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> 2. I will be forced to use third party stores because critical apps are no longer distributed through the App Store.

This seems very unlikely. It hasn't happened on Android. Amazon has their own Android appstore and nobody is forced to use it, and I think nearly nobody does. But because Android has this possibility, I can use F-Droid which is excellent.

What does a "critical app" even look like? I don't have any apps on my phone that I would call critical, only convenient. My banking apps from the playstore are nice to have, but not critical. I can do banking on their websites, at an ATM or over the phone. Uber is sometimes convenient, but I've gone years without using it before and many people don't have it at all. If Facebook makes their own Facebook store and uses it to ship malware, it won't effect me because I never used their app in the first place, none of their crap is critical. That's the power of not submitting to peer pressure.

Maybe a "critical app" is one your government legally requires you to install, e.g. some sort of pandemic tracing app. But thankfully my government (America) has not gone that far. I don't think there is presently such a thing as a "critical app" in America. Only apps which may feel critical because of peer pressure or convenience, but aren't actually critical.

F-Droids official repo also does strong curation really well in my experience. Searching the Play Store usually surfaces some SEO-gamed garbage apps. Pretty much all Android apps I use from the Play Store were at friend recommendations. F-Droid has some issues (specifically, they have a very big requirement that all APKs must be build by their server, which has some issues and locks their official repo down to FOSS apps), but even just on the surface their curation is just so much better. And hey, if I don't like something, I can literally just plug in any arbitrary URL I want and as long as it points to a repository, it'll show up as valid.

From what I've heard the Apple App Store isn't much better in this regard, except there you just don't have the option to ignore it (and the jailbreaking community seems more open, except the same "pay for every tiny thing" culture that plagues iOS has made it way over to that platform).

The EU forcing Apple to open up iOS should ideally result in a more fair, better curated ecosystem of smaller app stores and the development of apps that people actually want to use rather than apps that exist to make exciting number go up at an ad agency. There'll be some initial blowback, but the long-term benefits will be that much better for mobile phones on the whole (which to be frank, is desperately needed).

It also gives a secondary avenue for apps against Apple's app store guidelines, which have been noted in the past to basically be completely arbitrary (the main examples of this are the fact that Apple plays censor for VPNs in some countries, Steve Jobs telling people that want to have NSFW apps on their iPhone to "go buy an android", the last policy still leading to numerous social media apps getting in trouble because an app reviewer found something NSFW (this is why Tumblr banned NSFW) and for a very specific example of a game that somehow kept violating the guidelines: the iOS port of the Binding of Isaac was rejected for over a year because Apple wanted to play moral guardian, there's also the completely unreasonable ban on allowing emulation and really I could continue on and on about how absurd this is).

Regarding the NSFW thing: if this was so big for Tumblr, how does Reddit get away with it? I mean, some subreddits are pretty seriously NSFW :)

To put it simply: pray to the whatever spiritual deity you believe in (or other such thing) on app review and hope that Apple doesn't try anything when reviewing your app. The best method is always to make sure that adult content can never end up before a reviewers eyes, so unless you have an unusually thorough reviewer who goes out of their way to look for it, they won't complain. Apples role as a moral guardian on NSFW content is one of the bigger driving factors as to why NSFW gets treated as second class, even though NSFW content has been estimated to be a very large amount of all internet traffic.

Tumblr is just one example. Discord had to restrict all NSFW channels in their app for iOS users because their randomly assigned App Store reviewer managed to get their account into an NSFW channel and found the expected.

Reddit just never had to deal with this issue because they didn't even have an iPhone app for years (their current app is a highly modified version of an older app, Alien Blue, but AB was pulled from the App Store when Reddit bought it) or they deal with it quietly so you don't hear about it. Not all companies who get shafted on the NSFW rule speak up about it, but those that have... all have repeatedly commented on the fact that the process is basically completely opaque and you need to basically pray that Apple doesn't decide to pull your current version either.

