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I can hardly wait to use Amazon App Store to install Amazon and then open up the Epic Game Store to install random game and then open up EA Game Store to instal

• SCHiM 6y ago
  You install those yourself you know. I'd rather have a choice than not. I feel your pain in the sense that that I think user UX will take a hit, but I think that's less important than breaking the monopoly of the current app store. For example, I can't find apps with pornography or other types of things the high overlords at apple or Google have deemed inappropriate for me to have. That's bad. Apparently apps like Matrix fall under that category. It'd be nice if I can choose what I want to see.
  • BrianGragg 6y ago
    The problem is the choice is taken away from you though. Just like he said with the game market. If you want to play Game A, you go and download/install Game A's publishing app store. If you want to then play Game B, rinse and repeat. You will be forced to use so many different app stores and won't have a choice to NOT use their app store "IF" it progresses like it has on the desktop. No proof it will/won't either.
    • reader_mode 6y ago
      Meh - eventually things work out for the best of the consumers most of the time - for eg. epic game store just gave a bunch of titles free no strings attached a while ago, EA store used to have free stuff as well. End of the day you have to have enough value to get people to inconvenience themselves - I'd rather that this value gets shelled out to users as enticement to install some app store than Apple capturing that money simply because their store is the only one allowed to exist on the platform.
      • deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      • ntsplnkv2 6y ago
        This is short-sighted. The App Store is good because it is closed and curated. That's a main driver of the product experience. Removing the App Store irrecoverably damages the iPhone - a curated, non-malware infested, high quality phone with a consistent experience. I have yet to see any argument how the App Store harms consumers. It helps developers make more money (Play Store revenue is half that of the App store's apps), it helps consumers stay protected from malware infested applications and is easy to use. Where, exactly, is the harm? Now Epic with their gambling games will be able to rip off kids even more in their own store? Fantastic.
        • AttakBanana 6y ago
          Um, the harm is 30% more expensive apps. If devs can't avoid the cut, its only going to get passed down to the user.
          • katbyte 6y ago
            how is it 30% more expensive apps when the play store, ps4 store, xbox store all take the same amount?
            • AttakBanana 6y ago
  • ekianjo 6y ago
    > You install those yourself you know. I'd rather have a choice than not. yes and No. When some games are "exclusives" to a certain store, if you want to play such games you end up having to install every store in existence which is not very consumer friendly. It would be better for stores to have every game possible, just like at the time of good old physical retail. It's not like there were Wallmart exclusive games, right? But to be fair, devs are almost as much to blame as store owners for this situation.
    • afavour 6y ago
      > When some games are "exclusives" to a certain store, if you want to play such games you end up having to install every store in existence Then don't! You don't need that game. If you and other gamers want to make a stand against the crazy number of stores just refuse to install them. Unless you do that the store owners know your complaints aren't going to amount to a thing.
      • ekianjo 6y ago
        > Then don't! You don't need that game I think you fail to understand conflicting interests. Devs and Publishers do everything to hype up game releases, and Store Owners buy exclusivity to bring people to their platforms. Even if I restrict my own choice, my vote ultimately does not matter: these perverse incentives are at play, and make life suck for every end user involved.
    • rbtprograms 6y ago
      I highly doubt that devs are the ones who make the decision to put everything behind the walled garden of an entirely separate app store. Although I would agree that devs do shoulder some of the blame for relying on electron and other such technologies for building these things.
      • ekianjo 6y ago
        > who make the decision to put everything behind the walled garden of an entirely separate app store Devs or Publishers, but devs can also self-publish when they are indies anyway. Epic Store is famously buying timed exclusives - we have seen ShenMue 3 for example exclusive for one year on EGS depiste a kickstarter campaign where they promised a release on Steam on Day 1. Devs/Publishers were clearly to blame there: they decided to ignore their supporters and go for the big bag of Epic money instead.
  • babypuncher 6y ago
    You won't have a choice when some critical service you use moves to a third party app store in order to avoid Apple's new privacy policy.
  • jpttsn 6y ago
    Wouldn’t Apple just ban you from installing the Porn Store? Or do you think Epic will make them allow any and all alternative app stores?
    • CivBase 6y ago
      If Apple allows you to install alternative app stores, I assume that means they allow you to "side load" apps. If that's the case, Apple can't really ban you from installing anything.
      • jpttsn 6y ago
        So they would be unable to ban the Pirate Bay Store, the Scamcoin Drug Store, the Cracked Epic Games Store, the Tiananmen 1989 Store?
        • CivBase 6y ago
          They could, of course, ban third-party stores from their own app distribution platforms. Otherwise, I imagine not, in the same way that most other general purpose operating systems cannot "ban" things like that. I suppose they could require all apps to be signed and subject to remote signature verification before the OS lets you install them.
          • LexGray 6y ago
            This sort of banning is the very thing Epic appears to be trying to prevent. I would guess their legal endgame is to forbid anyone but government agencies impending a store for any reason. Once this is in place there will be no legal way prevent Apple from securing devices from bad actors in the store space. Edit: In this scenario I am guessing it will not be Apple, but the government who will need to step in and sell store licenses to prevent illegal content... so yay for bribed big government over authoritarian Apple.
  • ricardobayes 6y ago
    Freedom of choice is an illusion, with the advance of megacorporations, even so. They will choose for you.
