store.
Defeating hypothetical monopolistic practices by denying user choice and persisting an existing monopolistic practice sure is a take.
Let's see an example of dodgy kernel drivers. How about Easy Anti-Cheat? Go to their page at https://www.easy.ac/en-us/. Guess who develops it?
> hypothetical monopolistic practices
Hypothetical monopolistic practices really? Because I vividly recall Facebook skirting App Store security policies to make users install a privacy invading VPN app, which they also used to gather data on competitors[1]. But I'm sure that's fine because people have alternatives to Facebook. Or perhaps not[2].
Their store does not install or require this. Specific applications require it for online play (and generally only for online play...)
Microsoft does not ban this behavior on any storefront, AFAIK. Having a single storefront would not change this.
> Hypothetical monopolistic practices really? Because I vividly Facebook skirting App Store security policies to make users install a privacy invading VPN app, which they also used to gather data on competitors[1].
Amusingly this occurred under the current iOS app restrictions, which clearly didn't prevent this.
An argument could be made for certain high-risk extension point access (such as VPN) could be limited independently of general apps, but the fact that there's a bad VPN app is a silly excuse for restricting the install of simple applications.
The app sandbox should provide plenty of protection, and if the user opts to give apps permissions, that's on their choice. I really don't think users are going to install an app store that requires the usage of a sketchy VPN app ...
If this were the case, surely it would exist already on android :-)
> But I'm sure that's fine because people have alternatives to Facebook. Or perhaps not[2].
[2]: is exactly why we don't need to leave Apple's monopoly in place to "defeat other monopolies" ... we have other tools for that. Let users (and their representatives etc.) decide.
How does this matter? You've shown doubts that epic engages in user hostile behavior. I've shown you evidence. It shows that they can't be trusted with the security and privacy of their customer's devices.
> Amusingly this occurred under the current iOS app restrictions, which clearly didn't prevent this.
Amusingly the app wouldn't have been pulled if it was Facebook running the App Store. It likely wouldn't have made the headlines either because it would be common practice. This is the same Facebook, along with Google, that abused enterprise certificates to skirt the app review process itself[1].
> The app sandbox should provide plenty of protection, and if the user opts to give apps permissions, that's on their choice.
You'd be amazed at the lengths some users went through to install Google and Facebook's sketchy "research" app[1].
But to get back to the point, all I'm saying boils down to two things:
- Apple should enable FOSS communities to run an app store and also make it easy for power users to side load apps
- Consumers should be extremely cautious of big players demanding more access to their personal devices
Is this such a silly position to take?
[1]: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/02/google-screenwise-unwi...
Some are. [0] And because of the 30% cut many popular services simply aren't available through their iOS apps.
[0] https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-app-makers-break-their-apps...
But I agree with the other posters: literally making it impossible for me to willingly do something with my own device is not a feature.
There are other ways to help prevent payment issues or privacy concerns - one of which is just sticking to the App Store (if it really is that valuable then won't the market decide?) - the other of which is requiring hoops to jump through like Google does with third-party applications on Android. Hell - look at Gatekeeper on macOS.
On iOS, certain API restrictions are enforced by the app review process.
Not to mention some behavioral restrictions are purely enforced by the threat of being banned from the app store.
For example, apps could[1] spam you 10x a day with 3rd party advertising push notifications, but that is banned by app store policy, not by any technical limitation of the platform.
[1] For awhile this was a serious problem on Android until Google clamped down on it, again, using store policy not technical restrictions.
Think pre-SP2 Windows XP. Think the JRE updater installing the Ask Jeeves toolbar. (Or Chrome, that was slimy....)
Drive by app installs initiated from Safari on iOS would be Bonzai Buddy all over again.
Right now if a handful of misbehaving apps makes it past the app store review process, it is in the news.
What happens if that review store process is no longer there? How many alternative keyboards will be going around stealing credentials? How many apps spamming ads 24/7?
Notarization for apps on macOS already checks for private API usage[1] even if the apps aren't distributed on the Mac App Store.
[1] https://www.waynedixon.com/2019/05/16/new-notarization-requi...
Most of people might still want to use the appstore because it has the reputation of being safe. I don't see how the garden and freedom are mutually exclusive. You just tell your mom to stay in the garden and this is what most non technical people usually do on android.
Example: you cannot buy Kindle books in the Kindle app as they would be subject to 30% fees. You have to go to the web browser to buy the books. Apple inserting itself into this sort of marketplace transaction is highly questionable.
The google play store offers the same level of protections around their internal payment platform and you can confidently download apps from verified developers.
Thing is, Apple and Google both offer the exact same benefits. They approve what gets published, they listen to complaints, they control some aspects of how you are allowed to code for their platforms. They lock you into their payment processor and they take a cut.
The difference is that if I want out of that comfy, protected walled garden, I have to do different things to get out.
On Android, I go to my security settings, enable third party sources, and then download alternative app store APKs from sites like Amazon and F-Droid. The garden isn't a jail.
On iOS, I either have to sideload software via my lighting cable in developer mode, or "jailbreak" (the garden is a jail) the operating system using third party hacks allowing me to install from new sources.
And sure, rooting Android or iOS is typically a hacky chore, but at least the Android rooting tool is published by Google.
* rooting the phone with an exploit
* rooting the phone with a modified boot image from original firmware (is this even possible any more?)
* installing a new ROM that allows root access
I think if I rooted my Note 9 it would permanently mark the phone as having been "tampered with", and at least on a 3rd party ROM I'd lose Samsung/Google Pay
Now, if you like your walled garden, ok, whatever, some people love their chains, but why do you feel entitled to impose the same slavish conditions on everyone else?
Then you are blindfolded. Many companies refuse to build for ios or charge more because of it. This isn't theory, it's fact supported by those companies and even the smallest amount of applied reason.
> I like the walled garden and have no interest in it going away. I like that my mom can install apps and not worry about them spying on her.
Apple is spying on you. Perhaps you missed the bit where they phone home with every app that you open, thereby fingerprinting and tracking you.
> I like that developers aren’t allowed to use their own payment processors. I don’t want to input my credit card into your black box payment system that might or might not charge me correctly.
This is a nice feature, but consumer choice exists. don't like it, don't use apps that require a different payment processor.
> I see that it does harm developers, but that’s a different conversation entirely.
It's really not. If the people making the apps lose, that's a problem.
