Hacker News Reader

Comment by gwright | Hacker News Reader

I think this perspective goes too far.

Some people (me included) would actually like to have a secure, vetted ecosystem for software that gets installed on my phone (and even my computer). I realize that other people want something different. And think it is reasonable for people to want different approaches for different devices.

Any regulations designed to ensure the "open" model shouldn't prevent the "closed" model from existing. Your comment just seems a bit to heavy handed to my ear.

That being said, it seems to me that Apple's attempt is guaranteed to satisfy no one.

View on HN

You can have this! Simply only download apps from Apple's store. Apple still has no right to interfere in any way at all, or collect a tax, if I want to sell an app to someone else outside of it.

Why don't you use android device then? You're not forced to buy apple product if that's a priority for you.

I do use an android device. Apple hardware is very good however, so I am interested in buying some of their things aswell.

What about the people like you saying Apple has no place in between 3rd party devs and the end user? You literally said he couldn't have it? From your first post if you had your druthers Apple would be slapped harder and harder until they disband the App Store.

If the seller is voluntarily working together with Apple (i.e. purposefully selling the software through their store) that is obviously fine. The whole point of the DMA is we should not be forced to.

> Apple still has no right to interfere in any way at all, or collect a tax, if I want to sell an app to someone else outside of it.

You seem to be demanding that everyone bend to your view of how the world should work.

But the fact is that Apple has a right to determine what apps are on their platform. No different to how supermarkets choose what items to stock or social networks moderate what content to show.

Apple does not have a right to determine what software people run on their general purpose computers. That is the whole point of the DMA. I apologize if you couldn't understand this.

> No different to how supermarkets choose what items to stock

And yet, you can drive to Ikea and buy a couch without having to pay a fee to Walmart. Very curious. Want to think of a better analogy?

You 2 aren't in any disagreement.

The whole point of all of these millions in legal fees is to even have the OPTION of an open model. Of course you'll always have walled garden option, that's apple's golden goose.

There is a disagreement, the first poster clearly believes Apple even having a closed App Store is an infringement, even if he can not use it. And it's honestly almost gaslighting to pretend that the first poster isn't making that argument

No, this is not true. I do not care about what Apple does with their App Store. The point is they should not be allowed to insert themselves into a relationship between me trying to sell something and someone else trying to buy it from me directly. No cost to Apple exists, thus they should not be paid. It's really simple actually.

Nobody wants you to lose your ability to stay in the walled garden. We just want a way out ourselves, without paying exploitative fees.

> Some people (me included) would actually like to have a secure, vetted ecosystem for software that gets installed on my phone (and even my computer).

I don't think the problem is the idea of an app store offering only secure and vetted software. Apple absolutely doesn't offer that right now, but even if they ever do offer something like that would you really want that to be the only way to get software on your device?

Letting someone, no matter how trustworthy they are, decide for you what you can and cannot run on your own computer is a giving up a lot of freedom. I'd even say that was dangerous when it comes to our cell phones since we're basically stuck with just Apple or Google controlling our devices and for most people a cell phone is the only computer they own.

> Apple absolutely doesn't offer that right now, but even if they ever do offer something like that would you really want that to be the only way to get software on your device?

Did you read my entire comment? Both models should be available.

> Some people (me included) would actually like to have a secure, vetted ecosystem for software that gets installed on my phone (and even my computer).

And that thing already exists - it's the app store. No one would be stopping you from choosing to only download apps from the official app store, and I assume that many people would be similar to you. They will only use the official app store because that is the vetted-by-apple place to find software.

But just because the closed and vetted ecosystem exists for users like you, doesn't mean that Apple should be able to prevent other people that don't care about that from doing what they want to with the devices they literally own.

I really don't understand this mentality of people who are happy to live in a free society but want North Korea on their phones. I wouldn't mind it if it was a fringe OS, but it's half the phone market.

They probably have Apple shares. It's the only explanation I can think of for some of the people here actually arguing in favor of Apple stealing money from society with junk fees.

Who are you talking about? I explicitly said that I can understand the interest in both types of ecosystems and even that one person may like different scenarios for different devices.

Your right to swing your arm ends at my nose. If you have to force other people into your closed ecosystem to maintain it, you're the problem.

Who exactly was forced into using iOS? Is there some place with iOS as the only solution available?

Yes, iOS is the only solution available if I want to use iPhone hardware. Selling software to people that have phones has been recognized as a market under the DMA, which relieves Apple of any and all control over it.

Are you ok if on your MacBook you can install apps only from the AppStore? Do you want the option to install dmgs and heck even curl | bash ?

I wouldn’t be ok with that, but then I would just not buy it. I wouldn’t try to force them to let me install dmgs by suing them…

You wouldn't, but that's what competent regulatory bodies are for.