  • cafed00d 6y ago
    > It'd be nice if I can choose what I want to see. Have I got news for you?! You can choose exactly what you want to see. There's a very cool "App Store" on your iPhone right now. Somebody in marketing named it "Safari" -- IKR! pfft; -- Safari is one of the best App Stores out there. It has this neat interface called "URLs" where you "search" for Apps and apparently they run on this HTML5 voodoo magic; which is a set of open standards, run by the open committees (W3C); and here's the best part -- JavaScript! Yes! No more pesky Xcode tooling and Objective C and Swift and C++. Bleh!
    • judge2020 6y ago
      You can even hit the share button then 'add to home screen' if you want easy access to the site without the URL bar (at least for PWAs; regular sites will just open a safari tab).
    • colejohnson66 6y ago
      I know this is a joke comment, but isn’t JavaScript supposed to be the joke language here on HN, not Objective-C/Swift?
  • malka 6y ago
    I'd rather Amazon, EA, Blizzard & cie have no choice.
  • outworlder 6y ago
    > I'd rather have a choice than not. You don't have a choice with many of them. Some publishers force you to use a particular store. It's not only about which app gets installed. It's also who is tracking what you own. If tomorrow EA decides that the store should be gone, what happens to all the money you spent on their store? Of course, a similar argument could be made for Apple's own store, but they have more incentives to keep that up. If purchased assets would be treated like phone numbers that you can port to another carrier, then that would be great. Steam supports that (obviously just to 'import' games, not to 'export').
  • pedroma 6y ago
    Have you looked into PWAs? Sounds like they'd fit your use case.
  • ucm_edge 6y ago
    Just having that choice though includes a cost. When everyone is forced onto the app store, Apple can censor as you point out, it can demand high percentages on in app transactions, and plenty of other negative things. But it can also demand certain behavior standards, easily deplatform people who abuse (in Apple's eyes) things like tracking (like when they revoked Facebook's cert in 2019), etc. The minute you open up to multiple stores, much of that control is gone or reduced. Or at least limited. After all Apple also nuked Zoom's webserver off all OS X boxes in 2019 so I'm sure they could kill things via iOS updates. As a more mundane issue, if now content is segregated across N store fronts, that's now N passwords I need to track, N potential places that my credit card can be stolen from, N stores I need up install, log into, and download apps from when I get a new iOS device, etc. I as a user do lose a lot of quality of life tweaks the moment balkanization of store fronts can occur. I as a consumer do feel I benefit from Apple being able to tell app providers "We have about 40% of the market on our devices and if you want to interact with them, it's our way or the highway. So if you want to sell to them, you will meet or exceed these standards, there are no other options." Ideally this standard setting would be set by a neutral entity like say a government and applied equally across all personal devices, but US privacy regulations are a joke so basically I'm stuck hoping that Apple continues to see value in branding themselves as the more secure and private phone (I'm suddenly nostalgic for Blackberry). You always have the recourse of buying an Android and side loading if you want total freedom.
  • jquery 6y ago
    >I'd rather have a choice than not. Then get an Android if you like that experience?
• onion2k 6y ago
  I hate the fact I have to use Apple TV to watch Servant, Disney+ to watch The Mandalorian, Netflix to watch Stranger Things, and Amazon Prime Video to watch The Boys, and HBO to watch Game of Thrones, and so on. I'd much rather all of those other companies gave Apple a 30% cut of their revenue.
  • calciphus 6y ago
    I'm confused by your statement. Why should those companies give 30% to Apple? Also, many already do.
    • jonny_eh 6y ago
      Maybe they're being sarcastic? I can't tell.
  • ChrisLTD 6y ago
    It'd be nice if these companies could come to an agreement, but 30% seems to be too high a cut.
    • valparaiso 6y ago
      Do you have any research why 30% is high and 20% is OK?
  • dkonofalski 6y ago
    I was arguing with someone earlier today about the "sweetheart" deal that Amazon supposedly got from Apple and it cracks me up that we have these situations live in the world and the only company working to make this easier for end users is Apple. The fact that Amazon (and other video services!) can rent out movies within their platform as long as they allow for integration with the Apple TV app is a net benefit to consumers, imo.
  • enragedcacti 6y ago
    Funnily enough the new Chromecast with Google TV is a better experience for you than Apple TV. All of the services except Apple TV that you mentioned are searchable and playable from the home screen and Google doesn't have to take 30% of their revenue to make it happen.
• adtac 6y ago
  why would each of these companies bother creating a new store that requires eng resources, server costs, maintenance, etc. if the total cost was less than Apple's unreasonable fee? doesn't it simply mean that these companies perceive the value of Apple's App Store to be less than the cost?
  • fhood 6y ago
    Sure, but I the consumer could give a rats ass about how they perceive the value of the app store.
  • BrianGragg 6y ago
    Why does Facebook want to know what you had for breakfast and mad that Apple is wanting to limit their access to data and share that they are collecting that information?
  • kgwxd 6y ago
    I'm sure every company already has infrastructure for distributing digital resources over the internet, nothing more is needed unless someone builds a toll road into their platform.
• rebuilder 6y ago
  Optimistically, someone will make a metastore that provides search across all the different stores. Sure, you'll have to sign up for each separately, but that should be a one-time deal. I mean, we kind of had that already before "software" became "apps" - the WWW where any publisher could sell their software on their very own website, free of interference.
  • jayd16 6y ago
    You could use Apple sign in! Oh the irony.
