It's predatory and anti-consumer. Apple can eat shit.
Oops! Apple Bad, Google Good? ;)
It is much more difficult to distribute apps from outside the original store when compared with desktop platforms. Changing this would be a good thing for users and developers alike, for both Android and iOS.
At least you can get other app stores on Android.
Sigh. I guess we're going to remove a product category (the relatively safe, very consistent, managed platform you can use when you just want to use a computer and not also manage a computer) and call that consumer choice, then? I'd prefer instead that more companies make something similarly-nice and compete with Apple. I have lots and lots of options I can use if I want to have to worry about a bunch of silly stuff like "will this .exe or 3rd-party repo pwn me?" or "is this payment prompt fake?" when I'm just trying to play the piano, make art, track recipes, balance my books, or whatever. I use them all the time, in fact. When I don't want to worry about that crap I use iOS. It's nice having any option in that category. I do not want to go back to having zero of them. I don't care that 3rd party browsers on it have to render with the WebKit engine. Not even a little.
Or were consumers free to keep using Google search the same way they always had, and was there literally no downside at all to the people who wanted to keep using Google?
Nobody is talking about forcing you to sideload apps. If you want to stay in your walled garden, stay there. But the rest of us should get a choice.
There are a bunch of people on HN arguing simultaneously that:
A) Consumers want Apple's walled garden and Apple is meeting their needs,
and
B) The option to install apps from a 3rd party source would immediately cause consumers to jump ship from Apple's official store, and there would be no incentive for companies to release apps on the official store, and security on the device would be ruined forever.
Both of those arguments can't be true at the same time. If you're providing a service that consumers want, you don't have to force them into it. If forcing consumers not to sideload apps is the only reason why consumers use Apple's store, then maybe that's a good sign that consumers don't want what Apple is providing.
If consumers do want what Apple is offering, if consumers do want a unified storefront with strict moderation for everything, then there'll still be plenty of market pressure for most commercial apps to release on the official store.
> and
> B) The option to install apps from a 3rd party source would immediately mean that consumers all jump ship from Apple's official store and there would be no incentive for companies to release apps on the official store, and security on the device would be ruined forever.
> Both of those arguments can't be true at the same time. If you're providing a service that consumers want, you don't have to force them into it. If forcing consumers not to sideload apps is the only reason why consumers use Apple's store, then maybe that's a good sign that consumers don't want what Apple is providing.
The reason this looks like a contradiction is because it's not the actual position.
Mine, at least, is that 1) yes to A, and I'm not speculating, I personally feel that way as an iOS user, but then 2) no, on B: the concern isn't that users will jump ship from the App Store (I don't care, why would I?) but that developers will (and that I care about).
What is the practical difference to you, as a user, between:
A) Not being able to install Fortnite because it's only available on a third-party iOS storefront,
and
B) Not being able to install Fortnite because it's not available on iOS.
If apps jump ship from the official store, you personally as a security-conscious user won't be able to install them. But if apps jump ship from iOS, you also won't be able to install them. So who cares if developers move off the official iOS store? Aren't they already free to do so today?
----
I'm going to go out on a limb and say the difference is that (deep down) we all know that Epic is right, and Apple really is one half of a duopoly -- a half that controls over 50% of the entire mobile app store revenue in the US -- and that it would be insane for an app like Fortnite to drop iOS. I think the difference between the scenarios above is that (deep down) both you and I know that Fortnite isn't really free to abandon iOS as a platform, and that the stranglehold iOS has over the market is the only reason apps like Fortnite are on iOS in the first place.
We know that given the choice, consumers and developers would both choose a more open device. And we know that the only reason the closed ecosystem works at all is because many developers and users don't have a realistic choice about whether or not to accept Apple's terms.
The reason people see the two scenarios I list above as different is because, yeah, all of us on HN do actually know that Fortnite doesn't really have the option to walk away from Apple devices, and without a 3rd-party store Epic will be forced to agree to pretty much any terms that Apple requires -- they have no negotiating power. And once we admit that, then it becomes a lot more obvious why developers are asking for some kind of regulation around app store policies.
