Re:Apple's 15% Deflection Tactic
by kevingadd on Wednesday November 18, 2020 @07:05PM
(#25144455)
Because Apple requires them to. If I wanted to ship a PWA in a Firefox-based shell using no iOS-specific APIs other than required (rasterize using OpenGL ES + Skia, Mozilla's JS interpreter, etc) they wouldn't let me because I'm required to use their browser and JS runtime, among other things. And they've deprecated OpenGL, so now you have to use their custom graphics API too.
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I pay more for iPhones partially because the ecosystem is not yet fully crapped up with C++ programs with bad UIs, and I think Apple would argue this point too. You’re fully allowed to draw your UI with Metal though, and MoltenVK supports iOS. Many iOS games use almost no platform UI components.
Sure, but the argument becomes circular, doesn't it? They deserve X% because you use their APIs, and they force you to use their APIs. Congratulations? If it's so expensive to develop/maintain those APIs that they can't afford to part with them for less than 30%+cost of hardware, maybe they shouldn't require you to use them?
You’re not required to use them though, as I just explained. What you can’t do is write to memory and then execute it, because that’s a security risk.
That's not a security risk, it's a "makes App Review potentially pointless" risk.
How is it not a security risk?
How is it one? It’s not like the ability to JIT magically lifts the platform sandbox.
It’s their prerogative to force the issue. Switch to Android if they won’t listen to petitions.
I got one better, add an extra "Apple Tax" to the apps on the app store.