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I think Apple should mostly be allowed to run as crappy an App Store as they want. But people should also be able to get apps from whatever store they want. (

by jmull 1y ago

I think Apple should mostly be allowed to run as crappy an App Store as they want. But people should also be able to get apps from whatever store they want. (Ground rules all app stored would have to follow based on technical, security, and legal concerns would be fine too, IMO.) Of course Apple would never go for that, so we'll end up with whatever mess legal processes can wring out of them.

dangus 1y ago
You say “they would never go for this” but they do it on the Mac. It’s funny how they are their own counter example. They have no leg to stand on.
- epohs 1y ago
  Counter example to what? Why should they not be able to run both a relatively open ecosystem and a mostly closed one? I don’t think Apple is arguing that it is impossible to allow more open ways to install apps on iPhones. I think they’re saying that they don’t want to, and that they shouldn’t have to.
  - jjtheblunt 1y ago
    It's possible they'll allow this on iOS once finer granularity logging of battery usage is pervasive, how fine is anyone's guess, so as to track down what apps, and of whatever provenance, degrade some kpi like user impression of battery life.
    - mrandish 1y ago
      This is about money not battery life. Apple makes billions of dollars in highly profitable revenue by cryptographically blocking users from controlling their own devices.
      - jjtheblunt 1y ago
        You could be right. That said, i was an engineer for several years in Apple and primary internal concerns were battery life and its influence on user experience; the removal of Flash viability, favoring html5, is an example: profiling of Flash apps written in the wild showed code that routinely drained battery with aplomb...inexplicable to end users not also programmers.
        mrandish 1y ago
        It's unsurprising that the internal narrative focused on the plausible user, product and technical issues which happen to align with sustaining the multi-billion dollar monopoly. Senior leadership isn't going to say the 'quiet part' out loud in all-hands meetings. I also worked in a valley giant with a multi-billion dollar monopoly position being preserved in a similar way. But I was senior enough to see both sides - the divisional all-hands mtgs and (some of) the exec staff mtgs (my boss was an EVP reporting directly to the CEO). The instructive part was observing what happened in the senior staff mtgs when a serious user, product or technical issue emerged which directly conflicted with sustaining the multi-billion dollar monopoly. Even in small mtgs with just the CEO, a couple EVPs and a handful of their direct reports, I never witnessed any explicit collusion or overt manipulation. The reason is surprisingly simple, they don't need to. They can make "the right thing" happen without being so obvious - just by controlling the agenda, attendees and context and then asking the right questions, prioritizing certain concerns and selecting the right working group leader to "come back with options which balance these concerns". These EVPs didn't get to where they are by plainly speaking their mind, although they are masters of appearing to do so when it serves them. At that level, there are degrees of subtlety and multi-dimensional chess that make Machiavelli look like a toddler. All those years of being "in the room where it happens" fairly frequently and there wasn't one moment where I thought, "Wow, if I leaked a tape recording of the last 60 seconds, somebody very important is losing their job." These people are far to experienced and skilled at this for it to be that simple. Which isn't to say there may not have been some very private conversations between only the CEO and an EVP or two where things were said explicitly - but I'm not even sure that was necessary. Frankly, the euphemistic language and context control is sufficient that it's probably easier for the them to "stay in character" all the time. In fact, I think some of them sort of believe it themselves - or at least prefer to avoid stewing on the more "unpleasant realities" of the job. Most of these people are, in their own minds, still the 'good guy' in the story they tell themselves.
  - jchw 1y ago
