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The strongest argument really isn't that the App Store isn't good for consumers. There are examples where it very clearly isn't (cloud game streaming is a great
by 015a 5y ago
The strongest argument really isn't that the App Store isn't good for consumers. There are examples where it very clearly isn't (cloud game streaming is a great one), but by and large it is positive for consumers.
The issue is for developers. The duopoly means developers who demand a first-class mobile presence are forced to abide by Apple's rules.
Would Spotify exist today if Apple disallowed its presence in the App Store? That's 60%+ of US mobile subscribers only reachable via the "open web"; a poor experience for a mobile music player. Its likely they would not exist; but Apple Music would.
This may sound like a theoretical argument; a problem that isn't a problem because obviously Apple allows Spotify. But consider cloud game streaming services; these compete directly with Apple's mobile gaming revenue. Apple won't allow them on the store. When you get right down to it, their only sin is that, unlike Netflix, Spotify, and Kindle; cloud game streaming apps do not pre-date the App Store. That's the only reason these other cloud media streaming apps are allowed; consumers adopted the iPhone with expectations concerning the nature of their existence. Apple got there first on gaming, then shut the door.
Thus, the greatest sin of the iPhone is its behavior toward destroying true innovation. Not a slightly better note-taker or a prettier weather forecast; the App Store is great at distributing that. But, rather, applications Apple hasn't foreseen, now hampered by both the App Store's distribution rules, financial rules, and more fundamentally, the intentionally limited operating system.
This is not a situation where these innovations can't exist on the iPhone, but will flourish elsewhere; Apple's stranglehold on the consumer US smartphone market, the primary means of computing for many, many people, means these innovations may never exist at all. Possibly because they can't find a market. Or, more disturbingly; because they would have been invented by our next generation's Steve Wozniak or John Carmack, but instead of growing up with a computing environment which (safely!) nurtures creation, they grew up with the iPhone. And maybe an iPad.
- jonny_eh 5y agoApple also doesn't allow competing browsers, at least none with their own renderer or JS engine. What innovations in that space are we missing out on?
- barelysapient 5y agoBut hasn't this been the case sine iPhone 1? Apple rejected flash because of the poor impact it would have battery life among other things. As consumers we're better off because of that choice. Apple wants users of their iPhone device, the thing that they actually sell, to have a phenomenal experience. And they're going enforce rules across the ecosystem to make sure that experience remains solid.
- kadoban 5y agoFlash isn't a thing anymore, and every browser engine is better than Apple's. So what's the current reasoning?
- 015a 5y agoYou know, the funny thing is; phones got better. Apple's most of all. Batteries got bigger, processors got more powerful. Flash would have sucked on the iPhone 3G; I'd bet it'd be a perfectly pleasant experience on the iPhone 13. Flash was a fantastic technology. It gave birth to an entire generation of game developers, software engineers, and content creators, and certainly gave many young people plenty of hours of entertainment. Are we actually better off because Apple killed Flash? Or, is it just that Apple is better off, having killed literally the only web-based gaming technology to ever see mainstream success and secured the gate for the App Store to remain the single source for gaming content on iOS?
- Jtsummers 5y agoiOS isn't even the most popular OS in the world. Flash died because other people chose to let it, not Apple. Desktop OSes supported Flash through 2020 when it was end of lifed. Android is the most popular worldwide mobile OS, and Apple has no direct influence on what it runs. And if Adobe had cared enough, they had enough clout to push Apple sometime in the past 5-10 years when the battery and CPU and GPU on iPhones/iPads hit the threshold that it made sense to return Flash to it. But browser plugins like Flash and ActiveX were doomed once people started caring about the security of browsers, and once Google (via Chrome) and others started investing heavily in JS performance bring it closer to parity with Flash and removing features (like video playback) from Flash's domain and making it native to the browser. It's also worth noting, that while Flash was barred from the browser, it wasn't barred from iOS once Apple opened up 3rd party development tools including Flash, which happened in 2010.
- tims33 5y agoI'm aligned that developers are the ones who pay the price. Apple gets consumers on their side and can turn that into leverage against developers. This is where regulation and litigation are going to be key going forward. I don't completely agree on innovation. While they are limiting, developers can always launch on Android which has a massive, if less affluent, marketshare and leverage that against Apple's ecosystem. Clearly it isn't a perfect solve. I'm still happier to not have my kids downloading bloatware, spyware, and battery killers on their Apple devices.