6 ms·

I don’t think anyone who uses an iOS device wants epic to win. Most of us are specifically in the walled garden because we just want our tech to work. Would I

by moksly 5y ago

I don’t think anyone who uses an iOS device wants epic to win. Most of us are specifically in the walled garden because we just want our tech to work. Would I rather have an open source system, including for my phone, that works as well as Apple things? Sure, but there is no such thing.

denis1 5y ago
I want Epic to win. It's fine if you want to have Apple as an option. It's not fine to have Apple as the only option. Apple should either allow 3rd party IAPs or 3rd party app stores. Having neither is Apple abusing it's power and forcing it on consumers.
- sbuk 5y ago
  You've made some statements there but provided no context. Why is it a bad thing? I've been on the platform since 2007 - the App Store has been around since 2008. To date, I have had exactly 0 issues. Annecdata for sure, but I'm clearly not the only one to have this experience.
  - johnnyanmac 5y ago
    I feel I could flip the question around, why is it a bad thing that users can use other sources to retrieve and download apps? This is already the default line of thinking with a PC. Most people will not be taking advantage of this option; many won't download outside the IOS store, and many companies won't make a new storefront to get around 30%. because hosting a storefront is expensive. Fortnite took themselves off Google play and they likely lost a lot of sales. But that's on them to decide. Why is it a bad thing to give a dev a choice of hosting powers? If you don't, they find loopholes that inconvenience the user regardless. e.g. you cannot sign up for Spotify or Netflix through your IOS device.
- moksly 5y ago
  But you can just buy an android. What you can’t do, is break Apple and then still have an Apple option for those of us who really don’t want an android phone.
manigandham 5y ago
The whole point of more choice is that you can choose. Why would this affect you?
- sjnu 5y ago
  Imagine what Facebook's app would do if they didn't have to play within App Store rules.
  - manigandham 5y ago
    It would be WeChat, which is an entire ecosystem and OS within itself. Apple seems to regret letting that one through and is determined to not let it happen again.
  - tass 5y ago
    You can choose not to install their app unless it’s provided through the App Store. It would be a significant barrier to entry for them to completely remove it, and I imagine they would lose many users if they did so.
    - sbuk 5y ago
      Who is responsible for issues caused by Epic's store? What are the ramifications from an API point of view? Will having another store change the limitiations imposed on what can or can't be done? If so, people already have a choice - Android.
      - manigandham 5y ago
        The OS limitations are separate from the storefront. The Epic launcher on Windows can’t provide more underlying functionality than Steam, but it can compete on pricing and features.
        sbuk 5y ago
        So what value does an alternative store provide? (No snark intended, genuine question)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
sangnoir 5y ago
This is a false dichotomy - you don't have to choose between a locked-down walled garden and a chaotic free-for-all. There is a lot of space in-between.
raydev 5y ago
I have been an iOS developer for more than a decade and I will never buy another brand of phone unless Apple manages to ruin the ecosystem. I want Epic to win. Devs should be able to distribute their apps to consumers without Apple dictating style guidelines or which features are/aren't allowed on a general purpose computer. The iPhone and iPad are general purpose computers and Apple wants to pretend they are not. I've shipped a ton of (legit, non-spam, useful, popular) apps over the years, but there are 2 I was never allowed to ship simply because they didn't fit in to Apple's rules... which were not even explicit, it tooks several rounds of review feedback to land at the final rejection. Once that happened it made me wonder just how many products out there simply aren't allowed to exist or are intentionally handicapped because Apple said so. We should work to end it.
- joshstrange 5y ago
  As someone who has jailbroken almost every iPhone I've owned I am very familiar with whole categories of apps that can't be distributed through the App Store. That said, how do you handle the FB's of the world or other bad actors who will (ab)use private API's if they no longer have to follow Apple's rules? I could see Apple offering a new entitlement for payment processing, maybe with defined endpoints for canceling/managing subscriptions but 3rd party app stores open a whole can of worms. Can Apple lock down their private API's? Maybe, but I feel that will lead to a cat and mouse game where apps have lots of code testing to see what they can reach out and access on the OS version they are installed on. Sure, the FB through the official App Store won't be doing that but the FB distributed through Facebook's own App Store will. We've already seen what FB will do when given unchecked ability to distribute apps (see Onavo, FB's VPN to spy on users). Do you really think that end users will care that they installed an app through a seedy 3rd party app store? No, they will blame Apple if their data is stolen/privacy invaded. I can already see the "promos" apps like FB or scummy games will run to get you to install them via some app store which isn't vetting the apps. "300 free coins if you install via AppStorez".
  - johnnyanmac 5y ago
    >That said, how do you handle the FB's of the world or other bad actors who will (ab)use private API's if they no longer have to follow Apple's rules? how does Google or Windows handle it? This idea isn't novel, and there are billions already spent on antivirus initiatives, regardless of how open or closed the platform is. I wouldn't be surprised if people blamed Google for a variety of things they downloaded on Chrome or an android device, but I haven't heard much traction being gained on how responsible google is for what users download from the internet.