    > Counter example to what? Why should they not be able to run both a relatively open ecosystem and a mostly closed one? > I don’t think Apple is arguing that it is impossible to allow more open ways to install apps on iPhones. I think they’re saying that they don’t want to, and that they shouldn’t have to. Apple volunteers the position that they couldn't possibly open the iOS ecosystem themselves, not just that they don't want to, making some very amusing claims in the process.[1] They also don't want to, but the more you dig into possible "whys", you get into a lot of troubling realities quickly. Epic Games, on the other hand, is arguing that they actually should have to, at least to some extent. There are actually a lot of reasons why Apple's App Store practices might violate the law, and to my understanding, Epic Games is alleging that Apple's App Store practices constitute "illegal tying" whereby Apple unlawfully ties its payment processing service with its app distribution. That's far from the only potential legal issue that the App Store could face just based on current, existing law. (Note: I am not a lawyer, so take this with a grain of salt; but nothing I am saying is too original or groundbreaking.) And of course, it's always worth remembering that what's legal today can be regulated tomorrow. I don't really believe lawmakers or the general public really have had enough time to take a look at the impact that Apple/Google app stores have had on the software market and decide if these practices should be legal. The EU seems to think they shouldn't, and while I don't agree with the EU on everything, I tend to agree. [1]: https://observer.com/2021/05/even-craig-federighi-apples-head-of-software-thinks-malware-on-mac-is-unacceptable/ https://observer.com/2021/05/even-craig-federighi-apples-hea...
  - jajko 1y ago
    Luckily corporate greed it not the only thing that matters in this world. If they want to sell in half a billion rich market of EU, they will soon need to start behaving more morally. If not they can fuck off, write off 20-30% of company value and EU will have better products, (almost) everybody wins. Given how low morally they are, the room for improvement is massive and easy to move into. As you write, they didn't do it so far because they were not forced, and waiting for some good moral behavior 'just because it would be nice from them' is rather dumb.
  - kmeisthax 1y ago
    [dead]
- rootusrootus 1y ago
  I don't think the Mac is a great counter example. It started as a fully open platform, so the expectations are different. The iPhone was never anything other than an appliance, Apple is not trying to turn an open garden into a walled one, because it started that way.
  - johnnyanmac 1y ago
    Sure, in theory. But what really happened is that apple kept a stranglehold on what more and more became a general computing device. And they've done enough anti-compettive maneuvers to have the EU make them open up. I wouldn't be surprised if the US eventually comes to a similar decision. Apple may not be as blatant about it as the other big tech, but I hope it's not contentious to say that all three big companies needs a round of anti-trust overhaul.
  - jterrys 1y ago
    I think the problem is that the app store is perceived as a general computing platform compared to what it was originally birthed from: Built in immutable applications on a mobile phone.
matheusmoreira 1y ago
> But people should also be able to get apps from whatever store they want. This the answer. The app store monopoly doesn't really matter, the real tyranny is needing Apple's cryptographic blessing to run software on our own computers. This should be literally illegal. Restore our computer freedom and their app store rent seeking becomes irrelevant.
- bloomca 1y ago
  It's not just about that. I am sure if the court would force them to allow sideloading, they'll make sure to never promote your app if you decide to offer both options to the users.
  - para_parolu 1y ago
    And that’s fair. Apple doesn’t have to provide services to businesses
    - earthnail 1y ago
      Not until alternative stores become competitive. Realistically they have such a monopoly thar you end up in a chiclen and egg situation. Their monopoly is so large that noone wants to distribute via small alt stores, meaning alt stores never get large.
      - anilgulecha 1y ago
