9 ms·

Why not give customers the choice to run other app stores? Imagine if all the software on your laptop must be downloaded from the windows store..

exporectomy 5y ago
Sometimes less freedom is a good thing. It frees the customer's mind to let an organization they trust make the tedious product evaluations for you. We do it all the time with retail shopping where we enjoy the curated decisions of the shop's owner instead of a giant bazaar.
- aero-glide2 5y ago
  I own the hardware (the floor space of the store). Should I not be able to decide who sets up shop in my phone?
  - Jailbird 5y ago
    I think the zoning laws in your area prevent you from operating a nuclear plant or a meat processing facility. (Sorry, it's just Hello Kitty shops for you! :) )
- celsoazevedo 5y ago
  On the other hand, when Apple decides to block some app (eg: certain VPN apps in China) for reasons that aren't in your interest, you're screwed. Being able to use a different app store (which may or may not be as "curated" as Apple's own store) or to simply download the app from the devs website and install it doesn't seem to be a problem for Android users. Or for Windows, Linux and even macOS (eg: is it that bad being able to install Steam?) The thing is, most people will use the store that comes with the phone. I have F-Droid installed for some open source apps, but my parents have no idea of what that is. They use Google's Play Store, like most users... if Facebook wants them to use their apps, that's where their app needs to be.
  - notriddle 5y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27221083 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27221083 Apparently, yes, it is a problem.
    - celsoazevedo 5y ago
      They're trying to defend their own store and business model... of course having a more open system is a problem. After years of "there are no viruses for mac", I find it funny to see an Apple exec saying that his own family members have been infected by malware on macOS.
- pjc50 5y ago
  But we do allow more than one or two shops to exist.
- cs2733 5y ago
  I'm with you on this... and then remember the many useful tools that are only available outside the app store. BTW, Have you seen the app store catalog for macOS on apple silicon? Still very sparse. Trusting one company to provide the whole stack is not necessarily practical, even for the average user.
  - exporectomy 5y ago
    If your phone is a central part of your IT job (you mention tools), then you need flexibility. But if you're like me any just use it as a phone, casual web browser, and messenger device, freedom is no value. I'm confident all the basic important stuff will be available and if it's not, I don't really care anyway. I don't want to have to think about or manage my phone. I want it to just do its basic job and get out of my way. I think a lot of people are like this.
- calsy 5y ago
  They curate their stores to draw in customers, placing popular items up front and usually having SALE signs up. Why? because it is an extremely competitive environment. The store owners pay rent, they are not obliged to give a 30% commission on purchases to the company who owns the shopping centre and they are not forced to use the shopping centres chosen payment service to make sure they collect on commissions. Less freedom is not a good thing. Nothing is being taken away from you when you provide other options, quite the opposite.
vbezhenar 5y ago
> Why not give customers the choice to run other app stores? Why would Apple want to do so? That would obviously reduce their earnings. > Imagine if all the software on your laptop must be downloaded from the windows store.. I bet that is Microsoft's dream. They can't just do that because of disruption would be too big. But they did something similar with Windows RT, so they definitely looking into it.
- Hamuko 5y ago
  >They can't just do that because of disruption would be too big. Microsoft became rather antitrust shy at some point. Not sure if that's the case anymore but I think it affected many of the decisions.
  - dan-robertson 5y ago
    They became shy exactly when they lost a massive antitrust suit in the late 90’s.
FredPret 5y ago
But you do! Buy an Android. Or jailbreak the iPhone. As a consumer, his comments were spot on about me at least.
jrsj 5y ago
Because my grandma is clueless and I give her an iPhone so she doesn’t install malware like she managed to on her Android phone
- johnchristopher 5y ago
  Could the guest mode on android or enterprise/fleet thingy be used to achieve that (preventing user from installing malware) ?
- celsoazevedo 5y ago
  It's weird that a clueless person was able to download and install a malware apk when by default Android forces you to go to your settings and allow apps to install other apps (the behaviour has changed over the years, but you always need to do something). Not to mention that Google Play Protect scans your apps and warns you if it finds something sketchy. In any case and as much as I like my own clueless grandma, I don't think my Android phone should only allow me to use the play store or that windows/macos/linux should stop me from installing Steam just because she's clueless about tech.
  - dan-robertson 5y ago
    What’s your argument here, that the GP is lying or that their grandmother wanted the malware or something else? I find it very easy to believe that some malware vendor managed to trick someone into enabling things in settings. I would also believe that malware was just sitting in the play store[1] and available to install the normal way. [1] same goes for the App Store.
    - celsoazevedo 5y ago
      His grandmother already has an iPhone, so it's unlikely that she was using Android 10 or 11 (which made it fairly easy to install an apk file). Until Android 9 you had to go through some menus and allow sideloading, something that "clueless" people usually don't do. It's more likely that the "malware" came from an app installed via the Play Store. Three or so years ago I was asked by someone to see if there was a virus on their phone. The "virus" was in fact a religious app, installed via the official store, which was opening a popup with ads every few hours. Now, I could be wrong and it's possible that his grandma actually sideloaded an apk. If she did, I still think that you should be able to install an app that isn't allowed by Apple on their store, after all they block more than just malware: apps with free licenses, some VPN apps in some countries, torrent apps without any illegal content in it, etc. If Apple wants to continue on this path, hopefully they'll go a step further and also remove the web browser and the ability to receive calls. Scam calls are a problem after all and we don't want people to send all their savings to "Microsoft" or "Amazon".
sokoloff 5y ago
Customers have that choice today. On the Android platform.
- nr2x 5y ago
  Which is partially why Apple makes it very hard to move to Android. No iMessage, Calendars, Contacts, iTunes Purchases, etc.
  - d3nj4l 5y ago
    You can very easily link your iCal with Google Calendar, and likewise sync your contacts with your Google account. I know because I've done both.
    - nr2x 5y ago
      You can't access iCloud calendars on an Android phone, they even block it over the browser.
      - kitsunesoba 5y ago
        It's a bit convoluted, but you can get the CalDAV URLs for your calendars which then work just fine with any CalDAV client (including those on Android). When googling "iCloud caldav" detailed instructions are the first result.
        nr2x 5y ago
        Key point here is "very hard to move to Android". Seeing as this is not at all easy (and I have gotten to work via this method at some point), it presents a barrier to changing platforms. Likewise ,not allowing access to calendar on a mobile browser is pretty blatant.
jodrellblank 5y ago
Also on HN today, endless comments about how Amazon is a shitheap full of fake products and fake reviews and wishing Amazon would tighten up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27253047 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27253047 > "Why not give customers the choice to run other app stores?" Why can't people who don't want Apple's curation and want to install other app stores buy Android phones, instead of trying to ruin nice things for everyone else?

