I am of the opinion that the only fair option is to allow 3rd party stores with the same permissions as the official app store.
Apples curation isn't (as they suggest) preventing malware, theft of information, etc - this if verifiably false given recent history with apps like tiktok stealing clipboard content. The ability to change content of payment screens post-approval (as epic have just done) also means that curation isnt stopping apps from potentially injecting phishing, etc, either. In short, they are just choosing what they like - just as any 3rd party store could do.
The security comes from the sandbox (and surrounding permissions) - not from the curation.
Jobs originally said that the aim of the 30% was to cover costs of running the store. It is evident from the MASSIVE profits that this is no longer the case.
The size of these app marketplaces (I dont just mean apple) make them markets in their own right - its about time they were recognised and treated as such.
I don't see how 3rd party stores can possibly work in a system that relies on rigid permissions.
HN fetishises root access as if it's some kind of magic panacea, but in reality most users don't care about root access at all - they want apps that work, they have zero interest in tinkering with software for its own sake, and root access will not make apps more reliable or more secure.
The main problems with the App Store are the cost (30% is egregious), the distance between Apple's claims about privacy and simple exploits (see also Zoom and TikTok), the fact that search is user hostile, and the fact that Apple forces its payment system on app developers for no good reason.
Fix all of those and cut the tax to 10% and Apple can continue to have its semi-monopoly.
There is no reason for "root access". An API call to install a packaged app in a sandbox, and update apps that are installed is all that you would require.
Apps would be consistently installed to a sandbox identified by their bundle identifier (which is typically domain-based).
This is effectively what already happens on iOS.
App certification/verification would be done using exactly the same certs we use for domains (possibly co-signed by the store as part of their curation/verification/drm process) to ensure the store can only install what the developer provides, and what the store curators permit to be distributed through their store.
I don't think changing 30% to some other arbitrary figure solves anything. For me the biggest problem is Apple deciding what/whose apps ios (and macos, given the recent code signing requirements coming with mac silicon...) users are permitted to use.
> For me the biggest problem is Apple deciding what/whose apps ios (and macos, given the recent code signing requirements coming with mac silicon...) users are permitted to use.
Thats FUD. The release notes even address it "This new behavior doesn’t change the long-established policy that our users and developers can run arbitrary code on their Macs, and is designed to simplify the execution policies on Apple silicon Mac computers and enable the system to better detect code modifications."
Arbitrary code, not binaries. You can run arbitrary code through a compiler (which gets signed automatically when it gets linked) and then run it, or you can run arbitrary code through an (already signed) interpreter.
You CANNOT run an unsigned binary on silicon, but I totally understand your confusion given their statement.
Edit: To clarify further, you cant run an ARM binary - x86 apps going through rosetta (currently) work as they used to (right click and you can open).
Why do you care about unsigned binaries when self-signed binaries work fine and the linker produces signatures automatically? It's just a technical change in the required format for executables, not a substantive change in what you're able to do. You may as well complain that macOS doesn't support ELF binaries.
Not self signed. Signed by an Apple issued cert. This entire thread is about control of distribution. You absolutely will not be able to distribute a Mac app without an Apple dev subscription in order to have your app notarised, agreeing to everything that comes with that. At the moment you can. This is clearly a “substantive change”.
I am a proponent for code-signing, I just don't see why I cant use my own cert (such as that issued for a domain name) instead of an apple issued one - if it is solely about preventing code tampering, as they state...
The actual reason behind a central issuance of certs is DRM. If apps NEED to run through this gatekeeper, then the gatekeeper can phone home to get a license for you to run the app (or not). This will enable the revocation of a cert for distribution of malware, but will also enable revocation for other reasons - like a dev breaching the terms of their agreement with apple (whatever those may be).
That is what the issue is. There is literally no benefit in this unless apple can revoke certs, because there is nothing to stop a dev signing a malicious app!
I don’t see what this has to do with elf binaries. I mentioned arm binaries because that is what all upcoming apple “computers” will be.
> New in macOS 11 on Apple silicon Mac computers, and starting in the next macOS Big Sur 11 beta, the operating system will enforce that any executable must be signed with a valid signature before it’s allowed to run. There isn’t a specific identity requirement for this signature: a simple ad-hoc signature issued locally is sufficient, which includes signatures which are now generated automatically by the linker.
An "ad-hoc signature" is Apple jargon for a code signature without a certificate (so really just a set of hashes, no actual public-key signature); I called it self-signed since it's a more familiar term. By "there isn't a specific identity requirement" they mean it's not required to be Apple-signed.
Of course, macOS on Apple silicon will still require an Apple signature by default like it does on Intel, but you'll be able to disable that like you can on Intel.
> And, as a user, what is the mechanism for ad-hoc signing an unsigned binary on silicon? :)
`codesign -s - my_binary`, though that would rarely be necessary unless you patched it in a hex editor or something, since otherwise it would have been automatically ad-hoc signed when it was linked.
> You can’t distribute ad-hoc signed binaries.
They have the same distribution restrictions on Apple silicon as on Intel. You can, but it requires the person running the binary to either (a) run it in a terminal, (b) right-click Open, or (c) use spctl --master-disable to disable Gatekeeper entirely.
Good luck expecting a user to do that! As I already said, you cant distribute an ad-hoc app, so this is exactly what they would have to do - hence my smiley face!
You CANNOT bypass gatekeeper on silicon - that is the whole point - otherwise there is no difference to the current behaviour.
> You CANNOT bypass gatekeeper on silicon - that is the whole point, otherwise there would be no diffference!
Yes, you can. The only difference between Intel and Apple silicon in this regard is that binaries that literally have no code signature (as opposed to a self-signed one) will not run. It's a technical cleanup measure that removes a special case (executable with no associated signature blob), not a lockdown measure. It's not intended to make a difference from the user's point of view.
So its just the format of the executable that has changed? This certainly isn't what was discussed the other day - and seemingly confirmed by a user with a transition kit... :/
I see why you mentioned ELF, now.
Ill descend from my soapbox on that matter, then. Thank you for correcting me. :D
Another big problem with the App Store is that there are so many requirements (can't be too much like something Apple made, can't be too much like a web app) and these rules are inconsistently and arbitrarily applied.
? Pretty sure Reddit and Twitter include sexual and violent content. The guideline you’re referring to states that an app shouldn’t solely be used to access pornographic content and services. Last time I checked none of the apps you and I mentioned are used exclusively for porn or violent content
The carve-out is for user-generated content but Netflix and Apple Music are not user-generated content and they do not even try to meet the requirements imposed on UGC.
If they're not UGC then they're violating rule 1.1 -
> Apps should not include content that is offensive, insensitive, upsetting, intended to disgust, in exceptionally poor taste, or just plain creepy.
HBO certainly are not UGC, yet the HBO app was allowed nudity as a prelude to people having sex many times in Game of Thrones. Rule 1.1.4 -
> Overtly sexual or pornographic material, defined by Webster’s Dictionary as "explicit descriptions or displays of sexual organs or activities intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings
Even if the nudity and sex was deemed aesthetic content in apps is prohibited from having realistic violence, gore, rape, demeaning portrayals of any group, etc.
Maybe think of it differently: what if there were third party app stores that had the same TECHNICAL requirements, but not the same business/policy requirements.
Feels like this is (should be?) as much about USER freedom and choice as it is about DEVELOPERS. While cost precipitated the current set of issues, it's really about the role Apple plays in arbitrarily mediating between customer and service.
So basically, you would strike: log-in, payment, content, etc, but keep the other stuff. Doesn't solve all problems but would be incrementally better.
Each "app store" would have it's own ability to set those policies for apps it carries - but (crucially) users would have the OPTION.
> Each "app store" would have it's own ability to set those policies for apps it carries - but (crucially) users would have the OPTION.
> For users that don't care - stick with Apple.
As an Apple user, to me this is the opposite of having "options".
As an individual, I cannot fight any remotely large company let alone FB or Google. If they hold my messaging or email hostage, I would be forced to use their secondary iOS app stores with their custom rules, etc.
As a group, all Apple users, we have a unified choice. It puts the power dynamic back into users hands. Users that don't like the choices of Apple should buy other phones, and if enough people buy other phones the Apple ecosystem will change with the market.
Users that do want to be part of the collective bargaining power of the Apple ecosystem, like me, should have that choice!
One very important question to ask is, why do users spend more money on iOS apps than on Android apps[1]? For 6 years, while I owned an Android I never made a single purchase. My last 4 years on iOS, I buy apps, I start subscriptions, I use Apple Pay, etc. I can tell you it is entirely because of my trust in Apple as a company. A large part of that trust is earned through the regulations they put on developers and their emphasis on my privacy.
I can guarantee you, as soon as Apple is no longer able to earn that trust, the entire ecosystem will be significantly less lucrative for developers and this whole exercise will have been in vain, hurting everyone (users and developers).
> install only their app from that store. Same sandbox, etc applies. Let them require same security.
If FB has access to execute code on my phone, without any guardrails, what stops them from requiring location or microphone services be on at all times?
As an informed user I can push back, even boycott, until my friend hosts an event and I need to see the invite.
What I really want is a collective bargaining power agency (i.e. kinda like a customers' union) that imposes rules that are in my best interest onto service providers. Frankly, this need exists because the government isn't doing a good enough job of it. I am happy to pay extra to this agency for this increased bargaining power.
It just so happens that Apple has positioned itself in my life as that collective bargaining power agency. Does it make life harder for service providers? Yes. If I was a service provider would I fight this friction? Yes. However, unlike anti-competitive monopoly behavior that hurts customers, the collective bargaining power is used in the benefit of the customer (i.e. me).
I agree with this. The only winners in the current situation are Apple. By opening it up to competitor app stores, yes competitors would benefit, but so would developers and so would their users. The App Store as it stands has completely stagnated to the point where it’s useless to me outside of actually downloading or buying an app. It’s been years since I’ve been able to discover new apps though it, now relying for devs to link their apps directly, YouTube videos talking about apps or websites with app lists. If I go in the App Store looking for something, unless it by chance happens to be in their top list, I can’t find anything I don’t already have a link for or know the name of, at least on iPad. If I click on a category and press “show all”, they show me maybe ten or twenty apps in total. Out of thousands.
By opening the platform to other app stores, developers will benefit due to choice and competition on fees and descoverability, end users will benefit from encouraged innovation, Apple will be forced to compete on convenience or features instead of letting it stagnate while they collect buckets of cash... it would be good for consumers and the ecosystem.
Microsoft got into trouble for bundling a web browser, where they didn’t directly make money, Apple should get into trouble for the App Store, where they do directly make money due to their artificial lack of competition.
>Microsoft got into trouble for bundling a web browser,
But to clarify, Microsoft ultimately won the case on appeal and had the initial ruling against them overturned.[1]
So in the final verdict, MS did not get into trouble for bundling the browser. In 2001, the DOJ settlement didn't force Microsoft to include Netscape Navigator or any other 3rd-party software on their standard desktop.
The developers in 2020 really don't want to hear this but Apple Inc actually has decades of case precedent to support the idea that Apple controls its own hardware with its own exclusive app store. To force Apple to include Epic's app store would require some new legal arguments that today's judge would be sympathetic to. Not saying it's impossible but it's not a slam dunk antitrust case as many on HN believe.
In other words, the status quo established in previous decided cases (including MS winning its antitrust IE case) actually supports the idea that Tesla is not forced to include Apple's Carplay in its cars' infotainment hardware, and Apple in turn is not forced to include a 3rd-party "Tesla app store" so the Tesla can bypass Apple's App Store review policies.
There is a huge difference here; there was never a legal issue with bundling IE. The problem was that MSFT threatened to withdraw OEM licensing for companies that bundled alternative browsers with Windows. Monopoly wasn't the issue. Abusing the monopoly (desktop OS) to leverage influence on another market segment (web browsers) is what go them into trouble.
>; there was never a legal issue with bundling IE.
I suppose 20+ years has erased a collective memory of the conflicts with IE.
Here is a relevant 1998 excerpt[1] from DOJ's own official website:
>The Department today filed a motion seeking a preliminary injunction that would:
>-- Require that if Microsoft insists on including its browser on Windows 98, it must also include Netscape's browser so that consumers will have a real choice. Computer manufacturers would have the option of deleting either browser. If Microsoft does not want to include Netscape, it must unbundle its own browser and let it compete on the merits.
As we now know from the 2001 final settlement, the above scenario didn't happen and Microsoft won that IE battle.
Can one do a mental search & replace with s/Microsoft/Apple/ and s/Netscape/Epic/ such as:
"Require that if Apple insists on including its App Store on iPhones, it must also include Epic App Store so that consumers will have a real choice."
If Epic's lawyers (not even the intimidating government DOJ lawyers this time but just a private video game company's lawyers) want to argue the same idea as forcing Netscape onto IE, what would be the new legal argument this time? The previous one failed.
EDIT to sbuk's reply about context: your excerpt trying to show context is itself also missing context. That part about PC manufacturers licensing was the past actions that got the DOJ up to that point of hauling them into court. My excerpt was about the DOJ's proposed future remedy (e.g. must unbundle IE) to reduce Microsoft's future monopoly power -- and that didn't happen. See the very next bullet point below your "context":
>• Microsoft now intends to tie unlawfully its IE Internet browser software to its new Windows 98 operating system, the successor to Windows 95.
DOJ wanted to stop the future IE bundling to Windows 98. They failed.
> I suppose 20+ years has erased a collective memory of the conflicts with IE.
Not this again!
MS lost the (one of the many) case with the EU regarding Internet Explorer and that's were most of the confusion comes from: what happens in US is hardly relevant for the rest of the World
> In January 2009, the European Commission announced it would investigate the bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows operating systems from Microsoft, saying "Microsoft's tying of Internet Explorer to the Windows operating system harms competition between web browsers, undermines product innovation and ultimately reduces consumer choice."
> In response, Microsoft announced that it would not bundle Internet Explorer with Windows 7 E, the version of Windows 7 to be sold in Europe.