  • kaibee 6y ago
    This exists actually. There's quite a few of them. ie: Razer Cortex
  • dubcanada 6y ago
    Then you end up at step 1, lol, same thing with TV. Channels are bad and too restrictive -> added cable TV "stores" to buy movies/stuff -> Netflix -> Prime/Hulu/Disney Plus/etc -> App to allow you to search through "channels" -> welcome to TV from the 1990's with the added benefit of millions or channels vs 1000's.
    • rebuilder 6y ago
      Edit for funniness: It's like the wheel that took a self-help course on how to reinvent oneself.
• pennaMan 6y ago
  Before Apple blessed us with it's ground breaking technology to restrict the software you are allowed to have on your own device we did just fine getting software on our devices using a file system and the internet.
  • curiouser2 6y ago
    Yeah what the hell is this person talking about? How do they think software was installed prior to Steam?
    • n42 6y ago
      yeah! don’t they remember the glory days and freedom of choice to wait in a virtual line on GameSpy to download the bandwidth limited patch from version 1.4 to 1.5 only to realize they’re on 1.2 and there is no delta patch from 1.2 to 1.4 so they can either try again with the full upgrade for 1.x to 1.5 which is about 10x the download size or they can get each incremental patch from 1.2 to 1.3 to 1.4 to 1.5? come on. there’s a distinct value these app stores add and there is a distinct value in having one for the platform. the ONLY benefit to this future is Epic gets a larger slice. they will not “pass the benefit down” in some trickle down user freedom economy. they will shove more micro transactions and advertisements into every corner of their marketplace.
      • sheepdestroyer 6y ago
        Softwares can auto update and hide the process to the user without the need for a store.
      • spacebear 6y ago
        I would argue that removing the App Store as a single point of failure for free speech [1][2] would be a pretty big benefit. [1] https://torrentfreak.com/apple-bans-vpns-from-app-store-in-china-170729/ https://torrentfreak.com/apple-bans-vpns-from-app-store-in-c... [2] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/pakistan-forced-down-ahmadiyya-apps https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/pakistan-forced...
• loceng 6y ago
  Where I want to also see this extending is for the platform that Epic Games has created with the Unreal Engine. Should we be able to load in any skins that we could sell on our own store [- the users could decide to not allow/block them], etc? This would help counter Epic's ability to simply make skins that copy higher detail versions or make them look enough like other mainstream-popular characters, e.g. the skin that by users is called the "John Wick" skin - but it's not called that by Epic, so instead that movie franchise could have created and sold the John Wick skin on all game platforms for users to integrate if they allow [e.g. moving towards the Ready Player One movie].
• simion314 6y ago
  This sucks, but who is guilt for this, the giant publishers, why? because AppStores have a big tax , so competition that would lower the tax would solve the problem, Is same with video streaming, the giants don't want other giants to get a big cut without working hard. IMO , AppStore competition should be like web hosting, competition is large enough so you have enough choice to buy exactly what you want. Imagine if you want your web page to be visible on Apple stuff you need to pay 30% of your profits to Apple and only if Apple likes your page content.
  • valparaiso 6y ago
    30% is one of the lowest fees in the market. Amazon's Twitch takes 50% fee. Also Tencent, who is behind Epic Games lawsuit takes 50% fee in China with their Android App Store.
    • simion314 6y ago
      So? on MacBooks you can download and install any applications, including GPL ones for free, no censorship or GPL aversion issues. Because inn your opinion Apple shit stinks less still you should have the freedom to not eat it. so you should have the choice not to use the store
      • valparaiso 6y ago
        It's not my opinion. It's fact that court doesn't compare open platforms (Windows, Linux Distros, macOS) with closed ones - iOS, Nintendo, Xbox, PlayStation. Please see preliminary hearing video where judge rejected such arguments like yours. Epic lawyers failed very badly.
        • simion314 6y ago
          It does not matter what a judge said in the past when we want to create some new laws, the new laws will invalidate the old stuff.
• danShumway 6y ago
  It sounds a little bit like you're arguing that we should get rid of DRM. The interesting thing is that all of those app stores allow you to import other games. You can already manage your entire computer's gaming library on Steam -- or you could, if the games weren't tied by DRM to a specific client. DRM is literally the entire reason why Epic and Origin have a download client in the first place. If it didn't exist, you could use one client to manage your games today. I don't see people complaining about GoG or Itch.io on this point, because you can download your games for those systems using a web browser and import them into any game manager you want. It also sounds a bit like you're arguing for federated standards, which is also a thing that we could do. Nobody complains about there being too many repository remotes in Linux, because you wire them up to whatever package manager you're using and that's it. Your setup doesn't become more complicated just because you're using extra software sources. It's still the same commands to search for software and update your system. This is already how F-Droid works, and it's great. Anyone can set up an alternative repository to F-Droid and I can use them as a software source within F-Droid. It's also the way that your podcast app works. Nobody complains that there are too many platforms for hosting and distributing podcasts, because as long as you avoid bad actors like Stitcher, you just install one app and manage them in one place from every source. You're looking at games on the desktop through the lens of the model that Valve popularized by being a dominant player that refused to play nicely with anyone else. There are plenty of ways to design an ecosystem for managing stores without turning your computer into a cesspool of DRM. And Apple could do that, it could build a framework that required 3rd-party stores to work like software repositories. ---- Look at all of the fragmented broken systems you're complaining about -- the vast majority of them from video, to music streaming, to game purchases, are fragmented because they are deliberately designed to not work well with each other because the companies want consumer lock-in and DRM. But that's also exactly what is Apple is doing, they're just in a position of power so they're the only people doing it. People didn't notice that Steam's way of managing games was fundamentally broken until other people copied Steam's strategy and made the downsides obvious. You're noticing the same thing with Apple's app store. You're noticing what goes wrong when app stores are designed using Apple's template -- when they're designed to restrict consumer rights, lock them into platforms, and force competitors out of the market, rather than when they're designed to be standardized clients that serve the user. > And each App Store also has their own chat system along with the others like discord. Why does a games distribution platform have a chat system in the first place? Aren't all of those chat systems basically inferior to Discord in almost every way? The Unix way of handling this is that whatever chat system you're using should be able to talk to Steam and get events from that client -- it shouldn't be bundled into Steam itself.
