In fact, aren't these preferable? I just want a weather app that shows me the current weather and a forecast, without any social bullshit, accounts, ads, etc.
Also, if iOS users have that "one app" they can't live without, surely it makes them stickier? Why would Apple want to limit the chances of hitting that spot with their users by curbing the number of apps available?
They do one thing, and (usually) do it pretty well, probably because the developers probably don't have the time and resources to do anything more than that. But that's perfect for someone who just wants the thing on their phone to do what it says on the tin.
It’s worse than dated. The top results are ads. I’d pay a monthly subscription fee to return to the App Store search/UX from before it had ads.
Apple has no interest in any right that won't make them richer
The deal is the same as it ever was: Apple can continue selling their extremely safe applications with their extremely secure payment system and state-of-the-art curation team; the only condition is that other shops get to play along too. There's zero downside to them going this route, I think it would allow them to further secure the iPhone by paring back the entitlements allowed for their store. Nobody would criticize them for this, but Apple's greed prevents them from conceding.
Just think about how you'd feel if your Mac could only use the App Store to install software. Personally, I wouldn't even be able to do anything on it if that were the case.
The EU is dead wrong. EU commissioners have absolutely zero clue about what makes for good "customer experience". There's one party that has proven, for 15 years now, to have the most clue about that. It's Apple.
My preference would be that spying and hoarding data about users simply be outlawed (plus a bunch of other things, some of which Apple does, unfortunately, allow) and those laws be well-enforced—and also the walled gardens opened up, by law if necessary, but I'd much rather not see the latter without the former happening first, since the current state of things in-fact lets me choose to have some protection against that bad behavior, without significant time investment on my part. If that private regulatory service breaks down for any reason, I'll simply be worse off, as things stand.
Meta was literally already caught doing this by abusing enterprise certificates to bypass the App Store to spy on people, including children, until Apple stopped them.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jan/31/apple-fac...
Another important factor is the consumer backlash it’d engender.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30808926
To do something as disruptive as to create a new App Store and force everyone to migrate is not easy. Users are sick of juggling as many user accounts as they do already. Not all existing iOS users will switch, there will be grassroots viral social media campaigns on other platforms warning people not to use it, and it will bring a lot of bad PR. It would not be a frictionless transition and Meta would quickly discover that it is more trouble than it is worth. (And as I’ve pointed out elsewhere, I don’t believe Facebook or Google have the gumption these days to create widely popular new products these days.)
Ultimately, I believe both the public in the form of democratic government, and in the form of consumers, can be counted on to do the right thing. We should not put ourselves in the position of simply relying on one corporation’s benevolent paternalism to check the power of other corporations.
No part of my comment said this.
Which is why God invented corporations for this purpose. I'm all for democracy, and there's a place for that. This isn't it.
You can test this. Compile hello world and send it to your friend.
Apple absolutely has the right to control what apps are available on its store, and what apps are not. This isn't about what is "appropriate"; you just made that up.
This also has nothing to do with "common sense", or at least what you think is common sense.
If I own a gadget, I own it. That means that I _have the right_ to do whatever I want with it, including jailbreaking it, disassembling it, or throwing it from a cliff.
Apple might not like it, and might take punitive action. Void the warranty, maybe even cancel your Apple account. But they can not send me to jail.
What's at issue is whether you have the right to force Apple to carry any apps you want, in their App Store. And you don't. It's really that simple.
We are explicitly talking the opposite - let me install apps even if Apple disapproves of them. No need for the Appstore. Just let my sideload my own software on my own device I paid for with cash.
The EU has decided that Apple doesn't have that right, just as companies don't have the right to enforce a contract which requires that the signer becomes their indentured servant. We don't accept slavery of meatspace humans, so it is only consistent that we don't allow companies to own our digital selves too.
> you have the right to force Apple to carry any apps you want
You might be talking about that, but I get the impression that the rest of us are talking about something else. I have, for example, specifically mentioned jailbreaking.
Having trouble seeing which tiny sliver of a point you have left.
I’m all for rejecting ‘low effort’ apps, but this app clearly isn’t low effort.
> Homescreen widgets: utterly useless, but can't get more iOS-y and less webapp-y than this, right?
This especially, but really the whole post reads like the system working as intended.
Granted (as the author notes) way too much shit gets through anyway, but that's not an excuse to do even worse. I do, as a user, wish they'd tighten up the rules a lot and improve enforcement. I'm quite sure it'd improve my experience on the store (and probably on the web—imagine how much better the Reddit site would get, probably overnight, if their app got pulled over not being well-justified).