And now you'll be able to choose WHILE still keep using iOS which is much better for you as a consumer.
This being bad for "regular people" is typical monopolistic corporate scaremongering. Apple has proven that they're more than capable of providing secure devices that provide choice with their MacBook series.
Kind of. So the primary issue is that Apple collectively bargains on behalf of customers against developers. So if you take something like privacy rights, Apple can say "hey, we've got all of these users and if you want to participate in the ecosystem you have to not track their data" - as an example.
Now what happens is that companies like Facebook and others who really want to get your data without that pesky Apple interfering is they launch legal attacks and marketing campaigns to convince people that Apple is a big bad monopoly and their "locking down" is bad for customers, etc. (so ya know, typical monopolistic corporate scaremongering) and then Apple goes and gets regulated.
With Apple finally being forced to allow a third-party app store on iOS, it makes financial sense for, well, Facebook and others to start such stores that don't respect privacy rights - Apple can't make them and then Facebook creates a neutered version of its products on Apple's App Store and creates the best version on their own (or one they support) app store. It didn't make a lot of sense to do this with just Android because you're maintaining a lot of software and it's not worth the money + you don't want to show your hand. Now with this new legislation these companies will basically eliminate a lot of customer protections that we have.
Many day-to-day people will just say "oh I need the X store for Facebook and TikTok and YouTube" and they'll sign away privacy rights to get those apps because they don't have an immediate feedback loop. They just get more and more invasive applications and then that's that.
With Apple maintaining control of the App Store ecosystem, customers could have their cake and eat it too. They got privacy rights because Apple could collectively bargain for them, but they also got their apps because so much money stands to be made anyway that companies would comply with these rules.
It absolutely blows my mind that people are rallying the pitchforks around Apple for "monopolistic corporate scaremongering" all the while missing that its all of these other "monopolistic corporate scaremongering" corporations like Facebook, Google, TikTok, Uber, and others who they're out in the streets for. I mean, you do know that Facebook is a giant corporation, right? (Not picking on Facebook here).
For me personally as a user, it means companies leave the App Store ecosystem, and devalues the iPhone and other devices.
I'm still waiting to be able to use my iPad to write code.
To be able to use the iPad as a platform for tools that contain their own WASM ecosystem of user purchase-able plugins.
To use a browser on iPhone and iPad that is actually secure.
iPhone and iPad are little addiction machines, with little value for productive work that goes beyond email and powerpoint. These legislations give us a fighting chance of regaining the quality of 00s personal computers, with advanced 20s technology.
To be perfectly fair here, you're responding as if "productivity" means "Code" and that's not exactly true.
For the overwhelming majority of people: coding is not productivity.
What is? Checking email, jotting down notes, recording meetings and transcribing/dictating them, joining meetings and having reliable video/audio.
Being able to respond to an email with a little drawing is _absolutely_ a killer feature for productivity, having a little 10" portable device which can perch on a desk and allow you the full gammut of features for a _good_ meeting is also pretty damn awesome.
One could argue that these have some moderate competence at artistic creation machines (photos, videos, drawing, some combination), but I'm not creative so I'm not sure how competent these devices realistically are.
I wont comment much on the statement you can't actually code on an iPad, technically you can; gitpods, code-server, coder.com, (and if you work at google CitC) means you already have everything you need. These work with safari; because those features Chrome demands we have are not actually needed for such tasks.
Countless, countless, countless iOS devs, even extremely high-profile ones like Marco Arment, can talk all day long about problems they've had with App Review and the capriciousness of the App Store. Tons of high-profile, reputable devs can talk about specific apps they were making or wanted to make, never saw the light of day, not because the apps violate App Store policy, but because App Review is such a minefield that they didn't want to bother.
Apple literally publicly said that devs criticising the App Store, or App Review practices, could expect retaliation.
It's insane that devs are expected to only provide apps through a single storefront, that operates at such a huge scale that moderation is necessarily arbitrary, mostly algorithmic, and inconsistent. The App Store monopoly is indefensible.
You're just shifting the target from one monopoly app store that's high profile to a dozen or so (maybe fewer) app stores who will also have their own arbitrary rules and moderation.
