This however isn't a reason for the rest of the world to accept this. And since the power in the market is highly concentrated and all of it is moving more and more in this direction, regulation enforces these alternative options now.
All this does is regulate the power the provider of a product has over their customer. This does not ruin the walled garden for the people who prefer to stay in it for peace of mind, but it adds a door for the people who want to leave. There is no negative side-effects for the people staying, only the platform providers will have to spend some money and lose some revenue.
I agree in principle, but I worry that we end up in the situation where if you need to use a particular app, you can only get it from a third-party store that you don't trust. (Something gross like Facebook starting an app store.)
Or course, this is mostly a result of Apple being greedy. If they had acted like a good steward of the platform rather than trying to extract a lot of money from developers, we probably wouldn't be here.
In practice I doubt many apps will use a third-party appstore. Apple has a lot of leeway in how they will implement the regulation - they can make it painful enough to use a third-party store that most popular apps will want to keep using the primary app store to get maximum reach. Just like how almost every android app is on the google play store - despite sideloading being a thing since forever.
As soon as those devs can avoid Apple's restrictions and deliver their apps directly to users with the "intended" experience, they will.
Personally, I like neutered-evil-genie apps, and will be sad to lose them (i.e. have them turn into unfettered-evil-genie apps, which I won't use.)
Or does the EU law prevent them from having private APIs/system components period? It seems like many people are making the assumption that this means that every single sideloaded app will be able to bypass all of the privacy/security features on the device, and I don't see why that would be. My understanding is that this is for "fairness", which would mean that apps that are sideloaded would have the same level of access as those on the App Store, meaning they use the same APIs that trigger the same prompts.
These are the sorts of prohibited behaviors that can be heuristically recognized by technical means (e.g. static analysis), but where any such recognition would necessarily result result in tons of false positives; and so those issues, when raised, must be passed to a team of human auditors for determination.
This is, by-and-large, why App Store submissions — even for updates — still require that human-auditor step. They're always watching for those seemingly-minor "this app got sold to someone evil" updates that slip in spyware — the kind you see often with Chrome Extensions.
The second example has already been fixed with the microphone indicator from 1-2 versions back, where a light shows up in the corner whenever the microphone has been activated (and swiping down tells you what app activated it). A notification could be added if an app tried to activate the microphone when it wasn't in the foreground (but I don't think the OS lets you do that anyway?)
You'd think that maybe restricting connections to e.g. domains that are rooted in a zone the developer has proven ownership of, would be fine... but there are third-party advertising, analytics, and fingerprinting services that allow you to CNAME them as subdomains of your domain to evade ad-blocker signature recognition.
And, of course, no user could ever be expected to figure any of this out if asked in a prompt. "Example App is asking me to allow it to connect to abcdefg.example.com? Well, they own that, don't they? Why wouldn't I allow that?"
ANY "solution" that puts more burden on the user isn't.
The problem with consent prompts on websites is that they are rarely in compliance with the GDPR.
Take, for example, this: https://www.reddit.com/r/ios/comments/w27x6j/uber_does_not_r...
This also ignores that it's conceivable that Apple can harden iOS's existing permissions system.
Not at all. App Store review is not perfect and no one expects it to be. That doesn't mean it has no value or that we should get rid of it entirely. Otherwise you could make the same argument about any system involving unscrupulous actors: "people still kill despite there being laws against murder, doesn't that mean the law is pointless?"
> This also ignores that it's conceivable that Apple can harden iOS's existing permissions system.
Curious how you think this would actually solve the issue I linked above.
But Apple is clearly presenting it as such.
> That doesn't mean it has no value or that we should get rid of it entirely.
That is correct, but right now it is the only game in town. There's no secondary stores that present it with competition. Already we read about top-10 grossing apps that are actually scammy. Perhaps Apple will strengthen its App Store when presented with alternatives.
> Curious how you think this would actually solve the issue I linked above.
It really depends on what mechanism that Uber is using to bypass the notifications systems. But off the bat, iOS could force even more granular alerts to the user when sensitive permissions are required.
