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> I contributed to some of the jailbreak app stores You didn't build or work on an app store. You played with one. Much easier to modify something that already

> I contributed to some of the jailbreak app stores You didn't build or work on an app store. You played with one. Much easier to modify something that already exists than to create something where there once was nothing. > just look at AWS prices to see how much it costs to store and transfer a file on S3 Look, if it's so cheap and easy to do, why is everyone so hell bent on getting onto Apple's? They should just do it themselves! The answer is that it's not that simple. > Please re-read my comment, especially the part about sandboxing and 3rd-party app stores I reread it. You did not say anything about sandboxing _3rd-party app stores_. Thanks for wasting my time with that! You said "apps are pretty well sandboxed" and we've seen how well that's done to protect users' privacy. App Tracking and Transparency was created for a reason. You really need to cool it with the condescension ("Haha what are you talking about?", "I actually laughed out loud when I read your comment"); it adds nothing to your arguments, except the veneer of juvenility.

fastball 5y ago
> You really need to cool it with the condescension > But I doubt you even know the costs to run the service so my opinion is that you are speaking from a place of ignorance. > You didn't build or work on an app store. You played with one. Much easier to modify something that already exists than to create something where there once was nothing. That's some impressive cognitive dissonance ya got there, you might want to try looking in a mirror. You have no idea how much involvement I had. Please stop arguing from a place of complete and total ignorance. > Look, if it's so cheap and easy to do, why is everyone so hell bent on getting onto Apple's? They should just do it themselves! Surely you can't be serious... this is literally the topic at hand. Apple won't let anyone do it themselves. That is why they don't do it themselves. People absolutely would do it themselves if Apple wasn't behaving anti-competitively. I'm glad you agree that Apple should open up iOS to 3rd-party app stores so that they can live or die on their own merits, rather than being prevented from existing in the first place, based on dubious claims of protecting users. Though again, it is worth noting that people (yours truly included) actually have done it themselves, through jailbreaking. And that many jailbreak apps have done quite well financially, handling the distribution themselves. This is success in spite of Apple, as requiring users to jailbreak before they use your App Store is in fact a pretty high bar and does in fact make your system less secure. > You did not say anything about sandboxing _3rd-party app stores_... App Tracking and Transparency was created for a reason. Um, yes. That is exactly my point – the apps themselves are sandboxed and permissioned, at an OS level, so Apple's oversight (in the App Store) is a lot less useful than it once was (whether it ever was particularly valuable is not a given). If an app wants access to your location, the user has to explicitly allow it to have that permission. It doesn't matter what App Store the app is being distributed on, that sandboxing is there regardless. Also, isn't it a bit strange that Apple added such a feature in the first place? You'd think, since they were already gatekeeping apps that can be installed on your device, there would be no need, because Apple would catch apps that asked for permissions they didn't need, hmmm... just kidding, obviously this is because different users have different needs and Apple can't prescribe the same thing for everyone. Which is exactly why Apple should open up iOS to other app stores, and in order to keep iOS users secure they should focus on more things like App Tracking and Transparency, not on monopolizing app stores.
- sixstringtheory 5y ago
  >> I doubt you even know the costs > You have no idea how much involvement I had You're absolutely right. I said "I doubt you even know," not "I know for a fact you do not know," and am willing to be proven wrong. I made an assumption that I'm confident would apply to most people commenting on this story. I don't think I misrepresented it as anything other than an assumption. Until you show me some receipts I'm going to continue assuming you are not actually privvy to what it takes to run the app store. > Apple won't let anyone do it themselves You've misunderstood. People are free to build up a fleet of devices, the OS that runs on them, the backend services that make up the app store, all the customer support channels and tooling, find/hire/train all the employees that keep it running, etc etc etc. Apple can't stop people from trying that. Peoples' problem is that they don't want to take decades to get there, which is what Apple has done... lots of pain along the way, too. _That_ is part of the value proposition of the app store itself. The app store does not exist in a vacuum.
  - fastball 5y ago
    > I made an assumption that I'm confident would apply to most people commenting on this story Great, well, I'm not most people commenting on this story. If you've ever jailbroken an iOS device, there is a very high probability your device subsequently ran code that I wrote. I have distributed apps and tweaks to literally hundreds of thousands of users through the repos I've run. Don't make assumptions when you don't need to. > You've misunderstood. No, I think you've misunderstood. I did not say building hardware, an operating system, and an app store is easy. I said building an app store is easy. Let me quote myself: > People keep saying "but you wouldn't have devices to distribute your app to without Apple" and while that is true, Apple is already capturing the value for that part of the deal – they're selling the devices to customers. Look, I get it – you're holding on to the idea that Apple built the ecosystem, so they're allowed to do with it as they please. And in general I'm sympathetic to the idea that if you build something, you get to control it. The only problem is that it is not only Apple's ecosystem... the devices themselves belong to the people they sold them to, and Apple should not be able to unilaterally prevent those participants from using the devices they purchased as they wish in an anti-competitive way. This is precisely why we have anti-trust laws.

