Going to put in some positivity compared to the other comments here—
Good. The OS store should have to compete with other software stores. If their store is actually better for consumers, then they have no cause for concern.
Good. The OS store should have to compete with other software stores. If their store is actually better for consumers, then they have no cause for concern.
With an appstore monopoly, Apple can say "you must respect the users privacy, not use these apis and only request location permission through us and if denied you must still have a functional app". If Facebook wants to be on the iPhone at all they will have to play ball.
With an alternative app, they can just require that I install their store and accept their terms.
I am between a rock and a hard place, and I would like to choose the Orchard in that case.
I don’t think we can use Android as a case study.
You can. What you won't get to do is force all your friends to agree with you.
I am not sure how you have somehow turned a situation, where you being unable to force your friends to use something else, is an infringement on you.
Apple right now can change their stance on any of their rules on a dime (e.g. leadership change).
In reality though there is no "pandora's box" which is plainly evident on Windows, macOS, Linux and any other self respecting desktop OS.
No, they can't. Apple no longer has the moral high ground to lecture others on respecting users privacy.
Yeah, it would certainly be a shame if a user installed an app that scans their phone for illegal content to report to the authorities.
Don't you think that is something apple should have thought of before doing what they did to cause the outcry that lead to this?
Apple wanted to be the gatekeeper blocking out harmful apps, fine by me.
Apple then wanting to use that gatekeeper status to steal money from app developers, block apps that compete with apple internal apps, and enforce moral choices on what kinds of apps you can install on your phone, evil by me.
They could have done the former without doing the latter, but they fucked it up, and have to pay the piper.
Apple is also significantly more careless than I would like, there's no source code audit and no instrumentation beyond a network proxy. Just a 15 minute or so inspection of the app UI. If I wanted to run an authoritarian computer regime I would require full source submissions and clear explanations that looked even moderately obscure. Preferably your assigned app reviewer would be present during internal code reviews.
Devs, feel free to raise your price and charge me an extra 15% or whatever you need to make up what you think Apple is “stealing” from you. I’m not that price sensitive, just don’t make me think about all your homegrown BS hoops I jump through for your percentage points.
As a consumer I want one store, one purchase history, one subscription list, one update engine, total peace of mind. Percentage of consumers that genuinely want to track that stuff separately rounds to zero.
I also can’t help but notice that SetApp apps work on my Mac and on iOS without this bill. (I try apps “for free” from SetApp, then I buy them on App Store. Costs me a good deal more, but I’m making sure the dev knows the app store is fine with me thanks.) And SetApp, like Apple Arcade, or Xbox GamePass is even less to track, as you no longer worry per app, it’s the whole library for one price.
Speaking of which, I’m also wondering if someone is going to force me, as a consumer who chose a mobile appliance, to screw up my phone, are they planning to screw up my console too? Fair is fair:
“Senators Blumenthal, Blackburn, and Klobuchar recognize that independent 3rd party developers are being restricted in anti-competitive ways that impact what users pay for video games and other software,” said Ernesto Falcon, Senior Legislative Counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “The Open App Markets Act will put a stop to these practices, which will lower the costs for both developers and their customers by setting forth common sense competition policy for the industry.”
Or, you know, we can wait it out, let the market decide.
This is how I install software on my PC, if it's not in the distro's package repo:
wget -o the-binary https://path.to.binary.com/bin.01.02
mv ~/.local/bin/the-binary
chmod +x !$
Also, you can already download and run unsigned phone apps that way (on Android anyway). It's just that mostly nobody publishes their apps that way.
No, wait, she sideloads malware from chain emails claiming the attachments are Sunday hymns PowerPoint players.
There are more like her than like you.
This is particularly important for stores like Amazon which dictate things you're allowed to do with your app outside of the Amazon store. (i.e., you can't charge a lower fee outside of Amazon regardless of what Amazon is charging you.)
Without that clause, your approach wouldn't work, because what incentive would Facebook even have to release it on the Apple App Store and follow Apple's tighter privacy/anti-tracking rules, when they can just release it on the Facebook App Store for iOS (or whatever else they decide to call it or, alternatively, another third-party app store)?