Curious too, how you think that App Store review currently solves this issue. Uber is already too significant to the platform for Apple to do much more than give them a slap on the wrist, as seen historically.
https://www.cnet.com/news/privacy/apple-tim-cook-threatened-...
How does having more granular alerts actually solve this issue?
> Curious too, how you think that App Store review currently solves this issue.
Well, obviously it doesn't, currently. App Store review needs to update their rules to address this type of abuse. Uber is big but they've taken hard line stances against bigger apps before (e.g. Facebook).
> https://www.cnet.com/news/privacy/apple-tim-cook-threatened-...
Sounds like a success story, imagine the alternative scenario where there was no review process and Uber could get away with this unimpeded.
> Sounds like a success story, imagine the alternative scenario where there was no review process and Uber could get away with this entirely.
It'd say 60-40. The 40% downside is that Apple deigned to go through with actually pulling Uber from the store, even just for a few days. Do you think they'd do anything even remotely similar over the notifications permission leak you cited?
> How does having more granular alerts actually solve this issue?
More restrictive and more transparent handling of permissions. Maybe this mechanism was caused by Uber bundling some sort of library that led to permissions leak. Perhaps the OS could expose that permission being triggered.
I don't think you've thought this all the way through. Once a user grants me permission to send them push notifications because they want to know when their ride shows up, you can't really stop me from pushing them ads through the same channel.
> Once a user grants me permission to send them push notifications because they want to know when their ride shows up, you can't really stop me from pushing them ads through the same channel.
Wait, can't an improvement upon the OS be to make it more granular so that Uber is forced to establish separate permissions channels for rides (vital) vs. ads (not-so-vital), and that every time a notification of a certain type appears, the user is given the option to mute that channel entirely?
My underlying point, of course, is just because the operating system provides certain APIs, does not mean they are going to be used in good faith.
Perhaps they could team up with Facebook and create a rival app store of those who don’t want to pay the 30% tax. Of which they can all hemorrhage users together- it should be noted that FB is also having issues maintaining and growing DAU.
Permissions represent one of two pillars of their strategy against legal malware developers. The second one is the rulebook associated with the AppStore, preventing publishing non-compliant apps and banning developers for breaking said rules. A classic example is Facebook misusing enterprise certificates to install "Facebook research" which allowed them almost unrestricted access to the data of the users. Apple revoked their enterprise certificate, which also affected internal applications that Facebook employees were using. Facebook relented.
If Facebook launches their own app store, the second pillar is completely circumvented. Additionally they will find ways around the technical limitations, be it through use of private APIs, tricking users into clicking confirmations or bribing them. Technical limitations are not enough when dealing with malicious actors.
Meta be forced to offer their adware/spyware Facebook app through the Apple app store as well, as many people will not agree or won't have the technical knowledge to install more than one alternative app store. Apple will probably be forced to provide a list of alphabetically ordered app stores to choose from in the initial iPhone setup. It's quite convenient that their own app store starts with an A.
And let's say the user says No. Today the app will be forced to work without it. By Apple Store rules. Tomorrow the app will say "this permission is required for app to work".
The government offers a democratic way to determine these requirements
Some apps are unavoidable for most people, like whatsapp or facebook.
Future is Matrix.
Are you aware of man in the middle attacks? Do you think encrypted channels are safe from state actors?
Also most phones don’t even use SMS anymore, and instead go through an encrypted server to make it so you can hide your traffic from your neighbors.
Get with reality, not everybody wants or needs what your selling here.
Of course I am aware of this.
Spend $16 and sit in a coffee shop for an hour, guarantee you'll intercept plenty of SMS: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/03/16-at...
Not selling anything here considering every reasonable solution to this problem is something offered for free, or can be mitigated by a user with FOSS.
Furthermore, the lawyer isn't just de-risking one evil genie wish, they're de-risking millions of them. Apple does not just have Facebook on the App Store. They have millions of apps. And as you can imagine, many of them are barely reviewed garbage or outright scams. If these apps tried to get distributed outside of the App Store, nobody would trust them. But them being on the App Store gives users a false sense of security. Apple switched from being highly selective in the early days of iOS to doing bare-minimum checks because the latter made them more money.
