Having a curated store \neq Having only one store.
Also, that misses all the other areas pointed out: "Be it the electronic wallet, browsers or app stores, consumers using an Apple iPhone should be able to benefit from competitive services by a range of providers."
> But that policy should then also apply to PlayStation, X-box, Tesla infotainment, etc.
Why? That only applies to "gatekeepers". So you would have to argue that apple is very unsuccessful and hence these are at the same level as apple... seems like quite a stretch.
No it's not. Currently all the apps that want to be available on Apple's platform have to submit to Apple's rules. If alternative app stores are allowed, they won't have to do that. As a consumer I like the current state of matters more.
>Also, that misses all the other areas
I'm reacting only to the App Store part. I'm all for opening electronic wallet or allowing browser engines into App Store. Those are off topic in this subthread.
>Why? That only applies to "gatekeepers".
I don't see how PS/Xbox/Tesla are any less of a gatekeeper than Apple.
iOS then becomes just one environment that the phone's owner can choose to run under that hypervisor. Within any given environment the maker of that environment should be free make it as open or closed as they want.
The device maker should have to make it easy to run different environments.
On Android, you have to abide by Google's rules if you want to be in the Play Store; Amazon's if you want to be in theirs; F-Droid's to be there.
Consumers have choice over whose rules they care about. In a hypothetical iOS with app store competition, what you write would presumably still be true for the Apple App Store, there just might be an 'F-iOS' or whatever that insists the app is open source too, for example.
Perhaps you might say that would be fair, but it is a world that suits me less than the current one.
You don't have to come up with hypothetical scenarios if you already have a real life example to look at.
But once Meta, Epic etc can run their own stores on both iOS and Android they will absolutely move their apps to them. Epic has already said how important this is to be able to implement their metaverse strategy.
Google even took steps to prevent people from installing malware pretending to be fortnite, and steered them to the official installer. Not out of the goodness of their heart, TBF.
anyway, here is a real-world example of the type of spyware that facebook and others will deploy once they have the leverage. again, remember that this already happened and most likely still exists and is something they have ready to deploy again if the opportunity presents.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/facebook-and-google-...
Some of the properties of the walled garden have nothing to do with security, though. They are simply uncompetitive practices on Apple part. I’m happy someone said “enough”.
When individuals choices start to actively harm society laws are often created to prevent more harm.
Then don't. Nobody is forcing you.
Because there will be many applications you may need to use e.g. banking which will be on an alternative App Store purely so they can skirt Apple's privacy restrictions. Finance is one sector where they would love to siphon all of your user data in order to better promote products and reduce risk.
And so I would be forced to use them.
Also, OS level permissions don’t need to go away for third party apps.
And Apple can’t properly enforce OS level permissions due to Objective-C dynamic dispatch.
This being entirely separate from using allowed APIs for unapproved reasons, after passing whatever review/scan is done.
The performance degradation would be so significant it would render many apps and most of the OS unusable.
And yours is truly insane.
How many people would install a banking app from a third party app store on Android? Let's be real, zero. Why would it be different on iOS?
And given that the benefit of doing so is unlimited access to user data and the capabilities of the hardware then it would be hard for many companies to not consider it.
And also, for some reason you are afraid that most people that brought that phone will refuse to join if not coerced.
That first one is morally wrong. And the second one of factually wrong.
As others have pointed out, you can have both a walled garden store and an Apple curated store — and this is how Android operates. More menacing though, are Apples reasons for not wanting competition.
Put simply; if Safari wasn't the only allowed browser on iDevices (other browsers are just skins over what is essentially Safari), they would lose a significant amount of power. They can throw their weight around now, partially because they have a strong web browser market share — but it's artificially imposed.
If you don't think it's forced, have a quick quiz at work amongst Apple fanboys, and find out how many of them use Safari as their default web browser — on their Macs.
That migration process is the discoverability issue, because now users would be forced to contend with yet another website, marketplace, account, etc.
I want the forced to open up to competitors to be applied to everyone.
Even if alternative app stores were allowed you'd more than likely never be forced to use them. Alternative stores are available on Android and yet the overwhelming majority of apps are still on the play store. The idea that Facebook, Amazon, Google or whoever would pull their apps and force you to use their store is complete FUD that ignores that the overwhelming majority of users wouldn't tolerate an app not being on Apples store.
I think you're right, but won't that defeat the purpose of opening the stores up? For instance: right now, you can't buy Kindle eBooks through the Amazon app. You need to do it through the web browser, so Amazon doesn't need to pay Apple 30%. But if Amazon continues to list their Apple in Apple's App Store, how will that change? Would they have 2 versions of their App—one in Apple's store that disallows eBook purchases, and one in Amazon's App Store that allows eBook purchases? Or will they still just disallow eBook purchases?
I think it is nice to have a choice of a walled off platform. If I wanted a "more open" platform, I would get an Android phone. There are plenty of amazing Android phones.
I choose the tradeoff of Apple's curation.
Yes, I cannot run arbitrary software and sometimes it is a disadvantage. Yes, I don't agree with all of the App Store rules all of the time. Yes, I don't think the App Store revenue split is entirely fair.
However, I absolutely love that all the developers including the likes of Meta or Uber have to bow down to Apple's rules, which are mostly beneficial to me. I don't want to download apps from alternative app stores. I want them to be available in App Store and to be submitting to all of the curation rules.
Perhaps it might seem ridiculous to you, but I want to have the freedom to choose a closed ecosystem as long as there is a good alternative.
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On the other hand, I think jailbreaking shouldn't void warranty. Also, I might be fine with a regulation that forces Apple to release an "official jailbreak". But that policy should then also apply to PlayStation, X-box, Tesla infotainment, etc.