If there were no food regulations, I don't know if I'd be able to pick restaurants and grocery store brands that were safe to eat.

But I definitely know I want safe food to eat.

Most people want safe food but they want the government to figure out what that means.

Same thing here -- most people just want a safe app store. They don't want the work of having to figure out which app stores are how safe. They just want Apple to figure that out for them.

> most people just want a safe app store

We already have an example of how users behave when there's a platform that has a default app store and the ability to install others: only a tiny fraction of Android users sideload apps at all, much less install other stores. Users who don't want to think about which app stores are safe simply won't; they'll use the default one.

It derrives profit from iphones being relatively secure, which in practise means making it difficult for average users to install stupid things like malware.

Just because corporate overlords have a profit motive, doesn't mean it can't overlap with more alturustic motives. Being an evil villian typically pays well in the short term but not the long term (plenty of exceptions)

If you are comparing the difference between having a company in charge of public health and a democratic government, you might as well compare the difference between a dictatorship and a democracy. Customers are not stakeholders in the same way that citizens are stakeholders.

When the public is angry at the government, heads will roll. When the public is angry at corporations, heads will glide down in golden parachutes.

That's hardly true. People are rarely angry enough for heads to roll, and almost never that angry at corporations. But if they are that angry, heads have certainly rolled at corporations. Most of the time, nothing happens when people are angry at govs, and if they are angry enough for heads to roll, its more likely to be the people's heads than the government's.

It's why i'm pro-big-government, but also very heavy handed about what i want to see with government transparency and power dynamics.

Apple has broken incentives here. Otherwise they would approve third party apps that compete with their own.

If you think restaurants and food safety is a good analogy it’s not a good argument for Apple in my opinion.

Now imagine there’s a very popular restaurant, but it uses an inspector you don’t know if you trust. But you want to eat the food because all your friends are already there… so you’ll go.

This is exactly what would happen— various companies once they reach a certain size will just want to have their own store because either it makes them more money or they have less restrictions. Just look at Facebook and the new 14.5 privacy features that are cutting into their ability to collect data. If you let FB the chance to pull out, they’d do it in a heartbeat knowing they could easily force everyone to install their App Store… which would have 0 privacy restrictions and far less oversight (just look at the Cambridge Analytica scandal for how FB might run an App Store).

Given Apple mostly makes money selling hardware, they’re the best incentivized to protect its user base.

Disclaimer: I work for Apple but all views my own.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/facebook-and-google-...

This would generalize that and allow them to sideload for everyone. They straight-up would pull out of the app store, block Safari users from the website, and force everyone to sideload a tracker build on day 1.

I don't understand how people can come up with these crazy hypotheticals when Android has allowed side-loading since forever.

I'm not saying the hypothetical is likely to happen, but your argument makes absolutely no sense in this case.

People can still use the Apple app store if they want to, I guess the key thing here is they don't really though, they would rather save a bit of money. Or at least that is what everyone here (well at least Apple I guess) thinks.

And the want to eat with your friends argument is also not good I think, I can't see why crossplay would not work regardless of which store you bought the app/game in.

Sadly, it looks like they’re trying to diversify away from this, and every time they do we see misaligned incentives that cause them to do the wrong things.

And on a more base level, Apple has overplayed their hand for far too long for me to be very sympathetic to their arguments. The app store is still loaded with scams, they still deny things for arbitrary and inconsistent reasons with little-to-no explanation, and they've had years to clean this up. It's not 2007 anymore.

Apple isn't acting in good faith. They do not deserve the benefit of the doubt.

Make the unlocking process something equivalent to rooting a modern android device (something that requires PC software, terminal commands, a number of steps on the phone, and a data wipe - i.e. something absolutely nobody will do accidentally and vanishingly few will do just because Facebook told them to) and both concerns are allayed.

