I think that would be killer argument for Epic—Apple already allows you to download apps onto their devices that don’t go through their store and everything is fine.

However, if the subscription is processed through a third party, then you may have more difficulty with canceling it... but it wasn't bought through the app on the phone.

Additionally, by default, renewal receipts are sent for each subscription and are visible under the purchase history.

If Epic wins and you've got subscriptions set up using payment processors other than Apple, this will make it harder to manage these subscriptions.

On the other hand, here, we have "apple isn't nanny enough because there's a financial incentive for them."

To what extent are we expecting Apple to audit the terms of subscriptions? And if someone wants to pay $10 a week to get a horoscope reading... ok... they did it with 1-900 numbers yesteryear.

And... apple is doing things about IAP subscriptions from scammy apps. https://www.imore.com/apple-getting-tough-scam-apps-extortio...

All that is going to happen if Epic gets their own store is Epic will be collecting the 30% rather than Apple, and the user will get apps that are poorly designed, chew battery, and don’t conform to the UX standards that Apple has set (eg: accessibility) and exploit undocumented APIs which change from iOS version to version.

Epic will blame Apple for all these problems, Apple will blame Epic for not doing sufficient QC, and we’ll be back in court with various store managers demanding that Apple stop changing things.

If you want third party stores, there’s the Android ecosystem. Keep your grubby mitts off the Apple ecosystem.

I don't see how it hurts anyone to allow side-loading of apps on iOS devices. Even if you make it as hard as having a toggle behind a scary warning 2 layers deep in the menu, 95% of users will never use it, and it will open up a world of opportunities for people who actually want to create with their devices.

Hasn’t been the case with Android. And I would say the touch centric form factor is far more an issue.

I would wager that within weeks or months there would be a full windows VM available for the iPad if it was allowed.

Again it’s far more the form factor that is a restriction than whether it’s downloadable from the store or not.

A TEMPORARY developer certificate that expires and requires a MacOS system to install.

Meanwhile I can click to download an apk through the browser on my phone, click accept and install. No expiration, no self signed certificates, no other system needed.

For the average user, it is not even within the ballpark of their abilities.

I would argue that the reason is less form factor and more computational power. The M1 brings best-of-class laptop performance to a tablet, combined with a keyboard and a Linux distro and I would have a much more powerful platform than my current laptop.

Though android is locking down, making this kind of app difficult in future.

They are not the type of people who are buying iPads or will be spending big within the Apple ecosystem.

Parallels already runs on m1 it wouldn’t be very hard to enable on m1 iPads.

It is honestly a better form factor than the laptop as you can just plug in a thunderbird dock and get expanded ports.

The iPad is already one of the best creation tools out there for artists, musicians, photographers etc.

I’d suggest the iPad is hampered more by the limits of iPadOS’ multitasking UI and it’s roots as a scaled-up phone OS - and the scarcity of truly pro-level software - rather than the App Store and not being able to sideload.

In fact the only real reasons to sideload or jailbreak at the moment are to get around the limitations on running dynamic code - or to use cracked/dodgy versions of paid apps.

Wouldn’t be surprised if we see some big improvements in the dev experience over the next few system releases, but to say this will enable a burst of creativity is ignoring all the highly creative ways it’s already being used.

But these apps are still largely islands. Powerful pro workflows require multiple applications to be used together in interesting ways. With iPad that's impossible. You have an anemic file system, and strict limitations on what an app can do.

What I want is a proper *Nix layer, like I have on macOS. For instance, if I want to synchronize my files across multiple systems, I need my iPad app to have a built-in solution for that. I want to be able to run a daemon in the background to synchronize my creative work with an S3 bucket using a custom protocol of my choosing. That kind of customizability is just not possible on iPad, and it's a huge limitation.

The iPad has some definite advantages. Battery life is great, performance is great, the screen is amazing, but it's all severely crippled by the software. Until Apple makes the OS as powerful as MacOS there is no point at all in having so much power that you simply can't use.

Sadly, this will accelerate the ecosystem away from tools like procreate and affinity into “each brush is $1”.

