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Why I’m Willing to Pay a Premium for Security, Privacy, and Peace of Mind

121 points by codyogden 6y ago

Jonnax 6y ago
Personally I understand the arguments of Apple's ecosystem being locked down. But I think Apple and Google both have a significant revenue stream from world society as most people use smart phones. Like AT&T and RCA of days gone by they need to have their free money spout regulated. They've clearly made billions but that 30% cut needs to go down. At least that's what I see as a solution. Something like 7 to 10%. Thoughts?
- FriendlyNormie 6y ago
  Here’s a thought: How about you shut your fucking hole? I became a millionaire through the App Store despite paying 30%. I’d happily have it increased to 70% just to see all of you ungrateful pigs squeal even more. Eat shit.
- CraigJPerry 6y ago
  I don’t think we should get to tell Apple what the % is, they’re a private company. However, i am ok with adjusting the amount we charge them for use of public services - their reliance on the rule of law, that we’re not at war etc. etc. becomes more valuable in absolute terms to a company, the more payments it accepts within a jurisdiction. I think it’s totally fair to invoice for govt services based on the value of them to the company. To be clear this would not be like taxes on profits, i’m proposing an invoice against receipts.
  - mjuarez 6y ago
    Isn’t that why sales taxes exist?
    - CraigJPerry 6y ago
      No, that’s paid by the consumer
  - kryptiskt 6y ago
    There is no market force to provide for proper price discovery of those services. It's only fair to regulate it if Apple is unwilling to subject that business to competition.
    - CraigJPerry 6y ago
      Jurisdictions become participants in a market for access to their buyers. I dont agree with your condition of fairness but i woukd point out Apple has already established vehement unwillingness to compete on app stores anyway.
  - mbreese 6y ago
    That would introduce a level of red-tape that would make any bureaucrat faint. Can you imagine billing any company for the cost of government services directly? Billing for the “rule-of-law”? That would be a completely unworkable system. Plus, if you did this, what would stop the company from increasing their percentage in order to pay for your new taxes? But what you’re describing is the logic behind a progressive income tax. The more money you make — the more important the system (rule of law, security, etc) becomes to you, so the more you should pay. At least, that’s the theory...
    - CraigJPerry 6y ago
      >> That would introduce a level of red-tape Jurisdiction X hereby decrees the tariffs for tax year 20/21 as: Receipts not more than $X = tariff of $Y Receip... ?
- pakl 6y ago
  Why should the fee be proportional to the price? If it’s about supporting infrastructure, take a percentage based on load on the infrastructure.
- csunbird 6y ago
  I am also very happy with Apple putting down sensible rules in their app store. Unfortunately, a lot of people are, how can I say it lightly, scumbags that will try to do anything to get more money. When you think about a couple of rules that do not make sense at the first glance and look like corporate greed, when you think about them in depth, they do make a lot of sense. Let’s talk about the “Do not mention that you can subscribe out of the application” rule, for example. It does look like a cash grab, but actually this rule prevents people from offering “discounts” with different terms of service and cancellation options, severely damaging the mobile app platform.
- Terretta 6y ago
  What should the customer acquisition, marketplace, transaction, distribution, and experience support cost be for free apps? Something like 7 to 10% of what? The judge who ruled against Epic on the breach of contract wrote: ”There appears to be evidence that everyone that uses these kind of platforms to sell games is charging 30%. Whether Epic likes it, the industry and not just Apple seem to be charging that. Right now, Epic is paying Apple nothing. Epic itself charges third parties.”
- mbreese 6y ago
  > that 30% cut needs to go down I think that will be a hard pill to swallow for many other developers. If there ends up being pricing regulation of the Apple App Store, you can be sure that the same thing will come down Microsoft (Xbox), Sony (Playstation), Nintendo, Facebook (Oculus), and every other platform’s digital store. All of these charge 30% (or close to it). Focusing on the 30% figure is the easy path for regulation, but it will have far-reaching consequences. Notice — when Microsoft signed on to the Epic vs Apple fight, their concern wasn’t the fate of Fortnite and their fight against the 30% App Store fee, or even the rights of Apple to control what is and is not in the App Store. Microsoft’s goal was to protect the access of the Unreal engine for other iOS/Mac developers. Microsoft’s support for Epic is very focused in this regard.
caiobegotti 6y ago
I totally agree with Icaza's points and they are the reason I'm still an Apple happy customer but there's another side to this that of all the players that could fight Apple it just happened that Epic was the first one to gather momentum (and have the actual balls). What I am saying is that it's a bullies fight and just because the one pointing fingers is an old dirty bully at the school yard we can't ignore the uncompetitive bully Apple is right now. It's easy to forget this after all the arguments of the article.
- bilal4hmed 6y ago
  very true and this scenario can play out like this, when Google is broken up and we are left with only Apple for mobile solution, what do you think Apple will do then if not checked right now ? If we are looking at a future of Apple only mobile phones then it is good to check em.
  - Jtsummers 6y ago
    What reasonable scenarios do you see that would lead to a world where only Apple made smartphones?
    - bilal4hmed 6y ago
      Google being broken up
      - Jtsummers 6y ago
        So if Google broke up (and you give this a high probability of occurring?) you think every smartphone manufacturer besides Apple would fold?
        bilal4hmed 6y ago
        yeah because you lose Google Maps, Gmail etc etc....all the other services that make Android. Without that all those other manufacturers are making bricks. Google is facing anti-trust with the DOJ looking to split them up, so its a very certain future. That future is already there with tablets and smartwatches
chacham15 6y ago