Tumblr picked the easy way out (ban all NSFW in general) because they were about to be sold to Verizon and Yahoo didn't want to bother trying to find a way to appease to apple at the last minute.

Ah that makes sense. Yes Reddit is pretty good at not showing you NSFW unless you actually go and look for it. But when you do it takes you all the way down the rabbit hole (figuratively!! - I hope), this is why I found it a bit surprising, it's not just some lingerie pics or anything.

In a way though, that means Safari should be banned too. And the camera app, I mean point it down in the right state of undress... ;)

More techbros use Reddit than Tumblr so Reddit got better treatment from the tech corp than Tumblr.

too big to ban

> It hasn't happened on Android

There have been cases where authoritarian countries have forced people to sideload government-issued malware onto their Android phones.

Those countries can simply ban iphones if they want to. An OS can't solve all evil.

At the same time, Apple has also been doing the opposite by playing government censor for the CCP by removing VPN apps from the App Store in China.

The knife here in terms of risking government overreach slices both ways, but in the case of Apple, they are in a much more vulnerable state for this sort of thing, since the CCP requires them to have meat shields (they need to have an office there) to continue operating in China.

One is massively more beneficial on the whole for user freedom.

This is true, on a global scale both options are bad. On the other hand, on a personal scale, the walled garden is much better option for me. It sucks that the Chinese are stuck between a rock and a hard place, but I am not, and I don't see how it's anyone's business to regulate my choice of technology.

Just because the status quo is bad for some people, it doesn't means it should be made worse for everyone else.

> It hasn't happened on Android.

Likely because doing for Android alone represents too much of a risk given the profit potential. With these stores being able to exist on both platforms, that equation changes a lot, especially with iOS users' eyeballs traditionally having been valued more highly.

> Anyone... please tell me how this actually benefits ME as a consumer and not developers?

1) Developers already raise the prices for apps/subscriptions in iOS (vs, say, the web) to offset Apple's cut.

2) Developers will be able to offer refunds more easily (something that continues to be ridiculously hard with the App Store).

3) The App Store only allows free trials for subscriptions. They don't offer free trials before a one time payment to buy the app. A 3rd party store could allow that.

4) Certain kinds of apps that Apple doesn't allow on the App Store would presumably be allowed on other stores.

5) Apple will finally be forced to compete now that the App Store has competition. It might even mean that all the points I made above become moot.

I'm not saying there won't be any potential downsides, but that's the whole point of competition, it's a tradeoff you can make. As a user you can choose to only use the Apple App Store if you want. Since most users will only use the official store, it seems unlikely that many mainstream apps would consider dropping it entirely.

> 2) Developers will be able to offer refunds more easily (something that continues to be ridiculously hard with the App Store).

I would counter that its really easy compared to most other systems.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204084

I had an occasion where my phone was loaned to my (young at that time) nephew on a car trip and since it was my phone (and only my phone) I had rather permissive purchase checks on it. He bought a bunch of in app purchase stuff for Talking Tom (owned by a Chinese company). I filled out the form, and got a refund. I believe that it was much easier than trying to get a refund from the developer.

Here's an example a friend of mine ran into recently:

They sold their company and shut down their service for which they charged monthly/yearly subscriptions. They had a decent relationship with Apple, so they emailed their contact and notified them that they'd like to issue refunds to all their users. Apple said that users had to do it themselves. That wouldn't be so bad, but there's (as I understand it) some restrictions on Apple offering refunds for subscriptions, for example if you're 25 days into a 30 day subscription period, Apple won't allow users to request a refund.

This caused users to get angry at my friend and their company.

If they had been using any other payment service other than the App Store, they could have just automatically issued refunds to all their users.

The difference that we're seeing here is a "user can request a refund easily" vs "developer can refund something to a user."

Apple balances on the assumption of the stability of their developers offering subscriptions and an easier experience for a user requesting a refund.

The difficulty that the developer is having in this case is that Apple isn't exposing the payment information to the developer. If they can say "this user gets a refund" that is leaking some information about the users to developers.

