And the big argument against Apple is that you can't have the same for iPhones.
Oh the illusion of choice. Nobody* is sideloading an appstore on their phone to have access to a new catalogue of apps.
What is beyond comprehension to me is why Apple doesn't take notice on google playbook and put the option to sideload apps/stores behind 20 menus deep and 5 warning screens. It would applacate a lot of people, keep nerds happy and 0.001% would do this.
* Outside technically inclined folks.
So yes, I do hope the US govt forces Apple to un-clench a bit.
You’re probably right, but how many of these >200 millions are users that installed said third party store after going through the speed bumps that google put there. And how many of these are people that their phone came with said third party store? For instance fire tv, fire tablet, Chinese phones etc?
Even though I’m being heavily downvoted I still think that 0.001% would actually install third party stores as apple is the sole provider of iOS (no one else could bundle their store with iOS devices).
If you have statics that shows that most of these >200 millions (didn’t check) are users that went though the phone settings, activated developer settings, downloaded apk from amazon and installed on their phones I would be happy to be proved wrong.
Edit.
> Would love to have something like f-droid for iOS.
> So yes, I do hope the US govt forces Apple to un-clench a bit.
We’re not in disagreement here.
On Android, it's not much more difficult than installing any other app (with a couple additional prompts to accept).
Between the Amazon app store (pre-installed on Amazon Fire devices), the Samsung Galaxy store (preinstalled with Samsung phones), the alternative Chinese app store(s) (used by basically the entirety of China), F-Droid (used by the technically inclined folks you mentioned), and raw apks downloaded straight from the internet, a substantial percentage of Android phones have at least one non-Google-Play app installed.
The important part is that distributing an app to a Android phone without Google's blessing is at least _possible_, and this gives them a bit of an out for charging whatever they want on their app store. You don't like their fee, fine - you're free to try to distribute your app via another store. For most people paying the Google fee is worth it, that's their choice.
None of this is true on phones made by Apple. You either pay Apple, or they'll do everything in their power to ensure your app can't run on any phone that was made by them, despite the fact that _they no longer own the phone_. It shouldn't be a huge surprise that they're finally catching some flack in the courts for this.
It's baffling that on HN of all places I see people actively making this argument that you should NOT be able to install whatever the hell you want on your personal pocket computer that just happens to have an Apple logo on it. It doesn't make you more secure. It just doesn't. A locked down operating system quite literally makes you LESS secure because there's fewer people poking holes.
They JUST a few days ago patched a critical zero day. https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/apple/apple-silently-f...
The ubiquity of Apple devices makes them a gigantic target for hackers.
As a developer I own both devices but the iPhone I have is quite literally a really really nice toy. All the apps I use are free. It's literally a social networking box with an excellent camera.
Meanwhile my Android does the exact same thing but I install and use open source apps on it to read manga that are simply not available on iOS.
The whole "does twitter owe someone a platform" conversation is fascinating.
Our computer companies have stopped selling parts for repair because 'safety' but any housewife can buy breaks or engine block and offer a commercial repair service without any training or certification
It seems to reduce to bickering about the perception of a fuzzy line. My back yard is not a public space. A government owned city park is a public space. What if that park was owned by a private corporation but left open to the public? What if all the parks in the city were owned by the same private corporation? Clearly there's more to "public vs private" than just ownership but where exactly should we draw the line?
I find it tiring as opposed to fascinating. It distracts from the real issue. Why such reliance on centralized walled garden communication infrastructure? At the core, how is Twitter functionally different from sending emails to a public listserv in the 90s? How is following an account different from polling an RSS feed?
Sometimes it really seems like we're moving backwards, all the while loudly arguing over the precise direction to cede ground in. Has anyone perhaps considered going forward instead?
That neither supports nor refutes your point.
First:
Almost all useful software gets patched frequently, from closed source things like Duolingo (and wow, do I wish I could edit that app’s code to get rid of the animations and the news tab and a few other things), to entirely permissive open-source projects like most of any Linux distro.
Better would be a comparison of the black market cost of zero-days. It’s been a while since I heard news about them (and I have not only no inclination but also don’t even know where to go to find ground-truth info), but a while ago that was Apple 0-days being cheaper than Android ones, i.e. implying they were more common.
If that’s still true, that would support your point.
Second:
One of these is about the apps, the other is about the OS itself, the only overlap is the OS refusing to let you install arbitrary apps.
Except you can install arbitrary apps on iOS in much the same way you can install them on Linux: get the source code and compile yourself, just (unlike e.g. Steam on Linux) there are no convenient pre-compiled app stores besides Apple’s.
Sort of. You can do this, but only for three apps at a time. And you have to be tethered to a PC that does the compiling. And you have to validate your credentials with Apple online for them to let you sign the app (which is required for running it on your phone). And the app will refuse to open after seven days have passed.
The three app limit is lifted and seven day killswitch changed to a 365 day one if you pay Apple $100 annually. Even then the other restrictions remain, so you can't, for instance, have your apps auto-update.
Compare to Android, where you can download an f-droid.apk, hit a switch or two in your settings, and get untethered app installs with semi-automatic updates. Unfortunately Android restricts fully automatic updates to preinstalled stores.
Android 12 has improved this a bit by allowing automatic updates from user-installed third-party app stores in some situations:
https://www.xda-developers.com/android-12-alternative-app-st...
Imagine an F-Droid for iOS, with or without automatic updates. Not having to pay the $99 fee per year to keep apps in the App Store would encourage many developers to publish free and open source apps, expanding the selection of ad-free apps for iOS users. Not being beholden to App Store rules means that useful apps like NewPipe, apps banned by certain governments, and apps with GPL licensing conflicts would finally be made available to iOS users again.
If you have a Mac, and you renew the license every 7 days.. I would hardly put it in the “can install” category.
It's certainly true of the white-hat market:
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/zerodium-make...
The community famous for 'mah free market' does not believe in your right to control your private property, its a paradox. Up there with 'freedom of speech' people burning books.
So Apple is not paying US taxes on that specific revenue stream.