"just don't install the app" won't work in many, many cases.
Yeah, but I can't I can use only Safari engine, and I would like to use Firefox one.
Such compulsions are the real problem. In a free society, nobody should be compelled to have a phone at all, let alone install software on one. Government services in particular should never be gated in this way. If no compulsion exists, then there is no problem with people having the choice to use any appstore they wish.
If by 'have to' you mean something along the lines of "My brother keeps badgering me to install WhatsApp" then the answer is to simply say "No." Real example. He texts me instead.
I believe a rooted Android used to allow something like that, not sure if that still works nowadays.
This can lead to an arms race where the OS creates increasingly advanced/realistic fake data, and apps get increasingly sophisticated logic.
So I'm not a fan of solving this the technical way. A policy is way better, but you need to be able to enforce it.
Sure, it'll lead to arms race like you describe on one side, but let's say 99% of the apps won't even engage in that arms race if the fake data is generic enough to cause a high number of false positives (blocking someone who's not actually faking the data).
Then, we can focus on the remaining 1% of worst offenders to actually enforce the policy.
Realistically this just drives people into a different walled garden. One that is device-vendor agnostic, but a walled garden nonetheless - in that your purchases are tied to Epic. This law could have been so much better, but now it just trades one problem for a bunch of new ones (some even worse than what it's trying to solve).
One thing that might have been nice - making allowances in the law for centralised certification authorities with fixed tariffs, so that Apple still checks the builds as it does now for the App Store, but then the builds can be released elsewhere (as the signatures will match). For this they could charge a fee, which could be capped in the law at a percentage of the sale price (and obviously much lower than 30%). This way iOS/Android could still have guaranteed protection, for which Apple/Google's costs are covered, but the user would have freedom to get their software from wherever.
The problem is that hardline free software advocates would still complain about this, insisting that the certification authority be scrapped. iOS and Android are now Windows, and it's going to be a mess.
Now that I have an iPhone, I miss NewPipe greatly. But with this law, I might be able to get something like it in a few months without jailbreaking.
And when your employer / school / insurance provider / other requires it, what then?
Other wise you can end up like the streaming situation where people are just giving up with all the subscriptions and just pirating everything.
This will be a problem but the solution is not to transfer your freedom to choose to Apple and just let them decide which third party apps you are allowed to use.
In some cases that will mean making a hard choice between accepting the risk of using the third party app store, or accepting that you won't be able to use certain apps. The benefits are significant though - your device will actually be under your control. You will be able to do all the things Apple prevent now.
Very good point. It's almost like people believing it to be better for a "benevolent" dictator to make all decisions, so that they won't be bothered with having to make choices.
Not every user wants to give over their freedom of choice to Apple (or any seemingly "kind" dictator), and many would prefer they can make decisions about what is best for their particular situation and based on their own preferences.
Will the solution involve a method to negotiate degrees-of-freedom? Or perhaps a freedom grant method with revocation protocol? Do I get a little widget to see how free I am at the moment?
I'd love to see a laundry list of changes to industry practice, too. But the language employed for these compatibility fights is just getting goofy.
The F150 cup holder is enslaving me, somebody pass a law quick!
You already have that choice today: I can buy into the walled-garden, or go to Android and side-load to my heart's content.
Clearly the market has chosen the preferred route. (I personally am also in the camp of preferring the simple, locked-down approach for my family that Apple has created.)
So if Google decided to force this policy onto Android phones, you would support the EU introducing this legislation to bring back the option of side-loading?
Or would you want the legislation to only apply to Android phones, and not Apple devices?
Indeed - iOS trails Android in Europe. With this law in effect, perhaps more Europeans will choose to buy iPhones
As apposed to today where you can’t get it at all if apple and the app disagree about anything?
I know you are thinking of another large enough player you don’t trust as much forcing their store as the only avenue for an app, but it’s hard to imagine how that wouldn’t provide large incentives for a smaller party to make a competitor on the official store.