I completely understand the argument here, but the problem is that there is no other option. I think that there is a middle ground here if Apple allowed users or apps (i.e. a secondary app store) to install other apps without going through the Apple app store. If you want to stay in Apples walled-garden you have that choice, otherwise, install your own apps. There are arguments about how well this works in the Android ecosystem, but I think that simply having the ability to do it, even if inconvenient is a world of difference than being beholden to a single entity. Imagine if Windows only allowed you to install apps from its app store. You could make all the same arguments that it should be able to do this just as you would for the Apple store.
- mbreese 6y ago
  > If you want to stay in Apples walled-garden you have that choice, otherwise, install your own apps. That’s not the only option here — you could also just use an Android phone to begin with. I’m a happy iPhone user and the fact that it is a closed ecosystem is part of the reason why... I’m happy to pay that premium (both in cost and flexibility). I don’t want my phone crashing because some developer pushed out a buggy update and they didn’t want to pay the iOS developer fee.
  - emsy 6y ago
    You can be perfectly happy so long as the app you rely on is available. If Apple decides to axe it (cough Hey cough) you and the developer are at their mercy. It doesn't matter that you could've bought an Android to begin with. The rules are changing while you're holding onto a device and that should not be possible.
    - mbreese 6y ago
      I like to play Fortnite with my kids. I hook up an Xbox controller and play on my iPad Pro. One kid is on a Switch, the other on an Xbox. As of yesterday, I can’t play with them. I very much miss that experience. However, I still support Apple’s decision to pull them from the App Store. Why? Because I don’t want there to be another mechanism for in-app purchases on iOS that isn’t subject to parental controls. I love my kids, but there is no way that they should be able to buy anything from an App that I haven’t approved. Note: I’m sure this would never happen with my kids as they know better and we’ve discussed the perils of in-app purchases and avoiding installing games they see in ads. But their accounts are locked down, just the same.
sbazerque 6y ago
That's fine, Miguel. But it should be a choice. Apple's market share is large enough to have them forcibly unbundle their app store and OS businesses (like Microsoft and IE in the precambric era).
- Jtsummers 6y ago
  Is your position (that they should unbundle the App Store and OS) based on their market share or actual principles? As in, do you think that console platforms should also unbundle those things to make it easier (or possible in some cases) to run separate app stores and/or apps on them? Because, and maybe this is just me, I really don’t see what market share matters here. Certainly not as a comparison to MS of the 90s.
  - 8note 6y ago
    I see an obvious benefit to having unbundled console stores -- if I could buy the game from steam, I could run the same game on whatever console I have Then. They'd have to compete on the quality of the console itself, rather than exclusives or moats based on sunk costs in owning copies of games
  - sbazerque 6y ago
    Good question. I was thinking in terms of market share alone. If phone OSs were a reasonably fragmented market, you as a phone buyer could probably choose a phone that doesn't restrict what software you can run and still meet your other requirements (e.g. tight OS & hardware integration). Also, as a software maker no single phone OS company would have much leverage over you. But some of these things could also be argued on principle.
- Hnrobert42 6y ago
  Why must Apple unbundle? Is it just that they are large and vertically integrated? If you are against vertical integration, must they also be required to sell iPhones that can support other OSes? Must all devices support alternative OSes? What about other things? Should Lyft be required to support the ability to use their app with an independent marketplace? Personally, I am more worried about companies that spread horizontally, like Google, Facebook, and Amazon.
Kenji 6y ago
His arguments are simply stupid. I'm paying nothing and get security, privacy and peace of mind. It's called Linux, and it's secure and it works. The rhetoric that locked down systems improve security significantly is fascistic and evil.
codetrotter 6y ago
> Since apps run under a “sandbox” that limits what they can do, you do not need to reinstall your iPhone from scratch every few months because things no longer work. One thing I really wish, is that this would apply to all apps that ship with iOS as well. That you’d be able to remove any application from your phone and reinstall it, including things like Camera, Notes, Messages, Calendar, Wallet, etc, etc. I realize that this is probably not feasible, because these included apps might be integrating with the system in a deep way. But it’d be really nice if it was possible. As it stands, Photos on my phone is consuming a lot of storage space from photos that were removed months ago. The only path forward in order to reclaim my storage is to do a factory reset – I just haven’t gotten around to it yet because I have some device-only data that I need to save elsewhere first. And furthermore, in this way, if I could replace some of the built-in apps along with their integrations, with custom alternate apps of my own. But this I think will never happen. Still, it is the one thing I wish iOS supported. So that I could for example use a custom camera app directly from the lock-screen instead of only being able to use the built-in camera app from there.
- scarface74 6y ago
  Apps that you can remove. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208094 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208094
emsy 6y ago
This article does not answer the question how Apple‘s privacy and security model would be impacted by 3rd party stores. In fact, there already have been 3rd party stores with business certificates and you can sideload without a developer subscription, although the app will stop working after a week. None of this has impacted the App Store model so far. I have yet to hear a good argument that this will be the case.
- abc-xyz 6y ago
  Because most people are not tech-savvy and will accidentally end up installing malware and whatnot? I’ve had to help factory reset quite a few Android phones because they were being spammed with sex ads notifications and the search engine was being hijacked (wouldn’t be surprised if they had also been infected with keyloggers and secretly uploading photos and such).
  - emsy 6y ago
