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Device freedom is a must. Any device should be completely controllable by the end user. There's two parts to this to me: app stores and the data collected by

Device freedom is a must. Any device should be completely controllable by the end user. There's two parts to this to me: app stores and the data collected by the devices. Users should have the freedom to install any software on their devices, period. Users should also have the freedom to stop all data collection by these devices. This applies to all electronics--video game consoles, TVs, printers, who knows what else in the future. If we keep letting manufacturers create these "walled gardens", we're not only creating a ton of trash because they will stop supporting them eventually, we're also stopping innovation and integration across platforms. Give me government mandated open protocols, open firmware, and let me install linux on my printer if I want. As devices get smarter, we should all reap the benefits of it through our own ingenuity and hacking.

sneak 6y ago
If users didn’t want these things, users wouldn’t buy them. For the vast majority of people, and iPhone is way, way better than a computer that can run any app, precisely because it can’t run any app they click on. I’m a hacker, so I would love to be able to install any software I want on my iPhone, and introspect it in other ways. Most users, however, would have a way worse experience using their phone if they were given this option, because a non-trivial percentage of them would follow the tutorials online provided to them by malware authors to install their malware. This is precisely what happened to desktop computers. Has everyone forgotten about Bonsai Buddy? People who want a general purpose, configurable device that can run any code they want on it have options. They’re big, clunky, out of date phones. Apple is being punished for their success here. They happen to make the best phone hardware at the moment, and they bundle the best phone hardware with cryptographically-enforced editorial decisions about the best software that runs on it. I think the real danger here is that of censorship: if the state commands Apple to delete (or actively remote-disable) certain apps, a huge problem exists. Today it’s WeChat or TikTok. What if tomorrow it’s Signal? iMessage’s encryption has already been backdoored for the feds in the default configuration via iCloud Backup (which is not end to end encrypted and backs up the entirety of chat history from the device to Apple each night). The state could literally command Apple to prohibit any type of secure communication from the device via this method and they’d have to comply, and iPhone-owners would have no recourse due to the DRM. That’s the real danger. There’s a real argument to not allowing Apple to do this, but I don’t think “consumer choice” is it. Consumer choice chose the walled garden over the anarchy of Desktop Computer Malware.
- bad_good_guy 6y ago
  Its a lot simpler than users wanting a device that 'cant run any app they click on'. The vast vast majority of users don't consider anything except the marketing. And apple is good at marketing. So people want iOS devices.
  - pb7 6y ago
    Marketing only works for the first generation of purchases. Apple has the highest consumer satisfaction ratings year after year so when a new product comes out, consumers know they will get a product they will be really happy with. That is not the case with many other companies.
  - Razengan 6y ago
    > The vast vast majority of users don't consider anything except the marketing. If marketing was all that mattered, and Apple's products were actually disappointing, they would not have repeat customers or high satisfaction after the purchase: https://www.macrumors.com/2020/09/22/apple-tops-customer-satisfaction-charts/ https://www.macrumors.com/2020/09/22/apple-tops-customer-sat... and please, stop speaking for a "vast vast majority" of people, as if you're an authority on why other people do what they do.
- damnyou 6y ago
  Yes, this is partly about Apple being "punished" for its success. That is a good thing. Entities that are too successful become too powerful and should be "punished" for it.
- flenserboy 6y ago
  Apple's advertising is built on security and privacy — allowing other App Stores on their system would only open up users to invasive tracking & attacks. I want my desktop system to be open as can be; I'm perfectly happy with my phone being (somewhat) locked down. That said, Apple could allow users to choose to install other App Stores on their devices, but at the cost of their devices being considered hopelessly compromised and no longer eligible for support from Apple. Let the market decide: a wider variety of games/apps, or a (fairly) secure system with attached privacy promises.
52-6F-62 6y ago
The logical conclusion then is that the only device that should be allowed to be manufactured is a personal computer. Companies producing specialized hardware/software couplings does not preclude another company developing open options. I usually choose an open option for most of what I do but when it comes to some mindless gaming or my phone that I use for some sensitive matters I want them limited in their scope in a big way. I don't understand this all-or-nothing argument that seems to be made when it doesn't reflect the reality of the situation.
- wvenable 6y ago
  > does not preclude another company developing open options. Agreed. But they don't. I think this the point of government intervention to require or provide incentive to do something which benefits society even if it doesn't benefit the company. Automobile safety and emissions limits comes to mind for me.
  - zepto 6y ago
    Perhaps they would if they didn’t think they could prevail through antitrust legislation.
- kodablah 6y ago
  > The logical conclusion then is that the only device that should be allowed to be manufactured is a personal computer. Nah, the capabilities can be limited, just not artificially so. I understand there is a bunch of nuance in that statement that we can get lost in discussing, but the brief salient point is "if the manufacturer can do something to my device, then they should not add restrictions for me to try to do it also". We don't need to get lost in the what-ifs that such freedom discussions often devolve into.
- jlokier 6y ago
