If you're building a to-do app supported by a monthly subscription, there's no shifting foundation there. If you're building a free-to-play game whose in-app purchases consist of "handful of gems," "bag of gems," and "trunk of gems," you have nothing to worry about from App Review.
If you're building something without obvious precedent, however, trying to break new ground in the spirit of tech entrepreneurship – the answer is no longer so clear-cut. And so the App Store has in many ways self-selected developers for "safe" categories over the past decade, and yes, many of these have found great success (even if that half-trillion dollars tends to follow a power law with most of it going to the top earners in each category).
What the App Store is definitively not, however, is conducive to innovation, experimentation, and risk-taking. There are outliers, of course, who have managed to do something novel within the constraints set down by Apple. But the biggest risk you take when building your business on the App Store is not that your product will fail in the market, but that Apple will prevent it from ever reaching the market.
People tend to like iOS better because the app ecosystem is better and it is that way because of restrictions. The restrictions aren't necessarily the exactly correct set to achieve the quality and profit apple seeks, but if they were all that terrible, the iOS experience would be terrible and it isn't.
It'll essentially keep staying just bad enough that it doesn't get regulated to hell or abandoned by users... and no better.
People are generally upset because the barrier for entry to create an app is low and the profit for winners can be very high, which means there are an enormous number of people trying and regulating that is hard.
I can’t speak for you but I know that I am prone (as most humans are I think) to project myself on others.
I use iOS because it’s the only OS that runs on Apple-designed mobile silicon, which is extremely good in terms of performance. Also (and this is not a joke) my partner hates green bubbles. You may be surprised how many people feel that way, which I personally think is kind of a shallow opinion, but it’s a real reason more than one person has stuck with iOS. Some people buy it as a status symbol because it is a fairly expensive phone, beautiful (imo) and apple advertises well. Some people can’t buy it because Apple has a great and widespread repair network. I know for a fact that a great many people share your opinion and buy iOS phones because of the App Store, that said I don’t think it’s safe to assume it’s the only or even the primary reason people do it.
The app store moderation isn't the only dimension of the quality of the ecosystem, but it has a significant effect.
I have a mild preference for android, but it was more or less just luck which landed me on an iPhone for my current phone. It literally came down to which one I could acquire quicker after I destroyed my old phone before an extended out of state trip. The Pixel I bought is still in its sealed box because the shipping was delayed while I literally picked up an iPhone from the Apple campus store at the last minute before my flight.
Are there any signs that iOS is significantly worse than Android with regards to innovative apps?
Some major pieces that are missing from both are the ability for user-installed apps to auto-update without using the system app stores and the ability for a user-installed app to process call audio.
So the typical App Store app makes $630 in total over its entire lifetime. That's surely not enough to finance its development.
Accordingly, I am convinced that pretty much all iOS developers lose money on their apps. A very few lucky winners get rich, and everyone else is treated as disposable.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/07/apple-app-store-had-estimate...
[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/268251/number-of-apps-in...
[3] https://medium.com/@sm_app_intel/a-bunch-of-average-app-reve...
I don't know why you think that this comment is relevant given that iSH is free.
The comment is that it's clearly sustainable and stable enough to allow persons to make a significant profit from it even which shouldn't be possible without some stability and predictability to the platform.
The problem with a closed ecosystem that capriciously removed apps isn't that you can't make money. It's effectively protectionism, with those allowed inside the walled garden having less competition and therefore an easier time taking profits.
The problem is the risk.
It’s really pretty obvious what kinds of thing Apple shuts down.
I can't tell you how many conversations I've been involved in where there was discussion of, "yeah, but what are the chances this makes it through the AppStore?" and the answer is almost never 0% or 100%.
Users may not know or care, but it is a stretch to say it is appealing to power users that they cannot run ish. It is not appealing to regular users that they can't buy books from within the Kindle app. Etc. Etc.
Internal emails show how an Amazon ad prompted Steve Jobs and Phil Schiller to block in-app purchases of Kindle books on iOS https://9to5mac.com/2020/07/30/internal-emails-show-how-an-a...
Why You Can't Buy Books from the Kindle app on iPhone or iPad in 2018 https://www.techspot.com/article/1597-how-to-buy-kindle-book...
Because in case you're not aware Amazon isn't some mom and pop store. It has enough clout to negotiate terms with publishers.
Not everywhere, as GP wrote. In France, the price of a book is fixed: it sells the same price whether you’re Amazon or a small bookstore (you’re allowed to offer a 5% reduction max).
Not saying that 30% is acceptable, of course - I have no idea what the margins on books are.
I'm not aware of them blocking sellers from listing books on Amazon and also at a lower price elsewhere (though it wouldn't surprise me if they did), and they certainly don't block sellers from telling their customers how much Amazon's cut is.
Is Apple intrinsically vital to the existence of an ebook?
Software is an essential part of our modern life: transport, communication, manufacture, finance, etc. depend on software.
At least in those areas, we need reliable software and we need device owners to have control over their devices. We need to have a good software infrastructure if we want to progress as a species.
The current software landscape is bad, and Apple is actively trying to make it worse.
If Apple made game consoles, it would be OK, because game consoles are not essential to our society, but smartphones have become essential to our personal lives.
If we wake up unable to access banking, communication or transport, our life would be more or less ruined, for everyone.
This is fairly easily disprovable by the mere existence of Android - which has a healthy app market place, tons of great apps and is for all intents and purposes, just as secure.
Google Play does a fine job of promoting good apps, keeping bad ones out, and I can still go 'off network' and download my IT app or whatever that doesn't conform to Google Play rules.
There are no material negative side effects.
If Apple adjusted their policy to match that of Google, users would have more choice, and be better off.
Moreover, I really don't think Apple users in any conscious way are into this - I have never in my life heard a single user hint at this.
If you were to ask Apple users 'If you could have a bunch more apps right now, that you do not have because of Apple's closed model, and that having those apps would in no way affect the security or integrity of your device' - would they say yes?
Of course they would.
This is getting absurd - the 'restrictions' on Apple, while based on some degree of legitimacy, are also, unambiguously a vector for them to pursue leveraging the control they have on their platform to make money.
This isn't conspiratorial, my gosh, this is exactly the kind of position every business wants to be in, it's like the 'whole point'. They can milk their dominance and suck profits out of adjacent sectors and cover it with some other related policy? It's 'business gold'.
As an example of one of many things that are much worse on iOS, I share pictures of friends' and relatives' kids with them automatically via Google Photos. All but one of my relatives also use Android, and this works perfectly. One uses iOS, which doesn't allow background uploads, so I get pictures from them months after the event when they happen to have Google Photos open to reminisce, which is annoying for the rest of us, but a potential privacy invasion for them because we all know when they're looking at their old photos.
For people who use the phone features a lot, the inability of iOS devices to conveniently use Google Voice and similar proxies is a nonstarter.
For gamers, the inability of iOS to support Steam Link and Geforce Now is a nonstarter.
For people who value privacy, the inability to install apps or get your location without telling Apple is a nonstarter.
These are all due to Apple's policies. The hardware itself is nice, but because of all the restrictions, it isn't very useful.
Makes you wonder why they bother ? Maybe it's because the very rules you say developers hate are the ones users find appealing.