    As I said these issue already exists with sideloading and private App Stores. Some of those issues are alleviated with the OS model, which simply doesn't allow to change the search engine and install keyloggers. If someone chooses to leave the App Store and be vulnerable to issues such as sex ad notifications and secretly uploading photos the issue should be how it's communicated. I haven't used an Android device in a while, but the last time I used one it was a simple dialog and you could install whatever you like. On the Mac you have to open the settings and permit every unsigned application if gatekeeper is active. Something like this seems like a reasonable solution.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    There are apps on the Play Store which will put ads right on your lock screen…
- olliej 6y ago
  A huge amount of the security model on iOS is by virtue of the AppStore - it’s the AppStore process that ensures apps don’t give themselves entitlements that completely break the platform security model - eg give themselves system service entitlements, get access to user data, etc
politelemon 6y ago
This is an exercise in self-validation because author has invested into an ecosystem. The examples are cherry picked, and motivations are invented to justify author's own bias, while ignoring all the evidence that would discredit the arguments. Notice additionally how the legal 'mitigation' is assumed to be flawless and can only ever be used against bad actors, it's the classic cartel defense of "their store their rules". Think _very_ carefully to when you saw a similar set of behaviors and what impact those had on the technology ecosystem. This is a legal between two greedy, monopolistic bullies. It is not necessary to pick sides, and it baffles me that so many commenters feel the need to do so. Neither company cares for you; their interests may sometimes _align_ with yours, and they will exploit whatever means necessary, market whatever features necessary to focus your attention on those specific attributes. But make no mistake that their first duty is to their investors. No dear author, I disagree that you are paying for any of those virtuous virtues that you tout. You are paying to enable a terrible set of behaviors which you are unable to forgive in another company, while you advertise your iBlinders™ to the readers.
- caiobegotti 6y ago
  I think you were a bit unfair because this is Miguel de Icaza, Google him up. He has probably invested (both in money directly and/or programming hours) into EVERY ecosystem you can think of in the last 25 years, paid and unpaid ones.
  - orand 6y ago
    Agreed. Coming from Miguel, this has 100x the weight of some random schmoe on the internet. Tons of respect for what he's done over his career, and his position on technology and freedom issues.
    - craigsmansion 6y ago
      >and his position on technology and freedom issues. In the linked article he is cheerleading in favour of closed-off platforms, and promotes ceding control of your software to a third party as a good thing. But even before this Miguel de Icaza had no integrity left to speak of in my opinion. Some random schmoe actually would have been more believable.
bluecalm 6y ago
It's the developer who pays, not the user. The price is set according to demand. If Apple takes 30% from that or not doesn't influence what price you can set because it doesn't influence what people are willing to pay. The author is not paying any premiums. He is happy that the developers pay them for him and he doesn't care at all that the creators now make 30% less and have no way to go around that system.
- aftergibson 6y ago
  Surely the developers charge more and in the end it’s the users that pay more? I mean that’s literally what Epic was doing.
  - dredmorbius 6y ago
    If Apple is a rentier then no, the users don't. Price respons to cost structure change depends on price elasticity. Not all prices are passed on to purchasers.
  - bluecalm 6y ago
    No, not surely. This is basic economics. The price isn't influenced by what it costs to produce. The price is set according to what users are willing to pay. What users are willing to pay is influenced by how much money they think it's worth, how much money they have and how costly other options are. In case of Fortnite there is no competition (no one else can offer that game and there isn't really any similar option) so additional money comes purely from developer's pocket. Sure, they could have been charging more to make a point or because they think iOS users are willing to pay more in general but the users don't really care where 30% of the price goes to. It doesn't influence their buying decisions at all.
boogies 6y ago
This article seems to simply use “iOS shouldn’t be Windows” as a strawman for “iOS must be iOS.” GNU/Linux doesn’t have the garden walls of iOS and yet I somehow don’t feel any need for an antivirus or any of the other Windows problems this blog seems to be erroneously alleging are inherent to freedom-respecting OSs.
- abc-xyz 6y ago
  Perhaps because targeting Linux users isn’t worth the trouble? It would be trivial to implement malware on Linux (e.g. here’s Valve accidentally deleting people’s home directory https://github.com/valvesoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/3671 https://github.com/valvesoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/3671). Windows, and increasingly Android, suffers from viruses because they’re valuable targets. If Apple made it possible to install apps from third-party stores or websites then they’d similarly suffer.
m0zg 6y ago
Author works for Microsoft: company which ships un-removable spyware in their flagship product (Windows).
- Hnrobert42 6y ago
  Do you have thoughts on the merits of his argument or only ad hominem attacks?
  - m0zg 6y ago
    I prefer not to argue with hypocrites - it's a fruitless endeavor 100% of the time.
Veserv 6y ago
Non-quantitative security arguments are nonsense and really need to stop. "Consider the iPhone. The hardware, operating system, and applications were designed with everything a security professional loves in mind. Even so, modern systems are too large and too complex to be bullet-proof." That statement, and many others like it in the article, leads you to believe that the systems are good, but provides no actionable information other than a hedge saying that the system is imperfect. How imperfect is it? What is a viable threat? What quantitative effect do the mitigations have? Without this type of information it is just parroting content-free marketing speak. Here is actionable information. Bug bounties correlate strongly to the cost of discovery for a class of attack. Therefore, Apple thinks it takes less than $1M to create a remote no-install zero-click kernel arbitrary code execution [1]. If you need one click, then $250K. If you need an install, then $150K. Given the nature of software, after such an attack is