  > The logical conclusion then is that the only device that should be allowed to be manufactured is a personal computer. I would be comfortable with a high quality legal encoding of the Your Device principle: "To the extent a device, or part of a device, behaves like a general purpose computer or could easily and reasonably be made to behave that way if not for artificial restrictions placed upon it by a vendor, the effective owner(s) of the device or part shall have the right to use and control the general purpose computer aspects as they deem appropriate." "Effective owner means those using the device as if they own it, so where a device is technically rented or licensed from a vendor, the renter or licensee is deemed the effective owner for application of this principle". Details of what that means in practice for non-obvious edge cases would be fleshed out by precedent and the courts I guess. It would not limit what devices can be manufactured, but it would place a requirement of access and control on some kinds of devices.
zepto 6y ago
This! Which is why I absolutely reject Epic et al’s position. They want to be part of a small exclusive group of store owners who get to share in the benefits of Apple’s investments. Very different from the device freedom you are calling for. It must also be said that device freedom cannot come at the cost of security and trust. I and presumably you, have the capability to make good decisions about what software to trust. Most people must delegate this to a trusted third party. I would support a legal requirement for iOS devices to have a bootcamp equivalent. That way Epic and whoever else wants to build their own platform would be free to do so.
- bogwog 6y ago
  > Which is why I absolutely reject Epic et al’s position. > They want to be part of a small exclusive group of store owners who get to share in the benefits of Apple’s investments. Can you clarify what you mean by this?
  - judge2020 6y ago
    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-epic-games/apple-says-fortnite-maker-wanted-side-letter-to-create-own-game-store-idUSKBN25H2JD https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-epic-games/apple-sa...
    - bogwog 6y ago
      I don't see how that's relevant. Epic isn't suing Apple so that they can have exclusive rights to open a second app store, they're suing to allow third-party app stores in general. If Epic wins, they aren't going to be part of a small group of store owners; anyone would be able to open their own competing store.
      - judge2020 6y ago
        So if Apple had entertained the original pre-lawsuit request, would epic have fought until Apple allowed app stores other than Epic and Apple existing?
ta8964586 6y ago
Genuinely curious, how would you give users "the freedom to stop all data collection by these devices" without some kind of walled garden. Is the solution something like flatpack for all apps? but then how do you make sure all apps don't just refuse to work without permission to collect data or manage to collect information without users knowing? You can't force developers to be honest about what their app does without having a means to prevent it from being installed. Specifically for apps, I can't think of a solution that has no restrictions of software installations, but wouldn't be trivially turned into an incredibly user hostile environment.
- vorpalhex 6y ago
  You can monitor what calls an app makes. LittleSnitch on Mac is an example example of this. There are going to be nefarious actors who still manage to bypass it, and there are going to be risks outside of a walled garden - and that's a meaningful choice we can provide users. "Hey, you can stay inside the app store and get these promises, or you can install what you want and risk X, Y and Z." Android does this.. decently well. There are issues with the google framework, but otherwise it's functional - my elderly family doesn't need me to reset their phones every month, yet I can sideload all my games and FOSS apps.
  - rodgerd 6y ago
    Did you just tell everyone not interested in being a full-time sysadmin and security specialist for their phone to go fuck themselves? Yes, I do believe you did.
  - Polylactic_acid 6y ago
    This isn't good enough. Sure you can monitor it if you have a load of time, but then what do you do when you find out its doing something evil? What do you do when you find out every app is doing something evil? You either opt out of proprietary software entirely or you let apple use their weight to force apps to stop being evil.
- Barrin92 6y ago
  > I can't think of a solution because you're only thinking of technical solutions. A comprehensive privacy framework that requires explicit user consent to data collection and gives user transparent controls accomplishes just that, without having to resort to user-hostile or complicated tech.
giantrobot 6y ago
You're not going to get open firmware. Cell phones are radio transceivers in the hands of millions of unlicensed users. The only reason any of the cellular infrastructure works is all the devices run tested and certified firmware. For most cellular basebands the PHY is more powerful and capable than the regulations would normally allow. They only get certified for consumer use because the firmware bounds the operation to the regulated envelopes. No devices would ever be allowed to be sold on the consumer market if end users could go tweak the firmware or run uncertified firmwares. They shouldn't be allowed to be sold. The difference between a transmitter and jammer is a pretty fine line.
- therealx 6y ago
  True, but anyone mildly determined can get a two year old device, 0day the baseband, and have full access. I remember old iOS exploits that gave access to the full baseband as well.
  - giantrobot 6y ago
    That's nothing at all like a consumer device being offered for sale with an intentionally tweakable baseband firmware. Getting a device certified by the FCC (and equivalents) doesn't require that the baseband firmware be 100% free or 0-day exploits. You can hack certified devices in all sorts of ways but you're then breaking the law (wrt to the radio portion) and doing so completely outside a relationship with the equipment manufacturer.
- garaetjjte 6y ago
  You can buy various SDR devices without any license, it's not hard to make jammer if you want to.
  - giantrobot 6y ago