This isn't some dichotomy, and treating it as such is playing right into the hands of the tech corps. This "for your own protection" thing is marketing. We already know that no principles are in play. Besides, mitigating forced obsolescence (and so, e-waste, carbon footprint, etc) is more important than Facebook getting another data point from a minority of users, and this can be addressed legislatively anyways.

I trust the government to impose regulation on food manufacturers but I trust vendors with their selection of manufacturers. Why should the store landscape on iOS be any different where I put my trust in the store?

This would actually mirror my food shopping as well. I trust my vendor, why would this not translate to store operators on the OS? Aside from the fact that Google and Apple have done a piss poor job with this... I'm fairly certain I would trust Epic, Valve or MS (or even EA and Ubi).

The issue is compounded by imagining that the food safety board ran its own restaurant. It then closes down the cafe next door for unhygenic practices. Looks pretty bad right? That's the situation Apple will be in every time it has to make a call on something like this.

Imagine if there were 10 inspection groups, but sometimes they get bought by corrupt investors who let standards slide while pocketing the extra profit, and consumers constantly have to stay on top of which food inspection groups are the current OK ones and which aren't, and restaurants can't afford to get inspected by all 10 so they only do 2 but then people who only trust another 2 won't go there at all even though the food's fine, meanwhile the most trustworthy group jacks up prices for restaurants like crazy because restaurants know they have no choice...

It would be a nightmare. There's a reason that literally no country does this, that food safety is virtually universally considered to be a basic function of modern government.

A thriving market in marijuana has existed your entire life. It works exactly this way.

Countless examples. PC hardware. Vaping. Yelp.

It's fine. Which is lucky: who watches the watchers?

You want real-time feedback without perverse incentives. Only customers can provide it.

Much like a government can create quality standards and then outsource parts of its missions to private sector.

Then don't use those other apps stores.

I think that people who care about all this stuff, can very easily just continue to use the Apple app store.

Well, because Apple's behavior is illegally anti-competitive, and it is possible for everyone to get what they want.

You can simply not install other app stores, and other people can get what they want, if Apple is forced to allow other people to install other app stores, because their illegal anti-competitive behavior is stopped.

You should not care, if other people install whatever they want, on the phone that they own.

Because you can simply choose to not use those app stores. Problem solved, and everyone wins.

> The status quo should remain

Actually, a better solution is for Apple's illegally anti-competitive behavior to be stopped, by allowing other people to install what they want on the iPhone if they choose to do so.

Second, I shouldn't have to remind you how well competing regulators worked for the financial sector

Basically, I think something needs doing, but this ain't it. Maybe Apple need their cut cut. They make enough damn money. You could take their cut down to 5% and they'd still be raking it in by the truckload

They’re not. There are very easy ways to recognize a trustworthy store. We’re doing that every single day for things we actually ingest.

Apple can impose standards, limit access, etc without obliging all developers to only go through their store. E.g. already now Apple has no way to guarantee what the company providing an app does with the user data.

Therefore in my head when almost nobody was creating a decent App store and Apple did just that, there would not have been really any competitors at the time for Apple to consider opening up to.

If you create something that nobody else did, then years later when other industries create a similar product based on the success of yours. It seems silly to then be questioned about why you've never opened up to integrating with others. It is blatantly obvious that Apple have the better app store otherwise we wouldn't be complaining about the amount of leverage they have within the market. If Apple's app store was tiny and was filled with terrible ad ridden apps, we wouldn't be having this discussion in court, they would have gone out of business.

> If customers really value real, safe drugs, even if there's multiple drug suppliers (some offering fake, unsafe drugs), people should still go to a pharmacy?

> It seems like a decision that they shouldn't have to make.

> Will people not be able to distinguish between safe drugs and fake unsafe drugs?

> They've never had to do it before.

> If customers really value real, safe drugs, even if there's multiple drug suppliers (some offering fake, unsafe drugs), people should still go to a pharmacy?

That shouldn't be Apple problem, we have governments for that.