(...)

Additionally, it appears that there were some new methods added to the in-app library for developers to be able to create a refund request on behalf of a user.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/storekit/transacti...

> Call this function from account settings or a help menu to enable customers to request a refund for an in-app purchase within your app. When you call this function, the system displays a refund sheet with the customer’s purchase details and list of reason codes for the customer to choose from.

Apple could still act as an indirect facilitator - send apple the money and they refund it on your behalf. I'm sure there are many reasons why this is complicated, but I don't see any fundamental reasons this couldn't be done if Apple want to enable it.

Sure, but that obviously isn't what people were talking about with respect to developers giving refunds. I provided that feature to developers in Cydia and gave refunds directly to users and it was still appreciated by all to have that feature.

Regardless, to address your (off-topic) addition: do you actually request refunds from Apple often enough to be willing to pay 10% more for the privilege? You'd have to be asking for refunds for 1 out of every 10 products you buy for that to make sense...

You're talking about 2 different things. The platform providing refunds doesn't obviate the need for the developer to have the same option.

A developer can issue a refund request on behalf of a user - its just that they can't do the refund themselves because the developer doesn't hold tokens for processing the payment. Doing so gets into issues of PCI and user privacy.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/storekit/transacti...

> As a user you can choose to only use the Apple App Store if you want. Since most users will only use the official store, it seems unlikely that many mainstream apps would consider dropping it entirely.

That right there is my problem with this. We can't even definitively say that it isn't possible. Doesn't Epic do it on Android?

A big enough company (like Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon) could easily push their store as being the primary way to download their apps. Start out on both at first but gradually introduce incentives for the users to redownload somewhere else. Then suddenly that App Store is on their phone, other developers see the App Store being used a lot and more and more developers stop using the App Store because they can get around these protections that I get as a user.

If somehow developers were still required to be on the App Store, fine. I would have no issue with it. But I just don't see developers doing it. Too many already try to employ dark patterns on there website that given a chance there is no way they won't try to do them on mobile. Many already try (like with the prompts to permit app tracking) but are limited in what they can do.

> A big enough company (like Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon) could easily push their store

Or any shitty IoT company. When people pay $400 for an instant pot or $800 for a robot vacuum or electric scooter they’ll download any spyware app to make it run. Plenty already required sideloading apk’s on Android.

I honestly didn't even think about that, buying some product only to find that the app for it is on another store.

I mean most likely would not happen until another big enough store got popular. But then its... do I just download this app or do I return it.

I definitely see this as the biggest downside.

However, as someone who doesn't deal with these big companies to begin with, it wouldn't affect me at all if they move out. It would just fast-track me to recommending alternatives to everyone I know.

I already migrated my whole family into iCloud for photos and own Nextcloud server for Google Drive alternative. It's been great. Obviously not the average user, but I could see people sticking with Apple's services over Google's.

Might get a huge base of older adults off of Facebook for good if they decide to leave the App Store.

So the big tech companies will self silo into their own app stores (which I can ignore), I can add an open source app store, and companies can run their own app store for line of business apps?

That sounds like paradise to me.

There is a trade-off here. Yes, some apps might not be available in the main store. Not all of the rules that are applied to app submissions are in the best interests of every user. Even some of the rules that do protect some users, also eliminate whole classes of apps that other users would like to use.

This dynamic is already at play on Android. The lack of Fortnite availability on the Play Store is probably to the detriment of users. However, the existence of fdroid has allowed quite a few apps that users want but that fundementally don't work within the Play Store rules.

So when you ask "What does this do for me as a user", the answer is: it creates the opportunity for you to have access to a more diverse set of apps that are currently prohibited (such as anything with adult content).