You might say, well at least they have alternatives from Apple. Sure, but then if those alternatives are sufficiently good competitors we likely lost all of the privacy benefits and so forth from the Apple App Store and they'll have their own arbitrary review practices and retaliatory nature. And if they as good of alternatives then most likely the majority of these apps with "problems" are just scam artists and should be rejected anyway except now they can thrive on people who are susceptible to being scammed.
To me this is a little bit like having a debate over the First Amendment where I'm kind of sitting here and saying yea you shouldn't be allowed to yell fire! in a crowd as part of the amendment from the start and others are just asking for maximum freedom of speech, only to have this legislated later anyway.
Your lack imagination of how much better software development could be given the right interfaces, and interaction modes, is somewhat representative of how the stagnation of iPad OS has crippled our optimism and taste for futurism, constantly improving user experiences and new models of computation.
The iPad has amazing input capabilities, from the pen to laser scanning that could all be used to further improve developer experiences. Be it by augmenting your scrum board, to sharing code annotations with your coworkers, or foregoing coding completely and turning flow-charts to code directly.
But sure, let's all be middle management, and write emails all day.
> I wont comment much on the statement you can't actually code on an iPad, technically you can
That's not coding on an iPad, since the code is not being interpreted/compiled on-device. You're right that an iPad can remote into a build server for "development", but so can a $6 Raspberry Pi.
I don't know why I should give a rat's ass what CPU is doing the work as long as the work can be done. Your point seems kind of pedantic in a world where a vast amount of code executes in the cloud or is intricately tied up with networked services so that a freestanding computer is of little value.
Hey, if that's your attitude then who am I to stop you? By your definition, the iPad is also a great device for Windows since it can RDP into Windows machines without problems. Of course, as I outlined above, that's not a very impressive superpower, but who cares! In the future, you'll own nothing and be happy: including your own hardware/software.
For me, though, having an internet connection as a prerequisite for running my software is borderline insanity. My software should compile and run locally, I shouldn't need to trust a random third-party or connect to the internet to check how my HTML renders or test a few changes to my software. But I guess that doesn't make a difference on iPad, because even if you did have a proper text editor/compiler it would phone home with OSCP anyways.
> Facebook and others to start such stores that don't respect privacy rights
This is trotted out every time, but these doomsaying scenarios always miss out that this is far harder to achieve than it seems, from a product and business perspective. They can build it, but consumers are unlikely to come.
If consumers are unlikely to come and major corporations aren't going to open their own app stores or migrate to third-party app stores, then what kind of companies are going to need to have a third-party app store that's uncontrolled by Apple? Do you think these companies have spent this much money on marketing and bankrolling lobbyists in the US and EU for no reason?
> major corporations aren't going to open their own app stores or migrate to third-party app stores
The major corporations will try, but consumers are just burnt out by managing all of the user accounts and dealing with different ecosystems. Not to mention even casual users are vaguely aware that these companies are out to take their data and sell them ads now.
I foresee that any attempt to put their apps exclusively on competing scammy low-privacy third party app stores will end in tears and mea culpas, leading them to put those apps back on the Apple App Store. As I've said before, creating a compelling alternative app ecosystem is hard, and if you think a Facebook App Store is going to be so scary, just look at the current state of the Amazon Appstore on Android, or the Samsung Galaxy Store. These are real world case studies, not hypothetical doomsday scenarios, and they do not show consumers flocking to these alternatives.
Finally, it's possible that antitrust logic can apply to these companies just as they apply to Apple. If Google tries to make Gmail, YouTube, G-Suite, etc. apps available only on a Google iOS Play Store, the courts aren't going to be happy about that.
> then what kind of companies are going to need to have a third-party app store that's uncontrolled by Apple?
Epic, mostly, with their games store. Piracy (for game emulators, ROMs, etc.), Porn and other adult content, and open-source Purists a la F-Droid. Also, potentially governments such as China or Russia.
> Do you think these companies have spent this much money on marketing and bankrolling lobbyists in the US and EU for no reason?
It's perfectly possible for companies to waste a lot of money on boondoggles that won't actually help their bottom line, yes.
And we mustn't forget that Big Tech companies neither pay many taxes in Europe nor do they employ a lot of people either. Most of their development and production happens elsewhere.
(Relative to their size).
They have therefore little political pull on European legislator's (beside flat out bribing them which, despite everything, isn't helping them).