> On 16 December 2009, the European Union agreed to allow competing browsers, with Microsoft providing a "ballot box" screen letting users choose one of twelve popular products listed in random order. The twelve browsers were Avant, Chrome, Firefox, Flock, GreenBrowser, Internet Explorer, K-Meleon, Maxthon, Opera, Safari, Sleipnir, and Slim which are accessible via BrowserChoice.eu. The automatic nature of the BrowserChoice.eu feature was dropped in Windows 7 Service Pack 1 in February 2011 and remained absent for 14 months despite Microsoft reporting that it was still present, subsequently described by Microsoft as a "technical error". As a result, in March 2013 the European Commission fined Microsoft €561 million to deter companies from reneging on settlement promises."
Microsoft unlawfully required PC manufacturers to agree to license and install its browser, Internet Explorer, as a condition of obtaining licenses for the Windows 95 operating system.
> But to clarify, Microsoft ultimately won the case on appeal and had the initial ruling against them overturned.[1]
This is an oversimplification of the appeal, as while the penalty against Microsoft was overturned, the appeals court did affirm several of the antitrust violations against Microsoft. In particular:
1. The appeals court affirmed that Microsoft's license restrictions preventing OEMs from pre-installing alternate browsers violated the Sherman Act.
2. The appeals court found that Microsoft's technical integration of IE and Windows was not a violation of the Sherman Act because Microsoft offered legitimate justification for why the integration was necessary. (When a defendant offers a legitimate justification the burden of proof shifts back to the plaintiff to show that the anticompetitive effect outweighs the justification. In this case the appeals court found the DOJ failed to do this.)
3. The appeals court affirmed that Microsoft's deals with ISPs to promote IE at the expense of other browsers violated the Sherman Act.
4. The appeals court affirmed that Microsoft's deal with Apple to bundle IE with Mac OS in exchange for the development of the Mac version of Office violated the Sherman Act. (Bill Gates threatened to pull Office for Mac if Mac OS bundled Netscape instead of IE.)
5. The appeals court did not actually address whether tying IE to Windows was an antitrust violation or not. They concluded that it could not be a per se violation, and the issue was remanded back to the district court for further analysis under the rule of reason which would have required additional proceedings, which never happened as Microsoft and the DOJ eventually settled.
6. The appeals court found that the DOJ failed to prove their claim that Microsoft attempted to monopolize the browser market, largely because they failed to provide sufficient evidence that Microsoft had a "dangerous probability" of success.
Finally, the reason the penalty was overturned by the appeals court largely had to do with the district court judge not following the correct legal procedures and failing to reasonably justify why such a large penalty (breaking up the company) was warranted. Plus they were really unhappy with that judge going and talking to the media about the case.
Yes, ultimately Microsoft was not broken up. After Bush was elected, DOJ policy changed and they decided to no longer pursue the breakup. But it's a bit misleading to say they won the appeal. It's more like: they won a couple claims, they lost a bunch of claims, and the overall penalty was deemed too harsh.
That all being said, it's worth noting that most of the violations affirmed were related to Microsoft's attempts to unlawfully maintain their operating system monopoly which at the time had over 95% market share, not due to their attempts to dominate the browser market. And it's possible that if they had merely included IE with Windows and not taken extra actions to force other companies (OEMs, ISPs, Apple) to bundle IE over Netscape, they may not have have been found liable at all.
As applied to the current situation with Apple, it's unlikely that Apple will be exposed to the same liability because they simply don't have the level of monopoly power that Microsoft did at the time.
>The only winners in the current situation are Apple. By opening it up to competitor app stores, yes competitors would benefit, but so would developers and so would their users.
It's hard for me to reconcile this, and I keep seeing that 3rd party app stores would be better for users, but it all seems very handwavy. You would think this would be an easy point to prove as Android has had alternative app stores for years, but there seem to be no winners there. I'm not sure how having to download app specific app stores (i.e. Epic's app store) is better for anyone except for Epic.
> You would think this would be an easy point to prove as Android has had alternative app stores for years, but there seem to be no winners there. I'm not sure how having to download app specific app stores (i.e. Epic's app store) is better for anyone except for Epic.
Let's start with one point. Third party stores don't have to be popular in order for them to be beneficial, because their existence causes the dominant store to take competitive steps to avoid their attaining popularity.
For example, you can install actual Firefox on Android, from Google Play, instead of it being nothing but a skin over the system browser like it is on iOS. Because if they didn't allow actual Firefox in Google Play, it would still be in F-Droid or similar, and that would make the competing store more popular. Since they don't want that, they allow it in the default store. Then the default store remains dominant, but only because it does beneficial things like that as a result of the competitive pressure. And third party apps can send and receive SMS on Android and various other things that Apple doesn't allow solely because it pushes people to use Apple's apps instead and there is no competitive pressure from other stores pushing Apple to allow those competing apps in their store.
But more than that, the other Android stores are actually useful, they just tend to have a niche. Because people are still going to use the default store unless there is a reason not to, since it's lower friction. But the other stores still get to address the cases that the default store fails at. So the fact that they exist at all is proof that they're doing something useful, since otherwise who would sustain them?
> I'm not sure how having to download app specific app stores (i.e. Epic's app store) is better for anyone except for Epic.
I mean, the fact that they're not paying Apple 30% and then passing most of that savings on to the customer is obviously going to save the customer money.
> then passing most of that savings on to the customer is obviously going to save the customer money.
I see no evidence of Epic passing savings to the consumer in this scenario. Unless by customer you mean stock holder in which case the fight is about which stock holders get paid.
Edit: unless you are referring to a temporary PR sale where they were still paying the 30% cut in many cases.
When they introduced their iOS "store" which used a non-Apple payment service they lowered prices because they weren't paying 30% to anybody. Which is totally logical and profit-seeking in both the short and long term because when you're making 30% higher margins, sacrificing some of them in exchange for higher volumes will generally maximize profits.
3rd party stores allowed Amazon to bootstrap the only reasonable android tablet ecosystem and become the second largest tablet maker in the world after Apple.
F-droid maintains a modest but robust marketplace of open source software, some of which include things that are not allowed in either Apple or Google app stores.
3rd party stores also allow numerous country-focused stores which arguably serve their home markets better than Google or Apple are willing to.
Humble Bundle has an android app that lets you download APKs, and then prompts you to install them. I've used that to install several android games in the past, even for things that are available in different versions on the Play store. It's never showed me pop-up ads, and it's only for installing things that I've already bought via their website.
It's not a large store, I expect, and I don't often use it install things, but it seems to be an unambiguous example of something that benefits users. I bought things via Humble, and then am able to install them on any android device I ever have (in theory).
If they were to add the ability to actually buy things in the app, it would effectively turn into something with an interface like the Kindle app (which shows me both my library of books, as well as a shopping interface).
If it's done correctly we will be able to install apps from anywhere, like just selecting the iOS build on GitHub. There is no inherent need for anyone to be gatekeeping and observing the software we install and use, just sandbox it and throw up a warning.
If we could install apps from Github it would be better because predatory pricing and invasive data collection has the upper hand on the iOS store. Many common utilities are charging ridiculous amounts of money that they could never charge on Mac or Windows because of high quality, free and open source software on Github.
One concrete example is Visual Studio App Center[1], which allows companies to distribute internal and beta apps to employees and invited testers. On Android, I can install the App Center app and then browse and install them exactly as I do with Google Play.
1. Users to have the ability to choose, on the expensive devices that they own.
2. Competition, which drives the companies to try to improve their offering (for users and developers) in order to stay ahead. Competition is healthy and prevents stagnation.
>By opening the platform to other app stores, developers will benefit due to choice and competition on fees and descoverability, end users will benefit from encouraged innovation, Apple will be forced to compete on convenience or features instead of letting it stagnate while they collect buckets of cash... it would be good for consumers and the ecosystem.
I think the only group that will benefit from 3rd party app stores on iOS is developers. I don’t see end users benefiting at all. The simplicity and convenience in downloading and discovering apps is gone. You said you have trouble discovering apps now with a unified store, so I’m not sure how discovering apps on multiple different app stores will be any easier. Frankly I’m sure it will become much more difficult and complicated for end users. Also I’m not sure how much more convenient Apple can make the App Store for iOS users. Payment information isn’t being shared between multiple parties. Switching payment info doesn’t involve going through each service. Receipts are automatically sent to emails. Automatic app updates. No confusion when it comes to where to download an app.
The App Store consistently brings in more money than the play store each year, despite Apple and iOS having a much smaller market share than Google and Android. I attribute this to Apples guidelines and developer tools, but also because of user confidence in the App Store. More people are willing to scan their face or use Touch ID because how simple and convenient IAP is. That and users are aware their payment info isn’t being sent around to multiple parties. I believe everyone arguing for 3rd party app stores on iOS aren’t thinking as the end user. at all. You said that allowing 3rd party stores will benefit end users with innovation, but innovate what exactly ? How much more innovation does the process of finding and downloading apps need?
>Microsoft got into trouble for bundling a web browser, where they didn’t directly make money, Apple should get into trouble for the App Store, where they do directly make money due to their artificial lack of competition.
Why should they get in trouble? Let’s not forget that Microsoft only developed one part of the final product(the OS). In Apples case they created every part of the product. The hardware , the software and the market on the software. I think they’re well in their rights to decide what and how 3rd party software gets on their OS..
Really. As the end user I don't want to pay Apple a 30% sales tax on all my apps, content and service purchases on a device that I already paid a thousand dollars for.
90% of the reason people are even talking about alternative app stores is because this 30% is extortion made possible by excessive monopolistic power provided by tight vertical integration. If it was 10% no one would blink an eye and it would still be massively profitable for Apple. They're just too fucking greedy, and the amount of their apologists here is insane.
The collective hypocrisy of chanting for things like the right to repair while not even recognizing the right to install arbitrary apps on a computing device you paid for in full is just mind boggling.
Americans trust everyone with a fucking gun but oh no, being able to install a non-Apple-approved app or - gasp - use a non-apple payment method - will collapse the whole ecosystem. Haha.
> You said you have trouble discovering apps now with a unified store, so I’m not sure how discovering apps on multiple different app stores will be any easier.
Because multiple competing stores pushes them to compete on something. Apple is super rich, it would be really hard to compete with price alone, so a competing store has incentive to compete on features or other innovations, including novel ways to make discoverability on their stores easier. Maybe it wouldn't happen, but right now, Apple have zero incentive to do anything to improve their App Store.
The stagnation is also due to the fact that no developer would take a lot of cash up front to make a innovative app at the risk of Apple banning it from the store.
I thought about this point as well, but I think the consideration that you’ll miss out a huge customer base with a lot of money (Apple customers) should be taken into account. I’m really talking about risky projects that need a lot of funding up front, where the risk of losing Apple’s customer base means ruin and lack of funding.
The problem with this argument is the existence of Android. The app ecosystem on Android is not appreciably better than iOS. Opening iOS to third party app store will likely just increase copyright infringement, leading to fewer paid apps.
I think it is. I have the best of both worlds. Most of the time I download apps from a store that is roughly as safe as the Apple store. (Maybe not quite as high, but I don't think that this changes the argument). However if there is some software that Google doesn't like I can install it myself. Or I can run a patch that some developer posted on GitHub and test it before it has been merged and published.
It shows that there is some convenience from a "single" app store, such that people won't flood away and lead to a race to the bottom in quality. But it also shows that you can maintain that experience while allowing users to install whatever they want.
So Apple is claiming that allowing people to install whatever they want, or having multiple App Stores will lead to crumbling of the convenient and secure ecosystem that they have created. However Android has shown that this is not the case.
95% of the public don’t even know what GitHub is. The vast majority of people aren’t going to run patches a developer posted there.
Anyway, the argument was that the Apple app store was stifling app development. In your reply you yourself say the apps on the Google store are “Maybe not quite as high” quality.
> 95% of the public don’t even know what GitHub is. The vast majority of people aren’t going to run patches a developer posted there.
Which doesn't matter, because the person who is going to test your patch does, or the person who will write their own and submit it. Which makes the app better, for everybody.
> Anyway, the argument was that the Apple app store was stifling app development. In your reply you yourself say the apps on the Google store are “Maybe not quite as high” quality.
There is a difference between the quality of an app and the quality of a store. If Google Play contains all the same apps as Apple's app store, but they're higher quality because people hack on them more, it could still have a lower average quality if the store itself is less selective and there are also a bunch of lower quality apps. Which doesn't really matter because nobody is making you install those ones. Especially when you're not using the store for discovery to begin with, which they're increasingly useless at.
I don't see why we can't have things if they aren't useful to 5% of the population and don't harm the rest.
Also the "maybe not as high" comment was about security because you can make an argument that the human review is better. However there doesn't seem to be overwhelming evidence on either side comparing human review to mostly automated.
Basically because that 5% is saying the other 95% should never have the option for a device without third party App Stores. It is a small minority trying to dictate what options the majority has available.
No one is forcing anyone to install an app store. But this logic you are already being forced to switch to Android and install a third-party app store for applications that aren't allowed on the Apple App Store or Google Play. The reality is that you aren't being forced to do that today and won't be if you can install software without approval from Apple in iOS.
> Apples curation isn't (as they suggest) preventing malware, theft of information, etc - this if verifiably false given recent history with apps like tiktok stealing clipboard
There are many things that go wrong with the App Store, but you have to realise this is a ludicrous assertion. Pasting from clipboard is an entirely different class than rootkits, backdoors, trojans, and other malware that have a vanishingly small chance to go through the review process itself.
This is defence in depth. The sandbox helps, but it’s not magic. Without review, publishing an app with a sandbox bypass, or simply abusing entitlements, becomes trivial.
> Without review, publishing an app with a sandbox bypass, or simply abusing entitlements, becomes trivial.
I don't think this would be trivial either. Given that iOS security has historically been rather good, I guess an attacker would need a reasonably new exploit or even zero day. Assuming an attacker has access to something like that, I'm 99.8% certain he'd be able to sneak past the review process as well.
As Fortnite has demonstrated, it is perfectly possible to sneak past the review process with something as obvious as a third party payment checkout. If something like that is possible, it'd be definitely possible for something like an exploit.
