Users themselves have various levels of sophistication, and unsophisticated scams have plenty of victims.
I would argue that the reputational damage is worth more, strictly monetarily. Apple is an incredibly valuable brand, estimated in the hundereds of billions of dollars[0], and they are understandably protective of it. If <2% of the top 1000 apps are scams (from the article), and Apple periodically catches scams and helps unwind them (2/3rds of the apps the Post reported were removed), I don't think Apple is making all that much money here. Remember that Apple does't keep its 30% cut when a transaction is refunded.
[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/264875/brand-value-of-th...
There may have been some smaller isolated stories in the past, but the truth about App Store scams is really only now coming to light - and so Apple’s calculus might be changing.
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/16/technology/pressure-on-ap...
Thanks.
I'm sorry but this is complete bullshit. Your data on Android appears to be about a decade old.
And how are those vendor app actually malware? Their presence can be annoying but they aren't malware.
Both platforms push users toward app vendors that really don't care about their privacy.
But seriously, Apple postures for control. They have a death grip on our industry, and it's up to the DOJ and legal system to rend it asunder.
Apple does not deserve to have a singular App store with tight controls. It's not their right. And they've proven the sort of anticompetitive antics they choose to take when they have such power.
Break them open.
This would almost be true if users weren't forced to use the App Store to install native apps in the first place. If I had a choice to use a store like F-Droid on my iPhone, I wouldn't be complaining. However, being forced to use a broken system is still a complaint, even if it's marginally more secure than it's competitors.
Furthermore, Apple trusts the user to decide if Facebook can steal their data: why can't they trust the user to install third party apps? If they don't effectively communicate the danger beforehand, that's their failure. Otherwise, Apple is just locking off functionality to me, which is insulting considering I pay a premium for their devices that I expect to be recouped on the software side of things. That's their business model, if you don't like it then you should argue with them, not me.
There are plenty of valid reasons to object to Apple’s revenue model, but the avoidance of piracy seems like a bridge too far.
I'm glad I don't have to pay a 30% tax on revenue. Or jump though insane hurdles to deploy my software.
It sure feels free.
Thankfully, it's only 50% of Americans, or half the market, that's locked up behind this protection racket.
I would suggest you use an Android smartphone from the last 5 years before making a comment like this.
I use both iOS and Android devices on a regular basis and both the App Store and Play Store are cesspools. I would go even further and say that the App Store is more obnoxious in that it serves me a half page ad whenever I search for an app.
At least on Android, I have the choice to not use the Play Store. That is not even possible when I use iOS.
Do you have a single fact to back this up, or did you just read it from Apple's marketing?
It’s a real problem, but the headline is sensationalized.
It does if you are Epic, or Jeff Bezos.
The question isn't weather or not happens, it's weather it's worth the enormous sacrifice of personal computing:
No self hosting dev environments
The dev environments you can find are pretty terrible (often in weird ways you don't notice until you've spent a day working around them.)
Apple decides moderation rules for every chat service with push notifications on the platform. They kick you off the platform if you're not up to their standards.
An extension to the last one is that Apple is able to (and does!) silence political ideas on the platform they don't like. They've gone as far as censoring Xscreensaver on iOS because they don't like the political thoughts people might have watching it. This is a major threat to democracy weather you currently agree with their positions or not.
No innovation is allowed. Want to try a WIMP style GUI? Nope, Apple will kick you off. Even if you don't explicitly violate the rules odd looking GUIs are sometimes assumed to use private APIs and can result in a rejection.
There are many (probably infinitely) more major sacrifices but I'm tired of listing them.
> but it is the least broken out there.
No! Debian and F-droid work extremely well, the difference here is that the community is maintaining the repo and they require everything be done out in the open.
They've distorted our free market into "Apple's market".
They tax ingress to 50% of Americans and don't let you establish a relationship with your customers. Beyond that, they make you dance through hoops to build and deploy software.
It's a travesty that they won.
If this continues, businesses will be paying Apple for customers brought to them by Apple iCar.
This stuff happens despite the tight control, not because of it. If it was uncurated, it would be a cesspool like the Google play store (or ...shudder... the "competing" stores).
Having a paid app that reads QR codes is not necessarily a scam.
The article admits that 2/3 of the apps they reported were taken down.
The article claims: "If consumers were to have access to alternative app stores or other methods of distributing software, Apple would be a lot more likely to take this problem more seriously"
Yet then says: "Apple isn’t the only company that struggles with this issue: They’re also on Google’s Play Store, which is available on its Android mobile operating system. But unlike Apple, Google doesn’t claim that its Play Store is curated."
...so lack of competing stores or presence of (imperfect) curation is not the cause, because Google did not even begin to attempt to solve this problem. Play store apps, unless proven otherwise, are generally malware you carry with yourself every day, with potential access to everything in your device because the OS is nowhere near locked down compared to Apple counterpart. Hell, most Android devices ship with undeletable malware from vendors etc.
Apple model is broken, but it is the least broken out there. Instead of admitting that, article tries to be a hit piece trying to make the Apple model look worse for the ongoing trial.