17 ms·

App stores, trust and anti-trust

56 points by kaboro 6y ago

solvorn 6y ago
"iOS app stores" is not a market. Dunning Kruger.
saurik 6y ago
> This is a trade-off, but there's a certain kind of person in tech that thinks app stores and the iOS sandbox have nothing to do with the success of smartphones and the iPhone - they're just a stupid Apple thing you could get rid of with no ill effects. > Unfortunately, you can’t have your cake and eat it. A secure system with a switch to turn off the security might work for Linux and a highly technical user, but when you’ve given smartphones to a few billion people, a secure system with a switch to turn off the security is just a target for malware. One of the things I found very frustrating about this article is that it fails to remember the actual history: when the iPhone first came out, jailbreaks were plentiful and powerful... the iPhone tried to be a closed and locked down platform, but failed due to the almost continual existence of serious security flaws that allowed for 0-day drops of exploits with almost every new device release (which coincided with every new major iOS release). This means that we can actually look back at the history of the iPhone and answer the question "could the iPhone have been as successful as it was if there had been a switch that allowed users to opt out of Apple's complete control of not only whose apps could be installed, but further what kind of software could be installed (to let you install things like daemons or extensions to existing apps)" and the answer is "apparently, it could, because it did". In fact, it is the opposite question that we can't easily answer: "would the iPhone have been as successful as it was without the ability to opt out of Apple's closed ecosystem?"... and this is a question where the answer is not at all obvious: for many many years the iPhone very poorly satisfied the needs of users in many countries, and jailbreaking filled the gap. Apple didn't get around to having a good Chinese keyboard until iOS 5 or 6 or so, and so Baidu maintained one and seriously encouraged users of their search engine to jailbreak from their landing page. Meanwhile, the feature set was in some real sense anemic, and jailbreaking also filled that gap: as a trivial example, Steve Jobs seemed very anti-wallpaper, a feature which didn't appear until iOS 4... the number of people who jailbroke just to install wallpaper was incredible ;P. And honestly, I think Apple sort of knew that: I had always gotten the distinct impression that they considered the bugs used by people who jailbroke to be pretty low priority, and they would sometimes remain unfixed for months on end. At some point, the iPhone started to get "good enough" by default, and it was only then that Apple really started to turn down the screws, deciding to fix bugs quickly and even hire jailbreakers who never believed in the cause--those who were willing to play the game as a mercenary for hire--to defend the platform instead of being on the offensive. Today, jailbreaking thereby feels like a niche ecosystem, but it mattered for at least half the history of the iPhone, with something like 12% of users being jailbroken (it would quickly fall a bit on new firmware releases and then rise back up). The reality is that innovation happens on platforms because of the ability for people to make modifications and enhancements without having to wait for the platform vendor: if iOS had succeeded in truly being a closed ecosystem, Baidu would not have been able to build custom keyboards to support Chinese users as Apple didn't get around to supporting third-party custom keyboards until iOS 8. Open platforms thereby get new features faster and can support the needs of many more users from any number of market subsets. Yes: it is the case that a closed system can sort of try to satisfy the needs of at least most people, but you don't get there overnight, and even coming up with sane extensibility hooks takes time. The real experiment has thus only recently begun: can a platform where only a single company can decide how to deploy new features continue to maintain its relevance going forward?
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  Totally agreed! I, for one, wouldn't have gotten into iOS at all if it wasn't for jailbreak, and I was jailbreaking peoples iPhone and iTouches in way back in elementary school, so I guess I have to thank you for that! I think a way to bridge the gap is to sell both a locked down and an unlocked iPhone, and allow users to go to an Apple Store to unlock their phones. That way, casual users won't risk unlocking their phones without knowing what they're getting into. LG does a similar thing with factory unlocked phones - you can contact their support, agree to a disclaimer, and get a bootloader unlock, if you are in Europe or the Middle East.
- benedictevans 6y ago
