You can have third-party Android app stores. Can you say the same about Apple? While I agree that Google has market-dominance, they are not anti-competition or anti-consumer in the same sense as Apple. Android is open source, Chrome OS is open source, etc. Google is actually providing and contributing something back to the community. Apple intentionally locks people to specific hardware and to their app store.
As a user of iOS, this is precisely why I go with Apple, and why I push my family to do the same. Particularly for the more elderly in my family, Apple's setup (by and large) prevents them from doing anything that would screw themselves over. Removing Apple's control removes my desire to be apart of that ecosystem, and I know that is true for many others outside our insular little community here.
I agree - Apple needs the control to have the leverage that makes their ecosystem better. It's in the interest of their customers for them to have this leverage and it requires that their 'store' is the only available store so app devs can't bypass their requirements.
I like Apple forcing use of in-app-payments, I like Apple giving me subscription control to make canceling easy. I like Apple blocking app tracking and forcing design constraints.
That said, the 30% weakens their entire argument about this and is a racket. If they want to charge a yearly deployment fee or something fine, but 30% of a company's income via IAP? That's obnoxious and anti-competitive, particularly in cases like Spotify where they directly compete and undercut them in the same market.
Apple is skimming a tax off the top and they're forcing everyone to pay the toll. It weakens their entire argument. I wish they would stop, because I think a world with multiple stores and such would be a huge pain and customers would suffer because of it.
If you think it's a pain to have 15 streaming services or 10 different game distributors all with their own shitty incentives - it'd be that on the phone.
> Apple needs the control to have the leverage that makes their ecosystem better.
You and Apple are conflating "App Store" and "Content Filter".
We can have multiple App Stores and multiple types of content filters. It doesn't need to be like the current situation, with Apple in full control over everything.
It’s not content filtering that I care about, it’s the ability for Apple to enforce standards around usability and features that are better for their users.
Without control of the store they lose that leverage.
App devs will just ship outside of it and include all the tracking they want. It’ll also block Apple from being able to require things like Apple ID or Apple Pay support which provide direct benefits to users, but can run counter to what app devs want.
I just don't find this very compelling. It's fine for me if the "default mode" of use for Apple's products is a filtered, curated experience. If users have to jump through even a few hoops to side-load apps, 99% of casual users will not do it.
This idea that having a separate App Store would completely render the ecosystem a Wild West of standards like Linux is something I never understood. If they allow side loading developers will still stick with the App Store and their standard if they want to sell, like it happens on android where devs stick with the play store . If people massively reject the App Store if alternative ways of installing an app become available then maybe it wasn’t that valued of a feature in the first place by the users ...
It wouldn’t be an “alternative choice” app devs with leverage would ship outside of the store to bypass policy and force users to install shitty versions.
You might have to do this because of network effects.
Yeah, but that’s what Android is for. I have absolutely no faith that developers won’t pick the easiest, cheapest, least restrictive distribution channel available. And I have every inclination they will sacrifice every user desire for privacy and integrity to get there.
> It doesn't need to be like the current situation, with Apple in full control over everything.
Yes it does. Because otherwise you will need to install tons of app stores to install all the apps you currently use.
For instance, I would have to install the Epic store to install Fortnite. Now that’s two apps (the store app plus Fortnite app) and then I’d be less confident about the level of quality and security that the added store provides.
It is this particular situation that seems very hard to overcome from a regulatory perspective. So one you allow multiple app stores, the specialness that people like me have for our trusted devices disappears.
There's always been a trivial fix here in my opinion - allowing services to charge Google Play and App Store users more. Let users decide how much the safety and convenience of billing through Apple/Google is worth.
More specifically, there are restrictions on advertising or mentioning alternative payment methods, but there can be an alternative payment method outside of the app stores.
I used to pay in the app. Someone I know was unable to cancel his Spotify, because it was linked to his facebook account. Because of that he was fined. Spotify is a toxic company.
The only thing I really like about Spotify is spotify connect. I don't understand why none of the competitors have anything competing. It's the key selling point for Sonos
Their choices have been a net benefit for you so far, but what if in future they implement restrictions that you don't like? It would be difficult to change platforms over it.
I don't mean a situation like that. What if you just disagree about the best way to achieve the ideal ecosystem? Surely not every customer has the same opinion.
Like for example, consider their restrictions on third-party browser engines, JITs, etc. Are you happy about all those choices too?
I would have to think about it honestly, I don't know what I think.
It's a little funny because I think someone reading my comments absent context would think I don't care about general purpose computing. I do care about it though, a lot. I think the centralization of communication services behind a few megacorporations is a sad outcome and a lost promise of decentralized communication between users on the net.
The issue I have is the inbetween - in 'the world as it is' at least apple has leverage to stop the shittiest data mining, tracking, email harvesting, call-to-cancel retentions, just general user hostile 'features' on our behalf. If they don't have that leverage, we don't suddenly gain a better environment - we're in the same shitty centralized thin client world, but now it's worse. In the idealized world of decentralized applications or strong data protection legislation I'd be in favor of it, but in our world I think the tradeoffs are serious and its one of the main reasons I buy Apple hardware.
I don't own an IPhone, so I can't say I'm happy or not about these choices, but at the very least they're not trivially wrong.
Forcing the ecosystem to use shared libs for common, expensive taks like browser engines, JITs, etc, has clear benefits in terms of storage and battery life.
Exactly: they might make decisions which are not strictly wrong, but make the platform less useful for certain people/use cases. Eventually you might find that your most important (although niche) use cases have been killed in a death by 1000 cuts, and they specifically disallow any kind of workarounds.
It's actually quite easy to change platforms (at least in part because so many cross-platform apps will store your settings in the cloud anyway). My wife and I did it last year and it was not much fuss.
Honestly I don’t think the 30% is that bad compared to setting up and managing payment processing yourself. What is difficult for small creators, though, is that Apple owns the customer relationship, not them. Because of the payment processing restrictions creators are unable to do things like offer discount codes or tiered subscription plans for specific kinds of users. It all has to go through what Apple is willing to enable.
This is most stark with their recent announcement of supporting paid podcasts. Particularly because of the anonymization around sign-in with Apple, the podcaster doesn’t actually get to know who their subscribers are. Want to have special rewards or a subscriber only discord channel or forum? Too bad! If any of your biggest fans first started donating through Apple Podcasts you’ve got a big hassle in the way of verifying who they are. Got a weird customer service problem that you’d like to address with a personal touch or maybe offer some store credit or a special reward to make up for it? Once again, too bad. There is no capability to do that.
>"It's in the interest of their customers for them to have this leverage"
Most likely it is in the interest of majority of consumers conditioned to this type of control. I realize that it is a benefit for older computer illiterate people. It completely sucks for people like myself.
>"10 different game distributors all with their own shitty incentives"
That's one classy way of describing business approach. Yes they're shitty in a way that they're there to help you part with your money and everything else is but a fluff around it. You just forgot to add Apple itself to that group.
> "I realize that it is a benefit for older computer illiterate people."
It's a benefit for computer literate people too.
- IAP allows easy tracking of subscriptions and cancellation. You don't have to call and argue with a retentions rep for an hour to cancel a service.
- Apple restrictions on tracking limit abuse from ad driven business models.
- Apple can require features like Apple ID to be implemented alongside FB connect or whatever. Apple ID has privacy friendly features for users like obscuring your email via a relay. This would never be implemented by app devs because hiding your email is counter to their incentives. If they could deploy outside of the store to avoid these constraints they would.
Apple's interests are aligned with their users. The reason they can get away with charging 30% is because Apple's users don't care about all the shitty anti-user things Apple blocks app devs from doing.
The reason I care about the 30% is because it worries me that they will be forced to allow side-loading or multiple stores and lose their leverage over app devs. If they lose that leverage we as Apple users will lose these benefits, and for what?
> If they lose that leverage we as Apple users will lose these benefits, and for what?
Because you literally don't get people in autocratic regimes killed because the single choke point of software that might enable them to escape detection is removed. Because you remove Apple's rampant discrimination against some kinds of speech and the people that effects. Because Apple attacks businesses with any involvement in sex whatsoever.
I agree with your points about sex workers and speech about sex in general, but your comments about people in autocratic regimes ring a little hyperbolic. Chinese [1] users were able to use Signal until the Chinese state seemed to block it at the network layer. WhatsApp is blocked too. That's unfortunate, but what's Apple got to do with it? And what exactly could they do to prevent it that the state wouldn't get in the way of?
[1] I'm assuming that "autocratic" here refers to China - though despite the lack of political freedom and the awful situation with regard to ethnic minorities, I don't think that's a very helpful or expressive label.
> “ Because you literally don't get people in autocratic regimes killed because the single choke point of software that might enable them to escape detection is removed.”
If anything, Apple’s control here enables better protection for users. You think authoritarian regimes don’t own phones? You think Android is safer in China?
>"It's a benefit for computer literate people too."
Sure, maybe. I do not care as I personally do not feel any benefit. I am most likely in minority but that does not mean I have to tailor my opinions.
Not even really criticizing Apple / Google. I want my phone to be able to function as normal Windows / Linux PC except that its phone capability would be able to function even if the rest of the OS is crashed. Such product simply does not exist outside of half baked attempts and I am not willing to waste my time/money on those.
For people like yourself, there is Android and there is jailbreaking. But I suspect most people do not actually desire complete control over their phones more than they desire a curated experience.
Modern phone is a powerful computer but both Google and Apple along with the phone manufacturers do not really want me to use it as one. And I am not prepared do dance around their platforms doing some hacks.
The end result is that my current smartphone is mostly just a phone with couple of off-line apps like GPS and apps to install firmware to various gizmos like a drone. I do not even have data plan.
Well, I don't really like to fiddle with it that much either... but that's part of why I appreciate the App Store. I don't have to vet the software myself and if I buy a new phone everything just gets installed after I log in. It might be nice if they provided a way to install third-party apps without resorting to Test Flight or a dev certificate or jailbreaking, but I don't think I would actually use such a capability. I never did in many years of using an Android phone.
Plus providing the infrastructure for users to download the million of apps and updates. The tools Apple provides to even develop for their platform, like XCode and all the SDKs and APIs to even make apps.
And many other things Apple provides.
> Apple needs the control to have the leverage that makes their ecosystem better. It's in the interest of their customers for them to have this leverage and it requires that their 'store' is the only available store so app devs can't bypass their requirements.
I don't understand this argument at all.
You're almost certainly taking more risk driving in a car than downloading an app, yet you're probably willing to embrace the full degrees of freedom of the roadway.
We shouldn't be afraid to use computers. Security is possible without an app store.
Apologizing for Apple's exploitive system is doing us all a disservice. It's making it harder to do business, launch a startup, use your own device, refurbish your device, and compute freely.
Technology wasn't always a locked-in time share. We're witnessing a hostile takeover. An invented scam, sold to us by the Jobs and Ballmers of the world.
The Apple and Google stores make us serfs in their kingdoms. We're renting, not owning.
Your choices are impinging upon my freedoms. The more people that accept this, the more companies are willing to take.
A Department of Justice breakup is looking like the only solution at this point.
You don't have to do business on the App store. You don't have to launch a startup on the App store. You can buy any device you want, and if there isn't currently one sold that meets your specific criterion, society might be better off if someone takes the initiative to meet this demand rather than force a company to roll out the red carpet for it's competition.
Your liberty is not at stake here, nor any real detriment to your quality of life really. The more companies take, the more opportunity for disruption there will be.
A Department of Justice breakup is certainly the easiest and most immediately gratifying solution. It is hardly the only solution, and in my mind I am certain it is the wrong solution.
>society might be better off if someone takes the initiative to meet this demand rather than force a company to roll out the red carpet for it's competition.
Would you say the same if the car market suddenly coalesced into a duopoly and the car companies become very restrictive?
Would you defend only them being allowed to do basic repairs in the interest of safety?
One going as far as saying you need to buy their tires or tires from companies that pay them tribute or the car won't start, their seat covers unless you manage disable some weird detection, etc
The other allowing such stuff just making it a pain.
Would you then say a company just needs to pop up and meet this demand?
Despite all the stuff involved and the size of cars would be a lot lot easier. Because at least cars don't necessarily need an ecosystem, userbase and developer community outside of the company to get of the ground and get sales.
As soon as you apply these things the other industries they start sounding ridiculous and hilariously anticompetitive but with phones people for some reason have come to accept it.
Car company requires third party manufacturers to adhere to its quality standards and pass review before being installed. The car company installs all of the third party parts for you and distributes them globally, handling payment, they charge 30% (or 15%) to the third party for this.
If you refuse to adhere to their quality standards they refuse to install your third party accessory.
Drivers can only get approved service from the car company.
Seems fine? Probably an exclusive benefit for owners of that car. I could see people choosing that car because of this.
Except in the real world Apple purposefully prevents you from getting your hands on replacement parts, they sue anyone distributing scematics, refuse to repair equipment that's 4 years old and repairable and refuse to do data recovery.
So no, there is no part of that thats fine.
When laws around cars were put together people actually cared about their liberty, and I have the right to open car repair tomorrow and BMW and Toyotas of the world wont interfere. And unlike iPhones,cars actually are dangerous.
Firstly, thats not how warranty work - if I add fins to my car that does not give you the right to void wrranty on the engine.
Secondly I vote to get laws passed that they make sure they can shove this policy. I've had enough of this corporate lawmaking and stockholm syndrome victims covering for them
>Then you can buy a different car from the other company that doesn't have this policy.
Which now also charges more fucking over consumers because they can and limits more in their favour because ...hey it's a duopoly. There's no pressure to make it a monopoly.
Also as someone else noted apples own actions show that this isn't how they do business given the opportunity.
> Your liberty is not at stake here, nor any real detriment to your quality of life really.
Yes it is.
iOS controls a sufficient part of US revenue that wider ecosystem effects on what is permitted speech come directly from the app store terms, or at least in some cases about trying to second guess the inconsistently applied, arbitrary and vague as hell App Store rules.
We've got direct testimony from all sorts of app makers that what speech they do and do not censor on the platform (especially around sex, impacting the fundamental liberties and safety of sex workers, queer communities, artists and educators) is directly because their business is such that they need to watch the terms of the app store.
We've seen examples in China of Apple blocking apps that literally lead to people failing to escape authoritarian governments and them disappearing, quite possibly to their death.
Liberty is the fundamental reason that a singular control of what software can be run on mobile device is a thing too dangerous to be allowed to exist. Competition law is probably the most expedient route to fix it, but a centralised app store should be a criminal act on it's own merits.
Except there are no negative rights being infringed upon here. You can hardly appeal to natural law for the right to publish what you want on someone else's platform. Liberty is defined as being 'free from', not 'free to'.
> We've seen examples in China of Apple blocking apps that literally lead to people failing to escape authoritarian governments and them disappearing, quite possibly to their death.
This seems very flimsy but I would be genuinely interested in reading up on this, if you could provide a source/reference. Either way, this is a great reason not to use and publish on the iOS platform. But the irony of suggesting government overreach as a cure for the ails of extreme government overreach in another country is not lost on me.
Liberty does not mean freedom. Actually, the positive freedom you want for would come at cost of the negative liberties of other individuals.
And an iPhone being your property does not change the properties of the iPhone you bought. You can tinker with it as much as your ability allows you to, but if you are not happy with the limitations of the device than you should not have bought that device.
Yes, you do. If you want to reach 50% of Americans, you're forced to build and distribute an app on the App Store.
Try building Netflix without an iOS app.