If dropping iOS and supporting only Android or PC was actually a realistic, sufficient option for most developers, then you wouldn't be worried that they'd all jump ship the moment they had a 3rd-party store as an option on iOS -- those developers would have already left the Apple app store (and iOS) behind.
I also think smaller-time developers are underestimating the degree to which Apple's iOS market is attractive precisely because of the equilibrium brought about by that situation, and the overall value it brings to the user, and their consequent willingness to spend money there, as they cheer Epic on. Maybe I'm wrong and none of the market-creating rules Apple's enforced have anything to do with it, but I suspect too many tweaks may not kill that golden goose, but might well reduce its rate of egg-laying.
As I've repeated many times here, now, though, I'd love to see more platforms compete with iOS. Not with the app store. With iOS and its overall ecosystem.
Isn't that a contradiction? App Store _IS_ "its overall ecosystem".
Interesting. Won't you agree that before 1 and 2 there is an implied 0 - must be Android or iOS (so that it can run Uber, Amazon etc)?
EDIT: maybe you misunderstood when I said "anything else doesn't matter". What I mean by that is that if $device cannot run "common" apps then it is a no-go. However, if it can then people look at 1 and 2 for sure, you're right there.
Here's a better suggestion:
Stop Apple abusing their platform to force their customers to use their own book store by making others impractical.
Stop Apple abusing their monopoly to force their customers to use one browser.
Stop Apple abusing their monopoly to gouge everyone that wants to be on their platform with a 30% fee on every transaction (10% would be more reasonable, 3% a bare minimum to cover costs).
Except the browser thing—that's already fine IMO, and I think keeping other browser engines off is very nice because it keeps the Electron-type riff-raff out of the store, among other reasons, and besides it's just the browser engine that's restricted. Again, what I'd rather see is another iOS-like OS & platform come on the market, also only one browser engine allowed, but for that browser engine to be better than Mobile WebKit, forcing Apple to improve or at least giving me another option in the same product category as i-devices, but with a browser engine I like better.
Apple don't keep other browsers off to keep electron out or make things safer, it is to ensure they have complete control of the web platform, which otherwise is a viable alternative to their app store, just the sort of alternative you're suggesting in fact.
Capitalism needs regulation to work well, if unregulated, it very quickly gives rise to robber barons and bullying of both consumers and smaller companies. Unfettered capitalism leads to monopolies, coercion and rent-seeking.
FWIW I’m all for regulating the hell out of anything with a corporate charter. As far as I’m concerned the deal they made when they asked us to let them have the privileges of incorporation is that we can do whatever we like to them, should we decide it’s in our interest, and if they don’t like it no-one’s forcing them to keep those protections. Half the reason I’m so keen on iOS‘ particular model of software distribution to begin with is because we haven’t regulated massive-scale collection of personal data out of existence. Give me that and I’ll join you to burn the last iPhone on a bonfire, or whatever. That’d be wonderful.
Isn't the point here that Apple could still provide good security features in iOS and still provide their app store with whatever security or other vetting measures they consider appropriate and allow users to install software from other sources if they so wish?
Users who want Apple's version of safety and security can stick with the default configuration on their devices and install apps only from Apple's store, just like today. However, both they and Apple would pay a price if the Apple app store was then too restrictive in its policies and/or tried to charge excessively: developers who weren't prepared to provide their apps on those terms could sell them through other stores.
Then for those apps, Apple wouldn't get their cut, while users who insisted on sticking with only Apple's store wouldn't have the same range of apps available to them. However, no other users or developers would have their hands tied by Apple's policies. I fail to see how this would restrict consumer choice more than the status quo.
> while users who insisted on sticking with only Apple's store wouldn't have the same range of apps available to them.
Exactly. From my perspective my i-devices get worse if that happens, for exactly that reason. I'm stuck choosing between availability of software and safety & consistency. Again. Like everywhere else.
> I fail to see how this would restrict consumer choice more than the status quo.
Clearly, the choice of being able to buy a phone or tablet where 100% of the apps available on it, and 100% of payments for digital services in apps, go through one app store and one payment system, would be gone. My choice to buy a device that works that way would be gone, and i-devices would join literally all the other choices I have which do not work that way.