> Will people not be able to distinguish between safe drugs and fake unsafe drugs

That shouldn't be our concern, we as the supplier of the market place should only worry about abiding to the law and report those that don't when they use our system

If they don't use our system, it shouldn't be our responsibility.

But Tim Cook is not on trial for selling illegal drugs, he's trying to make Apple look like the only possible guardian of user's safety. Because it's in Apple interests, not because it's best for users (I mean that Tim Cook can't possibly know if Epic store would be less safe than theirs, he - admittedly - never made that experiment)

Given the fast pace that technology moves at, and the comparatively-slow pace at which government / legislation works, this may not be the best move in terms of keeping progress going. Especially since governments are notoriously bad at understanding tech.

In this case in particular Apple is not doing the government's job because government is bad at understanding tech, it's not about progress, it's about control.

They are betting, IMO, on the fact that politics and laws have a lot of inertia and are slow at adapting to new fringe interpretations of the norms.

They already did - they choose iOS over Android / other possibilities.

Just like the internet, it’s now flooded by crap.

I think they consider the massive success of the iPhone and App Store proof of that.

Without actually asking people, how are sales numbers proof that buyers care a lot about any specific aspect of the product?

And why is everyone forgetting that obviously Apple does ask people and run focus groups, they know very well what their customers are most interested in.

ignoring the for-profit corp vs govt regulatory body statutory difference, there isn't much different in operation.

I don't think I even need to say anything to point out how bad of an argument it is.

Given we have seen real malware like Xcodeghost that has successfully breached apples own App Store review process, he clearly has a point. Removing all binaries compiled with Xcodeghost to protect consumers would have been harder with multiple stores hosting binaries for sale vs one, and is indeed an example of one benefit of the single storefront. Incidentally, the internal emails from Apple regarding handling the Xcodeghost problem have arguably been some of the most interesting documents we’ve seen in this trial.

There are trade offs here, and while one option may appear to be fairer it is not going to be a free lunch. There’s always issues with software analogies if you dig too deeply too!

Also, the suggestion that customers want it to stay like it is is a flat out lie given his preceding statement where he admits they've never offered the choice, so can't possibly know.

Meanwhile the experiment that he didn’t want to run is whether users could distinguish between good quality app stores and bad quality ones, which he doesn’t know because they’ve never had to do it before.

That all seems sensible enough to me.

My second question would be, are focus groups equipped to make a decision for potentially billions of users (given the sheer volume, and that focus groups are cherry-picked)?

Phone is used by too broad of user groups, from very young to very old, for apps to be left unchecked unlike laptops and desktops.

Then dont install those other app stores and only rely on apples curated list, if other app stores ever become a thing on ios.

Third party developers want to get their apps onto the iPhone, because the platform has a lot of users, and there's a lot of money to be made. However, they will be forced to play by Apple's rules, which (according to the argument) is good for the customer, as the custodian of the platform has a vested interest in keeping them happy.

Now, if 3rd party stores were allowed, Apple's bargaining power which allowed them to force 3rd parties to respect the user's interest would go away, allowing developers to deliver a worse (eg privacy-violating) product.

Users who do not like this deal are free to go with an Android device instead of an iPhone. The popularity of the latter might suggest that quite a few people are reasonably happy with the status quo.

You are literally saying that you agree that Apple has very serious market power, and has the ability to force the rest of the market, to do what it wants, using its illegal, anticompetitive behavior.

Go ahead and say that you want this. But you are just straight up admitting that Apple has anti-trust level market power, and is using illegal anti-competitive behavior.

Therefore, they would lose the lawsuit, under your argument.

People haven't thought it through at all. If they've even considered this aspect of it, I'd be surprised.

iPhone popularity is due to a mix of very good engineering, presentation, marketing and network effects.

Smartphones are also very, very new for people. Give them time and they'll rebel against a single point of control sooner or later.