> If you want to install whatever apps you want, buy an android phone! And have fun while their bloat ware and preinstalled crap spams you with notifications and scams you.
No thanks, I like my apple integrations but I also want to install what I want.
You don't have to, others, like me, do. I have been harmed by the App stores capricious rules. You can have the walled garden and still preserve my ability to have apps I want.
All you have to do is only use the apple app store.
This way, everyone wins! You can use the apple app store, and other people can use other app stores.
This is super ironic given how extensively Apple is spying on their customers. I guess you consider it OK too since it's Apple?
And btw, Apple's policy absolutely doesn't prevent spying: Google Chrome is still spying her your browsing habits, Gmail is reading her emails, Whatsapp has all her contact information (including identity and phone numbers of non-consenting friends of her), etc.
Apple policy is about malware, not user privacy.
What would be wrong with a buried setting that you could flip, allowing one to install non-App Store apps?
"And have fun while their bloat ware and preinstalled crap ..."
No such crap on this Pixel device I'm using.
You don't see how a lack of competition keeps prices unfairly high?
> I like the walled garden and have no interest in it going away
Competition does not mean anyone is taking your app store from you.
> I like that my mom can install apps and not worry about them spying on her.
Well one, they do, but two, no one is taking your mom's app store away.
> I don’t want to input my credit card into your black box payment system that might or might not charge me correctly.
No one is suggesting you do this?
> I see that it does harm developers, but that’s a different conversation entirely.
It harms everyone.
> If you want to install whatever apps you want, buy an android phone! And have fun while their bloat ware and preinstalled crap spams you with notifications and scams you.
I want to install whatever applications I'd like on the computer system I paid a thousand dollars for.
And I guess you didn't notice the un-removable iPhone apps on your phone when you bought it? Or is that some special kind of fancy bloatware?
Apple's scheme was basically a flat tax but clearly they determined they could make it progressive with minimal effects on revenue. They could go even further if they wanted to: since the top 98% of apps supposedly account for 95% of revenue, Apple could basically eliminate fees entirely for the bottom 98% without greatly affecting their bottom line.
It's somewhat like how 96% of the US income tax is paid by the top 50% of taxpayers. So income tax for the lower 50% could be reduced drastically with minimal effects on revenue. A gradual/progressive tax scheme is more desirable than a strict step function to avoid weird paradoxes where your net income can go down even as your gross income increases (which is a problem with the Apple scheme.)
Regardless, having some entry fee (e.g. $99 developer membership) is probably helpful for reducing spam apps.
From the development point of view 1 store at saves a huge amount of time.
I am all for open platform, low fees etc. But I am against a billion store apps.
And why would consumers want 10 store apps? And then search the app you want in each of them? I really doubt that.
Also how many of other stores have resources to check and validate each app? Probably none.
We should push Apple to treat all developers equally, lower fees, etc, but creating a bunch of app stores is not the way. Just integrate all your wishes in the one.
Simply because you don't want to use it doesn't mean it shouldn't exist. If you don't want to publish anywhere except Play, don't.
Thank you so much for your awesome work!
I am not well versed in this area but why does apple “need” to do that? that would hurt them. more like everyone else needs apple to do that because they’re profiting off of our backs. so the last thing apple needs is to hurt themselves.
just curious why you phrased it like that.
I like that apps have to pass review before being allowed on the platform, and those low-level API's are to protect users - you just don't see the "stealing all your personal data" or "mining bitcoin without telling you" apps that you do on other app stores.
As a consumer I don't want to search an app I need in 5 stores. It is a pure waste of time and I have much better things to do.
Fix existing store? Sure.
Let it rain with new stores, so to speak? No.
The biggest problem for many people is not the %, but the rules and limitations of the platform that comes from Apple being the intermediary between devs and users.
For example, game streaming services should exist on the app store. It is preposterous that apple rejects these apps. They are actively harming thier own platform, making it less featureful by doing this.
Being this intermediary is both a pro and a con for both devs and users, but they disallow anyone else to innovate on the platform. If Apple is so confident that their IAP is what users prefer, then they should give users (and developers) the choice and let the market speak!
It was a deliberate decision that was made to make it highly impractical to actually do. GeForce now has over 2000 games available to stream - do they actually expect Nvidia to submit 2000 apps? From a dev-infra POV that’s obviously largely impractical. Would Apple even allow that?
It’s also a baffling from the user’s point of view. What happens a single game is available on multiple platforms? I search for “Destiny 2” on the App Store and there’s 3 different listings for it on Stadia, GeForce Now and Xbox GPU.
Would it be reasonable for Apple to require Netflix to submit each movie and TV show to the App Store, and then say "no no, we do allow streaming tv!"
> It’s also a baffling from the user’s point of view. What happens a single game is available on multiple platforms? I search for “Destiny 2” on the App Store and there’s 3 different listings for it on Stadia, GeForce Now and Xbox GPU.
this is gross...
In any case it seems like the point is moot now because streaming games will be delivered to iOS via the web.
This isn’t impractical – it’s entirely possible to set up a build / deploy pipeline to the App Store for mass submission of applications. It’s annoying in places, but Apple are slowly getting better at providing APIs to make this easier, and there are third-party tools like Fastlane which also help.
> Would Apple even allow that?
If they were all instances of a single white-labelled streaming application, Apple would probably require the games to be published using developer accounts belonging to the rights holders for the games instead of publishing everything through an Nvidia account. This is an established requirement in those circumstances. It depends upon how they view the ownership of what is being published. Again, setting up a pipeline for this is annoying but doable.
And they do a super good job at reviewing apps, right? /s
This is impractical, considering the alternative.
However it’s not so obvious how Apple would manage the review process with the sudden changes in volume this would produce.
Many of those apps are old and simple.
2000 new games at once would be a significant volume change.
I really don't know about this, or rather I understand why Apple might argue that it's protecting users in addition to its services revenue. As far as I can tell from my mum's Android phone, Facebook has a lucrative business of advertising absolute garbage borderline-malware apps through their Android apps to people who don't know any better. It might be that Apple don't expose the APIs you need to make an iOS device a terrible experience for a user who installs your app at all. But if there are any holes in that walled garden once you drop the app store and review, a lot of iPhones will be a lot worse because Facebook will push horrible stuff at their less savvy users.
Well, almost - there's two hitches.
