> The article is about desktop gaming. The reason epic is upset is that Microsoft is making new APIs UWP-exclusive, although I had to read more things to learn

> The article is about desktop gaming. The reason epic is upset is that Microsoft is making new APIs UWP-exclusive, although I had to read more things to learn that, Citation, please. Sweeney's tweets implied this was the hypothetical. So either Tim is under NDA and being coy, or something else. But the simply fact is: I do not disagree with Apple & Microsoft & Google doing this to their platforms, so long as a reasonably accessible side-loading option exists and there's always the opportunity for a third party store and appropriate facilities for developers. We're at a point where there are no more options to protect people's computers other than code signing. We've tried a lot of things, and we've reached a point where we must concede that education and simple restrictions on binary execution cannot overcome the basic difficulties users have. All the app sandboxing in the world won't help us if users are fooled by sub-optimal UX into running malware. And Malware exists on every major platform. Even OSX. Even iOS. > The reason they are not upset about anything Apple is doing is that Apple does not restrict APIs to its Mac OS X App Store. This is absolutely false. Apple not only labels several APIs as "private" and non-accessible, but it also creates rules for entire types of software. They even stop arbtirary updating mechanisms because of their review path, which then impacts users! What's more, there is no untrusted general distribution path for iOS. I don't know why you said this, as I can't find any way to interpret it. And don't even get me started on how Apple mandates how you transact with users. I'm amazed its legal, but in the US vendors have always had ice water dumped on them by every new technology. It's about our contempt for creatives, a cultural norm Apple has expressed for a long time. And don't say the desktop OS is a dodge. The situation with Apple's store and Microsoft's store is absolutely identical, except that on OSX, so many developers are unhappy with the store they've decided to take the risk and ask users to disable that protection. So, Apple locks its entire API set to its store on iOS. Unless you're going to ask customers to jailbreak their phone, you have no options other than setting up a developer environment. I was going to go through your second two paragraphs of value judgements and fisk them a bit, but honestly I don't see the point. You're dismissing a lot of accomplishments of a lot of people out of what looks to me like pure preference and not an informed assessment of the situation. It doesn't take much research to find out that Apple's iOS is generally considered the worst of the 3 mobile platforms for modern mobile UX, with its only saving grave being a slightly superior accessibility story over Android. Which is natural and fine, but maybe couching your argument in terms of technical reasoning is not the best way to express your point.