That argument doesn't make sense, because Apple isn't going to lower the sandboxing requirement for anyone, it's just going to provide an API to install an IPA. (Actually, that API already exists of course, they'll just remove the check that makes sure you're Apple when you call it.) Third parties' security practices have no bearing on how secure Apple makes their own platform–the parent comment is literally saying "Without review, publishing an app [that ships with a zero-day exploit for iOS] becomes trivial"
A third party App Store by definition has permission to download other code. Android also has a sandbox. That didn’t prevent the security vulnerability from Fortnite.
I hate to say it, but did you read the article? Saying "Android has a sandbox" to my comment makes no sense in the context of the issue with Fornite's installer. The vulnerability there was specifically that the third-party app store did not run in a sufficiently sandboxed environment, allowing another application to swap out the app after it was downloaded but before it was installed.
So won’t the same people be screaming if Apple puts too tight of restrictions on a third party App Store? If Apple has to approve third party app stores, would people be happy?
I am very confused as to how approval of third party app stores comes into this? The flow I'm thinking of is going to be "you install a third-party app store, which is identical to any other app except it has one additional capability that it takes an IPA and can request that the system install it". Keeping that in mind, is your comment still pertinent? If so, how?
Sometimes Apple is aware of vulnerabilities before they are patched, and it only takes getting caught once for the app, company, and individual developer to be banned from the App Store.
Also, I think you may overestimate most attackers. Most of them are so lazy.
I suspect a large portion of Apple’s users value the fact that they can’t break their phone by accidentally installing the wrong app or clicking the wrong button. To them it might not be clear what they’re getting from this no-rules App Store.
Most of them probably did, because it was generally difficult to jailbreak the phone and there wasn't much reason to do so unless you were a hobbyist. App piracy was definitely a thing though, and I bet there were some people who did it because a friend told them they can get free apps, only to end up installing stuff that made the phone very buggy (which was definitely easy to do).
It's easy to say "well that's just their own fault if they installed something bad," but I don't think Apple really cares to argue with their customers over whose fault something technically was. Apple just wants their customers to have phones that are working well.
Yes, there was one family of jailbreaks that worked like that, but you'd still need to hear about that and have some reason to want to do it to your phone, and I suspect a very small portion of iPhone owners did that. It would be a lot worse if Apple were forced to allow anyone to make what are essentially jailbreak app stores like Cydia, then one of the biggest video games ever told all their players to go install that so that the video game company can sell digital items at higher margins.
>Without review, publishing an app with a sandbox bypass, or simply abusing entitlements, becomes trivial.
A sandbox that can be trivially bypassed is simply broken.
Granted, it's not easy to define what apps should and shouldn't be able to do within the sandbox. Permissions systems are difficult to get right. But whatever the rules are, they must be enforceable.
Having 3rd party stores will be net negative for me as a user.
Currently I have trust to Apple, if I am or my kid charged wrong or tricked into some subscription etc, I have proof with experience that Apple will fix it.
Now let’s say if we have many stores, some stores will try to be smart, will make exclusive deals, force people to install their stores to maybe play a one popular game.
As a user I will end up with 10 stores on my phone, each has my billing information, if I have a problem, not I need to go to that store to handle.
Oh than X app will decide to move from store A to store B, then he needs to move all subscribers there, good luck :)
> Having 3rd party stores will not prevent you for using the Apple App Store exclusively.
This is an interesting question. Let's say Apple will be forced to allow the Epic Games Store on iOS. Would Epic be forced to offer Fornite on the App Store in addition to the Epic Games Store? If not, bluesign's kid might very well force him to use another store.
> Having 3rd party stores will not prevent you for using the Apple App Store exclusively.
It will if enough developers flee to whichever store has the cheapest rate and the fewest restrictions. It’s a race to the bottom and the consumer ultimately loses.
Exactly, as a user I'm not going to be happy if I have to resort to using an unscrupulous third party App Store with fewer privacy restrictions in order to get the app I need.
There's also the possibility of mobile equivalents to the Adobe CC installer/manager that act as their own "App Store" and aren't subject to any rules at all, which is even worse. After seeing what the likes of Adobe does on desktop PCs, I do not want to see what they do when granted effectively unfettered access to my phone.
Allowing alternate sources of apps is not at all the same thing as allowing apps to do whatever they wish on your device. iOS apps would still be sandboxed and heavily restricted. In-app privacy would be unchanged.
Apple should have the ability to "shut off" unscrupulous third-party App Stores just as they do today with unscrupulous developers.
Adobe would find it tough going if they withdrew from Apple's App Store, and I can't imagine keeping 30% minus whatever it costs to provide an alternative would be worth it to the, given how many people would just stop using Adobe apps.
So Apple still needs to be responsible for content of third party stores? The stores should require Apple code signing to allow remote shut down and be complaints about items in non Apple stores reviewed by Apple for unscrupulous behavior? Sound like a waste of battery where like Mac and Windows a constant malware checker would be required at the OS level.
If you spend your time looking for ways to insist that the status quo is easiest, then yes, you'll find ways to insist that the status quo is easiest.
Like I said, I'm only now coming around on this, but I think a $2T company with total control of both hardware and software can probably work out a way to support additional stores without requiring a full-time battery-draining malware checker. In fact, I suspect most of us could figure out how to avoid that if we tried, rather than trying the opposite.
Sandboxing and limited APIs already exist, Apple doesn't need to review apps that don't appear in their App Store. As I've said, I suspect a very small percentage of people would be willing to install additional stores, and they can hardly complain if it turns out apps purchased there overshare PII.
That is the whole purpose of a free economy. It's a race to the bottom only as long as the customer needs are satisfied with the product, which is exactly what's good for society. Sure you might have several stores, so what? It's like saying there should only be one car dealership because dealerships take too much space and it's not convenient to go in many places to check cars.
A "race to the bottom" that only impacts price means the customer wins. But the important point (which often goes unsaid) when people speak of a race to the bottom is that they are concerned that position in that race will be earned by sacrificing things that matter.
That may or may not be the case, but I expect it'll be more fruitful to address it.
At a micro level I can understand this point, but the proper functioning of markets requires competition. You likely wouldn't advocate one supermarket, one car company or one hardware manufacturer. Even if you would prefer to use Apple's Store it's wrong to deny others (both producers and consumers) free choice.
I am thinking Apple is like a union for their users. And they are regulating developers and they have huge negotiating power because they are gateway to user’s phone. I don’t see them as market participant, I more likely see them as market regulator.
But they are. There are competing apps to Apple's own apps on the App Store. Apple Music is an obvious example, but there's also web browsers, email clients, calendar clients, cloud storage, etc. Through their "market regulation" and using privileged APIs, they can artificially hold competitors back from reaching or surpassing parity of said competing apps.
Their "regulation" has forced all web browsers to use Safari on the backend without the benefits of things like content blockers. Their "regulation" has forced all apps to not be able to cut off a trial if they cancel the subscription renewal while hypocritically doing just that for things like Apple Arcade and Apple TV if you cancel the subscription before the trial is over. Their "regulation" has blocked out any competition to Apple Arcade like xCloud or Stadia. Their "regulation" has, until iOS 14 (still in a limited fashion), kept any other app from being a default and if those stock apps are deleted, annoy users to the point of reinstalling them due to popups when tapping an email address, date/time, or street address.
These are all ways that they secure their spot above the competition on their own devices and hold progression back until they're ready to implement competitive features (read: probably when competition starts poaching users from them despite the disadvantages they impose on said competition).
A participant in the market, which they most certainly are, should not be regulating that market and also profiting off of that regulation. This is how a manufacturer of only 3 types of devices is the most valuable company in the world. I can't think of any other company that has an entire market, or at least the size of App Store market, completely enveloped under their reign.
> I am thinking Apple is like a union for their users.
While I'm decidedly not Epic's side on this I think this is a misleading and dangerous argument. In a union, members get to vote to change the rules to benefit the membership. Apple never asked for my input on App Store rules.
But that's part of what you're buying when you buy Apple. It would be one thing if Apple controlled 86% of the mobile phone market, and you as a consumer (or an app developer) didn't have much choice; but actually Apple only controls 14% of the smartphone market[1]. Both consumers and developers have lots of other options.
I think we're mostly contextualizing this to the US, where Apple has over 50% (~58% last I checked) of the market, which is where most competition of their own apps exist. Last I checked, iOS had ~24% of global market share.
Regardless, 14% of 3.5 billion is still so ridiculously large that each phone OS should be considered their own market, not competitors within the same market. You wouldn't consider a microwave and a toaster oven to be in the same market, even if they're both kitchen appliances that heat up food because they're individual markets. Not all people want a microwave and not all people can afford a toaster oven due to space or financial priorities. In the world of tech, where there's no real definitive line between markets and any one company can have an audience of more people than any monopoly in the past, the old ways of drawing a line in the sand based on a percentage no longer works.
While that's not 14%, it's certainly not a monopoly. Consumers don't have to worry that if they switch to one of those 51% that they're on a platform that nobody else will use. Epic and Spotify and Kindle could make tons of money selling to the other 51% of phones in the US; and if Apple's terms were actually difficult for them to make money from, they could just not make iOS apps, and be perfectly healthy companies. The fact that they do sell on iOS shows that they are making plenty of money, just not as much as they'd like.
I'm pretty late to this, but your statistics are smartphones shipped, which isn't really representative because people with iPhones tend to use their particular model for longer than Android users, which go through phones quicker for one reason or another. I was going off of operating system market share, which is primarily determined by web browser user agents. It is more representative of active phone users and doesn't need to rely on who's buying a new phone or who's sticking with their older one.
Again, the smartphone manufacturing market isn't in question, it's the software markets that are tied to those smartphones.
No they didn't. Choosing whether there is a walled store and choosing what gets into the store are two different things. And on top of that, you didn't even get the first choice independent of a hundred other variables like hardware, operating system, app availability, the network effect of peers with iMessage etc.
To really drive this home, keep in mind that the same argument could be applied to giving Comcast control over which websites and video streaming services you can use. If you don't like it, just choose to move out of their service area. So if you choose to subscribe to Comcast then you must want that, right?
> They didn't ask me to ratify their agenda, but they did require me to pay dues!
Actually they did. Union members get to elect the union leadership. Apple customers don't get to elect the Apple leadership. And if a union set your union dues at 30% of your salary, how long do you think it would take for them to get voted out?
This is nothing like Comcast. There are very rarely two cable providers in a given area. Moving house is not equivalent to buying a different consumer gadget.
...
Union members get to elect union leadership. Phone customers get to elect phone manufacturers. Equivalency restored.
> This is nothing like Comcast. There are very rarely two cable providers in a given area.
That's why the analogy fits -- if you have an iPhone you're in Apple's service area. You can't get your apps from Google Play unless you move to their platform.
But having both a cable provider and a telco in the same area is actually very common. And even if there is a strong competitor (singular), e.g. FiOS, it's still hugely problematic. You choose Comcast and you only get Comcast video service, you choose FiOS and only get FiOS video service, no option for Netflix or YouTube because there are still only two of them and neither of them want you to use that over theirs.
The forces of competition don't actually work if they both know they can get away with it as long as the other one does and the market is concentrated enough with sufficient barriers to entry that they don't have to worry about newcomers. Which is true of both ISPs and phone platforms.
> Moving house is not equivalent to buying a different consumer gadget.
Buying a new phone (~$1000) compared to buying an app (~$1). Then re-buy all your existing apps, because new platform. Learn the other OS, training cost. Any apps that don't exist there, like iMessage? Problematic. Move all your data from iCloud to Google.
It's very much like moving house.
> Union members get to elect union leadership. Phone customers get to elect phone manufacturers. Equivalency restored.
Equivalency would be the customers electing Apple's board, which they don't. Equivalency would be an actual co-op store which you do get to elect the leadership of. The thing you're claiming is that it would be just as good to have an unaccountable union because you could always go work for another company (which had its own unaccountable union).
And we could do even better -- because it's not like unions are a panacea -- and have a co-op store which isn't tied to specific hardware or a platform, which you can choose to opt out of without simultaneously opting out of anything else. Which is what you would be able to have in a competitive market.
I like the idea of allowing alternate App Stores on iOS (or even setting a flag to allow running unsigned binaries).
I do not agree that Apple has an obligation to develop this functionality for me.
I can think of plenty of reasons they would not want to do so (and almost zero of them have anything to do with protecting their 30% cut of app sales).
I think iOS is a better consumer product because it has never allowed ad hoc app installs.
If I felt differently, I could switch. Mobile platform mobility is very high. People do it all the time! Most people have fewer than a dozen apps on their device, which itself costs a couple dozen dollars per month with a mobile plan. Switching costs, if synced to your contract period, are really very low.
Apps which are platform-exclusive (Apple Messages) are a different kettle of wax, and I don't think germane here. Complicated product/ecosystems inevitably fan out to imperfect sets of compromises. Sure, this contributes to intangible switching costs, but that's hardly Apple's responsibility to mitigate on my behalf.
I have varied opinions and experiences with Comcast, co-ops, and labor unions (negative, positive, disappointing), but I don't think any of the analogies make sense.
> I do not agree that Apple has an obligation to develop this functionality for me.
The issue isn't they should have to do it for you, it's that they've taken purposeful action to prevent anyone else from doing it.
> I think iOS is a better consumer product because it has never allowed ad hoc app installs.
But this doesn't require the store to be glued to the device. You could get the same experience by using only Apple's store, or some other store you trust, even if others were available.
Linux package managers are a fine example of this. The large majority of Linux software is installed through them, and doing what the packagers require to get included is enough of a benefit that developers do it, but there is nothing at all preventing there from being multiple independent packaging systems or preventing people from installing software from the internet. They just don't, in general, because they prefer to get it from the package manager.
> Mobile platform mobility is very high. People do it all the time!
People move house all the time too, that doesn't mean the cost is low.
You're essentially arguing that it's possible for it to be low. If you're about to buy a new phone anyway and you don't have many apps and none of your apps only run on iOS, then all you have is the retraining cost of learning a different operating system and the differences between the hardware of different platforms and so on.
