I assume you think that would change, else why have other app stores. That's what I don't want. I want as close to 100% of the software for iOS as possible to have to follow the rules. That's part of why I chose iOS.
The same would still be true of all the apps in the App Store. There would just be other stores. You wouldn't have to use them. Other people could.
The issue here is that many people want the hardware or the OS without the App Store. If you give it to them, "people who only use the Apple App Store" will be a smaller number of people and Apple will have less leverage.
That's the point of prohibiting anti-competitive practices. Apple does a lot of things with that leverage that are bad. Like prohibiting apps that compete with theirs (e.g. browser engines), and imposing political censorship in authoritarian countries, and extracting 30% from captive developers.
You presumably want Apple to have the leverage because then they can use it against e.g. Facebook. If everybody on iOS thinks like you then you win -- everybody only uses the App Store even though other stores are available and Apple still has all the same leverage.
But if most of the people disagree with you, right now you're holding them hostage. Forcing them to use only the App Store even though they don't want to, so that the world's largest corporation can have more leverage.
It might even be a good test. If Facebook decides they can't be in Apple's store even though the app is free and there is no government pressure for Apple to block it, you might take pause to ask why and decide that you don't want that app.
Let's say I did like Facebook, or at least tolerated it because all my family was on it, and chose to use it only on iOS specifically because it was relatively secure and limited their snooping somewhat. Your scenario is a strictly worse situation for me. I was using it and was OK with the situation, now I have to either risk more snooping or drop it. That's not better.
What you mean is that you do want app developers to feel network-effect pressure from the huge Apple platform which has those privacy and security requirements. Which you still have as long as a large number of people feel the same and refuse to install apps outside of Apple's store.
It may even benefit you for Apple to have less, but still some, leverage. For example, a third party store might start offering a BitTorrent client for iOS, which Apple only prohibits for bad reasons that don't help you. Then the availability of the apps in another store might convince Apple to allow well-behaved BitTorrent clients in their store to prevent you from switching (since their reasons for prohibiting it are bad). Then you get a selection of vetted clients when you currently have none.
Likewise, if there were other stores then there would be no reason for them to continue their otherwise-useless prohibition on emulators or virtualization.
Meanwhile you could still install all of your apps from their store and they would plausibly still have enough leverage to keep them well-behaved, just not enough to prohibit well-behaved things that you actually want if it's easier to get them some other way.
> Let's say I did like Facebook, or at least tolerated it because all my family was on it, and chose to use it only on iOS specifically because it was relatively secure and limited their snooping somewhat. Your scenario is a strictly worse situation for me. I was using it and was OK with the situation, now I have to either risk more snooping or drop it. That's not better.
What we're after here is a situation where the combination (you, Apple) has enough leverage to cause Facebook to provide an app that isn't ruinously bad on privacy. It's not clear that we're there even now -- Facebook has a huge network effect and basically the only reason Facebook is an app and not a web page is so it can suck up more of your personal information -- but suppose we were. Apple's leverage relative to Facebook is doing you some good.
The answer is then to make sure your leverage against Facebook is sufficient to keep them honest. This could imply some antitrust action against Facebook, e.g. so that you can use an app not written by Facebook to contact your family who uses Facebook, and then choose one willing to meet Apple's standards even if Facebook itself won't. So it's still possible to solve problems like this, to the extent that they exist, through other means.
1) Job interview? The big corporate sales prospect I'm courting? "Company policy is that we do all our calls through [some corporate communication tool]. It's on [store that popped up to cater to enterprises, so they could ship more spyware to their employees]" So I cancel the calls, or install that store and their probably-spying app.
2) That chat app or social network your entire family & friend group is on? Crippled or absent on the App Store, full version only on an alternative store.
For #1: "So use a different phone for all business interactions" OK, but right now I don't need to. That is a solution, but right now it's not one I need, and I don't want to need it.
Maybe those wouldn't happen. Right now, they can't. I chose my mobile devices in part for that feature.
Scams are rampant in the App Store. Give an unlocked iPhone to a 5 year old and they'll spend $1000 before you know it. This is not something worth defending.
https://9to5mac.com/2021/02/12/developer-reveals-fake-app-st...
Even with things going through apple, you don't have a safe and consistent payments scheme.
With more app stores, you can still get every app that's available on the Apple app store, just as you can now. You may not have access to every app, but you don't today either
I get that people want to use Apple only software, in which case I'd understand why they don't want other software on the Apple Store, but how the hell is your experience worse if there is another store available on the phone? Just never use it?
It's like as if Microsoft locked down Windows and the only option you have available is to install things through the Windows Store and someone goes "yeah that's why I use windows man, I don't want anyone to be able to install Steam". Has anyone ever argued this? how did it become a thing
"I personally love it how Apple is taking my freedom, I love it so much that I want to force Apple rules on everyone else."
The fact you like current Apple rules and you got scared by some FUD should not make you entitled to ask other to stop fighting for more freedom(my family have Android phones and they did not installed any other store, side loaded apps or got hacked). Apple could give the iPhone locked and give you a code on a paper you can use to unlock, you can FUD your parents to never use the code, you can burn the code, you can also not side load applications. You could also demand dear Apple to implement some safe sandboxing/jail where you can be safe to run anything, I heard they have enough money so maybe they could pay better those security engineers that keep finding bugs in their shit.
Apple leverages their power against app devs and for their customers.
- IAP, Apple ID, No Tracking, Notification Control, etc.
In a world where Apple doesn't have leverage via the store they can't enforce these things. App devs would ship outside of the store and include whatever crap they wanted. This is a worse experience and there is no 'choice' available for the users to pick a better one.
