Please stop speaking for others. I would certainly like to have the ability to install other sources for apps. Since I am part of "the rest of us", for any kind of "us" that came to my mind while reading your posting ("iPhone users" or "Apple customers" or "HN readers"), your statement is patently false.
> That's not what I want on my iPhone.
Then don't install additional stores. I also don't want most of the apps currently available in Apple's app store on my iPhone, but I'm far from demanding that they are to be banned and other people who want to use them should be prevented from doing so.
Also it's too sad you conspicuously skipped over danShumways question regarding the "bigger moat" - because I indeed would be interested in what moat you are imagining there, too.
Same to you and the GP here. And last I checked there aren’t a lot of customers really complaining about the App Store. It’s just big companies who, although they could have done this years ago, are now going against Apple’s customer protection because it degrades their crappy business practices.
> Then don’t install additional stores
Then buy a different phone?
I want any app that doesn’t follow Apple’s guidelines to be completely banned. Goodbye Epic. Nice knowing you. Don’t care. I don’t want apps spying on me, engaging in shitty business practices, scamming customers, and doing bad things. Apple is working to protect my privacy and safety. They’re not perfect, but that’s why I buy an iPhone and I want it to stay that way. If I wanted another App Store I’d buy a different phone, like you should.
It would be like having to buy a different laptop to use Amazon or Ebay.
Ok. Now what if I were to tell you that you are perfectly capable of doing this, by simply not installing other app stores.
You dont need to metaphorically break into my house, and force me, at gun point to follow your rules as well.
You can do what you want with your phone, even if other people are able to do what they want with their own phone.
> If I wanted another App Store
Then just don't install the other app store? You have no said why you need to force me to do something, in order for you to get what you want.
> Right, and the rest of us don't want that, and I also don't want games or apps that don't adhere to Apple's rules.
Why do you care? If you don't want to install a third-party app store, then don't. The games available on Apple's store will continue to adhere to Apple's rules, and if you want that curation, you still get it.
> They've earned my complete trust.
This blind devotion to the Apple Way is baffling, especially considering how Apple-approved apps are not free of the tracking and user-data abuse you (correctly!) rail against.
Apple users care because if non-App Store distribution methods are banned, then developers are forced to go through Apple's process to get access to them. You can see complaints around this thread about how bad Epic's store on PC is. On iOS, they're forced to use Apple's purchase UI, subscription rules, privacy rules, etc.
If Apple's goal was protecting their consumers, they could easily roll back the contested parts of their policy while protecting consumers AND still make a profit.
And if the only policies that these developers had to legitimately complain about were the ones that protect users, they'd be laughed out of town. But that doesn't seem to be the case.
I've been seeing this argument a lot and it makes the assumption that allowing alternative app stores has no impact on people who choose not to use them. I don't think this is true.
An app developer may decide to only list their app on an alternative store because they pay lower fees and they can handle payments themselves. As a user you now need to choose between not using the app or giving your credit card information to the app developer you may not trust.
If you get value out of the current App Store rules, like the person you replied to, then there is absolutely a cost to allowing alternative stores.
But then this is competitive pressure for Apple to charge lower fees and allow apps to handle payments themselves, at which point the app would be back in Apple's store because the customer prefers to buy it from there. Everyone benefits (except Apple).
Meanwhile if you don't want to give the app your credit card number, you still don't have to. Refuse until they use Apple's payment method. If most users share your unwillingness then developers will still have to use a payment method you do trust. If they don't, what right do you have to constrain the choices of the other users?
No it isn't. The next moment Apple significantly lowers its comission, the same people will start whining about Apple "dumping the market" "to sink its competitors", and that it should be prosecuted under the same flawed anti-trust legislation. Been there, seen that: if your rates are too high you are a monopolist; if your rates are low you are dumping; and if your rates are the same as of your competitors then there's a "collusion".
I’m not sure what your point is here. That antitrust litigation is futile or counterproductive? The threat of it seems to be having positive effects already, looking at the front page of HN: https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/17/apple-expands-its-independ...
> The threat of it seems to be having positive effects already, looking at the front page of HN
it depends on your reliance on that kind of services and varies greatly among the userbase. I'm using Apple since 2014, I've never needed to use any of these services, and I would prefer to have a device that is hard to disassemble and is cheaper to produce without a loss in quality.
We know it from history for sure, that "bigness" of an economic player is not a problem. There was no anti-trust legislation prior 1913, and Standard Oil was lowering prices for their oil and kerosine every year in order to compete with emerging oil wells developers, which kept popping up dispite Standard's dominance. [1] Customers, large and small, were benefiting along the way. But notice how governments-coordinated OPEC influences the prices and ability to enter the market:
The problem is, Apple isn't that -- it doesn't have a duty to the user, it has a duty to Apple shareholders, so what it does will be for their benefit and not yours unless they happen to coincide. Which they won't in enough cases that you don't actually benefit on net. It's not in your interest to have developers paying 30% and destroying the marginal developer and providing other developers with fewer resources to make better apps, or to have apps rejected just because they compete with Apple's, or deterred from being developed because developers become unwilling to risk their investment being wiped out by the opaque rejection process.
Meanwhile if you want the purchasing co-op, go set it up. So that it's using the market power of all the store's customers to get concessions from developers (and Apple), but is a co-op owned by and acting in the interests of the users instead of a for-profit monopoly acting in the interests of itself. Unless Apple is preventing anyone from creating that, right?
This is literally the point of allowing healthy competition. If Apple wants these games on their app store, they should offer terms that are competitive with the hypothetical third-party app stores.
