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It's incredibly convenient for Apple that there's overlap between safety features and anti-competive behaviors. Every time somebody says "I don't want vendor l
by pornel 3y ago
It's incredibly convenient for Apple that there's overlap between safety features and anti-competive behaviors.
Every time somebody says "I don't want vendor lock-in", they flip it to "Oh, so you don't want safety?"
But these are often false dichotomies created by Apple. Reviewing and rejecting apps for fraud and malware is great, but Apple bundled that with rejecting apps for using the word "Android" and whatever other curation they want.
Having built-in first-party subscriptions UI is safe and convenient for users, but the mobile duopoly and their control of the platform lets them charge for it whatever they want. Apple implies that allowing other payment processors means going to a dodgy website that makes unsubscribing and refunds impossible, but that's a false dichotomy Apple has created. They could require integration with iOS's subscription management APIs to use alternative payment processors (they already support PayPal as a back-end).
And this is another case where it's incredibly convenient that opening up internal APIs without safeguards to 3rd parties would be unsafe, so they haven't done it. But this is a false dichotomy – they don't have to run 3rd party browsers unsandboxed, or allow any app create homescreen icons willy-nilly. Adding to home screen is already a user gesture through the Share sheet, mediated by the OS. Browsers must be sandboxed anyway, and webapps were already allowed to run full screen.
And this isn't lack of just any feature. Apple has argued for years that App Store isn't mandatory, because anybody can just make a web app instead. That was never quite true do to Safari's limitations, but now is just a farce.
- djfdat 3y agoThis is the best-worded form of this argument I've seen. Thanks!
- tailspin2019 3y agoCompletely agree with this. We lose some of this nuance when we follow Apple’s line of reasoning that it’s a binary choice: safety OR openness.
- jocaal 3y ago> Every time somebody says "I don't want vendor lock-in", they flip it to "Oh, so you don't want safety?" Sometimes you need safety from the vendors. Linux is the only OS that doesn't use dark patterns to make me create a cloud account.
- FireBeyond 3y agoAnd Apple has no end of people willing to carry their water on this. With the recent LastPass debacle you actually had John Gruber saying things like: > Instead, the scam LassPass app tries to steer you to creating a “pro” account subscription for $2/month, $10/year, or a $50 lifetime purchase. Those are actually low prices for a scam app — a lot of scammy apps try to charge like $10/week. (emphasis mine) He also claims, without any way to know, that "it doesn't look like this was made to steal LastPass credentials". The whole article is very much a "yeah it sucks and shouldn't happen, but this is no big deal, really, why are you getting all up in Apple's face about it?" vibe.