Since there is only one app store for iPhones, almost every app vendor is willing to conform to Apple's guidelines (which are often pro-privacy and protect the user). Otherwise they lose out on a significant market share with a lot of spending power.
smaller party to make a competitor on the official store
Sure, they will pop up. But Facebook, Microsoft, and Google will start iOS app stores and app developers will go to their app stores because of network effects.
You've just described why these changes are good. I feel like the word "willing" in your statement is carrying a lot of weight.
Apple forces developers to publish from Apple devices, spend $100 a year for a developer account, give up 15-30% of any revenue generated from that app, use WebKit, etc.
That is not at all what I describe as restrictions that lead to "willing" app vendors.
They might try, but it would be a lot harder than you imagine.
You have Android as a real world experiment, go ask an Android users to search the Facebook Messenger app on Google Play store and you will see it is there, FB did not forced Android users to install the app by side loading it and FB did not created their own app store for their apps.
What could happen though is you would get fair prices, say an app/Game would be 30% cheaper if you buy it directly from the developer and not from an intermediary, though I did not see this happening on PC (getting a better deal if I buy directly, I am wondering what causes this)
I often hear this argument but Android has had third-party app-stores and 'side-loadable apps' since day one and I can't think of a single major app that needs its own app-store.
There are also app stores on Android that basically push lots of scamware targeted at kids.
We aren't the target audience so we aren't going to see much of these going ons.
My bet is on Microsoft Solitaire. :-)
Though Minecraft is supposedly still at 170 million monthly active players vs. 80M or less for Fortnite.
Not necessarily up to date but interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-played_video_game...
This works both ways. Some people want to use iOS exclusive apps but can't justify buying an iPhone because of how restrictive it is. This act alleviates that.
- The app in question does not exist because the only existing app store run by Apple rejects it. Tough luck, no choice, but you still can stay safe.
Don't you agree that the latter situation is a strict subset of the former?
Also, if I were Apple, I would implement a one-click return to "safe defaults", and a prominent badge to tell Apple's software and setting from third-party.
I use MacBooks and iPhone, and I love their current form, but they are victim of their own success at one point, like how Intel just dragged its feet to just keep the performance gap enough to keep the lead. Maybe this can help us to see a better, more exciting Apple and tech ecosystem, no?
The last battery lawsuit brought us "Battery health" menu, and this is immensely useful, even if it only reads a couple flags and shows us what the iOS is doing.
This sounds like iPhone user argument. In Android world you can have multiple app stores, but if you want your app to be used you must be on Google one, because it has the most eyes. Facebook didn't create their own app store.
Custom App stores are fringe apps, with exceptions of f-droid which is source of open source apps and many prefer it to google play (and apps are frequently on both stores) and maybe samsung/amazon ones because they are preinstalled on some devices.
I don't think so. Another comment was mentioning how some desktop apps are built to install ONLY from a certain marketplace (eg Steam) so you can't install them from anywhere else. It could easily happen on iOS.
Competition
Direct downloads from websites isn't far off - I wouldn't be surprised if we very rapidly get to a place of each-app-is-it's-own-store for the purposes of complying with the law so you can freely download apps from websites.
It'll be Windows all over again, with all that implies.
That’s actually not possible though. For instance, Microsoft is likely to create its own app store, as is Adobe, Google, and obviously Epic, among the many others. So now I will have to install a bunch of app stores just to install different softwares.
I already have this problem on my gaming PC where I not only have a bunch of different app stores, but a bunch of different update tools, payment providers, logins (not just for the games, but for the app stores). It’s a freaking pain in the butt. I just want to play a game on my PC and I have to deal with crap like that. I don’t want it on my phone!
I guess most of "the rest of the world" will still be hindered by the price tag.
This isn't going to end well.
I’m sure apple will fight this tooth and nail, but it’s my phone. I paid for it. I want to be able to do what I want with my device.
However, the Apple Pay & NFC stuff just rubs me the wrong way. The only reason they have been begging for this is the ability to collect more data about riders, which isn't necessary and probably would get sold to third parties for the purpose of serving ads and other services.