    It's not hard to make a jammer if you're setting out to build one. The problem is when you inadvertently turn your phone into a jamming device because you tweaked some firmware settings.
mailslot 6y ago
As a developer, a huge reason I don’t mind walled gardens is the massive reduction in piracy. I’m glad people want to download & pirate the apps I poured blood, sweat, and tears into... but I’m not down with theft. Each dollar I earn represents the time I’ve spent away from friends & family. I’ve worked on games that have been copied outright. All assets and artwork, but a new name and “publisher” being sold elsewhere. It eats into profits. When the walls come down, developers will be knocked off. This will hurt indys far more than larger companies, as “developers” opportunistically exploit the work of others. Apple & Google are great at reducing and shutting down this kind of activity. If people can install the Pirate Bay store and install anything for free, many folks will. If users can be coaxed into privileging an app, malware will control the majority of phones. People are still falling for the Nigerian prince scam.
- mijamo 6y ago
  All games on computer are piratable. On mobile they are not as easy to pirate as you noticed. Do you think the gaming environment is better on mobile? Are dev better paid on mobile? From what I have seen I could answer no to both, and would even say the walled garden is really really not helping indie devs break through on mobile. I see actually many ways in which devs are impacted : - discovery is basically null, both on Android and Apple. You need to just pay ads if you want people finding your game. Steam is much MUCH better at it. - you can't really have a good mod environment or a hackable game, which is very important for a lot of indie games - you cannot do some kinds of game. Right now that include gore and sexual games (see kawaii killer for instance) but also some other things like a weed growing simulator. Who knows what it will be tomorrow - as Google is going into gaming, and who knows maybe Apple at some point, you are basically on the hands of a competitor many times your size with no alternative
  - Terretta 6y ago
    Are devs better paid on Xbox than PC? That's a closer analogy.
mullingitover 6y ago
> Device freedom is a must. Any device should be completely controllable by the end user. I have the choice of buying a completely controllable android device if I want to install mystery apps willy-nilly. I'm not interested in that, and there are millions like me. I want a locked-down device that keeps developers in check. This situation is much like the browser nightmares of the past, where Firefox users complained that the browser was slow. People didn't really take into account that the slowness wasn't fault of Firefox, but of the zillion janky browser extensions people freely installed. Chrome came along, and people were wowed by how fast it was, not realizing it was 'fast' because they hadn't installed 47 browser extensions yet. Apple doesn't want to be Firefox, and I don't blame them. I want my phone to be like a Nintendo, I don't really care about the freedom to install any random code I download (even though I really could if I wanted to install something I built locally with XCode). First and foremost I want developers to be terrified of getting their publishing privileges yanked if they step out of line.
- nwienert 6y ago
  So, let’s apply this same logic to accessibility. Let’s say the government says “devices must have voice over functionality”. Ok, great. Apple puts that as an option, and we’re done. The same applies for if the government said “you have a right to install apps of your choice”. Apple adds a setting in the settings menu. You still get your locked down device by default, and much like blind people, people who care about controlling their device are given that option, too. What you’re arguing is akin to saying, “I’m not blind, so Apple shouldn’t ever even have a Voice Over option, because it’s not my preference, even if it’s just in the settings”. There’s a false dichotomy - Apple can still keep it locked down by default. You still get your device just as safe and sound. And much like accessibility settings, most people wouldn’t bother to find the setting, and if they did, they would have a big warning (and of course Apple could have another big warning on every install, as well as keep all their sand boxing and permissions access rules active). There’s no loser here. If grandma digs deep into the settings and ignores multiple warnings, it seems she is proficient enough to take on the risk. Forcing blind people to not have any voice over because grandma may accidentally turn it on and have a bad outcome is a weak argument.
rimliu 6y ago
The common misconception of HN crowd: assumption that everyone are like them and actually want complete control. There is a nontrivial cost to having that control and not many actually want it. They want something that works and is useable.
- donmcronald 6y ago
  I don't mind if people want to pay for someone to curate their apps, but I don't see any reason developers shouldn't be able to charge those people +43% for buying through the curated app store. If there's really as much value as everyone claims then users won't have a problem paying extra, right? I also think it's crazy that IAPs are viewed as anything more than a simple payment that would incur normal payment processing fees. You'd never find anyone willing to argue that VISA or Mastercard should be able to charge 30% for payment processing because of the infrastructure they provide for merchants.
  - nodamage 6y ago
    Framing the 30% as "payment processing" is a fundamentally flawed comparison. Apple builds the entire ecosystem and suite of tools that developers use to actually make apps for the iPhone. Visa and Mastercard only provide payment processing, they don't provide the equivalent of the iOS SDKs, Xcode, the App Store, etc., to their merchants.
    - donmcronald 6y ago
      I think there's some value in that tooling for building the apps, but for IAPs Apple's not doing anything more than payment processing. There's nothing special or difficult about processing an IAP and there would be a line of competitors around the block to do it for <5% if they were allowed to.
cafed00d 6y ago
Is a car considered a "device"? Would you ride with or let your kids, family or friends get in a taxi that has been "modified" by the driver?