        A chicken and egg problem is highly unlikely. Here's a few probable situations: 1) A fdroid equivalent pops up, which them becomes a collection of fantastic open source apps, and soon develops a strong user base. 2) Google launches play store for iPhone, which will on day 1 get millions of users. 3) Meta launches metaStore, which so the only way to get Facebook, threads, Instagram and WhatsApp. This becomes the fastest growing store in a matter of a week. One may personally not like this world - but imo it's a better world than the one we have - personally for (1) to exist.
samdoesnothing 1y ago
People are allowed to get apps from whatever store they want. There is nothing stopping someone from purchasing a device that supports the google play store and downloading whatever they want from that store. I have no right to complain that I can't run Apple programs on a Windows computer, and Microsoft shouldn't be compelled to support MacOS software.
- 8note 1y ago
  https://www.darlinghq.org/ https://www.darlinghq.org/ seems like you can get it to run on windows via wsl if you want to run apps built for macs on your windows machine is there a need to complain? windows might not be putting in support for it, but unlike apple in their store, they arent actively preventing you from doing so
- groguzt 1y ago
  apple isn't allowed to choose whatever I can install on the device that I own and that I purchased with my own money. I am not renting the device. Get your dirty fingers off of what I can or can't do with it.
- TulliusCicero 1y ago
  Ridiculous argument. Microsoft isn't stopping me from running Apple programs on my Windows PC.
- LocalH 1y ago
  That's not the argument, and you know it. It's not complaints that cross-platform binaries don't run, it's that Apple gatekeeps development in terms of users actually being able to use the fruits of that development (without onerous work arounds like having to reinstall once per week, or jailbreak).
pabs3 1y ago
... and we should be able to run whatever OS on Apple phones we want.
- Cthulhu_ 1y ago
  But the OS is the main thing that sets Apple apart from other phones; you can get equivalent hardware for half the price, and you get to install whatever OS you want already. The prison is mainly in your head in this case.
jterrys 1y ago
I agree with you in principle. But I also, I guess, kinda just have a dumb thought about this whole ordeal. Broadly speaking, we are in a position where we, the general public with the backing of the government, want to change how a private corporation uses it's products that it sold to us. Not for any other reason that would shield us from harm or prevent risk, but rather because the corporation's products are so successful a lot of people use them too much! But wait! That's not actually true because there's enough products on the market that we don't actually need to use this product...but we like it because its incrementally the best and the chat bubbles are blue and applications run better and seem higher quality (which is a selling point of the product we are now actively dismantling but I digress...) I know its tiring to use food cliches, but imagine if like, I make a business selling apple pies and my apple pies are incredibly successful and everyone eats them all the time and now all of a sudden I need to also guarantee that my business can make cherry pies because my apple pies sell so damn well. But truth is, its not really about the apple pies at all. It's about my baking trays. We actually just want to make sure that the baking trays of my business are now capable of also cooking for cherry pies even though that's got nothing to do with my fucking business. I sell apple pies. I'm so confused
- Nevermark 1y ago
  Large corporations with large marketshare can easily do significantly uncompetitive things, with little effort on their part. No monopoly required. All that is required is that they have large marketshare, an important product, and it is difficult for users to change to alternatives, or avoid its uncompetitive behavior. Choosing a phone involves balancing numerous features of devices. There is no phone market with the thousands of competing devices it would take to really cover what a customer might ideally want. So choices often balance so many things, involve so much practical investment, that they make switching devices over a few things, or even many things, from awfully unpleasant to very difficult. And, with great market power, comes great responsibility: to not become a barrier to competitive innovation and hard work. By definition, Apple's strict gatekeeping App Store, a significant feature on a significant general purpose computing platform, is anti-competitive. There is no technical reason why side loading or side-stores couldn't thrive, on such a general purpose device intertwined in all our lives. Onerous fees and terms and selective limitation (relative to Apple's own offerings) for developers make it even more anticompetitive. Of course, anyone who likes having fewer options, or just the options they have now, is free to not explore others. For now and forever. Amen.
