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Comment by jimt1234 | Hacker News Reader

Jobs has long been vocal about protecting the user experience. Not 100% sure if it's true, but I heard Jobs was originally opposed to custom apps running on the iPhone (the App Store), because he 'didn't want to turn iPhone in Windows'.

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Jobs was right. Apps are so shitty now I don't even bother. Everything has a subscription now and there's so much noise its hard to actually find signal on the appstore.

Imagine if he had stuck to his guns on native apps. iPhone would’ve either died or we’d all be living in a web apps paradise right now.

It wouldn't have died - most apps are still just a thin UI over a corresponding online service, and most of the data and services proprietary APIs provide ended up achievable in a browser too. It is really just the internet that makes apps and smartphones useful.

All apps really offered was a way to gatekeep payments in games that groom impulsive spending habits, they just happened to start making very serious money on Facebook right about the moment Jobs changed his mind.

Early on it was different with a lot more stuff actually running locally vs cloud service era. App store predated that for a little bit actually. There weren't microtransactions initially either. What you'd call a AAA game for that platform back then would actually be $9.99 one time payment.

OK...but basically everyone uses custom apps because they are tremendously useful. You'd just ban all of them?

Of course he wasn't right. Apps instantly became a signature part of the iPhone experience and a huge success story for the platform.

Or the app is fine, but I don't want to bother downloading it for some random thing that should just be a website.

Jobs wasn't always correct about things. There are a large number of examples where he wasn't.

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