A big part of the value of iPhones and iPads is that you don't have to worry about installing an app that screws up your system and requires a wipe & reinstall. You don't have to worry about viruses. You don't have to worry about spending a lot of time being a system administrator, and just use it. You don't even have to worry about many types of malware, because the system protects you from poorly-behaved applications, through a combination of technical means and human review.
If it was possible to side-load apps, then those advantages go out the window. To see what I'm talking about, look at apps that are skirting the apple app store.
Onavo is a good example. They:
- paid teens
- to install the Facebook Enterprise Certificate
- to side-load the Onavo VPN
- to spy on their internet traffic
- to find out about new apps or websites that might be a threat to facebook (among other things)
How would the ability to sideload apps force you to install apps outside of the Apple store?
I'm not forced to use FDroid just because I have an Android phone. People aren't arguing that the app store should go away, just that consumers should have a choice.
As an analogy, if I want OEM care for my car, I can get that. It's more expensive, but it offers me strict guarantees about where parts are coming from, and I don't need to worry so much that I'll get substandard care.
The existence of a third-party marketplace doesn't change anything about that situation other than forcing the OEMs to compete more and push their advantages and commitment to quality.
If you look at the Mac as an example, the vast majority of software is still distributed outside the Mac App Store, usually because either:
- The software is free and the developer doesn't want to pay $99/year to Apple
- The software is paid but the developer either doesn't want to give 30% to Apple, or they want to use a pricing model incompatible with the App Store (discounted upgrade pricing, rolling subscriptions etc.)
- The software does something that violates the guidelines, or in general is incompatible with sandboxing (or would be a worse product because of it)
Because so many applications are not, or in many cases _cannot_ be made available via the Mac App Store, users of said apps are in a sense "forced" to install outside the App Store. I believe that if sideloading was feasible for iOS, many developers (and certainly the big players) would pull out of the App Store completely.
I want to make it very clear though: I don't consider this an argument against sideloading apps at all. I consider it evidence that the App Store (on both iOS and macOS) is woefully inadequate at covering the full range of software developers want to build, and that in turn hurts customers.
I would love to use my iPad for more work related stuff, but I'm a software developer, so most of my day-to-day work involves software that just cannot run on iOS. If sideloading was available I could actually use it like the "Pro" device it claims to be, rather than just a very nice content consumption device.
Why hasn't this happened on Android ? Or has it happened and I'm not aware?
I think as long as sideloading is made inconvenient enough, most consumers won't use it and therefore most developers won't provide it. But it should still be an option for the sake of consumers that want things that the walled garden can't support.
If I had to guess I'd say it's that Google's rules aren't nearly as ridiculous as Apple's. For example Apple forbids you from even mentioning that you can sign up to a service externally, let alone linking out to an external payment page.
I completely agree with you though, there should always be an escape hatch.
> I believe that if sideloading was feasible for iOS, many developers (and certainly the big players) would pull out of the App Store completely.
Why do you believe that, when it hasn't happened with the only other comparable platform after years and years of supporting this model?
Windows and Mac are not comparable, as people are not as used to their respective stores, and lots of pre-existing software actually has to go out of its way to integrate with the store, instead of the other way around.
Largely because Apple's restrictions seem to be much stricter than any other store, and lately are rubbing a lot of very big companies the wrong way.
Were sideloading permitted I could see, for example, an Epic App Store, with their 12% cut and lessened restriction on external payment processing, being a popular place for apps to move to.
> The existence of a third-party marketplace doesn't change anything about that situation
People will install insecure app stores to get a hot app. Facebook would likely launch a store with none of Apple’s spyware restrictions. Cisco and IBM and Microsoft would too, and with that come e.g. employer mandates for certain apps and thus certain stores.
Apple regulates its App Store. Remove its distribution control and that regulatory power diminish. That diminish meant is fine when Apple extends its App Store dominance to win at music streaming and payments. But it’s a poor argument against the App Store per se.
Unfortunately no one will start their own store because that is huge investment.
You have the chicken and egg problem there. There are no apps so no users and no one is going to add apps because you don't have users.
Big companies could make their own apps to promote their own shop but let's be honest they would have to put a lot of money to get something good that everyone would use, not just generic crap.
If a big company (e.g. Facebook) integrated their app store within their main app, there's automatically a massive userbase available - it could potentially even slightly streamline the install process for apps advertised via Facebook.