discovered it can be deployed in bulk with minimal extra effort, so you really need to divide the cost over the number of targets that can feasibly be attacked to evaluate the "marginal cost per attack". How widely you think a remote no-install zero-click attack can be distributed will tell you what that number is. To provide an example of such an attack here is a post-mortem done by Google Project Zero of 5 exploit chains being exploited for 2.5 years before discovery [2]. They mention that the sites received thousands of visitors per week, so a conservative estimate would be 130k visitors/5 exploits for an average of 26k targets per exploit. Assuming this falls under the first category of attack, that means the marginal cost to fully compromise an iPhone is ~$40. So, the total effect of every mitigation they do is raising the cost of exploiting to $40/iPhone which is not secure by any objective metric. [1] https://developer.apple.com/security-bounty/ https://developer.apple.com/security-bounty/ [2] https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2019/08/a-very-deep-dive-into-ios-exploit.html https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2019/08/a-very-deep-d...
kml 6y ago
The problem with his argument is that his premise just isn't true. TikTok is still able to spy on the user, so we are not much safer in an Apple world.
- abc-xyz 6y ago
  TikTok is able to spy on users that download and use their app. On Android you have all sorts of malware that will be impossible to get rid off without doing a factory reset. Apple would risk the same malware issues that Windows/Android face today if they were forced to allow third-party app installations. I’ve personally had to help fix malware infected Android phones, but I’ve never had to do the same with iPhones.
- olliej 6y ago
  Yes, and Apple considers any ability for any app to do that to be a security flaw that needs to be fixed. Why shit like this hasn’t gotten apps pulled annoys me :-/
_qulr 6y ago
"In the battle over the security and privacy of my phone, I am happy to pay a premium knowing that my information is safe and sound, and that it is not going to be sold to the highest bidder." Meanwhile, "Secret Service Bought Phone Location Data from Apps, Contract Confirms". https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jgxk3g/secret-service-phone-location-data-babel-street https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jgxk3g/secret-service-pho...
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  Um, that would tend to support de Icaza's argument, no? The app in question would presumably be denied by Apple.
  - _qulr 6y ago
    > The app in question would presumably be denied by Apple. Why would you presume that? How would Apple even know? Many popular apps collect location data, and this is allowed on iOS. Once the location data has left the device and been transmitted to 3rd party services, Apple has no control or knowledge of what happens to the data.
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orand 6y ago
If you don't know who Miguel de Icaza is, read this first. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Icaza https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Icaza It will put his thoughts (and those of uninformed commenters) in a very different perspective.
- alynn 6y ago
  Thank you so much for posting this link. I already knew he’d written Mono, the open-source implementation of .Net, but am now in awe at seeing his many other accomplishments, such as starting the GNOME project and making major contributions to initial RAID and Sparc support in Linux. Thanks Miguel!
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justizin 6y ago
Great, but this really doesn't anything to do with the conflict. As a parent concerned with his children being coerced into in-app payments likely tied to his credit card, he gets utility out of Apple being the go-between, even though .. he pretty much complains that he wants it to be more stringent, so they aren't really delivering the utility he wants for that 30%. As an adult, if I want to put my own credit card into a vendor's website, what utility is Apple providing except for slight convenience? I don't even keep my credit card attached to my Apple ID because I don't like how they batch payments and always seem to want to pull one 3 days before payday. I go onto Amazon or other sites and buy digital gift cards which I preload into my Apple ID. And for this extreme inconvenience, I pay a 30% premium. Funk Dat. BTW, because someone will come here and say, "Why in the world would you do such a convoluted thing?", an apple payments support tech suggested it to me. In fact they outright recommended against anyone attaching a payment method, ever.
k__ 6y ago
Apples rules are arbitrary and protect nobody, probably don't even Apple itself.
r2b2 6y ago
This is why I started building my latest project.[1] I want better privacy from all digital services (that use my personal email for logging in), and better security for my inbox (eliminating spam, phishing attempts, malware). A world where digital advertising fades away, and security and privacy are always prioritized, can't come fast enough. [1] https://owlmail.io https://owlmail.io
olliej 6y ago
Given people like pointing out that consoles lose money on each sale, I wonder what the profit margin of an iOS device is over the average supported life time? Major Android vendors selling at similar prices to Apple, who don’t even have to pay for OS development seem unable to afford to provide support for 6 months, let alone The 5 years Apple supports a device. What is the margin after 5 years of support? Who is paying to provide that support, if not the companies that are benefiting from the platform, and that platform’s longterm support and consistency?
chj 6y ago
It is amazing that while Americans are trusted to hold guns, they can't be trusted to run apps. Isn't pulling triggers much more dangerous than clicking on OK buttons?
qwert12345887 6y ago
Please Apple continue on this this path and force every bit of tracking to be opt in through very annoying popups and hopefully decimate the whole targeted advertising segment and this greed of extracting as much data as possible from devices.
coronadisaster 6y ago
Too bad he gobbles up Apple's speech... he should know by now that actions speak loader then words.
goerz 6y ago
I would and do pay a premium for all of those things too, but that doesn’t mean I’m ok with not being able to buy books directly in the Kindle app, or genuine (sandboxed) terminal emulators not being allowed on iOS for arbitrary reasons. Several of Apple’s policies around the App Store are user hostile and prevent innovation, and have nothing to do with security or privacy.