It's the reason why I don't even really give a toss: there's nothing on iOS that you can't get on Android.

Not in the US market where iPhones have the great majority and where this trial is taking place.

There are also definitely iOS exclusives.

Who knows. Gaming consoles have had a decent run, but of course that may not be that good a precedent as they've not evolved into general-purpose computing devices to the same degree that phones have...

"It'll end up similarly to macOS AppStore. Developers will avoid it, so user will be forced to use other stores to make his phone useful."

So, kinda like on Androi... No, wait. It wont. Other stores will be in the margins likd on Android.

Epic have made instructions on how to do it [0], it's a four step process to be able to install the game that involves changing two system default settings that both warn you not to do what you're about to do.

[0] https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/mobile/android/new-...

Then don't. Nobody is forcing you. That's what this is all about, not forcing people.

With Apple in control, the developer faces the choice to play by Apple's rules, or lose out on the money to be made in their walled garden.

With Apple no longer in control, the user now faces the choice to play by the developer's rules, or lose out on the app.

That said, I'm actually not a fan of the walled garden approach, and won't be buying an iPhone in the forseeable future. It's just that I do understand the appeal.

>With Apple no longer in control, the user now faces the choice to play by the developer's rules, or lose out on the app.

Android has proven this is not true. Google has the same policies as Apple and does allow alternative app stores. Turns out the world works in a common sense way and everything turned out fine.

A really good example right now is riot. They distribute through their own launcher on PC rather than on steam. They have two sizeable games on mobile right now (wild rift and TFT). In a world where these are downloadable from the riot launcher on iOS rather than the app store, it seems likely riot (and other major publishers who do the same on PC) would follow suit? I don't see how having an app store without hearthstone, TFT, fortnite is the same quality as one with.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53955183

How do you explain scam apps that deliberately mislead users into signing up to a "free trial" subscription that renews at a ridiculous price 3 days later?

There are so many highly rated iOS apps that look great and where you can't even get past the initial stage without having to sign up to a subscription without even know what it is.

However, the fact that Apple only enforces the rules when it benefits them as opposed to consumers (so they are happy to turn a blind eye to spyware, but will crack down immediately on alternative payment options) means that in practice I don't see it making the situation any worse.

Which is a ridiculous argument as the network effects and default preference status of the App Store mean it'll still be pretty much a requirement to publish there if you want any users.

Apple currently has the market power to keep Facebook and other similar scum at bay if they chose to (unfortunately, they're not doing anywhere near enough on this front).

Opening the floodgates to alternate stores would simply mean every mainstream service out there would require you to use that alternate store (isolated from Apple's enforcement) where all kinds of nastiness is permitted.

This wouldn't be a threat in itself, but having control of heavy hitters like the Facebook app, Instagram, and WhatsApp among others, they could drive traffic levels that no third-party App Store has ever seen overnight. They can also afford to buy other heavy-hitting exclusives, and some data hungry devs would likely come on board with no incentive at all.

This would be a terrible outcome. If iOS is to support third party app stores, I'd rather it be after legislation is passed that effectively enforces Apple's App Store privacy policies at a federal level.

The problem is that security and privacy benefits are somewhat intangible and hidden, so they are not enough to convince people to weight them heavily - this is the same reason why people download random software off the net and why the web is such a mess of trackers.

Apple’s approach tries to remove the need for users to think about the issue at all. Of course, it has downsides as well, but don’t underestimate what the ecosystem would be giving up once the door is opened to multiple stores.

If Apple stops offering good value (fair policies, commissions), then Apple should be "punished" by losing business.

Offering competing stores provides a strong incentive for Apple to make theirs even better. Developers would win and consumers would win. The only "loser" would be Apple (at least as far as short term financials are concerned).

For the record, I think they are offering the best experience at present (by a long shot). That isn't guaranteed going forward though, and I believe competition here would be healthy.