The cherry on top is that all those regulations can be used in negotiations with the US in the future (e.g. to provide EU law enforcement with equal access to the data of American citizens)
Apple has completely forgotten their privacy bargains in China when their profits were threatened. They've also special-cased their own Ad data collection (a business that's growing in revenue) to be opt-out. So your trust in Apple collectively bargaining in your interest is misplaced because they ALREADY haven't proven themselves to be trustworthy (and they repeatedly lied and misled in their marketing and court hearings when it trusted them).
They're an unaccountable and unelected corporation, not a government.
I prefer to put my trust in "collectively bargained" and voted for GDPR (and similar) legislation which affects all apps, all corporations. This gives us both choice (critical for freedom), market competition (critical for healthy economy and society - growing up in socialist single-choice markets wasn't fun) AND privacy across the board.
I honestly don't understand your penchant to cross your fingers and hope a for-profit corporation will protect you over actually ensuring they do via privacy legislation.
> Apple has completely forgotten their privacy bargains in China when their profits were threatened.
Couple of things here. First, I live in America so I don't really care and apparently the Chinese people for whatever reason want to live in that privacy hellscape. Second, Apple unfortunately (like many corporations) is not in a position to dictate privacy regulations to the Chinese government. The interactions here, frankly, are complicated so I'm not really buying this as a valid criticism w.r.t the App Store. If you really want to try and take a moral high ground here, well, let me know when the EU stops supporting genocide in Xinjiang. I'll wait.
(but it's complicated, so let's not sling mud here alright?)
> They've also special-cased their own Ad data collection (a business that's growing in revenue) to be opt-out.
Yes, and I don't like this. It's something I agree with criticizing Apple for.
Similarly: "They're an unaccountable and unelected corporation, not a government"
Yes. And? They're ahead of government regulation here (in many instances and in many countries). You're framing this as if my choices are an unelected corporation and a government, but we're just switching between one unelected corporation (Apple) and others (Facebook, et al).
> I honestly don't understand your penchant to cross your fingers and hope a for-profit corporation will protect you over actually ensuring they do via privacy legislation.
We are not talking about GDPR or "socialism" or whatever. We're talking about regulating Apple so that other mega corporations can create their own app stores on iOS and then do whatever they want. You're just wrestling control away from one mega corporation that ostensibly has some sort of values that align with the interest of the public and giving it to other mega corporations that, as far as I can tell, don't.
>We are not talking about GDPR or "socialism" or whatever. We're talking about regulating Apple so that other mega corporations can create their own app stores on iOS and then do whatever they want.
So don't use those. Personally I'll mostly stick to Apple's app store along with some Free Software one where I download Firefox and some other open source apps.
The problem is that it lessens Apple's collective bargaining power. They can't make Facebook (again just as an example) comply with privacy rules on the iOS App Store because Facebook can and will offer its product exclusively on its own store or on a third-party store where they don't have to use these rules.
The feedback loop for privacy rights is such that people will say screw the privacy rights and go download Facebook anyway - so now customers that previously had the best of both worlds (privacy rules and Facebook) will be forced to choose, and they'll definitely choose Facebook.
So what was gained? Well, it's good for mega corporations like Facebook. Bad for single megacorporation Apple, and bad for me as a customer. It's good for payday loan type crypto companies or other scam artists, and bad for my grandma. Etc.
That's the problem here. Saying "don't use those" doesn't make sense. But if you wanted to say that then I just say don't use the iPhone if you want third-party app stores.
I think it's more likely that this would technically mean suicide for Facebook (or whoever would try this). And if users actually follow then the bet paid off and the users deserve what's coming to them.
I don't see this happening in the real world though.
It also makes assumptions that consumers are dying for Facebook, when engagement in the product has been mixed, especially with the reputation of the company dropping precipitously over the past six years.
Heck, even Instagram is beginning to show signs of trouble:
Facebook owns a few properties, including WhatsApp. But I think you are envisioning a high switching cost, whereas I think it would just be a simple download and install of the Meta store. You'll probably purchase products using a Libra derivative too. There wouldn't be very high switching cost for customers, and they'll rapidly click through privacy prompts (if they happen at all) with no Apple ostensibly looking out at all for this. At that point it'll just be up to government regulation.