121 points by codyogden 6y ago

Personally I understand the arguments of Apple's ecosystem being locked down. But I think Apple and Google both have a significant revenue stream from world society as most people use smart phones. Like AT&T and RCA of days gone by they need to have their free money spout regulated. They've clearly made billions but that 30% cut needs to go down. At least that's what I see as a solution. Something like 7 to 10%. Thoughts?

FriendlyNormie 6y ago
Here’s a thought: How about you shut your fucking hole? I became a millionaire through the App Store despite paying 30%. I’d happily have it increased to 70% just to see all of you ungrateful pigs squeal even more. Eat shit.
CraigJPerry 6y ago
I don’t think we should get to tell Apple what the % is, they’re a private company. However, i am ok with adjusting the amount we charge them for use of public services - their reliance on the rule of law, that we’re not at war etc. etc. becomes more valuable in absolute terms to a company, the more payments it accepts within a jurisdiction. I think it’s totally fair to invoice for govt services based on the value of them to the company. To be clear this would not be like taxes on profits, i’m proposing an invoice against receipts.
- mjuarez 6y ago
  Isn’t that why sales taxes exist?
  - CraigJPerry 6y ago
    No, that’s paid by the consumer
- kryptiskt 6y ago
  There is no market force to provide for proper price discovery of those services. It's only fair to regulate it if Apple is unwilling to subject that business to competition.
  - CraigJPerry 6y ago
    Jurisdictions become participants in a market for access to their buyers. I dont agree with your condition of fairness but i woukd point out Apple has already established vehement unwillingness to compete on app stores anyway.
- mbreese 6y ago
  That would introduce a level of red-tape that would make any bureaucrat faint. Can you imagine billing any company for the cost of government services directly? Billing for the “rule-of-law”? That would be a completely unworkable system. Plus, if you did this, what would stop the company from increasing their percentage in order to pay for your new taxes? But what you’re describing is the logic behind a progressive income tax. The more money you make — the more important the system (rule of law, security, etc) becomes to you, so the more you should pay. At least, that’s the theory...
  - CraigJPerry 6y ago
    >> That would introduce a level of red-tape Jurisdiction X hereby decrees the tariffs for tax year 20/21 as: Receipts not more than $X = tariff of $Y Receip... ?
pakl 6y ago
Why should the fee be proportional to the price? If it’s about supporting infrastructure, take a percentage based on load on the infrastructure.
csunbird 6y ago
I am also very happy with Apple putting down sensible rules in their app store. Unfortunately, a lot of people are, how can I say it lightly, scumbags that will try to do anything to get more money. When you think about a couple of rules that do not make sense at the first glance and look like corporate greed, when you think about them in depth, they do make a lot of sense. Let’s talk about the “Do not mention that you can subscribe out of the application” rule, for example. It does look like a cash grab, but actually this rule prevents people from offering “discounts” with different terms of service and cancellation options, severely damaging the mobile app platform.
Terretta 6y ago
What should the customer acquisition, marketplace, transaction, distribution, and experience support cost be for free apps? Something like 7 to 10% of what? The judge who ruled against Epic on the breach of contract wrote: ”There appears to be evidence that everyone that uses these kind of platforms to sell games is charging 30%. Whether Epic likes it, the industry and not just Apple seem to be charging that. Right now, Epic is paying Apple nothing. Epic itself charges third parties.”
mbreese 6y ago
> that 30% cut needs to go down I think that will be a hard pill to swallow for many other developers. If there ends up being pricing regulation of the Apple App Store, you can be sure that the same thing will come down Microsoft (Xbox), Sony (Playstation), Nintendo, Facebook (Oculus), and every other platform’s digital store. All of these charge 30% (or close to it). Focusing on the 30% figure is the easy path for regulation, but it will have far-reaching consequences. Notice — when Microsoft signed on to the Epic vs Apple fight, their concern wasn’t the fate of Fortnite and their fight against the 30% App Store fee, or even the rights of Apple to control what is and is not in the App Store. Microsoft’s goal was to protect the access of the Unreal engine for other iOS/Mac developers. Microsoft’s support for Epic is very focused in this regard.

caiobegotti 6y ago

I totally agree with Icaza's points and they are the reason I'm still an Apple happy customer but there's another side to this that of all the players that could fight Apple it just happened that Epic was the first one to gather momentum (and have the actual balls). What I am saying is that it's a bullies fight and just because the one pointing fingers is an old dirty bully at the school yard we can't ignore the uncompetitive bully Apple is right now. It's easy to forget this after all the arguments of the article.

bilal4hmed 6y ago
very true and this scenario can play out like this, when Google is broken up and we are left with only Apple for mobile solution, what do you think Apple will do then if not checked right now ? If we are looking at a future of Apple only mobile phones then it is good to check em.
- Jtsummers 6y ago
  What reasonable scenarios do you see that would lead to a world where only Apple made smartphones?
  - bilal4hmed 6y ago
    Google being broken up
    - Jtsummers 6y ago
      So if Google broke up (and you give this a high probability of occurring?) you think every smartphone manufacturer besides Apple would fold?
      - bilal4hmed 6y ago
        yeah because you lose Google Maps, Gmail etc etc....all the other services that make Android. Without that all those other manufacturers are making bricks. Google is facing anti-trust with the DOJ looking to split them up, so its a very certain future. That future is already there with tablets and smartwatches

chacham15 6y ago

I completely understand the argument here, but the problem is that there is no other option. I think that there is a middle ground here if Apple allowed users or apps (i.e. a secondary app store) to install other apps without going through the Apple app store. If you want to stay in Apples walled-garden you have that choice, otherwise, install your own apps. There are arguments about how well this works in the Android ecosystem, but I think that simply having the ability to do it, even if inconvenient is a world of difference than being beholden to a single entity. Imagine if Windows only allowed you to install apps from its app store. You could make all the same arguments that it should be able to do this just as you would for the Apple store.