Another maybe-more-realistic version of this would be if some business software used their power over line workers to install things (since end-users are not really the customers in corporate software sales). Microsoft sets up their own store as the only source of Office Redux, and millions of iOS users are forced into this store via their employers. Same process as above: beachhead, gamble, dilution of Apple’s store.

It’s not hard to see how the process could snowball, though it’s certainly not guaranteed as there must be the right combination of events.

But it dosent take away from my point that an alternative store does not affect the quality of apps in the main store.

As for an alt store becoming normalized I feel that users will only install the necessary app from the alt store and not anything else. A lot of alt stores tried to set themselves up in android but didn't succeed. I think it mostly comes down to incentives. Apple can easily change them to make sure no other store gets the upper hand

Have you ever had to wipe a relative's computer to get rid of the malware-infested browser toolbars they installed, not knowing any better? Or worse, pay a ransom in bitcoins to unlock the billing systems that help control a gasoline distribution pipeline? You may be somewhat overestimating the sophistication of users when it comes to technology.

iOS is an OS for people who are non-technical or for applications where people don’t want to worry about that stuff. If you want full control run Linux. MacOS and Windows also offer a balance that is skewed a lot more toward user control because they’re for “pro” use cases.

For the apps I am using now, there will be probably:

Netflix Store, Amazon Store, Google Store, Epic Store, EA Store ... and list goes on

Allowing third-party app stores effectively means providing a vector to bypass the official app-review process, which is the cornerstone on which the permissioning system rests. If you allow third-party app stores, then any sufficiently-popular app can create their own "app store" and demand that you give it full permissions, which they will turn around and use to scrape data. It will become a race to the bottom, permissioning systems cannot stand if the app-review process does not exist, and the app-review cannot exist if third-party stores exist as a mechanism to let anyone publish anything.

Facebook has already gotten their hands slapped for exploiting sideloading to mine user data, and if they could spread it to the general user-base then they will do so immediately.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/facebook-and-google-...

So your question about "how can an alternative app store affect the Apple app store" is a red herring, and not at all what OP said - what OP said was "allowing third-party app stores will degrade the experience of iOS users" and that is absolutely true, Facebook has already tried to do this before and this will allow them to take another turn at the ring.

You've never heard any stories like "I put FireFox/Chrome on my parent's desktop and next time I went back they were using IE and said they didn't notice"? Or same with apps installed from an App store between real and imitation?

> "Apple can even put up loads of warnings and dark UI stuff when installing an alternate app Store to dissuade the "noob" users."

Why would they need to do that if "no one" is gonna mistake them?

The dissuading stuff was not needed. I was just frustrated with the line that some users are not tech savvy so all users must be equally restricted. It just seems unnecessarily black and white

[citation needed]

Cleaning products, anaesthesia, electrical goods, microwaves, internal combustion engines, skyscrapers, hydrogenated vegetable oil and other such ingredients, fire retardant in furniture, blockchains, cryptography, smoke detectors, x-rays, coronary bypass surgery, bridges, hydraulics, reservoirs, water treatment plants, refridgerators. Would you say the people who understand them in some meaningful way is >50% of the people who use/benefit from them them?

If people see others doing something, we assume it must be okay to do. If we see others selling something, we assume it must be okay to buy and use. We default to yes (pretty trusting), unless it's proven otherwise strongly enough to be banned.

Now it is possible that someones has cracked the encrypted messaged payload and figured out how to fool the client authenticity checking part but at that point you are probably dealing with a state actor and even apple with their secure app Store cannot save you.

This is especially weird because your username is 0xEFF which initially made me think Electronic Frontier Foundation but it's definitely not that.

I can see the argument for why this is better for iOS users, but it is also painfully obvious how it benefits Apple's monopoly and works against app developers.

With multiple app stores, developers may not release to the Apple app store any more. Causing users to either use other app stores or miss out on apps that would previously been in the Apple store.