I suppose this would mean that Facebook app itself would have to be sideloaded, which would probably result in a hit they wouldn't want to take. For a while Amazon had two versions of their app on Android, one in Play store and a second one you could sideload that had their app store integrated. Based on the fact that AFAIK they now only have standalone app store for sideloading, I assume it wasn't a popular option
So now we need private companies for regulation? That’s what the law is for. If there is not a good pro-privacy stance on a third party app store, make some damn rules to have privacy enforced like the GDPR or whatever. Don’t let Apple be the law.
Just look at the PC platform Epic is coming from. It used to be just buying retail boxes, then Steam came along. Now it's Steam, Epic, Origin, Uplay. Personally, I hate keeping track of the separate apps and which games were purchased with each. So I avoid most of them even for games I want to play. Its one of the things that makes me prefer consoles.
The current situation seems more anti-business than anti-consumer (it is both). Pro-consumer would be requiring any purchase be decoupled from that distribution platform.
You seem to prefer giving people less option, because multiple stores are an inconvenience to YOU.
You know what would be a better solution for that? The same one that happens with some applications now on Android: publishing an app in multiple stores. Many apps are simultaneously published in Play Store and other stores.
For example, you could have a game published on the publisher's store. If you buy it there, the price is X. Simultaneously, you could have the same app published on Apple store for $X + 30%.
Then, you let the market decide. Increasing competition is better for consumers.
If you prefer the convenience of buying from just one store, it's OK, you can buy everything from the Apple store, and pay the premium for that. But that would also let the door open for people who want to choose where else to buy their stuff.
Because that's how the market works for buying anything.
It's like saying: how is it better to have multiple supermarkets to buy the stuff i want, if they offer the same product at different prices? Well... it's an option, nobody forces you to do it. You can always go to the same place, and know that there's going to be times when you pay more, and times when you pay less.
But you also have the chance to check on other store's offers and buy there if you want.
> How is having to navigate N stores
You don't "have to". In the end, more offer = better for consumers. It's up to each individual person to decide if they want to find better prices or just go to their default place.
> Companies dont't open their own stores, and sell the games there cheaper than at a competitors store.
Yes they do? Steam, GoG, and Itch don't coordinate their sales with each other. They offer different games at different prices at different times. Even Epic's weekly free game is designed to make people check in on the Epic store regularly instead of just buying those same games immediately on Steam.
There are a ton of PC games that are available in multiple stores, and comparison shopping will often give you different prices.
It doesn't just sound lovely, it's the reality of the PC market right now and you can either take advantage of it if you're willing to comparison shop, or ignore it and buy all of your games on Steam if comparison shopping is too much work for you. It's really not theoretical, it's how the PC market works right now.
Yes, there are some exclusives, but even that is fine, because a lot of the games that are exclusive to stores like GoG, Itch, and even Epic, flat out wouldn't have been made in the first place unless storefronts were competing with each other.
This is something that devs try to get across to gamers occasionally with Epic -- having someone step in and fully fund your game with the only restriction being that it's temporarily exclusive to a store is an unbelievably good deal, and it frees devs up to make more creative, interesting, risky games and passion projects that push boundaries and appeal to more niche audiences.
Not only are a huge portion of PC games not exclusive to specific stores, even where exclusives are concerned competition between different storefronts -- each trying to build the more attractive offering of games -- is still better than having one store owned by one company that only funds a small subset of games. PC gaming is better today than it was when only giant companies like Walmart could distribute games.
I have to admit, you've convinced me. I'm not a gamer, so I didn't have much experience with this.
My frame of reference was streaming services, where more platforms meant fever content on each, and having to pay more to watch everything you wanted. But if it is indeed this was with games, maybe multiple appstores could be the way to go.
The vast majority of games are not store exclusives. And the alternative is not a single mandatory store that magically has everything. There's a lot of apps that would otherwise launch on iPhone but don't because the developers don't want to or can't deal with Apple's fees and restrictions. (See anything that only works on jailbroken devices, or open source projects that only release on Android.)
You might want to check out GoG Galaxy. It has integrations to Steam/Epic/Origin/Uplay/etc and provides a single user interface to manage your purchases across these platforms.
Also, consoles have exclusives too. I choose PC over console anyday.
I really like the idea of a purchase being decoupled from the distribution. GOG(completely) and HumbleBundle (limited extent) seems to be the only option at the moment.
The new GoG galaxy is wonderful (even though some times it loses my steam integration and I have to log in again), it will make your life so much easier, you can really manage everything from 1 place.
Playnite is another software offering something similar, and is also quite good.
The big difference is that the platform is completely decoupled from app store.
On Windows, publishers can choose to which store they would publish, and you can choose from where you want to buy it.