Edit: A hopeful secondary effect is that Apple will be incentivized to improve the App Store to compete with third party stores. Maybe Apple will add free trials for one-time purchase apps. Maybe Apple will create an adult content section. Maybe Apple will provide better transparency around rejections. Maybe a store will emerge that does a much more stringent security review that catches the bad actors that do get their apps through Apple's screening. Most likely, none of this will happen and 3rd party stores will see minimal use, predominantly by technical users who want apps that fundamentally violate the store rules, like has happened on Android.

> Developers already raise the prices for apps/subscriptions in iOS (vs, say, the web) to offset Apple's cut.

I'll believe most developers offering cheaper prices on other stores when I see it. Nobody is going to lower their prices just because they have moved app stores.

Do you really think developers are going to lower the price of their app people are already willing to pay for? I agree the 30% Apple tax can inflate prices, but I'm more inclined to think developers will pocket the 30% instead of reducing their apps price, especially companies selling a product (e.g. Twitter).

> Developers already raise the prices for apps/subscriptions in iOS (vs, say, the web) to offset Apple's cut.

And do they lower it again when the 'cut' is 1/2 in year two? I haven't seen that, I've only seen devs pocket the diff.

> Anyone... please tell me how this actually benefits ME as a consumer and not developers?

Not all laws exist to benefit you personally. It's a benefit to society to avoid a world where Apple will collect a 30% rent on all economic activity, kill of competition at a whim, and in general decide which products and product categories live and die.

Right. If Apple had asked for 3% to begin with noone would be complaining.

> Apple will collect a 30% rent on all economic activity

I understand that it might be a intentional hyperbole but Apple very clearly and universally charges the comission (which is 15% if rev under < $1M) on digital good purchases. They have not planned to charge for bank transfers as some commenters in the NFT case of Coinbase fearmongered or physical goods. It's only a fee on things that App Store and Apple clearly enabled you to deliver to people with their system - digital goods.

One word. Jailbreak.

I've jailbroken my iOS devices since the first iPod touch. There are lots of tools and features that Apple doesn't allow developers access to which limits what features are ultimately available to the end-user.

Nearly every big feature release on iOS came first from the jailbreak community. App switching, call overlay, PIP video, Shortcuts, lockscreen widgets, home screen widgets... and an endless list of others.

Non of these features would exist without designers and developers having access to the core functionality of the iPhone.

I love iOS. I currently own an iPhone without a Jailbreak (doesn't exist for my iPhone). I'm also an engineer and there is a whole lot of potential that Apple limits strictly under the guise of security. You can have alternate stores without compromising those that choose not to install them.

I understand that Google may decide to create their own store and take all their apps with them... this I can see being a very negative thing which may be needs regulation in itself. IDK what that would look like, but I don't use Google anyways because I have no trust in them. I don't trust them in the App Store so I wouldn't trust them with their own store.

I think Apple lowkey actually wants Jailbreak to continue as it's a pool of free novel ideas that they can then implement in iOS. But what % of Apple's customers JB their iDevices? Probably not more than 5%, and that number is likely decreasing too. For instance, I used to JB my iPad and iPhone up until iOS 15 when the features introduced by the OS passed my needs *threshold*.

Oh trust me it's way way lower than 5%. More like 0.05% :) I was until recently a corporate admin of (among many other types) tens of thousands of BYOD iphones.

> I understand that Google may decide to create their own store and take all their apps with them... this I can see being a very negative thing which may be needs regulation in itself.

What do you mean by "create their own store"? I don't understand this part of your comment.

> I understand that Google may decide to create their own store and take all their apps with them... this I can see being a very negative thing which may be needs regulation in itself. IDK what that would look like, but I don't use Google anyways because I have no trust in them. I don't trust them in the App Store so I wouldn't trust them with their own store.

If you already don't trust them in the App Store, why would you trust them in their own store to begin with? Sounds to me like you shouldn't use Google apps to begin with.

Most of their apps are very replaceable and with the arbitrary restrictions forcibly peeled back, the sole service that you can only get from them (YouTube) can finally get an iOS equivalent of NewPipe that doesn't need a hacked phone to be installed.