Causing them to be forced to evaluate the trustworthiness of each new app store they have to use.

Which will inevitably lead to some less tech savvy users having their information phished out from their phones.

Personally, it sounds like a hassle to me. I’m a big fan of the walled garden approach because I have zero desire to evaluate app store’s credibility and don’t feel I’m missing out on anything that could be side loaded, but then again, I only use my phone for communication, dating, photos, craigslist, and hackernews lately.

The majority of users just want their phone to work.

I hope Apple will also force only 1 browser, 1 text editor, 1 video player, 1 search engine, 1 bank/payment system. I hate PayPal so everyone should use Apple Pay because I want so, please Apple force them all to use what I like! /sarcasm

In any case and as much as I like my own clueless grandma, I don't think my Android phone should only allow me to use the play store or that windows/macos/linux should stop me from installing Steam just because she's clueless about tech.

People can follow the most complicated step by step instructions if they're explained clearly enough, by someone they feel they don't need to trust, and there's an incentive to follow them.

I trust them not to do that.

Then again, if iOS has a setting that ‘enables’ the unsafe app store I’m confident grandma won’t reach it since it’s hidden behind the actual passcode, not a fingerprint.

In the real world, avoiding mistakes is more important than people suffering the consequences of mistakes.

It's really not that hard anymore. Google Play Protect then yells at you about the app you just installed (but maybe that was because I was installing rooting apps). The best solution to someone installing garbage apps would be a system with an app whitelist managed by a trusted person off the phone. And no browser or incoming phone calls.

I find it very easy to believe that some malware vendor managed to trick someone into enabling things in settings. I would also believe that malware was just sitting in the play store[1] and available to install the normal way.

[1] same goes for the App Store.

Three or so years ago I was asked by someone to see if there was a virus on their phone. The "virus" was in fact a religious app, installed via the official store, which was opening a popup with ads every few hours.

Now, I could be wrong and it's possible that his grandma actually sideloaded an apk. If she did, I still think that you should be able to install an app that isn't allowed by Apple on their store, after all they block more than just malware: apps with free licenses, some VPN apps in some countries, torrent apps without any illegal content in it, etc.

If Apple wants to continue on this path, hopefully they'll go a step further and also remove the web browser and the ability to receive calls. Scam calls are a problem after all and we don't want people to send all their savings to "Microsoft" or "Amazon".

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-get-fortnite-on-andro...

Once it becomes normalized for users to click through the warnings, they become meaningless and powerless, just like any warning.

I'm not against security or privacy. My problem is not having a way to bypass the App Store and what they allow (they ban more than just malware) when I want to install something.

I use Android for this reason. As soon macOS becomes like iOS, I'm out too.

The ability to bypass the App Store for yourself exists and has for a long time. The process might not be to your liking, but let’s stop pretending that you have no choice if you want to use iOS but not go through the App Store.

Jailbreak isn't supported by Apple and it's not something most people can or would do.

I meant exactly that and didn’t mean Jailbreaking. Apple officially supports allowing you to sign apps for your own device with a free developer account, it’s just the signing expires after 7 days (unlike the paid developer accounts which expire after a year). It’s a hassle to need to reinstall weekly (hence my point about it likely not being to one’s liking), but there are apps[0] available to automate the process. So my point stands, nothing is stopping you from using iOS and installing apps from outside the App Store but yourself.

[0] https://altstore.io/

When I install an apk on Android, it works until something breaks. Same on Windows, macOS or Linux. I also don't have to ask Google, Microsoft or Canonical for a free key so I can sign an app created by someone else.

I'm sure this is enough and acceptable for some users, just not for me.

As I’ve shown, there is a way, just not to your liking.

> I'm sure this is enough and acceptable for some users, just not for me.

I agree, I wouldn’t endure it either, but I also have a regular developer and an enterprise developer account so I’m not limited by the short duration.

