I don't understand why there isn't appetite to simply regulate them out of controlling what software you put on your device.
I've been using Macs my whole life (since the early nineties) and I'm as loyal a user as anyone. I've given them probably enough money to put down a downpayment on a small house. Behavior like this will drive me away if it cannot be addressed, even if it means I have to go to china to find a better hardware vendor.
Maybe someone will. Either way, such a move would break their business model, and you'd end up with just another android which is not what the market wants (because if they did, Apple would have gone out of business already).
I was looking for an earlier thread (which also involved Nokia and Windows Mobile) which shows the sort of timelines/cascading effects you'd have where vendors generally either become overly generic or just outright fail (i.e. BlackBerry). When I'll find it I'll edit and add it here.
Edit: didn't find it yet, but there are variations on appliance vs. general purpose hardware where things like smart TVs and android phone bootloaders are used as similar examples. I wish I had a better timeline search for threads.
That is an interesting take, so basically in your opinion the main thing that makes iOS better than Android is that Apple has tighter control over the apps? What I've heard from most iOS users is other things like smoother interface, better battery life, great camera etc. I've never heard "I like iPhone because Apple moderates the App Store" from laymen (i.e. non-HN crowd).
I’ll chime in as one of them (and in every thread about this many more people do as well) - it’s one of the many things I like about an iPhone, the tighter control and gate keeping Apple does on the App Store. I like not having to worry so much on the App Store or wade through scams etc (I know there’s not none but seems less and it’s easy to find the apps I want) and for my parents and less tech savvy friends it’s great
But personally it comes down to it’s a phone not a computer to me and I don’t want to or care if I can run “anything” on it.
I love the tight control Apple keeps on the app store, just last week it forced an app update on me that deleted all my OTP keys, because the OTP app was bought by some malware vendor and I didn't get prompted that this prior personal project was now controlled by a literal scam artist company prior to them pushing an update. Their commitment to safety goes so far I can neither inspect the data saved by the app nor look at the app binary itself, can you help me understand how that makes the iPhone app store secure?
The lack of scam apps and crappy clones is the only real advantage that appeals to me. On the Play store you can type in the exact name of an app that someone has told you and it'll show you a whole page of fake and copycat apps.
Look up any popular game, although a lot of the bigger ones are good about reporting their clones and getting them removed. An immediate example I can think of is 2048, the original by Gabriele Cirulli, is published by Solebon LLC on the Play store, when you look for 2048 using the search, it's not even the first result that comes up. Although to be fair to them, it's not the first that comes up on the apple store either.
Do you think 4096 is different from 2048? It is not developer friendly if they stop something similar publishing. And it already leck of creative, like just only can use gpt4o on iPhone.
Its also a myth. Apple has so much trash in app store… including scams and direct decompiled copies of apps. Its probably better than Google Play but lets not pretend they care about the app quality - otherwise they wouldnt be banning and kicking high quality apps left and right.
It’s not a myth. Every week my parents or children request I’d remove malware or adware from their android device that they installed. On my other children’s tablet or family iPhone this has never been a problem once.
I love that Apple has a tight control over the App Store, but I would love to just shove whatever I want on a device I own and if it blows up on me, more the fool I.
I think we’d have to ask some non-technical people about this really, but I think there’s a nebulous perception that the Apple App Store is, like, somehow safer and good, while the Google one is somehow less safe and not good. The specific details, not so well understood.
> so basically in your opinion the main thing that makes iOS better than Android is that Apple has tighter control over the apps?
What Apple loves to make us believe is that Vendor, AppStore and ContentFilter are not three entirely orthogonal concepts that can be totaly separated from each other.
Why do you think the battery life is better?! Do people not get cause and effect? Ability to deny crap apps and ability to control what can run in background surely helps!
I'd argue that your latter point (optimizing background apps) is majority of the improvement and this is something you can do in the OS regardless of where an app comes from (excluding rooted/jailbroken devices from scope).
This would've been a reasonable argument if Apple only ever denied apps because they did stupid things, not because they offered a payment gateway that did not pay Apple commission. Lets not pretend that Apple's control is only about curating an experience for the user, it is very significantly about maximizing profit as well.
As a side note, I've always understood that just stock iOS is way more optimized than stock Android simply because of better engineering. However, this is anecdotal and I don't have any references as such.