  I genuinely don't understand this argument. The fact that a platform succeeded despite security holes is not an argument against removing those holes. You might as well say that the malware explosion on Windows wasn't a problem because Windows still did well.
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    > I genuinely don't understand this argument. The fact that a platform succeeded despite security holes is not an argument against removing those holes. True enough, but you're just assuming the truth of your argument by using non-neutral words. The fact that a platform succeeded despite security holes is not an argument against removing those holes. The fact that a platform succeeded thanks to security holes is an argument against removing those holes. But how do you know which fact you're looking at?
  - saurik 6y ago
    The quoted idea you are trying to defend in your article--explicitly, forcibly, and frankly even a bit condescendingly (via "a certain type of person") :(--is that Apple having a closed ecosystem was a necessary prerequisite to the iPhone's success, that removing this aspect of the product would destroy its value, and that it takes "a certain kind of person" to believe that the success of the iPhone somehow wasn't because of this closed up shop. You are trying to make this argument from a position of strength. However, we have the most direct evidence possible for this assertion being false: the iPhone in fact had a "switch" (in the form of exploits for security holes that were packaged up as consumer-friendly tools to "jailbreak" the device) that let users do the strongest possible variant of what anyone talks about--allowing the user complete decision making over all of the software running on the device, not merely to install some banned apps--and not only did the world not end but somehow the iPhone was still a success. We therefore know, without any trace of doubt, because it already happened, that if Apple didn't have centralized control over an App Store--and even if users were able to opt out of the sandbox, which notably isn't actually the argument being made by Epic! that is just something you threw in for dramatic effect and yet even still ignores the history ;P--that not only wouldn't the world end from user self-inflicted malware, but that the iPhone would still have been a success, because we actually saw this play out. Now, you can make an entirely different argument that this freedom to install software from third parties should come from something other than a "security hole": I wouldn't disagree there, and neither would Epic! However, you aren't making that argument: you are arguing that the entire concept of undermining Apple's centralized control via their App Store is itself a security flaw and that if it didn't exist would have destroyed the iPhone's ability to succeed... which again, we know--without speculation--is false. Or you could try to make a speculative argument that maybe the iPhone could still have been a success even if it had always been a locked down and closed ecosystem the way you want. I think that would be a difficult argument, and in fact I have already provided some seeds of the opposite argument: that if the platform in fact had been locked down the way you seem to think it had been, that it might not have been as much of a success as it was. This could be a fun argument, FWIW, but it again isn't the argument you are making.
jarjoura 6y ago
This article is just repeating the same Apple messaging points they've given us. First off, the article's biggest point, the security sandbox, is not the issue at all with the App Store. The entire internet runs inside of a sandbox. Developers understand they must play fair on a device that is shared with other developers. I don't think I've seen anyone complain of this anywhere. However, what Apple has employed its engineering team to do is create and enforce only one path to getting usable apps on the device and that's through installing via the App Store.
- mrtksn 6y ago
  >First off, the article's biggest point, the security sandbox, is not the issue at all with the App Store. The entire internet runs inside of a sandbox. The web has become one horrible user experience. When left alone, developers apparently don't play nice, they hog bandwidth and user resources left and right. A few tabs on a web browser easily saturates the machine resources these days, be it internet bandwidth, RAM or CPU. Ads, user tracking or poor developer skills, the cause doesn't matter. Apart for HN and few more, the web is a horrible place for the user and the techie ones are taking active measures to fight it(tab killers, ad blockers, script blockers and so on).
  - novok 6y ago
    Good behavior on an iOS device is not enforced by the app store, but by the OS. Background processing is limited on a timer, the OS throttles processes that use too much background processing & networking depending on context, etc. The OS also suspends background apps fairly aggressively compared to the foreground app. Mobile apps also give you more tracking variables to do fingerprinting with than browsers do and it's pretty much impossible to practically add a local firewall to iOS devices to block ads. Adblocking isn't a practical thing on mobile apps. Similarly, managing bad 'tabs' is really the browser's responsibility.