Try writing a new social media app and not building for iPhone.
Pick any modern vertical without an iPhone app. You just can't do it. Apple is the new AOL for a lot of folks.
You immediately surrender 30% to reach 50% of your customer base, and on top of that, you have to dance to Apple's arbitrary rules and app approval release trains.
1. This is not how technology should work.
2. Apple's fees are extortion.
3. This is using monopolistic advantage to strong arm an entire industry.
There are competing video services to Netflix which are accessible through the web browser on iOS. Also keep in mind that Netflix does not manage subscriptions through in-app purchases (anymore).
Several people (including me) access social media sites through the browser rather than having a native app, in part because of the abuses done by social networks in device profiling in the past.
> Apple is the new AOL for a lot of folks.
So the same sort of companies who made a marketing decision to invest in AOL keywords are now willing to write an app and give money to apple so that users can find their service through a search in the app store?
> You immediately surrender 30% to reach 50% of your customer base
I assume you do not realize that it is well documented all of the ways you can pay less (e.g. subscriptions, small business program) or nothing (external payments and subscriptions - you are only limited by your ability to advertise those as alternatives to offering in-app purchases, and can raise your in-app price if you prefer to cover the difference).
I like local control, I think urbit is cool and hope they succeed. I'm a little disturbed by the need for mighty and how we've ended up in a such a messy state of things with modern computing.
It's not about reducing risk or scam apps really - it's about Apple being able to incentivize user-benefiting behavior that ad-driven business models corrupt. Maybe we wouldn't need this in a world that had more CCPA laws with teeth, I'd be happy to live in that world, but we don't.
At least with Apple I have the option to buy hardware from a company with aligned incentives that gives a shit.
> It's not about reducing risk or scam apps really - it's about Apple being able to incentivize user-benefiting behavior that ad-driven business models corrupt. Maybe we wouldn't need this in a world that had more CCPA laws with teeth, I'd be happy to live in that world, but we don't.
Apple isn't doing this out of their own good heart! They've built one of the largest monopolies in the world.
Is it okay for one megamonopoly to tax everyone else simply because they reached market penetration first?
Yes, one takes more risk using the road than using an unofficial apk. But I’m not aware of an “App Store-like” method of transportation that would let someone get where they’re going just as easily and quickly without any risk. And if we’re talking about the average user, the harm done by malicious software may be much harder to detect in the first place.
I'm not sure why people keep using the 30% number. For businesses that make less than $1mil a year (I am assuming that's most of us who are hobbyist or indie developers here), you literally have to push a button to enable the small business program (it was that easy for me) to reduce it to 15%.
It has been this way since November, and it seems like either nobody noticed, or they seem to still enjoy quoting the 30% number. If you make more than $1mil a year you probably can afford to deal with that. You're also probably putting significantly more bandwidth off Apple's servers than an app that's had 100 downloads.
Unity does a similar thing, but it's free for up to a certain income, pay after that.
I personally would like to see that reduced to 10%, but at least Apple responded to the constant criticism that 30% was ludicrous.
From Apple:
• Existing developers who made up to $1 million in 2020 for all of their apps, as well as developers new to the App Store, can qualify for the program and the reduced (15%) commission.
• If a participating developer surpasses the $1 million threshold, the standard commission rate will apply for the remainder of the year.
• If a developer’s business falls below the $1 million threshold in a future calendar year, they can requalify for the 15 percent commission the year after.
Subscription services like Spotify only pay 30% for the first year of each subscription. After that they pay 15% and this has been the case since 2016.
Apple has done a lot to revise the App Store charging policy over the last few years, and I think they deserve credit for that. Also their hosting of free apps for only a nominal developer registration fee is a huge boon to users and a lot of iOS developers.
So I don’t think those criticisms are entirely accurate or fair. I am ok with regulators looking into this though. Apples revisions to their charging structure probably wouldn’t have happened without the threat of regulatory review. It’s important they be held accountable. However Apple invested many, many billions of dollars to develop the technologies in iOS over many decades and took huge commercial risks. iOS and these devices are their product and they have the right to decide how they work and what features they have. Those who don’t like that do have alternatives. The fact is an awful lot of people do like the way Apple does things.
> "Subscription services like Spotify only pay 30% for the first year of each subscription. After that they pay 15%."
That's still pretty extreme imo when you control the only store and you directly compete with them/undercut them.
> "Also their hosting of free apps for only a nominal developer registration fee is a huge boon to users and a lot of iOS developers."
They charge a fee for it, I wouldn't consider it nominal - the ecosystem of apps also obviously benefits apple.
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I'm a huge Apple fan which is why I find this racket irritating, it worries me that it'll blow up in their face and we'll end up worse off.
I'd probably charge a (low) flat annual fee for app store distribution and that's it. Apple should be focused on making money with great products, not taxing devs they force through their channel.
> That's still pretty extreme imo when you control the only store and you directly compete with them/undercut them.
Regulators don’t (yet I suppose) care about this because of opportunity cost. If I’m making $3/user/mo off your $10 subscription and I decide to enter the market and compete with you at then every user I steal and every user if not for me would have gone with you costs me $3/mo plus cost of providing them service. So if I’m able to still undercut you then either I’m ridiculously more efficient than you or you have fat margins.
Neither of these are true so something else is going on here. Either I’m bleeding money and this is some strategic play in which case it might be unfair for different reasons, or the market is segmented and we actually have two different customer bases with insignificant cross pollination.
You're ignoring opportunity cost which was the whole point here. You didn't say how much Apple was getting.
If Spotify charges $10 and pays Apple $3 then Spotify makes $7 and Apple makes $3.
If Apple enters the market and charges $10 then consider a user that would have otherwise went to Spotify. Spotify makes $0 and Apple makes $10 from the subscription but loses $3 from what they would have been paid from Spotify so Apple makes $7.
Apple has lots of advantages stemming from their control of the platform but "not having to pay the 30% fee" isn't one of them.
How many billions of dollars, over how many decades did Spotify spend developing that platform, OS and app distribution system? How many times did they almost go to the wall over the commercial risks that took?
Anyway as I already pointed out it’s effectively 15%, not 30%. Also the vast majority, over 99% (literally, I looked it up) of Spotify app users earn Apple nothing because they use it add supported and all the add revenue goes to Spotify.
Also the vast majority, over 99% (literally, I looked it up) of Spotify app users earn Apple nothing because they use it add supported and all the add revenue goes to Spotify.
They bought the phone from Apple, so Apple made their money.
Assuming you’re asking in good faith - Apple sells the hardware, they don’t make the software of other company’s apps.
They force companies to ship through their store, I think that is okay because it enables them to enforce quality standards for users.
I think it’s wrong for them to force this distribution model and then take a cut from every software company.
In the Spotify case Apple forces them to pay a tax and then Apple shows up in their own store priced the same where they obviously don’t have to pay a tax to themselves.
This is already way off topic to my post I'm wondering if I'm the right person you replied to. Let's stay focused on this, because I agree with most of your points in this thread.
Apple makes money off the sale of their iPhone from the user, with Spotify's existence here being completely irrelevant. Should Spotify be granted increased monetary entitlement to their app creation because of this physical material sale between Apple and the user?
I'd argue your question is a warped framing that confuses the issue in an attempt to be leading.
iPhone sale to user is irrelevant.
Apple forces distribution via their store and they force companies to pay a cut.
I think this is bad, but at least it's across all people that participate in the store.
Then Apple itself enters the market via the store selling the same product at the same price, but without the tax.
That's cheating. It has nothing to do with the 'physical material sale' - it has to do with requiring store distribution and taking a cut of competitors margins, but then entering yourself. It's not Spotify 'getting more of the pie' it's Spotify not having to pay an anti-competitive tax to the platform controller.
They can either allow distribution outside of the store (which I would not want) or they can remove the tax on apps that they directly compete with.
I'd prefer they remove the cut entirely and replace it with some low yearly fee for distribution.
When the average subscription to just about any online service is 3.3 months, the 15% after 12 months is simply PR. Nothing more. Apple crunched their numbers and knows exactly what they are doing. What's more amazing is that everyone, including you, has fallen for it.
Considering most cancelled subscriptions are cancelled within a trial period, the average subscription duration is heavily weighted down. Your point would be something worth considering if you had an average that excluded all cancellations within, say, the first month.
The idea that subscriptions are the main issue is just fluff. Under 1% of Spotify app users subscribe, for the rest all the add revenue goes to Spotify. Apple distributes the app and gets nothing.
As someone else pointed out in a different comment, Apple benefits from the app ecosystem even when they aren't getting cash for an app so they aren't getting nothing. Apple also has their own ad network so they can profit directly on iOS apps that are ad supported [0].
By the same logic we should just eliminate free will because it's dangerous sometimes. I hate these arguments as it is allowing incompetence to drive innovation. There are plenty of other options whereby 3rd party apps/app stores could be installed safely, just like on any other computer system. If you need to give someone with diminished mental faculties a locked down device, that can be made explicit.
Exactly. I don't understand the argument Apple users are presenting. Its like they can't comprehend that they can have an option to install third-party apps but they don't have to enable or use that if they like being "protected" from hurting themselves.
Right now, ~100% of the software available for iOS has to follow Apple's rules, offer a consistent and safe payment method, and install through the App Store.
I assume you think that would change, else why have other app stores. That's what I don't want. I want as close to 100% of the software for iOS as possible to have to follow the rules. That's part of why I chose iOS.
> Right now, ~100% of the software available for iOS has to follow Apple's rules, offer a consistent and safe payment method, and install through the App Store.
The same would still be true of all the apps in the App Store. There would just be other stores. You wouldn't have to use them. Other people could.
The issue here is that many people want the hardware or the OS without the App Store. If you give it to them, "people who only use the Apple App Store" will be a smaller number of people and Apple will have less leverage.
That's the point of prohibiting anti-competitive practices. Apple does a lot of things with that leverage that are bad. Like prohibiting apps that compete with theirs (e.g. browser engines), and imposing political censorship in authoritarian countries, and extracting 30% from captive developers.
You presumably want Apple to have the leverage because then they can use it against e.g. Facebook. If everybody on iOS thinks like you then you win -- everybody only uses the App Store even though other stores are available and Apple still has all the same leverage.
But if most of the people disagree with you, right now you're holding them hostage. Forcing them to use only the App Store even though they don't want to, so that the world's largest corporation can have more leverage.
I'd care about this a lot less if the government first outlawed most personal data collection & hoarding (by tech companies and others) before we go destroying the libertarian solution to this (outsource regulation to a company, which is what I'm choosing to do, given the alternatives)
It's not really destroying it. You can still refuse to install any apps not approved by Apple, even if other people do.
It might even be a good test. If Facebook decides they can't be in Apple's store even though the app is free and there is no government pressure for Apple to block it, you might take pause to ask why and decide that you don't want that app.
I already don't use Facebook, but I take your more general point. The main thing I don't want is to feel network-effect pressure from some huge non-Apple platform to install from sources with worse privacy and security guarantees. iOS is so big that effectively no mass-market mobile software can afford to ignore it, and Apple's rules force them to play (somewhat) nice when they show up.
Let's say I did like Facebook, or at least tolerated it because all my family was on it, and chose to use it only on iOS specifically because it was relatively secure and limited their snooping somewhat. Your scenario is a strictly worse situation for me. I was using it and was OK with the situation, now I have to either risk more snooping or drop it. That's not better.
> The main thing I don't want is to feel network-effect pressure from some huge non-Apple platform to install from sources with worse privacy and security guarantees.
What you mean is that you do want app developers to feel network-effect pressure from the huge Apple platform which has those privacy and security requirements. Which you still have as long as a large number of people feel the same and refuse to install apps outside of Apple's store.
It may even benefit you for Apple to have less, but still some, leverage. For example, a third party store might start offering a BitTorrent client for iOS, which Apple only prohibits for bad reasons that don't help you. Then the availability of the apps in another store might convince Apple to allow well-behaved BitTorrent clients in their store to prevent you from switching (since their reasons for prohibiting it are bad). Then you get a selection of vetted clients when you currently have none.
Likewise, if there were other stores then there would be no reason for them to continue their otherwise-useless prohibition on emulators or virtualization.
Meanwhile you could still install all of your apps from their store and they would plausibly still have enough leverage to keep them well-behaved, just not enough to prohibit well-behaved things that you actually want if it's easier to get them some other way.
> Let's say I did like Facebook, or at least tolerated it because all my family was on it, and chose to use it only on iOS specifically because it was relatively secure and limited their snooping somewhat. Your scenario is a strictly worse situation for me. I was using it and was OK with the situation, now I have to either risk more snooping or drop it. That's not better.
What we're after here is a situation where the combination (you, Apple) has enough leverage to cause Facebook to provide an app that isn't ruinously bad on privacy. It's not clear that we're there even now -- Facebook has a huge network effect and basically the only reason Facebook is an app and not a web page is so it can suck up more of your personal information -- but suppose we were. Apple's leverage relative to Facebook is doing you some good.
The answer is then to make sure your leverage against Facebook is sufficient to keep them honest. This could imply some antitrust action against Facebook, e.g. so that you can use an app not written by Facebook to contact your family who uses Facebook, and then choose one willing to meet Apple's standards even if Facebook itself won't. So it's still possible to solve problems like this, to the extent that they exist, through other means.
I just know that these things won't happen right now:
1) Job interview? The big corporate sales prospect I'm courting? "Company policy is that we do all our calls through [some corporate communication tool]. It's on [store that popped up to cater to enterprises, so they could ship more spyware to their employees]" So I cancel the calls, or install that store and their probably-spying app.
2) That chat app or social network your entire family & friend group is on? Crippled or absent on the App Store, full version only on an alternative store.
For #1: "So use a different phone for all business interactions" OK, but right now I don't need to. That is a solution, but right now it's not one I need, and I don't want to need it.
Maybe those wouldn't happen. Right now, they can't. I chose my mobile devices in part for that feature.
> ~100% of the software available for iOS has to follow Apple's rules, offer a consistent and safe payment method, and install through the App Store.
Scams are rampant in the App Store. Give an unlocked iPhone to a 5 year old and they'll spend $1000 before you know it. This is not something worth defending.
Pointing out one bad thing doesn't change a bunch of other good things, nor does adding more app stores seem like a useful solution to the problem raised.
Really it's that adding more app stores doesn't remove those things either.
Even with things going through apple, you don't have a safe and consistent payments scheme.
With more app stores, you can still get every app that's available on the Apple app store, just as you can now. You may not have access to every app, but you don't today either
Sorry, but why exactly do you want other users to be deprived of software choice on iOS? Like how is that enhancing your experience?
I get that people want to use Apple only software, in which case I'd understand why they don't want other software on the Apple Store, but how the hell is your experience worse if there is another store available on the phone? Just never use it?
It's like as if Microsoft locked down Windows and the only option you have available is to install things through the Windows Store and someone goes "yeah that's why I use windows man, I don't want anyone to be able to install Steam". Has anyone ever argued this? how did it become a thing
Apple can no longer force vendors who want access to iOS to play by the rules that I want them to be forced to play by, is the main risk of adding more stores. I bought iOS devices in part for the effects of that leverage—I chose that. It's also a choice.
Sure, but can you take a short pause and parse what you say:
"I personally love it how Apple is taking my freedom, I love it so much that I want to force Apple rules on everyone else."
