I'd support this if app developers were also required to release their apps on all the available stores and obey the policies of a particular store for users who obtain the app through that store.
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:
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.
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.
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.