    - mrtksn 6y ago
      Do you suggest that browsers should adopt Apple's approach? I kind of like the idea of tabs being active only when selected and browsers rejecting pages that are too much resource intensive. That said, I wrote that in response to the claim that "Developers understand they must play fair on a device that is shared with other developers" but apparently missed to quote it. So no, developers don't play nice, in fact a lot of them are horrible greedy people and that's why we can't have nice things. Ethics are very poor in that profession and that’s why we need very tight screws to have good user experience.
tempsy 6y ago
I don't know why anyone reads Ben Evans - he's a sycophant for big tech who seems to lack the ability to objectively reason about monopoly power.
- evanextreme 6y ago
  Conversely, that's probably why a lot of software engineers do read him, because he reaffirms their beliefs that big tech is in the right.
  - tempsy 6y ago
    i don't think the rank and file working for "big tech" are emotionally invested in whether their employer can stay a monopoly or not - if anything lack of competition among large employers means its easier to collude with each other to suppress compensation
    - liability 6y ago
      This isn't even a hypothetical concern: https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-google-others-settle-anti-poaching-lawsuit-for-415-million/ https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-google-others-settle-anti-po...
    - scarface74 6y ago
      Well, since a large part of the compensation is RSU’s why wouldn’t an employer of big tech want the monopoly to grow? On the other hand if the company behind Candy Crush were complaining about not making enough on coins, no one would be taking their side.
      - tempsy 6y ago
        given that the average tenure for a rank and file at a tech co is like 3 years, no i don’t think a significant number of them really think they want to see a tiny number of big tech cos maintain their monopoly so their RSUs go up 15% a year
pkaler 6y ago
This is a whole lot of words that doesn't clearly convey the core point: Apple App Store payments should compete on technical/business merits and not be mandatory based upon contractual obligations.
tonywastaken 6y ago
Why don't disgruntled app developers just pull their apps from the app stores? Everyone is using custom launchers on Android these days anyway, lets show big tec how much customers want to use custom launchers.
- bearjaws 6y ago
  RIP your app on iOS if you remove it from the app store. There is very little an iPhone user can do if their phone isn't rooted.
  - amelius 6y ago
    How about: one developer puts a "launcher app" in the App store, and all the other developers use that to launch their apps?
    - scarface74 6y ago
      That’s also against the rules.
      - amelius 6y ago
        And how about: one developer creates a web-browser with some features that will make it start fast on certain web-apps that don't use javascript but only wasm, while other developers create apps for that browser?
        scarface74 6y ago
        Having an alternative web engine is also against the rules. No I don’t agree with that rule.
dariosalvi78 6y ago
According to this article, billions of desktop operating systems users would not be able to handle their computers without destroying them with malware.
- scarface74 6y ago
  Which one are you more likely to do, install a random app on your phone from an untrusted author or your computer?
  - jcranmer 6y ago
    Recalling the days of Bonzi Buddy, I don't think the average consumer is more or less likely to do it on either platform.
    - scarface74 6y ago
      Isn’t that the point? Bonzi Buddy could do a lot less damage on an iPhone than a computer and when you delete it, you can be sure that it didn’t leave anything behind. And it’s not just BonziBuddy. Even Zoom left a backdoor on Macs after you uninstalled it.
  - dariosalvi78 6y ago
    In my case none or both, depending on the need. The point is, you could allow lower security if people need it and it's not necessarily that catastrophic as the author suggests.
    - scarface74 6y ago
      Why are people acting as if three decades of malware, ransomware, and toolbars haven’t happened on PCs?
lsiebert 6y ago
Epic is fine with the appstore, but it wants to handle it's own in-app payments. You can have an app store with a separate in app payments; Uber does for example. Epic says as much in it's argument for a preliminary injunction.* Stadia is actually more of an existential issue than Epic because they want to run unapproved games. * https://cdn2.unrealengine.com/epic-v-apple-8-17-20-768927327.pdf https://cdn2.unrealengine.com/epic-v-apple-8-17-20-768927327...