Because Apple forces them to comply with privacy rules in the App store. The google store won't

As a linux user, I don't like how Apple gets to decide every app that can be installed on iOS. I like the ability to install any program I choose. This alone is enough for me. Currently, I use a linux emulator, iSH, on my iPad, but I'm really worried that at any moment apple could make it unusable for me because it can run arbitrary programs, which they stated they are directly against.

But in this wonderful thing called the free market, you can simply not buy Apple things

Switching phone ecosystems is a hell of a lot harder and more expensive than installing an app. (And the Android ecosystem is honestly not good either.)

In what way is mobile phone software a free market?

"Simply not buy Apple things" means "buy Google things." There's no way around that if you want a functional smart phone. You either pick red or blue.

If there were 5-10 full-featured phone OSes out there, your point would make more sense to me.

Yea I don't get the argument of "Just don't use Apple"

You can like the hardware and not care for the software. It really is A/B at the moment. It's difficult for the average user to choose C. You either allow Google to peer into your life, or trust that Apple's marketing isn't a gimmick and a lot of Apple is e2e encrypted.

From what I read, iCloud backups are finally getting e2e encryption. I see this as the biggest reason to stick with Apple. I trade off full-customizability for better security/experience.

If a jailbreak was available for my iPhone, I'd be on it though.

> From what I read, iCloud backups are finally getting e2e encryption.

Yes, but only as secure as the passphrase you use to unlock your phone. Except actually less secure than that; your phone will rate limit attempts to guess your passphrase, but encrypted iCloud backups turned over to a government won't and can't rate limit attempts.

For the average user with a relatively short passphrase, iCloud backups will be trivial to crack. Still, it's an improvement.

You seem to think that your phone's pin is used directly as some sort of encryption key for cloud backups, but that's not how these systems work. Your pin or face or fingerprint unlocks your phone's secure element, and the secure element contains a randomly generated high entropy encryption key for your data.

This is why you can casually change your pin code in your phone's settings without it chewing through your battery and data plan reencrypting and reuploading gigabytes of cloud data.

In addition to what DCKing said, you can effectively rate-limit password attempts on encrypted data by deriving the key using a cryptographic hashing function such as bcrypt with a high amount of iterations.

What does full-featured mean to you? There’s a bunch of non-google Android distros that seem full featured to me. Same with Sailfish, at least when I last used it some years ago.

No big corporate support, less commercial apps packaged by default, but that’s a feature in itself.

Supporting commercial apps like banking apps for example. Many financial institutions are now app-only in the UK.

To me, full-featured means that I can install a ridesharing app, social media/chat apps, a podcast app, a maps app with live traffic updates and turn-by-turn directions, and popular streaming music and video apps.

Bonus points for supporting contactless payments, banking apps, and airline apps.

The hardware should have decent battery life and get great cell reception, and the UI should be smooth.

Indeed the free market is great. And you will continue to have the ability to only use the Apple App store, if you so chose.

You are prohibiting from crying or complaining about this by your own logic.

You are free to not install an alternative app stores, and cannot use any arguments at all about how your choice is restricted.

> As a linux user...

You answered yourself. Most people are not Linuxy in the sense that they buy an iPhone and don't want to know how everything works.

I'm in a similar boat. I bought an ipad because its simply the best tablet and actually gets attention. I didn't want a chromeOS or Windows device. The ipad for me is about 80% there and the other 20% is just not what apple wants.

If this would push that other 20%, I might even consider switching from Android.

As it stands, Android has a lot of free trash on the play store, and Iphone has a lot of paid trash on the app store because apple charges them hundreds per year for the honor of developing on their platform.

On Android, when I need an app with basic functionality, I already check fdroid first for a simple OSS implementation. I don't need my voice recorder to do anything except record audio. I don't need my heart beat monitor to do anything but check my pulse.

I'm hoping this change brings the type of innovation early jailbreak app stores brought that basically test drove features that Apple would copy years later and call "innovative".

