For your own edification on costs, just look at AWS prices to see how much it costs to store and transfer a file on S3 (fractions of fractions of pennies) – that type of activity is the main expense. This is not my opinion, it is... how much this kind of thing costs. You seem to think that is unknowable or something to anyone that is not Apple, but that's obviously not the case.
Hell, I'd almost be willing to bet that the existing developer account fees ($99pa for individual, $299pa for biz) could cover server costs for the iOS App Store (with a 0% cut).
The other way we know that it is not actually that expensive to operate is because otherwise Apple would allow other app stores and not be monopolistic about the whole thing. But they know that their model (taking 30% of revenue) would not be competitive in a free market, so they don't allow a free market.
> Malware
Please re-read my comment, especially the part about sandboxing and 3rd-party app stores. The suggestion is not that anyone can put anything in Apple's app store, it is that people should be able to have 3rd party app stores on their phone, which they can enable/install at their own risk. And those other app stores can have their own rules, e.g. if nobody else did I would start one where we charge cost+, as outlined above with S3 costs. E.g. if it costs me $1000 to deliver your apps + updates to your users every month, I charge you cost + 30%, or $1300 (or w/e). Spotify et al would of course prefer to use my app store, because that is much cheaper than having to pay 30/15% of revenue to Apple for every sub.
You didn't build or work on an app store. You played with one. Much easier to modify something that already exists than to create something where there once was nothing.
> just look at AWS prices to see how much it costs to store and transfer a file on S3
Look, if it's so cheap and easy to do, why is everyone so hell bent on getting onto Apple's? They should just do it themselves!
The answer is that it's not that simple.
> Please re-read my comment, especially the part about sandboxing and 3rd-party app stores
I reread it. You did not say anything about sandboxing _3rd-party app stores_. Thanks for wasting my time with that! You said "apps are pretty well sandboxed" and we've seen how well that's done to protect users' privacy. App Tracking and Transparency was created for a reason.
You really need to cool it with the condescension ("Haha what are you talking about?", "I actually laughed out loud when I read your comment"); it adds nothing to your arguments, except the veneer of juvenility.
> But I doubt you even know the costs to run the service so my opinion is that you are speaking from a place of ignorance.
> You didn't build or work on an app store. You played with one. Much easier to modify something that already exists than to create something where there once was nothing.
That's some impressive cognitive dissonance ya got there, you might want to try looking in a mirror. You have no idea how much involvement I had. Please stop arguing from a place of complete and total ignorance.
> Look, if it's so cheap and easy to do, why is everyone so hell bent on getting onto Apple's? They should just do it themselves!
Surely you can't be serious... this is literally the topic at hand. Apple won't let anyone do it themselves. That is why they don't do it themselves. People absolutely would do it themselves if Apple wasn't behaving anti-competitively. I'm glad you agree that Apple should open up iOS to 3rd-party app stores so that they can live or die on their own merits, rather than being prevented from existing in the first place, based on dubious claims of protecting users. Though again, it is worth noting that people (yours truly included) actually have done it themselves, through jailbreaking. And that many jailbreak apps have done quite well financially, handling the distribution themselves. This is success in spite of Apple, as requiring users to jailbreak before they use your App Store is in fact a pretty high bar and does in fact make your system less secure.
> You did not say anything about sandboxing _3rd-party app stores_... App Tracking and Transparency was created for a reason.
Um, yes. That is exactly my point – the apps themselves are sandboxed and permissioned, at an OS level, so Apple's oversight (in the App Store) is a lot less useful than it once was (whether it ever was particularly valuable is not a given). If an app wants access to your location, the user has to explicitly allow it to have that permission. It doesn't matter what App Store the app is being distributed on, that sandboxing is there regardless.
Also, isn't it a bit strange that Apple added such a feature in the first place? You'd think, since they were already gatekeeping apps that can be installed on your device, there would be no need, because Apple would catch apps that asked for permissions they didn't need, hmmm... just kidding, obviously this is because different users have different needs and Apple can't prescribe the same thing for everyone. Which is exactly why Apple should open up iOS to other app stores, and in order to keep iOS users secure they should focus on more things like App Tracking and Transparency, not on monopolizing app stores.
> You have no idea how much involvement I had
You're absolutely right. I said "I doubt you even know," not "I know for a fact you do not know," and am willing to be proven wrong. I made an assumption that I'm confident would apply to most people commenting on this story. I don't think I misrepresented it as anything other than an assumption.
Until you show me some receipts I'm going to continue assuming you are not actually privvy to what it takes to run the app store.