• kgwxd 6y ago
  One of the alternatives is better. No app stores! The world simply doesn't need them and we should be pushing for nothing less than their complete demise.
  • SamuelAdams 6y ago
    Takes me back to the days of Warcraft 3 and The Sims on Windows XP. Go to the website, or install from a disk. Launch the game with a desktop icon. No app store needed. Updates are installed when the game is launched. No need to announce to all your friends that you bought a game, no need to have an integrated chat client. Just nothing but the actual game.
• lux 6y ago
  Instead of making the split at the app store level, enabling other payment processors within the iOS app store would solve most of these issues without creating a UX nightmare. That said, I wouldn't mind competition at the app store level too.
  • martimarkov 6y ago
    As iOS user I completely disagree. I love the Apple platform for the simplicity. Every time there is a payment I choose Apple Pay as it's more secure than giving my card away. It uses biometrics, not some static digits stuck with card if you lose it. It's also more or less valid for Google Pay as well. Having the option to use PayPal, Stripe, some other payment processor increases the stress on the UX and also the attack surface for fraud.
    • iknowstuff 6y ago
      Apple Pay is separate from In App Purchases and the app store is not needed for its security features you seem to like. Ironically, a payment processor like Stripe is usually the thing facilitating Apple Pay support on the backend.
      • martimarkov 6y ago
        My bad I didn’t express myself completely. I enjoy the fact that I have one account and I know EXACTLY when I’m making a payment. When I get presented with the price and checkout in an in-app purchase I’m sure that’s everything I’m paying, there are no hidden fees, it’s secure and there is no way for someone to steal my details. And it’s the same flow to make the payment: double tap the side button and scan my face. This is the parallel with Apple Pay. Plus I think the backend on in-app and in-store payments are the same so it would be ApplePay.
    • lux 6y ago
      There's nothing preventing Apple Pay-level security features from being integrated with 3rd party vendors like Stripe, except Apple's desire to keep 30%. It's highway robbery compared to every other payment processor's fees and has nothing to do with security, cost of operation, or doing right by users. Apple has conned users into believing that rhetoric, but it's harming developers, which are also a type of user. No platform should ever be allowed to be the sole gatekeeper for apps on your device; that it's done for security is dishonest. And it's doubly egregious that they've tied payment processing restrictions onto it too. I don't make mobile apps so I have no skin directly in this game, but as a user who believes my devices are my own, and as a developer too, I have to stand with my fellow developers in demanding app stores do right by the people producing apps for them.
• CodeArtisan 6y ago
  Was the same with instant messaging software years ago; Aol, MSN, ICQ, Mirc, Gamespy, Paltalk, ...
• jayd16 6y ago
  This is a false dichotomy. Something could be set up that allows the current convenience of the Apple app store in a more federated way. The hoops are put there purposefully.
• random5634 6y ago
  It's even worse, a lot of the app stores are going to want to leverage violation so privacy, security, auto-billing etc to generate at least short term margin at expense of trust in overall apple ecosystem. Right now I'm PRETTY sure I can't get screwed by a random subscription. Having played with some of the others, definitely not true elsewhere.
• CivBase 6y ago
  > My gaming computer is already filled with like 8 different app stores each completely different then the other and a variety of privacy/security issues on each. Do you honestly think this is a worse scenario than having to buy all of your apps/games through Microsoft's app store? Can you imagine using macOS without homebrew because everything has to come from Apple's app store? Can you imagine using Ubuntu without apt because everything has to come from the Canonical's software center? Even Android is made slightly more tolerable by the existence of F-Droid. Being able to use your preferred software manager/store for everything would be nice, but I don't know of any platform that lets you do that. You either have to deal with multiple software managers and use your preferred one as much as possible, or you're stuck with whatever the platform forces on you. I definitely prefer the former.
  • BillinghamJ 6y ago
    Absolutely yes. As a user, I really wish Microsoft required the use of their store. Having a single place to go is a lot easier
    • dannyw 6y ago
      What you are wishing for though is the death of computing.
    • SomeHacker44 6y ago
      Quibble: I cannot stand the Microsoft store because I cannot simply delete the apps or even understand why they are there even after I told it to uninstall. I also cannot easily move apps between drives or even control which drive something is installed on sometimes. Steam is the best this way, IMO.
      • BillinghamJ 6y ago
        That's actually one thing I quite liked about it - there's some option to just switch an app from one drive to another, and it's one of the only things I've found in Windows which actually "just works"
• readams 6y ago
  Apple could allow you to add additional sources inside the existing store interface. We can already do this with apt and yum on Linux for example. They won't do it though because they want to increase friction to maximize their money. They don't actually care about users.