If Apple allowed other stores, before a user can install an app from non-Apple store, iOS can show a message saying the app is not from Apple's holy store and that it is users responsibility to make sure the app is trustworthy? This won't be pretty, but at least it is a compromise.

They want their 30% cut and they want to tightly control everything. That is the only true, logical reason. Everything else is a flimsy excuse

I hope projects like Librem 5 succeed, but they are a long way :(

You could always get an android.

I realise that this can come off as silly, but what, id not the walled garden differentiate the two systems? If you tear those walls down, you’re basically using a really expensive android device with all the tracking and malware that includes.

I do think the courts should force Apple to open up. Closed systems are evil, even though they are very nice to use. I just hope they do it in such a way that it’s optional and has no effect on the rest of us.

* It makes my life as a developer much easier. I only have one App Store to aim at, and with a few hiccups here and there from inexperienced or overzealous reviewers the guidelines are pretty clear. If I had to design for half a dozen or more apps I'd have that many more versions of guidelines to worry about.

* I don't need to worry nearly as much about scam or knock-off apps siphoning off users, since Apple is proactive about that. Not perfect, but very proactive.

Those are just two off the top of my head. There are more, but I'm getting hungry.

Phones, consoles, tablets are closed because the companies that build them didn’t have competition from open platforms. Computers are still open because they still have competition, if they didn’t they’d likely all be chrome books.

I know it’s sort of hypocritical, but the walled-garden is only nice until it’s curators considers your needs to be weeds.

It's pretty nice to be able to build entire Swift playgrounds on your iPad, then share them with your Mac/MacBook. The IDE is simple and very straightforward, and it's useful for prototyping things on your iPad or iPad Pro.

With just a tiny bit of imagination I'm sure we can come up with something which will work. Here's an idea: Let Apple sell Apple-locked and unlocked iPhones. It can work just like carrier locking. Buy one unlocked, maybe pay a little extra, and you can have 3rd party app stores.

That took me a minute to come up with. I am absolutely positive that there are many other degrees of options between full-control by Apple and full-control by End-user.

I get it though... people who like Apple aren't very appreciative of having options.

But that won't work for Epic, or for any competitor. Epic wants access to every iPhone customer, not just the ones who paid extra to add third party app stores. Heck, you don't even have to pay extra to sideload apps on Android, but they still lost a ton of people when Google kicked them out of the Play Store.

My technically-savvy associates, I suggest an Android to (especially if they want to dabble in mobile development themselves). For my family that just wants a phone that works, I suggest iPhone. The ecosystem tends to have a single right way to do any given task, which is a boon when they just want it to work without having to think about details.

If other people want to have unlocked iPhones, due to Apple's behavior being illegally anti-competitive, then thats OK.

Yes, they won important victories against the cellular carriers -- victories that we all continue to benefit from -- but let's not kid ourselves regarding why they fought those battles in the first place. They didn't just set out to defeat the incumbent gatekeepers, they set out to become them.

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-get-fortnite-on-andro...

> "Why not give customers the choice to run other app stores?"

Why can't people who don't want Apple's curation and want to install other app stores buy Android phones, instead of trying to ruin nice things for everyone else?

Why would Apple want to do so? That would obviously reduce their earnings.

> Imagine if all the software on your laptop must be downloaded from the windows store..

I bet that is Microsoft's dream. They can't just do that because of disruption would be too big. But they did something similar with Windows RT, so they definitely looking into it.

Microsoft became rather antitrust shy at some point. Not sure if that's the case anymore but I think it affected many of the decisions.

On the Android platform.

Being able to use a different app store (which may or may not be as "curated" as Apple's own store) or to simply download the app from the devs website and install it doesn't seem to be a problem for Android users. Or for Windows, Linux and even macOS (eg: is it that bad being able to install Steam?)