1. You have to manually trust the developer before the app will launch, which involves a huge dance of finding the developer trust settings (which are well hidden) and then selecting the developer of the enterprise-signed app 2. Apple will revoke your account if they catch your apps distributing outside of your organization
Technically speaking, there's zero changes Apple has to make in order to allow competition in app distribution. It's all policy. Apple could implement notarization requirements like they did with macOS, and they should, but that doesn't affect the underlying fact that people worried about third-party app distribution are already too late to the party. Here's the thing: plenty of developers abuse the system anyway. But it's extremely obvious and signposted to the user that they're installing a third-party app Apple hasn't reviewed. You aren't going to just click a link on a Facebook ad and suddenly have malware on your phone.
I'm not sure this would be too much of a burden. After all, it wasn't long ago that the Amazon Prime app had to be side loaded on android devices [1]. If the most vulnerable users are presented with "you need this to do what you want, here's how to install it", they'll follow the directions, even if difficult, because everything tech is relatively difficult and convoluted anyways.
[1] https://www.pcmag.com/news/amazon-prime-video-app-finally-av...
The apps were not Turing complete, but you could download them and run them on your phone.
Very lucrative business.
Thank you for being one of the pioneers of the Jailbreak community!
Also funny how Apple keeps trying to spin its insane rules as a universally good thing. Not everyone is a US corporation. Sexuality is a very important part of a person's life. Get over it.
I don't believe Apple will ever give up their infinite and effectively zero-cost source of free dough. They badly need it to justify their senseless valuation, not to mention growth.
No thanks. One of the main reasons I have had my whole family switch to iOS over Android over the past decade is that it's idiot proof. I no longer get a call that someone borked their phone because they followed the "unlimited farmville money with this one simple trick" tutorial that opened pandora's malware box.
You don't need to pretend OS security models haven't improved in the last 10 years. The App Store isn't the only or even the best protection against malware.
That is not something they were designed to do, and I doubt they would hold up. They're just one piece of the puzzle, and were put in place with the expectation that they would always be behind the App Store automated static analysis steps.
The other issues are push and entitlements. Should every app now maintain its own separate push connection to that app's own servers, or are they expected to get APNS certs from Apple?
How about feature entitlements? Should competing app store apps be notarized by Apple via developer ID, or should running anything, able to access anything (such as installing covert spyware that installs a systemwide spying VPN) be allowed?
There are probably more I haven't even thought of, yet. Maybe "free" apps that you pay for by letting it use your iCloud storage and bandwidth to put you in some giant replicated storage botnet? There are probably all sorts of avenues for abuse of bundled cloud services that open up when Apple can't reject abusive apps that users would otherwise voluntarily install.
I don’t want links installing jack shit on their phone ever. There are scummy apps already on the App Store that can enable a vpn and route all your traffic through their servers, and people like my parents won’t know any better.
The walled garden is important for them. For the rest of us, we can switch to another phone.
More importantly, means that as developers your distribution options are severely limited.
Let them buy another phone, or let Apple ship open and closed variants, or bury a switch in settings.
this is the most important aspect. I don't care how big a cut apple takes off the appstore - it's irrelevant what people "think" they should charge, because the cut is going to be determined by a market rate. But this market rate determination requires competition, and the lowest denominator competition is allowing installation from outside app store.
You are on the one hand saying that Apple is bad because it 100% insists on doing what it wants, and yet you are the one demanding that 100% of phone manufacturers do what you want. Well that's not ok. Go buy one of the alternatives please, and leave us with our intolerable, despotic iphones.
Saying just buy a different phone misses the pony entirely. I, as a developer, have no control over what phone you, as a user, buy.
On the contrary. I, a user, want a phone that is locked down. You are demanding that the government force Apple to stop making that phone. You are demanding that no such phone is allowed to exist: that the government steps in to remove that choice for me.
>I, as a developer, have no control over what phone you, as a user, buy.
No, you don't. And you shouldn't have. But you are trying to make that a moot point by demanding the government prevents me from buying the phone I want. You are trying to assert control over the choice of features of the phones I am allowed to buy.
And your propaganda is that you are all about freedom of choice.
I'm always stunned that antitrust authorities do nothing on this topic where in my opinion they should have reacted a long time ago.
I see a lot of people here saying that Apple monopoly is good because they pay to maintain their app store and for the security of the users blablablah.
But no one said that they can't continue their app store with the conditions that they want on it, just it would be fair that any one be able to run competitors app stores with their conditions and the same possibilities as the official one. It's not like anyone will be forced to use another appstore if he wants to stay on apple one for security!
Now, apple world is like if we were living in north korea: we are such morons that the party has to decide everything for us, and finally to their own benefit!
That’s exactly what is happening on PC gaming right now. Every game comes with it’s own AppStore (or similar bunch of extra software).
I’m torn on this. I do agree with users having more choice, but I also see the huge value of Apple being able to protect user’s privacy and security by having a tight control of the AppStore.
I've said this before: if Epic wins the lawsuit, you're going to either see the Epic launcher show up on Xbox, Playstation, and Switch or Epic's going to 'negotiate' with those publishers to get an extra 15% (or more) cut of sales.
If my understanding of the history is right, that's how Steam was born. A unified update tool for Valve's games. It was pretty cool that all my Valve games were managed in one place! "I wish every company did this!". While it was nice that there was really only one primary place for games (Steam) for a while. And it's really nice when most games can be acquired in one or two places. I think the landscape has changed and "download managers" and their glorified counter part "app stores" are much more common... at least the worst case scenario is what I once wished... "Every company/publisher has their own App Store"
Just my two cents.
Having different stores also forces these publishers to be more creative to get people on their platforms, see the weekly free games in the Epic Games Launcher.
If there was no competition, there wouldn't be the possibility to buy DRM free games on GOG for example.
If it becomes the norm to use app stores that enforce no standards, then a lot of the privacy protections for using iOS will be gone.
Apple will always have control over what the apps can ultimately do using their APIs. If they don't expose "read all contacts without explicit confirmation" then even third party store apps won't be able to achieve that.
But, Apple (same as Google) are companies and not foundations. Their only "legal" purpose is to maximize the return on investment for their shareholders.
Take your example, and imagine that it is Facebook the gatekeeper of the unique store?
And if the App Store has so much "privacy" value, why do you think that people will accept to install another AppStore? So, there is no risk of the problem that you describe.
Still, if it is not the case, and people don't care, who is Apple to decide what is good and what is bad for people?