The fact you like current Apple rules and you got scared by some FUD should not make you entitled to ask other to stop fighting for more freedom(my family have Android phones and they did not installed any other store, side loaded apps or got hacked). Apple could give the iPhone locked and give you a code on a paper you can use to unlock, you can FUD your parents to never use the code, you can burn the code, you can also not side load applications. You could also demand dear Apple to implement some safe sandboxing/jail where you can be safe to run anything, I heard they have enough money so maybe they could pay better those security engineers that keep finding bugs in their shit.
You're missing the core value. It's not hacks, it's policy.
Apple leverages their power against app devs and for their customers.
- IAP, Apple ID, No Tracking, Notification Control, etc.
In a world where Apple doesn't have leverage via the store they can't enforce these things. App devs would ship outside of the store and include whatever crap they wanted. This is a worse experience and there is no 'choice' available for the users to pick a better one.
Apple is effectively acting as a legislator here, improving the quality of apps via their leverage in the interest of their users. It's a standard I'm willing to pay extra for and enforces good standards around privacy. The government law makers are largely owned by regulatory capture and lack of technical ability - why would we destroy the ability for one company that actually has incentives aligned with their users to enforce standards?
If Apple loses that leverage we lose that high quality option - you can't have it both ways because the leverage is what allows the incentive control.
People that don't care about it should use Android.
This argument is FUD. Until Epyc games had the courage to complain I could have asked you to name an example and you would not find anything that is not on Google Play with exception of maybe Free Software.
If this is not FUD do you have a source that shows that thousands of poor grandmas that have Android were forced to side load Farmville and if this happened what was the damage (except that some bilionaires made a few less millions)
>In hostile countries the google play store is usually not present at all
Isn't this a good thing? In countries like China you could force Apple to spy and censor users where Android users can side load applications from trusted sources.
>If Google tried to enforce more policy app devs would use other stores/side load.
What kind of policies ? Any example of such policies? GUI/UX stuff or you mean policies where you can't link to a donate page because Apple wants that sweet tax, I think you are not ready to admit that you are spreading FUD, reality does not match and you are still building a fantasy.
Phones in China are owned at the network and software level - you can’t safely side load anything. I’m not sure Apple is safe here either, but I’d guess the security is better? Just guessing though based on reading what security people have blogged about the platforms.
For the policies - things like requiring better ID auth or blocking tracking or requiring IAP. I agree that the tax is bad and stated so elsewhere.
> “ I think you are not ready to admit that you are spreading FUD, reality does not match and you are still building a fantasy.”
This kind of rhetoric when you disagree with someone isn’t helpful and doesn’t change minds.
Sorry but not sure how I can make my point more clear.
You created an hypothetical situation like "If Apple devices were not locked then for sure all the developers will remove their apps from the store and offer them from their own webpage to get around the big tax" my argument is that Android exist and this does not happen, so you should stop inventing hypotheticals and look at the reality,
Then you invented other hypothetical, something about developers will lower the bar of quality because the only reason all those popular apps in the store are of quality is because Apples high standards. This is also something that you imagine, most rejections I read about were about Apples greed and other such stupidity.
Maybe you are not spreading FUD because you are really scared, then it means the FUD worked on you, I am sorry , hopefully the reality I shown will calm you down a bit, my family are running Android phones and they did no sideload any application, there is an exception of a Huawei phone I got where they were forced not to put Google Play on it, I had some issues getting Youtube to work but except that app it works OK for my son.
I understand that's what you want, I want to know why you want that. Apple being able to exercise market power is bad for you, it means that Apple can command higher prices that are being passed on to you. It's like saying you only want Walmart in your neighborhood, because that means Walmart can coerce its vendors. The only one who benefits from this is the platform owner. Competition is good (for you, the consumer, even if you only shop at one store!.
That's the thing: Apple's exercising market power does bring all sorts of benefits to users. Obvious examples include the new privacy rules they're imposing, in-app purchases allowing any subscriptions to be cancelled with zero hassle. If Apple allowed other app stores, Facebook would almost certainly move to one that let them produce a far more invasive app. And the vast majority of the users will just download Facebook from the new store, because most people (myself included, tbh) value convenience over any absolutist stances about the software they use—see the past several decades of the free software movement.
The net result: Apple losing their monopoly means a huge influx of user-hostile behavior in apps.
Now, you're not wrong either—Apple does, in some cases, abuse their monopoly, and probably takes more of a cut than is fair from IAPs. (Although, quite frankly, I'd be shocked if the money from cheaper IAPs went to reducing prices and not increasing profits.) So yes, Apple's behavior here is harmful in some ways, but it does good in others. Like pretty much everything in this world, it ain't black and white.
Yeah, I suppose that is what I am arguing. Apple is absolutely an abusive monopoly, but tackling them alone without simultaneously handling Facebook and co would result in a net loss for the average consumer.
Absent government regulation? Yes, exactly. If Mecha-Godzilla shows up I'm very, very happy to have Godzilla around to fuck them up, even if Godzilla is a dangerous monster and it would be better to have no monsters.
Since don’t-have-monsters isn’t an option—yes? Especially since most of the ones being “murdered” by Apple aren’t the vulnerable, in any kind of relevant sense, but software developers and publishes. People who just use the devices knew what they were getting and paid extra for it.
So only install apps from the Apple App Store then. How do other app stores where developers aren't forced to play by those Apple rules affect you then?
But these evil dangerous apps wouldn't have been allowed by Apple in the first place, so they'd never have been on their app store to begin with.
Or, IOW: You can't do that after Apple bans them from their store either. Apps getting banned from there so you can't download them is a thing that actually exists in the here and now.
That's nice and all, but the rest of us would like to be able to use our hardware, that we paid for up front, for whatever we need. Unfortunately iOS boots with an encrypted bootloader, so you can't replace it, and once booted, only supports this lovely walled garden of cat-meme consumption.
We can both have our cake and eat it too, we just need either an unlocked bootloader, or the ability to sideload apps over an ADB-like usb interface. People who don't want that functionality will never know it's there and there won't be any decrease in security.
Unlocked boot loader would be fine. Sideloading's fine as long as the UI's bad enough that normal people can't, say, click a link on a website and keep clicking "OK" until the app's installed on their phone, and it also can't (somehow? Not sure how this restriction would be enforced) be scripted into a desktop-based store (as ADB could be, and likely would have been if alternative stores couldn't just be installed directly on Android devices).
Essentially as long as nothing threatens Apple's ability to tell other companies, including other tech giants, to play ball or pound sand, I'm fine with it.
> Essentially as long as nothing threatens Apple's ability to tell other companies, including other tech giants, to play ball or pound sand, I'm fine with it.
Is your premise is that the vast majority of iOS users want the Apple control of apps exactly as it is today?
If that premise is true, then having additional app stores available will not change your experience at all. The vast majority, as you assert, of iOS users will want no part in the alternative app stores, thus the Apple app store retains dominance and Apple doesn't need to change their behavior at all. So nothing changes for you. And the few oddballs who want to run non-Apple-approved software, still can, but they'll be a fringe.
But if you're worried that there will be a mass exodus to the non-Apple app store, (if that was allowed) then I'm hearing that there is in fact large percentages of unhappy users, which is itself proof that removing control from Apple is required.
What doesn't make sense it simultaneously assert that nearly all iOS users are happy with the Apple iron fist but large percentage of them are itching to break away from it the second they could. One or the other can be true, not both.
I have several in fact, including the PinePhone which I quite like but isn't really ready for daily use. The issue is Apple is developing a monopoly on high end hardware and there are fewer reasonable options by the day.
I'm always confused by this one. Every hardware company has a monopoly on their stuff. Sony with their PlayStation is a prime example of this. I've never seen anyone says they want to run their own game on it.
Well, other than the homebrew folks and those inclined to sail the high seas, very true. I don't get how this is suddenly an issue just because the device is portable - where is the outrage that developers can't distribute whatever they like on the Nintendo Switch outside of Nintendo's system (which also takes a 30% cut)?
You could very easily not install any other store or use any other payment system if you don't want them. You can keep your device 100 % Apple approved even if there exist alternatives. Why take that choice away from others?
> You could very easily not install any other store
But in practice, there are apps we need to use—people who we mostly communicate with over Facebook, movies we want to want that are only on Netflix, etc. In the status quo, we can use those apps, and they're beholden to Apple's guidelines, hopefully reducing the privacy, etc abuses. I can use Facebook and still have some amount of privacy.
In the world where alternate stores exist, I have to choose between using Facebook or having some amount of privacy. Sure, I could not use Facebook, but I'm a real human living in the real world, and that means I miss out on social opportunities that I would rather not miss out on. I—and the vast majority of iOS users, who aren't particularly interested in 3rd party stores—lose a less-terrible Facebook app.
(Not that I'm too happy with Apple here either. Some of Apple's policies are bizarre and abusive, and there are apps I'd like to run that aren't allowed. But I'm not entirely sure it's worth the tradeoff.)
It could fragment the Apple software ecosystem. Since a non-fragmented ecosystem is what I want, I don't like that. Add more stores and my choice to buy into a unified platform is at risk.
Why is fragmentation a problem? There's already fragmentation of the smartphone software ecosystem. How is an app that ships on iOS but not the apple store any different to you than an app that doesn't ship on iOS at all? Either way if you choose to only buy apps through apple you can't get it.
Fragmentation means that many apps I want would no longer be available through a vendor that I trust. No, that trust isn't blind or absolute. Yes, I recognise that Apple's review process is patchy at best—but most developers also fear getting on the wrong side of them and THAT alone has been pretty damn effective at keeping most apps under control.
I'm not convinced this is as big a problem as you think it is. If I chose iOS over Android specifically for privacy reasons I'd be interested in knowing what companies avoid the app store to bypass their privacy restrictions. Do you really want to use a product from a company that would do that as soon as they have the chance or would you rather label them as untrustworthy and find an alternative?
Some apps that would choose to be in the App Store if they had to, would instead use an alternative store. Some apps that wouldn't otherwise exist on iOS, would exist on alternative stores. I'd rather sacrifice that second category to ensure that the first category has to be released on the App Store. If I change my mind, I'll get an Android device. I knew what I was getting into when I bought Apple.
Your choice to buy into a unified platform does not require it to be Apple's unified platform. You can probably find a windows phone and opt into that unified platform.
What you don't get regardless is an apple that "throws its weight around" to force competitors and the like to do what apple wants. That's abuse and bad for everyone. That you happen to like it doesn't make it legal
What if they change their mind about the rules and their vision becomes inconsistent with what you want? You'll have no recourse and vendor lock-in will prevent you from switching platforms
It will be inconvenient and even impossible to migrate some things (for example contacts, iMessage history, app data). Espcially consider how difficult it would be for a novice user to migrate. And what are those other choices? Presumably you are not considering Android devices.
Of course not. But the limited selection of alternatives certainly adds to the pain of switching platforms. Therefore it's not so simple to "just buy another phone".
That's not the accusation. The accusation is that disallowing sideloading and forcing all customers to observe a single philosophy is especially big of a risk to the user considering that there's little competition. The fix isn't for Apple to create better competition, it's to allow sideloading. I am not saying it's their "fault" for having a lack of competition, that is just a reality of the market they are in.
the rules a company has undemocratically decided that affect millions of users.
One day an app you like, or your life may even depend on, suddenly disappears because of some arbitrary, pointless rule is brought by that company, whose decisions are, I repeat, outside of democratic control.
Would you be willing to pay a premium for that? What if Apple allowed other stores and simultaneously allowed apps to sell things for more on their store than they charge on other stores? Then an app maker could release on both and charge more to account for Apple's cut and any extra expenses they have releasing on their store.
Could you explain what you mean about customers paying a premium today? I don't think any apps that are on iOS and other platforms charge more for iOS. I also don't believe an iPhone costs more than a similarly high end Android phone. Where's the premium?
Some definitely do charge more for e.g. subscriptions on iOS than they do if you go through their website. They can't advertise the website option in their app, but it can exist.
Last time I made that mistake the site's subscription management interface was rather... uh, minimum viable product. Switching to paying the Apple premium was well worth it.
Thanks for that info. I wasn't aware that apps were allowed to charge more for subscriptions via iOS. I thought their only options in this regard was to not offer in app subscriptions at all.
Those very few ultra-premium models are exceptions which prove the rule; a few ultra-expensive, ultra-premium halo products for price-insensitive customers. Android phones are almost always superior value for money.
This alone makes me never touch Apple - and I have considered it (because I still use my 6yr old Windows Phone).
My only phone consideration is a Pixel with GrapheneOS
Some people need more functionality than iOS and its associated apps provide to do their jobs (ie embedded development/testing) among other things. Sure, "just go to Android/whatever" but Apple is quickly gaining a monopoly on not-shitty hardware and the combination of these two things is not ok by any stretch of the imagination.
Apple could provide the option of unlocking the bootloader and providing some driver code for their peripherals so we could make our own system, but they don't and that fact suggests there's a more sinister objective to this game. They exist to make as much money through their app store as possible and will not give up any control.
“ Some people need more functionality than iOS and its associated apps provide to do their jobs (ie embedded development/testing) among other things. ”
The open PC market is doing really well these days. Like, there’s a huge silicon shortage.
“Apple has a monopoly on not shitty hardware”
I have to chuckle. It’s almost like we want Apple to become a utility that must by government fiat build this great hardware but we now are going to force their software to operate the way a committee wants.
I am for regulation when it benefits consumers broadly (though unintended consequences abound). But this feels like pandering to a niche: potential dealers and tech tinkerers that never wanted the PC to become a consumer product.
There is nothing sinister of about running a business with focus and vertical integration. Apple tried an OEM model once, it didn’t work well for them (in part because Microsoft and Intel had that model locked up).
I had a chuckle at that too, I've seen a lot of monopoly arguments devolve into, [x] is too good, [y] can not compete with a similar but lower quality offering, this is anti competitive.
> Apple is quickly gaining a monopoly on not-shitty hardware
By "quickly gaining a monopoly", do you mean they've somehow made it impossible for another multi-billion dollar company to do a decent job on designing and building a phone?
The building gets hard when the executives at Microsoft and Samsung and Intel or Alphabet get complacent with their rent seeking from Windows/Office licensing, or ad revenue, or whatever other reason they can’t stomach investing billions of dollars into R&D and in person retail customer service.
Microsoft really cracks me up, they went as far as opening up retail locations all over the country, they just needed to invest for another 10 years and come up with something that can compete with iOS, and they decided to call it quits after a few years. Presumably because the expenses during the decade that is required to build trust with the public would cause an unacceptable hit to their financials and hence the bosses’ pockets, even though it would have benefited Microsoft after 10 to 15 years.
And now they get to compete with Apple’s own processors for laptops and desktops, for which they are behind another 10 years. Because they choose not to invest in their own employees and R&D, because they already have that sweet Office licensing revenue so why bother.
> Apple could provide the option of unlocking the bootloader and providing some driver code for their peripherals so we could make our own system, but they don't and that fact suggests there's a more sinister objective to this game. They exist to make as much money through their app store as possible and will not give up any control.
Why is it that people argue for changing Apple instead of just using other competing devices?
This point of view comes up from time to time and it is and has always been a false choice. What you need is a consensual mechanism to relinquish in part or entirely aspects of your control to Apple in exchange for convenience/security. Think “parental control”, it does not come with the need to shut down a device as a whole, but simply with an interface to bar certain areas off if you so desire.
Now, implementing this technically could be somewhat challenging and there is no obvious line to me where the boundary for customisation/freedom should be. But I think a first step is recognising the false choice that you present so that we can move the discussion to the details of where that technical/societal line should be rather than talk in freedom/non-freedom absolutes.
