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>The only winners in the current situation are Apple. By opening it up to competitor app stores, yes competitors would benefit, but so would developers and so w

>The only winners in the current situation are Apple. By opening it up to competitor app stores, yes competitors would benefit, but so would developers and so would their users. It's hard for me to reconcile this, and I keep seeing that 3rd party app stores would be better for users, but it all seems very handwavy. You would think this would be an easy point to prove as Android has had alternative app stores for years, but there seem to be no winners there. I'm not sure how having to download app specific app stores (i.e. Epic's app store) is better for anyone except for Epic.

gknoy 6y ago
Humble Bundle has an android app that lets you download APKs, and then prompts you to install them. I've used that to install several android games in the past, even for things that are available in different versions on the Play store. It's never showed me pop-up ads, and it's only for installing things that I've already bought via their website. It's not a large store, I expect, and I don't often use it install things, but it seems to be an unambiguous example of something that benefits users. I bought things via Humble, and then am able to install them on any android device I ever have (in theory). If they were to add the ability to actually buy things in the app, it would effectively turn into something with an interface like the Kindle app (which shows me both my library of books, as well as a shopping interface).
LamaOfRuin 6y ago
3rd party stores allowed Amazon to bootstrap the only reasonable android tablet ecosystem and become the second largest tablet maker in the world after Apple. F-droid maintains a modest but robust marketplace of open source software, some of which include things that are not allowed in either Apple or Google app stores. 3rd party stores also allow numerous country-focused stores which arguably serve their home markets better than Google or Apple are willing to.
AnthonyMouse 6y ago
> You would think this would be an easy point to prove as Android has had alternative app stores for years, but there seem to be no winners there. I'm not sure how having to download app specific app stores (i.e. Epic's app store) is better for anyone except for Epic. Let's start with one point. Third party stores don't have to be popular in order for them to be beneficial, because their existence causes the dominant store to take competitive steps to avoid their attaining popularity. For example, you can install actual Firefox on Android, from Google Play, instead of it being nothing but a skin over the system browser like it is on iOS. Because if they didn't allow actual Firefox in Google Play, it would still be in F-Droid or similar, and that would make the competing store more popular. Since they don't want that, they allow it in the default store. Then the default store remains dominant, but only because it does beneficial things like that as a result of the competitive pressure. And third party apps can send and receive SMS on Android and various other things that Apple doesn't allow solely because it pushes people to use Apple's apps instead and there is no competitive pressure from other stores pushing Apple to allow those competing apps in their store. But more than that, the other Android stores are actually useful, they just tend to have a niche. Because people are still going to use the default store unless there is a reason not to, since it's lower friction. But the other stores still get to address the cases that the default store fails at. So the fact that they exist at all is proof that they're doing something useful, since otherwise who would sustain them? > I'm not sure how having to download app specific app stores (i.e. Epic's app store) is better for anyone except for Epic. I mean, the fact that they're not paying Apple 30% and then passing most of that savings on to the customer is obviously going to save the customer money.
- LexGray 6y ago
  > then passing most of that savings on to the customer is obviously going to save the customer money. I see no evidence of Epic passing savings to the consumer in this scenario. Unless by customer you mean stock holder in which case the fight is about which stock holders get paid. Edit: unless you are referring to a temporary PR sale where they were still paying the 30% cut in many cases.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    When they introduced their iOS "store" which used a non-Apple payment service they lowered prices because they weren't paying 30% to anybody. Which is totally logical and profit-seeking in both the short and long term because when you're making 30% higher margins, sacrificing some of them in exchange for higher volumes will generally maximize profits.
benologist 6y ago
If it's done correctly we will be able to install apps from anywhere, like just selecting the iOS build on GitHub. There is no inherent need for anyone to be gatekeeping and observing the software we install and use, just sandbox it and throw up a warning. If we could install apps from Github it would be better because predatory pricing and invasive data collection has the upper hand on the iOS store. Many common utilities are charging ridiculous amounts of money that they could never charge on Mac or Windows because of high quality, free and open source software on Github.
romanoderoma 6y ago
> Android has had alternative app stores for years, but there seem to be no winners there The winners are the users that can easily side load apps without goingt through the Goggle store
cglong 6y ago
One concrete example is Visual Studio App Center[1], which allows companies to distribute internal and beta apps to employees and invited testers. On Android, I can install the App Center app and then browse and install them exactly as I do with Google Play. [1]: https://appcenter.ms/ https://appcenter.ms/
dkersten 6y ago
Its about two things for me: 1. Users to have the ability to choose, on the expensive devices that they own. 2. Competition, which drives the companies to try to improve their offering (for users and developers) in order to stay ahead. Competition is healthy and prevents stagnation.