nabla9 1y ago
> Of course Apple would never go for that They do in EU, because they were forced to. AltStore PAL https://altstore.io/ https://altstore.io/ Buildstore https://builds.io/ https://builds.io/ Aptoide https://en.aptoide.com https://en.aptoide.com .. and so on
- troupo 1y ago
  They also go out of the way to make these stores prohibitively expensive to set up and still applies app review to apps distributed through those stores (even though they claim they don't and won't)
  - nabla9 1y ago
    > prohibitively expensive fact checking Apple Tier 1 mandatory store services: 0.5€ Core Technology fee per install 2% Initial acquisition fee 5% Store service fee This includes app reviews, manual updates, and fraud protection. This tier is mandatory for any app that promotes external payment options. Compare that to 20-30% that Apple's own AppStore take and its a bargain. Even with Tier 2 with marketing tools, automatic updates, app recommendations, analytics dashboards, and promotional features the cost is only 10% for small business program members, 15% for others.
    - half-kh-hacker 1y ago
      50c per install (of which there are hundreds of thousands) to a party who should be uninvolved is not reasonable
    - troupo 1y ago
      > fact checking You forgot that just to set up an alternative app store you need this: --- start quote --- Provide Apple a stand-by letter of credit in the amount of €1,000,000 from a financial institution that’s at least A-rated or equivalent by S&P, Fitch, or Moody’s, and maintain that standby letter of credit as long as your alternative app marketplace is in operation --- end quote --- > 0.5€ Core Technology fee per install per install So if your app is suddenly popular, you have to pay through the nose. > This includes app reviews, manual updates, and fraud protection. Why is Apple involved in app review on alternative app stores? Why is Apple doing manual updates? Considering the amount of scam apps on App Store, Apple isn't doing fraud protection in their own store. > This tier is mandatory for any app that promotes external payment options. Why? What does Apple have to do with external payment options?
crossroadsguy 1y ago
I wonder what Apple's bigger fear is - losing that ~30% cut, which is massive, or when they have to compete with alternative app stores and when finally people see how forward "software finesse" has come to in 2025 and how pathetic Apple's software/service ecosystem has been, losing most of the remaining whatever reduced cut it was; i.e. getting hammered at both ends. I think that's why they are fighting tooth and nail to keep the curtain as it is on the grand stage of privacy theatre.
- merelysounds 1y ago
  > how pathetic Apple's software/service ecosystem has been Compared to what? Also, are we certain that a better alternative would really appear? E.g. I’m aware of f-droid and I’d install a similar ios libre software store, but I’m not aware of any, even in the EU where alt stores are possible.
azangru 1y ago
> But people should also be able to get apps from whatever store they want. I agree with you. But, as devil's advocate, why not suggest that Apple should be allowed to run as crappy a store as they want, while people should be free not to buy Apple?
- Y-bar 1y ago
  People are free to buy Apple (or an Android flavour, or no smartphone at all). But there are many many things which goes into a buying decision than what manner of software delivery is available. This duopoly does not truly offer a lot of choice, so any criticism must happen from within the confines of the current reality. I’m not going to tell a pedestrian who wants safer roads to stop being a participant in traffic, I accept that they have very little real choice. Having to uncritically accept anything and everything the manufacturer of your device does is not really viable and is a recipe for a worse future.