And you see positively their action mostly based on their marketing propaganda, ie that they protect and take care of you. But, for real, they will not hesitate to censor apps or features that are competitors to them, or that threaten their revenues.
And worse, so far they are all scared of possible antitrust issues, but otherwise, the day they will have all the market locked, they will racket everyone as much as possible.
Think about it, some people say that the current appstore "fees" are rights because they need to pay for the service and co. But now, look at Apple financials, their margins, and you can see that very few companies in the world have their level of wealth with hundreds of billions of cash pilling up!
Also, one day, the boss of the company can decide that anything he don't like (ex. Blue candies) will be banned. And the world would have to accept it unilaterally.
To conclude, I would like to paste this nice quote that I just saw on internet:
<< ‘The main effects of monopoly are to misallocate resources, to reduce aggregate welfare, and to redistribute income in favour of monopolists.’ (Harberger, 1954: 2) >>
I have relinquished that decision to them. There's obviously no market research in this topic but the fact that people only go to the App Store to download apps and need an iCloud account to do so makes it pretty apparent that Apple is running things on their phone. People don't see that as a problem but only because it hasn't directly impacted them, or it has only impacted them in a way that is, in itself, disingenuous (ie piracy) or otherwise not something <society> would back them up on (the break from that being Epic Games' lawsuit where they were removed for offering direct payment - society/their player base is indeed going "yay Epic" and supporting them).
Key point: Apple isn’t Facebook, and Apple has made it a key of their marketing that they are protecting their user’s privacy. This isn’t a fact that you can gloss over as if they are equivalent companies seeking only profit. Notably, if Apple ceases to protect my privacy, I can move to another platform (one that won’t protect it either, but what can you do?).
GDPR and CCPA have made significant impacts on user privacy.
Also, Apple can keep enforcing it at the API level and prevent access to identifiable device information, tighten app sandboxes, etc.
Up until some app you need moves to another store. Then the choice becomes do without or use another app store to get what you need. I don't want to have to shop for iOS apps at the Amazon, Google, and Microsoft stores, each with their own app policies, billing systems, etc... not to mention some other AppStores from some vendors I've never heard of.
For as much as Facebook gets beat up the reality is, it is still popular with people like my parents and other family members. Right now Facebook is not happy about the coming tracking restrictions that Apple wants to apply. Do we not think that Facebook would be the first app to jump ship to a place where Apple rules won't apply to them and drag a lot of people with them into these new AppStores? For some people saying you can't use the Facebook or some other social media app is not an answer.
I am not torn on this at all and that's coming from someone who makes the majority of their income from selling iOS apps. Don't get me wrong I'm happy to only have to pay 15% now rather than 30% but for me, that is still worth the cost for what I get from the overall experience of making and selling apps for iOS and knowing that someone is looking out for my interests as an iOS user.
edit: typos
See: Spotify.
But if you're trying to point out that it is somehow unfair that Apple has a special position that they can do this and not pay 30% to anyone, well what makes you think that I can move to another iOS app store and compete with their version in their app store by going somewhere else? I certainly don't think I would fair very well. Another AppStore doesn't change that reality.
So are you suggesting that Apple should not be allow to develop and sell apps they make (even if they are doing what my apps do)?
Anyone can always come along and build a better/cheaper mousetrap than I have, that's just reality.
And the fragmentation has already happened anyway; Most lucrative services are mostly web-only, including Amazon and new cloud gaming services.
Beyond the user freedom angle, this could also help reduce e-waste as there will be a niche but functional ecosystem of tools to keep the phone or games console (!) running past it's lifecycle
One immutable set of toggles, and then an infinite variety of suggested settings for those.
It's not clear to me that's as true any more, when, randomly for instance, HEVC is in chips, or iPhones include an ASIC that's actually an FPGA.
This seems to require a new principle, that a device maker may decide how far up the stack their logic goes, regardless of the form in which that logic is represented.
As a check and balance on this, perhaps device makers do not get to retroactively (for a given device) take back intentional open parts of that waterline, as we've seen console makers do with what were deliberate and marketed capabilities, sometimes long after release.
Ignoring that it would be pretty wild if I could actually throw Verilog (Yuck) at my phone, I would draw the line at roughly the OS kernel or at least it's rough outline. The OEM wouldn't be allowed to include any time bombs under that layer, but ultimately the focus is on "day to day" work rather than complete control of the hardware.
I think this is a point that people who advocate for breaking down the walls of the Apple garden don't adequately consider. The iPhone is not really comparable to the desktop computer you could do whatever you want with in the 1990s. It's basically an extension of the person, with all their bank, emails, locations, web history. To make it a truly "open" platform, it would open its users -- who trust them -- to these kinds of problems, and would need to somehow solve them for those customers in a way that doesn't run afoul of the "open" aspect that people demand. That's a tightrope that becomes very difficult to walk when the headlines read "Apple app let hackers steal bank details, enable widespread fraud." It doesn't matter that it wasn't an Apple app. It doesn't matter that that App was downloaded on a 3rd party App Store. It doesn't matter that the user tapped through a dialog that said "This is a third party app that doesn't have Apple's protections on it, be careful!" Those are all nuances that are lost in that headline.
It's asking Apple to risk the privacy of their users and their business profits, so that people can have marginally cheaper apps.
I think the only way forward, really, is the model where smaller developers don't have to pay a fee until they reach $1m in sales. That tiered approach seems reasonable; after all, there's no reason to let huge developers off the hook for paying their fair share to keep the system running.
The whole notion of what qualifies as a quasi-pc is an incredibly slippery slope. Game consoles would qualify as that and given how the lifetime profitably is made up in game sales, having third party app stores would potentially be ruinous for Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo. The incentive to spend a lot on hardware innovation disappears when the profits are dried up. Legislation based on business practice just gets to the point of being asinine. Should Apple be forced to sell hardware at a loss or near cost in order to have the privilege of having a walled garden?
The user freedom angle here is that people want their walled garden. Personally, I’m happy with the payment security it provides and a decent guarantee of privacy. I’m not sure you realizing that you’re asking for that to be taken away from me and many others who like it how it is.
There's no way for the consumers to decide when there are only two options, especially because those options are not interchangeable.
It's not like some other company can say "I'm going to make a competitor to the iPhone, that can run all of the same iOS apps, but mine will allow third party app stores!".
I installed this app for Best Buy because I thought it was needed for curbside pickup. Turns out bestbuy.com on my phone has all the same features.