• rvba 6y ago
  > My gaming computer is already filled with like 8 different app stores each completely different then the other and a variety of privacy/security issues on each One could expect that someone on a forum called "hacker news" knows how to close apps after running + also disable their autorun at startup. Multiple app-stores are not that great, but still better than a monopoly of one company that takes a 30% cut for every product sold and in return provides an app that barely works (lags, constant updates, constant questions about password if you dont use it much). It's basically the same as having multiple icons provided by multiple games. They also had different installers and privacy policies. Competition among app stores means lower prices and cheaper service.
• cma 6y ago
  One solution is Apple could add a feature where you voluntarily pay $50 to not be able to use other stores, and you could purchase it.
  • ClumsyPilot 6y ago
    I would like to see that experiment play out. Somehow the locked down 'S' version of windows is not very popular.
    • valparaiso 6y ago
      > Somehow the locked down 'S' version of windows is not very popular. It doesn't have any benefits.
• croes 6y ago
  So you prefer the console situation? A game is PS or Xbox exclusive so instead of just another store you need a completely other hardware for hundreds of dollars.
• stewx 6y ago
  I recently discovered Playnite, an open source PC game library manager. It connects to all the stores and aggregates them in one place. You can also configure your own emulators for older games, etc. I can now view my DOSBox games and Steam/Origin/Epic games in one place. https://playnite.link/ https://playnite.link/
  • dubcanada 6y ago
    huh, this is super interesting. Thanks for that
  • slantyyz 6y ago
    There's also Launchbox [https://www.launchbox-app.com/ https://www.launchbox-app.com/]. You can also get Steam's Big Picture to do something similar, although it might take a little bit of work.
• LegitShady 6y ago
  flipside - I'm very excited for apple to be removed as the gatekeeper to running any software at all on the devices. I'd rather have too many stores than one gatekeeper who controls all ios devices and takes a huge financial cut for the privilege.
• cycomanic 6y ago
  I wonder what we used to do before we had appstores? That must have been a horrible time. And we didn't have amazon either how did we even shop? Sorry for the sarcasm, but why do we even need appstores, apart from it being a website to download stuff?
  • parasubvert 6y ago
    Simple answer: People didn't use computers or phones to do most things. They'd pick up the phone and talk to a human, or they'd go to the physical store, and talk to a human. Nothing wrong with that, but app stores, among other things, made computers far more accessible for non technical people, to do things like shop from their couch without talking to anyone.
  • rodgerd 6y ago
    We had people install a thing from whichever site they found, often with a toxic payload because third-party sites gamed results to end up above a company, or via sites that started trusted but were taken over by scamware, and then never updated anything, falling prey to whatever virii were doing the rounds.
• agentdrtran 6y ago
  Choice is better than not having it.
  • valparaiso 6y ago
    Who's gonna pay for supporting that "choice" and new attack vectors like when we had tons of Fortnite malware after launching Epic Game Store outside Google Play Store?
• mdoms 6y ago
  > I can hardly wait to use Amazon App Store to install Amazon and then open up the Epic Game Store to install random game and then open up EA Game Store to install random game and then open up Facebook App Store to install Facebook and then open up the Apple App Store to install the Blizzard App Store to install Hearthstone and then go back to the Apple App Store and update the Blizzard App Store so I can get the latest Hearthstone updates. This is how life is as a PC gamer and it's.... actually good. Who cares if you need to open multiple stores? That is the smallest possible inconvenience, and in exchange we get an insanely competitive marketplace where consumers are regularly given free games and deep, deep discounts to lure them into competing stores. Would you prefer every city had one car yard? Is it a major hardship for you to have to go to different car yards for Fords and Nissans?
  • blibble 6y ago
    most of them you can configure to exit after starting a game too
  • parasubvert 6y ago
    Most iPhone users do not want to open multiple stores. We like and want Apple's curation. This is why Epic's position is a very difficult anti-trust argument: Apple is aligned with what many customers actually want.
    • hajile 6y ago
      The creation of multiple stores doesn't mean you have to use them... Just vote with your wallet and stick with that store. Android has a half-dozen stores available, but how many people are using stores outside of the official one?
  • dubcanada 6y ago
    What's a car yard? I assume based on the context a dealer? And yes I would love to go to a mall with all the different cars available. Would make it easier to see all available options and pick the best one for me (rather then pick the best one from Ford for me).
  • 6y ago
• swiley 6y ago
  If you don't like it then stop using crappy software. Right now the only choice people have for a phone that doesn't force you to have an apple or google account is a pinephone and this could potentially fix that.
• xenihn 6y ago
  I get that the fracturing of content delivery platforms had to happen for the sake of ~profits~, but I miss the days when having Netflix, Steam, and Spotify completely satisfied consumption needs. At least Spotify still has nearly everything I want, and still provides me with great recommendations.
• amelius 6y ago
  "App Stores" are just synonymous with "content filter". Perhaps we should just name it such. So "App Store" becomes "Content Filter". And you can install any app you want from any URL, unless you have some content filters installed, which will limit what you can install. No more App Stores.
