This is a good illustration of the point. But at the same time, customers have multiple pharmacies to choose from. And I'm pretty sure that it's still more the government regulators' job (FDA, etc) to decide what's safe to sell or not, than it is the for-profit corporations'.

Customers have multiple smartphone choices too, and most people choose non-Apple smartphones. If people want a smartphone where they can easily install any software from any source, there are plenty of very good options.

Plenty? There’s one option. Which is Android.

Most people aren't buying Android because "they can easily install software from any source", they buy it because they've already bought (locked) into it because of experience/apps and because you can get cheaper phones.

This is my take on what Tim Cook should have answered

> 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)

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

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 my opinion tech companies are also historically bad at "understanding" boundaries and blame the government for it.

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.

Pretending to be ignorant of what is obvious to hold onto your power/money is pretty close to evil. If he believes customers genuinely value his curated app store, let him show us.

>If he believes customers genuinely value his curated app store, let him show us.

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

I value iOS hardware and operating system. I couldn’t care less about other apple software, and especially the app store which i only use as a package repository, and never as a recommandation or browsing tool (which is ideally what a store should be)

There was a time when the app store had higher quality apps, but the time when they’d be held to higher standards is long gone.

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

> If he believes customers genuinely value his curated app store, let him show us.

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

And they can continue to think that after they're forced to permit other app stores. It changes nothing, except their bottom line.

Probably, yeah.

I think it's proof that people really like the camera, or the battery life, or the calculator app, or etc.

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.

Analogy to drug safety makes no sense - FDA regulates drug safety and 'fake' generic drugs are very much allowed, so customers may choose generic drugs without needing to distinguish safe/unsafe themselves.

Counter to your point, pretend Apple is the FDA and the drugs are apps. Now pretend the government wants to get rid of Apple/FDA.

Right. And to add to the scenario: in this world the FDA is a for-profit corporation that owns the only drug store and uses its regulatory power to prevent any others from existing.

does the FDA not get a fee to review and approve drugs? is it not the exclusive arbiter of approved drugs in the US?

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

Pretend that Apple is a federal agency, not a corporation? Then its monopoly power would be legitimate and antitrust laws would not apply.

Equating alternative app stores to literal drug dealers.

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

I think that’s a little unfair - this example implies there are good _and_ bad actors in an unregulated app distribution system, which we already have some evidence for.

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!

I'm attacking the argument in general, not a specific instance of it.

You’re right. The counter examples here are comparing the availability of non-Apple approved apps to matters of life and death. It’s disingenuous.