There's a chance Epic loses but Fortnite is so big, and no clone takes its place on iOS and ends up pwning it out of existence (a risk Epic is taking), that they decide to deny themselves piles of cash to keep sticking it to Apple, and that Fortnite's absence ends up eroding Apple's marketshare and so the App Store model becomes untenable that way. Or that that happens the next time a company does this. Of course that might happen. One app doing it does not yet have me worried I won't still have an excellent selection of software, all with spying and other anti-user capabilities significantly dampened versus other platforms, in two years.
Well, yes. I'm fairly sure they're trying to prompt that "major shift in the landscape" you mentioned. And I suspect that if a few of the other big players who have been unhappy with Apple's policies join them, they might even succeed, regardless of the outcome of the current legal action. Apple can almost certainly stand to lose one big name game from its ecosystem. But a "high end" phone that can't access the major streaming services or play several of the most popular games starts to look more like a phone that "just doesn't work", particularly with the sub-par web browser it also imposes.
One app doing it does not yet have me worried I won't still have an excellent selection of software, all with spying and other anti-user capabilities significantly dampened versus other platforms, in two years.
As I and others have pointed out many times, if you're relying on an app store for your platform's security and privacy restrictions, your model is already broken. The OS shouldn't be permitting inappropriate behaviour by apps, regardless of where they came from. Trying to thoroughly vet every new version of every app to ensure it will never do anything inappropriate that it otherwise could is a losing battle.
Sure, but they all do.
No, but it may mean some apps will use different payment prompts & systems, different cancellation systems for subscriptions, have different return policies, and so on, and it may mean that sometimes an app I want requires me to either go sign up on another app store or else not use the app, while right now 100% of apps on the platform are on one store, so that is never an issue. If I want to deal with that mental overhead and risk I can go use my PC. I have options if I want that experience. I don't on my phone and tablets.
> Are you arguing having firefox and ublock on iphone will suddenly make it more pleasant to browse the web and you don't like it? I am sure you are not.
Effectively every site works alright in Safari. It has to. It might not anymore if Google can banner-ad enough of the iOS ecosystem onto Chrome using their own renderer instead of Webkit.
My kindergartener's school iPad won't come with some cheaply-made app marketed to schools that contains an entire web engine (makes cross-platform easier, don't you know) that has a bug that lets it access the open web, bypassing the OS web controls. It can't, because if it uses a webview it has to use Webkit, which obeys the OS settings. That's a good thing.
For that matter half the apps on the app store aren't the mobile equivalent of Electron, shipping with an entire browser on board, for the same reason of developer convenience, wasting my disk space and killing my battery, because they're simply not allowed to do that. Again, good thing. I don't want to have to try to figure out the damn stack an app was built on before clicking "buy". It's bad enough they let React Native and Phonegap and such through the review process. I wish they didn't.
I don't know how it's so hard to understand that the locking down is a feature to many users. I want more devices that do that. Everyone worries about some dark future of only locked-down devices but here I am annoyed that there's a monopoly on those, while I've got a ton of options for my other computing needs. If I want a safe, low-maintenance, but still highly-capable machine for some non-tech-nerd in my life, which they'll be able to use pretty well totally independently, I have one option. That sucks.
Your children are not in danger from antitrust enforcement.
Windows 10 ships with a firewall, schools enforce firewall rules on their PCs, therefore Surface ships with the same locked-down protections of a kindergarten computing device? If that's not the reasoning here, I guess I'm just not following.
> Your children are not in danger from antitrust enforcement.
No, but the only easy to use, highly safe, but still capable and low-maintenance computing option out there might get somewhat worse. I'd rather have more competition in that category, not in the category of "app stores on iPhones". One of those is all I want. I want someone to make an iOS killer & related ecosystem (yes, including an app store) so damn good that I gleefully and enthusiastically switch—or failing that, good enough that Apple feels the heat of competition and makes some major improvements. I don't love having just the one option in that product category.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2019/09/04/why-zer...
This is a false dichotomy. You still need to worry about that. Exploits for iOS are cheaper than exploits for Android[1], because exploits for iOS are so abundant[2].
[1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/09/for-t...
[2] https://www.securityweek.com/zerodium-expects-ios-exploit-pr...