But this is just arguing that if you're about to move house anyway then the cost of switching away from Comcast isn't as high. For one thing it's still high, because the differences between different houses/platforms is still quite significant and decisions are made based on a multitude of considerations in addition to app stores. But for another, what happens to the people in the opposite circumstances? They're not halfway through their contract and have many expensive iOS-specific apps with a network effect, and then they want to buy your app. No way they can switch just for that.
> Apps which are platform-exclusive (Apple Messages) are a different kettle of wax, and I don't think germane here. Complicated product/ecosystems inevitably fan out to imperfect sets of compromises. Sure, this contributes to intangible switching costs, but that's hardly Apple's responsibility to mitigate on my behalf.
They don't have to mitigate it but then it's a significant component of switching costs. Eat your cake or have it.
> The issue isn't they should have to do it for you, it's that they've taken purposeful action to prevent anyone else from doing it.
The crux of our disagreement may lie here.
Apple did not take active steps to prevent other app stores from running on iOS.
They spent many years of active effort to prevent any app from escaping the runtime sandbox. As a side effect, I cannot load arbitrary phone applications, keyboard handlers, or app stores.
Demanding that Apple undo (or make exceptions in) this design, which provides runtime security across the OS, would be coerced development. It weakens the product, is contrary to corporate goals, and is not valuable to most customers.
It is reasonable to argue that sideloading is less problematic than allowing alternate app stores. The sideloaded app would still run in the sandbox. But it would break an important layer of defense-in-depth, and why would Apple willingly take on that extra risk? I can understand why some customers would consider it convenient if they did, but I cannot support forcing them to do so.
Re: switching costs: In what consumer relationship does the buyer not assume some risk in their decision? If I buy a car, but change my mind in a few months and prefer a different model, who eases that transition for me? Any complex product will come with compromises -- suitability for purpose is not guaranteed. The compromise on iOS is that you do not install arbitrary apps. Maybe this surprises some people, but they can return the device in-window, or they can choose differently next time. I do not see any level of extraordinary consumer harm in this practice.
> Demanding that Apple undo (or make exceptions in) this design, which provides runtime security across the OS, would be coerced development.
At this point you're arguing that prohibiting them from doing something is coercing them to do something merely because they've already done it.
Consider the case where they have an absolute monopoly on phones. There are only iPhones, nothing else. Would you still object to a requirement to allow other app stores because it's "coercing development"?
What if they used the app store monopoly to monopolize the market for online payment processing, and from there the entire retail market? Can you imagine how that would harm the customer?
> Re: switching costs: In what consumer relationship does the buyer not assume some risk in their decision?
This is actually true for the large majority of consumer products. If you go to the grocery store and buy a carton of eggs, you don't have to buy the same company's sugar or flour or chocolate chips, and when you've bought those things and have them in your kitchen, you don't have to throw them out if you switch to another brand of eggs.
Moreover, the issue with switching costs isn't that they exist -- for many complex products, they will -- it's that they create a barrier which thwarts the competitive pressure on the company that would otherwise prevent it from abusing its market position, so then you need something else to do that, e.g. antitrust. Having a monopoly isn't, in itself, illegal; abusing it is.
It is wrong to deny me the free choice of an ecosystem with only one store then. You wouldn’t walk into a town with only one grocery store and car dealership and demand a second one open “because freedom”. Maybe that town likes it that way and if you don’t then you don’t need to live there.
I don't think it will. Android and the Play Store have shown that even with the ability to install arbitrary apps and stores very few apps that would have been available on the Play Store have migrated to only be available on other stores.
So the tradeoff is a fairly large number of previously disallowed apps are now available, if you want. And a small number of previously allowed apps are only available outside of Apple's store.
Of course if this is worth it to you depends on how much you value either side of the equation but at least in the Android case it is a clear win to me.
In response to OP's comment, my first question is "fair to whom". Is it fair that suddenly that the ecosystem we consciously paid for should suddenly be forcefully changed, permanently, because vendors see dollar signs?
Epic took Fortnite out of Google's Play Store because they wanted to stop giving Google 30% of all transactions. After a few months, they put it back in.
Very, very, very few developers are going to avoid Apple's App Store deliberately. It just doesn't make economic sense. Game-streaming services don't have a choice, of course.
Exactly. That's the price of freedom.
Are you willing to pay it? or sacrifice your freedom for convenience?
Most people, I suspect, will choose the latter.
There is nothing wrong to sacrifice your freedom to convenience, it is like living in the city and delegating protection to police, or living in the wild and taking care of yourself.
Ultimately giving users choice is the best way forward. Apple shouldn't be allowed to block competing app stores (or sideloading) on their platform, in my view that's monopolistic.
Imagine if Microsoft had restricted the ability to install and use third party software on Windows, it would of slowed digital transformation dramatically.
> Ultimately giving users choice is the best way forward.
OK, but right now as a user I have a choice: I can choose an ecosystem supported in part by a 30% tax on apps, or I can choose an ecosystem supported mainly by advertising. If Apple is forced to allow other stores, I lose that choice.
Furthermore, a lot of the things Apple forces on apps really are for my benefit: Take the way they banned Facebook for working around their prohibition on running in the background. They can say, "If you want to access this market, you will follow these rules." If Apple is forced to allow other app stores, then not only Epic and Spotify can say, "We only install on this other store that allows us to sell subscriptions without the 30% tax", then Facebook and others will also be able to say, "We only install on this other store that lets us spy on you."
One again: At the moment, as a consumer, I can choose to say, "I prefer Apple to negotiate on my behalf" or, "I'll go with Android, where I can install third-party stores". If Apple is forced to open up, I won't have that choice any more.
>OK, but right now as a user I have a choice: I can choose an ecosystem supported in part by a 30% tax on apps, or I can choose an ecosystem supported mainly by advertising. If Apple is forced to allow other stores, I lose that choice.
I'm not sure that follows. Can you elaborate on why you would "lose that choice"?
A sufficiently powerful company or group could promote a third party app store by negotiating exclusive deals. Imagine a "EpicTwitBook" store being the only way to get Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and Fortnite.
Previously those apps were forced to make concessions to be on the iOS store, and I could download "Instagram, the version that makes Apple happy" app.
But now, that version of the app is gone! I google "Why is my Instagram gone" and get an article that says I have to sign up to the "EpicTwitBook" store, and download the "Instagram, the version that makes Advertisers happy" app.
I would prefer the first version but I don't get a choice.
My vision of an alternate app store still involves largely adhering to Apples rules for app approval. Except that an alternate store could have a different commission structure and in-store "experience".
For example, an alternate store could differentiate on search features, curation, free trials, ratings systems, bundles, periodic sales, developer interaction, developer support and (optionally of course) social recommendations. Exclusivity could even be forbidden.
In this scenario, Apple could still set the rules for App approval (with some oversight) and earn a fair commission (%5 to %10?) on transactions. It would still be profitable for Apple but encourage innovation and competition in the actual "stores".
I'm on the same opinion, once the device is mine I should be able to install whatever I want. What would happen if I couldn't install the software I want on a desktop device? I really don't get how apple has survived so long with such a tight leash on IOS.
Because you think of it as a computer? Where as most of their think of it as a smartphone and don't give a thought to a root user or wonder why they need it. Eliminating a huge security risk that has been a bane for general computers for all time.
People on this site are not in general nerds. The explosion in developers around the late 00s meant that the average coder is no longer a typical 'news for nerds stuff that matters' person.
I'm actually their target market, I use an iphone as my main phone because two reasons, first they have a great hardware, and second, they support their devices much longer than any other manufacturer. An iphone 7 is 4 years from their release still a very capable phone and receives security updates and new os versions, there is no other manufactured that does that. You could say that they finance that with the app store, but their devices are actually quite priced and what the app store gives to apple is way more money that what they need.
You can however not invest very much on the apple ecosystem and subscribe to most services outside the app store mode, which is what I do myself, but I'm a minority.
Probably because you're not the target audience. That is perfectly fine as well. I imagine most of the HN audience would be able to avoid bricking their devices if they all came with root access.
But I buy Apple. For myself, my parents, and I recommend to relatives etc. The tight leash is a feature not a limitation. I know if I set up an iPhone or iPad for my mum the apps aren't going to try charging her credit card or installing bloatware and so on.
The tight integration between all the services is a plus as well - something I just don't trust on other devices. Using the parent example again, my mum doesn't need to understand iCloud syncing, she just knows that all her photos are safe on the device and will show up on the computer.
Apple decides to fxxk them up. It don't even has notification that chrome/firefox on android implemented years ago. Not to mention damn much annoying safari bugs.
The desktop is incredibly outdated, and it's painfully visible. Any desktop application you install isn't sandboxed at all and has full access to all your files and peripherals (including camera and microphone). The only way to describe this is 'insane'.
At some point, you have to trust some software. Even if it's just the sandbox maker.
We can go two ways with this:
1. We teach users how to use computers so they don't hurt themselves. Some still will, because they don't get it.
2. We clamp down on all uses of computers so that they're safe for uneducated users to use. Only authorised corporate programmers are allowed to create applications. Users are "safe", but treated badly by their corporate overlords.
I want scenario 1 (with no sandbox and the freedom to install whatever I like). Scenario 2 is where Apple is headed.
> with apps like tiktok stealing clipboard content
I do not get the focus on TikTok. Yes, it read your clipboard content… just like Snapchat, Instagram, Reddit, etc. Most security researchers agree that TikTok is among the more restrained social media apps, when it comes to gathering user data.
This is a bad look for the social media landscape in general, not TikTok specifically.
to be honest, it was just that tiktok was publicised as doing so. I have nothing against tiktok, and do not like this witch hunt myself - it was just a recent example.
Emm. no thank you. History has shown that it will be abused. Also, the curation makes sure, or at least does their best effort, to catch phishing screens etc. Payments/wallet for example require the lock button. You can't mimic that.
The App Store and iOS lockdown are one of the biggest reasons I'm on Apple devices.
On macOS, I think there should be even more sandboxing and process separation.
30% might be a bit too much for certain types of transactions, but that's not the same reasoning as "allow 3rd party app stores"
I'm surprised people aren't talking about other appstores / platforms. It's just good-old-apple-bashing.
It's easy to just not use non-Apple app stores though. That's the current state of things on Google, where other app stores are allowed but the vast majority of people just use Google.
If you personally value security and a smooth user experience over being able to install whatever you want go for it, no one would ever force you to use another app store.
I imagine it would turn out similar to the game store market on PC. You'd have the various large publishers all having their own stores to get their games/software. Personally, I much prefer to just buy and manage all of my games through Steam... but I do have a handful of games through other launchers. It's annoying, but it would be weird to not allow them to control how they deploy their software.
> on Google, where other app stores are allowed but the vast majority of people just use Google... no one would ever force you to use another app store.
Google implemented several hurdles to drive users away from competitive app stores. They're all but forcing people to use the Play Store.
By having Android limit the ability to do things like auto-update an app or install an app without additional prompts. If you've ever used F-Droid with say 10 apps that need updates, you're going to have to click through update on each one 10 times.
On macOS, I think there should be even more sandboxing and process separation.
I agree, and that's very different from forbidding unapproved software. If you support the iOS lockdown, how can you say that Apple shouldn't do the same thing on macOS? For that matter, why shouldn't they be aggressively filtering what web sites Safari can view? By failing to do these things they are continuing to leave users vulnerable to malicious content.
I have definitely come around on this. I can see a case for making adding a third-party story cumbersome, and having Apple still control the "certificates," let's say, for each store, but yes, I agree, there need to be alternatives.
It still seems awkward to say that Apple must allow for competitors, but they're a $2 trillion company now, and I think rules are just weird for companies of that size.
Presumably control of iOS means Apple would never lose the ability to distrust/remove a given store and apps installed with it. But Apple would need to be under clear regulation that it could not do so for a revenue-related reason.
Presumably a store openly promoting pirated apps would be a reason, and a store which has significant malware problems, could both be compelling reasons to permit Apple to do this, but I would go so far as to suggest they should be required to involve the legal system somehow in the process, rather than make a unilateral call.
While this might sound good, this would be impossible to enforce in practice, as everything a company does is revenue-related. Any rules the app store or iOS have are directly related to revenue by definition.
For example, if Apple allowed boundless permissions and tons of buggy apps, their revenue would probably decrease. This issue is harder to regulate than it first seems.
Yes, technically, "everything a company does is revenue-related". However, you can realistically draw a line sonewhere between blocking illegal material (pirated/malware) and blocking apps that don't pay Apple their 30%. My comment was not intended to be the exact legalese that would be required for such a limitation, but you can probably gather roughly where I draw the line from it.
I want to point out that the crux of my argument, the very reason I posted, was that I could not "draw the line" from the previous argument. There is no actual rebuttal or new information in the reply, just a restatement of the previous point.
My point was that everything a company does is revenue related, and thus we cannot draw some imaginary line between things that are "more" or "less" revenue related. Restating that we can doesn't move us forward. I would be interested to hear how we can separate some revenue related reasons from others.
> It still seems awkward to say that Apple must allow for competitors, but they're a $2 trillion company now, and I think rules are just weird for companies of that size.
Apple only controls 14% of the smartphone market. If Apple is a $2T company, doesn't that mean those 14% of people overall approve of what Apple is doing?
I certainly think some of the restrictions are onerous; but if I had to choose between "Some onerous restrictions on some app developers" and "No way to capture value from applications to support the platform", I'd go with the first one.
Right now, if you don't like what Apple's doing, you can choose not to do with Apple; and if I do, I can choose to go with them. If you get your way & Apple is forced to open up, I'll no longer have that choice.
Keep in mind, I've basically shift on this within the last day or two, so my thinking is possibly still underbaked when it comes to "the other side." But I think you might be making the mistake of thinking that since Apple does A, B, and C, and they have the safest/best experience, therefore A, B, and C are necessary for them to continue to have the safest/best experience.