The thing is, most people will use the store that comes with the phone. I have F-Droid installed for some open source apps, but my parents have no idea of what that is. They use Google's Play Store, like most users... if Facebook wants them to use their apps, that's where their app needs to be.

Apparently, yes, it is a problem.

After years of "there are no viruses for mac", I find it funny to see an Apple exec saying that his own family members have been infected by malware on macOS.

The store owners pay rent, they are not obliged to give a 30% commission on purchases to the company who owns the shopping centre and they are not forced to use the shopping centres chosen payment service to make sure they collect on commissions.

Less freedom is not a good thing. Nothing is being taken away from you when you provide other options, quite the opposite.

BTW, Have you seen the app store catalog for macOS on apple silicon? Still very sparse.

Trusting one company to provide the whole stack is not necessarily practical, even for the average user.

As a consumer, his comments were spot on about me at least.

I'm a customer and I don't.

1. Search is worthless. It's basically only useful for exact string matches on app names. And even then, you get the competitor app's ad that takes up 80% of the screen. They took every bad aspect of Google's search (the confusing take-up too much space ads), with none of the good parts (you know, the actual searching smarts).

2. The review section sucks. Instead of providing a streamlined system to get help from the developer, they just give you a place to rant. Reading the reviews isn't exactly ergonomic on a phone screen either, so it's just a waste bin to throw complaints at. Imagine if Apple actually lived up to their lip service of app quality and integrated a support mechanism that would reward apps that promptly replied (they would be marked with the "helpful developer" badge and get more prominent search placement for example).

3. Discovery is non-existent. At some point in the last 5 years I kind of just stopped "window shopping" the AppStore. I used to think that the Top Charts were a lazy way to encourage trying new things out -- but wow, it was way better than what we have now. The first thing the AppStore shoves in my face is these absurdly long profiles on developers or whatever as if the AppStore is a magazine I want to read. I don't. I don't care about some editorial article about the makers of some game. And it takes up the entirety of the start screen instead of trying to customize a variety of app suggestions just for me. This is such a missed opportunity. I would spend so much more money on the AppStore if it helped me at all to see new things. The experience instead requires you to be proactive to find things. Hence why it's really just a glorified database that's only really useful if you already know exactly what you want ahead of time.

4. It isn't safe at all. There are so many scams on the store. Subscription scams, etc. Apple does this weird thing where they simultaneously pretend they don't exist, and uses them as proof that their arcane review system is needed. If the store had no scams, they'd say "see, our filters work!". If it does have scams, they say "see, this is why the filters are so necessary, imagine how much worse it would be without them!". Anyways, as a customer, being "on the AppStore" no longer means anything to me from a quality or security perspective.

5. The UI feels generally like it was designed by a government bureaucracy or something. The tabs are: "Today", "Games", "Apps", "Arcade", "Search". The only tab that makes sense on first glance is Search (but then you find out how much the Search sucks). Why is there an "Apps" section in the "AppStore"? Aren't they all apps? It's like how there's Apple TV+ in the TV app of Apple TV. And what the hell is the difference between Games and Arcade? 40% of the UI is dedicated to games, but split into two opaque categories, with "Apps" in-between them. And "Today" is of course this stupid magazine interface I've already complained about. It seems like it's an infinite scroll interface of random bullshit, but eventually you do reach the end of "Today," where you find how to redeem a gift card and read the Terms & Conditions. All very "Today" items.

Anyways, the AppStore Tim describes only makes sense in the abstract. I wish they would just open the stupid store on someone's phone in the trial and just try to use it. They've managed to perfectly capture the combination of boredom and cheapness of the free samples section of a grocery store, complete with the employee not knowing what aisle you can actually find the product at if you end up actually liking it and wanting to buy it.

Most would go straight to Apple with their issues and how do you fix “I don’t know. My cousin installed it for me”?

Presumably Apple has run into the "my cousin installed it for me" issue with Macs and they don't want to deal with it (or pay for it) at iPhone scale.