I also have Netflix, Amazon Video and Hulu - but not because I want those apps, but because you can't play their video content in the mobile browser.
But most of the time all apps do is annoy the crap out of me with pointless notifications. And I'm thankful that the latest Android let's me disable notifications for these apps - the entire experience is extremely pro-company, not pro-user. I think apps should die and if you want games get a switch.
There's no reason web couldn't continue to be a powerful app platform with full device API access. Rust+WASM+device APIs and you could have Google Maps and Netflix be "native" web apps.
Apps were just an excuse for Jobs to own the iPhone platform. It's why they killed Flash - they didn't want a cross-platform way to develop apps and marginalize their plans.
I'm wondering why Mozilla, amongst other companies, hasn't taken action against this anti-competitive behaviour.
(I realise this is a controversial opinion but I don’t lament the slower feature release cadence of Safari because IMHO the web is already far too complex and feature rich for its own good.)
It's just a very strange argument for justifying Apple abusing its users for search engine revenue.
Web developers don't just use 1 or 2 mobile devices they own. They develop with desktops where they could use Firefox. They test with desktops or emulated Android devices where they could use Firefox. They find ways to test Safari even if they don't have anything that can run it. They used to find ways to test IE even if they didn't use Windows.
Bringing Gecko to a new platform is much harder than wrapping WKWebView.
They are all behaving anti-competitively in different ways, and they should all be looked at!
Now Google has much less influence over web standards. Instead of shaping the web to fit the needs of its own products, Google would need to work with whatever the browsers decide to allow.
Independent Chrome, for its part, wouldn't be able to advertise itself all over Google properties for free, and would need to find ways to fund itself. They could strike their own search deals, or maybe even start charging users. Either way, they'd be on a much more level playing field with e.g. Mozilla.
They killed flash because it was a bug riddled, security nightmare, owned by Adobe, (one of the greediest corporations in existence). I will never understand the flash nostalgia, good riddance.
This is nonsense as initially Apple was pushing web apps, it actually took a lot of convincing to get them to move to native code. Flash never provided a good user experience.
The only reason they released a year earlier than their native app SDK was to get their product out in front of competition that they knew was coming so they could claim they were "first".
Who was coming? What competition?
They weren't in a race with anyone to release the iPhone. Nobody was even close to what they had with iPhone at the time.
Android didn't start at Google. Google bought them in 2005, three years before the iPhone was released.
https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/05/24/android-was-born-on...
The exact UI doesn't matter anyway. Apple knew they had something and they knew Google had resources to compete. Don't forget that these companies compete over hiring talent as well.
Apple never, ever planned on only web apps and there's no evidence of that.
The first third party native apps were people who managed to get the gcc toolchain to emit a binary that the iPhone could run.
Then the App Store came out a few months later. Native apps caught on very well over just making html5 sites for iPhone users, because, in a lot of cities, AT&T's network just couldn't support all the users' very well. Even then, you were limited to a max of something like 20 (?).
There's easily half a dozen cross-platform frameworks for developing mobile apps. Most emit native code and others target WebKit views.
As for Flash, Jobs didn't want it on the iPhone because the Flash was a shit show. When the iPhone was released Flash Player 9 (with ActionScript 3 and the AVM2) had been out for a year. A vast majority of Flash content was using the older and much shittier AVM1. That content was also 100% developed for WIMP interfaces so there were zero affordances for multitouch or even just having hit boxes sized for fingers instead of cursors.
Even if Steve Jobs loved Flash and ached to have it on the iPhone most content available would have been designed for a minimum of SVGA screen resolution, a cursor, and a desktop processor and RAM and would have not been running in a JIT runtime with zero understanding of app restore states or any iPhone features.
Flash Lite was not a good option either as it did not support web content or run as a plug-in. It also did not have good touch support since most phones it was targeted for didn't have a touchscreen. It was number pad and hardware keys almost exclusively.
So there was very little overlap between the goals of the iPhone and any aspect of Flash. Flash on Android basically proved Steve Jobs right as to the performance of Flash on a smartphone. The UX ended up terrible for most content, it absolutely killed the battery, and its security problems were myriad.
Flash's problem was it sucked anywhere but the desktop. Even then it sucked on laptops as it was a major power drain and/or fan spinner. HTML5 obviated Flash for most of its use cases. Even Adobe eventually realized that and last their Flash authoring tools target HTML5.
The difference is that Apple put a lot of time and effort into making old content work. They wrote dynamic JIT compilers for JavaScript, sliced up webpages into GPU layers, downscaled old content to fit on tiny screens, changed the behavior of hovers so that you could use them with a finger, and added detects for undersized tap targets and form fields. Adobe's approach was to shove all that compatibility work onto the developer. Why make a JIT for AVM1 when you could just make a new version of ECMAScript and make everyone rewrite their movies in AS3? Why embrace GPU rendering and composition when you can just hand people a thin wrapper around OpenGL and tell them to use Starling Framework? Why bother fixing broken hovers when you can just throw more events to the developer to handle?
Like, imagine if Steve Jobs went up on stage and told people that the iPhone would run webapps, but only if people wrote everything in Angular and WebGL. That's kind of what Flash Player was trying to do. Apple knew that you had to get the existing, broken, not mobile-friendly-at-all content up and running first and they they could push through more mobile-friendly web standards. Adobe figured they could just entice developers into writing not-terrible Flash movies and then they'd be allowed on smartphones again.
For every good use of Flash on web pages there were dozens of UX abortions. Flash sites were rife with mystery meat UIs. They were also accessibility hostile. While you can commit a lot of the same sins on a web page you have to go out of your way to do so.
Besides all of those problems it was also a closed platform like the GP was decrying with Apple's App Store. You can make a web app entirely FOSS with entirely FOSS tools and served from a completely FOSS stack. If you want to avoid any platform lock in it's entirely possible. Flash was the literal opposite until years after it's mobile availability was a meaningful concern.
Apps should not die. They provide an infinitely better user experience, battery efficiency and many more capabilities.
To the contrary, web apps should die (or maybe move to a separate medium) as they go against what the web was designed for - web apps are horribly bad for search-ability, archival and accessibility.
Usually they don't pass review.
https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#min...
[1] https://insights.dice.com/2018/04/09/ios-developers-app-stor...
And iOS apps are somehow better?
Also accessibility is quite good on the web, but I think iOS does a good job here too.
