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My opinion won't be popular. I think it is nice to have a choice of a walled off platform. If I wanted a "more open" platform, I would get an Android phone. Th

by yreg 3y ago

My opinion won't be popular. I think it is nice to have a choice of a walled off platform. If I wanted a "more open" platform, I would get an Android phone. There are plenty of amazing Android phones. I choose the tradeoff of Apple's curation. Yes, I cannot run arbitrary software and sometimes it is a disadvantage. Yes, I don't agree with all of the App Store rules all of the time. Yes, I don't think the App Store revenue split is entirely fair. However, I absolutely love that all the developers including the likes of Meta or Uber have to bow down to Apple's rules, which are mostly beneficial to me. I don't want to download apps from alternative app stores. I want them to be available in App Store and to be submitting to all of the curation rules. Perhaps it might seem ridiculous to you, but I want to have the freedom to choose a closed ecosystem as long as there is a good alternative. ---- On the other hand, I think jailbreaking shouldn't void warranty. Also, I might be fine with a regulation that forces Apple to release an "official jailbreak". But that policy should then also apply to PlayStation, X-box, Tesla infotainment, etc.

marcosdumay 3y ago
> I don't want to download apps from alternative app stores. Then don't. Nobody is forcing you.
- larme 3y ago
  big corps (including apple itself) are powerful enough to force you to do everything if they really want.
- EtienneK 3y ago
  If I can only get WhatsApp from the Meta Store then, yes, I’m forced.
  - surgical_fire 3y ago
    That does not happen on Android though.
- yreg 3y ago
  I want to download them from the App Store. I use Instagram, but I want it to play by Apple's rules. Surely you understand what I mean.
  - marcosdumay 3y ago
    Yes, I get what you want. You want to coerce everybody that brought a phone like yours into your cause, due to its sanctity. And also, for some reason you are afraid that most people that brought that phone will refuse to join if not coerced. That first one is morally wrong. And the second one of factually wrong.
- threeseed 3y ago
  Except this is a disingenuous argument. Because there will be many applications you may need to use e.g. banking which will be on an alternative App Store purely so they can skirt Apple's privacy restrictions. Finance is one sector where they would love to siphon all of your user data in order to better promote products and reduce risk. And so I would be forced to use them.
  - aaomidi 3y ago
    You can switch banks? Trust me if these banks are only following the rules because of Apple, I can guarantee you their backend is definitely not following these privacy rules. Also, OS level permissions don’t need to go away for third party apps.
    - threeseed 3y ago
      Switching banks can often mean changing home and personal loan products which is non trivial to say the least. And Apple can’t properly enforce OS level permissions due to Objective-C dynamic dispatch.
      - extraduder_ire 3y ago
        Why can't they? They control the objc runtime, and IIRC the way message passing works in that system requires throwing strings around with the involvement of the runtime. This being entirely separate from using allowed APIs for unapproved reasons, after passing whatever review/scan is done.
        threeseed 3y ago
        Because you would need to check every message against a hash map of disallowed private APIs. The performance degradation would be so significant it would render many apps and most of the OS unusable.
        extraduder_ire 3y ago
OJFord 3y ago
> However, I absolutely love that all the developers including the likes of Meta or Uber have to bow down to Apple's rules, which are mostly beneficial to me. I don't want to download apps from alternative app stores. I want them to be available in App Store and to be submitting to all of the curation rules. On Android, you have to abide by Google's rules if you want to be in the Play Store; Amazon's if you want to be in theirs; F-Droid's to be there. Consumers have choice over whose rules they care about. In a hypothetical iOS with app store competition, what you write would presumably still be true for the Apple App Store, there just might be an 'F-iOS' or whatever that insists the app is open source too, for example.
- yreg 3y ago
  I believe companies like Meta could afford to leave the Apple App Store and distribute apps through their own app store only. Perhaps you might say that would be fair, but it is a world that suits me less than the current one.
  - diffeomorphism 3y ago
    So why is that not happening for android? You don't have to come up with hypothetical scenarios if you already have a real life example to look at.
    - larme 3y ago
      This actually happens in China and every phone manufactures has their own app store. It's a shitshow
      - em-bee 3y ago
        having multiple stores in itself is fine, but it's even worse worse. if you want to release your app on multiple app stores, you have to release on all of them at the same time. if you skip one they will not allow you to launch there later because you dared to treat them as second choice. imagine apple banning you because you dared to release on android first.
wmal 3y ago
I like the walled garden of Apple as well, especially as a “family IT guy” who had no need to reset/reconfigure the systems or remove malware from any phones since talking the family members to switch to iPhones a few years back. Some of the properties of the walled garden have nothing to do with security, though. They are simply uncompetitive practices on Apple part. I’m happy someone said “enough”.
diffeomorphism 3y ago