It’s still having to sign up for another account- probably using Facebook login- but once you have the dang thing you have to manage payment options, privacy settings, email and push notifications, having the damn app store icon sit on your Home Screen, non-zero friction that comes with the current era where consumers already juggle multiple social networks, streaming services, e-commerce memberships, music or gaming stores, and so on. It’s an annoyance and a hassle and unless Meta brings out sufficient new incentives as part of it, users are gonna balk. Most users do not want to deal with yet another payment system like Libra. Finally, government regulators would probably probe Meta for antitrust violations if they withhold a critical communication app like WhatsApp from the official iOS App Store, without opening the protocol up for federation. What applies to Apple still applies to other companies.
Ok, so can you remind me what the point is then if users won't use third-party stores since they're inconvenient?
To me it just seems for a way to "get around" Apple's rules which tend to ban crypto scams, porn, and I guess sometimes legit apps. What are we trading and what do we gain?
Speaking as someone on this community ostensibly for hackers, it would be nice simply to have an F-Droid for iOS. (Or the late XDA Labs.) It would be neat if Apple allowed such a community of tinkerers, tech-heads, FOSS enthusiasts, and hobbyists their own little platform to curate apps. Just having the option for such a subculture to exist on iOS would be nice, in this present where both web and native feel like big box stores.
For a long time now, the official App Store itself has been overrun not only by scammy apps, see Kosta Eleftheriou's excellent investigatory work into top-selling fraudulent apps, but also by poor discoverability with outdated UX and obtrusive search ads. If the platform was opened, just a little, one could imagine boutique third party specialized app stores hosting curated apps for curated purposes, which would help with app discoverability greatly. (Apple has banned app discovery tools from their App Store, see the 2013 removal of AppGratis.) It would be a little like the return to the web of GeoCities and Angelfire, when websites had more free expression and control, except on native. A legitimized Cydia, perhaps.
It didn't have to be like this, all regulatory pressure and billion dollar fines. Apple could have chosen to open up the App Store on its own terms, issuing a privacy-hardened AppStoreKit that third party app stores would use, providing mandatory security scan APIs a la macOS notarization, going through reliability processes that Apple approves, heading regulators off at the pass. Apple already has authorized third party resellers and service and repair providers, why not app stores? Apple could have allowed the flourishing of an ecosystem where they are still in control, but as delegated as the code in their apps. Instead they tried to do it all themselves, making themselves the singular point of failure.
> Speaking as someone on this community ostensibly for hackers...
Yea so why not just use Android for that instead of trying to put a square peg into a round hole? That's what I don't understand. You can do anything you want with Android or any number of manufacturers but no you have to do it on iPhone and iOS...?
I think this is just an admittance that iPhone and iOS are superior to all alternatives and that the "closed" model is better than open source software. If that weren't the case, you wouldn't be here trying to use Apple's products when you have multiple options and FOSS readily available.
> For a long time now, the official App Store itself has been overrun not only by scammy apps
Ok sure. So if this is a problem then it's not one that more app stores solve. It just makes the problem worse. So can you not use this as discussion point? Either you haven't thought about this much or you're being disingenuous.
> The freedom of possibility.
Yea, for a very vocal minority of people. Now I lose privacy regulations, apps, convenience, having a phone that just works, and so many other things just so a specific community of greedy, selfish people can do things they can already do now via jailbreaking their iPhone. And once this all comes to pass, it'll just be the same group of people doing stuff that can do it now except all other users will have a worse experience on their behalf. Thanks man
> You can do anything you want with Android or any number of manufacturers but no you have to do it on iPhone and iOS...?
Because I prefer the iOS user experience and Apple hardware irrespective of their management of the App Store? Because I would like to see the platform innovate and provide more interesting opportunities than widgets? Not to mention, even while Apple does not have a majority share of the smartphone OS market, it does have exclusive control over its platform in such a way that antitrust arguments are still arguably applicable?
> It just makes the problem worse. So can you not use this as discussion point? Either you haven't thought about this much or you're being disingenuous.