sneak 6y ago

If users didn’t want these things, users wouldn’t buy them. For the vast majority of people, and iPhone is way, way better than a computer that can run any app, precisely because it can’t run any app they click on. I’m a hacker, so I would love to be able to install any software I want on my iPhone, and introspect it in other ways. Most users, however, would have a way worse experience using their phone if they were given this option, because a non-trivial percentage of them would follow the tutorials online provided to them by malware authors to install their malware. This is precisely what happened to desktop computers. Has everyone forgotten about Bonsai Buddy? People who want a general purpose, configurable device that can run any code they want on it have options. They’re big, clunky, out of date phones. Apple is being punished for their success here. They happen to make the best phone hardware at the moment, and they bundle the best phone hardware with cryptographically-enforced editorial decisions about the best software that runs on it. I think the real danger here is that of censorship: if the state commands Apple to delete (or actively remote-disable) certain apps, a huge problem exists. Today it’s WeChat or TikTok. What if tomorrow it’s Signal? iMessage’s encryption has already been backdoored for the feds in the default configuration via iCloud Backup (which is not end to end encrypted and backs up the entirety of chat history from the device to Apple each night). The state could literally command Apple to prohibit any type of secure communication from the device via this method and they’d have to comply, and iPhone-owners would have no recourse due to the DRM. That’s the real danger. There’s a real argument to not allowing Apple to do this, but I don’t think “consumer choice” is it. Consumer choice chose the walled garden over the anarchy of Desktop Computer Malware.