False dichotomy. Having a curated store \neq Having only one store. Also, that misses all the other areas pointed out: "Be it the electronic wallet, browsers or app stores, consumers using an Apple iPhone should be able to benefit from competitive services by a range of providers." > But that policy should then also apply to PlayStation, X-box, Tesla infotainment, etc. Why? That only applies to "gatekeepers". So you would have to argue that apple is very unsuccessful and hence these are at the same level as apple... seems like quite a stretch.
- yreg 3y ago
  >False dichotomy. No it's not. Currently all the apps that want to be available on Apple's platform have to submit to Apple's rules. If alternative app stores are allowed, they won't have to do that. As a consumer I like the current state of matters more. >Also, that misses all the other areas I'm reacting only to the App Store part. I'm all for opening electronic wallet or allowing browser engines into App Store. Those are off topic in this subthread. >Why? That only applies to "gatekeepers". I don't see how PS/Xbox/Tesla are any less of a gatekeeper than Apple.
  - gigel82 3y ago
    The point is choice. As a consumer, you can choose to only get your apps via the official Apple store, which comes with all the "Apple rules" you want. As another consumer, I prefer freedom and hate monopolists so would choose another store. Everyone is happy!
    - endisneigh 3y ago
      why not just buy an Android?
      - isbvhodnvemrwvn 3y ago
        Why don't you move to mexico? It's about the same level of nonsense question.
tick_tock_tick 3y ago
> I choose the tradeoff of Apple's curation. When individuals choices start to actively harm society laws are often created to prevent more harm.
tzs 3y ago
One approach that might be reasonable is for device makers to provide a hypervisor to control actual hardware access, and then implement their environments in virtual machines running under that hypervisor. iOS then becomes just one environment that the phone's owner can choose to run under that hypervisor. Within any given environment the maker of that environment should be free make it as open or closed as they want. The device maker should have to make it easy to run different environments.
- yreg 3y ago
  Yes! That would be nice.
ghusto 3y ago
It doesn't seem ridiculous to me, I get where you're coming from. Only I'd say you've been misled. As others have pointed out, you can have both a walled garden store and an Apple curated store — and this is how Android operates. More menacing though, are Apples reasons for not wanting competition. Put simply; if Safari wasn't the only allowed browser on iDevices (other browsers are just skins over what is essentially Safari), they would lose a significant amount of power. They can throw their weight around now, partially because they have a strong web browser market share — but it's artificially imposed. If you don't think it's forced, have a quick quiz at work amongst Apple fanboys, and find out how many of them use Safari as their default web browser — on their Macs.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- taffer 3y ago
  If there were other app stores besides Apple's for iDevices, Google would require you to download the Play Store to access Gmail, YouTube and Google Maps. Once there's an alternative major app store where Apple's strict privacy rules don't apply, why should companies with a more relaxed privacy stance stay on Apple's store? Your Bank, Facebook, Adobe, and Amazon will likely move to the store with the lowest standards.
  - hocuspocus 3y ago
    That's absolutely not the case on Android, why would it be different on iOS?
  - wvenable 3y ago
    Being on the default store is 1000% buff. Literally your Bank, Facebook, and Amazon aren't going to just disappear off the shelves of the biggest store. On Android, Amazon actually run their own app store and they still have all their apps on the play store.
    - Apocryphon 3y ago
LightHugger 3y ago
[flagged]
- yreg 3y ago
  Do you think I'm the only user here who bought an iPhone?
aaomidi 3y ago
> But that policy should then also apply to PlayStation, X-box, Tesla infotainment, etc. I want the forced to open up to competitors to be applied to everyone.
twayhn893249 3y ago
>I don't want to download apps from alternative app stores. I want them to be available in App Store and to be submitting to all of the curation rules. Even if alternative app stores were allowed you'd more than likely never be forced to use them. Alternative stores are available on Android and yet the overwhelming majority of apps are still on the play store. The idea that Facebook, Amazon, Google or whoever would pull their apps and force you to use their store is complete FUD that ignores that the overwhelming majority of users wouldn't tolerate an app not being on Apples store.
- mcphage 3y ago
  > The idea that Facebook, Amazon, Google or whoever would pull their apps and force you to use their store is complete FUD that ignores that the overwhelming majority of users wouldn't tolerate an app not being on Apples store. I think you're right, but won't that defeat the purpose of opening the stores up? For instance: right now, you can't buy Kindle eBooks through the Amazon app. You need to do it through the web browser, so Amazon doesn't need to pay Apple 30%. But if Amazon continues to list their Apple in Apple's App Store, how will that change? Would they have 2 versions of their App—one in Apple's store that disallows eBook purchases, and one in Amazon's App Store that allows eBook purchases? Or will they still just disallow eBook purchases?
  - bryan_w 3y ago
    Perhaps in this case they would be able to go to Apple and negotiate a more reasonable 5 or 6% cut and stay in Apple's store. Amazon gets discoverability in the safe, Apple app store and Apple gets a cut of the revenue, win win.
frizlab 3y ago
I totally agree and am bewildered that not more people do. The downsides and abuses to come are so obvious everybody should be revolting at the very idea. Instead we get a law to force it…