Apple is effectively acting as a legislator here, improving the quality of apps via their leverage in the interest of their users. It's a standard I'm willing to pay extra for and enforces good standards around privacy. The government law makers are largely owned by regulatory capture and lack of technical ability - why would we destroy the ability for one company that actually has incentives aligned with their users to enforce standards?
If Apple loses that leverage we lose that high quality option - you can't have it both ways because the leverage is what allows the incentive control.
People that don't care about it should use Android.
If this is not FUD do you have a source that shows that thousands of poor grandmas that have Android were forced to side load Farmville and if this happened what was the damage (except that some bilionaires made a few less millions)
If Google tried to enforce more policy app devs would use other stores/side load.
In hostile countries the google play store is usually not present at all.
Isn't this a good thing? In countries like China you could force Apple to spy and censor users where Android users can side load applications from trusted sources.
>If Google tried to enforce more policy app devs would use other stores/side load.
What kind of policies ? Any example of such policies? GUI/UX stuff or you mean policies where you can't link to a donate page because Apple wants that sweet tax, I think you are not ready to admit that you are spreading FUD, reality does not match and you are still building a fantasy.
For the policies - things like requiring better ID auth or blocking tracking or requiring IAP. I agree that the tax is bad and stated so elsewhere.
> “ I think you are not ready to admit that you are spreading FUD, reality does not match and you are still building a fantasy.”
This kind of rhetoric when you disagree with someone isn’t helpful and doesn’t change minds.
Then you invented other hypothetical, something about developers will lower the bar of quality because the only reason all those popular apps in the store are of quality is because Apples high standards. This is also something that you imagine, most rejections I read about were about Apples greed and other such stupidity.
Maybe you are not spreading FUD because you are really scared, then it means the FUD worked on you, I am sorry , hopefully the reality I shown will calm you down a bit, my family are running Android phones and they did no sideload any application, there is an exception of a Huawei phone I got where they were forced not to put Google Play on it, I had some issues getting Youtube to work but except that app it works OK for my son.
The net result: Apple losing their monopoly means a huge influx of user-hostile behavior in apps.
Now, you're not wrong either—Apple does, in some cases, abuse their monopoly, and probably takes more of a cut than is fair from IAPs. (Although, quite frankly, I'd be shocked if the money from cheaper IAPs went to reducing prices and not increasing profits.) So yes, Apple's behavior here is harmful in some ways, but it does good in others. Like pretty much everything in this world, it ain't black and white.
Plus the entire den of pests that is adtech and its various tracking companies, most of whom are far from monopolies.
Yes, thank you for spelling it out thst you want apple to continie violating other people's freedom and perpetuating anticonpetitive practicea
Or, IOW: You can't do that after Apple bans them from their store either. Apps getting banned from there so you can't download them is a thing that actually exists in the here and now.
Essentially as long as nothing threatens Apple's ability to tell other companies, including other tech giants, to play ball or pound sand, I'm fine with it.
Is your premise is that the vast majority of iOS users want the Apple control of apps exactly as it is today?
If that premise is true, then having additional app stores available will not change your experience at all. The vast majority, as you assert, of iOS users will want no part in the alternative app stores, thus the Apple app store retains dominance and Apple doesn't need to change their behavior at all. So nothing changes for you. And the few oddballs who want to run non-Apple-approved software, still can, but they'll be a fringe.
But if you're worried that there will be a mass exodus to the non-Apple app store, (if that was allowed) then I'm hearing that there is in fact large percentages of unhappy users, which is itself proof that removing control from Apple is required.
What doesn't make sense it simultaneously assert that nearly all iOS users are happy with the Apple iron fist but large percentage of them are itching to break away from it the second they could. One or the other can be true, not both.
Authoritarian governments would probably require side loaded apps.
And people will go willingly into that dark night.
It’s the experience.
- Apple has built a world wide empire selling these products in this way people seem to like
- As a result Apple has funneled that money and made world class hardware that's better than everyone else and leads in security/privacy
- Therefore we should force them to break their model because the others that didn't follow suit have hardware that sucks
That's not the most charitable interpretation, but there's some truth to it.
There’s some extra irony that the others in this case fuck over their users by leveraging their data to target ads.
But in practice, there are apps we need to use—people who we mostly communicate with over Facebook, movies we want to want that are only on Netflix, etc. In the status quo, we can use those apps, and they're beholden to Apple's guidelines, hopefully reducing the privacy, etc abuses. I can use Facebook and still have some amount of privacy.
In the world where alternate stores exist, I have to choose between using Facebook or having some amount of privacy. Sure, I could not use Facebook, but I'm a real human living in the real world, and that means I miss out on social opportunities that I would rather not miss out on. I—and the vast majority of iOS users, who aren't particularly interested in 3rd party stores—lose a less-terrible Facebook app.
(Not that I'm too happy with Apple here either. Some of Apple's policies are bizarre and abusive, and there are apps I'd like to run that aren't allowed. But I'm not entirely sure it's worth the tradeoff.)
What you don't get regardless is an apple that "throws its weight around" to force competitors and the like to do what apple wants. That's abuse and bad for everyone. That you happen to like it doesn't make it legal
One day an app you like, or your life may even depend on, suddenly disappears because of some arbitrary, pointless rule is brought by that company, whose decisions are, I repeat, outside of democratic control.
That's literally what millions of customers do, whether they do so explicitly or not.
Last time I made that mistake the site's subscription management interface was rather... uh, minimum viable product. Switching to paying the Apple premium was well worth it.
It really isn’t that hard to understand: many Apple users value a certain set of design and simplicity criteria over other factors.
This alone makes me never touch Apple - and I have considered it (because I still use my 6yr old Windows Phone). My only phone consideration is a Pixel with GrapheneOS