It's not possible to make this a switch the user can turn on or off (with reasonable effort).
Take the alternative app store. If they are allowed you will have some with exclusive apps. Those apps are then outside the apple rules and you have to have to hit the switch if you want them. So you loose out on the app or on all your apps being apple rule / account / payment compatible.
If there is no alternative store you will get all apps the apple way.
Apple is providing a real benefit here.
Of course they are also leveraging their semi-monoplostic position to "extort" money and to distort competition.
> Take the alternative app store. If they are allowed you will have some with exclusive apps. Those apps are then outside the apple rules and you have to have to hit the switch if you want them. So you loose out on the app or on all your apps being apple rule / account / payment compatible.
But how is this different than Android? There could be apps exclusive to Android, presumably there are. If you want them you have to choose Android. All the people who only trust Apple can't have them, the same as all the people who would refuse to turn the switch.
And even if some of the people who currently have iOS devices would turn the switch, the people who wouldn't are still a huge market. Unless they're not. But in that case what you're really saying is that people don't actually want the Apple-controlled market and most people are only buying iOS devices in spite of rather than because of it.
> It's not possible to make this a switch the user can turn on or off (with reasonable effort).
Frankly, citation needed. If phone manufacturers can find ways to unlock bootloaders, I refuse to believe that there is no way to allow for sideloading of some form on iOS. It particularly disturbs me how this comes from the “Think different” camp which praises the quality of its software to high heaven. Nowhere have I argued that the line should be drawn at “free mixing of application stores”, yet I continue to get the same boilerplate arguments that any move from the current status quo will lead to a complete collapse of the allegedly all so superior iOS ecosystem. I do not buy it.
> I refuse to believe that there is no way to allow for sideloading of some form on iOS.
I don't think GP meant that it wasn't technically possible, they were saying it isn't possible for this switch to exist without some popular apps eventually getting almost everyone to flip the switch and negate the whole point of having a switch.
I don't think I agree with them because Android already has this switch and I can't think of many apps that lots of users would want to sideload, except for Fortnite.
Just to clarify, I do not think that orangeoxidation holds the position that it is technically impossible. I just think that there is no evidence that it is either technically impossible or – like you – that there is any evidence or good reason to believe that sideloading would turn iOS into the wild west.
Rather, I think that the argument is sloppy, lazy, and frankly relies on a severe lack of imagination and rigidity of mind from those that present or accept it. Thus we should stop parroting it as it makes for a very boring discussion.
Instead, maybe there is an interesting discussion to be had as to whether Google maintains control using Google Play Services? Technical aspects of how a consent mechanisms could work relative to bootloader unlocking? The viability of Apple’s offerings in terms of better privacy and payment UI if something like Fortnite “broke free” and started a competing store? All this sounds endlessly more fun to read and contribute to compared to: “I am content with the status quo, it serves me well, and I see no reason to discuss this further with you freedom zealots!”.
If you lose out on an app because they decide to exclude themselves from the app store, couldn't you just find another app that doesn't exclude themselves that caters more towards your philosophy?
The top 10 free apps on the App Store, at time of writing, are TikTok, HBO Max, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Messenger, Snapchat, Zoom, Gmail, and Google Maps. Until Gmail, every single one of those provides access to content that can't be accessed thorough another app—a more ethical Snapchat doesn't have any of my Snapchat-using friends, and a more ethical HBO Max doesn't have the movie I want to watch. So no, in practice, the option is to get the app, wherever it's available, or decide to do without whatever it's offering.
YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and Google Maps all have good enough experiences using a mobile web browser. You don't need their app to access their content.
God dammit you can still install root CA certs relatively easily on iOS and there are plenty of online scams that trick people into it (especially since installing apps outside the App Store sometimes requires it.) Don't lie to yourself and everyone else that Apple has somehow created a computer where the user can magically avoid fucking themselves over.
It's not like the App Store even prevents malware anyway. All Apple does during review is run the app and watch network traffic via a proxy and ask "does this look like it's violating our rules?" There's no instrumentation and there's nothing to prevent apps from changing behavior after the review. These aren't loopholes abused just by flashlight apps but even large companies like Facebook routinely abuse them. Don't forget that you can also get code onto people's phones by providing a completely closed and never reviewed dylib to devs and they'll just include it in their apps if it solves a problem for them. This is another extremely common tactic to distribute iOS malware (and another one Facebook likes.) Also lets not forget all of the outright scams on the AppStore and the fact that it more or less prevents the sharing of community maintained software (chat apps in particular) which tend to align more closely with users interests.
There is absolutely no reason not to allow users to be able to enter an alternate App repository and push service in the settings App other than that it protects Apple's monopoly.
There's always this fear that apps are going to going to become exclusively available via alternative app stores, and yet this has yet to happen on Android. The only app I can think of that's not in Google Play is Fortnite, which, as we know, is to prove a point.
Even Amazon (who pushed heavily on their alternative Appstore a few years back) never removed their own apps from Play.
This is also why I don't let anyone else drive or have a bank account, or anything potentially dangerous at all. Free choice and the ability to make mistakes by ignorance means they can hurt themselves. Therefore the best solution is revoking that ability by force instead of putting the responsibility of learning unto them. It's perfectly acceptable that I get to control everything and crush businesses and users with anti competitive practices with my control. Or else - who's going to keep you 'safe'?
The idea of loving apples walled garden comes from a position of extreme privledge. You have to have lots of money to afford apples ecosystem. The hard reality is just like automobiles an iphone has become a societal requirement to participate in the common market.
You can't install 3rd party apps by default in android, you have to turn it on.
It sounds like the parent poster's relations have freely chosen to delegate their technology management to him or her, and in turn the poster is comfortable delegating that to Apple and their walled garden. If Apple is selling safety, security, and control, and people are buying it, what's the issue?
Potentially the issue is a lack of competition in the market when there are too few options; but it sounds like you're saying that no one should prefer a walled garden option at all.
People should be able to freely choose a walled garden. There are benefits that might be important for the person choosing it, and other people can simply choose another platform. I don't see any reason why a single platform should be forced to cater to any and all.
Not when theres only 2 choices, and effectively only 1 choice depending on your work. The rights of wider market and it's consumers involved are higher. This is precedent that's been set time and again in every other consumer facing industry and it applies just as well here.
Yes, even when there are only 2 choices. No customer has any right, legal or otherwise, for iPhone-the-universal-and-open-computing-device. Not only that, most customers are customers because it's a walled garden. What are you going to say to a company after it loses customers and revenue and its expenses rise because you took away what made it unique? "Sorry, that's how the system works?", I guess?
Yep, that's how the system works. I have no qualms with forcing the richest company in the world to play fair. You may be under the idea that computers are optional - they're not. Almost everyone has a mobile device, even homeless. They're required to participate in government and business. It's how we rent apartments, pay bills and operate in society. The market has become a public problem by apples hand. Markets no longer belong to their creators when they of their own choices create matters of significant public issue. Apple is not special.
We have plenty of precedent from microsoft being forced to allow software before. Apple and friends have lobbied (bribed) heavily for antitrust and antimonopoly to no longer have teeth. If it were 30 years ago apple would have been put through the meat grinder.
If we need the legal right then we'll legislate it.
Yes, almost everyone has a computing device - and in these cases you listed it's never ever a iPhone. Even if it was, the fact that there is an open alternative is enough to let Apple be alone in making their luxury appliance.
another argument: we've been fighting for computers to be free from monopolies for so many years (anyone remember Microsoft dominance in the 90s? or browsers not complying to standards?) and yet, here we are again with the same shit.
Mobile phones are personal computers, actually of the most successful type. We should have learned some lessons, but no, people come with the same arguments as in the past decades (it's easier, it makes me look cool, I'm lazy). Then, one day, you find that your favourite app has been removed because of God knows what other arbitrary rule has been introduced in the name of the greater good, as undemocratically decided by a private company.
And, please, don't come with the "if you don't like it, choose Android": at 50% market share that's not an argument any longer.
My GF has no idea how to administrate her phone, she has an android, and certainly doesn't side load apps, install them from websites or use an alternative app store.
She wouldn't know how to do those things, so this point seems kinda moot.
Only someone who never tried to compile AOSP can write seriously that "Android is open source".
That the platforms are open source is a moot point too.
You liking Apple's ecosystem doesn't mean they aren't anticompetitive.
And really your point is kind of... weird. It's not like you don't have to go out of your way to get third-party apps on your Android phone. And you would lose nothing, if Apple did the same, maybe even more buried in hidden settings and behind disclaimers and warnings. Reads like the typical retrospective justification of any limitation Apple features.
"A single USB-C port? Yeah, I love it! Keeps you focused and mindful about peripheral devices!"
OTOH if the elders of your family are not hacker tinkerer types, they're not going to install an alternate app store even if that was possible on iOS. So the existence of an alternative wouldn't change their usage or your need of involvement at all.
It just provides a way to run applications of my choice on my hardware to people who want that.
>prevents them from doing anything that would screw themselves over.
That was the case when App Store was born, it really did provide the security and curation of Apps. But now that is no longer the case, scam Apps and low quality apps / games are everywhere. They are not as bad as Android but still bad. Not to mention Apple doesn't care about your IP, if someone make an app that is 99% the same with look and graphics. There is no way to challenge that because Apple said they dont take side ( What ? ).
Especially when they hold the majority of market shares. Today, the iPhone has 66% market share in the United States, 75% of U.S. App Store revenues, and over 80% of time spent on the mobile internet. And these numbers are pre iPhone 12, judging from the trend it looks like the current number will only be higher. They cant hide behind privacy and curation forever.
Exactly, and as is pointed out with android supporting different stores, the alternative already exists. I don't understand why people want to force their way of thinking on everybody else. I'm quite happy in my walled garden, and happy that those who don't like it can go to the other place.
It really comes down to business model. Apple is a hardware company, they money on things. Google/Alpha is an Ad company, they make money from your data. Of course they can make their code open source, however their practices is going to be targeted towards getting as much user data as possible.
This cliche is a little dated, considering Apple’s revenue from services is considerably higher than that for Mac. There’s a reason it’s no longer Apple Computer. Since when does a hardware company do credit cards? (And, yes, they do make money from your data in this way.)
the problem is that mobile phones have become such a necessary tool for day-to-day life that one company cannot control what goes into them and what not. Apple can either allow additional stores (with all the checks and warnings) or that curation should be done by an independent, public and international third-party.
Fortunately, no one is going to force you to use other app stores.
Feel free to continue using the Apple app store. You can do that, and after these lawsuits other people will have the voluntary choice to choose a different app store as well.
This is only half-true. Google allows users to install third-party stores. Because only handful of geeks do that.
But if your competing app store gains enough adoption and you make deal with device vendors to preinstall it, the negotiations will mysteriously break down and the other party will grow quiet... Reportedly, because their (NDA-covered) contract with Google does not allow them to preinstall software from Google competitors.
See also: Google fined in Russia for prohibiting vendors from installing Yandex applications on devices [1]
But court decision apparently wasn't enough, so Yandex had to lobby the government to force smartphone vendors to preinstall their apps or get booted out of Russian market [2]
Because the laws of corporate mob don't apply to everyone equally?
There is a huge difference between treatment of different parties, even if the their contracts are same (and I doubt, that Samsung has the same contract with Google as everyone else). For example, do you know, that some Android devices aren't allowed to use a different launcher, other than supplied by Google? Or that Google Play Terms of Service prohibit publishing there alternative app stores? There are many such draconian restrictions in all Google's contracts. They are ignored until it is convenient for Google to enforce them.
Back to your question, — neither Samsung nor Amazon are Google's competitors. Their app stores are garbage. Samsung was trying to jump off Android for years. And Amazon devices don't come with Google's software, so Google has no leverage against them (except YouTube).
It's just completely unrealistic that a classic consumer will install any other app store on their device, they just use what is there and that's for the majority of Android phones the Play Store.
If Google would truly be open for competition, they would let the consumer choose the app store, the search engine and everything else when they first turn on the device.
There's AltStore, but it's obviously not as straightforward as the Apple one. https://altstore.io/
Came across it while following the development and distribution of iSH (https://ish.app/), which has now made it into the main app store.
Prior to publishing to AltStore, iSH was only available on Test Flight, which has a limitation on the number of users who can join (10,000). So they'd periodically have to kick inactive users off the TestFlight so others could try it.
You can have third party app stores in Android, but you can't have third party push notifications. And without them there is no way to deliver data to your app without making it persistent, which is increasingly difficult with every new Android version
If third-party app stores with Google's version of Android (you know, the one everyone wants that has all the Google applications - not the open source version that you can't legally load Google's stuff on) were on an equal footing than why is Epic suing them the same as they are suing Apple?
idk, Apple does have open source? Swift is *incredibly* open, but probably a outlier for Apple. It's operating systems aren'tt, but kernal is (right?).
None of these companies are open sourcing their core competencies. Google Search isn't open source.
LLVM has been pretty import for Apple.
Webkit has been important.
BSD has been important, but afaik they don't really contribute a lot back anymore, although Darwin is open source.
Apple was a big contributor to webkit waay before Chrome even existed.
I don't really understand the love for Android (and sometimes Google) and hate for Apple. The first versions of Android were a clone of blackberry until Apple unveiled the iPhone.
> I don't really understand the love for Android (and sometimes Google) and hate for Apple
The reasons are all over this discussion, just spend some time reading it. My takeaway might be that some people value autonomy and ownership, and feel like Android gives them more of that.
This is a bad take. Google is just as guilty of anti-competitive behavior as Apple. Sure, a third party store can exist in the Android ecosystem, but what are the chances that it can be commercially viable? It's practically impossible.
* Google shows countless scary warning dialogs to users who even think about installing a third party store. Any competitor trying to run an alternative store needs to somehow educate potential consumers on the process of enabling "unknown sources", and convincing them that doing so won't actually kill you (translates directly into higher business expenses, and is probably an impossible obstacle to overcome to reach the majority of consumers)
* Google regularly monitors apps installed outside of the Play store with their "Play Protect" thing, which is an opt-in virus scanner, except not really. When you install an APK, they ask you for permission to enable Play Protect. If you decline, they'll just keep asking you again and again until you accept either by accident, or do it so they stop annoying you. Through Play Protect, Google is able to arbitrarily block any app they consider to be "potentially harmful". Consider that they regularly ban apps by accident on the Play Store using their broken AI, and that those registered developers struggle to get those erroneous bans reversed. I'd imagine getting a ban from Play Protect reversed is nearly impossible.
* Google has a full time hit squad of penetration testers called "Project Zero" which goes around checking competitors for vulnerabilities so they can make big scary press releases about how unsafe the competition is (even though Google Play itself is riddled with malware).
And also, this isn't related to the anti-competitive stuff, but I feel compelled to point it out:
> Android is open source
Yes, Android is open source. The operating system on your Android phone is not open source. Pretty much the only people who benefit from Android being open source are:
* Device manufacturers, who don't have to develop an OS to sell phones, and can install whatever they want on it, like spyware, ads, keyloggers, etc that can't be uninstalled by the user
* Power users and mod developers who are fighting the good fight against that kind of thing (but are hopelessly outgunned)
Saying that something is "open source" usually comes with the understanding that it's a good thing for users and freedom, except in this case it's not.
Say what you will about Apple, but at least they're honest about what they are. Google is still stuck in that cognitive dissonance phase from when they first became 100% evil.