Sure, having third-party app stores helps smaller devs. But it also unchains all the anti-tracking and privacy shackles from the tech giants like FB who don't care which app store they are on (as long as they can set their own rules), because FB/Instagram/etc. users will follow to whatever app store their app is on (no matter how much or how little privacy protection that specific app store is willing to enforce on FB).
If I released an app store that forced you to offer the app for the lowest price it's available elsewhere while charging the dev 1/2 of the profit and inspired users to use it by giving them a rebate equal to 30% of the cost I presume I could get some takers.
After all if it's 10 bucks on the apple store it's 7 on mine.
3rd party stores aren't a check on unreasonable terms if developers are legally forced to do business on the oems terms no matter how unreasonable.
Do not want to respect it but still be on the platform? Please gtfo…
You don't have to install those apps, lol. You can feel free to tell Facebook to GTFO off of the phone that you own, by merely not installing it.
But why should one think, that they should control someone 'elses' phone? If someone else wants to install facebook, on that other app store, let them do it.
You are correct, I can simply not install those apps that I believe violate privacy rules of the platform. However, in this case, I will not be able to sleep worry-free after handing my barely technologically literate parents an iPhone anymore, because they will immediately install all the random crap without any second thoughts about privacy. Switching my mother away from android to an iPhone (and subsequently, from Windows to macOS) has reduced my "home IT troubleshooting" workload to pretty much nil. I don't want to go back to how it was before. That's pretty much why I got my mom an iPhone, so that her device can be fairly secure without tons of guidance and troubleshooting on my end.
The wild west of "I am a responsible person, so I can decide what's good to install and what isn't, because I can evaluate this on my own" isn't the kind of a situation I want to put my parents in. I want them to not worry about it and be able to install whatever apps they can without any major worries about malware or privacy or breaking their device, and that's why I switched them to iOS.
Just provide users with a way of "locking down" their phone to only allow the app store that they choose, with some difficult undo process, if the user chooses that.
So that way, people who want parental/child controls on their phone can have them, and those who disagree, and want to remove those protections, can choose to do so.
As long as the locking down, is a choice that the user can make, and it is not forced on everyone, then we all can get what we want. Well, except Apple I guess.
For people who bought into managed garden the minute it is dismantled you lose "all apps need to stick to do not track me request" you get mish-mash of everything.
This is cost to give others freedom to side load. There is no way to put genie into the bottle if it is out.
Only way I see it would be possible is that Apple could offer fully locked iPhones and multi-store iPhones. Then market could decide what works better.
Developers, especially on HN, cannot accept there is group of customers that just doesn't want to interact them directly.
There is nothing that prevents you from staying in the managed garden. Just use the Apple app store, and don't use other app stores.
> Developers, especially on HN, cannot accept there is group of customers that just doesn't want to interact them directly.
Then don't interact with them. Just use the Apple app store only. Problem solved.
Correct. When this bipartisan bill passes, everyone will be able to install whatever app store that they want on their iPhone, and Apple won't be able to do anything to stop it.
The future is going to be pretty awesome, when the law forces Apple to make it extremely easy for people to use other app stores.
Ok, and when the bill passes it will be their for smartphones as well, and people will be able to install whatever app store on their android or iPhone.
> it sucks
Then don't install the app stores that you don't like, lol. Problem solved. Only use Apple's, if that is what you prefer.
You are free to not use other app stores, correct.
Don't use app stores that you don't like.
Meanwhile Librem 5 and Pinephone can provide freedom today but need cash, userbase and apps.
You can have your phone that only uses the apple app store.
I do not want to deal with apps moving between stores or any other stores at all.
Nothing you wrote addresses that.
All apps? Are you aware that currently nintendo does not publish the Super Mario Switch game, to the iPhone? Super mario is arguable an app.
Your rights are not being violated because someone refuses to publish to your specific app store.
Instead, you can have exactly what you have now. Which is that you can get a phone, and only use the Apple App store.
That way, you don't have to deal with other app stores that you don't like. You can simply only use the apple app store.
> or any other stores at all.
Then don't deal with them! Don't use those other app stores.
You were the one, at the very beginning, who said this "cannot accept there is group of customers that just doesn't want to interact them directly.".
Which doesn't make any sense given your new statements.
It sounds like, actually, customers don't have to interact with these developers directly. No-one will force them to install other app stores.