gknoy 6y ago

Humble Bundle has an android app that lets you download APKs, and then prompts you to install them. I've used that to install several android games in the past, even for things that are available in different versions on the Play store. It's never showed me pop-up ads, and it's only for installing things that I've already bought via their website. It's not a large store, I expect, and I don't often use it install things, but it seems to be an unambiguous example of something that benefits users. I bought things via Humble, and then am able to install them on any android device I ever have (in theory). If they were to add the ability to actually buy things in the app, it would effectively turn into something with an interface like the Kindle app (which shows me both my library of books, as well as a shopping interface).

LamaOfRuin 6y ago

3rd party stores allowed Amazon to bootstrap the only reasonable android tablet ecosystem and become the second largest tablet maker in the world after Apple. F-droid maintains a modest but robust marketplace of open source software, some of which include things that are not allowed in either Apple or Google app stores. 3rd party stores also allow numerous country-focused stores which arguably serve their home markets better than Google or Apple are willing to.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago

> You would think this would be an easy point to prove as Android has had alternative app stores for years, but there seem to be no winners there. I'm not sure how having to download app specific app stores (i.e. Epic's app store) is better for anyone except for Epic. Let's start with one point. Third party stores don't have to be popular in order for them to be beneficial, because their existence causes the dominant store to take competitive steps to avoid their attaining popularity. For example, you can install actual Firefox on Android, from Google Play, instead of it being nothing but a skin over the system browser like it is on iOS. Because if they didn't allow actual Firefox in Google Play, it would still be in F-Droid or similar, and that would make the competing store more popular. Since they don't want that, they allow it in the default store. Then the default store remains dominant, but only because it does beneficial things like that as a result of the competitive pressure. And third party apps can send and receive SMS on Android and various other things that Apple doesn't allow solely because it pushes people to use Apple's apps instead and there is no competitive pressure from other stores pushing Apple to allow those competing apps in their store. But more than that, the other Android stores are actually useful, they just tend to have a niche. Because people are still going to use the default store unless there is a reason not to, since it's lower friction. But the other stores still get to address the cases that the default store fails at. So the fact that they exist at all is proof that they're doing something useful, since otherwise who would sustain them? > I'm not sure how having to download app specific app stores (i.e. Epic's app store) is better for anyone except for Epic. I mean, the fact that they're not paying Apple 30% and then passing most of that savings on to the customer is obviously going to save the customer money.

LexGray 6y ago
> then passing most of that savings on to the customer is obviously going to save the customer money. I see no evidence of Epic passing savings to the consumer in this scenario. Unless by customer you mean stock holder in which case the fight is about which stock holders get paid. Edit: unless you are referring to a temporary PR sale where they were still paying the 30% cut in many cases.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  When they introduced their iOS "store" which used a non-Apple payment service they lowered prices because they weren't paying 30% to anybody. Which is totally logical and profit-seeking in both the short and long term because when you're making 30% higher margins, sacrificing some of them in exchange for higher volumes will generally maximize profits.

benologist 6y ago

If it's done correctly we will be able to install apps from anywhere, like just selecting the iOS build on GitHub. There is no inherent need for anyone to be gatekeeping and observing the software we install and use, just sandbox it and throw up a warning. If we could install apps from Github it would be better because predatory pricing and invasive data collection has the upper hand on the iOS store. Many common utilities are charging ridiculous amounts of money that they could never charge on Mac or Windows because of high quality, free and open source software on Github.

romanoderoma 6y ago

> Android has had alternative app stores for years, but there seem to be no winners there The winners are the users that can easily side load apps without goingt through the Goggle store

cglong 6y ago

One concrete example is Visual Studio App Center[1], which allows companies to distribute internal and beta apps to employees and invited testers. On Android, I can install the App Center app and then browse and install them exactly as I do with Google Play. [1]: https://appcenter.ms/ https://appcenter.ms/

dkersten 6y ago

Its about two things for me: 1. Users to have the ability to choose, on the expensive devices that they own. 2. Competition, which drives the companies to try to improve their offering (for users and developers) in order to stay ahead. Competition is healthy and prevents stagnation.