• fbelzile 6y ago
  You mentioned it yourself, most third party developers still use the Google Play Store on Android. The same will be true if the App Store continues to provide a better user experience. You might need to pay a little more for a game from the App Store, but I'm willing to bet most people will pay for the peace of mind. Let people decide whether the Apple tax is worth it or not. Either way, you're going to end up with a more efficient system where end users are paying an Apple Tax that is closer to the cost of running the store. This does mean that Apple will need to start upping their game by either lowering their fee (which means lower costs for you) or supporting other independent games that deserve attention in the App Store. Furthermore, iOS is a well designed platform with very tight security restrictions. You don't need the App Store to do that, it's build into the platform.
• slowmovintarget 6y ago
  If only Apple could, say, permit payments outside of the Apple store for apps installed from the store... This was the real problem. Apple has to get a cut if you run the app on an Apple-made device and either sell the software or charge money for digital goods at all. There is only upside for Apple with these restrictions, so I see them continuing to fight this fight with the excuse being "Customer experience, security concerns," etc, where the reality is maintaining the wall and gate in their garden.
  • deleted 6y ago
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• munificent 6y ago
  Say you had the choice between: 1. Buy game X from Apple's app store for $39.00. 2. Buy game X from X's own app store for $30.00. Would you install X's app store then? Would you at least want the option of choosing that path?
  • Elegia 6y ago
    I think that having to make that choice in the first place is exactly what most iOS users want to avoid.
  • drstewart 6y ago
    Except we all know the real option will be to buy game X from X's own app store for $39.00, so the only thing the consumer has gained is extra friction in exchange for the developer pocketing a larger share.
    • hajile 6y ago
      But most people won't be bothered to use other stores (just like most Android users don't use other stores). The real solution there is forcing digital sales to include a perpetual license to the software independent of the platform. The current digital monopoly culture is against the overwhelming majority of citizens.
    • wraptile 6y ago
      > Except we all know the real option will be to buy game X from X's own app store for $39.00 Why? Epic Store is literally giving games and discount vouchers away so you'd get _on_ they're platform. You somehow imply that there wouldn't be competition between competing services?
      • kingsleyopara 6y ago
        Seems a little short-sighted. Epic are not a charity. Discounts are clearly a ploy to capture marketshare from Steam et al... Games/products will always be priced the most the market is willing to pay for it. If just before launch costs drop by half do you really think the price drops by half?
• keepper 6y ago
  ...or Apple could be a true platform and not compete unfairly? You know, just a thought. They want secure app distribution? Great! Build an equitable charge model. Charge for transactions, charge for usage, don’t charge flat rates that don’t scale. Certainly don’t prohibit other payment gateways. And certain don’t punish your competitors in ways you don’t punish yourself. ( blanket certificate removals for a company and all its subsidiaries) The ends do not justify the means. Apple can run a profitable and secure app distribution platform. It requires being open and fair. They are not doing that.
  • LexGray 6y ago
    The threat model Apple is addressing by not allowing third party payment systems is user privacy, issues many systems having securing that data, and dark patterns vs subscription cancelation or outright scams. It is not an unreasonable thing to offer a platform with that security built in. Blanket punishments are about the only thing that works on large corporations. Everything else can be worked around. Facebook would not have budged an inch on their app unless half their company was shut down a day. I have no doubt part of the point of Epic trying to bypass the billing system is to get additional user data they can monetize. While it is true Apple is neither open or fair, it is reasonable to assume the many of the apps on the store have no intention of being either open or fair either. Apple is trying to stand between the consumer and rampant corporate ethical lapses. That they are also doing so in the name of corporate greed makes them hard to defend, but then I hate how much of my income funds the police.
• jacquesm 6y ago
  These app store requirements are ridiculous. An app store is something that should be 'up and running' when a user wants to buy an app, not to serve as the continuous anchor point on a users device to fleece them further. This has really gotten out of hand.
  • curryst 6y ago
    This. The reason app stores suck so much isn't their distribution of apps. They do fine at that, and it would be easy to switch binary distributors. It's the value-added services that are inexplicably linked that bug me. Why can't I allow push notifications without Google's app store? And why can't I use Google's app store without getting bundled into dozens of other services? Allowing other app stores isn't going to be very compelling so long as Google and Apple can force you to use their app store if you want access to their value add services like push notifications.
• unanswered 6y ago
  While we're at it, why does there need to be 18 brands of deodorant? I think regulations should be in place so there's only one brand!
• marmaduke 6y ago
  You can buy pasta at a few different stores, a caulk gun at a few different stores, clothes etc etc. Why would software be different?
  • colejohnson66 6y ago
    Food exclusives aren’t that much a thing. Sure, I can’t buy Good & Gather or Up & Up (Target brands) at Walmart, but Up & Up napkins work just as well as Great Value (Walmart) napkins. An Epic exclusive requires the Epic Store. Maybe for things like flashlight apps or Flappy Bird clones you’d be easily able to find a version on your favorite store, but AAA games are different. For example, if GTA VI (whenever it comes out) is an Epic exclusive, I’m not finding a GTA VI copy of the same caliber on Steam.
• ArkanExplorer 6y ago
  If Apple charged a reasonable commission level - say 5-15% - these problems would not occur. 30% is completely uneconomic and drives all of the profit to the platform owner. That's why were seeing so many acquisitions. The problem here is with the 30%.