I can see a world, for example, in which Apple approves a very-limited number of alternate app stores, each of which must still give Apple 30% of what they make from every transaction. So a $1 purchase in Apple's App Store gives them 30 cents, while a $1 purchase in Epic's App Store gives Epic 14 cents, and Apple 6 cents (30% of the 20 cents the ultimate developer doesn't get).
Would that mean Apple would go broke? I don't think so. Would Epic find that it's harder to make things work on 14% than they'd estimated? Could be: they gave up going indie over on Android already. Would I be forced to use the alternate App Store? I suspect only for apps excluded from Apple's App Store, because what developer would want to give up on that revenue?
> Right now, if you don't like what Apple's doing, you can choose not to do with Apple; and if I do, I can choose to go with them
I think the reasoning here misses the point. If Apple were doing something truly dastardly, inarguably evil, would this argument still apply? It's not trivial to switch platforms, though it is possible. And "Apple's way or the highway" shouldn't give them a license to do whatever they want to, no matter what.
I hope that whatever is decided in court, I am able to stick with the Apple experience I know and appreciate. But maybe also I want to use one of the several game-streaming services that Apple will not allow. Must I buy an Android tablet to use Stadia? How much other innovation is currently not happening, or are unavailable to iOS users because of Apple's App Store restrictions?
> Jobs originally said that the aim of the 30% was to cover costs of running the store. It is evident from the MASSIVE profits that this is no longer the case.
I think this is key; I would argue that Jobs has a point on curation being important; but also, in the modern world, the app store is arguably "public utility".
Apple can keep their store & their rules, but the law should cap the fees so that they only cover costs of running the store - nothing more. Not unlike how EU has e.g. capped mobile data fees for telcos.
Part of Apple's security does in fact come from the curation process.
Access to private APIs for example is not preventable at runtime due to the way Objective-C works.
And the ability to change payment screens etc at runtime has always been possible. But Apple simply bans the developer and so instances of this happening in the wild have been basically non-existant.
Apple's browser sandbox uses iOS-private APIs to work, plus it runs in a separate process which again is not something normal apps can do. Nor can Apple–UI frameworks all but have to be in-process and there is nothing you can do to prevent people from calling into it in unintended ways.
Not sure if it's impossible but from experience it's very difficult to bypass Apple's screening process.
They can class-dump the Mach-O binary, disassemble and inspect the performSelector: calls or even just run the apps in an ARM emulator and watch for alarms whenever the reviewer manually goes through the app.
> from experience it's very difficult to bypass Apple's screening process
From experience, it is trivial to bypass review. Trivial.
> They can class-dump the Mach-O binary, disassemble and inspect the performSelector: calls or even just run the apps in an ARM emulator and watch for alarms whenever the reviewer manually goes through the app.
The vast majority of apps don't go through anything close to this. At most, Apple runs a class-dump equivalent on every binary, nothing more–and you can even see it catch legitimate selectors every so often! If you think about it, this isn't surprising, because you need to have a (large) team of actual reverse engineers do this kind of thing or set up a good automated malware analysis platform, both of which Apple is fairly behind at.
Screening private API fundamentally has nothing to do with how Objective-C works and everything to do with leaving private API out in places where an application can call them–the same process that an app is running code in. Switching away from Objective-C is not going to solve this problem.
As far as I understood TikTok and others weren’t stealing content, there are legitimate reasons to access the clipboard to check for links for example or other type of content the app would be interested into. It would be stealing if they actually send the content back to their servers, but I haven’t seen reports saying that’s the case.
The problem with this is that it would be putting an obligation on Apple to design and implement APIs it doesn't want to create or support, and implement features it disagrees with. Who gets to decide what APIs and features comply with any such imposed obligation? Who reviews it and certifies compliance? Who decides on how many resources get allocated to it? As technology advances and iOS changes, how will the specification be evolved?
One option for them would be to shut down general access to the App Store and only enter into bespoke agreements with individual developers. Make it much more like a console system or feature phone with vendor-provided or bespoke licensed add-on features. I think this is a more likely outcome from trying to ram open access down their throats because it's an 'open platform'. Just close it. That's what Steve Jobs wanted to do in the first place. They'd lose some customers but maybe good enough for 90% of current iPhone users is good enough for Apple, rather than losing control of the design and feature set of their own product.
> The problem with this is that it would be putting an obligation on Apple to design and implement APIs it doesn't want to create or support, and implement features it disagrees with.
That's not a problem, it's just life. Pretty much every person and organization has obligations they need to comply with that they may disagree with. For instance, COPPA means Apple (and other internet companies) already need to implement features to keep kids under 13 from creating accounts on their site without parental permission.
> Who gets to decide what APIs and features comply with any such imposed obligation? Who reviews it and certifies compliance? Who decides on how many resources get allocated to it?
Easy: either 1) government authorities or 2) an independent private self-regulatory organization like FINRA.
So now the US government and the EU will be making legislation that specifies phone APIs and designs user interfaces. Great!
Not going to happen. Apple will simple close up the App Store into a private premium feature delivery system. Meanwhile the entire rest of the industry will be stuck with a new version of WAP. Thanks guys.
> So now the US government and the EU will be making legislation that specifies phone APIs and designs user interfaces. Great!
This, but unironically.
It's not hard to think of an example where "legislation that specifies APIs and designs user interfaces" is unambiguously good — say, accessibility requirements for commercial software.
As a disabled person, I’m forced to disagree. Most disability is social: activities are hard to perform not due to physical limitation (although this has some effect), but because social constructs and practices obstruct access.
It depends on the kind of software. Should games be required to be accessible? I don't think so. Should banking apps be required to be accessible? That probably depends on the size of the bank. Should software used for accessing government services be accessible? Of course.
I don't think a law forcing all software to be accessible makes any kind of sense.
At a personal level, I’m fine with individual pieces of software being accessible or not. It’s the same with individual pieces of art, buildings and so on. I’m into music enough that I DJ and play in bands; my partner is deaf and prefers subtitled films; no big deal.
But when you pull your focus a bit further back to look at society, Infrastructure, systems and practices, it’s easy to see that disabled people are both more vulnerable and also less well supported (and often actively discriminated against).
The laws we have give disabled people some leverage to redress that imbalance. Unfortunately, the perspective that “accessibility is an expensive addition” is so pervasive (or not even considered), that disabled people need those laws.
A problem with laws is they reinforce binary thinking. As written they tend towards flexibility, but at the point of enforcement, there’s usually a hard line between punishment and not, which amplifies that binary impression. A less binary outlook would see people and companies embracing the opportunities for collaboration and creativity. For example, a big games publisher could actively seek out and promote developers who specialise in accessible games, or games that play with creative devices beyond the vision-first norm. A few examples exist but they’re rare, independent and it’s not a category you can search for. The same goes for art, galleries, cinema. London, where I live, had an improving state of live subtitled theatre, but it’s still only one performance in 50 or 100, for the big shows. It’s probably only even this good because of the law.
No one is asking for a law forcing all software to be accessible — just commercial and public (in the “government operated” sense) software. A bank’s size should not determine whether or not they have to support e.g. blind customers.
I guess we have to disagree here. Software is much more flexible than a building. People have been trying to draw these construction work - software analogies forever now, and it is just bullocks. Making a building is a solved problem. Most interesting software isn't a solved problem, otherwise you wouldn't need that software in the first place. Now is it for Microsoft a good idea to make their Office software accessible? For sure. Is it for me a good idea to make the software I write accessible? What does that even mean in the various contexts? It's not like you add an elevator and an extra bathroom and you are good. Will I be getting paid for the huge amount of extra work I need to do to produce something that's truly accessible and not just a lip service?
Accessibility UIs that are designed by committee and set in stone. No innovation allowed, by law. Gah, ironically Apple's platforms have the best accessibility in the industry regardless of legislation. They pretty much always have.
I was replying to a post explicitly suggesting that the APIs and UI for accessibility should be standardised. In that context I think trying to refute, er, the suggestion actualy being made, is reasonable.
I’m not suggesting that — I thought you were speaking metaphorically. If a court mandates that Apple allow sideloaded apps or third-party app stores, it will obviously take the same form as accessibility requirements, not specific APIs or UI designs.
> So now the US government and the EU will be making legislation that specifies phone APIs and designs user interfaces. Great!
They already do. For instance Microsoft was forced to create BrowserChoice.eu because of an antitrust case. GDPR puts requirements on user interfaces for personal data collection. I'm not aware of similar US examples (except maybe the aforementioned COPPA), but I know US law specifies form designs and font types/sizes for certain content (IIRC, to combat hiding disclosures in illegible type, etc).
This kind of thing typically only happens when private self-interest gets in the way of the public good, which is arguably the case with some of Apple's App Store decisions.
> Not going to happen. Apple will simple close up the App Store into a private premium feature delivery system. Meanwhile the entire rest of the industry will be stuck with a new version of WAP.
Are you serious? Apple's going to comply with whatever regulations they need to, because having an app store is too lucrative for them. They're not going to cut their nose to spite their face.
Those are incredibly minimal requirements, basically equivalent to labelling restrictions on food. They're nothing like specifying a detailed spec for application delivery, permissioning, resource access, background update orchestration, UI design for installers and update management etc, etc. And yes this would have to be mandated, otherwise it would leave gaps for vendor implementation abuse. Remember Apple doesn't want to do this at all.
On your last point, not if you take away the two primary pillars of it's profitability - exclusive payments processing and store exclusivity. Revenues would collapse, which after all is the point of doing all of this, and they'd lose control of the platform. Why not simply close open access to the store and explicitly license every app. They could just do a deal with a dozen software vendors to develop the couple of hundred core apps and games they need, and to do bespoke development for other clients. No public signups as iOS developers.
> Those are incredibly minimal requirements, basically equivalent to labelling restrictions on food. They're nothing like specifying a detailed spec for application delivery, permissioning, resource access, background update orchestration, UI design for installers and update management etc, etc. And yes this would have to be mandated, otherwise it would leave gaps for vendor implementation abuse. Remember Apple doesn't want to do this at all.
You're moving the goalposts, you originally said:
>>>>> The problem with this is that it would be putting an obligation on Apple to design and implement APIs it doesn't want to create or support, and implement features it disagrees with.
The way this usually works is that the regulators/legislators would come up with relatively high level requirements [1] and Apple would have to figure out the design details to meet them. If their detailed design fails to meet or subverts the high level requirements, then they will be forced to defend their actions in court, where "we don't want to do it" isn't a defense.
[1] Which hypothetically could be as simple as 1) users must have the option to install 3rd party app stores on their devices, 2) 3rd party app stores may not be technically disadvantaged compared to the 1st party store, and 3) maybe some requirements around revenue or cost sharing.
> On your last point, not if you take away the two primary pillars of it's profitability - exclusive payments processing and store exclusivity. Revenues would collapse, which after all is the point of doing all of this, and they'd lose control of the platform.
Explain to me why Apple hasn't abandoned the Mac OS platform for those same reasons, since it doesn't have the "exclusive payments processing and store exclusivity" that you seem to think are so essential.
Why any stores at all? Just allow software to be installed like a PC. There are millions of PCs running just fine without a "store". No one is making any extra money, but that's OK, because they shouldn't be.
"Stores" doesn't solve that problem. The TikTok virus is 300M strong. There are solutions to minimizing malware installs that don't involve a middle-man taking a cut.
> Jobs originally said that the aim of the 30% was to cover costs of running the store. It is evident from the MASSIVE profits that this is no longer the case.
I am an Apple customer because I believe in their oversight and governance on the App store. I really don't want third party stores and 30% fee seems fair given the access to huge distribution.
This opinion seem to ignore that it essentially opens up the entire hardware platform for people to use. This would completely change Apple as a business.
> This would completely change Apple as a business.
So? Imagine if we handicapped the march of progress so that Blockbuster wouldn't have to go out of business. If Apple can't innovate, then let them die.
(but chances are good that they'll turn out just fine)
Note how many sources wanted to stay anonymous "for fear of upsetting Apple".
Apple knows they can end businesses with the click of a finger. That's what they tried to do by ending the dev license for Unreal Engine. And Apple wants everybody to know that they know. I'm almost certain that the Unreal Dev license revocation is a result of a similar email chain as what happened to Kindle - https://www.macrumors.com/2020/07/31/emails-apple-blocked-ki... - execs just thinking of a way to punish the company.
This, for me, is the biggest monopoly argument. Too much business success is hinged on Apple being happy, and they start to abuse this power more and more by tightening (the interpretation of) App Store rules like requiring in-app purchases etc.
IMO Epic is not the best company to challenge Apple in all this, but in American judicial system Epic may be one of the very few companies that can afford this lawsuit.
Epic isn't the hero we need but the hero we deserve.
I can certainly imagine a lot of companies are tight-lipped about it.
My livelihood depends on an app store and so I'm super cautious about what I say publicly about the company that controls it.
This sort of chilling effect is scary and should rightly be contested.
Epic is criticized for being a huge company themselves and using that as leverage in their legal battle. However, small companies stand absolutely no chance so Epic is the only one that can take this fight.
Epic is the champion of all the smaller businesses with apps on phones. Not because Epic wants them to do well but because Epic wants Epic to do well. They'll just happen to help all of us - consumer and developer - with them.
Me too. I think, Epic is uniquely positioned also because it is privately held. As such, its actions are more representative of what Tim Sweeney thinks is right instead of the investor mob. And to me as a developer Tim Sweeney seems like a pretty good guy similar to Carmack in many ways.
Tim Sweeney's position on Linux is pretty indicative of his character. He'll bitch and moan about Microsoft and Apple locking things down, but refuses to support a true open platform. He's in this for money, pure and simple.
I'll root for them once they stop pushing exclusives (paid for monopoly on distribution rights) vs steam/etc. It isn't the same issue but it's close enough that I find it ironic they are complaining about a monopoly store while trying to compete against Steam/etc by buying a monopoly on a game at least during the first 6 months of release.
It’s not even close. Apple is forcing developers how they can reach their customer. Epic deals are made by developers with regards to how they want to reach their customers. They are both uncomfortable for some customers, but that is not the issue. Let’s say you utterly dislike Wal Mart and your favorite ice cream is exclusively available there because Wal Mart struck a deal with the maker (e.g. they’ll fund them). That’s not the same as Wal Mart forcing the ice cream vendor to sell exclusively to Wal Mart because otherwise the item will be banned from the shelves, which results in a huge loss in customer reach, thus abusing their market position.