> Google shows countless scary warning dialogs to users who even think about installing a third party store. Any competitor trying to run an alternative store needs to somehow educate potential consumers on the process of enabling "unknown sources", and convincing them that doing so won't actually kill you (translates directly into higher business expenses, and is probably an impossible obstacle to overcome to reach the majority of consumers)
It is a single setting/message about allowing you to install apps from unknown sources that you can grant for that specific app. You can enable/disable anytime.
> Google regularly monitors apps installed outside of the Play store with their "Play Protect" thing, which is an opt-in virus scanner, except not really. When you install an APK, they ask you for permission to enable Play Protect. If you decline, they'll just keep asking you again and again until you accept either by accident, or do it so they stop annoying you. Through Play Protect, Google is able to arbitrarily block any app they consider to be "potentially harmful". Consider that they regularly ban apps by accident on the Play Store using their broken AI, and that those registered developers struggle to get those erroneous bans reversed. I'd imagine getting a ban from Play Protect reversed is nearly impossible.
I have multiple apps installed from F-Droid and I have never got a single message from Play Protect warning me of anything.
> Google has a full time hit squad of penetration testers called "Project Zero" which goes around checking competitors for vulnerabilities so they can make big scary press releases about how unsafe the competition is (even though Google Play itself is riddled with malware).
I've never seen Project Zero act unethical or unprofessional to gain a market advantage.
> Yes, Android is open source. The operating system on your Android phone is not open source.
Depending on the phone you get. Many people specifically pick manufacturers that are more friendly to open source.
> Yes, Android is open source. The operating system on your Android phone is not open source.
What you’re refering to as Android, is in fact, Google Play Services/Android, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, Google Play Services plus Android. Android is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another component of a fully functioning Google Play Services system.
Many mobile users run a modified version of the Google Play Services system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of Google Play Services which is widely used today is often called Android, and many of its users are not aware.
There really is a Android, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Google Play Services is the core: the program in the system that is required for full functionality of a mobile device. The core is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Android is normally used in combination with Google Play Services: the whole system is basically Google Play Services with Android added, or Google Play Services/Android. All the so-called Android ROMs are really distributions of Google Play Services/Android!
Not everything translated over exactly well from the original GNU/Linux copypasta, but I do agree here.
I've tested using microG in order to gain some functionality which is missing on pure AOSP builds (eg push notifications) and even with their FOSS minimal implementation of Google Play Services there's still subpar functionality like being unable to use many apps with integrated maps (Uber, Tinder, Google Maps).
Avoiding Google on your Android device results in an undeniably degraded user experience still. They additionally have abandoned many of the AOSP apps like the Calendar and Keyboard, to instead develop and maintain their own branded versions. F-Droid, LineageOS and microG in particular are picking up the slack, but we're still a good way from having the same level of functionality whilst avoiding Google proprietary software.
> * Google has a full time hit squad of penetration testers called "Project Zero" which goes around checking competitors for vulnerabilities so they can make big scary press releases about how unsafe the competition is (even though Google Play itself is riddled with malware).
Wow. That is incredibly uncharitable, bordering on slander.
Open source has nothing to do with it when it is difficult / impossible / highly unlikely that anyone actually has a free device. What kind of developer would make something for an alternative app store which would be installable on 0.001% of devices?
If anything they took more from the community in terms of the Linux kernel etc then they have given back with useful technology when it comes to phones.
I view this in a different light. We have two options for platforms, one for each idea. One idea being a platform that allows for third party app stores (android) and another platform that does not (apple).
We already have a choice, between these ideas, some prefer one over the other.
I personally prefer the platform that is better integrated, designed, and backed by the company already making the hardware and software. If I have an issue, I know who to go to.
If the other option were more obviously beneficial, why haven't alternative App Stores on Android succeeded yet? What's holding the maintainers of those alternative stores back from growth?
Maybe the answer in this case is that it really is just better (in a relativistic way) for the majority of people to interact with the same entity producing the rest of their phone's core software and perhaps even easier for developers to not have to contend with varying rules and policies across multiple App Store platforms.
I think it’s a bit of a false argument. The walls to entry are high.
Thanks think if users had to enable “unsafe” apps on the App Store than that would be fair. The whole “Benefit” from these walled gardens was that they would have some validation.
Google is an ad company. I do not understand why people would choose to use an operating system created by an ad company, designed to harvest their personal information.
I'm happy to use an iPhone, knowing my personal information is safe and it reduces my chances of being Harvested by Google.
It is possible for a company to do multiple things, sometimes even conflicting with each other.
Google is an ad company, and a hardware/smartphone company, and an enterprise collaboration company, and a cloud hosting company, and lots more.
Similarly Apple is a hardware company which is getting more and more of its revenue from digital sales, subscriptions and even advertising every year. They can and do track their users exactly like Google.
It is naive to think that any company at that scale has your best interests at heart. They will do whatever it takes to make more money, period.
Some it seems thinks Apple keeps data private and anonymous. In fact they do the opposite and encourage using an icloud account over and over (after ever update). All of this data is easily acquired via a warrant at any law enforcement level.
A county cop (without a college degree) investigating his neighbor can get all this info simply submitting a scanned PDF of a warrant from a county judge.
Not really, I am pointing out data privacy means different things to different people. From my experience many are surprised how easily a users data can be obtained. There appears to be a misconception with some that Apple fights legal battles and refuses to comply with law enforcement because Apple believes so strongly in data privacy.
One example: There was a person harassing people on facebook in a small local community. Sending obscene images and making threats. To solve the crime local law enforcement ended up compiling a list of just under 20 possible suspects.
Hoping to match an iCloud photo to a post on facebook a warrant was issued for all 20 users data. Apple sends an. encrypted file with all the data and then another email with the passwords
Long story short the offender was caught however almost 20 people’s data was looked through by local law enforcement. I stress local because this is not some federal agent solving a major crime but just a neighbor police officer who sends his own kids to the same schools as these other innocent people.
Disclaimer: I assisted law enforcement on this case and a couple of others.
> Exactly. And Apple makes money of privacy. It's their thing.
Apple makes money by (among other things) appealing to a certain set of privacy conscious consumers. That's different than "making money off of privacy".
I think that Apple is often deceptive about the degree to which they themselves track users and store user data. I think its simultaneously true that Apple stores less information about [advertising] users that Google does, but is less straightforward about the information it does track, and keeps more than the average Apple user thinks.
I thought by making the argument that users shouldn't be allowed to install apps themselves you were making that insinuation and that people supporting Apple's anti-competitive behavior are willfully ignorant.
Apple runs its own Ad network for app advertisements. They conveniently do not need to deal with iOS 14 requirements when it comes to using their users' data to target ads and track app installs in their own network. Can you say monopoly power?
It's possible to run open source android phones (including without google play services) which protect your privacy pretty well. As part of android allowing more consumer control, there's a larger culture of open source apps, so you can get further with fdroid. Open source apps are usually pretty unlikely to compromise your privacy and harvest data.
On iPhones, it's true that the phone itself doesn't track you as much, but there's other downsides. You're unable to use firefox+ublock origin, so far more websites on iPhone will track you. There are fewer open source apps, so it's quite plausible you get tracked by more apps individually. There's no ability to uninstall default services whatsoever, again unlike android.
I think for the default user who doesn't make an effort to search out privacy-preserving software, an iPhone will probably harvest less data.
However, for someone who knows how to run LineageOS, install ublock on firefox, and install apps from fdroid, I think you can get a phone that harvests less of your data with android.
I also think that there are enough distinct data-points on each side of this argument that it's difficult to claim either is better with certainty.
You may feel you're safer, but there is no proof that Apple implements better privacy practices than Google. There are a lot of different vendors that provide Android without Google services and you can also unlock your bootloader and install a custom ROM:
Last, Google allows you to disable their activity history and other options that may be concerning from your Google Account. Apple has very few options to limit your amount of data sharing.
Take it with a huge grain of salt, but also note that Apple sends more personal data to themself than Google according to that article. Not in the amount of bytes, but in they amount of different data send, according to the article.
I think most people would agree that fewer personal details being shared is more important than the amount of data used to communicate. So in that regard Apple is worse.
All in all, I think this whole discussion is pointless. Both are collecting as much as they can get away with and both suck when it comes to privacy.
Sure, they can flip. But currently Apple's business model is based on privacy, and they're going for it HARD. Like, really hard. And I like that. The moment they stop doing that, I won't support them.
Meanwhile; have you you seen Google stand up to the despicable behaviour of Facebook? No? I wonder why.
Yes fanboys, Apple cares so much about privacy that they sent your app launches unencrypted and with the IP address to their servers, they are only "fixing" it because of bad PR.
If you use your brain you can conclude that Apple does not care about privacy enough to hire competent developers, this feature design was clearly insecure and against privacy that my any person with a bit of brain and not emotional invested can see it clear, "privacy is only PR, when it comes to actual implementation is irrelevant" ... though I think you could convince me that there is a chance that we could explain this just with pure stupidity, somehow Apple has such a broken process that stupidity triumphs over sane architecture, then yeah I hope you love the fact you use a product from someone that loves privacy but is to stuipid to offer it to you.
> Now, Apple says it has stopped logging user IP addresses collected by the feature, and will delete previous logs of IP addresses. Without IP addresses, there's far less danger that records of app usage could be tied back to users.
There is a promise in the marketing that customers expect to be kept. Apple has done lots of research and work to create privacy preserving versions of services that competitors simply harvest lots of user data for.
It's the work of moments to put it in a contract that data sourced from you cannot be sold or provided to a third party without the law requiring it.
They choose not to do this.
Apple have invested heavily in their /marketing/
If you believe they won't flip on you the nanosecond it suits them I've got a bridge over here that might interest you...
Besides even if you believe the current people controlling Apple, all of them, you can't possibly know who will control it next year let alone in 5 or 10 years. This "I want to believe" garbage is just ridiculous. Seriously. You expect anything you like and Apple won't care a damn if your expectations are trashed for their profit or something else.
If they won't put it in a contract it only because they reserve the right to to flip you off. Hard and rough. No other reason.
You should actually read the article, perhaps after first setting down the axe you're grinding. The details are interesting, and they discuss the Reuters piece you linked to.
I did read the article. It nitpicks on Reuters article but the point still stands. Apple has the keys to iCloud backups.
There's no axe to grind because the lack of end-to-end encryption is a fact. Your own link states that. Nitpicking Reuters won't change that. I don't understand this mentality of religiously defending something that's clearly wrong. It will only make the platform you use worse.
By the way you should read HN guidelines. Don't comment whether someone read an article.
You don't really buy an Apple phone. You give them money and then they decide what software can, will or will not run on the device they hand you down.
Well you will continue to be allowed to make these decisions if you want, but after these lawsuits go through, other people will also be free to use other app store as well.
Problem solved. You get to keep using apple app stores, and other people can choose something else.
For me their actions speak volumes. But if you want sources, here's Craig Federighi, Senior VP of software, literally yesterday:
"It [privacy] is a value that is so deep in us. Personal information can be used and abused and even weaponized in ways that can be really, really destructive. Often in a way that's not at all apparent to the person who might be giving up that information." and "These devices are so intimately a part of our lives and contain so much of what we're thinking and where we've been and who we've been with that users deserve and need control of that information. Abuse ranges from creepy to dangerous".
He says more about privacy in that same interview, recommended listen.
Reminds me of the "We value your privacy" pop-ups Google keeps popping up. A for-profit company will say anything that it believes is profitable. PR statements like the one you quoted convey no information.
Yes, it is. I went to interview at Google (a few years back now). Frankly, I was disturbed at the cult-like behaviour and attitudes of the majority of the employees I interacted with. For most of them, it was clearly their first job out of college, and they had no prior experience of working for a large corporate, or any objective perspective about what they were doing, or why. One hopes they will gain a little more maturity along the way, since such people are going to be exploited by their corporate masters without them even realising it.
I'd love to buy an iPhone that is waterproof, has decent battery life, durable screen (that part apparently has gotten better recently, though), can run Firefox (the actual one with proper ad-blocking options) and is generally made to withstand punishment from being used in the field.
Until such a beast is released, I'll stick with my (admittedly) crappy and de-googlified Android phone; I simply can't afford to buy a new iPhone 3-4 times a year because they keep breaking.
If you're like the majority of people on HN, you're likely (relatively) "rich" - perhaps in top 5-10 percentile of income globally.
The other 90% use Androids. They could use "second-hand" iPhones - but those don't work quite as well and stay compatible with the latest apps whereas the latest cheap Androids do.
The iPhone and iPad transmit their fixed and unchangeable hardware serial number to Apple every time you open the App Store, like a permanent supercookie.
Apple has just as much reason to harvest your personal information and track you in their App Store as anyone else.
Your data on iPhone aren't safe from Apple though, a company that relies increasingly on selling subscription and content. As long as you use cloud-hosted service, you trust a company to store your data.
I specifically buy Apple products because I trust their App Store. I trust Apple with my information. I’m counting on these guys to get out software I download from the App Store. And I trust them to protect my privacy, better than anyone else.
You’re calling them anti consumer. But that’s wrong. This is why I give them my business, and if they bowed to pressure so people can execute whatever software on my device, I’d exit the Apple ecosystem and buy a $300 phone instead of a $1000 phone. It’s actually that simple.
Edit: Sitting at -2 votes because people don’t approve of my consumer habits. Censor people you don’t agree with instead of having an actual response. Okay.
Fragmentation: If Apple competes well there won't be any because their app store will be the best on merit not at gunpoint.
Safety: Don't sideload or install unsigned apps. Keep your phone up to date. This doesn't change much except possibly give you the option to be unsafe.
Payment processing: We already see integration with Cash app, Google wallet, Apple pay, Stripe, PayPal, etc. This is not an issue.
Gunpoint? This is rich from a bunch of tinkerers and competitors that literally want the people with guns to force Apple to change its platform because competing with them is too hard, and Android sucks so badly as an alternative. Consumers certainly aren’t making these arguments.
I'm glad you realized the connection with voting, because it is the same issue in a real sense: no one gets to vote for an open or a closed system, they only get to vote for an iPhone or a Samsung (which is pretty locked down) or some random third-party phone that will probably suck; you are acting as if the people who voted for an iPhone are agreeing with every single decision made about that platform instead of merely wanting it "on the balance". I honestly mostly use Apple devices because I think their touch screens and trackpads are so good as to be "evil magic"... I thereby own a zillion of them and even use them as my personal devices despite also currently suing them over this very anti-competitive App Store issue, and yet my "vote"--and the votes of everyone like me (and I imagine there are many many such people)--are being counted by you as "voting with my wallet" for a closed system. The reality is that I am simply making the best of a shitty situation with buying an iPhone, and the fact that Apple is able to get away with having a closed system because of some other key benefit doesn't mean they should get to do so :/. Hell: at this point, it would be extremely expensive to switch platforms, because Apple and Google have conspired to build a massive wall preventing people from importing purchases of apps from one platform to the other. I would even lose easy access to all of the music and movies I had gotten on iTunes (which is another reason a lot of people get Apple devices: because they are tied into a vertical content monopoly and a lot of the content I want is effectively only available from Apple). ...and like, I hope you realize that the ridiculously large number of people who bought and iPhone and then--despite it being extremely difficult to do so with requiring the usage of often scary software from annoyingly people from random websites--jailbreak it so they can fix this one key flaw they see in this product... a number that is already stupid high--we tended to get like 12% of users at steady state--but which would obviously be extremely high if only it could have been easier to do!