Web apps can be searchable of course, but it’s a lot more work if you can’t just expect Google to index the page.
> Also accessibility is quite good on the web
That seems hard to rationalize, given that the iPhone was already locked down before Cydia, and Cydia could only be installed by exploiting a security vulnerability.
It’s true that Apple made jailbreaking harder by fixing vulnerabilities, but you’d expect them to do that for security reasons.
If the iPhone had supported the installation of 3rd party stores, and then Apple had withdrawn this support after launching their own, I think the case would be stronger.
E.g. Intel can tell PC manufacturers they must not sell AMD devices, if they started with condition when they made their first sale.
I don’t think the courts will buy this argument. What Apple did from Day 0 was anticompetitive.
Are you suggesting that all devices capable of running an open operating system must have a way to allow one to be installed?
If so, I can get behind that as an actual law worth supporting, but it doesn’t seem like an anti-trust issue.
The argument I would be making here is that Apple used illegally bundled its app distribution system with its hardware, and used anticompetitive actions to enforce it.
That is part of Saurik’s argument in the legal complaint.
Just making some unsubstantiated irony, but I wouldn't be surprised if it happened.
I know what I'd put my money on, given lack of legal reasons in the future to force it another way.
And they're on it...
following it...
and optimizing everything along the way...
they're going to converge off the edge of a cliff and into the abyss.
What I'm not seeing is, does iOS have even enough market share dominance to require regulation? From what I remember they only have around 15% of the market.
Do Macs not "work"?
And if Apple's authentication servers are up.
Using them at work is a blessing and a curse.
Not even close to as well as iPhones do.
Speaking from personal experience I've had a few apps crash on my phone for sure, but overall it's the most "solid" computing experience I have ever had outside of Solaris.
MacOS on the other hand? Frequently gets itself into a state where "WindowServer" is consuming half my memory, or some network kerfuffle stops me being able to reach anything for a few minutes, or it kernel panics.
Not to mention the bloody updates which unlink GCC/CLANG but kinda keep it around which means I have to go clean my drive manually and crap. Ugh, exhausting.
Sometimes I consider going back to linux for work honestly.
While a phone is integral to daily life, that doesn’t make something “general purpose”, IMO. I can’t write code comfortably on it, for example. The iPad, OTOH, could be argued to be a general purpose computer. Heck, Apple even advertises it as a laptop replacement! But phones? I just don’t see it.
----
That debate is the fundamental rub though: if you don’t see phones as “general purpose”, you’re more ok with locked down systems (consoles for example), but if you do see them as that, opening them up seems logical. The problem is that phones are in a gray area; they do many things computers do such as web browsing, email, etc., but they don’t function as them sometimes. Sure, we could put VS Code on Android, but I doubt anyone would ever use it.
So there’s not really a clear answer, and it isn’t helped by bad arguments from both sides: the “open” crowd claims nothing would change for those who don’t want it do (just keep using Apple’s App Store and ignore the others), but it would very easily cause a race to the bottom. And the “closed” crowd says to just choose Android, but Android is in many ways worse than iOS; worse privacy is a big thing.
If it literally blocked nothing then Apple can't say that the app store is part of the ecosystem that makes it unique. If it has a high bar for restrictions, it can successfully argue to avoid spamware and other bad quality apps Apple is going the work for the user to make the phone experience worthwhile.
Epic also would be spending some of their money on their own development, improvement to games etc. I don't quite follow the line of argument here - if things are 30% more expensive to cover Apples costs, then the consumer is the one losing out in the transaction.
It's really incredible to me the lengths people will go to villanize Epic when they're known for not just advocating for consumer choice and lower prices, but have done crazy things like when dropping their cut... applying it retroactively since they started charging for it: https://marketplacehelp.epicgames.com/s/article/Unreal-Engin...
Can you even imagine Apple retroactively giving all those small businesses half the Apple cut back?
Also about that amazing fact that Epic has given part of the previously paid commision back. It's interesting to note the time of that decision compared to the popularity and online spending on Fortnite. Epic basically changed its business model, creating a precedent in the process. Using it two years later. If we can charge less, why can't you?
I mean I still think myself the 30% are too high, but Epic lining up your kids in front of a virtual stage to make them all hate Apple? It concerns me quite a bit!
> I mean I still think myself the 30% are too high, but Epic lining up your kids in front of a virtual stage to make them all hate Apple? It concerns me quite a bit!
Whilst I in principal agree mostly with Epic over Apple in this case, I completely agree with you here that the whole video approach was gaudy (at best) and a bit of unfair exposition.
I agree so much. A lot of people here are missing the woods for the trees.
We need real competition in the app distribution space. There's a generation being raised right now whose exposure to computing has been limited to what Apple and Google have deemed worthy for them to consume.
In the US, Apple's App Store is responsible for the majority of mobile app sales[2], and has 3 times the revenue of Google's Play Store.
Apple and Google dominate the mobile OS market, and Apple more so than Google, dominates the mobile app distribution market. Everything else is negligible.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/266572/market-share-held...
[2] https://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2020/01/in-2019...
Also, third party app stores on Android are not allowed to compete with the Play Store on feature parity because of limitations put in place by Google.
The only way to implement automatic upgrading, background installation or batch upgrading/installation of apps is via the Play Store.
Galaxy Store no (by Samsung's choice), F-Droid yes, Amazon Appstore I'm unsure. But for the overwhelming majority of third-party stores, yeah, you can install them on any Android device in a matter of seconds.
Any system app store can do those things.
I fully agree that it would be better if user-installed apps could do the same thing without resorting to accessibility hacks. Google has mumbled that it might finally prioritize that feature after the Epic lawsuits, but I'll wait and see. https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2020/09/listening-...
The sad part is that all the fancy consumer hardware and software of today – or really the entire tech industry – would not exist had it not been for the last generation of hackers and tinkerers. How can we expect any real future innovation when it is controlled by corporate number crunching rather than two passionate people in a garage?
It implies that developers used to be able to create whatever programs they wanted thanks to Cydia prior to the App Store. This was never the case, the Cydia ecosystem was based on unintended buggy behavior.
In the beginning Apple was clear that there were no native apps, only web apps or whatever they called them. They eventually reversed course and implemented the App Store for native apps but was that because of Cydia? That's just speculation.
Personally I always speculated that they weren't ready and in classic Apple fashion pretended the idea of native apps was stupid until they were ready.