This "random capriciousness" is perhaps the primary concern which keeps me from developing for Apple systems.
If I invest my own time and capital into developing a product, which can only be sold through a single outlet, and which could be arbitrarily banned at any point in time, that's simply too much risk to bear. Apple, as the arbiter of what is sold through their store, have far too much power. Why would I put full control of my business into their hands? I, for one, wouldn't.
Multiple competing stores are the solution to most of the problems. It would certainly de-risk selling on Apple platforms. And it would allow for proper competition over pricing. Customers could purchase from the store which provided the most value. As would allowing "sideloading" so that users who wish to have proper control over their own property.
That risk is low comparing to the reward on such large user base. Most business can thrive if they develop an actual app with good value. You can always pick a war with Apple, but that’s a risk you choose to take after you make it big.
I think the point they are trying to make is that you are also at risk if Apple decides to pick a war with you.
The rules are not some crystal clear logical function that you can be sure that you stay inside of. They are vague, selectively enforced and can change any any time. So at the end of the day if Apple decides that they don't like you they pick a vague rule, claim that you violate it and poof! you lost a war you didn't know that you were fighting.
One idea I don't see discussed is that the App Store model is a disincentive for Apple to come up with better sandboxing and security.
Apple is in fact uniquely positioned to introduce a better sandboxing model. They control most of the stack, crucially the CPU and the build toolchain, not to mention the PL. They could, were they not so reliant on the App Store auditing process, make it less likely for people to develop malware and privacy-invasive software, by building better abstractions around processes and IPC, through eg. virtualization and capabilities [0].
That, of course, would take away the main raison d'être of App Store, which is a significant money-maker for Apple.
Any chance you can dispel with the meaningless buzzwords ?
"Abstractions around processes and IPC" does not reduce the number of malware and privacy invasive apps. And who knows what "virtualization and capabilities" even means in the context of iOS.
It has been limiting and securing access to APIs/data that has been responsible for improving the privacy and security of iOS. For example warning about use of clipboard, per-use permission dialogs for contacts/photos/etc and randomising identifiers.
As a programmer, I'm as happy as a pig in mud in the low-level innards of my computers and operating systems, and like that I can get at them etc. That's why I have linux on my desktop.
But 'open' systems don't work out well for 'normal' users. Remember the viruses and trojans and instability and all the rest of the Windows days, or Android?
I want my parents and friends and everyone else to use an iphone because its hassle-free and secure.
Do we really want 'unlocked' iphones? Actually, the idea of having to help someone who wants me to 'just look at the iphone and work out what's wrong' scares me.
>Remember the viruses and trojans and instability and all the rest of the Windows days, or Android?
The era you are referencing was two decades ago and those problems stemmed from development processes that didn't take security into consideration since it was mostly written in pre-internet days and worked well in that environment. Once Microsoft took security seriously things got better. Windows is -still- an open platform where you can run anything you want and you don't see rampant viruses/trojans etc. It works very well now and still has the same openness properties as before.
Android has security issues just like Apple but it's never been a huge problem. The fact that you put Android in that sentence makes me scratch my head a bit. Android is on the same level as iOS on pretty much every metric.
Originally the carriers were terrified of app stores because there would be cell network hacking tools and service disrupting network traffic. A vast majority of malware on macOS now comes from pirate apps stores via torrents. Much of the current App Store design is based on those concerns and the current iOS sandbox is still a long way from preventing those abuses.
Sandboxing-type security is damn good on mobile OSes.
We tend to associate desktop with the insecure but it's not because of the lack of an app store. It's because desktop OSes do not sandbox, ask user permission, etc. Modern mobile OSes do so it's really night and day.
This takes care of 90% of why mobile OSes are more secure than desktop ones - not app stores.
I'm sure that there are other security concerns. I have security concerns about my house. I wouldn't like a camera in my house going to the police because of it. Some people would. But neither party should be forced into one way or the other. Let's give them a choice.
Apple's position is that if you want to deploy apps onto the iPhone, then you must provide a way for the user to signup with Apple as the intermediary.
This actually increases user choices because for any app which has an existence outside the app store, users can now choose to either pay the conventional way or have Apple intermediate. Before users had to accept Microsoft's way or don't use Microsoft Office.
I'm okay with 3rd party app stores, but I wouldn't be okay with losing the option to signup through Apple, which is more what companies care about.
Leveraging a monopoly into requiring a specific sort of login practice that reinforces the monopoly is an absurd sort of consumer choice.
If Apple was really benevolent here, they'd have an open login platform that could be decentralized and implemented by third parties.
That would be a real beneficial choice to the consumer. Of course, that's not what they're doing because their goal is not to promote consumer choice. It's to reinforce their monopoly by requiring deep integration on the part of the app developer.
The fact that Apple is requiring devs to add "Sign in with Apple" if the app supports any other social login is such a blatant overreach. I'm as much of a capitalist pig as the next guy but enough with the bullshit.
Apple says that App Store is secure and stuff. But it would not become less secure if there are other stores. And everybody who wants security for themselves could choose to use the App Store exclusively.
Everybody else, on the other hand, would not be forced to do the same for the benefit of a big corp.
Sure, I've got relatives who would happily install crap on their devices given the ability, but iPhone's internal sandboxing and containerisation would make it easy for you to completely wipe the apps from third-party stores if someone ever tried to ask you to make a device better for them.
I think, it's a tradeoff, and IMO making people's devices a little bit more trashy in the name of freedom of business and innovation is a worthwile compromise. If only Apple didn't become so greedy and just served their devices owners, we could have had both...
> everybody who wants security for themselves could choose to use the App Store exclusively
this is not what's going to happen in my opinion because 1. many people don't know they want security 2. many people will be tricked in installing from 3rd party stores
note that I don't have a solution to Apple monopoly, which I think is bad, but I also believe that the app store kept at bay a lot of dangerous software for less tech savvy people.
App Store will not be less secure if they allow third party app stores, but the platform will.
How long do you think that it will take for scam apps in poorly moderated app stores to appear, which the users are tricked to install for "free v-bucks" or "free $10 store credit"?
Well, we have other platforms to look at. Android, Windows, MacOS - they all seem to be fine regarding this issue. Not great, but not bad either, while offsetting the bad with their openness.
The open web also exists and somehow doesn't need full moderation for people to be, one the whole, relatively safe there.
O think, the situation with App Store looks like there are parental controls that are always on, and the parent is Apple. And sure, it can be fine, until the parent becomes abusive or until the child becomes (in this case the user base on the whole) smarter and more prepared for what's out there.
Having admin privileges doesn’t matter. Any software you install still has read and write permissions to all of your files, can encrypt your files (ransomware) can read your contacts (which hasn’t changed since the ILoveYou days in the early 2000s), etc.
That's true of full-trust (i.e., "Win32") software and that's why AppContainer (i.e., "UWP") was introduced. Moving the Windows software ecosystem to adopt AppContainer/UWP more pervasively is still a work in progress, but surely moving away from everything requiring admin privileges is prerequisite to any such more fine-grained sandboxing?
And we get back to the “problem”. Any app that wanted to do harm wouldn’t opt in to use UWP. If you are only going to use apps that can use UWP you might as well use an iPad and not deal with the bloat of Windows which is still a horrible experience on a tablet or convertible. Windows and Macs are “insecure by design”. They almost have to be to be more usable than the iPad. That’s not meant to be a criticism toward Windows. All either Apple or Microsoft can do is throw up dialogs and people just become accustomed to clicking on “Ok”.
The problem for Epic — and, I suppose, for me — is that to this observer it seems exceedingly likely that Apple is going to win this case, last night’s decision notwithstanding. Current Supreme Court jurisprudence is very clear that businesses — including monopolies — have no duty to deal with third parties, and if they do choose to deal with them (or are even compelled to), that they can choose the terms on which to do so. The only exceptions are if the monopoly in question changes the rules in an unprofitable way with the express purpose of driving out a competitor, or if any company — not even a monopoly — changes access to after-market parts and services.
Current US antitrust law does not favor Epic in this matter. Of Epic's ten claims, their strongest claim is probably the one tying in-app payment processing to app distribution services, but even that one is far from a slam dunk. And even if they were to succeed on that particular claim, the likely outcome would be that they would get to keep their payment system in Fortnite, not that they would be able to run their own app store.
I think people need to temper their expectations unless the laws change in the years it takes for this case to make it through the courts. A court ruling that Apple must allow third-party in-app payment systems is a somewhat realistic outcome, whereas a court ruling that Apple must permit third-parties to run their own app stores is probably a non-starter.
> A judge ruling that Apple must allow third-party in-app payment systems is a somewhat realistic outcome, whereas a judge ruling that Apple must permit third-parties to run their own app stores is probably a non-starter.
I gather judges really don't like to impose technical requirements - especially in a fast-moving industry like this. Ordering Apple to make the extensive changes required to allow for some kind of secure (as opposed to insecure, like Cydia) third-party App Store on iOS would be a massive undertaking that would probably cost the company north of a billion in total, especially regarding testing and security point.
...whereas ordering Apple to simply allow what is already possible (namely: permitting apps to collect payment details themselves through their own processors) is a good path forward. How would Apple respond to that though? In the event that Apple is required to allow third-party payment-processors that skirt the Apple tax, I think it's reasonable for Apple to introduce some kind of "app support fee" (beyond the annual $99/developer fee) - but Apple would be hard-pressed to negotiate a reasonable amount of that per-app. Perhaps $1 per app-download per year? Interesting times...
I'm also interested in potential legislation regarding forcing Apple to permit third-party web-browsers and other banned software categories - Apple's technical arguments may have had some merit back in 2007-2012, but now that my phone has more RAM and processing power than my previous laptop (which still runs the infamously RAM-hungry Chrome 84 fine!) this isn't an argument that holds water. I'd love to be able to run "real" Firefox on iOS, for example (there is an argument about how Apple can only trust their own build of Webkit to have executable memory pages for the JavaScript JIT - that's going to be interesting). We should compare Apple to Microsoft of 1998: Microsoft was convicted of monopoly abuse by simply bundling Internet Explorer with Windows (granted, this includes integrating it into the shell too) - while Apple doesn't just bundle Safari with iOS, they outright ban any kind of proper competition - Microsoft was convicted for far less, so why should Apple be given a free-pass?
It shouldn’t cost a billion dollars at all. Third-party, officially sanctioned App Stores already exist on iOS: TestFlight and MDM providers (which can push enterprise created apps in a store interface). TestFlight is even shipped in the darn App Store! And Apple already made good security controls, allowing the user to press one button to nuke all of the apps that an MDM provider installed in the profile settings.
It shouldn’t be that hard, maybe a little bit of dev time to write some new warnings for end users about leaving the walled garden and how to revert, but that’s it.
> I gather judges really don't like to impose technical requirements - especially in a fast-moving industry like this.
Yes, the court in the Microsoft appeal explicitly said this.
> Microsoft was convicted of monopoly abuse by simply bundling Internet Explorer with Windows
Not quite. As I explain in another comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24289455) Microsoft's problem is that they forced other companies (OEMs, ISPs, and Apple) to bundle IE at the expense of other browsers. Whether the sole act of bundling IE with Windows would have been itself an antitrust violation was not actually addressed by the court. Microsoft also had a much higher market share (95%) than Apple currently does.
> Microsoft's problem is that they forced other companies (OEMs, ISPs, and Apple) to bundle IE at the expense of other browsers
Was that separate from the anti-competitive OEM license / "Windows tax" issue around the same time? The one about how OEMs were "forced" to sell machines with Windows licenses and couldn't sell a machine without an OEM license to someone who just wanted a box to run Linux or OS/2 on?
The most important changes Apple needs to make would not cost them a single line of code- they just get rid of their policy to require consistent pricing across all platforms, and allow promotion/linking of external (i.e. not on iOS) payment sources.
If Spotify could charge +30% for a subscription purchased through the App store, and include a link to their main sign up page where subscriptions are regular price, everyone is happy. No security is changed and developers pass along the price of being in the App store to only those consumers who wish it. Only loser is Apple, who does not get to use their gatekeeper status on iOS to enforce monopoly-style pricing controls across all platforms.
YT likely doesn't have the 15% deal that is available for tv/movie streaming platforms, and they don't do annual subscriptions so they don't get 15% on second year subscriptions either.
YouTube still gets the 15% deal. You don't have to offer annual subscriptions to get it. The only requirement is, that it's auto-renewing.
> During a subscriber’s first year of service, you receive 70% of the subscription price at each billing cycle, minus applicable taxes. After a subscriber accumulates one year of paid service, your net revenue increases to 85% of the subscription price, minus applicable taxes.
That is exactly what Epic was doing. They were allowing people to make purchases at a 20% discount through a web app of digital content that could appear in iPhone App. And Apple took their app down.
It's not the pricing that Apple opposed, its that you could buy it through another method. How can you have the pricing changes you propose if Apple forbids selling interactive content for their platform through any other channel?
The point is that Apple has too much power over the device, in the way that Microsoft has at times had too much power over the desktop. If Apple was forced to let other people offer app stores on Apple devices, everything they do in the app store would be fine. I don't have a problem with Steam or Microsoft App store, because they can co-exist with other app stores. If Apple is the only one you trust, you can only use that one. That is what makes sense to me.
This is where the situation gets complicated. Apple's position is that you can't use their devices to sell digital goods not via them. It would be as if a bottle of shampoo at Target had on the label "Buy it online instead of Target for 30% off."
If you can get your customers to buy your stuff on your own with your own marketing not using Apple's devices then you win and get to keep the 30% but if you use your app to sell to a customer then Apple gets a cut.
> Apple forbids selling interactive content for their platform
This isn't entirely true. If you make a game that sells in-game currency then you can get around the 30% by having users buy your currency packs on your website. But you can't use your app to direct them there. And if you're like "that would be a death-knell for any game" then you understand why Apple charges and premium for it.