exporectomy 5y ago

Sometimes less freedom is a good thing. It frees the customer's mind to let an organization they trust make the tedious product evaluations for you. We do it all the time with retail shopping where we enjoy the curated decisions of the shop's owner instead of a giant bazaar.

aero-glide2 5y ago
I own the hardware (the floor space of the store). Should I not be able to decide who sets up shop in my phone?
- Jailbird 5y ago
  I think the zoning laws in your area prevent you from operating a nuclear plant or a meat processing facility. (Sorry, it's just Hello Kitty shops for you! :) )
celsoazevedo 5y ago
On the other hand, when Apple decides to block some app (eg: certain VPN apps in China) for reasons that aren't in your interest, you're screwed. Being able to use a different app store (which may or may not be as "curated" as Apple's own store) or to simply download the app from the devs website and install it doesn't seem to be a problem for Android users. Or for Windows, Linux and even macOS (eg: is it that bad being able to install Steam?) The thing is, most people will use the store that comes with the phone. I have F-Droid installed for some open source apps, but my parents have no idea of what that is. They use Google's Play Store, like most users... if Facebook wants them to use their apps, that's where their app needs to be.
- notriddle 5y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27221083 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27221083 Apparently, yes, it is a problem.
  - celsoazevedo 5y ago
    They're trying to defend their own store and business model... of course having a more open system is a problem. After years of "there are no viruses for mac", I find it funny to see an Apple exec saying that his own family members have been infected by malware on macOS.
pjc50 5y ago
But we do allow more than one or two shops to exist.
cs2733 5y ago
I'm with you on this... and then remember the many useful tools that are only available outside the app store. BTW, Have you seen the app store catalog for macOS on apple silicon? Still very sparse. Trusting one company to provide the whole stack is not necessarily practical, even for the average user.
- exporectomy 5y ago
  If your phone is a central part of your IT job (you mention tools), then you need flexibility. But if you're like me any just use it as a phone, casual web browser, and messenger device, freedom is no value. I'm confident all the basic important stuff will be available and if it's not, I don't really care anyway. I don't want to have to think about or manage my phone. I want it to just do its basic job and get out of my way. I think a lot of people are like this.
calsy 5y ago
They curate their stores to draw in customers, placing popular items up front and usually having SALE signs up. Why? because it is an extremely competitive environment. The store owners pay rent, they are not obliged to give a 30% commission on purchases to the company who owns the shopping centre and they are not forced to use the shopping centres chosen payment service to make sure they collect on commissions. Less freedom is not a good thing. Nothing is being taken away from you when you provide other options, quite the opposite.