- bussierem 6y ago
  Stadia and it's ilk are not running any apps other than video streaming and input capture. The apps and games you play via them are run on a remote server and I/O is streamed between it and your device. If that's running "unapproved apps" then so is twitch when it did Twitch Plays Pokemon.
- scarface74 6y ago
  You notice that Epic isn’t insisting on in app payments for any of the consoles, why not? Can I use in app payments within the Epic app that allow me to bypass Epic and get virtual currency even cheaper than Epic? Epic gets to choose how people buy currency on its platform. What’s the difference?
  - panpanna 6y ago
    I think their fee is much lower. Also, there are competing "stores" on PC, including the buy-cd-from-physical-store-and-pay-no-fees option. On iPhone it's apples way or the highway. So while epic are hypocrites, they can be bypassed easily.
    - scarface74 6y ago
      There are no competing stores within Fortnite’s “platform”.
3pt14159 6y ago
I'm generally for more tech regulation, but I don't want to see Apple's position of power degraded. What may be needed is regulations to limit Apple's take, because 30% of a $2 app is fine in my eyes, but 30% of an app that goes for $50 is a bit much. To me it's the amount of work involved. Apple does more work for more complex apps, but it doesn't really scale with the investment involved. I really don't want to go back to the days where I have to enter my credit card in some stupid payment form instead of just authenticating with face id.
- sroussey 6y ago
  The can add 30% on top of the cost so the user can decide for themselves.
- izacus 6y ago
  Apple is a giant 2 trillion dollar company, one of the richest in the world. I think they can recover from allowing other companies in this world to compete with them on equal footing.
alex_t 6y ago
I am trying to understand why is this business model from apple not acceptable, from my point of view the way apple makes money on the apple store is with the 30% fees on transations. In exchange they give out tools, libraries and services for free. Do i get that wrong? with that in mind isnt the request of Epic something like: "We want access to all your platform and tools for free?"
- simion314 6y ago
  If I have an ebook store and want to give iOS users a nice experience when buying books Apple will make the books more expensive with 30% and on top of that if I want to give my users information that they have the option to buy cheaper from my website I can't , Apple is preventing their users to get informed/educated on how to get cheaper stuff because this information costs Apple money. Btw you can have apps that do not use any of Apple SDKs (for example engines will use the OS core and neither of the fancy GUI toolkits and languages)
  - alex_t 6y ago
    > If I have an ebook store and want to give iOS users a nice experience when buying books Apple will make the books more expensive with 30% and on top of that if I want to give my users information that they have the option to buy cheaper from my website I can't , Apple is preventing their users to get informed/educated on how to get cheaper stuff because this information costs Apple money. Well i go back to my argument of isnt that like saying: "i like to use your ebook platform to sell my stuff, but i dont want to pay for it" the fact that you switched from software to ebook does not change the fact that you want to choose to be able to sell without giving a commission to apple for the store they did set up
    - panpanna 6y ago
      How about the $99/yr app store fee they already pay?
      - danudey 6y ago
vimota 6y ago
I think a more interesting angle is to look at incentives. With Apple deriving so much revenue from having a stranglehold on software running on iOS, are they incentivized to improve the mobile web (which would be an alternative to being forced to use an app for many use cases)? Are they actively stifling innovation in web standards for mobile because of their conflict of interest? As more and more of internet usage goes mobile, mobile web becomes the default web and Apple's market dominance in the space gives them the same power of its development as Microsoft had with IE pre-2001. Another thing to consider is, if Apple has such a dominant position in this critical market, how are they using it to dominate other adjacent markets? For example, they're able to provide the exact same service as Spotify, Netflix, Dropbox but with a 30% pricing advantage. What other markets will they enter with this advantage? And should they be able to? And that's to speak nothing of their other non-financial advantages (ie. first-party integrations, native "advertising" of services, etc). I look forward to a DOJ investigation, mostly because it's only in these probes where you get answers to the above questions, and understand the degree to which the company is considering these problems internally.