by jmull 1y ago

dangus 1y ago

You say “they would never go for this” but they do it on the Mac. It’s funny how they are their own counter example. They have no leg to stand on.

epohs 1y ago
Counter example to what? Why should they not be able to run both a relatively open ecosystem and a mostly closed one? I don’t think Apple is arguing that it is impossible to allow more open ways to install apps on iPhones. I think they’re saying that they don’t want to, and that they shouldn’t have to.
- jjtheblunt 1y ago
  It's possible they'll allow this on iOS once finer granularity logging of battery usage is pervasive, how fine is anyone's guess, so as to track down what apps, and of whatever provenance, degrade some kpi like user impression of battery life.
  - mrandish 1y ago
    This is about money not battery life. Apple makes billions of dollars in highly profitable revenue by cryptographically blocking users from controlling their own devices.
    - jjtheblunt 1y ago
      You could be right. That said, i was an engineer for several years in Apple and primary internal concerns were battery life and its influence on user experience; the removal of Flash viability, favoring html5, is an example: profiling of Flash apps written in the wild showed code that routinely drained battery with aplomb...inexplicable to end users not also programmers.
      - mrandish 1y ago
        It's unsurprising that the internal narrative focused on the plausible user, product and technical issues which happen to align with sustaining the multi-billion dollar monopoly. Senior leadership isn't going to say the 'quiet part' out loud in all-hands meetings. I also worked in a valley giant with a multi-billion dollar monopoly position being preserved in a similar way. But I was senior enough to see both sides - the divisional all-hands mtgs and (some of) the exec staff mtgs (my boss was an EVP reporting directly to the CEO). The instructive part was observing what happened in the senior staff mtgs when a serious user, product or technical issue emerged which directly conflicted with sustaining the multi-billion dollar monopoly. Even in small mtgs with just the CEO, a couple EVPs and a handful of their direct reports, I never witnessed any explicit collusion or overt manipulation. The reason is surprisingly simple, they don't need to. They can make "the right thing" happen without being so obvious - just by controlling the agenda, attendees and context and then asking the right questions, prioritizing certain concerns and selecting the right working group leader to "come back with options which balance these concerns". These EVPs didn't get to where they are by plainly speaking their mind, although they are masters of appearing to do so when it serves them. At that level, there are degrees of subtlety and multi-dimensional chess that make Machiavelli look like a toddler. All those years of being "in the room where it happens" fairly frequently and there wasn't one moment where I thought, "Wow, if I leaked a tape recording of the last 60 seconds, somebody very important is losing their job." These people are far to experienced and skilled at this for it to be that simple. Which isn't to say there may not have been some very private conversations between only the CEO and an EVP or two where things were said explicitly - but I'm not even sure that was necessary. Frankly, the euphemistic language and context control is sufficient that it's probably easier for the them to "stay in character" all the time. In fact, I think some of them sort of believe it themselves - or at least prefer to avoid stewing on the more "unpleasant realities" of the job. Most of these people are, in their own minds, still the 'good guy' in the story they tell themselves.
- jchw 1y ago
  > Counter example to what? Why should they not be able to run both a relatively open ecosystem and a mostly closed one? > I don’t think Apple is arguing that it is impossible to allow more open ways to install apps on iPhones. I think they’re saying that they don’t want to, and that they shouldn’t have to. Apple volunteers the position that they couldn't possibly open the iOS ecosystem themselves, not just that they don't want to, making some very amusing claims in the process.[1] They also don't want to, but the more you dig into possible "whys", you get into a lot of troubling realities quickly. Epic Games, on the other hand, is arguing that they actually should have to, at least to some extent. There are actually a lot of reasons why Apple's App Store practices might violate the law, and to my understanding, Epic Games is alleging that Apple's App Store practices constitute "illegal tying" whereby Apple unlawfully ties its payment processing service with its app distribution. That's far from the only potential legal issue that the App Store could face just based on current, existing law. (Note: I am not a lawyer, so take this with a grain of salt; but nothing I am saying is too original or groundbreaking.) And of course, it's always worth remembering that what's legal today can be regulated tomorrow. I don't really believe lawmakers or the general public really have had enough time to take a look at the impact that Apple/Google app stores have had on the software market and decide if these practices should be legal. The EU seems to think they shouldn't, and while I don't agree with the EU on everything, I tend to agree. [1]: https://observer.com/2021/05/even-craig-federighi-apples-head-of-software-thinks-malware-on-mac-is-unacceptable/ https://observer.com/2021/05/even-craig-federighi-apples-hea...
- jajko 1y ago
  Luckily corporate greed it not the only thing that matters in this world. If they want to sell in half a billion rich market of EU, they will soon need to start behaving more morally. If not they can fuck off, write off 20-30% of company value and EU will have better products, (almost) everybody wins. Given how low morally they are, the room for improvement is massive and easy to move into. As you write, they didn't do it so far because they were not forced, and waiting for some good moral behavior 'just because it would be nice from them' is rather dumb.
- kmeisthax 1y ago
  [dead]
rootusrootus 1y ago
I don't think the Mac is a great counter example. It started as a fully open platform, so the expectations are different. The iPhone was never anything other than an appliance, Apple is not trying to turn an open garden into a walled one, because it started that way.
- johnnyanmac 1y ago
  Sure, in theory. But what really happened is that apple kept a stranglehold on what more and more became a general computing device. And they've done enough anti-compettive maneuvers to have the EU make them open up. I wouldn't be surprised if the US eventually comes to a similar decision. Apple may not be as blatant about it as the other big tech, but I hope it's not contentious to say that all three big companies needs a round of anti-trust overhaul.
- jterrys 1y ago
  I think the problem is that the app store is perceived as a general computing platform compared to what it was originally birthed from: Built in immutable applications on a mobile phone.

