To be fair, they didn't block Facebook from their platform. Users now just need to agree that they want to be tracked (spoiler: practically no one wants to be tracked).
I don't disagree with your general take and save for an iPod classic I don't own any Apple gear. But in my book that was one of the better moves that Apple ever pulled.
If Apple didn't give their users tools to control tracking, wouldn't that be more dictatorial?
I would be fully on board with that. 100% pro-consumer, pro-small business.
Apple needs to protect its consumers, but the US government needs to protect businesses against the Apple monopoly.
Why is that more fair? I bought an iPhone a month ago (my first) in part because I want their version of the App Store and I want more privacy controls. I actually like that Apple's requirements push developers to make a native app rather than a web app (for example).
I'm certainly sympathetic to the argument that 30% is too large of a cut and it's well past time for payment reform. However, I think consumers would be worse off losing Apple's more tightly controlled app store implementation. If you want more options, go Android. That's what I did for more than a decade.
I've already enumerated my problems with Apple here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30196852
I would be fine if Apple removed tracking if the DOJ removed their app store.
Your problems outside of the 30% (which is valid) is that you want to be able to ship crappy cross platform web apps and know more about your users (which I don’t want).
Apple is a cartel and Google pays the protection money that Facebook failed to. If Apple really cared about privacy and not money, they'd block Google from the platform too.
A single policy changed wiped 25% of a trillion dollar company's market cap. That's a gravitational wave that shows what kind of overwhelming monopoly power Apple wields.
To be clear, I hate Facebook and ads, but Apple is an incredibly dirty business and is doing massive amounts of harm to startups and our industry as a whole.
Apple owns "America's computer" (50+% of average American's internet usage), and they control it like a dictatorship. High taxes, close inspection of every deploy, arbitrary rulings, forced use of Apple platform pieces, no possible business relationships with your customers.
The DOJ needs to step in and remove the App Store monopoly, its tax, and its arbitrary rules. When you run a device this pervasive and entrenched, it's no longer a platform. It's a common carrier. App installs need to happen over web, where they'd still be just as safely sandboxed, monitored, and remote killswitchable.