I want none of this and those firms can kindly fuck off right into the Sun.
Existing API's do the basics just fine.
Thank $deity the MTA didn't entertain any of this bullshit when they rolled out OMNY. Now if we could get NJTransit on board, we'd be all set.
^ Offset of course by the fact that most customers have pretty good credit to begin with and probably spend more than your average Visa or Mastercard.
In addition, I would also expect them to be paying for integration into someone's payment infrastructure to provide other services - PayPal, Stripe, Square, and the like.
See also, Aussie banks who wanted the same thing.
How anyone would ever think this is a good idea, with third parties having unmediated access to hardware has not thought this through.
I’m not opposed to regulations, but the EU should be careful not to be too permissive or specific, keeping in mind the limitations of doing either one.
See also: the EU directive about mandating USB-C ports. They claim the standard will be revised in response to market conditions on the ground, which is nice to hear, but governments are slow - often by design - and they will need to prove it before they can be trusted not to screw up.
It’s not like apple subsidises the devices with income from the App Store fees. They’re just double dipping, and I’m glad the EU is slapping that down.
Using the official API prevents most of this misbehavior, which is why it doesn't bother me if Apple are jerks about enforcing compliance.
If you, or an app you use, feel like access is necessary, make your case to them. Repeatedly if neccessary. Software is nothing if not malleable and most of these areas are slowly opening up, as the company seems to have read the room on a few things and would like to get ahead before the law requires they do so.
On the other hand, especially with hardware that could conceivably track your location, I'm surprised that users - the knowledgable ones anyway at least - aren't up in arms about what access to raw data (e.g, not mediated by an API) by someone other than the platform vendor might mean for them.
I don't think it's necessary to pull an EFF move and demand everything be private, but this is one area that I suspect would meet the standard where people want the bar to be much higher about who gets access to data and what they are allowed to use it for.
Particularly after reading the memos which came out in the Epic lawsuit, I can’t tell how much all of this really is about privacy. Or how much privacy is just cover to take a cut of the profits of Netflix, Amazon and visa by controlling access to our phones.
The privacy argument probably has some truth, but it seems suspiciously self serving for Apple.
I think there’s plenty of ways apple could preserve my privacy without taking such extreme control of my device. A simple answer would be to give banks direct access to the NFC chips on the condition of user privacy. And cut them off if they violate that policy rule.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that apple’s chosen solution just happens to be the one which maximises their profit.
After all, Google can't really do the differential privacy stuff to the extent Apple does due to their reliance on ad revenue - which is only so targeted because they collect it in the first place, giving their Ads customers (businesses) more opportunities to sell to.
Netflix wants to build viewer profiles of its users, so gathering that data in a way that they can ID helps; Amazon will do similar things to suggest purchases based on your history.
As a card provider for the general public, Visa kind of has to play ball and even then, their customers are merchants and financial institutions that issue cards.
Given enough size - think FAANG, or really any financial institution - Apple probably can't reject them for shady behavior, but can always work to build guardrails to prevent the worst offenders from going off.
So you would also approve government entity to control what you do in your house, just to make sure you don't do something gross? If not, why you want some private company to control a phone you bought and own?
How about the fact that you knew about the restrictions before you bought the product?
I feel you are in the wrong here. You knew the contract conditions and still signed it but because you don’t like it you want to change it. Well I like it so why is your view stronger than mine? Keep in mind you do have the option of Android and with this law you are taking away my right to choose a completely closed garden. Something I actually enjoy - I’m not just playing devil’s advocate here
> You knew the contract conditions and still signed it
I didn’t sign a contract. I bought something with my money. I don’t have an ongoing business relationship with apple. But apple still thinks they’re in the right to control what I do on my own hardware.
And wow do they make a lot of money inserting themselves into my financial transactions. All in the name of privacy I hear. Suuuureee.
Apple is cleverly using the iPhone as a moat to stop banks and other companies from competing with them on software for their devices. They know nobody else has the expertise and deep enough pockets to compete on hardware - and they’re using that to milk as much money through software as they can get away with. It’s just the same as what Microsoft did bundling IE with windows - except way worse because apple doesn’t even let you install anything else.