> Apple won't let anyone do it themselves
You've misunderstood. People are free to build up a fleet of devices, the OS that runs on them, the backend services that make up the app store, all the customer support channels and tooling, find/hire/train all the employees that keep it running, etc etc etc. Apple can't stop people from trying that. Peoples' problem is that they don't want to take decades to get there, which is what Apple has done... lots of pain along the way, too.
_That_ is part of the value proposition of the app store itself. The app store does not exist in a vacuum.
Great, well, I'm not most people commenting on this story. If you've ever jailbroken an iOS device, there is a very high probability your device subsequently ran code that I wrote. I have distributed apps and tweaks to literally hundreds of thousands of users through the repos I've run. Don't make assumptions when you don't need to.
> You've misunderstood.
No, I think you've misunderstood. I did not say building hardware, an operating system, and an app store is easy. I said building an app store is easy. Let me quote myself:
> People keep saying "but you wouldn't have devices to distribute your app to without Apple" and while that is true, Apple is already capturing the value for that part of the deal – they're selling the devices to customers.
Look, I get it – you're holding on to the idea that Apple built the ecosystem, so they're allowed to do with it as they please. And in general I'm sympathetic to the idea that if you build something, you get to control it. The only problem is that it is not only Apple's ecosystem... the devices themselves belong to the people they sold them to, and Apple should not be able to unilaterally prevent those participants from using the devices they purchased as they wish in an anti-competitive way. This is precisely why we have anti-trust laws.
It's starting to sound more and more like you do not actually work on the Apple app store, as you've had a few chances now to correct me on that. So I believe my assumption was actually correct, despite your dancing around the issue. You may have many impressive accomplishments, but unless working on Apple's app store is one of them, I'm not adjusting how much weight I put in your opinion, and I'm certainly not going to feel bad for the assumption I made... which, again, sounds to be correct.
In fact, you being a jailbreaker and having built up all that infrastructure tells me that you are financially incentivized to get 3rd party app stores on the platform.
And just so you know, no, I have not jailbroken any iOS device I own, because I trust Apple more than I trust you.
> I said building an app store is easy.
And I told you why I think you're wrong. In order to bake an apple pie, first you must invent the universe. I'll quote myself too: "The app store does not exist in a vacuum."
> the devices themselves belong to the people they sold them to
That is true for devices, but the use of the operating system is _licensed_ to you. Apple retains control of iOS: "The software...are licensed, not sold, to you by Apple Inc" (https://www.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/iOS14_iPadOS14.pdf)
This is self-contradictory. If Apple allows third-parties to distribute apps outside the App Store, they lose the ability to enforce their App Tracking and Transparency rules.
Apps are sandboxed. In order to access certain features, they need to request permission from the operating system. e.g. there is a GPS chip in your iPhone. Apps, through the design of the OS (not the App Store), are unable to access the raw data coming from this unit themselves. Instead, they tell the OS "hey, I want access to location data", at which point the OS throws up a notification to the user asking if they want to allow the app access to that data. The user says yes, and the OS starts to provide the app with location data. At any point, the user can tell the OS "hey, stop giving this app access" and the OS will oblige. The App Store does not enforce this functionality at all, it is enforced at the OS level. Allowing 3rd party app stores would not change this. If Apple's App Store vetting process disappeared tomorrow, Spotify would not be able to get location data without the user's permission.
As a side note, I keep saying "at the OS level", but this is a simplification on my part. In more than a few places, Apple has gone further and done things like have the Secure Enclave which has complex interactions with the OS / kernel to make certain actions difficult even if you break out of the OS-level sandbox.
Let me flip the question, are you aware what types of data apps collect in order to fingerprint a device? These are the same low level APIs that apps need for legitimate purposes, you can't simply disable them or put a permissions prompt in front of each one.
This is why I prefer an E2EE chat service to a service that is not but says "we promise we won't read your messages".
You're also neglecting the fact that malicious apps can mislead the user by prompting for permissions for a seemingly legitimate purpose and then abuse those permissions once granted.
Why not?
I'd argue that it will get much worse specifically because of the false sense of security Apple provides to users through the AppStore.
https://9to5mac.com/2021/02/11/app-store-scam-apps-how-to-sp...
You’re entitled to your opinion. And maybe it is not valuable to you. But I doubt you even know the costs to run the service so my opinion is that you are speaking from a place of ignorance.
Part of the value of the service is that you don’t have to go and build it yourself. I’m going to bet that you’d die before you built it. How valuable is your life?
> Shit-tier apps get thru every day, and great apps get knocked for arbitrary reasons.
My opinion is this will get much worse. Just because you are a cute tinkerer who just wants to publish the app you made for your grandma doesn’t mean there aren’t people out there who can’t wait to get their malware onto the platform that carries the most wealthy consumers.