vbezhenar 5y ago

> Why not give customers the choice to run other app stores? Why would Apple want to do so? That would obviously reduce their earnings. > Imagine if all the software on your laptop must be downloaded from the windows store.. I bet that is Microsoft's dream. They can't just do that because of disruption would be too big. But they did something similar with Windows RT, so they definitely looking into it.

Hamuko 5y ago
>They can't just do that because of disruption would be too big. Microsoft became rather antitrust shy at some point. Not sure if that's the case anymore but I think it affected many of the decisions.
- dan-robertson 5y ago
  They became shy exactly when they lost a massive antitrust suit in the late 90’s.

FredPret 5y ago

But you do! Buy an Android. Or jailbreak the iPhone. As a consumer, his comments were spot on about me at least.

jrsj 5y ago

Because my grandma is clueless and I give her an iPhone so she doesn’t install malware like she managed to on her Android phone

johnchristopher 5y ago
Could the guest mode on android or enterprise/fleet thingy be used to achieve that (preventing user from installing malware) ?
celsoazevedo 5y ago
It's weird that a clueless person was able to download and install a malware apk when by default Android forces you to go to your settings and allow apps to install other apps (the behaviour has changed over the years, but you always need to do something). Not to mention that Google Play Protect scans your apps and warns you if it finds something sketchy. In any case and as much as I like my own clueless grandma, I don't think my Android phone should only allow me to use the play store or that windows/macos/linux should stop me from installing Steam just because she's clueless about tech.
- dan-robertson 5y ago
  What’s your argument here, that the GP is lying or that their grandmother wanted the malware or something else? I find it very easy to believe that some malware vendor managed to trick someone into enabling things in settings. I would also believe that malware was just sitting in the play store[1] and available to install the normal way. [1] same goes for the App Store.
  - celsoazevedo 5y ago
    His grandmother already has an iPhone, so it's unlikely that she was using Android 10 or 11 (which made it fairly easy to install an apk file). Until Android 9 you had to go through some menus and allow sideloading, something that "clueless" people usually don't do. It's more likely that the "malware" came from an app installed via the Play Store. Three or so years ago I was asked by someone to see if there was a virus on their phone. The "virus" was in fact a religious app, installed via the official store, which was opening a popup with ads every few hours. Now, I could be wrong and it's possible that his grandma actually sideloaded an apk. If she did, I still think that you should be able to install an app that isn't allowed by Apple on their store, after all they block more than just malware: apps with free licenses, some VPN apps in some countries, torrent apps without any illegal content in it, etc. If Apple wants to continue on this path, hopefully they'll go a step further and also remove the web browser and the ability to receive calls. Scam calls are a problem after all and we don't want people to send all their savings to "Microsoft" or "Amazon".

sokoloff 5y ago

Customers have that choice today. On the Android platform.

nr2x 5y ago
Which is partially why Apple makes it very hard to move to Android. No iMessage, Calendars, Contacts, iTunes Purchases, etc.
- d3nj4l 5y ago
  You can very easily link your iCal with Google Calendar, and likewise sync your contacts with your Google account. I know because I've done both.
  - nr2x 5y ago
    You can't access iCloud calendars on an Android phone, they even block it over the browser.
    - kitsunesoba 5y ago
      It's a bit convoluted, but you can get the CalDAV URLs for your calendars which then work just fine with any CalDAV client (including those on Android). When googling "iCloud caldav" detailed instructions are the first result.
      - nr2x 5y ago
        Key point here is "very hard to move to Android". Seeing as this is not at all easy (and I have gotten to work via this method at some point), it presents a barrier to changing platforms. Likewise ,not allowing access to calendar on a mobile browser is pretty blatant.

jodrellblank 5y ago

Also on HN today, endless comments about how Amazon is a shitheap full of fake products and fake reviews and wishing Amazon would tighten up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27253047 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27253047 > "Why not give customers the choice to run other app stores?" Why can't people who don't want Apple's curation and want to install other app stores buy Android phones, instead of trying to ruin nice things for everyone else?