It’s a terrible deal for consumers and the EU is right to slap them down for it.
It's my phone, I should be able to do everything with it, if they don't like it they don't need to sell it in EU.
Oh no, one of the richest companies on the planet might have to spend a tiny bit more on making things better for everyone.
The absolute horror!
Seems to me that opening this stuff up would make our phones better, not worse.
It wouldn't necessarily make things worse for you though.
> Apple is the world's largest technology company by revenue, the world's largest technology company by total assets,[454] and the world's second-largest mobile phone manufacturer after Samsung.[455][456]
> In its fiscal year ending in September 2011, Apple Inc. reported a total of $108 billion in annual revenues—a significant increase from its 2010 revenues of $65 billion—and nearly $82 billion in cash reserves.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc.#Finance
And then...
> In re: High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation (U.S. District Court, Northern District of California 11-cv-2509 [10]) is a class-action lawsuit on behalf of over 64,000 employees of Adobe, Apple Inc., Google, Intel, Intuit, Pixar and Lucasfilm (the last two are subsidiaries of Disney) against their employer alleging that their wages were repressed due to alleged agreements between their employers not to hire employees from their competitors.[11][12] The case was filed on May 4, 2011 by a former software engineer at Lucasfilm and alleges violations of California's antitrust statute, Business and Professions Code sections 16720 et seq. (the "Cartwright Act"); Business and Professions Code section 16600; and California's unfair competition law, Business and Professions Code sections 17200, et seq. Focusing on the network of connections around former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, the Complaint alleges "an interconnected web of express agreements, each with the active involvement and participation of a company under the control of Steve Jobs...and/or a company that shared at least one member of Apple's board of directors." The alleged intent of this conspiracy was "to reduce employee compensation and mobility through eliminating competition for skilled labor."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...
And do you really think they've "seen the light" since then?
> the entire tech industry was colluding on salary and comp?
And BTW it pretty much was the entire tech industry, it came out in the court proceedings: "Dozens" of other major tech companies were involved. Pando Daily had good reporting but they closed but you can still read up on it through the Archive.
- - - -
The OP said:
> Because it requires the devotion of Apple's resources to supporting non-Apple things. It will necessarily degrade certain experiences away from those that Apple would provide without the regulation.
The first point (about Apple's war chest) is that they have plenty of resources.
The second point (about how they conspired to cheat their own engineers despite having more money than Scrooge McDuck) is just to remind everyone that these are amoral money-grubbing bastards who will do pretty much anything they think they can get away with to make a buck.
The idea that opening up their walled garden to competition will "degrade certain experiences" is laughable.
Many things will need to be rewritten; this legislation will result in significant delays in shipping new end-user features, if Apple doesn’t simply pull out of the EU, since the EU is demonstrating with this legislation that they don’t care about end-user privacy/security.
Come on, do you really expect us to be sympathetic to a trillion dollar company if its profit margin reduces? (Which any way may not happen - realistically, they'll just pass on the cost to us consumers).
Keyboard crashing, UI glitching and having wrong dimensions/inoperable sections, occasionally deciding that minimum brightness is the only allowed value and being entirely unresponsive to the brightness slider, some days using waaaay more battery with no battery accounting, sometimes requiring a reboot to use a Qi charger, occasionally freezing and dropping me back to the home screen after what I assume is a crash, sometimes requiring hard reboots as the UI is entirely locked up and doesn't even want to soft crash, ...
I can keep going. And yes, it's a new model that no it's not full of crap and apps. It sees light usage outside reading news sites.
The "apple is more reliable" thing is a myth. I feel that it used to be the case, but I haven't felt like that for a decade.
And no, having anecdotal good experiences is not very useful. I also have those, and so do users of every other platform. Reliability is about the bad experiences, and just works" implies none or at least very few bad experiences.
This isn't a hardware defect or a broken install. It's just mediocre software, nothing more. This isn't even that glitchy. All those things don't usually happen at once, although they are recurring - including for friends on different device generations, ruling out unlucky hardware and moon rays.