If more app stores were allowed to exist, they can compete with one another, leading to improvements in quality. There can be app stores and communities built around ensuring security, with even more exclusive standards for the sake of curation. Especially in the case of stores focused on FOSS apps where the code is open for all to review. Making Apple be the sole gatekeeper promotes a single source of failure and security via obscurity. Not to mention, because Apple has control over the underlying OS, they can mandate 3rd app stores use safeguards that transcend individual app stores, like they already do on macOS via notarization.
> If that weren't the case, you wouldn't be here trying to use Apple's products when you have multiple options and FOSS readily available.
What if I have an underlying heart condition or other preexisting condition where I must rely upon the Apple Watch to save my life, as Apple claims their products can do via their own marketing?
> Now I lose privacy regulations, apps, convenience, having a phone that just works,
If you like those things, you can still have them. Just don't use another app store. Like the majority of users wouldn't.
> all other users will have a worse experience on their behalf
This all-or-nothing emotional argument is very puzzling. It seems to reduce the Apple today, the most profitable company in the history of the world since the Dutch East India Company, to the shell on the verge the bankruptcy it was in the '90s. You insult and demean Apple by accusing them of being unable to handle an open platform. That all of their engineering, product, and design prowess is unable to square the circle, that all of their resources are for naught. You do not present an argument, you do not present a debate, all you do is insult Apple and say they are incapable and helpless. That is very far and away removed from present real-world conditions. Somehow, that is even more offensive than your insults towards the hacker community.
> Because I prefer the iOS user experience and Apple hardware irrespective of their management of the App Store?
Well, that's the trade-off, right? I don't buy a sports car and get mad when it doesn't have the utility of a pickup truck.
Different products have different features. For example, Motorola released a phone that was modular at one point. Samsung has a phone with two screens. There are companies that make de-Googled phones with Android that are targeted toward FOSS. Apple sells a different product with different features. The iPhone lacks the feature of "multiple app stores" but has the best platform and operating system.
> Not to mention, even while Apple does not have a majority share of the smartphone OS market, it does have exclusive control over its platform in such a way that antitrust arguments are still arguably applicable?
That doesn't make any sense because plenty of companies have control over their own platform and that's normal and acceptable.
> If more app stores were allowed to exist, they can compete with one another, leading to improvements in quality. There can be app stores and communities built around ensuring security, with even more exclusive standards for the sake of curation. Especially in the case of stores focused on FOSS apps where the code is open for all to review. Making Apple be the sole gatekeeper promotes a single source of failure and security via obscurity. Not to mention, because Apple has control over the underlying OS, they can mandate 3rd app stores use safeguards that transcend individual app stores, like they already do on macOS via notarization.
But you said major companies won't create their own app stores or leave Apple's App Store. So who will be these companies? Who are they for? A small, vocal minority of users?
Will I have to download 3 versions of Instagram? The neutered App Store version, the version on the Meta store, and the privacy focused version?
> What if I have an underlying heart condition or other preexisting condition where I must rely upon the Apple Watch to save my life, as Apple claims their products can do via their own marketing?
Then don't use the product? I don't know what you're talking about here. Do you want third-party app stores without anyone working with the FDA to monitor your Apple Watch?
> If you like those things, you can still have them. Just don't use another app store. Like the majority of users wouldn't.
Please re-read the posts where I've discussed Apple's collective bargaining on behalf of users against developers as it relates to the App Store. I think once you understand how that works (as I've explained it) you'll see why your comment here is incorrect.
> You insult and demean Apple by accusing them of being unable to handle an open platform.
No, I said that it will make my personal experience much worse and I think that it will make the experience for most people worse as well and it will only benefit a small, vocal minority of people. I'm sure Apple can "handle" third-party app stores. That doesn't mean the user experience won't be degraded for the vast majority of people who just want to pick up their phone and use it.
> That doesn't make any sense because plenty of companies have control over their own platform and that's normal and acceptable.
The regulators disagree.
> So who will be these companies? Who are they for? A small, vocal minority of users?
Startups! App discovery companies like AppGratis and Chomp, which were killed off by App Store guidelines. A potential industry for app discoverability, curated app experiences, app lists for specialists. There is potential there for entirely new industries to be built for the iOS app ecosystem, for dynamic change and new frontiers!
> Will I have to download 3 versions of Instagram? The neutered App Store version, the version on the Meta store, and the privacy focused version?