bad_good_guy 6y ago
Its a lot simpler than users wanting a device that 'cant run any app they click on'. The vast vast majority of users don't consider anything except the marketing. And apple is good at marketing. So people want iOS devices.
- pb7 6y ago
  Marketing only works for the first generation of purchases. Apple has the highest consumer satisfaction ratings year after year so when a new product comes out, consumers know they will get a product they will be really happy with. That is not the case with many other companies.
- Razengan 6y ago
  > The vast vast majority of users don't consider anything except the marketing. If marketing was all that mattered, and Apple's products were actually disappointing, they would not have repeat customers or high satisfaction after the purchase: https://www.macrumors.com/2020/09/22/apple-tops-customer-satisfaction-charts/ https://www.macrumors.com/2020/09/22/apple-tops-customer-sat... and please, stop speaking for a "vast vast majority" of people, as if you're an authority on why other people do what they do.
damnyou 6y ago
Yes, this is partly about Apple being "punished" for its success. That is a good thing. Entities that are too successful become too powerful and should be "punished" for it.
flenserboy 6y ago
Apple's advertising is built on security and privacy — allowing other App Stores on their system would only open up users to invasive tracking & attacks. I want my desktop system to be open as can be; I'm perfectly happy with my phone being (somewhat) locked down. That said, Apple could allow users to choose to install other App Stores on their devices, but at the cost of their devices being considered hopelessly compromised and no longer eligible for support from Apple. Let the market decide: a wider variety of games/apps, or a (fairly) secure system with attached privacy promises.

52-6F-62 6y ago

The logical conclusion then is that the only device that should be allowed to be manufactured is a personal computer. Companies producing specialized hardware/software couplings does not preclude another company developing open options. I usually choose an open option for most of what I do but when it comes to some mindless gaming or my phone that I use for some sensitive matters I want them limited in their scope in a big way. I don't understand this all-or-nothing argument that seems to be made when it doesn't reflect the reality of the situation.

wvenable 6y ago
> does not preclude another company developing open options. Agreed. But they don't. I think this the point of government intervention to require or provide incentive to do something which benefits society even if it doesn't benefit the company. Automobile safety and emissions limits comes to mind for me.
- zepto 6y ago
  Perhaps they would if they didn’t think they could prevail through antitrust legislation.
kodablah 6y ago
> The logical conclusion then is that the only device that should be allowed to be manufactured is a personal computer. Nah, the capabilities can be limited, just not artificially so. I understand there is a bunch of nuance in that statement that we can get lost in discussing, but the brief salient point is "if the manufacturer can do something to my device, then they should not add restrictions for me to try to do it also". We don't need to get lost in the what-ifs that such freedom discussions often devolve into.
jlokier 6y ago
> The logical conclusion then is that the only device that should be allowed to be manufactured is a personal computer. I would be comfortable with a high quality legal encoding of the Your Device principle: "To the extent a device, or part of a device, behaves like a general purpose computer or could easily and reasonably be made to behave that way if not for artificial restrictions placed upon it by a vendor, the effective owner(s) of the device or part shall have the right to use and control the general purpose computer aspects as they deem appropriate." "Effective owner means those using the device as if they own it, so where a device is technically rented or licensed from a vendor, the renter or licensee is deemed the effective owner for application of this principle". Details of what that means in practice for non-obvious edge cases would be fleshed out by precedent and the courts I guess. It would not limit what devices can be manufactured, but it would place a requirement of access and control on some kinds of devices.

zepto 6y ago

This! Which is why I absolutely reject Epic et al’s position. They want to be part of a small exclusive group of store owners who get to share in the benefits of Apple’s investments. Very different from the device freedom you are calling for. It must also be said that device freedom cannot come at the cost of security and trust. I and presumably you, have the capability to make good decisions about what software to trust. Most people must delegate this to a trusted third party. I would support a legal requirement for iOS devices to have a bootcamp equivalent. That way Epic and whoever else wants to build their own platform would be free to do so.

bogwog 6y ago
> Which is why I absolutely reject Epic et al’s position. > They want to be part of a small exclusive group of store owners who get to share in the benefits of Apple’s investments. Can you clarify what you mean by this?
- judge2020 6y ago
  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-epic-games/apple-says-fortnite-maker-wanted-side-letter-to-create-own-game-store-idUSKBN25H2JD https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-epic-games/apple-sa...
  - bogwog 6y ago
    I don't see how that's relevant. Epic isn't suing Apple so that they can have exclusive rights to open a second app store, they're suing to allow third-party app stores in general. If Epic wins, they aren't going to be part of a small group of store owners; anyone would be able to open their own competing store.
    - judge2020 6y ago
      So if Apple had entertained the original pre-lawsuit request, would epic have fought until Apple allowed app stores other than Epic and Apple existing?