by yreg 3y ago

marcosdumay 3y ago

> I don't want to download apps from alternative app stores. Then don't. Nobody is forcing you.

larme 3y ago
big corps (including apple itself) are powerful enough to force you to do everything if they really want.
EtienneK 3y ago
If I can only get WhatsApp from the Meta Store then, yes, I’m forced.
- surgical_fire 3y ago
  That does not happen on Android though.
yreg 3y ago
I want to download them from the App Store. I use Instagram, but I want it to play by Apple's rules. Surely you understand what I mean.
- marcosdumay 3y ago
  Yes, I get what you want. You want to coerce everybody that brought a phone like yours into your cause, due to its sanctity. And also, for some reason you are afraid that most people that brought that phone will refuse to join if not coerced. That first one is morally wrong. And the second one of factually wrong.
threeseed 3y ago
Except this is a disingenuous argument. Because there will be many applications you may need to use e.g. banking which will be on an alternative App Store purely so they can skirt Apple's privacy restrictions. Finance is one sector where they would love to siphon all of your user data in order to better promote products and reduce risk. And so I would be forced to use them.
- aaomidi 3y ago
  You can switch banks? Trust me if these banks are only following the rules because of Apple, I can guarantee you their backend is definitely not following these privacy rules. Also, OS level permissions don’t need to go away for third party apps.
  - threeseed 3y ago
    Switching banks can often mean changing home and personal loan products which is non trivial to say the least. And Apple can’t properly enforce OS level permissions due to Objective-C dynamic dispatch.
    - extraduder_ire 3y ago
      Why can't they? They control the objc runtime, and IIRC the way message passing works in that system requires throwing strings around with the involvement of the runtime. This being entirely separate from using allowed APIs for unapproved reasons, after passing whatever review/scan is done.
      - threeseed 3y ago
        Because you would need to check every message against a hash map of disallowed private APIs. The performance degradation would be so significant it would render many apps and most of the OS unusable.
        extraduder_ire 3y ago

OJFord 3y ago

> However, I absolutely love that all the developers including the likes of Meta or Uber have to bow down to Apple's rules, which are mostly beneficial to me. I don't want to download apps from alternative app stores. I want them to be available in App Store and to be submitting to all of the curation rules. On Android, you have to abide by Google's rules if you want to be in the Play Store; Amazon's if you want to be in theirs; F-Droid's to be there. Consumers have choice over whose rules they care about. In a hypothetical iOS with app store competition, what you write would presumably still be true for the Apple App Store, there just might be an 'F-iOS' or whatever that insists the app is open source too, for example.

yreg 3y ago
I believe companies like Meta could afford to leave the Apple App Store and distribute apps through their own app store only. Perhaps you might say that would be fair, but it is a world that suits me less than the current one.
- diffeomorphism 3y ago
  So why is that not happening for android? You don't have to come up with hypothetical scenarios if you already have a real life example to look at.
  - larme 3y ago
    This actually happens in China and every phone manufactures has their own app store. It's a shitshow
    - em-bee 3y ago
      having multiple stores in itself is fine, but it's even worse worse. if you want to release your app on multiple app stores, you have to release on all of them at the same time. if you skip one they will not allow you to launch there later because you dared to treat them as second choice. imagine apple banning you because you dared to release on android first.

wmal 3y ago

I like the walled garden of Apple as well, especially as a “family IT guy” who had no need to reset/reconfigure the systems or remove malware from any phones since talking the family members to switch to iPhones a few years back. Some of the properties of the walled garden have nothing to do with security, though. They are simply uncompetitive practices on Apple part. I’m happy someone said “enough”.

diffeomorphism 3y ago

False dichotomy. Having a curated store \neq Having only one store. Also, that misses all the other areas pointed out: "Be it the electronic wallet, browsers or app stores, consumers using an Apple iPhone should be able to benefit from competitive services by a range of providers." > But that policy should then also apply to PlayStation, X-box, Tesla infotainment, etc. Why? That only applies to "gatekeepers". So you would have to argue that apple is very unsuccessful and hence these are at the same level as apple... seems like quite a stretch.