You might be right, but I’m personally sad to see this playing out in a way that makes it worse.

So yeah unfortunate. Both the high price of yearly or monthly subscriptions and the specific in app purchases for things like brushes.

If they ask you, buy the MacBook Air instead of the iPad Pro!

Imagine how you would react with any other product you paid for, and brought into your home, if the company which produced it had the right to dictate how you could and could not use it.

I know it is completely anathema to suggest something like this on HN these days as the socialist wave completely took it over and the mere suggestion that people have the freedom to not buy something if they don't think it fits within their world view instead of trying to force everyone using the state and the courts to cater specifically to them is now considered a sin, but...

You said it yourself, you have a laptop with the exact same chip that lets you do all the things you want, and then you have the iPad that doesn't...why don't you buy the laptop instead? Surely if enough people feel the way you do Apple would get the message.

- look at your data directly and back it up

- backup and restore the entire device including apps

- use ethernet through the lightning port instead of wifi

- use general usb devices through the lightning port

- wifi scanner (apple disallowed it in ios early-on)

- tcpdump network traffic

- change the wifi-off shortcut to actually turn it off (matching settings)

- firewall

I'm sure people can think of other examples...

>backup and restore the entire device including apps

Ironically these areas are where iOS shines. Despite being a heavily walled garden, it grants you full backups and full user filesystem access (including things like keychain) via extracting those backups.

A comparable and unrooted Android tablet cannot be fully backed up, and you cannot inspect app/user settings areas of its filesystem.

You as a device owner do not have access to the full ios filesystem. full stop.

On Android, you used to be able to backup maybe half of app/user data in this way (many devs opted out), now closer to zero (adb backup deprecated)

And allowing apps to sniff network traffic defeats the entire security model of the device which many of us like.

I want more privacy and security in my devices not less.

Apple does not want this.

I personally enjoy parts of the first two. They aren’t deal breakers if I can’t jailbreak/root though.

should read:

All of this is available if you use the same exploits that malware often use to compromise systems.

"Jailbreaking" is not a feature inherent to iOS so stop trying to say it's an option. It really isn't.

An option is something that continues to be available to the user regardless of system updates and without restriction. As such, sideloading apps is an option on Android.

Jailbreak is not a feature. It is the result of the LACK of features.

Regardless of me not being specific in my post, your reply has a ton of assumptions and unnecessary attitude in my opinion.

"All" that is going to happen if Epic gets their own store is there's going to be competition in what is now a monopoly. To say that the only difference will be lower quality is, at best, naive.

Steam isn't even an app store on Android.

Some of us prefer to sit down and use a device without having to worry about installing an app or game store just to use/play one app...

Users have a choice: Don't use iOS.

Their actions have pretty overwhelmingly spoken and they don't care. The only people that care are techies. And most obviously not that much because most meetings I show up to are still full of iPhones.

The judge in question was clearly not at all impressed with this argument when Cook raised it, and neither am I.

This amounts to telling people to throw the baby out with the bathwater every time they have an issue with something.

You say that users don't care, but users _don't know either_.

And whenever people lobby for right to repair laws and for consumers to _own_ hardware, guess who's always standing on the other saying that it ain't so.

And if Apple is so concerned about user security & privacy when it comes to alternative app stores, they should adjust their policies so that the apps most users want will see no reason not to be on the App Store.

Should they then be able to leverage that position to instantly win and extort the marketplace built on the next layer up? It pretty much goes to the heart of antitrust

5-10%... sure maybe, 30% of saas fees... ridiculous

Exactly. And yet this idea seems so hard to grasp for many, just look at the discussions around the web and on HN. Everyone over simplifies it to it is Apple's phone or Apple's App Store they do what ever they want. Or the user chose iPhone if you dont like it go and get an Android.

The judge actually pointed out ( Finally ! ) vast majority of revenue are coming from Games. Which means Gaming is in a way subsidising all other Apps in App Store.