There are other reasons to buy an iPhone. I loathe the App Store’s restrictions, and this is a showstopper for me regarding the iPad, which would’ve been Alan Kay’s Dynabook if it weren’t for being limited to the App Store. However, I’m willing to tolerate a restricted app environment on a phone, though I wouldn’t mind a less restrictive experience. Ignoring the App Store, I find iOS to be more polished than Android, and I also like how Apple provides OS updates for its iPhones for roughly five years. I’m on my third iPhone (a 14 Pro) after using an SE and a 7; I switched to the iPhone SE after two years of using a Google Nexus, which I loved and was disappointed when Google discontinued it.
Tight control isn't the only thing that defines iOS. I hate Google (and on my android phones i don't log in with a Google account). I would go with apple for more privacy. But their strict control of the platform is unacceptable for me.
This is the problem with the current duopoly. Both options are pretty terrible.
I think it's great what the EU is doing though they're leaving too many loopholes for Apple to weasel through. And I think they should be attacking Google much harder.
Non-technical iOS users probably don't give a flying crap and would not even know if it was possible to download a PC emulator from a third party app store. The iPhone does lots of things right, and having some obscure options which only the technical crowd cares about will not change that.
To become another Android iOS would have to be licensed to other vendors and appear on cheaply made devices dragging its name through the mud.
If you want to be able to run your software, on your device, buy an Android or Linux or even Windows device. Anything but Apple. The dollars don't lie: for some reason, people want to be controlled.
Except they don't. Some might and they seem intent on telling everybody else how it's the best option for them. Just let me install whatever I want. My choice if it explodes.
Being fluid device with zero (non-Apple) spyware and sane default with UI/UX that don’t change every major release while providing ecosystem that has literally no competitors in sight, but yeah, it’s definitely walled garden that is a main differentiator. Facepalm
I'm having trouble finding the perfect way to articulate the idea, so here's the half-assed version.
Whatever it is that I, and everyone, likes about iPhones/iPads, it has absolutely nothing to do with Apple deciding that I'm too stupid to get to override what software to install on it.
EU DMA was supposed to do exactly that, which is why they're talking about Notarization, but Apple is maliciously half-complying. The good news is that the DMA also has specific legal penalties for this kind of half-compliance[0], the bad news is that the EU is a slow and bureaucratic organization so who knows when that will actually be enforced.
[0] oddly enough called "anti-circumvention provisions", which is fucking hilarious
But when you don't have trust, trade doesn't happen.
It's ironic. When apple first introduced the ios app store (decades ago) I thought "wow, they will protect me from the nonsense". But over time I learned, they don't really protect, there is still nonsense, and further they remove the ability to protect myself from the nonsense (you can't firewall your phone or detect/prevent network access by apps)
> I don't understand why there isn't appetite to simply regulate them out of controlling what software you put on your device.
I think this is what the EU is basically doing but Apple is trying to work around that by minimally implementing 3rd party app stores in a way that still gives them control to see if they can get away with that (they probably won't be able to).
Because media and game console publishers don't want you to be able to run games they haven't distributed (because they force game developers to work with game publishers, and game publishers to agree to all sorts of terms), or programs that can access media and games in a way they don't want you to.
If you think Apple is bad, wait until you see Sony's terms for publishing a crossplatform game on Playstation (Xbox is a bit better.) The agreement they force publishers to sign has all sorts of stipulations, including rules that require payments when PSN users spend more on the PC version of a game than they do the Playstation version, and a prohibition on moving purchased cosmetics to accounts on other platforms.
Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft - all of them would be dead set against third party stores. So would all the media conglomerates (that Sony doesn't own.)
Many software developers would also be against it. If you sell an app on the iOS store, you're virtually guaranteed it won't be pirated. That guarantee goes away the second iOS devices can use third party stores and run any app.
That TPM chip in every x86 system? That isn't there for you, friend (although now it can be used to store FDE keys.) TPM was for storing the keys to decrypt media files.
People seem to keep forgetting that many of the security systems in MacOS and Windows aren't designed for your security, but the security of licensed content.