You talk about developers if this is the only concern, but Apple is ultimately deciding it wants to not give money to certain social concerns or movements it doesn't like based on it's whim, and no corporation should have the power to do that for something as important as half of mobile telecoms.
Furthermore, Walmart has placed restrictions on all keyboards purchased from their stores. All online purchases made using their keyboards will now funnel 30% of the payment to Walmart.
Thank you for your business and absolute trust in our secure business model that we operate for your benefit.
You need to choose between not using the app, or buying a new phone and giving a developer you may not trust your credit card information
Then don't install them? But I fail to see why you (or Apple) should be in a position to tell other users what they can install or not.
>You want another option of App Stores because you want don't want to pay for the user base that Apple created and maintains.
lolwat Honestly, I don't even know what this is supposed to mean.
>You want to embed permanent location tracking in your apps, abuse user data, and not have to have your crappy practices out in the open when Apple shows the "nutrition scorecard" for your app.
This is a typical "think of the children" argument once more. Nobody forces you to install that tracking shit. You're free to not use apps that do that - e.g. get your apps from the Apple App Store, or make your own app if there is no such tracking free alternative. But those Apple App Store approved apps you seem to be so fond of... they do track you already ;)
>That's not what I want on my iPhone.
Then don't put use it on your iPhone.
>Yes that's exactly what I want. I want Apple to have complete control over the ecosystem. They've earned my complete trust.
Good for you. Nobody is stopping you from exercising your trust and only use Apple and/or Apple-approved software in the future.
Because it's their platform, they created it, they grew it, they paid for its development out of their pocket, and they offered it as a unique market proposition that satisfies millions of users around the world. Apple doesn't force anyone into their platform, everyone involved are there voluntarily and solely because they know that it's beneficial for them to be on the platform.
Also, notice that FB has done everything possible to gather information. Frankly, the NSA should just hire FB to do their work - it'b be faster and cheaper.
Locking stuff down is hard. Doing it with multiple app stores will be impossible.
> You want to embed permanent location tracking in your apps, abuse user data, and not have to have your crappy practices out in the open when Apple shows the "nutrition scorecard" for your app.
How about stopping theses practice on the OS side of the device? Apple already do that there... I agree completely that it's crazy when an OS allow stuff that we don't want to allow, it's not curation that solve this, it's actually a secure system that does.
Honest question, what do you lose by other people having the option?
If developers have a choice of app stores, then users have to install ALL app stores if they want access to the entire market. This happened with streaming services as well: when Netflix was the only prominent one, only that subscription was enough. Now you also need Amazon, Hulu, etc.
You didn't have access to the entire market when Netflix was the only store. You had access to Netflix's market, and all of the other shows that are currently being funded by competitors didn't exist.
You could still use only Netflix today if you wanted to. The only difference is that now you are aware of what you are missing.
How many developers have consciously chosen to abandon the entire mobile market because of how toxic it is, because of how tailored the market is to a very specific sub-genre of mass-market apps and games? How many developers have abandoned iOS because their games touched on political or serious topics that Apple decided weren't suitable for their store? Many of us are not interested in creating the types of apps that thrive on the current mobile app stores, so we've abandoned the mobile market entirely.
When you can only see a tiny part of the world, you think that you have access to all of it. Once the walls get taken down and you realize how big the world is, then you realize how much of it you didn't have.
I completely sympathize with the frustration of not being able to get access to some of this stuff. I won't sign up for Netflix because of their DRM and anti-consumer practices. There are some shows I can't watch because of that. Trust me, I get the pain.
But having only one streaming platform forever would have been worse. So much of the original content that's coming out on Netflix only exists because Netflix had to compete. There are really good shows that are HBO/Hulu/Disney+ originals. I want that media to exist, even if I can't personally get at it right now.
Look at how Netflix is still raising prices even with less content.
Nobody forces anyone into interaction with Carnegie Steel. People want to use their steel because they know they can benefit from it, financially big. And they purchase it voluntarily by the most fair means of it, by trading their money in exchange for the steel under the rules that are mentioned prior the transaction takes place.
That isn't what a monopoly is.
Then you could personally keep using a single app store and enjoy the non-monopolistic prices.
If the only people arguing about this lawsuit fell into either my camp or yours (ericmay's), I'd be a lot less irritated about this whole debate.
I fundamentally disagree with you, but at least your arguments are relatively internally consistent. At least I understand where you're coming from.
Give me a hundred people saying, "I like Apple being a dictator", just get rid of all the awful arguments about how, "there is no right side, and both of them are in the wrong."
I couldn't care less whether or not people like Epic in particular. If you spend all of your time getting picky about who can and can't advocate for you, then eventually people will stop advocating for you altogether.
Right, and the rest of us don't want that, and I also don't want games or apps that don't adhere to Apple's rules. You want another option of App Stores because you want don't want to pay for the user base that Apple created and maintains. You want to embed permanent location tracking in your apps, abuse user data, and not have to have your crappy practices out in the open when Apple shows the "nutrition scorecard" for your app.
That's not what I want on my iPhone. If your app doesn't conform to the App Store, then that's your problem, not mine. I'll vote with my dollars here. I want the iPhone just the way it is, even if that means fewer apps from bad actors.
> We live in a world where Apple has complete control over the app ecosystem, and you're frightened that another company might get control and... offer better terms than we have right now?
Yes that's exactly what I want. I want Apple to have complete control over the ecosystem. They've earned my complete trust.