I wish Apple separate the Game into Game Store and keep those 30%. While Apps and Services are 10%, with little curation of Apps with App Store. i.e You no longer block Apps for their political view or speeches. As long as they are legal you should allow them in within the quality guidelines and security clearance. Apple could still down rank all these lower quality apps should they choose to. They dont have to block it from accessing iPhone.

EU is watching the case very carefully. While Americans might think Apple can do whatever they want with their devices. The same could not be said with the EU. And I am willing to bet the court battle wont flavour Apple because it seems the old world has a much different view to Anti Trust and Anti Competition than US.

And Apple will have a choice, comply or paid a heavy price.

It is possible to demand better things from something you use. Not every issue is a hill to die on.

I can't yet convince myself that "don't use iOS" is a valid argument while "don't use a different app store" is not.

Why would you assume this would happen on iOS when it hasn't happened on Android, when the suggestion is to do what Android already allows, and yet we don't see this on Android?

It’s obviously not an example for this, otherwise Epic would have just made an Android store and moved on.

The only thing that Android doesn't allow is for the third-party stores to auto-update apps installed through those stores.

I'm not going to say that's not a big deal, because it's definitely annoying, but I have F-Droid on my phone and get plenty of value out of it, despite having to go through a confirmation dialog to update the apps I've installed through it.

> ... and is also not the market leader

Which is entirely irrelevant. (And if you consider the world market, not just the US, Android definitely is the market leader.)

If it was irrelevant, Epic would have just created an Android store and let Apple go their own way.

https://www.xda-developers.com/android-12-alternative-app-st...

Don't change the goal posts. Apple doesn't provide anything. Having to pass through a dialogue after download t confirm install isn't ideal, but possible is better than not.

> and is also not the market leader.

Android is at 45% and apple is at 55%.[1] Is your contention that a least of that amount is sufficient such that it actually changes this in some way? If so, how do you square that with Android's worldwide market share being reported as 72% in 2020?[2]

1: https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/north-amer...

2: https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/worldwide/...

It’s not just a dialog box. Alternate stores can’t provide automatic updates, which is a critical feature.

You are the one changing the goalposts here. Android alternative stores are not representative of what would happen because they are not the same, either technically, or in terms of market value.

These are the wrong numbers to look at. App profits are what count here - that’s what Epic wants to tap into.

This is a losing argument. We've already seen that the Apple store doesn't/can't prevent clones and fakes with information collecting inserts from overwhelming the originals.

Another store might actually do this better.

If anything, empirically we've seen that Apple runs a much tighter ship wrt scams and malware than Android and 3rd party friendly platforms. Especially from the perspective of non-tech mass consumer, who are incredibly well served by Apple's model.

Legislating / ruling Apple's closed model to be illegal is the true harm to consumer choice and freedom.

Sorry but Toyota doesn't have its business model harmed by being able to go to my mechanic to tune a car. If Apple wants to put three layers of dialogues to open up customization, so be it.

I have no sympathy for a trillion-dollar company and their "choice".

Or are users seeing awful prices for the app store?

Where are Customers complaining the most?

The Humble Bundle app allows you to install Android games you bought through humble bundles onto your Android phone. This allows you to buy bundles of games from developers at your own desired purchase price and give an amount of that purchase you choose to some charities of your choice.

It is, quite literally, used as another store and has the ability to install applications.

Many of the games I've gotten through that are also available on iOS, but you're unable to get iOS versions from this because there's no way to install that app nor a way for it to install other applications if you did, currently.

At least some of those developers would be happy to offer iOS versions as a bundle, or even give you access to choose iOS or Android in the same bundle, but there's no way to legitimately deliver these games to those customers.

Recently, cloud gaming apps and paying for subscriptions. Google Stadia and Xbox Streaming are not allowed through the iOS Store. Netflix and Spotify(not sure about this one) do not allow you to pay for the subscription on their app because Apple asks for 30%.

Apple does not allow other browser rendering engines. So now every iOS browser is just a Safari wrapper and you're unable to do any sort of plug-in, like adblockers.

These features being blocked does not help customers. They only help Apple.

This is already true with the App Store today.

I want my parents and non-techie friends and family to have the easy, stress-free, locked-down model that they enjoy and that works for them.

