4 ms·

> This is one of those things where there is only upside for everyone involved. Except all of us who value privacy and security. Face it: the major competitio

> This is one of those things where there is only upside for everyone involved. Except all of us who value privacy and security. Face it: the major competition between app stores is not going to be on price, but a race to the bottom on who can allow apps to fuck over users the hardest.

freedomben 3y ago
You really think Apple is just going to abandon everything it believes in and trash their brand in a race to the bottom? If there's one company I don't expect that from, it's Apple. They may have highly dubious ethics but they are damn good at business and marketing, and I would be utterly shocked if they don't position themselves as the safe, privacy-friendly official app store. For people who don't enable side-loading, I wouldn't expect they'll even notice any changes.
- tpmoney 3y ago
  It's not whether Apple will, it's the other developers that you might not have a choice to interact with. Sure, in the tech space, we're all imagining the great open source on iOS revolution. Gamers are anticipating their Fortnite. And I'm sure Facebook is anticipating not having to ask for permission to hoover up all your personal data. Sure you don't need facebook, but if you want to be using WhatsApp to communicate with your friends and family, you might not have a choice. Shady companies that sell shady spyware to schools "for the children" are looking forward to a much easier time rolling out the most invasive ideas they have. The ad companies are I'm sure salivating over telemetry libraries with extra detailed modes for non-Apple app store installations.
  - freedomben 3y ago
    That would certainly be an interesting turn of events if major apps like Facebook or Whatsapp decided to d-list from the app store and require their own store. Given Apple's current heavy fees and disincentives to do that, I'm guessing epic is probably the only company that will. I think a lot of people would refuse to install an alternative app store to get most apps. But most of all, I look at Android where alternative app stores are possible with essentially no cost, and even with Amazon's enormous resources behind it, they could not get an alternative app store to catch on. I can't think of any reason why it would be different on iOS, so ultimately I suppose I expect this to go nowhere and a few years from now there will be the epic game store and the main app store and everything for nearly everybody will just be on the app store like it is now. The alternative stores will just have the apps that Apple wouldn't approve, like porn apps or privacy invasive, etc
    - NekkoDroid 3y ago
      > Facebook or Whatsapp decided to d-list from the app store and require their own store. Considering this hasn't happened on Android yet, I doubt you are in real trouble. Like it's not that they can really gain extra permissions (other than I guess tracking anything the app already has access to, but that isn't any different than currently) because they are sandboxed by the OS and limited in access through the permission system... I HOPE? RIGHT? @APPLE And on the side of other app stores: there is F-Droid which is decently popular for OSS apps.
    - SR2Z 3y ago
      Android app stores failed because there's actually not much of a need for middlemen: you can just get an APK from the source, like you would on Windows. As far as I can tell, Apple doesn't plan to let this happen.
stale2002 3y ago
Hey, maybe Apple should have thought of that and reduced their app store fee to 5% years ago then. Nobody would be going after Apple if they had simply stopped their monopoly pricing scheme. Its too late for that now. Now Apple is going to be forced, under threat of government action, to stop its anti-competitive actions.
- rahkiin 3y ago
  At 5% devs like epic would still complain about all the other rules or that 5% is too high.

freedomben 3y ago

You really think Apple is just going to abandon everything it believes in and trash their brand in a race to the bottom? If there's one company I don't expect that from, it's Apple. They may have highly dubious ethics but they are damn good at business and marketing, and I would be utterly shocked if they don't position themselves as the safe, privacy-friendly official app store. For people who don't enable side-loading, I wouldn't expect they'll even notice any changes.

tpmoney 3y ago
It's not whether Apple will, it's the other developers that you might not have a choice to interact with. Sure, in the tech space, we're all imagining the great open source on iOS revolution. Gamers are anticipating their Fortnite. And I'm sure Facebook is anticipating not having to ask for permission to hoover up all your personal data. Sure you don't need facebook, but if you want to be using WhatsApp to communicate with your friends and family, you might not have a choice. Shady companies that sell shady spyware to schools "for the children" are looking forward to a much easier time rolling out the most invasive ideas they have. The ad companies are I'm sure salivating over telemetry libraries with extra detailed modes for non-Apple app store installations.
- freedomben 3y ago
  That would certainly be an interesting turn of events if major apps like Facebook or Whatsapp decided to d-list from the app store and require their own store. Given Apple's current heavy fees and disincentives to do that, I'm guessing epic is probably the only company that will. I think a lot of people would refuse to install an alternative app store to get most apps. But most of all, I look at Android where alternative app stores are possible with essentially no cost, and even with Amazon's enormous resources behind it, they could not get an alternative app store to catch on. I can't think of any reason why it would be different on iOS, so ultimately I suppose I expect this to go nowhere and a few years from now there will be the epic game store and the main app store and everything for nearly everybody will just be on the app store like it is now. The alternative stores will just have the apps that Apple wouldn't approve, like porn apps or privacy invasive, etc
  - NekkoDroid 3y ago
    > Facebook or Whatsapp decided to d-list from the app store and require their own store. Considering this hasn't happened on Android yet, I doubt you are in real trouble. Like it's not that they can really gain extra permissions (other than I guess tracking anything the app already has access to, but that isn't any different than currently) because they are sandboxed by the OS and limited in access through the permission system... I HOPE? RIGHT? @APPLE And on the side of other app stores: there is F-Droid which is decently popular for OSS apps.
  - SR2Z 3y ago
    Android app stores failed because there's actually not much of a need for middlemen: you can just get an APK from the source, like you would on Windows. As far as I can tell, Apple doesn't plan to let this happen.

stale2002 3y ago

Hey, maybe Apple should have thought of that and reduced their app store fee to 5% years ago then. Nobody would be going after Apple if they had simply stopped their monopoly pricing scheme. Its too late for that now. Now Apple is going to be forced, under threat of government action, to stop its anti-competitive actions.

rahkiin 3y ago
At 5% devs like epic would still complain about all the other rules or that 5% is too high.