ta8964586 6y ago

Genuinely curious, how would you give users "the freedom to stop all data collection by these devices" without some kind of walled garden. Is the solution something like flatpack for all apps? but then how do you make sure all apps don't just refuse to work without permission to collect data or manage to collect information without users knowing? You can't force developers to be honest about what their app does without having a means to prevent it from being installed. Specifically for apps, I can't think of a solution that has no restrictions of software installations, but wouldn't be trivially turned into an incredibly user hostile environment.

vorpalhex 6y ago
You can monitor what calls an app makes. LittleSnitch on Mac is an example example of this. There are going to be nefarious actors who still manage to bypass it, and there are going to be risks outside of a walled garden - and that's a meaningful choice we can provide users. "Hey, you can stay inside the app store and get these promises, or you can install what you want and risk X, Y and Z." Android does this.. decently well. There are issues with the google framework, but otherwise it's functional - my elderly family doesn't need me to reset their phones every month, yet I can sideload all my games and FOSS apps.
- rodgerd 6y ago
  Did you just tell everyone not interested in being a full-time sysadmin and security specialist for their phone to go fuck themselves? Yes, I do believe you did.
- Polylactic_acid 6y ago
  This isn't good enough. Sure you can monitor it if you have a load of time, but then what do you do when you find out its doing something evil? What do you do when you find out every app is doing something evil? You either opt out of proprietary software entirely or you let apple use their weight to force apps to stop being evil.
Barrin92 6y ago
> I can't think of a solution because you're only thinking of technical solutions. A comprehensive privacy framework that requires explicit user consent to data collection and gives user transparent controls accomplishes just that, without having to resort to user-hostile or complicated tech.

giantrobot 6y ago

You're not going to get open firmware. Cell phones are radio transceivers in the hands of millions of unlicensed users. The only reason any of the cellular infrastructure works is all the devices run tested and certified firmware. For most cellular basebands the PHY is more powerful and capable than the regulations would normally allow. They only get certified for consumer use because the firmware bounds the operation to the regulated envelopes. No devices would ever be allowed to be sold on the consumer market if end users could go tweak the firmware or run uncertified firmwares. They shouldn't be allowed to be sold. The difference between a transmitter and jammer is a pretty fine line.

therealx 6y ago
True, but anyone mildly determined can get a two year old device, 0day the baseband, and have full access. I remember old iOS exploits that gave access to the full baseband as well.
- giantrobot 6y ago
  That's nothing at all like a consumer device being offered for sale with an intentionally tweakable baseband firmware. Getting a device certified by the FCC (and equivalents) doesn't require that the baseband firmware be 100% free or 0-day exploits. You can hack certified devices in all sorts of ways but you're then breaking the law (wrt to the radio portion) and doing so completely outside a relationship with the equipment manufacturer.
garaetjjte 6y ago
You can buy various SDR devices without any license, it's not hard to make jammer if you want to.
- giantrobot 6y ago
  It's not hard to make a jammer if you're setting out to build one. The problem is when you inadvertently turn your phone into a jamming device because you tweaked some firmware settings.

mailslot 6y ago

As a developer, a huge reason I don’t mind walled gardens is the massive reduction in piracy. I’m glad people want to download & pirate the apps I poured blood, sweat, and tears into... but I’m not down with theft. Each dollar I earn represents the time I’ve spent away from friends & family. I’ve worked on games that have been copied outright. All assets and artwork, but a new name and “publisher” being sold elsewhere. It eats into profits. When the walls come down, developers will be knocked off. This will hurt indys far more than larger companies, as “developers” opportunistically exploit the work of others. Apple & Google are great at reducing and shutting down this kind of activity. If people can install the Pirate Bay store and install anything for free, many folks will. If users can be coaxed into privileging an app, malware will control the majority of phones. People are still falling for the Nigerian prince scam.

