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I'm surprised at all of the negativity here. The changes proposed would be great for developers, even if (most) of the companies involved are shady, their reaso

I'm surprised at all of the negativity here. The changes proposed would be great for developers, even if (most) of the companies involved are shady, their reasons are selfish, and the obvious "astroturfiness" of the website is laughably dissonant and reeks like a dirty think tank that hasn't been cleaned in months. Apple has no qualms about absolutely screwing developers historically. I'm happy to see some pushback.

tmotwu 6y ago
Not exactly sure if it's astroturfing, but there's definitely been a lot of non-devs commenting on this issue. You can see this when they go off on some security tangent while the App Store is in fact host to thousands of malware in disguise. They trust that Apple is manually reviewing each and every App for security holes, that's why the App Store exists in the first place and totally why there's a 30% toll. I'm starting to imagine it's not really about security but about the illusion of security for a lot of people.
- temp667 6y ago
  "illusion"? It's relative security. On the iphone, if I buy a used phone and a scammer has popped a cheapo battery in to show no battery life slow down - apple alerts me (also unpopular on HN BTW). If I buy an android phone from most carriers, their "security" involved pre-loading it with unremovable adware and tracking apps. This is more secure - are you serious? The google play store has less malware? The permissions process for android apps has been terrible. With apple, I can now give apps access to specific photos in my camera roll, it works great. It alerts me to folks doing background tracking and makes it easy to turn off (even after I said yes earlier). What's nuts is that developers don't understand why consumers benefit or like this and want the DOJ to blow open this little bubble of sanity so they can push their crapware through or their auto-billing app stores through.
  - tmotwu 6y ago
    In the meantime, nothing stops a scammer from selling you a jailbroken device. App permissioning has nothing to do with the App Store and it's hostile policies towards developers. You can set the same permissioning rules on rival devices as well. The false narrative that the App Store exists to protect you needs to be dispelled forever. The trust consumers have to install any App in the App Store is far more terrifying.
    - temp667 6y ago
      Apple as an ecosystem that emphasizes trust. They believe they can charge a premium for this. Whether you think this should be "dispelled forever" is up to you - feel free to market your carriers phone however you want. The app store, as the method that pricing, refunds, subscriptions etc are handled, is part of this story of trust or lack of trust. And yes - apple does review use of permission by developers upon submission. Want to use a touch bar api, they may ask you to show how that feature is used in app (third party libs would use these features to help fingerprint machines etc). The irony - we've had people here complaining about how unfair it was their app was rejected (often because they link without knowing to some scam monetization library that abuses or tries to abuse apis). What is incredible is that developers on HN seem to have no clue why people actually like what apple does. For example, when they notified you that you had a non-genuine battery - that was met with HN outrage. When they did things that made replacing certain key security sensitive parts harder (finger print sensor for unlock etc) - again outrage, and apparently they figured out a way to make it easier without losing security. The name of the game these days is trust. Do you trust you telecom to ship a bloat free phone? Apple? The folks who have that trust are going to be able to charge a premium and gain more control. The desire to have consumers installing any app from anywhere on the web that you can browse to using the web browser is FAR FAR more terrifying - but is what HN comments push over and over. Reality - when it comes time to buy their kids a phone, these same outraged HN folks - buy their kids an iphone :)
      - spideymans 6y ago
        >What is incredible is that developers on HN seem to have no clue why people actually like what apple does. "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair.
- Udik 6y ago
  Security and privacy are just like those 200 metres waterproof watches they were selling in the '80s. Most people who bought them hardly went deeper than their bathtub. You buy the concept, and caring about the expensive details is a nice signal of affluence and self-esteem (I deserve this much security & privacy).
  - nerfhammer 6y ago
    tangent, but that 200M rated depth matters even if you don't go deep underwater because it's only rated for static pressure, i.e. when the device/water aren't moving. Thrashing your arm around underwater will create momentary pressures much greater than the static pressure of a few feet of water. The temporary pressure from a wave at the beach hitting you can easily ruin a 50M watch.
- dang 6y ago
  Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing. That's in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Unless people have specific evidence, the overwhelming majority of the time, these perceptions turn out to be illusory. Other commenters having different views than one's own does not constitute specific evidence (or rather, it's evidence merely that a topic is divisive). Plenty of past explanation here: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=astroturf%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
actuator 6y ago
I have also been really surprised with the whole debate on this saga here. For developers, this looks like such a no brainer because they should personally relate to what these companies are asking for.
- zepto 6y ago
  None of this would be great for developers. Having to deal with a multitude of stores run by companies that are even shadier than Apple is not good.
  - Aldo_MX 6y ago
    Then don't install the other stores. (That's how people who say "then don't use Apple devices" sounds like).
    - zepto 6y ago
      That sounds like you conceding that it would be a bad situation. One can think that the current situation has problems and also see that the remedy will make things much worse. These are not in contradiction.
      - Aldo_MX 6y ago
        Not having choices is a bad situation. I would be surprised if you thought otherwise. Imagine not being able to ditch the App Store the way publishers have done so in the Mac App Store: https://bohemiancoding.tumblr.com/post/134322691555/leaving-the-mac-app-store https://bohemiancoding.tumblr.com/post/134322691555/leaving-... https://panic.com/blog/coda-2-5-and-the-mac-app-store/ https://panic.com/blog/coda-2-5-and-the-mac-app-store/ https://sixcolors.com/post/2014/10/bbedit-at-max-q/ https://sixcolors.com/post/2014/10/bbedit-at-max-q/ Imagine an App Store update breaking all of your apps: https://techcrunch.com/2015/11/18/apple-acknowledges-mac-app-store-issue-that-caused-apps-to-stop-working-details-fixes/ https://techcrunch.com/2015/11/18/apple-acknowledges-mac-app... The App Store approach basically gives you 1 choice if you're uneasy with the status quo: To get out.
clansimus 6y ago
Because "great for developers" just shouldn't matter. It should be about what the consumers want.
- tombert 6y ago
  A worse time for developers means worse apps, worse apps means less-happy consumers. They aren't mutually exclusive.
  - dodobirdlord 6y ago
    It doesn’t follow at all that a worse time for developers means worse apps or less-happy consumers. Any time Apple enforces any kind of standard it’s “worse for developers”. I’m sure lots of developers are annoyed with Apple’s approach to fine-grained and highly visible app permissions, and wish they could just have full access to the user’s device. Screwing those people over is obviously good.
    - stephc_int13 6y ago
      As a developer I am happy that the end-user can trust the platform, this is always better for business. I think it should be rephrased in this way: what is good for the ecosystem is good for the end-users.
      - judge2020 6y ago
        And the execs at $adtech23 are absolutely furious about that; maybe the developers too, since it makes their job harder.
    - tombert 6y ago
      > It doesn’t follow at all that a worse time for developers means worse apps or less-happy consumers Sure, it's not guaranteed to be a net positive for consumers but it's correlated. Admittedly not exactly the same, but the Sega Saturn had trouble attracting developers because it was really difficult to develop on, despite the hardware being pretty good. As a result, people who bought a Saturn ended up getting fewer and worse versions of games. I agree that they shouldn't necessarily always always do everything to appeal to developers, there's a balance, and I'm not suggesting that we get rid of community guidelines and the like, I'm just saying that the more difficult it is for a developer (or anyone) to do something, the less likely they are to do a good job at it, if they do it at at all. Worse apps means a worse experience.
fanatic2pope 6y ago
Support for Epic never took root on HN because techno-entrepreneurs see themselves not as mere fart app developers but as temporarily embarrassed billionaire monopolists.
- mrguyorama 6y ago
  I support opening up Apple's ecosystem, but I don't support Epic. They say they want to give user's the freedom to choose, yet they took a video game I purchased away from my chosen storefront (rocket league being taken off of steam) Where's my user choice Epic?
  - baby 6y ago
    rocket league is going free to play so I guess your wish is becoming reality :)
    - threeseed 6y ago
      Doesn't negate the point. Epic would have exclusives not available on other stores.
  - boring_twenties 6y ago
    Google does the same shit. I bought Shadowrun: Dragonfall from the Play Store and it was later removed without any warning or trace. Not coincidentally, that was the last money I will ever spend on the Play Store.
- threeseed 6y ago
  Support for Epic never took root anywhere. Because everyone can see Epic for what they are: a billion dollar company who wants their own monopoly. Do you think Fortnite will be available on competing stores ?
  - hnra 6y ago
    > Do you think Fortnite will be available on competing stores? The play store seems to indicate this to be the case. Epic released Fortnite on both their own store, and the play store no?