As a Linux user, I love that there’s a kind of device I can recommend my non-technical friends and family without worrying too much about their safety or privacy. Is it perfect? No. But the risk that they’re fooled into installing a malicious app is still a lot lower than with mandated side loading and app stores with lax oversight.

I.e the gatekeeping my government wants to prohibit is the reason I’ve been recommending these things. I guess I’ll have to switch to recommending AwareGo security training for everyone

> mandated side loading

In what respect does any phone currently on the market have "mandated side loading"?

Probably nothing currently on the market - we’re discussing a law that’s in effect from 2024

Then my question is: Why do you believe that relaxing app requirements on iOS would cause mandated side-loading, given that it's not a problem for anything else currently on the market?

My point was that the possibility to side load apps is becoming mandatory, and that that possibility comes with a risk. I don’t think people will be forced to side load things, sorry if I didn’t express myself properly

Government-mandated (usually in selected specific cases) spyware trojans are not installed through any of the app stores.

What specifically do you mean by "selected specific cases"?

Usually "mandated" for people like terrorists, sometimes journalists, but only in few countries for everyone.

Where is sideloading "mandated" on Android?

Because there are apps I would like to use on my iPhone which are prohibited by the current AppStore rules. For example something like Termux. So my szenario would be: 4. I mainly keep using the AppStore with the exception of selected apps from trusted sources which were impossible so far.

My concern is that scenario won't exist.

If enough developers choose to move to those other stores consumers will have no choice but to use those stores to get the apps they are looking for.

I understand wanting apps that the app stores doesn't permit. There are apps that I would love as well. But I don't want to loose the protections in place to get them.

> My concern is that scenario won't exist.

Why wouldn't it? It's the reality of Android, why would it work any different on iOS?

I have not used Android in a long time so most of my news about it comes somewhere else.

But unless I am mistaken, a developer on Android is free to handle their own subscription billing, purchases, whatever however they want right?

I have seen some reports that google is tracking to crack down on this, but last I saw it was still far more open for the developers.

If that is correct. Developers are less incentivized to circumvent the Android Store. That incentive exists on iOS if it allows them to use those dark patterns for unsubscribing from an app or anything else.

If I am wrong about android than fine, that incentive doesn't exist and that removes most of my argument (it is still a possibility but the incentive won't be there).

If you're asking me for my personal experience with such dark patterns on android, I don't have any stories to tell you. None of the apps I use on android are paid for, have ads or subscriptions, much less un-subscription dark patterns. For things like Uber or banking, Google is not a middleman in my transactions with those companies and I've never seen or felt any reason to desire otherwise.

If an app asks you to pay for a subscription and you don't like the payment processor the app uses, then don't use the app. It's really that simple.

When your response to criticism of iOS is, "just use Android!", I think it's fair to apply the same approach to desirable popular apps: just use the alternative apps & services.

Well, we don't see such problem with Andriod. And, the good thing is we can install Firefox that supports ublock origin :)

Sorry but i can say the same thing about your argument:

People that say this is about walled gardens and security, which frankly, is bull…

Yes the 30% issue will mostly benefit devs, but also consumers. What if i could register for netflix, the ny times etc on my phone?

What if prices became cheaper because the 30% wouldnt be there anymore?

Also, the app store as it is now is a failure, some competition would do it good. Try finding anything there, the discovery tools are a joke.

I want an open and private platform. Google may let me sideload apps, but the operating system is hostile to data privacy. For me, an iPhone that I can install other apps on is the best alternative apart from going to a GNU/Linux phone.

Additionally, it’s a benefit that users can now install any apps that Apple refuses to allow.

Companies that can't survive on a 30% cut but can survive on a competing store's 12% cut will survive and flourish

That’s false. If your business is fine with 12% processing fees (specifically in tech and more so in IAP style apps) and not with 30% - something is very wrong.

[Context] it is extremely odd to (ab)use the leverage of a 0 marginal cost business to be sensitive to a +/-18% payment processing fee - when the world basically runs on ~4% IRL. The business case if true and still viable should be unique and outside of a pure software play - which gets you squarely out of IAP.