Yes, you know better than me and my opinion is stupid and foolish. Your post doesn’t really offer than alternative take. All you did is bully me and engage in cyber harassment.
When your immediate response is to have an emotional outburst and tell people they’re stupid, it actually shows you lack intelligence.
Part of the problem I have with them is they're bundling things in ways I don't want. What if I like their hardware and want Siri but don't want to use their app store? I don't believe most iOS buyers are buying it for privacy reasons. I bet if this was unbundled and their was an alternate store for iOS that openly used your data but apps cost 10% less a lot of consumers would choose it. You can argue that might not be a wise choice but right now its not a choice they're given.
Right now I have confidence that anything that can run on my device is signed off and approved by Apple.
That gives me a sense of security and privacy. I don’t have to worry about something being approved or not approved. If there’s an app, I rely on Apple to have signed off on it.
That’s why I buy iPhone.
And all it really comes down to is that Apple has customers who repeatedly give them business each year simply because they like the app ecosystem not being a flea market where anything goes.
> Right now I have confidence that anything that can run on my device is signed off and approved by Apple.
> That gives me a sense of security and privacy. I don’t have to worry about something being approved or not approved.
(Except apparently you do, judging from your previous paragraph.)
> If there’s an app, I rely on Apple to have signed off on it.
That's why people are saying they should allow other app stores beside their own: So they can continue to curate and ban apps in their own one, and still not be (seen as) totally evil monopolists who use their entrenched position to crush potential competition in the app space.
Keep installing apps only from the Official Apple App Store — don't even install another one (they'd probably put up lots of scary warnings around that) — and you'll still be just as safe as now. Just like all the other inmates.
I don’t think they’re seen as evil monopolists, as you’ve described. That’s quite frankly just your opinion because Apple won’t let you do what you want. Again, you’re talking around me. My argument is I buy their products because I know my device can only execute programs they explicitly signed off.
>just like all the other inmates.
You’re arguing in bad faith and launching into personal attacks. :)
No one is crushing competition in the app space. Don’t do bad things and I’m sure Apple will list your app on their App Store. Your exaggerations of monopolizing are merely that — exaggerations. We have 13 year olds selling apps or giving free apps on Apples App Store. They literally brought the idea to the masses and executed it flawlessly.
If you don’t like it, you’re welcome to go create your own phone and your own App Store. No one is stopping you, and no you’re not entitled to run whatever code on peoples phones... especially when those people don’t know what they might be downloading.
Since you’re venturing into personal attacks, I’m not going to engage any further.
It's HW made by private corporation with their own SW and they can insist rules to make sure HW and SW systems are not abused so that most of the users get better user experience.
They (Apple) are doing this to protect their users. If you don't agree with it don't buy their HW.
Can you install applications from third party providers on other app bases HW? such as
Gaming (XBox, Playstation, Nintendo)
Cars (Tesla, Benz, Nissan)
Or in non SW/HW world can you force stores such as Walmart, HomeDepot, Macys, Nordstorm to sell goods from third party seller? And, even these stores charge fees for selling items made by other manufacturers.
If you don't like ecosystems made by Google and Apple don't buy their HW/SW.
Thanks for the advice. I don't agree with Apple, and don't buy their hardware or software.
When I'm buying a general purpose computing device (which is what smartphones have become), I expect a significant degree of flexibility in how I can use it, and don't need the vendor to arbitrarily start placing limits on that flexibility to "protect" me. Especially when those limits happen to coincide with the financial goals of the vendor.
This report is somewhat bipolar. On one hand it's arguing that Google and Apple exert too much control over smartphone app marketplaces.
On the other hand its proposed remedy asks that Google and Apple exert even more control over these app marketplaces by stamping down on anti-consumer practices like subscription traps and scams.
On the other other hand it proposes that Apple and Google should allow third party payment options, making it harder for Google and Apple to thwart subscription traps and scams.
Yes it is a shame - while the ACCC often is well motivated, it lacks any sense of philosophical purity in its solutions.
So you often see things that are highly anti-freedom, anti-democratic and ultimately anti-consumer come out as a result of its actions. The recent forced negotiation of Google/Facebook with news publishers is an example of this where they have no problem compromising completely fundamental aspects of the internet (the freedom to link to somebody else's intellectual property without fear) to achieve some dot point in their bureaucratic consumer-focused mandate (ensure consumers have access to a diversity of news).
Agreed. It's "the stores are extracting too much money for the services they provide and the way they run" without any concrete asks. Likely because we're in unexplored territory, I expect ACCC is using this release as a form to push other agencies to move first to see what happens.
Australia NEVER moves first on these things. They want EU or US to make a move first to see what works.
I think it is uncommon for Australia to move first, but we do move first sometimes. I thought the recent news revenue-sharing laws[0] are an example of that.
> They want EU or US to make a move first to see what works
It's always nice to know how a policy will work beforehand, but I don't think it's remarkable how rarely Australia moves first. Putting aside cultural differences, we're a medium power in a world with many medium powers, even in the West, why would we expect to be first, ahead of European countries, or North American ones, or developed nations in Asia?
The revenue-sharing laws were a scam, basically the Government forcing Google and Facebook to pay arbitrary bribes to a few big media companies.
If the laws weren't a scam, that money would have gone to pay for journalism, not prop up the bottom line of companies which are consistently cutting back the number of journalists under their employ.
My advice to any future Federal Government would be to gut the ACCC and rebuild it from the ground up. And then if the rebuilt entity demonstrates competence, significantly increasing its funding.
We were one of the first on having overseas companies signup and remit GST directly for low value personal imports.
NZ/UK have copied this model and the EU is following mid this year.
The scheme has a special definition for marketplaces so that they can rope in eBay and Amazon to collect for them rather than having to go after every little Chinese eBay seller.
I think the general argument is that the stores are not competitive and providing a low value service (having scams and subscription traps) while collecting a large amount of proceeds from developers.
But the stores clearly do make it more difficult for developers to engage in scams and subscription traps. I strongly support increased pressure on Google and Apple to do a lot more in this regard (especially with certain kinds of pay-to-avoid-grinding games) but it's wrong to speak about this as though it was a binary state.
The release does not say these things, and it is misleading to intentionally paraphrase as to invent logical conflicts that aren't present. In particular, it is wrong to equate the existence of controls with the abuse of market power.
Examples:
Kicking a scammer off your app store is a use of power that benefits the consumer.
Obliging service providers to mislead the consumer about their subscription options is an abuse of power and a barrier to consumer choice.
The desired outcomes are not "bipolar"; they are consistent with advancing consumer choice and consumer protection. They would only appears as conflicting demands to a rent-seeking organisation that prioritises its market share over consumer outcomes, which is of course why regulatory agencies like the ACCC exist.
I'm sorry, but it does. Just because they chose not to phrase it exactly as I did doesn't mean they didn't invoke these logical conflicts. But please, there's no need to take my word for it—I invite anyone to read the press release and form their own conclusion.
> it is wrong to equate the existence of controls with the abuse of market power.
I agree that it's "wrong" to equate them, but equating them is a common theme among complaints about Google and Apple's dominance of their platforms' app ecosystems.
You make it sound like the ACCC is inherently on the consumer's side in any matter. One look at the borderline-corrupt Media Bargaining Code would quickly disabuse any objective observer of that notion. It could be argued that the ACCC was somehow incapable of comprehending what an internet link is or how news article snippets come to appear on Google and Facebook. That's certainly a more charitable hypothesis than the ACCC being corrupt unduly influenced by the political interests of the current elected Government. Whether it's incompetence or malice (see Hanlon's razor) it doesn't look good for them.
Quite so. Let's emphasise that: they chose not to phrase it exactly as you did. And by my reading, significantly so.
> I invite anyone to read the press release
How about going one better: read the report that the media release accompanies.
> equating them is a common theme among complaints about Google and Apple's dominance of their platforms' app ecosystems
That's by the by, because this report does not make the same category error, and is a nuanced, lengthy, and considered analysis of the myriad different modes in which their controlling power is underused in some ways that leave the consumer unprotected, and overused/abused in other ways that harm consumer choice, create barriers to market entry, and enable rent-seeking behaviour, and suggests how changes in specific behaviours might correct those pathologies.
> You make it sound like the ACCC is inherently on the consumer's side in any matter
Well, yes, this is their job, their remit, their raison d'être. Deviation from that premise is the exception, not the norm, and frankly they are known globally as one of the most effective consumer regulators, and the ACL as gold-standard legislation that sibling institutions in other nations can only dream of administering. Trying to discredit the organisation because they got pulled into the federal Murdoch toadying over the MBC looks like misdirection.
Which makes me reach for my high school Latin: what is the equivalent of ad hominem when the target entity is an institution, not a person?
And we all know that people always do what their job title says they should do.
> what is the equivalent of ad hominem
Sigh. It seems 2021 is the year of calling things ad hominem which aren't. It's not ad hominem to accuse the ACCC of being untrustworthy because of prior bad actions in a recent, comparable matter. It would have been ad hominem if I said that the ACCC is untrustworthy because everyone who works there is very ugly.
Okay, so what is the phrase for a shallow and transparent attempt to undermine the findings of a report by slinging mud about its origin, after being called out for misrepresenting the actual content?
Rule: you can't say "sledging", only the other Australians will understand.
I've skimmed the full report, and OP's assessment feels somewhat fair.
It feels like the ACCC is telling Google and Apple "lower false positives and also lower false negatives".
They do have actionable proposals, eg "coordinated app ‘sweeps’ by consumer protection authorities", and establishing and independent app moderation authority, but overall the message kind of boils down to "do better simultaneously on every single front, even when they contradict each other".
> Kicking a scammer off your app store is a use of power that benefits the consumer.
But in a world that was taking consumer choice seriously would be primarily a job for law enforcement. We don't delegate traffic enforcement to the people who build and maintain roads.
Actually I think this'd be a recipe for scams to proliferate. Law enforcement processes mostly occur after the fact, often long after, and in any case, a great many nations already do take consumer choice seriously.
The transportation metaphor is somewhat problematic, because roads are commissioned and paid for by the same class of agency that employs traffic enforcement officers: domestic government. Nevertheless, delegating the enforcement of regulations to an accountable private entity is a common practice, and you'll see it in everything from medicine to logistics.
I think you're looking for an inconsistency where there is none. Requiring Apple and Google to stamp down on subscription traps and scams is not handing more control to them.
I did not say it was "handing" more control to them. I said it was asking them to exert more control.
The ACCC are calling on Google and Apple to clamp down harder on what developers can get away with inside their walled gardens. If Apple and Google comply, this clamping down will be seen as anti-competitive in other contexts and used as evidence against them in other venues.
It is okay to propose multiple directions if they benefit consumers and competition. This isn't what they did. They proposed one direction that benefits consumers at the expense of competition[1], and another direction which benefits competition at the expense of the consumer[2].
[1] Calling on Google and Apple to further clamp down on subscription traps and scams;
[2] Calling on Google and Apple to give up control over the mechanisms which have allowed them to clamp down on malicious financial activity including some (but not all) subscription traps and scams.
In what part of the report do they call on Google and Apple to "give up control over the mechanisms which have allowed them to clamp down on malicious financial activity including some (but not all) subscription traps and scams." ?
The "mechanisms which have allowed them to clamp down on malicious financial activity" are their payment gateways, the rules surrounding their use use, the ability to perform oversight over app payment activity, and the threat (whether actual or perceived) of total banishment if they are caught—particularly in Apple's case where there's no alternative path to customers.
In the same breath, Google and Apple are also being told that these very same mechanisms are a concern to the ACCC.
Hey sorry i don't see how stating these mechanisms are a concern = calling on them to give up control (or "threatening banishment") per your comments. Your comments seem presumptive given the actual content of the preliminary report.
> The ACCC has put forward a series of potential measures in response to its findings, including that consumers be able to rate and review all apps, that consumers have the ability to change any pre-installed default app on their device, that app developers be allowed to provide consumers with information about alternative payment options and that information collected by Apple and Google in their capacity as app marketplace operators be ring-fenced from their other operations.
Does anyone know what power the ACCC has to make these more than just "proposed"? I'm not familiar with it's role in the Australian political system.
I live in the US now but miss having an avenue to pursue if unjustly treated as a consumer. A watchdog with a modicum of actual power is a good thing. A small example: at one point it felt as though mere mention of the ombudsman was enough to sway dodgy phone carriers to acquiesce on minor matters such as billing, misleading advertising etc.
Incidentally, if you have a business registered for GST in Australia you have to submit a quarterly activity statement. The tax office website had bizarre authentication requirements but the browser plugin was at least cross-platform. They now require you to use the myGovID app, which is - you guessed it - available only on the App Store and Play Store. You can't even run a business without being part of the duopoly. https://www.mygovid.gov.au/
When I was in grad school, the university's Student Union provided an extended health insurance plan. To get a reimbursement, you had two options for submitting a claim: (1) Paper forms submitted via the student union or (2) the insurance company's app which was only for Apple devices. The app's only functionality was to facilitate taking a photo (of a receipt) and uploading that photo, along with the user's details. While I've heard that they now have a Google Play app, I still have zero understanding of why they don't simply have a website where one can upload a photo and associated details.
For many people, it's too complicated (as in, they don't know how) to transfer a photo into their computer and then upload it separately. Integrating a camera in the app is far easier.
Nowadays you can trigger the camera app from a website and get the image data directly in your web, making the experience of uploading a photo the same as any installed app.
We're living in a time where if you don't have a mobile phone you can't complete the online form and therefore the transaction becomes impossible. This is even worse if you're on the phone and the person on the other end of the phone that works for the company is the one filling in the digital form.
The fact that its now further embedded in an app. owned by international conglomerates is hardly suprising. They're slowly losing what control they had.
Governments are incapable of doing sensible things involving ever changing technology. There are too many things understood by too few people for sensible decisions to be made, let alone worrying about do these things age well and just add to the behemoth of red tape^H^H^H^H digital bureaucratic cloud storage.
Paper systems didn't have these problems (although they certainly had some disadvantages).
The ACCC is one of Australia's few good independent bodies, but pretty much all of the others have had their funding greatly reduced over time. Whatever good ideas they come up with just get ignored a lot of the time, because corruption pays and ineptitude is normalised. The financial watchdog is basically toothless at this point.
The Robodebt scheme [1] is just one of their recent screwups. Interestingly, there's now something similar that's come to light regarding Post Office budgets in the UK from a few decades ago.
"Governments are incapable of doing sensible things involving ever changing technology."
- I moved to Australia about 4 years ago. I'm pretty convinced that the Australian Gov is much ahead in regards to tech adoption compared to most places in EU and US. In my 4+ years in Oz, I had to visit an offline institution exactly 3 times (you can do almost everything online). Everything's been flawless, super easy and very well integrated - from procuring various docs to submitting a tax return.
- Yes, we can always find something that could be improved; however, if you compare how things are run in Oz to most other countries, you will find out it's much ahead.
Its all fine until you have to complain about something going wrong and it becomes very trying to comply with whatever they need despite it being their fault.
I got stuck in a bureaucratic loop because an OCR reader interpreted a 0 as an 8. The fact that the automated process changed status and started throwing more forms at me, even though none it makes sense in context. Just because it was programmed that way. I still get them. Filling in forms with 0's is easier than dealing with people who insist I should be getting them in the first place (one person worked out what had happened, but transferred me to another department to get it fixed where I inevitably had the internal phone system fail and hang up on me. The horrible hold music/talk experience where they tell you how wonderful everything is just makes me loathe to attempt it again.
