At its core, this is a discussion about rent seeking. Apple and Google lust after their 30% cut, which is outrageous and would not be long tolerated in any other business arrangement. They keep the gravy train going because of gatekeeping.
“I want to root/mod my device” and “right to repair” are interesting but orthogonal arguments. Those arguments are about “what does it mean to own a thing”.
I am glad the EU is doing this but I despair that Apple and Google will still avoid this in the US.
Personally, I’m mostly happy with the App Store except their bans based on political POV (disguised as content violations).
I’m much more unhappy with the content stores on mobile devices; I want to set Amazon as my book store and buy within the Kindle app.
Ed s/list/lust/g stupid autocorrect
I think 30% has been ridiculously high although I don’t know what a fairer margin is. For what it’s worth Apple has managed to maintain a 30% profit margin (not just sales) on the hardware they sell which is unheard of in the consumer electronics industry (everyone else is struggling to just barely make money in phones and mostly losing while others are taking a much more modest cut in other categories). Partly it’s branding. Partly it’s savvy business practices. Partly it’s immoral business practices.
Obviously the comparison is slightly Apples to oranges, as physical retailers have massive overheads/COGS that Apple don’t incur for the App Store.
It also made a distinction between apps acquired from the Play Store and apps you loaded yourself from outside of it.
But I assume even those will benefit if Apple has to compete with alternative sources of services. Myself I feel the Apple app store is somewhat inadequate and clumsy to use both for consumers and suppliers. Me and some others around me have this view that it could be done better. Especially the process of publishing your work. It remains a bumpy ride as there is no incentive for them to spend on improving it, people have no other choice than doing it the way Apple dictates, no alternatives. Even as consumer navigating the store it feels pretty much directed into a particular direction others want us to go.
Hopefully those not thinking about using alternative choices will benefit too from the opening up of the infrastructure.
Which is exactly what Apple doesn't want, because of (a) Fortnite / alt payment options (b) Facebook / privacy restrictions bypass, i.e. the loss of revenue and the loss of credibility as a (sort of) privacy-oriented platform.
So I am sure they will fight to at least make it an OR.
Also it could lead to a much better ecosystem of open-source apps like there is with F-Droid on Android. It'll take some time to develop but I really love many F-Droid apps over their commercial alternatives. Apps are so much more efficient if they just do what they need to do and don't bother with all the spying and ads.
It could also finally enable other browsers on iOS for real!
I am not sure about this. Who would buy an iphone with the intention to sideload apps if it does not let them install all the apps that the iphone is famous for at the same time? Microsoft allowed users to still use IE (and Office and everything else) after they have been forced to offer other browsers.
I envision a scenario, where you buy a new iphone and selecting/configuring appstores is part of the setup process and can be changed later. As many as you want, just like you would add repos in a package manager.
We would not allow our shopping bags to limit our possible sources of groceries to one specific supermarket chain.
However, I think consoles have always been "consume media" devices in peoples minds. Maybe with steam deck (assuming it can get any level of popularity that xbox/ps have) we might see attitudes shift towards them.
A lot of these lawmakers are unaware of the exact internals of these devices. Phones can do everything realistically. Manage your bank accounts, pay your taxes, find jobs, make calls, consume media. Heck they can do more than your average laptop/computer - and this is self-evident for lawmakers. The same can not (yet) be said for consoles.
Anyway, I do hope we take more of these steps in the future. At the very least it reduces ewaste.
Side loading will likely still require a business agreement with Apple and “App Review” to get a cert that allows your app to run.
I’d also hope that the store are required to enforce the same security protections as the main App Store.
I don’t want buying an app to now come with the risk of uncancellable subscriptions, gross invasion of privacy, malware, etc
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/notarizin...
Also, people forget that iOS itself has many security protections built into the platform itself that go beyond App Store review.
(I have only dabbled in Android apps, my impression of the Apple situation is very much that, an impression.)
2) Because apple doesn't want to compete
I hope at the very least apple can mandate that the additional app stores enforce the same privacy and safety rules, or would the EU consider that allowing people to not be spied on be to much of an infringement of the rights of business?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30280457
Such a move is basically mutually assured destruction- they would be taking their critical app off the official Apple App Store, and in doing so inviting huge customer backlash. Besides the negative press, at least a fraction of users will not migrate over- both HN power users technical and ideological enough to reject entering a user data harvesting shady app store, and the less technically adept users who can’t figure out how to enable such a store. Not to mention, everyone who is sick and tired of having to manage yet another user account forced upon them by a tech giant. It’s guaranteed that not 100% of existing users would transition, and even if it’s not a huge amount, it would be upsetting the apple cart and damaging the brand.
There’s more considerations beyond that I mentioned previously- the difficulties of these companies now having to create their own parallel iOS app ecosystems- again, ask Facebook how their own platform’s app community is faring these days, let alone every smartphone app market that isn’t iOS or Android.
And it’s debatable that these tech giants can even successfully create a sufficiently compelling alternate app market from a product or business perspective. It feels like all of the giants are at a point where they’re engaged in side projects- cloud gaming, Clubhouse clones, Snapchat stories clones, Libra- that don’t really have staying power, as far as new products go. Creating a parasitic clone iOS App Store would yet be another boondoggle, and committing to it, as I mention, is MAD- Apple loses their apps, and these companies are forever tied to having to maintain and work on their 3rd party app stores. In fact, one can easily imagine a Meta pulling back and resubmitting Facebook, Instagram, etc. back to the official App Store after initially removing them. And it’s incredibly easy to imagine Google resigning an iOS Play Store to the Google Graveyard before you can say Stadia.
Smartphone software has been around a decade now. I don’t think it’s so easy to woo users over with your own carbon copy that offers nothing. Not to mention, perhaps these companies might invite regulator antitrust attention as well if they keep truly “critical apps” away from the official App Store. There’s a lot of possible implications.
I think the prospect of tech giant data-harvesting third party iOS app stores is a fascinating prospect that hasn’t been examined in detail. Too often it’s used as a bogeyman, “Facebook will take away their app and track you!” against sideloading. The reality is probably more complex that that, and I would argue that opening iOS to alternate app marketplaces and sideloading might actually increase business opportunities and vectors of positive innovation for Apple. But that’s the subject of another comment.