I agree, but Apple will never go for this unless forced to for obvious reasons.
As a cross-platform developer, the degree to which Apple has scrutinized our app and made sure there's not so much as a hint of the fact that you can buy the product on the web is totally nuts.
I mean it's not exactly crazy, if Apple gave any ground in this department you would see every app desperately trying to push their users off-app for a sale.
In our particular case we had features that didn't exist in the app (for various reasons, including some that just didn't make sense on a phone). We weren't allowed to mention that those features existed, god forbid link to them on the web, because someone might subscribe that way instead.
This just penalises the little guy who can't setup alternative infrastructure.
Digital stores above a certain size (eg. above $1b in annual global sales) simply need to be regulated by Governments, with a maximum % commission for developers registered in that country. 15% seems reasonable.
That’s only partly true. Apple app reviews is also about stopping more shady dark patterns that are tricking the user in accepting something they in fact don’t want, that cannot always be handled by their capabilities system (think social engineering).
But I agree with your general point, it’s a smokescreen and even with other stores they would still have complete control over the system and security features.
One argument that I think deserves extra scrutiny is the idea that extra app stores can be “optional”.
The reality is that developers would have a strong incentive to go to the most permissive App Store, and users will follow. Users will also underestimate or ignore risks. You can dismiss that by saying it’s the user’s responsibility, but I think that’s just an abdication of good systems design.
I’m not saying that Apple has the perfect model - it doesn’t - but the trade-offs are not as simple as we might like.
The reality is that your scenario never happened. Not on Android, not on Windows, not on Linux distributions... The 'official' App Store always wins, unless its demands are so onerous a small minority uses a small store in addition to it.
Which official app store won on Windows? AFAIK, Steam is the number one store for games, and people buy their apps from vendors directly (example: Adobe, Autodesk, even Microsoft). The Windows app store was dead on arrival.
And linux package managers aren't app stores. They're mostly meant for system libraries and core applications, although some devs do distribute their (free) apps through it. In any case, Linux is a weird one to include in this comparison, and I'm pretty sure Steam is still the number one store for getting games on Linux too.
But whatever, another thing: a big part of the reason that the official app store won on Android is because of the lengths Google goes to to scare users from installing apps from "unknown sources", hiding the option to do so, displaying scary popups, etc. That's one of the reasons Epic is suing Google for.
In Windows the old method was installing exe files, and it remains the most popular - but otherwise the only app store worth mentioning is the MS one (on Steam in a moment). In Linux, package managers can and do include other apps (not all of course), and just about everything that can be installed from them gets priority from users - and alternative repos get the scraps.
The option isn't hidden on android at all, it's dead simple. There's a warning dialog, but I can live with that.
* Steam is a very specialized case: Not quite an app store [Apple credits itself with inventing the App Store, despite Steam existing since 2003, so Apple agrees with me on this], but they all but created the Linux game market, and got in before the Windows Store was created. Yea, if you create the market or get in in advance or on stuff the official store doesn't include, you can survive, but the general rule is that the official App Store wins.
People are upset with Google, but it's not so much about the Play Store. And Apple doesn't need to be as lax as Google - If they had let go of the anti-competitive behaviour and had a slightly less explotitive fee structure people could live with the App Store being only store allowed. It's Apple being very greedy that led to the calls to, well, reduce Apple's permissions (I couldn't resist).
> The option isn't hidden on android at all, it's dead simple. There's a warning dialog, but I can live with that.
I can't. If I'm going to distribute my apps outside of Google Play, I need to tell my potential customers to crawl through their phone's settings page, clicking through various menus, then ignore the scary warnings that strongly imply I'm about to infect them with malware and steal all of their personal data. And I would have to do that in every single language I want to support, and of course would lose sales from people who don't want to bother following these long instructions, especially since they have to close their web browser (and hide the written instructions) to actually do it. And I also have increased support costs because I need to respond to emails from people who couldn't figure out how to do it (in all languages), and I have to constantly worry about being blocked by the "Play Protect" program, which scans apps installed outside of Google Play, sends them to Google's servers, and then decides to block them at Google's discretion. And if I happen to get big enough to where I potentially become a competitive threat to Google, then I have to worry about their "white hat" hit squad finding exploits in my software and sending it to major news outlets to ~~tarnish my reputation~~ I mean protect users.
Or I can avoid all of those Google-created problems by giving Google 30% of my business.
So while technically you could distribute your apps outside of Google Play, it is not practical at all thanks to all of the anti-competitive barriers Google has put up. Anyone who thinks that Android is a healthy environment for competition is being naive, or has no experience with consumer products.
> * Steam is a very specialized case: Not quite an app store [Apple credits itself with inventing the App Store, despite Steam existing since 2003, so Apple agrees with me on this], but they all but created the Linux game market, and got in before the Windows Store was created. Yea, if you create the market or get in in advance or on stuff the official store doesn't include, you can survive, but the general rule is that the official App Store wins.
What do you mean? Steam is 100% an app store. It's a store where they sell applications (although mostly games). Also, Steam was not at all the first game/app store on Windows or Linux. It was simply the best back in the day; so good in fact that it beat straight up piracy. Even today they're pretty great, despite the 30% cut (although that situation is completely different to the one Apple and Google are in)
I guess I'm so used to dismissing the "Play Protect" dialog I completely forgot about it, you're right about it, it is annoying. But I think asking the user to signal agreement before installing and especially allowing another app store is the right way, given how sensitive it is. Maybe it should be made easier, but it's far less onerous than the Apple case.
Steam doesn't do the API review/sandboxing component of App Stores. An installed game technically has access to everything. Even Linux packaging has API review (due to open source) and modern packaging often has integration with AppArmor/SELinux. Steam are essential for Linux gaming, but I wish they improved their deployment to be more secure.
> But I think asking the user to signal agreement before installing and especially allowing another app store is the right way, given how sensitive it is. Maybe it should be made easier, but it's far less onerous than the Apple case.
I don't think so. That's mostly FUD in my opinion, since apps installed from Google Play can do the exact same amount of evil stuff as anything downloaded from an external site. Since Android/iOS already have sandboxing and per-app permissions, the only benefit to having a single distributor is the potential of having that application scanned for malware before you downloaded it. The same thing can be accomplished without a separate antivirus app, like you'd see on Windows. In fact, I think Windows Defender is a good model for how Google and Apple could provide the same (purported) security guarantees while still allowing third-party stores. Play Protect (I think) does that already, but it also mainly functions as a wall of scary warnings/deterrent to competition.
> Steam doesn't do the API review/sandboxing component of App Stores. An installed game technically has access to everything. Even Linux packaging has API review (due to open source) and modern packaging often has integration with AppArmor/SELinux. Steam are essential for Linux gaming, but I wish they improved their deployment to be more secure.
True that Steam is kind of questionable when it comes to security, but that's more the fault of the desktop operating systems which don't have sandboxing built-in. I too would like to see increased usage for things like SELinux/AppArmor, but that seems a bit hopeless. Valve can't just ship a kernel module alongside Steam, and I doubt Canonical is going to start shipping SELinux with Ubuntu Desktop (the support forums would explode).
I think Microsoft added sandboxing features to UWP apps, but that's its own can of worms. If you make a UWP app, you need to distribute it through the Microsoft app store, and you need to deal with a lot of the same BS that Apple and Google are being sued for.
> Since Android/iOS already have sandboxing and per-app permissions, the only benefit to having a single distributor is the potential of having that application scanned for malware...
Well, if a malicious app store application existed, I'd imagine it would work via social engineering and sending the user a different package than the user wanted. The user will be convinced to override the sandboxing, e.g. by giving permissions to install a 'new version of WhatApp', but the store app will actually be installing something else with the given permissions. That's a bit easier compared to other apps where the user doesn't expect to install anything. (Perhaps I'm missing a clever way to deal with these possibilities?)
I don't think that the risk requires banning 3rd party app stores. In practice we see the risk is very low. I have little worry about F-Droid, and I'm sure that the Samsung/Amazon stores are as secure as Apple/Google. But I think a bit of warning is justified.
>True that Steam is kind of questionable when it comes to security, but that's more the fault of the desktop operating systems which don't have sandboxing built-in.
Debians/Ubuntus have (optional) AppArmor, and latest Windows 10 Pro+ has an sandbox which will work with Win32 apps. It's starting to become built-in, even if not yet. It'd would still take a lot of work.
That hasn't happened on Android though, where it has been possible for years. Almost all apps are distributed through the Play Store. There's a huge amount of inertia in being the "default" store. Users need a really good reason to switch.
For a few years, Amazon had an "Actually Free" campaign that let you play Android games for free with no ads as long as they were installed through Amazon's Appstore. Even that wasn't enough to dethrone Google Play :)
This is really quite a simple problem: the rent is too damn high.
Apple should drop or tier their pricing so that a $10 subscription is paying say 5% to them. Developers are happy. Anyone raking it in pays more, a progressive system that ensures small companies can innovate.
Is this bad for Apple? In the long-term, they get more innovation and a better user experience. Financially, they lose some income on a subset of existing transactions and gain income from transactions they wouldn't have processed, as apps switch to native dev, and the market sizes increase as incentives change.
At the most they could lose a few billion in revenue a year (very unlikely) and gain $0. That's the upper bound. But how many more subscriptions would go through the store if apps like Spotify had signup via the app? I'd guess hundreds of millions of dollars at least, could be much larger in the long-term.
Apple are losing the argument, even the best possible cut isn't worth the reputational damage and harm to the user experience, they should restructure the pricing so they save face and potentially benefit, or at least limit the damage.
The writing is on the wall at this stage, and they will act or be forced to act.
This still doesn't solve the fact that Apple can control who gets to do business on the app store. Politically divisive apps, government blacklisted apps, gambling apps, adult oriented apps, crypto apps, free speech apps, certain vpn apps - none of these can currently exist with the Apple curated App Store approach. And just because those apps might not be for you doesn't mean millions and millions of users who have shelled out $1k+ for a phone don't want them on their fancy device they paid for.
Allowing sideloading as Android does would fix all these issues. Sideloading can start with a 3rd party app store, even.
I think Apple have no incentive right now to change anything, although the PR and perception of them is shifting slightly against them. I think there are two things that can happen here:
1. There are more and more cases like wordpress, Hey and Fortnite, and after a while the PR gets so bad that they have to change something, or it becomes so costly to be in the app store that developers will stop developing for it, making the iphone less valuable to users. Of course this will take years if not decades to happen, it would be a really slow process. Fortnite is a really big deal, because I think it does start to chisel away at the iphone market for 12-18 year olds.
2. Government steps in and forces them to do something. But as Ben said, the legal grounds are very shaky. They don't have a monopoly on the phone market, or apps, or anything. Almost all other app stores have fees around 30%. It's very hard to make a strong case to say they're guilty.
Gaming Retain the 30% Cut, as Standard in the Gaming Industry.
Apps and IAP is now down to 15%. And 10% for Subscription.
That also puts Spotify And Amazon Prime or other Streaming Services to the 10% category.
I honestly dont like the idea of an Open Platform where you can side load Apps. If you want that Android is your choice. Apple tries to built an App Platform on its Appliance or Phone. Android tries to built a Pocket Computer that acts like and look like a Phone. These are two fundamentally different sets of trade offs.
Why do we need 3rd party stores? Why not just have a standard for an app endpoint url that iOS knows how to interact with. So I could publish an app on a private domain and then iOS would know how to download the app and check for updates from that end point? While there is value in a centralized store to search for apps (and that can certainly stick around), I don't understand why apps are forced to be hosted centrally in a store, Apple or third party.
Ex: To install the "Pepsi" app just go to pepsi.com and click the install app button. Then iOS could take over from there.
This seems like just an implementation detail of the idea of 3rd party stores, I don’t really see how it’s a big distinction. And Apple’s opposition to this idea would clearly be the same as the reasons it has given not to allow third party stores.
I love Stratechery, but I think this one gets it wrong.
Think of App Store as three products:
1. App quality screening
2. App promotion/distribution
3. In app purchasing
Ask any reasonable dev if they are willing to foot a fixed cost to get their app screened, a fixed cost per app download (bandwidth), and variable cost to get their app promoted in the store (not everyone needs this) and they would agree. What pisses people off is Apple’s entitlement to the revenue of a company when there is no value add from Apple after the customer has gotten the app. So Apple is using their monopoly to force #3 on developers at no less than 30% of revenue.
In my experience with the App Store this is not true for the vast majority of apps.
Only a very minor subset of apps actually get promotion on the App Store, everything else is so undiscoverable that searching the store with the app name verbatim isn't guaranteed to show it.
I am considering building some paid apps for the App Store.
If I had to deal with payment processors, handling subscriptions, etc. myself there is zero chances I'd do that.
Have you had bad experiences with other payment processors in the past? Honestly curious. I’ve used Stripe, and they are amazing in terms of product quality and customer service.
There are plenty of payment processor platforms other than Apple, if the mobile market was opened, you could checkout if Stripe better suits your needs.
I agree, Apple's approach forces one kind of value capture through in-app purchases, then they do a value capture on that value capture with the 30% take.
I'm paraphrasing Byrne Hobart here, but if they beefed up their App Store discoverability and had proper search functionality and a self-serve ad engine like Alibaba, their revenue model would reflect demand and then, finally, the Ubers and Facebooks would have to start paying significant amounts for all the free App Store support they've had this entire time.
The fact that digital content services like Spotify are expected to subsidise other companies with different business models like Facebook or Uber is indefensible IMO.
Read Job’s quote in the article, someone has to foot the bill to ensure the quality of Apps on the store. $100 a year seems reasonable to me for unlimited App screenings imho.
$100/year is peanuts. It’s a relatively token amount, designed to discourage “non-serious” players, like a minimum bet.
It certainly doesn’t make them money. It just helps to ensure that the people who do use their developer services are ones more likely to generate the revenue that does make them money.
This is something that Apple’s development community is known for. There’s fewer of them, but they do make money.
I’m not weighing in on the issue on either side. They each have quite valid arguments, and I’ll deal with whatever comes out of the scrum.