If you start a company, and you have 50% market share [1], do you want to be treated like a monopoly?
In a free market, Apple should be allowed to operate however they see fit, as long as they don't have a monopoly. Of course it is annoying that they can demand that much, but that's how open markets work.
All those developers who want better conditions on an app store, nobody is preventing them from joining their forces and creating a better operating system that promotes their own store with more favourable conditions.
Android is a sitting duck. Take objective c, the bsd kernel and the openstep libraries and link them up to your own mobile operating system. As long as Oracle doesn't win against Google, it can even have the same api as ios and thus all the existing apps from the apple app store. At first, offer it as a ROM for android devices, then start making your own. Apple's devices are expensive. Customers will love to buy cheaper alternatives.
Judging by the upvotes of this story alone, there should be 1000 developers wanting to have their own app store. If half of them invest some time of their life to create a new objective c operating system, they should have something operational in a year or two. Most likely much faster than the legal proceedings that could create a second app store on ios, with the nice benefit of being in control of the process.
[1] Research into Android vs iOS market share in the US shows that the market leader remains Google Android, with a 51.1% market share in June 2019. https://leftronic.com/android-vs-ios-market-share/
So, because of the specifics of how antitrust legislation works in the U.S. Epic may very well fail in court, because they may fail to prove a monopoly. But I do expect the EU to take action. It is all but unavoidable at this point.
> Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors. That is how that term is used here: a "monopolist" is a firm with significant and durable market power.
[0] https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...
Secondly, I don't believe that the law will be applied. There are plenty of big companies that are in that position. First of all google with their operating system, browser, search-engine, ad network combo and Microsoft with their office suit. If you look at the quality of MS Teams, you know that its popularity is not by free choice.
If a second app store is introduced by that law, there would be plenty of follow-ups. I doubt that killing those cash-cows will happen when there is an economic war against China. Opening up those markets would allow Chinese companies to take those positions.
2. Fortnite doesn't follow rule.
3. Apple kicks Fortnite out of the App store.
What were they expecting?
They're not perfect at all and I wish very much that they had competition, but for me to consider it real competition with the product they're providing it'd have to be similarly locked-down. The locking-down is part of the value. There are already far-less-locked-down phones and tablets available for people who want that.
There is side-loading, but there's a lot of friction there that I wouldn't expect normal users to withstand.
There are countries with 0% iOS market share, half of zero is still zero.
A single big company doing this just to cut down on some fees just reeks of greed.
The world is unfair, no one is expected to do charity for developers.
We are not a special snowflake job that isn't expected to give others the necessary payments to keep the whole chain working.
2. Seth says there should be less taxes as the pharaoh is too rich.
3. He gets his tongue cut out. What did he expect?
Unfair rules should not always be followed.
This is probably the most important question: what is fair in a world where there are technological platform providers that are essentially creating two-sided markets of vast size and value? If the platform provider is in a dominant position, their actions or inaction could significantly harm participants in the market. Should they then be permitted to impose their own terms and charges on one or both sides of that market arbitrarily, or should there be some form of regulatory intervention in the interests of the participants in the market (from either side)? And to what extent should competition in whatever form be a factor in this?
There are many examples of harm where a single platform has a kind of quasi-monopoly and/or quasi-monopsony status. Aside from the current topic, consider Google's dominance of web search, and the corresponding effects it can have on web developers, advertisers and searchers. Other online marketplace services might qualify as well if they have come to dominate their niche. Then we have the manufacturers of many other types of device, such as cars or smart home control systems, which are also relatively high value purchases and "sticky", but where clearly there will be an ecosystem building up around them. It may not be in the interests of either the purchaser or those who would provide related products or services to be locked into whatever arrangements the manufacturer wants to impose.
We already have precedent for overriding the wishes of manufacturers in some instances in order to protect more vulnerable parties to the arrangements. For example, various regulatory authorities have acted to prevent car manufacturers from restricting their vehicles in such a way that only approved dealers can repair or service them, and of course there is the wider "right to repair" movement that is based on a similar principle.
But as ever, the law has not necessarily kept pace with the rapid evolution of technologies, and even if certain actions may be legal today as a result, that doesn't necessarily mean they should remain so.