56 points by kaboro 6y ago

"iOS app stores" is not a market. Dunning Kruger.

> This is a trade-off, but there's a certain kind of person in tech that thinks app stores and the iOS sandbox have nothing to do with the success of smartphones and the iPhone - they're just a stupid Apple thing you could get rid of with no ill effects. > Unfortunately, you can’t have your cake and eat it. A secure system with a switch to turn off the security might work for Linux and a highly technical user, but when you’ve given smartphones to a few billion people, a secure system with a switch to turn off the security is just a target for malware. One of the things I found very frustrating about this article is that it fails to remember the actual history: when the iPhone first came out, jailbreaks were plentiful and powerful... the iPhone tried to be a closed and locked down platform, but failed due to the almost continual existence of serious security flaws that allowed for 0-day drops of exploits with almost every new device release (which coincided with every new major iOS release). This means that we can actually look back at the history of the iPhone and answer the question "could the iPhone have been as successful as it was if there had been a switch that allowed users to opt out of Apple's complete control of not only whose apps could be installed, but further what kind of software could be installed (to let you install things like daemons or extensions to existing apps)" and the answer is "apparently, it could, because it did". In fact, it is the opposite question that we can't easily answer: "would the iPhone have been as successful as it was without the ability to opt out of Apple's closed ecosystem?"... and this is a question where the answer is not at all obvious: for many many years the iPhone very poorly satisfied the needs of users in many countries, and jailbreaking filled the gap. Apple didn't get around to having a good Chinese keyboard until iOS 5 or 6 or so, and so Baidu maintained one and seriously encouraged users of their search engine to jailbreak from their landing page. Meanwhile, the feature set was in some real sense anemic, and jailbreaking also filled that gap: as a trivial example, Steve Jobs seemed very anti-wallpaper, a feature which didn't appear until iOS 4... the number of people who jailbroke just to install wallpaper was incredible ;P. And honestly, I think Apple sort of knew that: I had always gotten the distinct impression that they considered the bugs used by people who jailbroke to be pretty low priority, and they would sometimes remain unfixed for months on end. At some point, the iPhone started to get "good enough" by default, and it was only then that Apple really started to turn down the screws, deciding to fix bugs quickly and even hire jailbreakers who never believed in the cause--those who were willing to play the game as a mercenary for hire--to defend the platform instead of being on the offensive. Today, jailbreaking thereby feels like a niche ecosystem, but it mattered for at least half the history of the iPhone, with something like 12% of users being jailbroken (it would quickly fall a bit on new firmware releases and then rise back up). The reality is that innovation happens on platforms because of the ability for people to make modifications and enhancements without having to wait for the platform vendor: if iOS had succeeded in truly being a closed ecosystem, Baidu would not have been able to build custom keyboards to support Chinese users as Apple didn't get around to supporting third-party custom keyboards until iOS 8. Open platforms thereby get new features faster and can support the needs of many more users from any number of market subsets. Yes: it is the case that a closed system can sort of try to satisfy the needs of at least most people, but you don't get there overnight, and even coming up with sane extensibility hooks takes time. The real experiment has thus only recently begun: can a platform where only a single company can decide how to deploy new features continue to maintain its relevance going forward?