Should Apple be forced to support other app stores or side loading? I don't know. I do feel like there are good arguments for it but they should be allowed to stand on there own merit without skewing the narrative.
Sure, e-waste is bad, but that's the only strong argument here IMO. Apple should be severely punished for helping create pollution. The rest is up to interpretation.
Similarly if you don’t like the terms of the App Store you could have the option to purchase an open iOS v.1X and install whichever store you please. The only difference would be that you would need to pay again for subsequent versions of the OS, just like ppl would pay to update windows from XP to Vista to 7, etc.
Also a pretty false equivalence, though.
Windows 7 was a paid upgrade from Windows XP.
iOS 13 was a free upgrade from iOS 12.
Devices that shipped with iOS 10 got 11, 12, 13, and 14 for free.
(Some/many/most/all) will probably continue getting future iOS versions for free.
The original comment was that Apple should charge for iOS versions, to which I was saying that is a bad idea. By your comment, (I think), you would agree with my statement.
They are suing Apple, yet the only thing Apple did in regards to them was make jailbreaking more difficult?
I don't see a real case here... If anyone has more insight, please do share.
And access to those consumers is controlled by a non-government entity for everything they do? All commerce impacting their entire life up and down the stack?
Apple is the biggest monopoly since Ma Bell and Standard Oil.
They're owning people. Whole entities. You have to go through Apple to do business with them.
Without this, you’d have every single major company pishing their own installers with a ton of crapware on top of them. To give an example - Epic on Windows requires you to install their own store, with their own update system and notifications, plus ads showing each time you open up their game.
I don’t want this on my phone - battery aside, I want the device to be 100% secure, and such crapware has a poor track record of security.
I’m really for strong antitrust laws - Google and Facebook are monopolosts who abuse their position. But in case of the phones, both users and devs have a choice - they can use either Apple or Google. Unless both companies are guilty of the same thing (and in this case they are not), how this is an issue?
Furthermore there are plenty of monopolies in non tech industries that do the same things.
>Apple makes the devices, they are 100% legally allowed to only allow apps from their own App Store and that precedent has already been set.
This is false. As proven time and time again, the Device Owner has full legal control after purchase.
It is monopolistic behavior due to the scope of the control from Apple. The devices are the owner's property, and it is monopolistic for them to implement software/policies/hardware blocks, that prevent users from using the devices as they see fit.
Take a simplistic example, Keurig. Keurig tried to prevent users from using any other coffee pod besides theirs. There is precedent to these monopoly lawsuits.
https://time.com/2913062/k-cups-war/
https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/consumer-pro....
Absolutely. But people buy the devices knowing that that's not an option. It's not like Apple locked down these devices and changed them after people bought them. You can absolutely jailbreak your device and put whatever you want on it and I fully support that. That doesn't make Apple's behavior monopolistic or an anti-trust violation.
Your Keurig example isn't relatable or similar at all since Keurig both did have a monopoly on single-use coffee pods and that was the single purpose of the device. An optional App Store is not the same thing at all.
A manufacturer cannot dictate the consumer's options regarding the owned devices, even though they have it in their terms and conditions. Apple is currently being gobsmacked by right to repair claims under this very principle.
However Apple is under no obligation to do the work to build a mechanism to help them do so.
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2018-10-26/pdf/2018-2...
Stop spreading fud.
The ruling also just makes it explicit, the DMCA already doesn't cover things like jailbreaking because they don't relate to copyright, and do relate to the user enabling interoperability of their device with legally obtained software (17 U.S. Code § 1201 (f)). These rulings are not proclamations in contrast with the law, they are bound by it and must be valid interpretations of it. Apple's attempts to classify it otherwise were a clear attempt to abuse copyright law and were rejected as illegitimate.
You clearly do not know what you are talking about.
I suggest that if presented the choice of
When you buy a phone would you rather ... A. that the maker of the phone has total and final control over what apps are available for you to install via it's own store. B. that the maker of the phone has a store pre-installed for you to install apps from, but you have the the choice to install apps from other 3rd party stores or directly yourself
I'm pretty sure if put in that type of context most people would choose B. But they are never given that choice. The choice they get is over the maker of the device, Apple and option A or an Android based device that has some variation of B.
And you also cannot look at this law from an ideology perspective, you need to look at the practical affects as well. Going forward, companies will also spent energy to design how their product will interoperate with other products especially those from competitors. For example, if iOS is going to have third party App Stores, it has to be designed in the OS. It cannot be an afterthought. Comparing iOS and Android, you realize when Google built Android it actually has to spent the time and the energy to design the system that enables Android's flexibility and "multiple App Store and install any app package" system. Google has also to spend energy to maintain and support the system every year since Android's release. I know that there are instances where Google want to make changes to Android to better support their own use cases but is not able to because Google has to support these flexibility points. If you look at a from angle of "how much benefit do I get from a fixed amount of effort", flexibility and interoperability becomes significant features. I think a lot of people underestimate just how much effort it is to design, engineer, test and maintain interoperability. From a business perspective, they need to think do I spend the time to engineer and maintain systems to enable interoperability? Or to enable my business use case and enable me to make more money? By changing the law interpretation, the law is making the decision for the business. It's forcing the business to say "hey you have to spend time to build things that might end up benefiting your competitors, and perhaps you don't have time to build this feature that would benefit your bottom line instead ". Not sure where your political spectrum lies, but this definitely doesn't sit well with political conservatism that advocates for less government control over private affairs.
Again, ideally this new interpretation will be good, but I feel there will be a lot of resistance for this "reform" to go forward.
btw, if Apple is going to allow other stores and ISVs to offer users application packages to download and install freely like it is on Windows, any company of significant size is going to start bypass Apple's stores and asking users download Exe's or their own app launchers. Want to play Fortnite, download Epic store and Epic game launcher. Want to use Facebook and play Oculus games? Download Facebook store. Want to use Lightroom, download Adobe CC store. It will change the Apple's user experience, which is part of brand and product proposition. I know some people actually buy Apple because of this user experience. So is it okay for government to dictate such user experience is not allowed anymore? The private entity wants to design this kind of user experience, is it ideologically okay for the government to say "you cannot design a product this way anymore"? Maybe private entity should be able to design a product anyway they see fit, and let the market decide. Look at before there is a market for closed sourced developer tools and software. Now, there is no market for you if you don't open source your developer tools. People rather write apps for open source dbs and frameworks than some companies proprietary stuff. This is an example of market demanding openness and interoperability and making the producers change their behavior.