matheusmoreira 1y ago

> But people should also be able to get apps from whatever store they want. This the answer. The app store monopoly doesn't really matter, the real tyranny is needing Apple's cryptographic blessing to run software on our own computers. This should be literally illegal. Restore our computer freedom and their app store rent seeking becomes irrelevant.

bloomca 1y ago
It's not just about that. I am sure if the court would force them to allow sideloading, they'll make sure to never promote your app if you decide to offer both options to the users.
- para_parolu 1y ago
  And that’s fair. Apple doesn’t have to provide services to businesses
  - earthnail 1y ago
    Not until alternative stores become competitive. Realistically they have such a monopoly thar you end up in a chiclen and egg situation. Their monopoly is so large that noone wants to distribute via small alt stores, meaning alt stores never get large.
    - anilgulecha 1y ago
      A chicken and egg problem is highly unlikely. Here's a few probable situations: 1) A fdroid equivalent pops up, which them becomes a collection of fantastic open source apps, and soon develops a strong user base. 2) Google launches play store for iPhone, which will on day 1 get millions of users. 3) Meta launches metaStore, which so the only way to get Facebook, threads, Instagram and WhatsApp. This becomes the fastest growing store in a matter of a week. One may personally not like this world - but imo it's a better world than the one we have - personally for (1) to exist.

samdoesnothing 1y ago

People are allowed to get apps from whatever store they want. There is nothing stopping someone from purchasing a device that supports the google play store and downloading whatever they want from that store. I have no right to complain that I can't run Apple programs on a Windows computer, and Microsoft shouldn't be compelled to support MacOS software.

8note 1y ago
https://www.darlinghq.org/ https://www.darlinghq.org/ seems like you can get it to run on windows via wsl if you want to run apps built for macs on your windows machine is there a need to complain? windows might not be putting in support for it, but unlike apple in their store, they arent actively preventing you from doing so
groguzt 1y ago
apple isn't allowed to choose whatever I can install on the device that I own and that I purchased with my own money. I am not renting the device. Get your dirty fingers off of what I can or can't do with it.
TulliusCicero 1y ago
Ridiculous argument. Microsoft isn't stopping me from running Apple programs on my Windows PC.
LocalH 1y ago
That's not the argument, and you know it. It's not complaints that cross-platform binaries don't run, it's that Apple gatekeeps development in terms of users actually being able to use the fruits of that development (without onerous work arounds like having to reinstall once per week, or jailbreak).

pabs3 1y ago

... and we should be able to run whatever OS on Apple phones we want.

Cthulhu_ 1y ago
But the OS is the main thing that sets Apple apart from other phones; you can get equivalent hardware for half the price, and you get to install whatever OS you want already. The prison is mainly in your head in this case.

jterrys 1y ago

I agree with you in principle. But I also, I guess, kinda just have a dumb thought about this whole ordeal. Broadly speaking, we are in a position where we, the general public with the backing of the government, want to change how a private corporation uses it's products that it sold to us. Not for any other reason that would shield us from harm or prevent risk, but rather because the corporation's products are so successful a lot of people use them too much! But wait! That's not actually true because there's enough products on the market that we don't actually need to use this product...but we like it because its incrementally the best and the chat bubbles are blue and applications run better and seem higher quality (which is a selling point of the product we are now actively dismantling but I digress...) I know its tiring to use food cliches, but imagine if like, I make a business selling apple pies and my apple pies are incredibly successful and everyone eats them all the time and now all of a sudden I need to also guarantee that my business can make cherry pies because my apple pies sell so damn well. But truth is, its not really about the apple pies at all. It's about my baking trays. We actually just want to make sure that the baking trays of my business are now capable of also cooking for cherry pies even though that's got nothing to do with my fucking business. I sell apple pies. I'm so confused