Most people will use the App Store version. Few die-hards will bother to migrate to the Meta store, as such purists most likely already view as the Facebook acquisition and subsequent ad/brands push as compromising the indie nature of Instagram. Certainly some savvy power users may opt for the privacy-focused version, just as people already do with alternatives to the official Twitter or Reddit clients. It is fine to stick to the default option; let people have choice.
> I don't know what you're talking about here.
If Apple is making claims that go as far that its devices are life-saving, then they are not some minor player who is beyond the purview of regulators and antitrust legislation. Thus you cannot claim that "just use Android" is a valid dodge to prevent Apple from having its power checked.
> Apple's collective bargaining on behalf of users against developers as it relates to the App Store
Your arguments still relies on hypotheticals about Facebook or Google, companies who have clearly questionable abilities to launch new compelling products and platforms, being able to steal users away. Again, I find that to be dubious, especially when you examine the modern state of the industry, and the increasing sclerosis of these companies from a product perspective. I find the "data funnel 3rd party app store" threat vector to be debatable and worth examining in detail, before we base our entire policy upon this hypothetical scenario.
Basically, you are saying that Apple is protecting us from giants, when they are actually windmills.
> That doesn't mean the user experience won't be degraded for the vast majority of people who just want to pick up their phone and use it.
I disagree. I believe if Apple embraces a partial opening up, they can manage it with minimal degrading of UX, and in fact will open up many new potential to breathe freshness into iOS and smartphones in general. All of this FUD is really just covert anti-Apple skepticism.
Sure but that's not a good argument. When it comes to technology so far regulators don't have a great track record IMO. Even if they did, that's still not a good argument.
> Startups! App discovery companies like AppGratis and Chomp, which were killed off by App Store guidelines. A potential industry for app discoverability, curated app experiences, app lists for specialists. There is potential there for entirely new industries to be built for the iOS app ecosystem, for dynamic change and new frontiers!
I don't find this compelling enough to give up everything I enjoy about the iPhone. I'd rather these startups just never exist, or they can exist on Android and prove their business model successful.
> Most people will use the App Store version. Few die-hards will bother to migrate to the Meta store, as such purists most likely already view as the Facebook acquisition and subsequent ad/brands push as compromising the indie nature of Instagram. Certainly some savvy power users may opt for the privacy-focused version, just as people already do with alternatives to the official Twitter or Reddit clients. It is fine to stick to the default option; let people have choice.
Or so you think. Most likely scenario is that people will have 2-5 app stores installed because these companies have enough pull that they can get a user to click through a few buttons. You can see these kinds of user-hostile patterns all over the place where companies will interact with you initially and then stop. Take Affirm. Payment processing. They send you an email when you have an upcoming payment and then you click the email, each link takes you to an app download. Eventually users just give in and download the app because they make it hard to view payments on the web. No reason to think that a company such as Meta won't/can't transition all of their products to their own App Store even if they maintain a neutered version on Apple's App Store that constantly bothers users to switch stores. Companies such as Spotify or Netflix will move to a third-party store so they don't have to pay Apple for using the platform. So now Apple has less incentive to improve software because if they make gains then other mega corporations like Netflix will be able to access those gains without any sort of payment - in other words, they get access to the users and platform without having to pay anything to do so. You might believe that to be fair, but I don't think that's up to regulators to decide and should be left to the mega corporations to fight it out amongst themselves.
> If Apple is making claims that go as far that its devices are life-saving, then they are not some minor player who is beyond the purview of regulators and antitrust legislation. Thus you cannot claim that "just use Android" is a valid dodge to prevent Apple from having its power checked.
I think you're confused.
First, I have never stated that Apple was a minor player. You can safely retract that thought.
Second, creating "life saving devices" isn't relevant here. Medical manufacturers create life saving devices too. Seatbelts save lives. So what?
Finally, you can just use Android because there are lots of mega corporations such as Google and Samsung that manufacture phones that compete with the iPhone, and you can use various distributions of Android including completely free and open source versions.
There's a very healthy and competitive marketplace. Open-source software and the Android + manufacturer business model has turned out to be less competitive and weaker than Apple's approach. In fact, Apple's model of locked-down software and tight integration is so superior to open source software that even you use the iPhone.