tmotwu 6y ago

Not exactly sure if it's astroturfing, but there's definitely been a lot of non-devs commenting on this issue. You can see this when they go off on some security tangent while the App Store is in fact host to thousands of malware in disguise. They trust that Apple is manually reviewing each and every App for security holes, that's why the App Store exists in the first place and totally why there's a 30% toll. I'm starting to imagine it's not really about security but about the illusion of security for a lot of people.

temp667 6y ago
"illusion"? It's relative security. On the iphone, if I buy a used phone and a scammer has popped a cheapo battery in to show no battery life slow down - apple alerts me (also unpopular on HN BTW). If I buy an android phone from most carriers, their "security" involved pre-loading it with unremovable adware and tracking apps. This is more secure - are you serious? The google play store has less malware? The permissions process for android apps has been terrible. With apple, I can now give apps access to specific photos in my camera roll, it works great. It alerts me to folks doing background tracking and makes it easy to turn off (even after I said yes earlier). What's nuts is that developers don't understand why consumers benefit or like this and want the DOJ to blow open this little bubble of sanity so they can push their crapware through or their auto-billing app stores through.
- tmotwu 6y ago
  In the meantime, nothing stops a scammer from selling you a jailbroken device. App permissioning has nothing to do with the App Store and it's hostile policies towards developers. You can set the same permissioning rules on rival devices as well. The false narrative that the App Store exists to protect you needs to be dispelled forever. The trust consumers have to install any App in the App Store is far more terrifying.
  - temp667 6y ago
    Apple as an ecosystem that emphasizes trust. They believe they can charge a premium for this. Whether you think this should be "dispelled forever" is up to you - feel free to market your carriers phone however you want. The app store, as the method that pricing, refunds, subscriptions etc are handled, is part of this story of trust or lack of trust. And yes - apple does review use of permission by developers upon submission. Want to use a touch bar api, they may ask you to show how that feature is used in app (third party libs would use these features to help fingerprint machines etc). The irony - we've had people here complaining about how unfair it was their app was rejected (often because they link without knowing to some scam monetization library that abuses or tries to abuse apis). What is incredible is that developers on HN seem to have no clue why people actually like what apple does. For example, when they notified you that you had a non-genuine battery - that was met with HN outrage. When they did things that made replacing certain key security sensitive parts harder (finger print sensor for unlock etc) - again outrage, and apparently they figured out a way to make it easier without losing security. The name of the game these days is trust. Do you trust you telecom to ship a bloat free phone? Apple? The folks who have that trust are going to be able to charge a premium and gain more control. The desire to have consumers installing any app from anywhere on the web that you can browse to using the web browser is FAR FAR more terrifying - but is what HN comments push over and over. Reality - when it comes time to buy their kids a phone, these same outraged HN folks - buy their kids an iphone :)
    - spideymans 6y ago
      >What is incredible is that developers on HN seem to have no clue why people actually like what apple does. "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair.
Udik 6y ago
Security and privacy are just like those 200 metres waterproof watches they were selling in the '80s. Most people who bought them hardly went deeper than their bathtub. You buy the concept, and caring about the expensive details is a nice signal of affluence and self-esteem (I deserve this much security & privacy).
- nerfhammer 6y ago
  tangent, but that 200M rated depth matters even if you don't go deep underwater because it's only rated for static pressure, i.e. when the device/water aren't moving. Thrashing your arm around underwater will create momentary pressures much greater than the static pressure of a few feet of water. The temporary pressure from a wave at the beach hitting you can easily ruin a 50M watch.
dang 6y ago
Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing. That's in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Unless people have specific evidence, the overwhelming majority of the time, these perceptions turn out to be illusory. Other commenters having different views than one's own does not constitute specific evidence (or rather, it's evidence merely that a topic is divisive). Plenty of past explanation here: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=astroturf%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

actuator 6y ago

I have also been really surprised with the whole debate on this saga here. For developers, this looks like such a no brainer because they should personally relate to what these companies are asking for.

