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If you’re saying why we don’t have multiple app stores run by multiple people and even self hosted apps then I can help add an answer. It was exactly like this

by mritun 6y ago

If you’re saying why we don’t have multiple app stores run by multiple people and even self hosted apps then I can help add an answer. It was exactly like this before Android and iPhone. I had a Nokia E71 and before that a Sony Walkman phone. They could run J2ME apps and games and you could download from a site called getjar.com and others. Nokia Symbian could run more powerful native apps - I wrote one myself. They all sucked. Most of the apps were full of malware and you never knew which one would lock up your phone, infect your phone, or upload all your data to somewhere. AppStore and Playstore exist for the same reason that CA certificates exist - most people are good but some are terrible and they damage the ecosystem. For CA we have LetsEncrypt now. But phones are way more complex than that. Most of the phone stack is thankless but highly specialized work - you won’t get that for free in volume anytime soon. It’s more complicated because people expect the latest phones. Older generation mobile technology is worthless right now. Cutting edge technology needs investment and has substantial market. This market is also winner takes all. There is maybe place for 3 players but not anymore in an efficient, commodity market that’s also capex heavy.

dreamcompiler 6y ago
I realize this is Apple's argument but it's also completely specious for the simple reason that Apple has a conflict of interest. They see the App Store as a revenue stream which means they are much more incentivized to protect that revenue stream than to protect their customers. The App Store has become a protection racket. "Nice app you have there. Be a shame if something were to happen to it." The only practical way to fix this is the way all protection rackets are fixed: The government comes in and says "Stop this or we put you in jail."
Brian_K_White 6y ago
What I remember was enjoying a totally full ecosystem of PalmOS apps that I could install from anywhere on my Samsung sph-i300 6 or 7 years before the first iphone even came out, and they were mostly all great. As great as the hardware and cell network of 2001 allowed anyway. The worst thing an apl ever was was sucky or stupid, never harmful. I had apps to do every random thing you could think of from trivial little things like calculating a netmask or decoding resistor color codes, to fully functional clients for ssh, irc, email, web, even vnc, audible.com, several db-app-dev type apps like handbase (like access right on the phone), a phone dialer app that integrated with the contacts db because the built-in dialer didn't even do that yet... It was like all the good parts about dos & windows where anyone could write an app and anyone could install anyone's app. It was 100% great with no downside or horror story at all. Certainly dos/win gained malware, and surely some harmful palmos apps must have existed, but somehow from the first Kyocera palmos phone, through the SPH-i300 & 310 or 330 whatever the updated model# after i300, through a few Treos, and finally the Palm Pre, I never once ran into one. In 2001. Iphone came out in 2007, with no 3rd party apps at all. I say this argument is at least questionable.

by mritun 6y ago

dreamcompiler 6y ago

I realize this is Apple's argument but it's also completely specious for the simple reason that Apple has a conflict of interest. They see the App Store as a revenue stream which means they are much more incentivized to protect that revenue stream than to protect their customers. The App Store has become a protection racket. "Nice app you have there. Be a shame if something were to happen to it." The only practical way to fix this is the way all protection rackets are fixed: The government comes in and says "Stop this or we put you in jail."

Brian_K_White 6y ago

What I remember was enjoying a totally full ecosystem of PalmOS apps that I could install from anywhere on my Samsung sph-i300 6 or 7 years before the first iphone even came out, and they were mostly all great. As great as the hardware and cell network of 2001 allowed anyway. The worst thing an apl ever was was sucky or stupid, never harmful. I had apps to do every random thing you could think of from trivial little things like calculating a netmask or decoding resistor color codes, to fully functional clients for ssh, irc, email, web, even vnc, audible.com, several db-app-dev type apps like handbase (like access right on the phone), a phone dialer app that integrated with the contacts db because the built-in dialer didn't even do that yet... It was like all the good parts about dos & windows where anyone could write an app and anyone could install anyone's app. It was 100% great with no downside or horror story at all. Certainly dos/win gained malware, and surely some harmful palmos apps must have existed, but somehow from the first Kyocera palmos phone, through the SPH-i300 & 310 or 330 whatever the updated model# after i300, through a few Treos, and finally the Palm Pre, I never once ran into one. In 2001. Iphone came out in 2007, with no 3rd party apps at all. I say this argument is at least questionable.