These things should happen less when human judgement is involved rather than cause-effect programming.
You may be right though - I can't speak for many overseas systems.
I did also get stuck in the UK tax system. They were sending me threatening letters, ironically I had to fill in multiple years worth of forms to escape the system even though I was in another country, and then they eventually worked out they owed me money.
Then there were the server failures due to load, for a specific online petition. Noone cared, but it was basically due to using old MS technology called Webforms which creates gargantuan data blobs per user/session called ViewState, which ran the servers out of memory. I think the online census submissions process had a similar issue too.
I do agree its nice to deal with these things from home rather than queue in some official building somewhere though.
Maybe I just have a natural tendency to attract flies to bypewriters or something. Maybe I'm bitter because I've built entire sites for the government only for them to throw the lot away once it was done, because the site might make them look bad.
I'm just very aware of the downsides of over-automation. If you're a valid case, but the existing system doesn't cater to you, then you become the problem rather than the system being the problem.
Anyway, I still think its awesome that the ACCC noticed this entanglement and brought it to peoples attention, and are one of the few indepedent bodies left that have some teeth.
Except now people like me will refuse to use phone support and email/mail/tweet their PR/CEO/whoever to resolve the issue, which are all likely more expensive than proper support staff.
Yeah, this works. You feel kind of bad, but you value your time in helping them fix whatever problem you have using their product/service.
Sometimes I've known exactly what the problem is and don't want to jump through the hoops of level 1 help to get to level 2 to get to level 3 which can take hours but can be mitigated by outlining the problem in a public forum you know they have reps montoring, and its resolved in minutes. You can still achieve this reasonably politely and thank them afterwards and its actually a good outcome for both parties.
The most important aspect for me is that most services can be accessed via a web browser, and I see no reason why an app would be a smart choice for a government to deploy going forward. Web apps can achieve everything a native app can for the purposes of government administration.
I think the ACCC actually hasn't been that great for a while, unfortunately. We have awesome consumer protection, but they've made serious missteps more recently, especially under their current commissioner, Rod Simms.
They made a terrible ruling forcing the NBN to have 121 points of interconnect (basically peering POPs) back in 2009 (originally, NBN Co wanted to have 14), to protect the seven or so long-distance fibre providers. In the meantime, these providers merged with each other so now we only have three, and the 121 POI policy made it extremely difficult for smaller ISPs to compete on the NBN, because most couldn't afford transit to all of them, so we saw huge consolidation in the ISP space. So the ACCC ruling directly caused a reduction in competition in the ISP space, and it didn't help prevent what they were trying to prevent in the transit market either!
Then, look to the insanity of the media bargaining code. May have been some coercion from some Government donors behind the scenes there, who knows... But at the end of the day, which there were some legitimate concerns about Google and Facebook, most of their conclusions didn't really make sense (they conflated what actually happens, where Google and Facebook publish a link and one-sentence excerpt as if it was the same as publishing the whole article, and their solution was to force Google and Facebook to pay money to the big media organisations, which just happen to be big donors of the political party in power). The resulting law was so bad that Facebook threatened to pull out of the country altogether and removed news from Australian timelines for a while, until the bill was watered down.
In terms of these policies, the ACCC strikes me as not having a great deal of competence, but at the same having huge delusions of grandeur. I really don't want to see another episode like the tiff with Facebook, where even though Facebook do super scummy things and I generally dislike them, in that circumstance they were absolutely in the right...
I vaguely recall being angry at the ACCC about a bunch of other things over the years, but I can't remember any specifics - will have to try and look it up. I think it was blocking some mergers that wouldn't have reduced competition, but then approving some that posed potential serious damaging consequences to the market etc.
At least there's still a bunch trying to do the right thing by the people as a whole rather than the people currently in charge. I agree the ACCC has been a little hit and miss lately, but its one of the few good things we still have. I'm really hoping they leave medicare alone as much as possible.
Then again, somehow Newscorp got their way vs. facebook/google - only fair the ACCC does too.
You are forgetting the number of democratic countries which forced their COVID app from Appstore/Playstore on their citizens. They came short of calling it mandatory download but mandated the app as entry pass for several services.
You don't use a monopoly powered smartphone? You cannot afford a phone at all? Tough luck buddy(/s).
Only reason these COVID pass apps didn't stick around in the democratic countries is because the apps didn't do what's it's supposed to do; Ironically because the app couldn't be made mandatory download thereby not achieving the critical mass.
Having a web app as well would have been slightly better, especially if it works in feature phones(In several developing countries feature phone usage is lot higher than smartphones even then they didn't publish a web app) but still doesn't help those who doesn't use a phone at all(whatever the reason might be).
Distribute free phones which is capable of running these COVID apps and then the issue comes down to just privacy.
Alternate physical form seems reasonable.
*just : Not to reduce the importance of privacy(EFF commentary in my other comment).
I am not sure why people are shocked that this kind of thing would happen in democratic societies. People seem to have a rose colored view of democracy, and believe it is synonymous with freedom... it is not
Democracies can be just as tyrannical as any other forms of government, doubly true when the people in that democracy have replaced the desire for freedom, with the desire for safety which most societies in the world today have less desire to be free, and more of a desire to be safe; falsely believing they can actually trade freedom for safety.
Not going to name countries and trigger a slugfest. But will include the List of countries with official contact tracing apps[1] and you can search for which services those apps were mandated. EFF commentary on these apps[2].
There's no point to this. If you're going to call out a group for behavior, you should be willing to state their name. You didn't avoid a slugfest, you just confused the issue ye being ambiguous for no reason. The only negative consequences here are a few lost points, and you get that already for making allusions rather than statements with evidence, and providing a list of countries that have tracking apps is not evidence that any of those countries mandated its use.
If the consequences for you are larger than that because you think your country is somehow monitoring your statements, I doubt being vague like this actually helps and you could always supply some other country as evidence, since your statements imply there are multiple.
I presume you haven't read my other comment about the search query. Search for 'COVID app mandatory for' and depending upon your location the results will be either only about your country or the *countries/states which you're asking for.
I assumed the statements I made about COVID app mandatory for services in many countries was a common knowledge. I failed to account that not many keep tabs on stuff happening outside their own country and that many believe the democratic freedoms they enjoy is universal.
Couple of up votes is not worth it to put up with nationalist terrorists. Free speech cannot be taken for granted every where.
My country (Iceland) has an official contact tracing app listed there. It was developed by volunteers and contributed to the government and the source is open on github. Nothing you said applies to it.
Searching for mandatory and required turned up Hong Kong (required the app for entering restaurants) and Qatar (mandated when leaving the house). I don't think this is what OP was refering to.
Please search instead by 'COVID app mandatory for'; depending upon your location the results might vary i.e. if you are from one of those countries then all the search results in the front page would be about just your country and where as if you are not then you will get different countries/states which has mandated COVID app for some service.
If the former is true for you, it didn't mean I meant your country alone in my original comment.
> Please search instead by 'COVID app mandatory for';
In case I can save anyone else the time I spent, I initially read this as op saying that I should search for the phrase 'COVID app mandatory for' in one of the two articles op previously linked [1][2]. This phrase does not show up in either link.
I believe op is suggesting that I google this phrase but I think I already have spent too much time on this.
In India, 3 major tax departments force you into proprietary software via
1. Gst department makes json data which enables third party devs to prepare stuff but government utilities are in "excel" format only.
2. Income tax department had return utilities in "excel" form and also a "Java" which never worked outside of windows. Now they have made a sleek electron app and guess what, windows only.
3. MCA, companies registrar forces users to upload forms in "adobe PDF" because it has inbuilt forms and validation and such. Absolutely no way to use other than windows.
Now, there are around 50 mil taxpayers in India and if the government wanted, they can switch them to Foss products in an instant but Microsoft lobby is huge.
Not that it benefits Microsoft, I for one have never paid for a Microsoft product, thanks to keygens. Still,
Just responding to this comment because all the comments below it seem to be tone deaf and are just complaining about Governments.
BAS (and all tax documents) can still be submitted via a Tax Agent or via Mail. There is no "lock in". Chances are if you own a computer, you own an android and an apple phone, who cares.
However I am still worried that governments basically make us choose between 1/ buying in into this duopoly, or 2/ using slower, decade-old processes. It feels like if you want to stay up to date with society, you actually have no real choice.
I mean, those apps could certainly be open-source and distributed through F-Droid as well. In Republic, these are "public things" after all.
As an Australian overseas I can guarantee you that it is nigh impossible to have dealings with most federal agencies without using that app.
It's one of the few closed source apps I have on my phone and forces me to install a workaround like yalp in order to get it. (playstore requires a google login to use)
There is no reason Apple and Google couldn’t set up an App Store Certification framework which would allow trusted third parties to operate their own app stores that were regularly audited and liable for breaches of security.
In fact, this would be far better than the current approach, where these business units are largely unaccountable and hidden behind layers of corporate complexity (which eventually leads to dysfunction, which eventually leads to slower growth). Apple and Google could then spin off their own in-house app stores into independent units, which might even unlock more value for shareholders as these businesses would be likely to be valued at a much higher multiple than the parent.
This would be a way to get regulators and shareholders to work together to achieve the same end result. JPMorgan, Goldman et al would go nuts over the fees for the “AppStore spin out IPO.” Now that I think about it, that would probably be the biggest IPO since Alibaba, or whatever the last “biggest IPO” was.
Funny thing is, both companies do exactly this to operate in China. The government does not allow companies to run their own app stores, so Apple and Google (and others who have similar kinds of online stores) have to hand over all operations – including app submission, storage, approvals, install etc. to another local government-approved company completely outside their control. They do all this willingly because they have to, and you don't hear a peep about it from them as they fight other governments worldwide who are trying to enforce even the slightest amount of control of their own.
By implying a mandate for auditing and liability, there's no reason to use any terms other than the terms they already attach to the existing app stores. It would just be more of the same policies, just enforced even more arbitrarily as people shop around for which store will erroneously publish their app if the main Apple/Google one doesn't
Apple isn't going to magically endorse the "Code execution, Piracy, and Porn App Showroom".
Google already does this to a certain extent by allowing other app stores and will I think very likely move towards certifying other payment frameworks as app store payments is not a significant revenue stream for them - they'll probably negotiate this as part of an antitrust deal with prosecutors
Apple OTOH seems to depend on this for 15-20% of annual revenue and this is going to be much more difficult for them
This reminds me of the Internet Explorer antitrust issue. Eventually Microsoft had to give users a choice on start up. Not sure if it directly led to better browsers or not, but it certainly didn't hurt. I could see the outcome being the same here where users will get to choose which store(s) they want on their device during setup rather than defaulting to the play or apple store
I feel like we keep getting these inquiries/lawsuits/press releases every year but, literally, nothing gets any better at all.
Every developer KNOWS that Google is extremely abusive towards them solely because of their position in the market yet nothing ever improves. If these are not illegal monopolies, what is?!
Well, the problem is that they aren't monopolies. They may be problematic but we don't have laws or regulations to deal with this specific situation. And when we call it a "monopoly" because that seems to be the closest thing then the defenders of these organizations can say "but it's not a monopoly!" and they are right.
So if you think it is problematic to have two players in a market even when they are on equal footing then you need to promote legislation to make that illegal. Or if you think there's something specifically harmful about this pair of dominant players then those externalities need to be addressed through legislation.
But shouting "monopoly" is, at this point, counter-productive IMHO.
In technical terms, this situation is referred to as a monopsony [0]; the customer can, at any time, go out and purchase apps from other sources. However, app developers cannot choose to "sell" their apps to other retailers, since there are basically only 2.
It's a distinction without a difference in terms of the power they exert, but legally speaking, the distinction is relevant because the types of behaviors that are proscribed (in the U.S., at least) are relatively narrowly defined. This is not the first time these laws would have to be modified to account for shifts in market exploitation practices, nor will it be last.
There is no “Apple market” and “Google market”, there is just one market for apps. The respective app stores are direct sales channels. This direct sales exclusivity (ie. no resellers) exists in many other industries.
The argument is about whether forcing open channel reseller participation is beneficial to consumers. This was done with the American car franchise dealership, which was legally enforced across most states to protect dealers from being competed with by direct sales, and also to prevent pricing and quality shenanigans with repairs in the old days when cars needed constant repairs and there were more car companies that might pull out of a market and leave consumers without a proper repair facility .
But this model has been falling apart from a consumer POV who largely prefer direct sales and repairs these days (see Tesla), and direct sales largely save the customers money (the $ of vehicles is higher with a dealership model).
I suspect folks need to be careful what they wish for. The 30% cut (or near it) will almost certainly be retained in an open store model if the store isn’t otherwise subsidized.
> There is no “Apple market” and “Google market”, there is just one market for apps. The respective app stores are direct sales channels. This direct sales exclusivity (ie. no resellers) exists in many other industries.
I don’t think this holds.
I shop at multiple grocery stores, but only one mobile app store. Apple has a monopoly on sales of apps to iPhone users.
If I sell fruit I can distribute it through multiple channels. If business though one channel sours I can take my business elsewhere.
If I’m an iOS app maker with a popular app I can only distribute it on Apple’s store. If I can no longer distribute my app through Apple’s store then I’m screwed. Apple has a monopoly on the distribution of iOS apps.
Have you followed September's Epic vs Apple hearing? Your statement with grocery store vs app store already doesn't work since for example judge stated to Epic lawyers that Fortnite can be distributed on every platform - iOS, Android, Windows/macOS/Linux, Web and consoles.
If you made an app solely for iOS it was your decision and investment. You could just make it for the Web so every person could access it from any platform.
Closed platforms, as stated by judge to Epic lawyers, are legal types of vertical business. You have Xbox, Playstation and Nintendo with same rules.
If Apple made their way with closed platform from the beginning on mature mobile market the question is why you decided to go to that market (and everyone else) in the first place?
The answer is very simple - on Android most of users are pirating apps, so as developer you won't make a lot of money. Also, in 2008 Apple's 30% tax was unprecedented since in other places it was 50-80%.
Now you, as iOS developer want not to pay Apple's tax but have everything they created - user install base which pays money, push notification services, support and everything else. Just don't want to pay for those services in which Apple invested tens of billions through the years.
From security standpoint - just two weeks ago Android well known third part App Store named APKMirror was installing trojans on user's devices. Do we, Apple users, want same experience? No. That's why most of Google employees/engineers in California and other parts of the world use iPhones and Macbooks.
Thinking about this as "App Stores" doesn't make sense for Apple. Forget App Stores. They tax more than half of the app revenue(!) just via iPhone alone.
General purpose computing is something special and it needs to be defended, because it touches on almost all our civil rights discussions today. Global freedom of speech, privacy, etc... are all in the hands of less than a dozen companies.
Which should start with forcing these devices open (everything from bootloader keys, basic information needed to get Linux running, etc...). I can tolerate Android like I tolerate Windows 10, but the iOS situation is just especially awful.
They're a duopoly that has effectively formed a cartel to abuse their market power. The market power abuse is the illegal part, doesn't matter how many competitors there are.
I agree. Our current laws were not made in the time when these technologies were widespread. Legislation of a new law would be the better solution than trying to classify them as a monopoly.
They seem to be having some effect. Apple seems to have been opening up which may be in response to all the legal pressure.
In recent times they have added the ability to set default apps and opened up the find my network to non Apple devices. These seem like things that wouldn't have happened without the legal pressure.
Do they have any teeth or is it just checkbox ticking exercise to make consumer feel something is being done?