And if Apple is so concerned about user security & privacy when it comes to alternative app stores, they should adjust their policies so that the apps most users want will see no reason not to be on the App Store.

Source?

Epic already has a store of its own, and it charges developers 12%.

Moreover, Apple already has thousands of apps that are poorly designed, chew battery, and don't conform to Apple UX standards. Part of the reason for the pushback against the Apple tax is that Apple is objectively failing to perform many of the tasks it claims as justifications for the tax.

Ok. Like the other 72% of users, I will.

But it is actually you who want to control how other people use their own phone, that they own.

If you don't like Epic's store, just don't use it. Problem solved.

That way, people who want to trust apple get what they want, as well as people who want to trust other app stores.

Everyone wins, right? Why do you care so much about how other people use their own phone?

Part of it is also that iOS used to be quite far ahead of Android when it came to usability and polish. Android has since mostly caught up, but there is an advantage to being a first mover, and the people who didn't like Android back when it was much worse have since gotten locked into Apple's ecosystem, even if they never used Apple products before that.

I don't think most people seriously think about App Store curation as any of top reasons why they have an iPhone.

Once a user has chosen a smartphone ecosystem large switching costs come into play.

If a significant amount of your customers choose your phone because it is stylish that could just as well demonstrate there is no price competition to speak of.

The argument of "don't like it, use android" is bad faith but lets go with it since many people suggest it.

Ok now I'm on android and google/samsung is spying on everything. The android crowd will say "dont like it, leave"

Ok so what do I use?

That only holds up until something you need is exclusive to a store that you don't want to use.

Perhaps in a more mature market where having several app stores on your phone is commonplace (assuming that even happens), we'll have an annoying situation of exclusives, but I don't expect that "instantly" or even remotely so.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/epic-covering-refund-costs-...

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/08/why-one-pc-developer-...

https://www.vg247.com/2019/07/09/epic-games-wants-pc-games-m...

Given epic's current behavior on PC, I think it would be a given that they would also do this on another App Store.

Which now that I think of it seems anticompetitive from Valve.

It won’t help consumers or developers, but it will allow epic and other well funded companies to insert themselves into a revenue stream without creating value.

Well funded app stores will just pay up front for exclusives. It’s completely standard practice in any comparable industry. Music, TV, Movies, books, podcasts, etc.

Developers might abstractly prefer to be on the main store, but some will be happy to take million dollar payouts from the marketing budgets of the new stores.

It’s hard enough for independents to be successful now, but once you have competing publishers like Epic in the game, the era of independent commercial app development will be over.

Ah yes, because that's where you'll find customers that use iOS.

News flash, Epic already runs a store, and competes with another store (Steam) which takes a 30% cut. How much of a cut does Epic take there? 12%.

There is a well known example of Epic in a similar situation specifically not doing what you say they will, so why assume they will do that? Or are you arguing without knowing this fairly common knowledge of this case?

> the user will get apps that are poorly designed, chew battery, and don’t conform to the UX standards that Apple has set

These are games. They already don't conform to the UI standards. They already chew battery by the nature of what they do, not because they are inefficient. That said, being the authors of the Unreal Engine, Epic is in a key position to make changes so the engine works better with iPhone norms, performs better, and uses less battery and many games would benefit from that. If only Epic had more financial incentive to focus work on the iOS platform...

> and exploit undocumented APIs which change from iOS version to version.

Doubtful. They need to make sure their product is stable across a wide swatch of iOS devices, as individual game makers that license their product will have different support policies and targets. You don't make a widely portable and stable engine across multiple architectures and operating systems by using hidden and unstable APIs unless you have some assurance they aren't going away.

> Epic will blame Apple for all these problems, Apple will blame Epic for not doing sufficient QC, and we’ll be back in court with various store managers demanding that Apple stop changing things.

The blaming I see going on is people that don't really understand the market, the problems, or the incentives making wild conjectures that not only aren't backed up by anything, whether that be logic or evidence, but seem to run counter to that.

> If you want third party stores, there’s the Android ecosystem.