sudosysgen 6y ago
Totally agreed! I, for one, wouldn't have gotten into iOS at all if it wasn't for jailbreak, and I was jailbreaking peoples iPhone and iTouches in way back in elementary school, so I guess I have to thank you for that! I think a way to bridge the gap is to sell both a locked down and an unlocked iPhone, and allow users to go to an Apple Store to unlock their phones. That way, casual users won't risk unlocking their phones without knowing what they're getting into. LG does a similar thing with factory unlocked phones - you can contact their support, agree to a disclaimer, and get a bootloader unlock, if you are in Europe or the Middle East.
benedictevans 6y ago
I genuinely don't understand this argument. The fact that a platform succeeded despite security holes is not an argument against removing those holes. You might as well say that the malware explosion on Windows wasn't a problem because Windows still did well.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  > I genuinely don't understand this argument. The fact that a platform succeeded despite security holes is not an argument against removing those holes. True enough, but you're just assuming the truth of your argument by using non-neutral words. The fact that a platform succeeded despite security holes is not an argument against removing those holes. The fact that a platform succeeded thanks to security holes is an argument against removing those holes. But how do you know which fact you're looking at?
- saurik 6y ago
  The quoted idea you are trying to defend in your article--explicitly, forcibly, and frankly even a bit condescendingly (via "a certain type of person") :(--is that Apple having a closed ecosystem was a necessary prerequisite to the iPhone's success, that removing this aspect of the product would destroy its value, and that it takes "a certain kind of person" to believe that the success of the iPhone somehow wasn't because of this closed up shop. You are trying to make this argument from a position of strength. However, we have the most direct evidence possible for this assertion being false: the iPhone in fact had a "switch" (in the form of exploits for security holes that were packaged up as consumer-friendly tools to "jailbreak" the device) that let users do the strongest possible variant of what anyone talks about--allowing the user complete decision making over all of the software running on the device, not merely to install some banned apps--and not only did the world not end but somehow the iPhone was still a success. We therefore know, without any trace of doubt, because it already happened, that if Apple didn't have centralized control over an App Store--and even if users were able to opt out of the sandbox, which notably isn't actually the argument being made by Epic! that is just something you threw in for dramatic effect and yet even still ignores the history ;P--that not only wouldn't the world end from user self-inflicted malware, but that the iPhone would still have been a success, because we actually saw this play out. Now, you can make an entirely different argument that this freedom to install software from third parties should come from something other than a "security hole": I wouldn't disagree there, and neither would Epic! However, you aren't making that argument: you are arguing that the entire concept of undermining Apple's centralized control via their App Store is itself a security flaw and that if it didn't exist would have destroyed the iPhone's ability to succeed... which again, we know--without speculation--is false. Or you could try to make a speculative argument that maybe the iPhone could still have been a success even if it had always been a locked down and closed ecosystem the way you want. I think that would be a difficult argument, and in fact I have already provided some seeds of the opposite argument: that if the platform in fact had been locked down the way you seem to think it had been, that it might not have been as much of a success as it was. This could be a fun argument, FWIW, but it again isn't the argument you are making.

jarjoura 6y ago

This article is just repeating the same Apple messaging points they've given us. First off, the article's biggest point, the security sandbox, is not the issue at all with the App Store. The entire internet runs inside of a sandbox. Developers understand they must play fair on a device that is shared with other developers. I don't think I've seen anyone complain of this anywhere. However, what Apple has employed its engineering team to do is create and enforce only one path to getting usable apps on the device and that's through installing via the App Store.

mrtksn 6y ago
>First off, the article's biggest point, the security sandbox, is not the issue at all with the App Store. The entire internet runs inside of a sandbox. The web has become one horrible user experience. When left alone, developers apparently don't play nice, they hog bandwidth and user resources left and right. A few tabs on a web browser easily saturates the machine resources these days, be it internet bandwidth, RAM or CPU. Ads, user tracking or poor developer skills, the cause doesn't matter. Apart for HN and few more, the web is a horrible place for the user and the techie ones are taking active measures to fight it(tab killers, ad blockers, script blockers and so on).
- novok 6y ago
  Good behavior on an iOS device is not enforced by the app store, but by the OS. Background processing is limited on a timer, the OS throttles processes that use too much background processing & networking depending on context, etc. The OS also suspends background apps fairly aggressively compared to the foreground app. Mobile apps also give you more tracking variables to do fingerprinting with than browsers do and it's pretty much impossible to practically add a local firewall to iOS devices to block ads. Adblocking isn't a practical thing on mobile apps. Similarly, managing bad 'tabs' is really the browser's responsibility.
  - mrtksn 6y ago
    Do you suggest that browsers should adopt Apple's approach? I kind of like the idea of tabs being active only when selected and browsers rejecting pages that are too much resource intensive. That said, I wrote that in response to the claim that "Developers understand they must play fair on a device that is shared with other developers" but apparently missed to quote it. So no, developers don't play nice, in fact a lot of them are horrible greedy people and that's why we can't have nice things. Ethics are very poor in that profession and that’s why we need very tight screws to have good user experience.