Not disagreeing your point though
I will start: Are software stores and locked down environments really a good idea, when conflicts like this determine what kind of software you can install on your devices? Without a comment on who is in the "right" here, I will just use a clear 'no'.
Apple are prepared to fuck over their users for them not getting paid, and I can’t see a good argument for anyone thinking that this is okay.
I am wondering if Apple pays a battery of social media / marketing guys to influence the discussions in their favor.
Now let the downvotes begin.
They also have limited amounts of money, and lawsuits are expensive. Better to get precedent established first before suing everyone else (I'm actually surprised that they picked two fights because of this).
Epic wants an antitrust decision from the courts and/or regulators, and that requires them to get a clear, unequivocal rejection from the platform owner to have unchallengeable standing. A game console maker would have met Epic halfway, but Google and Apple did not.
The timing is probably also critical: Google and Apple just testified to Congress that they're not engaging in monopolist behavior because they treat every applicant equally. To back down from that right now would mean they perjured themselves before Congress. That's something no one in their right mind would want to do.
And Epic's lawsuit(s!) aren't about brining those gardens down.
They're about Epic, and other developers, getting absolute control over their place in that garden.
They don't care that the walled garden exists.
They're just angry about the cost of the manure.
It is impossible to fight apple in the way we fought microsoft years ago - by building out a good opensource ecosystem. The entire reason for the app store is to stop that from happening.
Incidentally, Samsung has actually been caught and taken to court for manipulating social media:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Samsung+paid+students+for+re...
People can defend a company on their own, because they love their products and agree with their policies.
> in the way we fought microsoft years ago
Because Apple helped us fight Microsoft.
People loved Apple almost unanimously on the internet. They were the underdog, the messiah to save us from the bullshit of Big Corp. You won't find much Apple-negging from the era before Samsung started their smear campaign to make themselves relevant by going up against the tall poppy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome
Which of course is a chain. It used to be IBM, then Microsoft, now it's Apple (after a long campaign [0] starting with 1984 and continuing with the famous "I'm a Mac"), and so other companies are trying to poise themselves as the underdog to win fans.
And not only these pro-platform votes, look at all the negative discussion that happens here around university. In every single academic thread, where academic principles oppose big tech, the most upvoted threads are those that dismiss CS education, the university research system, the professors and humanities, while upvoting the "I dropped out of college" stories.
Big tech has done a lot of good, in elevating programmer salaries, and some companies contributing to a lot of open source. But walled gardens and subscriptions and censorship are money makers prized by capitalism. So they are always trying to "kill" the web, "boring" standards like email and XMPP, open research, and self-distributed software.
Technicaly it is a achievement, but are those vague things like ethics a concern to you?
You seem proud of the technical product you built, but have you considered how it can and probably will be abused?
There are tens of thousands of people from FAANG/YC acting as self-interested agents of their organizations without any kind of disclosure or counter-measures. These are, in effect, massive voting rings and propaganda efforts which are supposedly not allowed on HN.
It's obvious how this results in the total dominance of FAANG/YC content, and how it skews the public conversation in Silicon Valley in their favor.
HN could take a variety of counter-measures but they don't. Maybe because users would quickly point out the hypocrisy of ending FAANG voting rings/propaganda while permitting the YC voting rings/propaganda.
HN is now the premier mouthpiece for tech corporate interests.
It would be great for the world if someone were to create a replacement that was designed to prevent this problem, while preserving what is good about HN. Or if HN took action even if it was 5+ years late.
As an example, HN could start requiring users to link their LinkedIn accounts. Every comment could show the user's current employer (if it's a major one) without revealing the user's real name. HN cold also disregard votes for google.com submissions for Google employees, etc. These steps alone would reduce the problem drastically.
No one would like to link their LinkedIn account, of course, but most people in tech have one and could do so in seconds.
That's an obvious solution but there are many other possibilities as well. And it would still be possible to maintain the ability for anonymous throwaway accounts to be used.
I downvoted you. If it makes you happy, know that this downvote is completely organic.
I'm just annoyed by someone suggesting that we remove one of the real advantages of HN: availability of real pseudonymity.