They're being sued too. They take the same cut. You can put an alternate store on Android, but you can't have it function with the same permissions (you need to manually approve each install, and it can't auto-update). This is what keeps third party stores from actually being a reality there. I don't consider secondary stores that ship with the phone on purchase and are part of the customer OS shipped "third party", and that's what has to be done to really compete on the same level as the Play store, and even then, it's not like they're used much. This is all about control and Apple not wanting to give up that very lucrative 30% cut of in app purchases, and subscriptions.

Also, as a parent, I consider it a useful feature that Apple makes it very hard for kids to buy things on the phone through any method other than the one that I am aware of.

And of course people don’t know of all the good apps that never get to be on the App Store because of unwarranted rejections.

So people generally have no idea about most of the problems with the status quo.

The problem is that if it’s possible to trick grandpa into downloading a malicious app then it will happen. The only defense is to not make it possible.

You can argue if that’s a worthy goal or not but thats what Apple has to do if they want to make it impossible to trick people into downloading malware.

iOS: 1.72% Android: 26.64% Windows: 38.92% IoT: 32.72%

[1] https://www.nokia.com/networks/portfolio/cyber-security/thre...

Same for the companies who lose regularly millions of dollars to ransomware.

Tech literacy is in the toilet, and the lack of physicality (seeing Rob the mechanic was you hand over your Toyota for a service) doesn't help with association of whose responsible..

Also typically cars and appliances have warranties and some times the terms call out unauthorized/untrained 3rd party repair.

I think more technical HN-type users aren't aware or have forgotten how terribad the Windows download scene was in the 2000s. It was almost impossible to install anything without getting some toolbar or adware bundle, if not outright malware.

Wirecard and Theranos called, they want their fraud back.

Develop applications right on device! My dream.

I have never owned an Apple device, but they clearly believe locking them down is part of the appeal of the devices in the first place.

If you want an impartial platform get an android; if you want a curated ecosystem get an apple

Do they believe that? Their behavior and stance could equally be explained by pursuing their economic best-interest

Every big software publisher having its own store implies that our details will be stored in more databases, which increases the risk of hack or leak. The alternative would be to not get apps that we can currently get without risking much. It is hard to see this as a progress.

Apple could do the same thing. They won't because the reason for the walled garden is revenue. The user privacy and security gambit conveniently aligns with generating revenue.

But there are other solutions. The other solution is that people are allowed to do what they want, with phones that they own.

And you don't have to download other app stores, if you don't want to!

Should Apple still be allowed to prevent Chrome from running it's own rendering, javascript, & other web platform engines? How much editorial & technical control are we going to let Apple keep, if we do allow alternate distribution mechanisms?

If Chrome will get full access to iOS, we are back to the year 2000 with 1 company deciding what the standards regarding Web are and a standardization organization having nothing to say. Not saying that I love the walled garden (not saying the opposite too), but if we love the web, we have to keep this walled garden.

All I've ever heard is that it is risky to do so.

I could *maybe* see doing it if the vendor were directly offering me their software - and I had some amount of trust of that vendor - like if Microsoft offered an app to directly install one my phone.

But I've never heard of or encountered that. So I'm guessing it isn't a thing.

Do that and the need for alternate stores, alternate payments etc. goes away.

Google, Steam, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo

The ones that don't just prove that charging a lower rate doesn't actually change the price the consumer pays in any way.

Steam charges 20-30% depending on how big you are, and probably has a sweatheart deal with EA.

Xbox and Playstation offer subsidised hardware and arguably have a 0% rate given that so many titles are published in-house.

Nintendo offers an effective 25% rate as 5% of spend is rebated to customers' wallets.

Microsoft charges 12%

Epic charges 12%

Right now for example its basically impossible to make a reliable income just from PC, for the average solo developer or micro-studio, due to the insanely high 30% commission taken by Steam.

Its necessary to launch cross-platform onto consoles, and optimizing the graphics and control schemes for these devices means that PC is not the focus.

In the other hand, their policy for apps with user-generated content is stupid, and their stance on adult content is pure ideology that belongs in the 19th century.