by moksly 5y ago

denis1 5y ago

I want Epic to win. It's fine if you want to have Apple as an option. It's not fine to have Apple as the only option. Apple should either allow 3rd party IAPs or 3rd party app stores. Having neither is Apple abusing it's power and forcing it on consumers.

sbuk 5y ago
You've made some statements there but provided no context. Why is it a bad thing? I've been on the platform since 2007 - the App Store has been around since 2008. To date, I have had exactly 0 issues. Annecdata for sure, but I'm clearly not the only one to have this experience.
- johnnyanmac 5y ago
  I feel I could flip the question around, why is it a bad thing that users can use other sources to retrieve and download apps? This is already the default line of thinking with a PC. Most people will not be taking advantage of this option; many won't download outside the IOS store, and many companies won't make a new storefront to get around 30%. because hosting a storefront is expensive. Fortnite took themselves off Google play and they likely lost a lot of sales. But that's on them to decide. Why is it a bad thing to give a dev a choice of hosting powers? If you don't, they find loopholes that inconvenience the user regardless. e.g. you cannot sign up for Spotify or Netflix through your IOS device.
moksly 5y ago
But you can just buy an android. What you can’t do, is break Apple and then still have an Apple option for those of us who really don’t want an android phone.

manigandham 5y ago

The whole point of more choice is that you can choose. Why would this affect you?

sjnu 5y ago
Imagine what Facebook's app would do if they didn't have to play within App Store rules.
- manigandham 5y ago
  It would be WeChat, which is an entire ecosystem and OS within itself. Apple seems to regret letting that one through and is determined to not let it happen again.
- tass 5y ago
  You can choose not to install their app unless it’s provided through the App Store. It would be a significant barrier to entry for them to completely remove it, and I imagine they would lose many users if they did so.
  - sbuk 5y ago
    Who is responsible for issues caused by Epic's store? What are the ramifications from an API point of view? Will having another store change the limitiations imposed on what can or can't be done? If so, people already have a choice - Android.
    - manigandham 5y ago
      The OS limitations are separate from the storefront. The Epic launcher on Windows can’t provide more underlying functionality than Steam, but it can compete on pricing and features.
      - sbuk 5y ago
        So what value does an alternative store provide? (No snark intended, genuine question)

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

sangnoir 5y ago

This is a false dichotomy - you don't have to choose between a locked-down walled garden and a chaotic free-for-all. There is a lot of space in-between.

raydev 5y ago

I have been an iOS developer for more than a decade and I will never buy another brand of phone unless Apple manages to ruin the ecosystem. I want Epic to win. Devs should be able to distribute their apps to consumers without Apple dictating style guidelines or which features are/aren't allowed on a general purpose computer. The iPhone and iPad are general purpose computers and Apple wants to pretend they are not. I've shipped a ton of (legit, non-spam, useful, popular) apps over the years, but there are 2 I was never allowed to ship simply because they didn't fit in to Apple's rules... which were not even explicit, it tooks several rounds of review feedback to land at the final rejection. Once that happened it made me wonder just how many products out there simply aren't allowed to exist or are intentionally handicapped because Apple said so. We should work to end it.

joshstrange 5y ago
As someone who has jailbroken almost every iPhone I've owned I am very familiar with whole categories of apps that can't be distributed through the App Store. That said, how do you handle the FB's of the world or other bad actors who will (ab)use private API's if they no longer have to follow Apple's rules? I could see Apple offering a new entitlement for payment processing, maybe with defined endpoints for canceling/managing subscriptions but 3rd party app stores open a whole can of worms. Can Apple lock down their private API's? Maybe, but I feel that will lead to a cat and mouse game where apps have lots of code testing to see what they can reach out and access on the OS version they are installed on. Sure, the FB through the official App Store won't be doing that but the FB distributed through Facebook's own App Store will. We've already seen what FB will do when given unchecked ability to distribute apps (see Onavo, FB's VPN to spy on users). Do you really think that end users will care that they installed an app through a seedy 3rd party app store? No, they will blame Apple if their data is stolen/privacy invaded. I can already see the "promos" apps like FB or scummy games will run to get you to install them via some app store which isn't vetting the apps. "300 free coins if you install via AppStorez".
- johnnyanmac 5y ago
  >That said, how do you handle the FB's of the world or other bad actors who will (ab)use private API's if they no longer have to follow Apple's rules? how does Google or Windows handle it? This idea isn't novel, and there are billions already spent on antivirus initiatives, regardless of how open or closed the platform is. I wouldn't be surprised if people blamed Google for a variety of things they downloaded on Chrome or an android device, but I haven't heard much traction being gained on how responsible google is for what users download from the internet.