>it would also make console business model or Amazon Kindle business model illegal.
My interpretation would not make console business illegal, but rather it would make limiting the product so that you are the only means of distribution illegal. I can currently side-load books onto my kindle without any sort of jailbreaking or modification. On my android phone I can download an .apk file and install it with no issues. The Google Play Store still makes fine profit, and the App Store would as well, even with competition. This most certainly would fall under the definition of a monopoly.
>For example, Apple Watch only works with iPhone. A person bought Apple Watch a year ago cannot buy a Android phone a year later and have the Apple Watch work as advertised when he/she first bought it.
You are comparing Apples to oranges. This is a lot different as a watch is hardware, not software. Plus we are talking about 1 apple software app vs another apple software app.
>For example, if iOS is going to have third party App Stores, it has to be designed in the OS.
No it doesn't really. It's not apple's responsibility to make it easy for third parties. If their apps do not work, it isn't apples responsibility to account for them. Furthermore, the OS can already handle "third party apps", it just has to be Jailbroken, or side-loaded via an MDM account. Any third party apps still have to use the internal SDK's of Apple in order to function.
> you realize when Google built Android it actually has to spent the time and the energy to design the system that enables Android's flexibility and "multiple App Store and install any app package" system.
Google did not build Android it was purchased by them in 2005. The system of installing any app is the same as installing google apps. The same with apple. There is no extra work that you're claiming, as they have to do this in order for the respective stores to work as well. This, and the comment above, are a different point that I was not making. This would be the case if Apple only allowed Apple software on their device, in which case I would not say this is a monopoly as there wouldn't be any competition for them on the iPhone. However, they do but they do not do this, so your point is moot.
>they need to think do I spend the time to engineer and maintain systems to enable interoperability?
This isn't a question of interoperability. These are all iOS apps. The question is simply the distribution source. I can make an app on my mac and load it directly onto my phone, but the only option I currently have for distribution is the App Store that Apple controls.
Right now they charge 15% of all my purchases. Would you change your opinion if they charged 50%? I guarantee that would put some people out of business. What if apple decided to charge me 15% but you 50%, which would be perfectly within their legal right? Would you agree then that the appstore is not a monopoly?
>btw, if Apple is going to allow other stores and ISVs to offer users application packages to download and install freely like it is on Windows, any company of significant size is going to start bypass Apple's stores and asking users download Exe's or their own app launchers.
Yes and why shouldn't they be able to do so? That's the whole point of the lawsuit, Apple is enforcing this to cut their competition, they are effectively proping up their own monopoly. They currently own the base product, the means of distribution, the means of access, and the means of repair, (although right to repair rulings are becoming far more common).
It sounds like you think such a thing would be scandalous, but that's how it used to be. There was a time when game studios would just give Nintendo and Atari the middle finger and produce a cartridge that worked with their consoles anyway. Back in those days, the computers and consoles weren't restricted to only running software signed and approved by the manufacturer.
You're partially right.
In the case of Atari, there was no technical enforcement mechanism. Third parties figured out how to make their own cartridges, but lack of control on the market led to a glut of new games in 1982. That glut triggered rapid price reductions (as retailers were often stuck with unsold inventory that couldn't be returned to the publisher), which eventually cratered the entire business, shrinking it by about 97%.[0]
For Nintendo, they did have a technical protection mechanism present in the NES (the 10NES chip). They were allowed to enforce market restrictions based on the presence of the chip.[1]
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_crash_of_1983 [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Games_Corp._v._Nintendo_....
This meant that as soon as you bought something, you had the right to do whatever you wanted with that physical item.
Including selling it. Including renting it out. Including bundling it with five other books from other publishers and selling it together for whatever price. Without any of their consent.
And it certainly includes tearing a page out. Or writing your own notes over the pages.
That’s how it works with physical media, and the postal system is a relatively cheap form of distribution (try mailing a 4K BluRay across the country: it might even be cheaper than bandwidth costs).
A key element of Kodak was a bait and switch. If Apple had monopolized the aftermarket for iOS app distribution after customers were locked in, you may have a case against Apple (if you satisfy the other elements, like switching costs). But that was never true. From day one, the App Store was the only way to legally obtain iOS apps.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_Kodak_Co._v._Image_Tec....
Users can't install what they want on their computers and they can't upgrade them.
The DOJ should force Apple to open the iPhone or face break up. Just because a breakup of this nature hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it shouldn't happen.
And another thing. There's no reason a company this big should also be a music and film studio.
Apple forces companies to give them a cut of in App purchases, but Kindle and Netflix show you can sell to iPhone customers without that.
Then I'll kindly ask you stop using it for GPS navigation, email, browsing the web, banking, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, dating, calculating, and ordering food. :)
And if you write any code at all that you run on it, just get outta here. :P
> I have never paid for any app
All your money goes to Apple and you leave everyone else out high and dry? I'm not judging you, but you have to see how that's not good for non-Apple employees.
> inalienable right to make apps to try to profit off of them.
What do you mean here? Do you have a problem with capitalism? The purpose of work is to earn a living. Outside of hobbyists and open source developers, nobody does this for free. It's work.
Should app developers be poor and unable to earn a living off apps? I'm pretty sure that's not what you mean, but that's how this comes across.
I think what you mean is that you're happy Apple controls distribution. My argument is that this isn't fair - they've built a computer, captured 50% of the US market, and control every economic funnel around these consumers, the likes of which we've never seen before in human history.
They have a mega monopoly. They're distorting the entire market. There are consumers, and then there are Apple consumers. Try to do business with the latter group without going through Apple, jumping through hoops, and getting taxed. And you come out without a direct relationship with your customer.
iMonopoly
> What do you mean here? Do you have a problem with capitalism?
It seems the more egregious example of being against capitalism is wanting to legislate an already successful business one to make it easier for your success.
If you were a true capitalist, you’d grant people to choose if they want a walled garden or an „open” platform (although the alternative is not really open - just a bunch of big players forcing you to install their installers).
- buying apps
- buying stuff online
- buying stuff in real life
- renting movies
- watching netflix
- subscribing to a dating service
- subscribing to anything
- playing games
- logging into your product
- ...
That's a super monopoly the likes of which this world hasn't seen before.
It begs the question - should Apple be forced to open iOS, or should they be split up outright into two or three different companies?