Absolutely spot on, and it really does seem like it’s always Android users moaning about Apple’s business model.

Why can’t you and I just live happily in our walled garden without zealots of open access ruining it for us? It truly boggles me. Is it jealousy? That’s all I can come up with.

What do you mean jealousy? Most Android users that come here could afford an iPhone if they want to.

IDK. Android exists and is closer to the open model people here seem to want, yet the same people appear to knowingly still buy iPhones and complain it's not like Android.

Mainly because Apple hardware is amazing. I used to run Windows on Bootcamp on my MacBook and loved it and now Windows is worse, Apple Silicon is just way better. If Apple didn't allow me to install outside the AppStore on my MacBook I will complain as well and hopefully you won't be like "IDK, Windows exists"

That doesn’t seem like something to legislate over to me though. “Your hardware is too good, you’re going to have to change the associated business model”? Madness, shouldn’t the onus just be on Android phone manufacturers to up their game? It’s not like Apple got where they are with iPhones for free, they heavily invested and are now enjoying the fruits.

> If Apple didn't allow me to install outside the AppStore on my MacBook I will complain as well and hopefully you won't be like "IDK, Windows exists"

If Apple suddenly changed Macs, sure. But, iOS has always been this way. Anyone who bought an iOS device over the last decade+ knows exactly the limitations and how it works. Android exists for those who want more open, yet the market has shown ~50% don't care about Android level openness.

I think it's wrong to legislate something just because it doesn't work how I want it to work, especially when an alternative does exist and consumers have spoken with their money.

Of course, this would be different if Android and iOS operated the same, or one had an overwhelming majority of the market. Because then consumers wouldn't have a choice.

> I think it's wrong to legislate something just because it doesn't work how I want it to work

What absolute nonsense is this? That is literally the entire point of legislation, to change things that aren't working how we want them to, for example to be more beneficial to society. Apple stealing money from a huge market isn't helping anyone so we fix it. Simple as.

I said how I want them to work, not what is beneficial to society. Societal benefit is hard to balance and define. Don't assume what you want is automatically better for society as a whole.

I assume our politicians already spent significant time thinking about this before coming up with the DMA. But okay, I'll bite. How does it benefit society for Apple to steal 30% of everyone's transactions?

> That is literally the entire point of legislation, to change things that aren't working how we want them to, for example to be more beneficial to society.

Where do you get this idea? What is the limit on this principle? The DMA that you keep referring to is an European legal framework. Is it your opinion that everyone must bow down to what European legislators and regulators deem "beneficial"?

An argument that derives entirely from the idea that "the government has decided it is beneficial" is unpersuasive, IMHO.

I didn’t mean “they can’t afford it” jealousy, but from my experience the quality of apps on iOS is significantly higher than Android, that’s what I was going for; jealous of the “polish”, if you will.

Then again that could be because I’m used to iOS and find the Android UX patterns poor at best.

You can. It's about making it your choice to do so, instead of Apple's.

Is it not my choice though? When I buy an iPhone knowing how the App Store and their walled garden work? If anything, I could argue Android users pushing for more openness are invaliding my choice!

> Absolutely spot on, and it really does seem like it’s always Android users moaning about Apple’s business model.

They might be Android users _because_ they don't like Apple's control.

Indeed, so why do they care what I can/can’t install on /my/ phone? I don’t need someone to fight my battles for me, and I certainly don’t need someone to fight their battles for me!

What are you talking about? I care about this because I want to use Apple hardware, under reasonable terms.

So you want to utilize the power of the state to force a private entity to sell its products under terms that are "reasonable" to you?

Where is the limit on that sort of approach? Do you want the state to force everyone to set prices so that you can purchase everything at terms "reasonable" to you? How do we decide what is "reasonable"?

Given the existence of the Android alternative it is hard for me to support the argument that the government should mandate how Apple conducts its business. Even when I agree that Apple's policies have problems, I still don't think heavy-handed regulation by government is necessarily better.

> So you want to utilize the power of the state to force a private entity to sell its products under terms that are "reasonable" to you?

This is all consumer rights legislation. From the tone you are clearly opposed to this example, but it's not some revolutionary new concept.

It all hinges on "reasonable", which is a lot different than making sure a product is "safe" or that advertising isn't "fraudulent" and so on.

Apple is using its market power to prevent third parties from doing business with you by selling you software to install on hardware you bought. At first it was explicit, now that they can't due to EU regulation, they're attempting to circumvent it by charging a fee to third party distribution that doesn't apply to distribution through their own app store.

That is what's unreasonable; I would be glad consumer rights are being protected by the power of the state in this case. It is hard to believe that there are so many people who prioritize the rights of the corporation to prevent competition over the rights of individual to do business with whoever they want, regardless of what hardware they own or operating system they use.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com