  • valparaiso 6y ago
    How old are you? Have you ever asked yourself "why developers went to the new and empty Apple App Store in 2008 in mature market with Nokia and others"? The answer is very simple - commissions before Apple's 30% were 50%-70%. That's why Jobs conducted that presentation with slide regarding with 30% fee - it was unprecedent for those times. Also there is also another question - how did you calculate that 5-15% is reasonable? You need to have solid arguments to defend your position. But no one provided - even Epic's lawyers such data. Also most of apps in Apple's App Store are free, so Apple is paying for the whole development/maintenance of infrastructure (delta updates etc.)
    • hajile 6y ago
      They went to the platform because the iPhone was rapidly gaining popularity and they gained access to a captive market. Economies of scale alone indicates that if they could do the store at 30%, they could do it for far less when scaled up. Finally, they are rather near brick-and-mortar markups for a lot of things despite not having all the extra overhead.
      • valparaiso 6y ago
        > They went to the platform because the iPhone was rapidly gaining popularity and they gained access to a captive market. So as Apple stated in court docs - it's symbiosis between company, developers and users. If iPhone were bad people wouldn't buy them and developers wouldn't create apps with bad conditions in economic terms. > if they could do the store at 30%, they could do it for far less when scaled u Since they aren't monopoly (court conclusion after TRO hearing and on and after preliminary hearing on September 28th 2020) and we are on free market there is no reason to discuss their fee. Moreover they didn't upped it. And never did from App Store launch in 2008, only lowered for subscriptions after 1 year from 30% to 15%. Developers can stop learning Objective-C/Swift and switch to Android-whatever on their career start if they feel bad about industry-standard 30% fee. But developers won't because Apple's user base is paying money and not sideloading pirated versions like on Android. Also business and investors don't care about Android, like Clubhouse - for start-ups only iOS matters on first years. So what we see? Developers who make tenths of millions (Epic Games with Tencent) want free access for Apple's user (install) base for free. There is a word for this - parasitism.
• 015a 6y ago
  Suggesting that iOS should not be more like literally the most vibrant, healthy, popular computing platform ever created (Windows) is borderline delusion. The Mac is great, but the Mac App Store is garbage. And that's the iOS analogue there. That's because Mac has alternatives; centralized, forced big-tech App Stores don't work in the face of alternatives. The only platforms they have worked on (iOS, lesser degree Android) only work because of the Big Tech monopoly. What sucks more for consumers: Having to install the Epic Games Store to play Fornite, or not being able to play Fortnite? Those are your two options. You want to believe there's a third option where Big Tech Opoly is allowed to run a centralized draconian app store for perfect user UX. This third option does not exist; its availability over the past decade was a blip destined for the footnotes of history. Hell, go over to Linux and juggle the multiple package managers and package availability between them. That's the natural state of the world; developers hold the cards, and they'll do what is best for their business. The App Store is fighting against nature, and that fight is always a losing one. Always. There is no third option; its just a matter of time.
  • malka 6y ago
    It sucks way more to have a new app store per company. as a user, I WANT a single app store, that is heavily curated. As a surprise, who do NOT want that ? Companies already pushing garbage on my desktop computer so I can play their games.
  • kingsleyopara 6y ago
    > The Mac is great, but the Mac App Store is garbage. The Mac App Store is garbage and so will be the iOS App Store if Apple are forced to allow alternate stores. I love the Mac... but it really isn't great for regular (non hacker news) people - unlike iOS I've seen plenty of Macs needing a reinstall
• xxs 6y ago
  I'd have zero care if I have to 'download' stuff from a website and run it. The entire idea of store/aggregator is ok but the lack of choice to do as I please with the thing I own doesn't sit right.
• mbreese 6y ago
  It’s almost like console gaming would be easier, where if you want to buy a digital game, there is only one marketplace to use [1]. Oh wait. [1] yes, you can also buy physical games for most systems, but that’s in its way out too. If this plays out as expected, this complaint is going to have a lot of collateral damage.
  • chromanoid 6y ago
    There is a difference between a video game console and a portable multi purpose device with such a reach. Judges should take this into account. With great power comes great responsibility.
    • mbreese 6y ago
      Modern game consoles can do a lot... and have their own app stores. Microsoft would love for me to use my Xbox to stream Netflix. I don’t think they are as far apart as you think. They are both walled gardens that are heavily controlled by their developers. Not to mention — this all started with a game developer that wasn’t happy with the distribution of their game. Nevermind that they abide by the same rules and fees for Xbox, Playstation, and Nintendo. This isn’t about Apple. It’s about all of them.
      • chromanoid 6y ago
        No, that is a false analogy. Device capacity does not determine device usage. It's about market power and not about device capacity.
• Moru 6y ago
  It's just natural that big game companies want to start their own gamestore, it's easy money without having to come up with original ideas again and again. And you can take a big cut of the profits of the ones that makes the actual work. But we can vote with our wallet, it's a free market. I only buy things on GOG.
• sergiotapia 6y ago
  I categorically disagree. It's your choice to use one store on PC. Epic and a lot of people are asking for the choice. You don't have to make that choice since no one will force you.
• katbyte 6y ago
  If its not on steam/ps4 i don't play it. if its not on the mac store or in homebrew i am very unlikely to install it and will seek an alternitive. If it won't be on the ios apple store i won't install it.
• MaxBarraclough 6y ago
  It's good that Steam has real competition now. For a long time it was the only game in town. > All of them need their App Store running in order to play their games, so half the time my computer has 4-5 App Stores running in the background so I can play a single game You can always close down the app-stores you don't need right now, but it's true they don't tend to give you the option to do this automatically. > And they are all electron/qt webkit apps cause nobody builds apps anymore so each one consumes about 500mb of ram. Agree, it would be nice if they were more lean. I'm seeing Origin taking up >200MB just sitting there.