tempsy 6y ago

I don't know why anyone reads Ben Evans - he's a sycophant for big tech who seems to lack the ability to objectively reason about monopoly power.

evanextreme 6y ago
Conversely, that's probably why a lot of software engineers do read him, because he reaffirms their beliefs that big tech is in the right.
- tempsy 6y ago
  i don't think the rank and file working for "big tech" are emotionally invested in whether their employer can stay a monopoly or not - if anything lack of competition among large employers means its easier to collude with each other to suppress compensation
  - liability 6y ago
    This isn't even a hypothetical concern: https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-google-others-settle-anti-poaching-lawsuit-for-415-million/ https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-google-others-settle-anti-po...
  - scarface74 6y ago
    Well, since a large part of the compensation is RSU’s why wouldn’t an employer of big tech want the monopoly to grow? On the other hand if the company behind Candy Crush were complaining about not making enough on coins, no one would be taking their side.
    - tempsy 6y ago
      given that the average tenure for a rank and file at a tech co is like 3 years, no i don’t think a significant number of them really think they want to see a tiny number of big tech cos maintain their monopoly so their RSUs go up 15% a year

pkaler 6y ago

This is a whole lot of words that doesn't clearly convey the core point: Apple App Store payments should compete on technical/business merits and not be mandatory based upon contractual obligations.

tonywastaken 6y ago

Why don't disgruntled app developers just pull their apps from the app stores? Everyone is using custom launchers on Android these days anyway, lets show big tec how much customers want to use custom launchers.

bearjaws 6y ago
RIP your app on iOS if you remove it from the app store. There is very little an iPhone user can do if their phone isn't rooted.
- amelius 6y ago
  How about: one developer puts a "launcher app" in the App store, and all the other developers use that to launch their apps?
  - scarface74 6y ago
    That’s also against the rules.
    - amelius 6y ago
      And how about: one developer creates a web-browser with some features that will make it start fast on certain web-apps that don't use javascript but only wasm, while other developers create apps for that browser?
      - scarface74 6y ago
        Having an alternative web engine is also against the rules. No I don’t agree with that rule.

dariosalvi78 6y ago

According to this article, billions of desktop operating systems users would not be able to handle their computers without destroying them with malware.

scarface74 6y ago
Which one are you more likely to do, install a random app on your phone from an untrusted author or your computer?
- jcranmer 6y ago
  Recalling the days of Bonzi Buddy, I don't think the average consumer is more or less likely to do it on either platform.
  - scarface74 6y ago
    Isn’t that the point? Bonzi Buddy could do a lot less damage on an iPhone than a computer and when you delete it, you can be sure that it didn’t leave anything behind. And it’s not just BonziBuddy. Even Zoom left a backdoor on Macs after you uninstalled it.
- dariosalvi78 6y ago
  In my case none or both, depending on the need. The point is, you could allow lower security if people need it and it's not necessarily that catastrophic as the author suggests.
  - scarface74 6y ago
    Why are people acting as if three decades of malware, ransomware, and toolbars haven’t happened on PCs?

lsiebert 6y ago

Epic is fine with the appstore, but it wants to handle it's own in-app payments. You can have an app store with a separate in app payments; Uber does for example. Epic says as much in it's argument for a preliminary injunction.* Stadia is actually more of an existential issue than Epic because they want to run unapproved games. * https://cdn2.unrealengine.com/epic-v-apple-8-17-20-768927327.pdf https://cdn2.unrealengine.com/epic-v-apple-8-17-20-768927327...