In reality, this has nothing to do with what you choose to do on your own phone. You are free to use it how you like.
Instead, what you want is to force other people, to do certain things with their own property.
Today all apps on iPhone have go through Apple App store - this is what I paid for. With many stores some apps on iPhone could be only available only on other stores. This demonstrates that I can't have "exactly what you have now".
> Instead, what you want is to force other people, to do certain things with their own property.
App developers and other large companies want to force Apple to do certain things with their software to modify how things work on my hardware. Nobody forces one to buy iPhone.
Support alternatives like Librem or Pinephone - they are right long term direction.
People like yourself who only have the official app store have little issue save maybe with fortnight.
However logically some part of the decreased fees will go to paying the developers which means they have more resources to create the apps users love and some portion will end up in the users pockets.
Very likely not just mine:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2020-10-08/china-...
Your logic doesn’t seem to apply in real world to China or Steam vs Epic vs other stores situation.
So at best you are not convincing.
So if Epic Games want to create their own app store, they can, but Apple should be allowed to list their games on its own app store too (and pay Epic whatever the relevant price is for each download of a game, out of the amount that Apple bills the user for it).
Similarly, if the Epic Store is the only place you can download Fortnite, and you really like Fortnite, but hate the advertising and data harvesting and battery use of the Epic Store, then you are being denied the ability to participate freely in the market for app stores.
Saying "just play a different game" is as unhelpful as saying "just buy a different phone", and doesn't address the underlying complaint that product tying is an anti-competitive practice that consumers should be protected against:
No. This is a false comparision.
The smartphone market is a duopoly that is worth trillions of dollars.
Battle royale videos games are not that.
If fortnite eventually is worth trillions of dollars, and literally almost every single person in the world has to use it, on the same level that they use freaking smart phones, `then` we can use anti-trust law, or pro-competition laws on this now vital service.
But until then, it is a false comparison.
Let's be frank here: people here are afraid because they know Apple's App Store and its policies are in no way actually compelling in the open market and, if they are subjected to real competition, they will fail just like most other 1st party stores that are subjected to competition.
Instead of allowing Apple to be the governing body of what is acceptable software policy simply because they are a for-profit company that makes a lot of money, maybe you should focus this attention on actual legislation from your elected governing body that would give you such protections.
Sidenote: Fortnite doesn't have a monopoly on gamers and most gamers do not play Fornite. People need to stop using Fornite as if it is the new Standard Oil of gaming. There is no such thing in gaming and it makes for silly arguments.
Apple is using its position to insert itself between vendor and customer while the customer sits snug in their own home whereas your position would require positive action on the part of someone who has no particular obligation nor relationship to you. You have not hired them and they aren't obligated to work for you.
> (151) In an exclusive distribution agreement the supplier agrees to sell his products only to one distributor for resale in a particular territory.
The rules are complicated and depend on the supplier's and buyer's market share, but you can read the details on page 46 of their "Guidelines on Vertical Restraints".[0]
I'm not suggesting that a company should be required to take a positive action to fulfil Apple's requirements, but if a company is producing a file which can be installed via an app store, they should not try using copyright or contract law to prevent other app stores from also selling/distributing their app.
(Admittedly there would have to be some amount of paperwork for allowing the various app stores to pay money into the app developer's account, but that could be done on Apple's side so that the developer continues to get a payment each month, with some stats on a dashboard somewhere showing which app stores the app was sold through).
[0] https://ec.europa.eu/competition/antitrust/legislation/guide...
In particular I don't think it says anything at all about a situation where the vendor and market are not engaged in a relationship but rather are literally the same company. Nothing forbids a donut shop from actually baking AND selling the donuts.
I don't think a 3rd party Epic store is an example of tying either. It's not something you are being asked to purchase in order to realize the other purchase it is rather a means to actually receive the product you have purchased. You might as well say that <insert app> is tied to the purchase of an executable or disk.
Not only that but if Apple allowed sideloading they would arguably be able to trivially able to avoid even a misguided accusation of tying by providing a manually installable package file with the app store merely providing a free means to receive updates.
Isnt it possible that Apples users like the fact that apps are curated on an App Store by Apple?
Depending on the decency of the human race is a sucker bet.