mijamo 6y ago
All games on computer are piratable. On mobile they are not as easy to pirate as you noticed. Do you think the gaming environment is better on mobile? Are dev better paid on mobile? From what I have seen I could answer no to both, and would even say the walled garden is really really not helping indie devs break through on mobile. I see actually many ways in which devs are impacted : - discovery is basically null, both on Android and Apple. You need to just pay ads if you want people finding your game. Steam is much MUCH better at it. - you can't really have a good mod environment or a hackable game, which is very important for a lot of indie games - you cannot do some kinds of game. Right now that include gore and sexual games (see kawaii killer for instance) but also some other things like a weed growing simulator. Who knows what it will be tomorrow - as Google is going into gaming, and who knows maybe Apple at some point, you are basically on the hands of a competitor many times your size with no alternative
- Terretta 6y ago
  Are devs better paid on Xbox than PC? That's a closer analogy.

mullingitover 6y ago

> Device freedom is a must. Any device should be completely controllable by the end user. I have the choice of buying a completely controllable android device if I want to install mystery apps willy-nilly. I'm not interested in that, and there are millions like me. I want a locked-down device that keeps developers in check. This situation is much like the browser nightmares of the past, where Firefox users complained that the browser was slow. People didn't really take into account that the slowness wasn't fault of Firefox, but of the zillion janky browser extensions people freely installed. Chrome came along, and people were wowed by how fast it was, not realizing it was 'fast' because they hadn't installed 47 browser extensions yet. Apple doesn't want to be Firefox, and I don't blame them. I want my phone to be like a Nintendo, I don't really care about the freedom to install any random code I download (even though I really could if I wanted to install something I built locally with XCode). First and foremost I want developers to be terrified of getting their publishing privileges yanked if they step out of line.

nwienert 6y ago
So, let’s apply this same logic to accessibility. Let’s say the government says “devices must have voice over functionality”. Ok, great. Apple puts that as an option, and we’re done. The same applies for if the government said “you have a right to install apps of your choice”. Apple adds a setting in the settings menu. You still get your locked down device by default, and much like blind people, people who care about controlling their device are given that option, too. What you’re arguing is akin to saying, “I’m not blind, so Apple shouldn’t ever even have a Voice Over option, because it’s not my preference, even if it’s just in the settings”. There’s a false dichotomy - Apple can still keep it locked down by default. You still get your device just as safe and sound. And much like accessibility settings, most people wouldn’t bother to find the setting, and if they did, they would have a big warning (and of course Apple could have another big warning on every install, as well as keep all their sand boxing and permissions access rules active). There’s no loser here. If grandma digs deep into the settings and ignores multiple warnings, it seems she is proficient enough to take on the risk. Forcing blind people to not have any voice over because grandma may accidentally turn it on and have a bad outcome is a weak argument.

rimliu 6y ago

The common misconception of HN crowd: assumption that everyone are like them and actually want complete control. There is a nontrivial cost to having that control and not many actually want it. They want something that works and is useable.

donmcronald 6y ago
I don't mind if people want to pay for someone to curate their apps, but I don't see any reason developers shouldn't be able to charge those people +43% for buying through the curated app store. If there's really as much value as everyone claims then users won't have a problem paying extra, right? I also think it's crazy that IAPs are viewed as anything more than a simple payment that would incur normal payment processing fees. You'd never find anyone willing to argue that VISA or Mastercard should be able to charge 30% for payment processing because of the infrastructure they provide for merchants.
- nodamage 6y ago
  Framing the 30% as "payment processing" is a fundamentally flawed comparison. Apple builds the entire ecosystem and suite of tools that developers use to actually make apps for the iPhone. Visa and Mastercard only provide payment processing, they don't provide the equivalent of the iOS SDKs, Xcode, the App Store, etc., to their merchants.
  - donmcronald 6y ago
    I think there's some value in that tooling for building the apps, but for IAPs Apple's not doing anything more than payment processing. There's nothing special or difficult about processing an IAP and there would be a line of competitors around the block to do it for <5% if they were allowed to.

cafed00d 6y ago

Is a car considered a "device"? Would you ride with or let your kids, family or friends get in a taxi that has been "modified" by the driver?