> Your arguments
Look I've already explained it. You don't have to accept it but there's nothing else for me to say here. I've described the mechanics in a satisfactory way as it pertains to these conversations and it's impossible to change my mind on it and I'm not interested in discussing it further because there's no new information being presented that I haven't already considered.
> I disagree. I believe if Apple embraces a partial opening up, they can manage it with minimal degrading of UX, and in fact will open up many new potential to breathe freshness into iOS and smartphones in general. All of this FUD is really just covert anti-Apple skepticism.
Nothing stops this on Android now. If third-party stores were a breath of fresh air you wouldn't be here complaining that you need them on yet another device. It's like someone who burns down a house playing with matches and shows up to someone else's house with matches.
> Even if they did, that's still not a good argument.
It is not argument; it is the reality on the ground.
> I don't find this compelling enough to give up everything I enjoy about the iPhone.
I don't believe you will have to give up anything on your iPhone. We will just have to agree to disagree, until this future comes to pass, if at all.
> Most likely scenario is that people will have 2-5 app stores installed because these companies have enough pull that they can get a user to click through a few buttons.
I disagree. It's far more involved to get someone to sign up for another platform and to manage another user account, than it is to simply download an app for the platform they are already on. Seems like we are at an impasse until we actually see what third party app stores are like and how popular they are.
Also, this regulation doesn't mean that Apple can't make activating third party app store/sideloading behavior a guarded one with multiple hoops to jump through. It would definitely not be as seamless as you claim.
> Companies such as Spotify or Netflix will move to a third-party store so they don't have to pay Apple for using the platform.
Not if Apple keeps cutting sweetheart deals with them, as they and Google already have. They have not shifted to third party/independent app stores on Android. Furthermore, you are once again overlooking how difficult it is to herd users off of existing platforms for no good reason. Even in the arena of games, where gamers are used to platform exclusivity, there is a lot of friction against the proliferation of new games stores from the likes of EA, UbiSoft, Epic, etc. Store runners have to woo players with free or discounted content.
Netflix and Spotify, curiously enough, are also platforms facing issues with user growth and retention. So along with Facebook, these are three platforms you've cited that have less capacity to lure users to a third party app store than it would seem. If anything this would be good news for Apple Music and Apple TV+, as users switch over rather than deal with another app store.
> You might believe that to be fair
I don't believe that is fair. I believe that is a complete slippery slope worst-case doomsday scenario that is far less probable than it is held up to be.
> I have never stated that Apple was a minor player.
Then you agree that their behavior is worth subjecting to antitrust investigation. Thank you.
> In fact, Apple's model of locked-down software and tight integration is so superior to open source software that even you use the iPhone.
I'm not actually a FOSS advocate. I use Safari on macOS not only because of past and present professional obligations, but because I am comfortable with it. But I also believe that FOSS folks and other hobbyists deserve to be accorded the ability to tinker on iOS, as they have historically done so with other Apple products. Because it is right. And because it is interesting.
> If third-party stores were a breath of fresh air you wouldn't be here complaining that you need them on yet another device.
F-Droid exists on Android, which is great. What is wrong wanting one for iOS?
> I'm not interested in discussing it further because there's no new information being presented that I haven't already considered.
Very well. I have made my case and you have made yours. You have advanced hypotheticals that I have found wanting, hurled calumny that I have endured; now let reality take its course.
Except even with a third-party app store Apple still has control over what permissions apps need as well as the developer API itself. So it's not clear to me that a third-party app store can ignore privacy without getting a user to click Allow to whatever privacy violations the API permits. I guess Apple can no longer enforce that apps can't use parts of the internal API that leak, so a third-party app store might get around some things that way but it seems they are still quite limited in options.
It absolutely blows my mind that people are rallying the pitchforks around Apple for "monopolistic corporate scaremongering"
Meanwhile it blows my mind that on a site called Hacker News, people are not only enthusiastically handing control of their computing environments to a megacorporation, but insisting that everyone else should do the same.
> people are not only enthusiastically handing control of their computing environments to a megacorporation, but insisting that everyone else should do the same.
Who here is advocating that Everyone else should get iPhones or that Android should be as locked down as iPhones? (These are the only two interpretations I can imagine from this sentence)
This being bad for "regular people" is typical monopolistic corporate scaremongering. Apple has proven that they're more than capable of providing secure devices that provide choice with their MacBook series.