I agree, screening happens every time you submit an update, that's likely to be hundreds of dollars a time so thousands a year for many devs. Waiving this for free apps won't work because whether or not an app should be free is part of what this is all about. It will kill most genuinely free apps.
The "problem" with forming an opinion about Apple Store rules is that the users are willingly and knowingly putting themselves in the golden cage of apple by buying an iPhone.
Under this view the problem is not with Apple, that created a framework that users want, and communicate accurately to its customers what they get - but rather with the app developers, who wants to reach Apple clients, without accepting the rules of the framework that those clients chose willingly.
And labor laws in California around contractors are making it harder for people who want to stay freelance/contractors like writers and some truck drivers.
Interesting this is not positioned as a civil rights issue too.
I understand, you have a developer company vs Apple.
But what about people buying these computing gadgets? The millions upon millions of them. Shouldn't they have the right to run whatever software they feel like it on this general purpose computing OS without Apple's forced intermediation?
Surprised I've not seen more people arguing from the opposite end, if it's so essential for everything on my iPad to go through Apple and to pay them 30% then why isn't it on MacBooks too.
If it's so essential as some people are claiming then they should be happy to argue MacBooks be locked down the same way but I bet they wont.
You need to understand what you are buying. If you buy an Apple product, you can use it in certain ways. If you buy a Dell or some other product, you can use it in perhaps different ways.
It just doesn't make sense that we are trying to force Apple to allow us to do things with their products that they do not support.
iOS is not sold as a general purpose computing OS. It’s been clear from day one.
People use products way beyond their original purpose, and then feel entitled to the manufacturer’s support. Like eating candy for every meal, and then complaining that it’s not good nutrition.
Maybe "justice" will be served: the will of the people goes far sometimes. I'd point out that the public can get away with things that don't match my personal sense of ethics, but your sense of ethics is clearly different and probably incompatible with mine.
Incidentally I'm not so confident in this case; I'd take even odds on Apple winning this one.
That is patently false if you even take a glance at iPad webpage. Some itself is very loudly screaming about how iPad is a computer to replace your laptop.
But that kind of marketing is like saying you should drink water to replace your beer: it doesn't claim the water is beer; it's claiming you probably will be happier with water.
See also the "What's a computer" ad for the iPad Pro.
General purpose OS to me means a platform whose primary use involves that I bring my own software.
This is vague; I'm no really inclined to work from a strict definition in this case. It seems Platonic and unproductive.
As evidence for the vague distinction, see early quote (in TFA) from Jobs:
>“We define everything that is on the phone,” he said. “You don’t want your phone to be like a PC. The last thing you want is to have loaded three apps on your phone and then you go to make a call and it doesn’t work anymore. These are more like iPods than they are like computers”…
“These are devices that need to work, and you can’t do that if you load any software on them,” he said. “That doesn’t mean there’s not going to be software to buy that you can load on them coming from us. It doesn’t mean we have to write it all, but it means it has to be more of a controlled environment.”
Of course many say consumers are entitled to redefine the product and hold their new definition over the manufacturer's head, with courts/other politics as a backup cudgel should consumers' market power not suffice. That's what I argue is distasteful on part of consumers.
There's a very simple law: You can't use a strong position in one market to enhance your position in another market. Simply put, the entire tying up of payments to Apple is classic anti-competitive behaviour, and there's little chance the courts won't put an end to it. Same will happen with Apple using private APIs for its store owned apps. That said, it's very unlikely the courts will interfere with the 30% fee. There are no legal grounds for demanding a smaller fee.
This is a well-written and researched article, but I have to disagree with some stuff. The suggested alternative payment processing policies make no sense for Apple; they would incentivize people to not make iPhone-exclusive experiences. That's something the walled-garden aficionados at Apple would never go for. And a court order to implement a change like that (or any change) would be a bad idea. As for the reduced 10% rate, why 10%? In a truly competitive market, we might see figures lower than that.
I think that trying to come up with perfect changes for Apple's practices is a waste of time. Apple shouldn't be forced to make changes to their store, nor should we bother trying to convince them to do it themselves. Let them do whatever they want, but allow third-party stores. Competitive forces will fix everything in the long-term.
What I'm not sure of is how that would work in practice. Will Apple be forced to release (and maintain) their SDKs and dev tools for free? Will they be forced to make changes to the operating system to allow side-loading? If they are, how long would that take? and wouldn't it be catastrophic from a security point of view, since iOS has never had to worry about the security issues of side-loading.
This is a very emotive issue here and we're never all going to agree on these issues. I hope though that it is possible to reach a consensus on a few areas I think were well explained in the article.
One is in-app signup. I have no problem with Apple charging a fee for services accessed via the phone when you sign up through the phone. I do think it's user hostile and opaque to not allow apps to refer the customer to a web site to buy a subscription though. Apple should compete on convenience, not awkward asymmetric information restrictions.
The other is the organising principle issue. I agree it makes sense to base the decision to charge on whether the service incurs marginal cost. That seems a fair way to do it, I just don't understand how that could be made into a clearly and unambiguously applicable rule. You may well end up with even more of a fractious grey zone.
I am more in favour of going back to installing apps from the web, reading app reviews (also from the web), bringing back app listing websites (remember nokia days?), running an antivirus and cutting any chance of another monopoly rising.
Alternative app stores won't break this monopoly. Android for example already have alternatives.. but how many know them and how many use them? The one that's shipped with the OS always wins. Besides, most of them take like 20% tax.. which is still hugely profitable.
In short, what is needed are new laws built for the Internet, which is why it was encouraging that Congress is holding hearings about these issues, and also frustrating that Apple received relatively little attention.
That's because the Google and FB monopolies are a much bigger problem. If you don't like Apple then there are plenty of other choices. It's much harder to avoid Google or Facebook.
Avoiding Google is definitely not trivial.
I know here in Norway, lots of public schools are giving teachers and pupils Chromebooks, and insisting that homework is done in Google Docs. How would you propose avoiding Google in this setting? You pretty much have to bring a Google device into your home and actively use it if you want to complete your education.
It’s school equipment, not personal equipment, as should be the Google Account associated with it. The value of these is to the school, not to you, not to your children. Treat it like a work laptop and segregate personal crap from school crap (or enforce this on your kids) and return it at the end of the year if you don’t want it.
Or just send your kids to a different school, but frankly I’m not familiar with your school system or how much choice you guys have on where to send your kids.
this will reduce their revenue. "whales" on such games can have a life time value in the 10s thousands dollars and more. No premium shirt will cover that.
They could price the shirt according to what you buy in the shop, but Apple will surely change its terms & conditions to close such a loop hole.
The problem with the App Store monopoly is greatly aggravated by the fact that they are blocking web engine competition on iOS. They don't want PWAs to bypass the system.
Much as I love Ben Thompson, this is rearranging the deck chairs while the Titanic is sinking. Or maybe arguing about which dinner fork the gorilla should use while it's eating you.
Treat the App Store like any other modern open market. Apply real world market rules to all these digital markets.
- rule of law. contracts, civil, business, etc.
- fair and impartial judiciary
- right of appeal
- regulations to ensure equal footing of participants
- tort
Etc.
Voila, fixed.
A bit more discipline is needed to rationalize Google, Facebook, and Amazon. Starting with no self-dealing (conflicts of interest). And the social networks need particular mitigations to deweaponize their outrage engine feedback loops.
This is all pretty simple, obvious stuff.
Seriously, am I the only person whose read books like The Mystery of Capital?
Why are so many self-proclaimed capitalists so painfully oblivious to liberal and neoliberal traditions?
Having read the whole thread, what amazes me is how most people here seem to be thinking about iOS products as general purpose computing products, when in reality the iPhone has been a console-like ecosystem from the start.
I'm personally very happy it works like an Xbox or Switch rather than Android, and that I don't have to figure out which app store a given app came from, deal with different parties if I need to resolve billing issues, etc.
Any comments focusing on the technical issues are missing the point. Of course it can be done. The benefit of the iOS ecosystem is knowing that it won't be done.
For any app which has an existence beyond the app store, customers can already pay without Apple. Customers can pay for Microsoft Office, Amazon Prime, or Netflix on their own through conventional channels.
Apple's position is that if you are delivering digital goods to be used on their devices, then you must offer an additional way to pay.
From the consumer's perspective my choices have now grown. Where before I could've managed my own relationships with Microsoft and others, now I can have the option for Apple to intermediate. For people with elderly parents and runaway subscriptions, this is crazy valuable.
And while I say customers can manage their own relationships, the truth is that without Apple backing them up, it's companies who will get the better of the relationship by successfully compelling customers to go through their bad payment system, like they already do.
I think this would be a fair statement if the customer was given an option on the device, but when you consider that scenario, it becomes super clear that Apple's take is predatory:
- Either pay X, your purchase is handled through Stripe / Paypal, and your relationship is with the company directly.
- Or pay X + 30%, and your relationship is with Apple
Certainly I can see some advantages to the second option, but how many customers do you think would willingly pay a 30% premium for that given the choice.
At 5-10% (i.e. a few percentage points above established and legit payment processors, but ones that are a little less full-service), I think it becomes a much more reasonable argument.
In other news, i wonder why ios app developers aren't considered apple's employees? In fact someone could sue apple to force them to do so. Their developer guidelines are so strict and hands-on that they don't justify them being used as "gig workers". And apple's statements in this document make the emphatic point that they use those developers to deliver an excellent experience. They even provide their paycheck (and get to keep 30%)
They can't choose the cost of the hardware (typically mobile plus desktop = USD$1000s), the cost of the developer membership (annual recurring), or the percentage take given to Apple.
What about cross platform solutions? web pages? or apps that are interfaces to seperate solutions.
What about apps that are written once that developers still receive royalties from without any updates?
Apple enforce a base level quality that mostly isn't that hard to conform to, some developers do not like this, but most apple consumers do, otherwise, they would be free to buy android phones and sideload everything
I'd be fine with this argument if they didn't purposely block modern browser features in safari mobile. Push notifications have worked in Safari on OSX for years. They also force any third party browser listed in the app store to use the same crippled safari engine.
They prevent it on mobile because they want app store money. Seems like a clear legal case that no one has bothered to fight or enforce.
There are a lot of different reasons to buy an Apple device, you cannot draw the conclusion that people are fine with the App Store just based one the fact that they own an iPhone.
I own an iPhone because Apple supports them for way longer than any other manufacturer and I care about that specific point. But I’m against some of their current store policies and would prefer more choices (either alternative stores or a way to side load). That doesn’t even mean I would actually use these alternatives, to be fair I don’t know myself, but I think that should be an option. It seems insane that Apple has complete control over the entire system and apps distribution with zero possibilities to compete.
My argument is obviously a stretch, but as more and more work is becoming this kind of "opportunistic work" , there's a valid case that gig work is at a disadvantage by the protections afforded to permanent work. So, a normalization of regulation sounds reasonable.
That said, this is about devs, and not about what consumers think. And btw i doubt apple's strongarm of apps is popular among its users. Apple likes to market their "precious app ecosystem", but even an unregulated one isn't bad -- android is doing fine and is more popular.
Here's an open secret. Most people globally buy an iDevice because it has become a fashion symbol, a status symbol and the peer pressure is huge to sport one, once you reach the financial ability to buy them.
It has little to do with otherwise non-technical people somehow appreciating the technical nuances of security, curation, walled gardens, sideloading and so on.
Maybe some people buy it as a status symbol, but the user experience in general, for someone who doesn't want root and other customizability but likes a nice smooth easy-to-use interface (as much as smartphones of today can even be user friendly), is far better on the iOS side than on the Android side. And one doesn't have to carry a large and heavier device in order to get this experience (compare the battery capacities between iOS devices and Android devices). There are things that only those who use it can realize.
People have been accusing Apple devices of being a fashion symbol since the first iPod came out. In the US, Apple has 45% market share. How is anything with that type of market share a status symbol.
Remember the Apple //e released in the early 80s? Apple has been selling products more expensive than the competition for almost 40 years. People have been accusing Apple’s customers of being brainwashed for four decades.
It's not brainwashing. Signaling is a big part of life. We like to pretend that humans are rational machines, but in reality people spend most of their time doing irrational things because they are rewardding, like, i don't know , arguing with strangers on the net for self-importance reasons. Apple's customers are easy to mock sometimes because they make their signaling slightly more visible by paying extra for it, but the vast majority of ppl would act the same under the same circumstances.
You realize that almost 50% of users in the US are Apple users?
I could say the same about open source advocates.
So do you think there is no reason besides signaling that people may want a phone that integrates with everything else they have? Or they get a faster phone for $399 than any Android phone at any price? They get 5 years of OS updates directly from Apple instead of hoping you get an update for two years? You have a video chat/messaging platform that has been consistent since 2010-2011 instead of having five released by the vendor?
Does Apple have some type of secret sauce that has allowed it to go its own way for four decades that no one else in the industry was able to successfully pull off? Or is it really just “better marketing”?
This needs to be brought up more often. Apple IS a lifestyle, fashion brand, and this is probably a sector that is heavily underappreciated by entrepreneurs. Fashion is a strong motivator, and phones are strong social signal indicators, - something that is not appreciated among developers/techies. I know some ppl who bought a mac (because their peers did) and yet run windows (because excel is all they do/know). Also, considering that iDevices are designed to appeal to "simple users", it's kind of an oxymoron to pretend that their average consumer appreciates them for Swift compilers or their processors.
Apples curation isn't (as they suggest) preventing malware, theft of information, etc - this if verifiably false given recent history with apps like tiktok stealing clipboard content. The ability to change content of payment screens post-approval (as epic have just done) also means that curation isnt stopping apps from potentially injecting phishing, etc, either. In short, they are just choosing what they like - just as any 3rd party store could do.
The security comes from the sandbox (and surrounding permissions) - not from the curation.
Jobs originally said that the aim of the 30% was to cover costs of running the store. It is evident from the MASSIVE profits that this is no longer the case.
The size of these app marketplaces (I dont just mean apple) make them markets in their own right - its about time they were recognised and treated as such.