Yeah exactly. I should be cheering for the option of paying less to Apple as a business, but realistically you will get sideloading, piracy and the “mobile users don’t spend money on apps” like it is “Android users don’t spend money on apps”

Are you saying every non-iOS software company with a profit margin under 18% should go out of business?

Rule of thumb: yes.

Long story: it would be extremely odd to (ab)use the leverage of a 0 marginal cost business to be sensitive to a +/-18% payment processing fee - when the world basically runs on ~4% IRL.

Isn't it 15%? At least for companies in danger of not surviving, I mean.

Before "app stores" there were retail stores, and the cut was worse because there was a publisher involved.

But most apps, at least for me, were distributed as shareware. The developer got 100% of the cut because they sold it on their own website.

There was a publisher, a distributor, and the retail outlet all taking their cuts.

Then you also had to pay into a marketing fund for those big full color inserts in the Sunday paper if your software was sold at the big box retailers.

You also had to eat the cost of returns of unsold inventory after you issued a new version.

It's true, Minecraft absolutely had like 4 layers of red tape Mojang had to go through to sell is program. Same with WinZip, WinRar, XSplit and many other applications.

Or do they mostly just support PayPal, Square, Amazon Pay or direct credit card billing?

Nobody paid for winrar

This is just an Apple PR talking point. You know what existed between the retail stores and the App Store? The internet

We didn’t magically jump from only buying things in stores to only buy things from an App Store. Companies could and still do sell through their own website and through other places.

> We didn’t magically jump from only buying things in stores to only buy things from an App Store.

And it fucking sucked. Finding apps was hit or miss, there was no guarantee an app would run on your device model, and payments were ridiculous. Apple's App Store is far from perfect but it is vastly better than the absolute clown shoes of buying mobile apps for pre-iPhone mobile platforms.

That is more because payment processing in general has come a long way. Buying mac or Windows software from a developer's site using Stripe or even Apple Pay or similar doesn't fucking suck much more than using the App Store.

What world are you coming from? The story for buying windows apps on the internet has been pretty fine for a long, long while; and, compatibility hasn't been any problem at all, in my experience.

Further, since most things were shareware, you could just _test_ the software on your machine ahead of time.

This is changing the goal posts. Whatever the state of “pre-iPhone mobile platforms” is irrelevant. We are discussing about general software distribution.

iPhones nowadays are much closer to functionality and power to (or significantly eclipsing) normal PCs that people have.

And the distribution of software for normal PCs has none of the issue you describe.

You're forgetting all the licensing software attached to those apps, paid for and funneled through... a publishing company!

I am not forgetting the existence of licensing concerns, but they are not exactly relevant.

A) The presence of licensing software is irrelevant to the existence of something between a big box store and the App Store. Talking about the ecosystem as if people did not sell software electronically before the App Store is simply disingenuous.

B) Times have changed, it's easier to handle that stuff yourself using free software or with software packages that take less than a 30% cut.

C) You know what didn't need that licensing software? Free and/or OSS software. That simply isn't an option on iOS. Further, even if you wanted to enforce that on your paid software you may have used a publishing company, but you weren't artificially limited to a single one.

>The EU, Developers, and Many here continue to forget that the reason many of us use an iPhone is because of the walled garden

It is your singular opinion, not a fact. I'm pretty sure that it's at the very bottom of list of reasons why people use iphones.

I think this one benefits some consumers, who are in to it, but overall it's more the principal of avoiding monopoly practices. The push to allow other rendering engines/browsers on iOS is a much more beneficial and clear cut positive imo.

I could not agree more. I won’t touch another app store with a bargepole. You want free software, get Linux / Android. You want a walled garden? Get Apple. I use both for different things.

I like App Store, but I don't like the restriction that stops me from installing older versions of apps. I have a couple iDevices that are perfectly fine, except that their iOS is too old for the newer apps. If I could install old versions of UC Browser, I could breath a fresh air into those devices.

