Alarmist fluff.

And every app sold for the iPhone would have 30 percent of its price (and later, that of its “in-app purchases”) go to Apple. Famously proprietary Microsoft never dared to extract a tax on every piece of software written by others for Windows—perhaps because, in the absence of consistent Internet access in the 1990s through which to manage purchases and licenses, there’d be no realistic way to make it happen.

Microsoft never provided a complete distribution channel for software, either.

Complying with Apple requirements and limitations is annoying. However, the consumer gets reasonably vetted software, and the developer gets a single method of distribution.

What's the complaint, again?