That's clearly an exaggeration. Apple's control over the app store is absolute and in combination with the side-loading ban so is their control over the apps users can install on their devices. These restrictions go far beyond protecting users against security or privacy threats if you think of porn for instance.
Google/Facebook/Twitter's dominance over the Web is not absolute. You can still publish anything that is legal in your jurisiction. It may not be easy to get found, but that's still a _lot_ more freedom than asking a gatekeeper for permission to publish in the first place. Google/Facebook/Twitter is not the only way to find things on the Web either, and they are not one single company.
The Chinese regime cannot simply tell Google or anyone else to take Wikipedia off the Web for showing Taiwan on a map or something. But they can order Apple to take down all secure VPN apps that users could use to read Wikipedia or hand over the iCloud keys of Chinese users, and that's what Apple will do.
And here in the U.S. the Google story today includes not just the services they provide for free, both also the personal data they collect and correlate.
My point here is not whether Google or Apple is better, my point is that since 2010, we have collectively learned that the web is not as open or resistant to surveillance and censorship as it once seemed it would be. Again: there are trade-offs, and some folks look at those trade-offs differently a decade later.
That's undeniably true, but it doesn't mean that anyone exercises "at least the same level of gatekeeping" on the Web as Apple does on Apple devices.
And Google operating or not operating in China is beside the point. I'm talking about the structure of the Web, not about Google specifically. That's why I said "or anyone else". No private company owns the Web like Apple owns the only iOS distribution channel.
And finally it‘s a pointlessly circular argument if we‘re talking about whether or not gatekeeping on the Web is stronger than on iOS.
You’ll have to hold my beer while I wipe away my tears about all of the money that they have to pay Apple.
Surprisingly enough, the whining only happens from geeks who probably don’t even have skin in the game.
If developers are so interested in getting from under the 30% tax, where are all of the indy developers who are making money on Android outside of the Google Play store outside of China?
Google doesn't make side-loading easy either. It comes with a ton of warnings, but some high profile apps and games have started using it anyway.
I didn't mean to start another debate about the obviously dysfunctional market that is mobile app stores though. My point was about the loss of freedom and privacy that results from the side-loading ban.
That didn’t work out too well for consumers.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/08/fortnites-android-vu...
Also, if either were keeping developers from innovating, you should see a lot of successful, popular apps outside of Google Play.
The fact is, that 80% of phones out there can escape a walled garden and the 30% cut, but still anyone interested in getting visibility or making money chooses to be on Google Play.
How many people whining about the 30% cut on HN actually have a successful product that would be more successful if it weren’t for Apple’s fee?
Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. today dominate the web and exercise at least the same level of gatekeeping over your visibility to customers as Apple does with their app store. Back in 2010 you could build a Facebook page for your business, and post messages that your fans would see. Can't do that anymore; buy some FB ads please. Google's search results quality continues to decline, and their ads continue to be harder and harder to distinguish. And if you anger them, you might just disappear from their service.
2010 was also before Snowden, before general awareness of the data collected by social apps, before Cambridge Analytica, before a thousand data breaches. Privacy is more important to people now, and one thing about walled gardens is that they are more private... that's why the original physical walled gardens were built.
It's not that walled gardens are ideal; it's that everything has a trade-off, and those trade-offs look different in 2020 than they did in 2010.
A lot of this is not specifically about the iPad, and in retrospect maybe the most obvious reaction to this piece is to laugh at the idea that the iPad was some important place to draw a line. Tablets are still great--and used by a lot of poeple--but they ended up being kind of a side story. The iPhone was the real turning point. Not just for Apple, but for many industries.