zepto 6y ago
None of this would be great for developers. Having to deal with a multitude of stores run by companies that are even shadier than Apple is not good.
- Aldo_MX 6y ago
  Then don't install the other stores. (That's how people who say "then don't use Apple devices" sounds like).
  - zepto 6y ago
    That sounds like you conceding that it would be a bad situation. One can think that the current situation has problems and also see that the remedy will make things much worse. These are not in contradiction.
    - Aldo_MX 6y ago
      Not having choices is a bad situation. I would be surprised if you thought otherwise. Imagine not being able to ditch the App Store the way publishers have done so in the Mac App Store: https://bohemiancoding.tumblr.com/post/134322691555/leaving-the-mac-app-store https://bohemiancoding.tumblr.com/post/134322691555/leaving-... https://panic.com/blog/coda-2-5-and-the-mac-app-store/ https://panic.com/blog/coda-2-5-and-the-mac-app-store/ https://sixcolors.com/post/2014/10/bbedit-at-max-q/ https://sixcolors.com/post/2014/10/bbedit-at-max-q/ Imagine an App Store update breaking all of your apps: https://techcrunch.com/2015/11/18/apple-acknowledges-mac-app-store-issue-that-caused-apps-to-stop-working-details-fixes/ https://techcrunch.com/2015/11/18/apple-acknowledges-mac-app... The App Store approach basically gives you 1 choice if you're uneasy with the status quo: To get out.

clansimus 6y ago

Because "great for developers" just shouldn't matter. It should be about what the consumers want.

tombert 6y ago
A worse time for developers means worse apps, worse apps means less-happy consumers. They aren't mutually exclusive.
- dodobirdlord 6y ago
  It doesn’t follow at all that a worse time for developers means worse apps or less-happy consumers. Any time Apple enforces any kind of standard it’s “worse for developers”. I’m sure lots of developers are annoyed with Apple’s approach to fine-grained and highly visible app permissions, and wish they could just have full access to the user’s device. Screwing those people over is obviously good.
  - stephc_int13 6y ago
    As a developer I am happy that the end-user can trust the platform, this is always better for business. I think it should be rephrased in this way: what is good for the ecosystem is good for the end-users.
    - judge2020 6y ago
      And the execs at $adtech23 are absolutely furious about that; maybe the developers too, since it makes their job harder.
  - tombert 6y ago
    > It doesn’t follow at all that a worse time for developers means worse apps or less-happy consumers Sure, it's not guaranteed to be a net positive for consumers but it's correlated. Admittedly not exactly the same, but the Sega Saturn had trouble attracting developers because it was really difficult to develop on, despite the hardware being pretty good. As a result, people who bought a Saturn ended up getting fewer and worse versions of games. I agree that they shouldn't necessarily always always do everything to appeal to developers, there's a balance, and I'm not suggesting that we get rid of community guidelines and the like, I'm just saying that the more difficult it is for a developer (or anyone) to do something, the less likely they are to do a good job at it, if they do it at at all. Worse apps means a worse experience.

fanatic2pope 6y ago

Support for Epic never took root on HN because techno-entrepreneurs see themselves not as mere fart app developers but as temporarily embarrassed billionaire monopolists.

mrguyorama 6y ago
I support opening up Apple's ecosystem, but I don't support Epic. They say they want to give user's the freedom to choose, yet they took a video game I purchased away from my chosen storefront (rocket league being taken off of steam) Where's my user choice Epic?
- baby 6y ago
  rocket league is going free to play so I guess your wish is becoming reality :)
  - threeseed 6y ago
    Doesn't negate the point. Epic would have exclusives not available on other stores.
- boring_twenties 6y ago
  Google does the same shit. I bought Shadowrun: Dragonfall from the Play Store and it was later removed without any warning or trace. Not coincidentally, that was the last money I will ever spend on the Play Store.
threeseed 6y ago
Support for Epic never took root anywhere. Because everyone can see Epic for what they are: a billion dollar company who wants their own monopoly. Do you think Fortnite will be available on competing stores ?
- hnra 6y ago
  > Do you think Fortnite will be available on competing stores? The play store seems to indicate this to be the case. Epic released Fortnite on both their own store, and the play store no?