Honestly, I disagree. I'm currently on a mac where I can live the walled garden lifestyle if I choose, but sometimes I want to install an app which is experimental, open source etc. Sure, I get it, macOS predates the iOS App Store, but so does iOS. The very first apps to run on an iPhone had to be side-loaded, there was no App store at launch for the iPhone.

I want the ability to sideload apps on my iPhone, but I really hope Apple makes it painful enough that companies like Facebook can't rely on it to get around Apples app store rules.

Facebook doesn't do that on Android phones. Why would they do it on iPhones?

Because the iOS App Store has much more strict app privacy rules than the Google Play Store

> People keep saying that this is about choice, which frankly... is bull.

This is very obviously bull. When there are essentially only two smartphone platforms, and someone is arguing that one of the only significant consumer differences between the two platforms should be removed, that person is not trying to increase consumer choice.

You can still stay in your "walled garden" by sticking to the App Store (this is very likely what I will do 99% of the time). That solves all of your grievances including your Facebook hypothetical. But yes, it does mean you will need to choose between installing Facebook and using the App Store.

You can also use Apple's favorite response to this: use the browser. Just open up Safari and type in facebook.com. Then you won't need the app and you don't have to leave the App Store!

Apple can sell "walled" phones in US. so FB/Google will have no choice but continue to do business with the Apple Store. So US citizens should have no reasons to plain that EU is forcing them to have choices.

You also need to look passed the FUD and see that you have Android and you can't find a good example that you are forced to install a third party store to get some must have application. Geeks would unlock their phones and some apps might offer a cheaper version on a third party store forcing Apple to compete.

If you could also replace Siri with a better assistant you might even get Apple putting some work in their apps and improve Siri. Either way custoemrs will gain a better voice assistant if there will be fair competition.

>If you could also replace Siri with a better assistant you might even get Apple putting some work in their apps and improve Siri.

This is actually part of the law. Apple have to allow 3rd party voice assistants.

Great. now let\s see Apple fanboys explain to us that competition with Siri is bad, and if you want good voice assistant in your language you should buy something else.

Wow... You're arguing against more choice for you as the consumer. You're free not to use other stores.

What if the other app store has every paid app 25% cheaper? That is a clear benefit for consumer

Two words: ad blocker.

Comments advocating FOR the prison that is the App Store are so unbelievable I can't believe they're anything but astroturfing.

>please tell me how this actually benefits ME as a consumer

i, for one, am looking forward to a kindle app that allows me to purchase books on iOS.

My bet is that the vast majority of users are like you, so developers who stop distributing on the App Store or distribute on multiple stores will find it doesn’t pay and so the incentive for them will largely remain to distribute on the App Store. Yes there might be niche apps where this doesn’t apply but those are edge cases.

What other store operators should know is that if there’s any compelling feature that sets their store apart, Apple can very rapidly copy it and probable do a better job so there’s really very little incentive to bother creating a store to compete against Apple.

The overwhelming majority of Android users use the Google Play Store.

This is all a colossal waste of time and energy for no practical change.

Do you own a Mac? Do you purchase everything from the Mac App Store? Would you want to be forced to do so?

It benefits you because you can get apps that Apple has decided aren't safe for you for whatever reason.

Sounds like the good old browser war times.

Or like the messenger or streaming wars: everything is fragmented, one AppStore you use primarily, and here and there you need to use the other Stores for specific use cases.

Don't you mean:

>I want the precautions that Apple has in place to make it so [only Apple can] employ dark patterns to... mine the data on my phone for their profit.

https://www.wired.com/story/apple-is-an-ad-company-now/

Thank you for a great post. Hit the nail.

I’m now expecting to see Xbox Store on PlayStation (and vice versa), Samsung Store on my LG TV (because they have xCloud), no bad practices with a third party store, and everything positive.

Seeing that this solves all our problems, I’m looking forward to xCloud on my LG soon.