Nevermark 1y ago
Large corporations with large marketshare can easily do significantly uncompetitive things, with little effort on their part. No monopoly required. All that is required is that they have large marketshare, an important product, and it is difficult for users to change to alternatives, or avoid its uncompetitive behavior. Choosing a phone involves balancing numerous features of devices. There is no phone market with the thousands of competing devices it would take to really cover what a customer might ideally want. So choices often balance so many things, involve so much practical investment, that they make switching devices over a few things, or even many things, from awfully unpleasant to very difficult. And, with great market power, comes great responsibility: to not become a barrier to competitive innovation and hard work. By definition, Apple's strict gatekeeping App Store, a significant feature on a significant general purpose computing platform, is anti-competitive. There is no technical reason why side loading or side-stores couldn't thrive, on such a general purpose device intertwined in all our lives. Onerous fees and terms and selective limitation (relative to Apple's own offerings) for developers make it even more anticompetitive. Of course, anyone who likes having fewer options, or just the options they have now, is free to not explore others. For now and forever. Amen.

nabla9 1y ago

> Of course Apple would never go for that They do in EU, because they were forced to. AltStore PAL https://altstore.io/ https://altstore.io/ Buildstore https://builds.io/ https://builds.io/ Aptoide https://en.aptoide.com https://en.aptoide.com .. and so on

troupo 1y ago
They also go out of the way to make these stores prohibitively expensive to set up and still applies app review to apps distributed through those stores (even though they claim they don't and won't)
- nabla9 1y ago
  > prohibitively expensive fact checking Apple Tier 1 mandatory store services: 0.5€ Core Technology fee per install 2% Initial acquisition fee 5% Store service fee This includes app reviews, manual updates, and fraud protection. This tier is mandatory for any app that promotes external payment options. Compare that to 20-30% that Apple's own AppStore take and its a bargain. Even with Tier 2 with marketing tools, automatic updates, app recommendations, analytics dashboards, and promotional features the cost is only 10% for small business program members, 15% for others.
  - half-kh-hacker 1y ago
    50c per install (of which there are hundreds of thousands) to a party who should be uninvolved is not reasonable
  - troupo 1y ago
    > fact checking You forgot that just to set up an alternative app store you need this: --- start quote --- Provide Apple a stand-by letter of credit in the amount of €1,000,000 from a financial institution that’s at least A-rated or equivalent by S&P, Fitch, or Moody’s, and maintain that standby letter of credit as long as your alternative app marketplace is in operation --- end quote --- > 0.5€ Core Technology fee per install per install So if your app is suddenly popular, you have to pay through the nose. > This includes app reviews, manual updates, and fraud protection. Why is Apple involved in app review on alternative app stores? Why is Apple doing manual updates? Considering the amount of scam apps on App Store, Apple isn't doing fraud protection in their own store. > This tier is mandatory for any app that promotes external payment options. Why? What does Apple have to do with external payment options?

crossroadsguy 1y ago

I wonder what Apple's bigger fear is - losing that ~30% cut, which is massive, or when they have to compete with alternative app stores and when finally people see how forward "software finesse" has come to in 2025 and how pathetic Apple's software/service ecosystem has been, losing most of the remaining whatever reduced cut it was; i.e. getting hammered at both ends. I think that's why they are fighting tooth and nail to keep the curtain as it is on the grand stage of privacy theatre.

merelysounds 1y ago
> how pathetic Apple's software/service ecosystem has been Compared to what? Also, are we certain that a better alternative would really appear? E.g. I’m aware of f-droid and I’d install a similar ios libre software store, but I’m not aware of any, even in the EU where alt stores are possible.

azangru 1y ago

> But people should also be able to get apps from whatever store they want. I agree with you. But, as devil's advocate, why not suggest that Apple should be allowed to run as crappy a store as they want, while people should be free not to buy Apple?

Y-bar 1y ago
People are free to buy Apple (or an Android flavour, or no smartphone at all). But there are many many things which goes into a buying decision than what manner of software delivery is available. This duopoly does not truly offer a lot of choice, so any criticism must happen from within the confines of the current reality. I’m not going to tell a pedestrian who wants safer roads to stop being a participant in traffic, I accept that they have very little real choice. Having to uncritically accept anything and everything the manufacturer of your device does is not really viable and is a recipe for a worse future.