> There is a window of opportunity for Apple and Google themselves to take steps to improve outcomes for app developers and consumers by adopting the potential measures we have identified
Why not just introduce new regulation? Companies will be dragging this as long as they can and reap profits, whereas such organisations continue to take salaries, do pointless meetings and then release more reports how the situation looks bad.
This is basically an opening statement on their view of the world, and puts Apple and Google on notice that this is something the ACCC are interested in.
It is basically a standard way the ACCC announces what they're doing and putting industry on notice.
They did this for comparison sites that had secret sorting/recommendations that weren't in the best interest of the consumer.
They've done this for retailers who didn't abide by Australian Consumer Law on warranties and various disclaimers given in-store.
In most cases there's usually some kind of enforceable agreement reached, sometimes they go to court to enforce compliance.
> "The ACCC has put forward a series of potential measures in response to its findings, including that [...] app developers be allowed to provide consumers with information about alternative payment options [...]"
> "The ACCC is also concerned with restrictions imposed by Apple and Google which mean developers have no choice but to use Apple and Google’s own payment systems for any in-app purchases,” Mr Sims said.
Newsflash: Epic Games relocates operations to Australia
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> "To address this market power, we believe app developers should have more information about how their apps are made discoverable to consumers and that consumers should have the ability to change or remove any pre-installed or default apps."
> The ACCC has put forward a series of potential measures in response to its findings, including that consumers be able to rate and review all apps, that consumers have the ability to change any pre-installed default app on their device [...]
All RIIIGHT!!! No more unremovable bloatware and background services!
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All this hopefulness has me wondering if we could successfully explain the benefits of unlocked bootloaders next. :D
It’s a shame we are reliant on (2) app stores. It would be nice if there was a way to safely implement browser plug-ins that would bring some of the functionality offered by native apps. Not sure if WASM/WASI might save the day here eventually, but the path we’re on now is looking pretty grim if the status quo wins out.
Plenty of web APIs that offer native functionality. Apple will not implement them in Safari for obvious reasons. Apple will also not allow non-Safari browsers for the same reason. Apple knows that even simply allowing Web Push on iOS would noticeably eat into their services revenue.
100%. There's no reason why people can run spreadsheets and word processors and vector design apps on their Mac browsers but have to download a 100mb binary app on their iPhones to order pizza.
Mobile web tech could support the overwhelming majority of use cases without jank with a few key, non-impossible improvements. And they would if there were any incentive for platform owners to do so.
While phone apps fall into the app store trap, browser are also falling into the cloud trap.
Its not enough to run applications on the browser, you need to fix some of the things that make browsers weak giving we need to let go all the information to cloud providers who will then monetize on it somehow.
Years ago i've put myself into this path to build something that could help a little bit on this. I hope this can cover some ground as the future looks bad for everyone else who is not part of the big tech paradise, as outside of it, everything is being sucked by a big straw and dying a long, slow and painful death..
It's important to note that competition law is broader and more broadly enforced than antitrust law in the US. A particularly relevant area for these issues is "Section 46 - Misuse of market power". This is distinct from laws in relation to price fixing, monopolies and merges. The ACCC (and possibly the later, Australian courts) will be trying to answer if Google / Apple are misusing market power as part of this inquiry.
One area that is particularly ripe is "the market for in-app payments". The ACCC would be looking whether it can establish whether under s46:
a) does the company have substantial market power?
and b) is it engaging in conduct for the purpose, effect or likely effect of substantially lessening competition?
More info is available here: https://www.accc.gov.au/business/anti-competitive-behaviour/...
s46 - Misuse of market power was revised for easier enforcement/litigate under in 2017, and you can see a list of active cases include a case from Epic Games vs Apple and Unlockd Ltd v Google (Filed in Australia):
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=34d307e2-1d63...
It is a BIG deal for a private company to take action under s46. There used to only be a couple cases every decade.
It is possible that an undertaking or court-order that could emerge out of this inquiry would require Google/Apple to make it easier for apps to accept in-app payments from providers other than Google and Apple in Australia.
As far as I know, the USA does not have an equivalent area of law, and if it does, it certainly is not enforced.
*disclosure: I worked at the ACCC 2008-2011 and these are opinions of my own.
And they are doing that world wide. Why does the world need to adopt what Apple and Google think is appropriate? Like two companies defining basically what apps we can use according to the political correctness in USA!
I hear praise of current standards which just makes me laugh. The standards are pathetic. Just look at any other industry. There are always detailed rules and you will be told when you break them with great accuracy. The inquisition had higher standards than these.
I honest to god can't develop software or run any business if I cant rule out faceless executive punishment without clarification. I cant even take web development all that seriously with googles dictatorship.
I believe this to the the right analogy:
Imagine building a brick and mortar store before asking for permission to open it. You get the permission but move some shelves around and buy a new carpet. You get a letter from Acme Corporation: We don't like something! Your business is hereby terminated. You naively reply and ask why? Is it the shelves? Then they visit you, wack you over the head with an AK47 and burn the place to the ground.
Outside there are people cheering the purification.
Its interesting that they talk about the "App Stores" and not the operating systems. If our phones could run open operating systems we would have no problem with the app stores.
I have worked on many mobile app development projects, and I am grateful that google and apple try to protect the consumer. App devs are in full control of the stack in the app, and it is very easy to unintentionally (or intentionally) handle your data insecurely. For example, app devs can disable https communication with their own external APIs, secretly transmit your data on their own servers, harvest your data from other apps like contacts, and build on buggy/sketchy/outdated middleware. And, there is typically no visibility for the user. Yes - same is true for desktop apps. I appreciate Apple's recent moves to make this more transparent. More needs to be done. It is much harder (not impossible) to maliciously handle your data in browsers because of standard security features (like the green lock icon when https is enabled) and powerful dev tools to examine network communication and code libraries. After building many apps, I tend to only install apps from companies that have commercial pressure to handle my data properly.
Google and apple are not securing your data. Any app on your phone that uses the internet already talks to an external API. And they can sell your data to anyone at any time without google/apple ever knowing about it. And that's normal. https doesnt really do much to make your data secure. But google/apple arent even needed to force apps to use https. Your phone can just say it's required by default. Google/apple are just pretending they do something for you, it's just all about control, so they can have all the profit. It's basically the same as the government saying they do not allow any other foodstores other than storeX. Because other stores might sell you food that's poisoned or expired. So to protect u, we dont allow any other stores. And storeX can just decide what the price is, what food you're allowed to buy, etc etc. It's shit. You dont want this.
Can you have third-party Android app stores and access to all of Google services that have the same level of ease of access?
Nope. If adding a third party app store was so easy Epic wouldn't be suing Google the same as they are suing Apple.
I used to be a staunch supporter of Apple and Google as gatekeepers of their own respective ecosystems but the more I watch them botch the management of those ecosystems (from not stopping malware as promised, automation banning valid apps with days/weeks/months before resolution/restoration, app banning for political reasons that are questionable, etc) it's clear that an open marketplace is still the best solution.
Time to level the playing field and update antitrust laws to account for more modern times.
This is just another clear example of Google refusing to fulfill their responsibilities.
Of course, if someone violated the rules they should also be entitled to know exactly which rules was violated, and exactly what is wrong with their implementation.
The fact that Google refuses to provide this information is a strong indication that Google is not acting with the best of intentions, and that is something that is worth looking into.
Preferably we should push towards more open systems that does not rely on centralized "app stores"; of course, be it Google Play store or Apple's App Store, the fact that they can just block apps they do not like is extremely problematic. There has to be other ways to install apps, without using these centralized mechanisms.
Apple does use this monopoly to their advantage. You can ask the developers whose IP has been stolen and their app (money taken out of their wallets) taken off the AppStore because Apple decided to incorporate the app function and ability into iOS or an Apple app.
Apart from the article, I am pretty sure a lot of the arguments against the AppStore would disappear if Apple just paid more to the developers and reduced it's cut. I hope they find a good middle ground, we definitely need an App Store for the majority of the users out there, something that is relatively safe and allows for massive distribution but also keeps out a lot of malicious actors (its not perfect but its better than a lot of other options). It would be nice if developers also got paid a lot more.
Honestly I don't see how they can justify more than a few percent cut. They offer no value in terms of discoverability anymore, app stores essentially only serve the purpose of a file host.
But even if they were only taking a 5% cut, I think the argument still stands that they have a negative impact on consumers in that they decide what the hardware you bought is and isn't allowed to do. Apple can invalidate entire business models if they disallow an app on their store, and an entrepreneur can spend millions developing a business only to have it rendered inviable by a change to the terms and services which can be made over night without warning.
All of this could be solved by allowing side-loading. It wouldn't even have to be made easy to do - go ahead and bury it deep in the settings behind a bunch of scary warnings. But I see no excuse for not allowing this at all.
1. most Android phones I've seen let you install other app stores. the OS is built to support running additional app-stores. it takes a manufacturer being cruel to mess this liberty up on Android.
2. i can run other browsers on Android. iOS does not allow any form of competing web technology to exist on their platform. iOS makes everyone showing web content use Safari. on Android, i can use Google's app store to load other browsers which are free to support different sets of online technologies. on Apple's platforms, i will always be restricted in connecting to others with whatever means Apple affords me in their Safari browser.
of the two entities, i only see one company engaged in outright anti-competitive behaviors. i would like to see both reduced in presence & dominance, yet i myself also often use Google's Play Store on my Android devices, and only occasionally reach out to the alternatives like F-droid. but i know, i expect & i do use these fallback stores on Android. and i do run other browsers. i would never considering buying an anti-consumer anti-competitive device like an Apple product, because sometimes good software does have a hard time making it through the gauntlet of approval & i do not want that constraint. i would not consider buying an anti-consumer anti-competitve device like an Apple product, because sometimes there are interesting new web & online standards & protocols & forever being limited to what Safari does is incredibly constraining. i would like to use Play Store less, but i am glad that the ecosystem it's built upon does not deliberately exclude all alternatives.
A friend of mine got a system76 computer and was shopping for speakers. Their partner had used iOS since they were a teen and never used anything non-apple. Their partner was so confused that you could buy any speaker, it just works, and freaked out at the choices. It was very interesting.
F-droid tends to fill the gap for Andriod, but not enough developers sending their apps there. I guess when there's no monetary incentive, it's only the open source crowd that will participate
Fdroid was the thing I missed most about moving to ios. Sure, it had a limited app selection and the apps were basic. But every app on fdroid had a really wholesome feel to it, like the app devs have made this just for you to enjoy and not to try to squeeze money from you.
Now on the app store, absolutely everything is crammed with adverts, tracking IAPs, and subscriptions. I can't just install an app and expect it to work because there is always some catch that ruins it.
F-droid also has the sane condition that all apps it distributes need to be built from source on its build infra (basically all Linux distros require the same).
While really good for security and debugging I can imagine it can be complicated to suport for many less experienced developers used to cooling stuff together in an Android IDE where a binary APK falls out at the end that they then upload to the store.
We’ll me too but if there is an alternative I can still direcr my business to Apple’s store.
On the Mac I avoid the store if it’s possible to download directly from the developer so that they don’t have to pay a cut. If there were an alternative Mac App Store I would avoid it too like the plague.
I avoid the Microsoft store on Windows but I use Steam all the time. I've also used Steam on MacOS for those few games that run on MacOS that I wanted to play.
I'd can see myself using other stores on iOS depending on the store. If Steam existed on iOS I'd certainly consider it, especially if buying a game that ran across platforms included the iOS version.
I use the MS store for MS software. But avoid Steam if I can as well as they also take a substantial cut (Although this does mean I still get a lot through steam).
Although they're more flexible, if a game sells you a CD-key outside the store (eg on Humble, through promotions, etc) they don't take a cut. Steam only gets it when it's through the Steam store.
These proposed changes don't prevent that. The Australian government just wants the stores to be more clear with developers about what is going on.
There is an endless stream of Android and iOS devs saying their app got dropped without warning and the support person refuses to explain or respond to them. That's just unacceptable when an app being removed has the ability to break a business.
There will also be the fragmentation that you see with streaming services today; apps will choose an app store, there will be exclusivity deals; your kid will install a pirate app store to get games filled with deceptive crap in them for free, etc.
Yep it neatly organizes everything with subscriptions and vetted apps into a single location. Can't ask for more. The only people that want out of it is people who want a bigger rev cut, to bypass app store rules and infect devices.
This is not unreasonable. Apps like netfix and spotify can not possibly pay the Apple cut and stay competitive with apples own services which pay nothing.
Not a single user is going to pay 30% extra to listen to the same music.
When you install the app they throw you on a screen that says "You can't continue via the app. Yes, we know it sucks"
They aren't allowed to tell you how to subscribe, they can just say you must and it can't be done in the app. While on Apples own services, it just uses your already filled payment details.
According to this reasoning Apple could make the app store optional and (except for "people who want a bigger rev cut, to bypass app store rules and infect devices") every user would continue to choose the app store. I suppose the reasoning further leads to the conclusion that there is no point in giving users a choice because they would all choose the app store anyway. I do not subscribe to this reasoning. If there was a non-app store option I would choose it and I doubt I am the only such user. Among many potential benefits, a non-app store repository might give me the ability to install/remove old versions of apps on older devices.
I want out because Apple doesn't approve the apps I want to use. Everything from emulators to cloud gaming (Xbox Game Streaming and Google Stadia) and alternative browser engines (all browsers are just Safari skins on iOS) are blocked by Apple because of their app store rules. These types of apps being blocked by Apple does not benefit anyone but Apple.
The bigger problem is the amount of PII they demand from users to install even free apps.
I should be able to install free apps on my device without giving up my name, address, email, phone number, and device serial number. Apple's App Store requires all of these.
What Apple should do is charge users $10 to turn off competing app stores, since from posts like this it seems to be worth so much to users to have them locked out.
Honestly I am for a single store and for pushing all things through Apple Pay etc etc (send your hate of my fanboyism to email in my profile). But…
It seems this is a fight not worth dying for. Sure Apple and Google will fight and spend millions on lawyers but ultimately whether they win in court they’ll likely lose the next time legislation gets passed. Better to instead be thinking about the next must have gadget or service to further their business than the AppStore.
Note that Australia fought the entire cigarette industry in multiple courts and won. I think they deal with tech companies. As long as they don't send any Emus.
can we get apple/google to factory unlock bootloaders too? how about x64 chipset options instead of locking down their phones with arm?
i’m kind-of not kidding, either — more asking. is there precedent for governments being able to force companies to completely open up their systems to whatever the courts define as “competitive?”
Why does half of HN seem intent on ruining the iPhone for the rest of us?
The explicit selling proposition of the iPhone is that it is a closed ecosystem. I and my family buy it for precisely this reason.
If you want a choice about what you install, you can have it! It's called Android, and hundreds of phone manufacturers are lining up to sell you a compatible handset. Leave us with the one phone manufacturer who has managed to reliably deliver a mostly safe and secure handset.
That's not why my family bought iPhones; they shouldn't be stuck with anticompetitive app store practices because they have iPhones.
Eg. My mother can't use any apps because she doesn't trust apple with her credit card number, and since you can't use the app store for free apps without a credit card, she uses no apps on her phone
Because at their size, developers cannot ignore them, and Apple is hurting developers by forcing their rules on them. That's what it means to have monopoly power or dominance as this article calls it.
Anything legitimizing loss of user control over hardware and peddling proprietary walled garden as something good and desirable is simply immoral, dangerous for the future of Humanity and should not be legal.