As mentioned, they are reproduced on devices of friends of different generations, and my earlier devices were no saints either.
Plus, remember the debugging manual: When software bugs out, it's safe to assume it's always the software that's broken. Suspicion of kernel, compiler or hardware faults come after the software has been proven free of fault (which you can't reasonably do without source access).
That eliminates...nearly all software ever created. Good luck out there
HN should know that "works for me" is not a good answer to an issue report...
As for service, this is not unique to a single device. Many if the issues are seen on a newer model from a friend within a few weeks of purchase. For that to still be hardware or related to my iOS install, shipped product quality would have to be quite a lottery...
None of what you mentioned I even heard of, let alone experienced. Yet you come here and seem to be claiming that your anecdotal evidence weighs heavier than the anecdotal evidence of others. Weird.
It's a shame that you drew the short straw but maybe it's something in your setup, home network, mobile coverage or whatnot.
If we're going to exchange anecdotes, I can write at least 20 short horror stories of all 13 Android devices I owned over the course of 6 years, belonging to 5 different brands. They had systemic and repeatable / reproducible issues which I eventually concluded their custodians weren't interested in fixing.
I can keep going as well. None of what you said is actual evidence.
(Macs may not be as "just works" as iPhones, sure. I've personally seen that too many times. But computers are also intended to be more flexible and complicated in operation than smartphones, and regardless of personal anecdotes Apple is still widely regarded as building the most "just works" general purpose computers. And whatever faults Macs have, you'd be hard pressed to argue that if only the Mac was more of a walled garden that things would be better.)
Yeah, but now you can choose which walled garden you lock yourself up in, so it's even better.
I am a tech person but when it comes to phones I want the damn thing just to work and simple to use.
I think the form factor is very relevant. A MacBook is treated like a computer. A phone is treated like an appliance.
Most phone/tablet users want the convenience of modular functionality without vetting the source. Said functionality should also be easy to discover and add/remove, hence app stores.
Whereas on a computer, app stores are ignored if they even exist. Most people install after doing their own Googling or seeing it run on another MacBook.
In my opinion phones intended for general purpose computing should have distinct marketing and different software-related features.
I feel a lot of ppl in tech actually don’t care about the end user and care only about the profit they can make while completely disrespecting my privacy. How about that being the phenomenon?
Most people use Google Pay there, bank apps with payments is something that is used rarely, but there is such possibility.
Though you and various others might prefer the "walled garden", that is not to say that all Apple users prefer it that way. Clearly, as jailbreaking demonstrates, there are significant numbers of iPhone users that didn't and don't want to stay behind Apple's jail or wall.
You have a choice when you buy things.
I want the walled garden for my parents so that I can tell them - anything you install is safe so don’t stress.
I think most engineers are so narrow minded and don’t understand a vast majority of the user base that it’s insane.
Ppl made the decision to buy a specific device. Respect their choice. You don’t like it? Don’t develop for that OS…
For example, I might want to use iMessage without any of the restrictions that you get on other non apple devices. This is huge, my friends all have iPhones and use iMessage. I don't want a neutered experience. What happens to family that rely on these tools, mom's that are looking into buying their child's first phone? This is how people become trapped in these ecosystems.
The camera on iPhones is really good, apps like Snapchat or Instagram have always functioned way better on iPhone than on android.
There are many reasons why someone would want to use a lot of apps developed for the iPhone. But they might also have extra needs. Personally, I do have an android phone, and besides the apps that I've installed through the playstore I have lots of alternative apps from the f droid. They're great. I have wanted to try the iPhone because I know my mainstream apps would work better in the iPhone. But alas, there are too many restrictions.
Why would having more choice be a bad thing?
If you want to follow Apple's future suggested practices, then you will still be able to, it just won't be forcibly imposed on all users.
That way when the inevitable "Apple has been hacked and is no better than Android" media driven hit pieces come out - Apple can highlight that this is happening on the open developer phone meant for the fringe consumers, not the safe walled garden that most of us normal, non bleeding edge consumers have in our pocket.
