5 ms·

This sort of arbitrary judgments-from-heaven is a sign of monopolistic power. You only have a Hobson's choice when it comes to the app store.

• eplanit 6y ago
  Yes. This kindly-worded "Our way or the highway" is a hallmark: "If the App Store model and guidelines are not best for your app or business idea that’s okay, we provide Safari for a great web experience too."
  • paxys 6y ago
    "We provide Safari for a great web experience too, but don't implement any standard APIs like push notifications, data persistence, bluetooth, NFC, add to homescreen prompt, icons, launch screen, themes that would actually make it a worthwhile alternative to the app store" is what they should have said.
    • reaperducer 6y ago
      All those little bits you stuffed onto the end of your pretend quote negate the "great web experience" portion.
    • scarface74 6y ago
      There has been the ability add to the home screen since day 1. There were plenty of website that calculated where the “share” button was in the browser app and had a pop up to add to the home screen.
      • paxys 6y ago
        There is no option to do so from any other browser other than Safari. And even in Safari, the most a website can do is guide users through the open settings -> swipe -> scroll -> click button -> enter title -> hit ok flow.
        • scarface74 6y ago
          There is no “go to settings”. Click the share button, Scroll up, click “Add to home screen”, click OK. The title is the title of the page.
          • paxys 6y ago
            And how do I do it from Chrome?
            • scarface74 6y ago
              So now that you were factually proven to be incorrect you want to move the goal posts? The initial post that we both responded to clearly stated Safari. > We provide Safari for a great web experience too, but don't implement any standard APIs like push notifications, data persistence, bluetooth, NFC, add to homescreen prompt, icons, launch screen, themes that would actually make it a worthwhile alternative to the app store" is what they should have said.
              • paxys 6y ago
                My initial argument was that Apple does not provide standard APIs - and they don't - so I don't see how there is any moving of goal posts. There is no way for a website to prompt a dialog to add itself to the home screen, despite it existing in the HTML spec and all other major browsers. In addition to that Apple forces other browsers to use its own web view, and doesn't expose the add to home screen functionality there either.
                • deleted 6y ago
                  [deleted]
                • scarface74 6y ago
                  Whether that was your “initial argument” or not, your statement > And even in Safari, the most a website can do is guide users through the open settings -> swipe -> scroll -> click button -> enter title -> hit ok flow. Was wrong. Also, it’s coming to iOS 14 https://caniuse.com/web-app-manifest https://caniuse.com/web-app-manifest
    • JamesSwift 6y ago
      And the only alternatives to it are also using Safari under the covers because we require them to
• Bud 6y ago
  I've heard of this thing called "Android". From what I've heard, and I know that this sounds crazy, but it reportedly has a larger market share than Apple does in the mobile space. So any arguments or comments here mentioning "monopolistic power" are, well, I want to be nice about this, but they are a complete fucking joke.
  • P_I_Staker 6y ago
    So there are two choices. That's not really that much better.
    • Bud 6y ago
      It's not a monopoly. By definition. It's not even close. That's all I am saying. So we should stop with this absurdity of talking about Apple having a monopoly. Apple does not even have majority market share in any of the markets that it participates in.
      • bagacrap 6y ago
        If it's not a monopoly, there needs to be some other word for it. It's not equivalent to retail stores, where if you don't like Walmart's price you can shop at Target, because the cost of switching from one phone to another is prohibitively high. Until everyone walks around with an iphone in one pocket and a Samsung in the other, it's something akin to monopoly.
        • colejohnson66 6y ago
          Oligopoly?
        • danShumway 6y ago
          s/monopoly/duopoly/g Nothing about the original argument changes, people are just being pedantic about which word is used. Duopolies can be just as dangerous as monopolies, and to the original commenter's point, duopolies are definitely capable of monopolistic behaviors. I advise people to just use 'duopoly' and to avoid letting arguments like this distract from the main point, which is that Apple has an outsized control over the entire mobile market and uses its control to unfairly prop up its own software offerings like Apple Music over Spotify, to lock consumers into its ecosystem making it difficult for them to move to other platforms, to force third-party devs to give Apple a substantial cut of their own profits even when they aren't interested in leveraging Apple's services, and to outright shut down competing mobile services that don't fit into Apple's vision for what they want the mobile market to be (Google Stadia, etc).
• ogre_codes 6y ago
  This has nothing to do with monopolistic power. Apple has had strongly opinionated/ arbitrary rules on the App Store way before they had anything which resembled a monopoly. The only difference is now that Apple has grown.
  • FreakyT 6y ago
    > The only difference is now that Apple has grown. I mean, that's the whole point. Now that Apple has the power to shut you out of nearly 50% of the US market if you don't follow their rules, those rules carry a lot more weight than it if was 5% of the market.