bussierem 6y ago
Stadia and it's ilk are not running any apps other than video streaming and input capture. The apps and games you play via them are run on a remote server and I/O is streamed between it and your device. If that's running "unapproved apps" then so is twitch when it did Twitch Plays Pokemon.
scarface74 6y ago
You notice that Epic isn’t insisting on in app payments for any of the consoles, why not? Can I use in app payments within the Epic app that allow me to bypass Epic and get virtual currency even cheaper than Epic? Epic gets to choose how people buy currency on its platform. What’s the difference?
- panpanna 6y ago
  I think their fee is much lower. Also, there are competing "stores" on PC, including the buy-cd-from-physical-store-and-pay-no-fees option. On iPhone it's apples way or the highway. So while epic are hypocrites, they can be bypassed easily.
  - scarface74 6y ago
    There are no competing stores within Fortnite’s “platform”.

3pt14159 6y ago

I'm generally for more tech regulation, but I don't want to see Apple's position of power degraded. What may be needed is regulations to limit Apple's take, because 30% of a $2 app is fine in my eyes, but 30% of an app that goes for $50 is a bit much. To me it's the amount of work involved. Apple does more work for more complex apps, but it doesn't really scale with the investment involved. I really don't want to go back to the days where I have to enter my credit card in some stupid payment form instead of just authenticating with face id.

sroussey 6y ago
The can add 30% on top of the cost so the user can decide for themselves.
izacus 6y ago
Apple is a giant 2 trillion dollar company, one of the richest in the world. I think they can recover from allowing other companies in this world to compete with them on equal footing.

alex_t 6y ago

I am trying to understand why is this business model from apple not acceptable, from my point of view the way apple makes money on the apple store is with the 30% fees on transations. In exchange they give out tools, libraries and services for free. Do i get that wrong? with that in mind isnt the request of Epic something like: "We want access to all your platform and tools for free?"

simion314 6y ago
If I have an ebook store and want to give iOS users a nice experience when buying books Apple will make the books more expensive with 30% and on top of that if I want to give my users information that they have the option to buy cheaper from my website I can't , Apple is preventing their users to get informed/educated on how to get cheaper stuff because this information costs Apple money. Btw you can have apps that do not use any of Apple SDKs (for example engines will use the OS core and neither of the fancy GUI toolkits and languages)
- alex_t 6y ago
  > If I have an ebook store and want to give iOS users a nice experience when buying books Apple will make the books more expensive with 30% and on top of that if I want to give my users information that they have the option to buy cheaper from my website I can't , Apple is preventing their users to get informed/educated on how to get cheaper stuff because this information costs Apple money. Well i go back to my argument of isnt that like saying: "i like to use your ebook platform to sell my stuff, but i dont want to pay for it" the fact that you switched from software to ebook does not change the fact that you want to choose to be able to sell without giving a commission to apple for the store they did set up
  - panpanna 6y ago
    How about the $99/yr app store fee they already pay?
    - danudey 6y ago

vimota 6y ago

I think a more interesting angle is to look at incentives. With Apple deriving so much revenue from having a stranglehold on software running on iOS, are they incentivized to improve the mobile web (which would be an alternative to being forced to use an app for many use cases)? Are they actively stifling innovation in web standards for mobile because of their conflict of interest? As more and more of internet usage goes mobile, mobile web becomes the default web and Apple's market dominance in the space gives them the same power of its development as Microsoft had with IE pre-2001. Another thing to consider is, if Apple has such a dominant position in this critical market, how are they using it to dominate other adjacent markets? For example, they're able to provide the exact same service as Spotify, Netflix, Dropbox but with a 30% pricing advantage. What other markets will they enter with this advantage? And should they be able to? And that's to speak nothing of their other non-financial advantages (ie. first-party integrations, native "advertising" of services, etc). I look forward to a DOJ investigation, mostly because it's only in these probes where you get answers to the above questions, and understand the degree to which the company is considering these problems internally.