fastball 5y ago

> You really need to cool it with the condescension > But I doubt you even know the costs to run the service so my opinion is that you are speaking from a place of ignorance. > You didn't build or work on an app store. You played with one. Much easier to modify something that already exists than to create something where there once was nothing. That's some impressive cognitive dissonance ya got there, you might want to try looking in a mirror. You have no idea how much involvement I had. Please stop arguing from a place of complete and total ignorance. > Look, if it's so cheap and easy to do, why is everyone so hell bent on getting onto Apple's? They should just do it themselves! Surely you can't be serious... this is literally the topic at hand. Apple won't let anyone do it themselves. That is why they don't do it themselves. People absolutely would do it themselves if Apple wasn't behaving anti-competitively. I'm glad you agree that Apple should open up iOS to 3rd-party app stores so that they can live or die on their own merits, rather than being prevented from existing in the first place, based on dubious claims of protecting users. Though again, it is worth noting that people (yours truly included) actually have done it themselves, through jailbreaking. And that many jailbreak apps have done quite well financially, handling the distribution themselves. This is success in spite of Apple, as requiring users to jailbreak before they use your App Store is in fact a pretty high bar and does in fact make your system less secure. > You did not say anything about sandboxing _3rd-party app stores_... App Tracking and Transparency was created for a reason. Um, yes. That is exactly my point – the apps themselves are sandboxed and permissioned, at an OS level, so Apple's oversight (in the App Store) is a lot less useful than it once was (whether it ever was particularly valuable is not a given). If an app wants access to your location, the user has to explicitly allow it to have that permission. It doesn't matter what App Store the app is being distributed on, that sandboxing is there regardless. Also, isn't it a bit strange that Apple added such a feature in the first place? You'd think, since they were already gatekeeping apps that can be installed on your device, there would be no need, because Apple would catch apps that asked for permissions they didn't need, hmmm... just kidding, obviously this is because different users have different needs and Apple can't prescribe the same thing for everyone. Which is exactly why Apple should open up iOS to other app stores, and in order to keep iOS users secure they should focus on more things like App Tracking and Transparency, not on monopolizing app stores.

sixstringtheory 5y ago
>> I doubt you even know the costs > You have no idea how much involvement I had You're absolutely right. I said "I doubt you even know," not "I know for a fact you do not know," and am willing to be proven wrong. I made an assumption that I'm confident would apply to most people commenting on this story. I don't think I misrepresented it as anything other than an assumption. Until you show me some receipts I'm going to continue assuming you are not actually privvy to what it takes to run the app store. > Apple won't let anyone do it themselves You've misunderstood. People are free to build up a fleet of devices, the OS that runs on them, the backend services that make up the app store, all the customer support channels and tooling, find/hire/train all the employees that keep it running, etc etc etc. Apple can't stop people from trying that. Peoples' problem is that they don't want to take decades to get there, which is what Apple has done... lots of pain along the way, too. _That_ is part of the value proposition of the app store itself. The app store does not exist in a vacuum.
- fastball 5y ago
  > I made an assumption that I'm confident would apply to most people commenting on this story Great, well, I'm not most people commenting on this story. If you've ever jailbroken an iOS device, there is a very high probability your device subsequently ran code that I wrote. I have distributed apps and tweaks to literally hundreds of thousands of users through the repos I've run. Don't make assumptions when you don't need to. > You've misunderstood. No, I think you've misunderstood. I did not say building hardware, an operating system, and an app store is easy. I said building an app store is easy. Let me quote myself: > People keep saying "but you wouldn't have devices to distribute your app to without Apple" and while that is true, Apple is already capturing the value for that part of the deal – they're selling the devices to customers. Look, I get it – you're holding on to the idea that Apple built the ecosystem, so they're allowed to do with it as they please. And in general I'm sympathetic to the idea that if you build something, you get to control it. The only problem is that it is not only Apple's ecosystem... the devices themselves belong to the people they sold them to, and Apple should not be able to unilaterally prevent those participants from using the devices they purchased as they wish in an anti-competitive way. This is precisely why we have anti-trust laws.