• kdmytro 6y ago
  Yes, freedom is such an encumbrance. Life is so much easier when someone makes all the decisions for me.</sarcasm>
• echelon 6y ago
  > I can hardly wait to use Amazon App Store to install Amazon ... This doesn't happen on Android. > My gaming computer is already filled with like 8 different app stores This is because game companies want to be middlemen in games distribution. Games have communities, chat, matchmaking, patches, DLC, DRM, sales and pricing engines, analytics, online gaming, and a lot more complexity than your AirBNB or CashApp. It's also happening with streaming. Once game steaming gains adoption, you'll see it there too. You're not going to stop this by defending Apple's moat. Forcing Apple to open up lets small developers get around the Apple tax and draconian and arbitrary review process that hinders their growth. It also lets people control the devices they purchased, and defends software freedoms broadly by discouraging the Apple behavior across the board.
• arduinomancer 6y ago
  I don't get how you can be against having more options/freedom with your device
  • QuixoticQuibit 6y ago
    Because I don’t use my iPhone like I use my computer (as in desktop experience). Many people like the simple, wall/garden approach to iOS.
• lsh123 6y ago
  There is a very simple solution - no App Store at all! I can download and install anything I want on my computer. I can use Google or bing or DuckDuckGo or whatever to find it. Why do you need App Store in the first place?
• jrockway 6y ago
  It is annoying how every PC game company tries to be a social network and persistent advertising daemon. But a launcher is not necessary to keep an app updated. Look at Chrome -- you install it, and it stays up to date. Blizzard could do that for their games and Epic could do that for their games, but they want extra money from putting ads in a launcher. (Actually, they seem to always be "house ads", so they aren't really making money, they're saving money. But at a Fortune 500, saving money is basically the same as making money.) In-game chat could be XMPP or a more modern alternative, too, and then you wouldn't need a separate IM client for each ecosystem. Finally, I don't think anyone really dislikes the app stores themselves. They are annoyed that they have to pay a 30% tax. If it were 3%, I doubt anyone would be complaining. Apple took a big gamble by being as restrictive as they are -- if they win, they get free money for doing nothing; if they lose, they get $0. I think history will show that they lose; app developers have caught on. But, I could be wrong.
  • Zash 6y ago
    Aside: Epic Games already uses XMPP according to https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/news/postmortem-of-service-outage-at-3-4m-ccu https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/news/postmortem-of-...
    • jrockway 6y ago
      That's a really good postmortem.
• dkersten 6y ago
  > My gaming computer is already filled with like 8 different app stores I got around this by simply refusing to install any other stores. If its not on Steam, GoG or Playstation store, I'm simply not buying that game. There are so many games I've still not played and my time is limited, I can live without playing a game that forces me to install another "app store".
• SAI_Peregrinus 6y ago
  I like the grocery store analogy. You can get Kellogs Corn Flakes at any grocery store. You can get General Mills Cheerios at any grocery store. You don't have to make separate trips to the Kellogs store and the General Mills store. There are exclusive store-brand items, for which you do need to go to a specific store, but there's minimal additional cost to do so. You don't need to buy a new car to get from Trader Joes to Wegman's, you can use the same car to go to both. With app stores the situation is reversed. Exclusives are common, and many quite expensive devices only have one store available. And once you've got an expensive product from the Apple App store on your Apple device, you can't (usually) change to a Google device and the Google Play Store and still use the product without re-buying it.
• nine_k 6y ago
  I don't see any reason why App Store the app won't be able to give you a unified interface to several app stores, including search through all of them. For some reason, apt-get has been able to do that with different package repos for last 25 years or so.
• Egoist 6y ago
  People really make it as if it’s a better solution. there are multiple reasons why apple still doesn’t like allowing third party to take control. One reason means that trusting the third party applications means trusting privacy on the sub applications and apple have been trying to be more transparent on every app in their store. Another is how the payment system works. Yes, apple takes a big chunk of money and it may be absurd, but I wouldn’t want applications to end up being like google play apps, where i have to trust the company for not stealing my payments info or using their own payment method to track costumers without apple knowledge. not to mention if the company got cyber attacked and they store my payment information. Opening things up for third party may make things better if you read privacy policies and trust companies that you know are trustworthy, but it takes the privacy and security out of apple hands. Add to that how certain companies will definitely exploit that system, Facebook would probably hide their app inside an appstore to avoid privacy policy being transparent. Apple acting as a middleman for every app in the store isn’t that bad if you consider all that, and i am sure we would see many articles blaming apple if things go bad in a third party app.
• NoPicklez 6y ago
  I've been there too, always used Steam to install the majority of the games I played. Then EA decided to only release Battlefield on Origin, then Ubisoft decided you also needed to install their launcher, now we also have the Epic Games launcher and the Blizzard Launcher (warranted they always had this). Between each of these launchers they have their own chat platforms, I need to duplicate my friends list between them all and they each have their pros and cons. It's not great and its frustrating. Clearly Steam had a fantastic solution and was ahead of its time in terms of digital distribution of content. Why can't we move to a solution like brick and mortar stores where every game is made available at every online store? Then I can choose where I want to download the game from.