if you have to distribute via website or alternative app store, everybody can always have a known person to be responsible for piracy, in addition, it is just as easy to block as apps in apple's app store
sony is not yet a gatekeeper, might be in the future... apple does not have to sell in Europe, if it does, and big enough (no need to be monopoly) to be a gatekeeper, law and rules say they operate a critical infrastructure/platform in the EU economy and hence they cannot tax developers (a country has such powers)
the question is not whether Apple has to change but a question might be why? this is the field of monopolistic power and competition law... monopoly profit is not inherently bad, can help innovation but along the way we figured out it is probably best to curb this power in the long run
Apple had its time of their life and to be honest, I see little meaningful innovation in the last 5+ years, however, they suppress competition and innovation in the economy, controlling a gateway between innovative developers and users
another aspect is consumer prices... should consumers get lower prices or let apple take monopolistic tax from them? of course lower prices seems to be better nd it is one goal... however, we should and we do allow success and monopolistic profit by each and every big innovation, in the beginning and Apple has already had that
it is a bit like an economy supports patent law and competition law at the same time
most people are motivated by financial success and most company pay research and innovation for potential monopolistic profit and this works and it is protected! however, competition law or new forms of it like DMA kicks in later on
it is like you innovate, use patents, get big money but if you grow big you are not allowed to become like all companies become if not controlled: shifting from competitive innovative power to a country like taxing power
I think it is correct that we need competition law too, if we really think about our past, economics, history, and what motivates people
They were like this from the first Mac. Woz wanted the Mac to be open like the Apple II, but Jobs wanted it closed. Jobs won. That's how Apple has been ever since. The crazy days of Mac clones got shut down quick upon Jobs' return. It is just not in the Jobs' Apple's DNA to be open. Why this is confusing to anyone is just a sign of not understanding history. If you want open, Apple is not your platform. That's fine, move along. It's a dead horse.
Because to non-technical people, iPhones are a sparkling clean oasis in deceitful confusing crime ridden cryptic hell-hole.
You might think I am simping for Apple, but my stance is identical to yours. However I have the situation in my life of being surrounded primarily regular people. I don't live in a tech bubble or work in a tech job. My rants against apple are notorious, and I have largely stopped, because I can see how ignorant yet still apathetic people are about it.
Just a short story to encapsulate it:
On a recent trip with lots of friends we ended using my phone for most group shots and other nice pictures. The Pixel's camera really does shine.
However when it came time to share those pictures, I informed everyone it would be best to get google photos where we could all dump the hundreds of pictures into one communal album. This was quickly met with "What? I don't want to deal with that, why don't we just share them the regular way?" (imessage).
The greatest thing I ever did to help non technical people is to make sure they all have adblockers. I can only install ublock on android firefox and this is why I never recommend iphones. Too much malvertisement crap that apple won't let me block.
Orion browser for iOS allows both chrome and firefox extensions to be installed on iphones. (for now anyway, I'm sure apple will yeet them whenever they find out about it)
You need to change some settings first, but it worked when I put the firefox version of ublock origin on a phone.
I have my DNS on my android phone set to dns.adguard.com, which has the benefit of blocking ads in even "free" apps/games that are littered with them. This works even on mobile data, so it's better than even a pihole.
I wanted to do the same to my boyfriend's iPhone after seeing him sit through probably a dozen ads in one sitting with all the free games he has downloaded, but I found out that Apple literally does not allow you to change your DNS for mobile networks, and you have to manually change it for each wifi network. Weird for a company that claims to prioritize "privacy".
My understanding from Brave is that this year Google is essentially disabling v2 add-ons, but the code will still be in Chromium (for other things Google does), so Brave can just re-enable it.
But Brave expects that Google will actually pull the code out of Chromium next year -- when that happens, it is unlikely anyone else will have the time to maintain patches to put it back in.
> However when it came time to share those pictures, I informed everyone it would be best to get google photos where we could all dump the hundreds of pictures into one communal album. This was quickly met with "What? I don't want to deal with that, why don't we just share them the regular way?" (imessage).
My family, including myself, all have iPhones. We’ve done exactly this for our family trips to the Black Hills and Ozarks over the last couple years, but we just share them with Apple’s shared albums. It works exactly the same as Google’s shared albums but with the iMessage and other iOS/macOS integration niceties. That could be why your family didn’t want to download another app to do what’s “already built in” to the phone, so to speak.
Just speculating, you know your family better than I ever could obviously.
They are not even aware that iMessage or Apple shared albums are even an iPhone exclusive feature. They don't even know what iMessage is. The whole iPhone experience is so seamless that for me to suggest alternate apps doesn't even make sense. Like telling someone they need to get a coffee maker when they have a brand new keurig right in front of them. The statement is more confusing than informative to them.
To them, the reason I can't send them pictures is because Android phones suck. Which they complain about with "Anytime an android sends me a picture it looks like shit".
I've been using Macs my whole life (since the early nineties) and I'm as loyal a user as anyone. I've given them probably enough money to put down a downpayment on a small house. Behavior like this will drive me away if it cannot be addressed, even if it means I have to go to china to find a better hardware vendor.