yreg 3y ago
>False dichotomy. No it's not. Currently all the apps that want to be available on Apple's platform have to submit to Apple's rules. If alternative app stores are allowed, they won't have to do that. As a consumer I like the current state of matters more. >Also, that misses all the other areas I'm reacting only to the App Store part. I'm all for opening electronic wallet or allowing browser engines into App Store. Those are off topic in this subthread. >Why? That only applies to "gatekeepers". I don't see how PS/Xbox/Tesla are any less of a gatekeeper than Apple.
- gigel82 3y ago
  The point is choice. As a consumer, you can choose to only get your apps via the official Apple store, which comes with all the "Apple rules" you want. As another consumer, I prefer freedom and hate monopolists so would choose another store. Everyone is happy!
  - endisneigh 3y ago
    why not just buy an Android?
    - isbvhodnvemrwvn 3y ago
      Why don't you move to mexico? It's about the same level of nonsense question.

tick_tock_tick 3y ago

> I choose the tradeoff of Apple's curation. When individuals choices start to actively harm society laws are often created to prevent more harm.

tzs 3y ago

One approach that might be reasonable is for device makers to provide a hypervisor to control actual hardware access, and then implement their environments in virtual machines running under that hypervisor. iOS then becomes just one environment that the phone's owner can choose to run under that hypervisor. Within any given environment the maker of that environment should be free make it as open or closed as they want. The device maker should have to make it easy to run different environments.

yreg 3y ago
Yes! That would be nice.

ghusto 3y ago

It doesn't seem ridiculous to me, I get where you're coming from. Only I'd say you've been misled. As others have pointed out, you can have both a walled garden store and an Apple curated store — and this is how Android operates. More menacing though, are Apples reasons for not wanting competition. Put simply; if Safari wasn't the only allowed browser on iDevices (other browsers are just skins over what is essentially Safari), they would lose a significant amount of power. They can throw their weight around now, partially because they have a strong web browser market share — but it's artificially imposed. If you don't think it's forced, have a quick quiz at work amongst Apple fanboys, and find out how many of them use Safari as their default web browser — on their Macs.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
taffer 3y ago
If there were other app stores besides Apple's for iDevices, Google would require you to download the Play Store to access Gmail, YouTube and Google Maps. Once there's an alternative major app store where Apple's strict privacy rules don't apply, why should companies with a more relaxed privacy stance stay on Apple's store? Your Bank, Facebook, Adobe, and Amazon will likely move to the store with the lowest standards.
- hocuspocus 3y ago
  That's absolutely not the case on Android, why would it be different on iOS?
- wvenable 3y ago
  Being on the default store is 1000% buff. Literally your Bank, Facebook, and Amazon aren't going to just disappear off the shelves of the biggest store. On Android, Amazon actually run their own app store and they still have all their apps on the play store.
  - Apocryphon 3y ago

LightHugger 3y ago

[flagged]

yreg 3y ago
Do you think I'm the only user here who bought an iPhone?

aaomidi 3y ago

> But that policy should then also apply to PlayStation, X-box, Tesla infotainment, etc. I want the forced to open up to competitors to be applied to everyone.

twayhn893249 3y ago

>I don't want to download apps from alternative app stores. I want them to be available in App Store and to be submitting to all of the curation rules. Even if alternative app stores were allowed you'd more than likely never be forced to use them. Alternative stores are available on Android and yet the overwhelming majority of apps are still on the play store. The idea that Facebook, Amazon, Google or whoever would pull their apps and force you to use their store is complete FUD that ignores that the overwhelming majority of users wouldn't tolerate an app not being on Apples store.

mcphage 3y ago
> The idea that Facebook, Amazon, Google or whoever would pull their apps and force you to use their store is complete FUD that ignores that the overwhelming majority of users wouldn't tolerate an app not being on Apples store. I think you're right, but won't that defeat the purpose of opening the stores up? For instance: right now, you can't buy Kindle eBooks through the Amazon app. You need to do it through the web browser, so Amazon doesn't need to pay Apple 30%. But if Amazon continues to list their Apple in Apple's App Store, how will that change? Would they have 2 versions of their App—one in Apple's store that disallows eBook purchases, and one in Amazon's App Store that allows eBook purchases? Or will they still just disallow eBook purchases?
- bryan_w 3y ago
  Perhaps in this case they would be able to go to Apple and negotiate a more reasonable 5 or 6% cut and stay in Apple's store. Amazon gets discoverability in the safe, Apple app store and Apple gets a cut of the revenue, win win.

frizlab 3y ago

I totally agree and am bewildered that not more people do. The downsides and abuses to come are so obvious everybody should be revolting at the very idea. Instead we get a law to force it…