Edit: I also sometimes vote in the same direction as supposed voting rings and I am starting to see Dans frustration with all these accusations.
I have been here for more than 10 years and I have started to get a feeling for some of the weird voting patterns here now. It has even gone so far that I am joking that I want do go to university to hopefully do a study of group dynamics in online communities :-)
And how is:
1 point by starfox9833 (Google) 22 minutes ago
not pseudoanonymous? Google has 100k employees.
HN already has email addresses for many (most?) users and could easily map most of those to LinkedIn accounts one way or another. It also knows the IP addresses of users, which are often coming from FAANG corporate networks (at least pre-Covid).
It might cost some amount of theoretical privacy but gain us a huge amount freedom from the dominance of a few major organizations.
1. LinkedIn is probably easy to game to create fake accounts.
2. HN already has email addresses for many (most?) users and could easily map most of those to LinkedIn accounts one way or another.
One of the really great things about HN is that they've been trustworthy (AFAIK). Unlike a good number of other sites they haven't done all the things they could do.
3. The more you do to identify users the lower concentration of really high quality users one get it seems. As newspapers decided on Facebook comments the only one that would show up to comment were:
- those who didn't realize or didn't care about the privacy implications
- those who just had to anyway because they felt so strongly about the topic
- trolls with faked Facebook accounts
I don't think it would limit the high quality participation, at least not by very much, and that could be mitigated. Maybe users that do not link their accounts could still comment but not vote?
There would definitely be some trade-offs but the current wholesale domination of corporations on HN is a huge trade-off in one direction as well. It seems a very high price to pay IMHO.
What about those of us without a LinkedIn account?
I was thinking after that a) we could make a store (that's the simple part) b) when enough of us were behind we could pressure for it to be accepted
Because even if Epic wins and we can have some improvements, it wont fix the issues
I would donate and work for the cause, what about the rest of you? How to get started, Apache Foundation?
EDIT: I have to add, I would not work for this 'because it is the right thing to do', but to ensure that I can do business in the future without fear of A+G
No. We cant just slink off into IRC and build our own store. We cant just do The Right Thing, we also have to make the Wrong Thing prohibitively expensive for the general population.
In another thread someone compared Apple with a dictatorship and this is right. Maybe you will feel safe but there is no freedom. And when you don't do as the dictator pleases you are in trouble.
Companies get too big and too powerful. Some say this is the beginning of a new world order, like the industrial revolution changed how the world was ordered.
Thank you, that was cathartic.
Bordering on bad faith.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
(No, we don't care one way or another about Apple. We just care about HN.)
Tinfoil hat on: Apple is probably worried that if Trump gets re-elected then they would be forced out of the Chinese market unless they allow third-party app stores where people can download the Chinese apps that Trump would force them to remove. Apple will therefore opt to allow third-party app installations (which would hurt them a lot if we ignored the Chinese market) rather than lowering their fees or allowing third-party payment providers.
He's NOT a money-grubbing two-faced CEO. He's the real deal and he clearly believes that what Apple and Google are doing is wrong. He's also willing to put his money where his mouth is, unlike anyone else.
He deserves to be lauded and respected for what he's doing here. Someone has to stand up to Apple and Google and he's the only one putting in the time, effort, and money to do it.
Tim Sweeney is the hero of this story and everyone should be backing him up.
And in the grand scheme of things, users would be much better off without being restricted to app stores. The era of closed devices ought to be ended by laws. Running arbitrary software on personal computing devices should be protected by Right to Repair or Fair Use laws.
I really wish the old world game engine programmers unite and support him such as Carmack, Romero etc.
Wow, I would have hoped for better support from the HN community. Instead there are apologists after apologists. So what if Epic is big. Really, seriously shouldn't we have had alternative app stores available form the official ones. Why is this even a point of debate? All the time we hear stories of people one of our own getting fucked by these app stores and their lordship and now that we have an opportunity to make some noise, this is the response? Fuck that. Maybe we deserve these lords.
Fuck your security and fuck your walled gardens. Fucking no alternative browser allowed. Fuck that, fuck you apple and fuck you google. Fuck your monopoly and chokehold on the devs.