And us folks who just want a phone that works can sigh in relief versus having to read a 1000 word article only to find its because some guy went through several hoops to install some obvious malware.
They would have then controlled this debate, and there would have been less room for the Epics of the world to complain about the platform being locked down. Not to mention users would benefit from greater choice. Imagine boutique third party app stores springing up devoted to specific interests and niches such as F-Droid, or promising better curation or quality.
Companies who refuse to use the AppStoreKit that Apple so beneficently provided would then be seen as malefactors seeking to subject their users to lack of privacy and security, rather than Apple trying to uphold their 30% cut and restrictive behavior.
Instead, Apple tried to control everything and not only did they expose themselves to regulation like this, they deal with customers annoyed at scammy apps on their own App Store, and third party devs crying foul at inconsistent policing.
Also, I use a few mobile apps with web push notifications, so there is that too! Webkit still doesn’t support neither.
Im hyped.
Not saying that the trade isn't worth it, just that, well, now that Pandora's box is open, it's coming to get you, even if you don't want it to.
1. Apple won't stay competitive for its major partners in the app store.
2. The app will be really important for you with no alternatives.
3. It will be both important and won't be up to your standards established by Apple.
My suspicion is that if it provides really interesting functionality, it will have enough competition that you will be able to choose from.
The major danger comes from scams targeting uneducated users, however, if Apple really wants to protect them, it will make everything possible to maintain their app store as a viable distribution channel.
I'm thinking of scenarios where you don't specifically want the app, nor does it offer any particularly interesting functionality - it's just a platform lock-in effect.
As a trivial instance, you can't install Fortnite on Windows machines without going through the Epic Store. Yet, the value of Fortnite isn't how the game plays, but the skins & community - things that cannot be replicated by another app.
This is something iPhone uses use all the time and this did not happen on Android.
Some people just like golden handcufs.
I think being able to side-load stuff, while keeping the sandboxing (and requiring user permission for access to data) in place would be ideal for me. This makes it a bit easier to write stuff for the device and distribute ad-hoc to friends and family stuff that is of no interest to the general public.
I don't have a strong interest in alternative browsers, because I don't believe any of the developers of alternative browsers will prioritize battery life. But I know others have strong feelings about that.
The idea of this is great in theory. But since when have third party companies ever acted for the benefit of the user. This is one of those cases where I felt like Apple benefiting also benefited me as a user.
Epic is a fantastic example that went to great lengths to not use the App Store for Fortnite.
I worry that allowing this will make it so more developers use third party billing (and dark patterns for canceling), third party app stores that may do shady things, or just distributing packages directly.
Sure you can make the argument that I can just not download those apps, but once a company realizes they can abuse their customers by not needing to conform to the rules that Apple sets. Why would continue to be on the App Store?
I am watching this very carefully, but I worry that as a consumer I will loose one of the key reasons I use an iPhone.
It’ll turn the iPhone into an android. Which sucks as I left android because I enjoyed the walled garden.
No one is forcing you to play Epic games.
But Apple will probably cut down their rates significantly so most companies stick with the app store.
Especially if the US follows suit.
what is in the walled garden is decided by apple, and they do not have your best interests in mind.
For example - any app you install has unfettered network access.
what/who the app is connecting to, and what is being sent back and forth is opaque to you.
deep linking allows apps to intercept url references external to the app.
privacy policies are documents that live on a web server and can change at any time. And app updates can silently change the behavior of the apps as well.
It's all a mess, but because there are nice fonts and the icons have rounded corners people are subtly influenced to think it is well organized, maintained and modern.
Then the solution will be to use anti viruses and other software, which will make the ecosystem even more exploitative (imagine the likes of Norton and Avast on your phone).
I believe the best solution is giving the user a choice of the OS. Like go to a store, select phone hardware, select OS and pay. Once you're on an OS you play by the OS' rules. Like for android you could choose vanilla, Samsung distro, Mi distro, etc. Similarly iOS could be available on Pixel hardware, etc.