mbreese 6y ago
> If you want to stay in Apples walled-garden you have that choice, otherwise, install your own apps. That’s not the only option here — you could also just use an Android phone to begin with. I’m a happy iPhone user and the fact that it is a closed ecosystem is part of the reason why... I’m happy to pay that premium (both in cost and flexibility). I don’t want my phone crashing because some developer pushed out a buggy update and they didn’t want to pay the iOS developer fee.
- emsy 6y ago
  You can be perfectly happy so long as the app you rely on is available. If Apple decides to axe it (cough Hey cough) you and the developer are at their mercy. It doesn't matter that you could've bought an Android to begin with. The rules are changing while you're holding onto a device and that should not be possible.
  - mbreese 6y ago
    I like to play Fortnite with my kids. I hook up an Xbox controller and play on my iPad Pro. One kid is on a Switch, the other on an Xbox. As of yesterday, I can’t play with them. I very much miss that experience. However, I still support Apple’s decision to pull them from the App Store. Why? Because I don’t want there to be another mechanism for in-app purchases on iOS that isn’t subject to parental controls. I love my kids, but there is no way that they should be able to buy anything from an App that I haven’t approved. Note: I’m sure this would never happen with my kids as they know better and we’ve discussed the perils of in-app purchases and avoiding installing games they see in ads. But their accounts are locked down, just the same.

sbazerque 6y ago

That's fine, Miguel. But it should be a choice. Apple's market share is large enough to have them forcibly unbundle their app store and OS businesses (like Microsoft and IE in the precambric era).

Jtsummers 6y ago
Is your position (that they should unbundle the App Store and OS) based on their market share or actual principles? As in, do you think that console platforms should also unbundle those things to make it easier (or possible in some cases) to run separate app stores and/or apps on them? Because, and maybe this is just me, I really don’t see what market share matters here. Certainly not as a comparison to MS of the 90s.
- 8note 6y ago
  I see an obvious benefit to having unbundled console stores -- if I could buy the game from steam, I could run the same game on whatever console I have Then. They'd have to compete on the quality of the console itself, rather than exclusives or moats based on sunk costs in owning copies of games
- sbazerque 6y ago
  Good question. I was thinking in terms of market share alone. If phone OSs were a reasonably fragmented market, you as a phone buyer could probably choose a phone that doesn't restrict what software you can run and still meet your other requirements (e.g. tight OS & hardware integration). Also, as a software maker no single phone OS company would have much leverage over you. But some of these things could also be argued on principle.
Hnrobert42 6y ago
Why must Apple unbundle? Is it just that they are large and vertically integrated? If you are against vertical integration, must they also be required to sell iPhones that can support other OSes? Must all devices support alternative OSes? What about other things? Should Lyft be required to support the ability to use their app with an independent marketplace? Personally, I am more worried about companies that spread horizontally, like Google, Facebook, and Amazon.

Kenji 6y ago

His arguments are simply stupid. I'm paying nothing and get security, privacy and peace of mind. It's called Linux, and it's secure and it works. The rhetoric that locked down systems improve security significantly is fascistic and evil.

codetrotter 6y ago

> Since apps run under a “sandbox” that limits what they can do, you do not need to reinstall your iPhone from scratch every few months because things no longer work. One thing I really wish, is that this would apply to all apps that ship with iOS as well. That you’d be able to remove any application from your phone and reinstall it, including things like Camera, Notes, Messages, Calendar, Wallet, etc, etc. I realize that this is probably not feasible, because these included apps might be integrating with the system in a deep way. But it’d be really nice if it was possible. As it stands, Photos on my phone is consuming a lot of storage space from photos that were removed months ago. The only path forward in order to reclaim my storage is to do a factory reset – I just haven’t gotten around to it yet because I have some device-only data that I need to save elsewhere first. And furthermore, in this way, if I could replace some of the built-in apps along with their integrations, with custom alternate apps of my own. But this I think will never happen. Still, it is the one thing I wish iOS supported. So that I could for example use a custom camera app directly from the lock-screen instead of only being able to use the built-in camera app from there.

scarface74 6y ago
Apps that you can remove. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208094 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208094

emsy 6y ago

This article does not answer the question how Apple‘s privacy and security model would be impacted by 3rd party stores. In fact, there already have been 3rd party stores with business certificates and you can sideload without a developer subscription, although the app will stop working after a week. None of this has impacted the App Store model so far. I have yet to hear a good argument that this will be the case.

