The hardware manufacturer needs to ensure that software doesn't break the device.
Apple and Google are going well beyond any reasonable grey area, though. Demanding a cut if I buy a book through the Kindle app is absurd and has nothing to do with ensuring that Kindle doesn't break my smartphone.
Preventing software from breaking a device is a solved problem. All you need is a CPU that supports memory protection, and an appropriately designed OS.
If you want to only run software that's been OK'ed by a third party, that's certainly a choice you can make for yourself or your organization.
I don't like that this choice is imposed on almost-all cellphone users by monopoly.
Without doing a bunch of research, it looks like things were more split on the Mac side; some Mac models had fancy MMUs while others didn't until the switch to PowerPC. Classic Mac OS didn't support memory protection, and Apple's quest for a replacement operating system cumulating in the acquisition of NeXT is well known.
Conversely, Windows 9x could have made more aggressive use of the processor's protected mode, but it would have broken a lot of programs that worked fine on Windows 3.x. Windows 9x was still capable of running most 16-bit real mode software and generally allowed it to access BIOS and hardware, which NT couldn't allow without breaking the security model. Many "enterprise" customers even stayed on 9x instead of NT simply because it ran the software they used.
It took another few years before the hardware got fast enough and the software base moved to mostly 32-bit protected-mode code to merge the two product lines. However, there were still problems when it finally happened with XP.
The best example that comes to mind for me is Windows 95 having a special case in its memory management to work around a bug in SimCity. From a technical perspective, that's nuts, but from a business perspective I imagine not doing that would have hurt both immediate sales and consumer trust in the brand.
A lot of the problems arose from shoddy installers that wouldn't clean themselves up correctly on uninstall; requiring periodic reinstalls.
The problem isn't in that transaction, the problem is conflicts of interest. Platform vendors engaged in both gatekeeping and building their own apps have an inherent conflict of interest. I think that Apple in particular (but not Apple alone) abuses it quite brazenly.
The issue isn't that the police exist (a tradeoff of freedom for temporary security, we'd all be freer if they didn't), the issue is when they start shaking me down, or otherwise brutalizing me.
But I think it's also true that people are more than capable of adapting to such landscapes because we already do that with our desktop/laptop computers. Yes, malware exists and people do get their computers infected. But I believe the reliance of a sort of "watchful eye" also makes us lazy.
I mean, the ideal situation is not one where Apple doesn't have an app store. But imo more like what Google does with android where you can install anything if you really want.
I think the cuts these companies take from having a curated store is too high though. And in the case of apple there's simply no alternative (well, there's the nascent stage of an alternative forming in Europe I guess).
This is a common point, but similar to how there was widespread fear that seatbelts would encourage people to drive dangerously.
Security should be baked into the platform and not a task for an 89 year old grandfather to have to deal with.
"Ensuring that Kindle doesn't break my smartphone" requires time and effort. That's funded by the cut they take.
Apple / Google do not need to take a 30% cut of every e-book ever sold to fund their review. That's absurd and illogical.
One estimate is that Amazon sells 487,000,000 ebooks a year. If we assume they cost $10 each, that's almost a $1.5 billion cut for Apple and Google.
It does not cost $1.5 billion for Apple and Google to review Kindle to make sure it doesn't damage devices.
What if this is a service I don't? Why am I paying for it? The vendors selling in app items are certainly passing on some of the cost of this.
Free apps, apps that make money off ads, apps that cost $1, apps that charge a monthly fee, apps that resell products where a 30% cut exceeds their margin.
Perhaps the stores should change to a model of choose your own adventure: pay per release or % cut. What would you say is a fair amount to charge per release - keeping in mind apple/google will want to maintain their insanely high profits from the app stores?
What about those of us who want to break our devices? (At least, according to the manufacturer's idea of what "broken" is.)
I use Windows since the 90's and would only agree with you in the context of buggy drivers or malware.
Even today I don't use the Windows Store (except for one time I when I installed a Bluetooth audio "bridge") and all the "apps" I install work just fine.
> The hardware manufacturer needs to ensure that software doesn't break the device.
The software manufacturer must make sure the software doesn't break the device, whatever "breaking the device" means (sounds almost like "don't brick the wifi chip").
I mean, it's also the responsibility of the user to not install shady software.