abc-xyz 6y ago
Because most people are not tech-savvy and will accidentally end up installing malware and whatnot? I’ve had to help factory reset quite a few Android phones because they were being spammed with sex ads notifications and the search engine was being hijacked (wouldn’t be surprised if they had also been infected with keyloggers and secretly uploading photos and such).
- emsy 6y ago
  As I said these issue already exists with sideloading and private App Stores. Some of those issues are alleviated with the OS model, which simply doesn't allow to change the search engine and install keyloggers. If someone chooses to leave the App Store and be vulnerable to issues such as sex ad notifications and secretly uploading photos the issue should be how it's communicated. I haven't used an Android device in a while, but the last time I used one it was a simple dialog and you could install whatever you like. On the Mac you have to open the settings and permit every unsigned application if gatekeeper is active. Something like this seems like a reasonable solution.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  There are apps on the Play Store which will put ads right on your lock screen…
olliej 6y ago
A huge amount of the security model on iOS is by virtue of the AppStore - it’s the AppStore process that ensures apps don’t give themselves entitlements that completely break the platform security model - eg give themselves system service entitlements, get access to user data, etc

politelemon 6y ago

This is an exercise in self-validation because author has invested into an ecosystem. The examples are cherry picked, and motivations are invented to justify author's own bias, while ignoring all the evidence that would discredit the arguments. Notice additionally how the legal 'mitigation' is assumed to be flawless and can only ever be used against bad actors, it's the classic cartel defense of "their store their rules". Think _very_ carefully to when you saw a similar set of behaviors and what impact those had on the technology ecosystem. This is a legal between two greedy, monopolistic bullies. It is not necessary to pick sides, and it baffles me that so many commenters feel the need to do so. Neither company cares for you; their interests may sometimes _align_ with yours, and they will exploit whatever means necessary, market whatever features necessary to focus your attention on those specific attributes. But make no mistake that their first duty is to their investors. No dear author, I disagree that you are paying for any of those virtuous virtues that you tout. You are paying to enable a terrible set of behaviors which you are unable to forgive in another company, while you advertise your iBlinders™ to the readers.

caiobegotti 6y ago
I think you were a bit unfair because this is Miguel de Icaza, Google him up. He has probably invested (both in money directly and/or programming hours) into EVERY ecosystem you can think of in the last 25 years, paid and unpaid ones.
- orand 6y ago
  Agreed. Coming from Miguel, this has 100x the weight of some random schmoe on the internet. Tons of respect for what he's done over his career, and his position on technology and freedom issues.
  - craigsmansion 6y ago
    >and his position on technology and freedom issues. In the linked article he is cheerleading in favour of closed-off platforms, and promotes ceding control of your software to a third party as a good thing. But even before this Miguel de Icaza had no integrity left to speak of in my opinion. Some random schmoe actually would have been more believable.

bluecalm 6y ago

It's the developer who pays, not the user. The price is set according to demand. If Apple takes 30% from that or not doesn't influence what price you can set because it doesn't influence what people are willing to pay. The author is not paying any premiums. He is happy that the developers pay them for him and he doesn't care at all that the creators now make 30% less and have no way to go around that system.

aftergibson 6y ago
Surely the developers charge more and in the end it’s the users that pay more? I mean that’s literally what Epic was doing.
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  If Apple is a rentier then no, the users don't. Price respons to cost structure change depends on price elasticity. Not all prices are passed on to purchasers.
- bluecalm 6y ago
  No, not surely. This is basic economics. The price isn't influenced by what it costs to produce. The price is set according to what users are willing to pay. What users are willing to pay is influenced by how much money they think it's worth, how much money they have and how costly other options are. In case of Fortnite there is no competition (no one else can offer that game and there isn't really any similar option) so additional money comes purely from developer's pocket. Sure, they could have been charging more to make a point or because they think iOS users are willing to pay more in general but the users don't really care where 30% of the price goes to. It doesn't influence their buying decisions at all.

boogies 6y ago

This article seems to simply use “iOS shouldn’t be Windows” as a strawman for “iOS must be iOS.” GNU/Linux doesn’t have the garden walls of iOS and yet I somehow don’t feel any need for an antivirus or any of the other Windows problems this blog seems to be erroneously alleging are inherent to freedom-respecting OSs.

abc-xyz 6y ago
Perhaps because targeting Linux users isn’t worth the trouble? It would be trivial to implement malware on Linux (e.g. here’s Valve accidentally deleting people’s home directory https://github.com/valvesoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/3671 https://github.com/valvesoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/3671). Windows, and increasingly Android, suffers from viruses because they’re valuable targets. If Apple made it possible to install apps from third-party stores or websites then they’d similarly suffer.

m0zg 6y ago

Author works for Microsoft: company which ships un-removable spyware in their flagship product (Windows).

Hnrobert42 6y ago
Do you have thoughts on the merits of his argument or only ad hominem attacks?
- m0zg 6y ago
  I prefer not to argue with hypocrites - it's a fruitless endeavor 100% of the time.

Veserv 6y ago

Non-quantitative security arguments are nonsense and really need to stop. "Consider the iPhone. The hardware, operating system, and applications were designed with everything a security professional loves in mind. Even so, modern systems are too large and too complex to be bullet-proof." That statement, and many others like it in the article, leads you to believe that the systems are good, but provides no actionable information other than a hedge saying that the system is imperfect. How imperfect is it? What is a viable threat? What quantitative effect do the mitigations have? Without this type of information it is just parroting content-free marketing speak. Here is actionable information. Bug bounties correlate strongly to the cost of discovery for a class of attack. Therefore, Apple thinks it takes less than $1M to create a remote no-install zero-click kernel arbitrary code execution [1]. If you need one click, then $250K. If you need an install, then $150K. Given the nature of software, after such an attack is discovered it can be deployed in bulk with minimal extra effort, so you really need to divide the cost over the number of targets that can feasibly be attacked to evaluate the "marginal cost per attack". How widely you think a remote no-install zero-click attack can be distributed will tell you what that number is. To provide an example of such an attack here is a post-mortem done by Google Project Zero of 5 exploit chains being exploited for 2.5 years before discovery [2]. They mention that the sites received thousands of visitors per week, so a conservative estimate would be 130k visitors/5 exploits for an average of 26k targets per exploit. Assuming this falls under the first category of attack, that means the marginal cost to fully compromise an iPhone is ~$40. So, the total effect of every mitigation they do is raising the cost of exploiting to $40/iPhone which is not secure by any objective metric. [1] https://developer.apple.com/security-bounty/ https://developer.apple.com/security-bounty/ [2] https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2019/08/a-very-deep-dive-into-ios-exploit.html https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2019/08/a-very-deep-d...

kml 6y ago

The problem with his argument is that his premise just isn't true. TikTok is still able to spy on the user, so we are not much safer in an Apple world.

abc-xyz 6y ago
TikTok is able to spy on users that download and use their app. On Android you have all sorts of malware that will be impossible to get rid off without doing a factory reset. Apple would risk the same malware issues that Windows/Android face today if they were forced to allow third-party app installations. I’ve personally had to help fix malware infected Android phones, but I’ve never had to do the same with iPhones.
olliej 6y ago
Yes, and Apple considers any ability for any app to do that to be a security flaw that needs to be fixed. Why shit like this hasn’t gotten apps pulled annoys me :-/

_qulr 6y ago

"In the battle over the security and privacy of my phone, I am happy to pay a premium knowing that my information is safe and sound, and that it is not going to be sold to the highest bidder." Meanwhile, "Secret Service Bought Phone Location Data from Apps, Contract Confirms". https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jgxk3g/secret-service-phone-location-data-babel-street https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jgxk3g/secret-service-pho...

dredmorbius 6y ago
Um, that would tend to support de Icaza's argument, no? The app in question would presumably be denied by Apple.
- _qulr 6y ago
  > The app in question would presumably be denied by Apple. Why would you presume that? How would Apple even know? Many popular apps collect location data, and this is allowed on iOS. Once the location data has left the device and been transmitted to 3rd party services, Apple has no control or knowledge of what happens to the data.

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orand 6y ago

If you don't know who Miguel de Icaza is, read this first. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Icaza https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Icaza It will put his thoughts (and those of uninformed commenters) in a very different perspective.

alynn 6y ago
Thank you so much for posting this link. I already knew he’d written Mono, the open-source implementation of .Net, but am now in awe at seeing his many other accomplishments, such as starting the GNOME project and making major contributions to initial RAID and Sparc support in Linux. Thanks Miguel!

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justizin 6y ago

Great, but this really doesn't anything to do with the conflict. As a parent concerned with his children being coerced into in-app payments likely tied to his credit card, he gets utility out of Apple being the go-between, even though .. he pretty much complains that he wants it to be more stringent, so they aren't really delivering the utility he wants for that 30%. As an adult, if I want to put my own credit card into a vendor's website, what utility is Apple providing except for slight convenience? I don't even keep my credit card attached to my Apple ID because I don't like how they batch payments and always seem to want to pull one 3 days before payday. I go onto Amazon or other sites and buy digital gift cards which I preload into my Apple ID. And for this extreme inconvenience, I pay a 30% premium. Funk Dat. BTW, because someone will come here and say, "Why in the world would you do such a convoluted thing?", an apple payments support tech suggested it to me. In fact they outright recommended against anyone attaching a payment method, ever.

k__ 6y ago

Apples rules are arbitrary and protect nobody, probably don't even Apple itself.

r2b2 6y ago

This is why I started building my latest project.[1] I want better privacy from all digital services (that use my personal email for logging in), and better security for my inbox (eliminating spam, phishing attempts, malware). A world where digital advertising fades away, and security and privacy are always prioritized, can't come fast enough. [1] https://owlmail.io https://owlmail.io

olliej 6y ago

Given people like pointing out that consoles lose money on each sale, I wonder what the profit margin of an iOS device is over the average supported life time? Major Android vendors selling at similar prices to Apple, who don’t even have to pay for OS development seem unable to afford to provide support for 6 months, let alone The 5 years Apple supports a device. What is the margin after 5 years of support? Who is paying to provide that support, if not the companies that are benefiting from the platform, and that platform’s longterm support and consistency?

chj 6y ago

It is amazing that while Americans are trusted to hold guns, they can't be trusted to run apps. Isn't pulling triggers much more dangerous than clicking on OK buttons?

qwert12345887 6y ago

Please Apple continue on this this path and force every bit of tracking to be opt in through very annoying popups and hopefully decimate the whole targeted advertising segment and this greed of extracting as much data as possible from devices.

coronadisaster 6y ago

Too bad he gobbles up Apple's speech... he should know by now that actions speak loader then words.

goerz 6y ago

I would and do pay a premium for all of those things too, but that doesn’t mean I’m ok with not being able to buy books directly in the Kindle app, or genuine (sandboxed) terminal emulators not being allowed on iOS for arbitrary reasons. Several of Apple’s policies around the App Store are user hostile and prevent innovation, and have nothing to do with security or privacy.