On iOS you are completely at the mercy of Apple; not only won't they allow specific apps or content on the store, they seem to make exceptions for some apps/publishers. There is no way to install and use something that Apple doesn't like.
Android is quite different, since it allows to load a different store, like the Amazon one, or FDroid for open source projects (you are still more or less tied to having Google Play Services on the device, since majority of Android apps use it, but the situation is a LOT better than on iOS.)
I think it's going to be pretty hard for you to argue that the proliferation of app stores for the PC is bad for consumers.
A lot of people credit Steam (I think justifiably) with kickstarting a huge portion of the modern indie gaming scene -- precisely because they got rid of the crazy rules, agreements, and contracts of the retail boxes, which acted as a massive barrier to entry for game developers. If Steam had never been built, I don't think modern games would be even half as diverse or creative as they are.
Then we move on to storefronts like Humble and GoG, which I think have been hugely influential in pushing DRM-free games as the norm for indies. There are a lot of games that flat-out would not have DRM-free releases if GoG didn't exist. Heck, there are a lot of games that would not run on modern Windows if GoG didn't exist.
Then we move on to Epic's store, which I know gamers hate, but trust me when I say a lot of indie developers are thrilled right now to see someone forcing Steam to lower their splits. Epic has done some serious good for the indie scene. I don't like that they're encouraging exclusives, I think that's bad for gamers. But I'm not going to pretend that as a developer I'm not happy to see someone breaking Steam's stranglehold on the mainstream PC marketplace.
So yeah, there are a lot of PC stores. This has been a massive boon to the industry, there are a lot of excellent games that (I think) would not exist today if not for the diversity of marketplaces. And a lot of these marketplaces fill different niches. GoG focuses on older games, Steam offers mainstream AA titles, Uplay/Origin offer corporate AAA titles, Itch has all the really weird, creative "true-indy" stuff.
No single PC store is expansive enough to cover all of the niches of the entire market.
Even on the console side of things, the diversity of games on the PC has pushed console manufacturers to offer much wider selections of games. Are you happy that basically every indie developer and their dog is releasing their game for the Switch? A big part of that is Nintendo opening up the development process, and they did that because after the Wii U they realized that they needed to pull indie devs away from the PC to stay competitive.
And on PC, what's actually the problem with this? You can basically ignore all of the other platforms and just download your games from Steam. You can opt out of all of the complexity that you dislike.
Sure, you'll miss out on a few exclusives if you do. But you would have missed out on many of those exclusives with a unified storefront anyway, because a lot of those games just wouldn't have been created if there weren't stores that were a good fit for them to sell on. You'll miss out on just as many games if you decide to stick with curated console storefronts.
Excuse my ignorance, but why does there even need to be centralized stores at all? I understand that in the past the primary means of distribution was retail boxes, so studios had to have publishers to at least handle the physical aspect of putting games out in the market. Due to the wide availability of a fast internet connection, the mechanics of a game release is different today, and the primary means of distribution is digital.
Steam and its alternatives brought conveniences to the developers by providing easy advertisement, a streamlined way of delivering patches, an actual digital store to perform transactions, and also more recently started to serve as a major platform for the communities of many games.
I am not a game developer, but I guess that nothing that these stores provide is essential to publish a game and keep it alive, and any developer might simply put a site online, sell the game there, and allow me to pay directly to them. This is probably a niche opinion right now, but given any transaction involving digital goods such as e-books, music, software, games, etc. I am delighted whenever I see the content creator do this.
You may argue that this would limit the discoverability of games by a huge factor compared to them simply being advertised on the front page of some online store, and I agree, but I think if Steam had not grown to be as massive as it is today, that job would simply be delegated to the gaming magazines, forums, and many other independent platforms where the creators would more freely have a chance to promote their content.
> but why does there even need to be centralized stores at all?
Well, discoverability is a big problem. Yes, in theory we could do discoverability a different way, but in practice we haven't built that kind of infrastructure (yet).
There are other problems regarding payment processors and transactions/refunds, tracking where users came from for tax purposes... there's just a lot of infrastructure.
Now, that's not to say we couldn't ever get rid of centralized stores. It would just be a lot of work to build a lot of open infrastructure, get some better payment processors that are easier to sign up for, build the kind of systems and lists you're talking about around discoverability.
I don't think it's impossible to imagine a world with fewer centralized stores and more self-hosted games, and I don't think it's unreasonable to say that world might be nice to live in. I just think that world is far away and that getting there would be a lot of work.
Currently, I can set up an Itch account from scratch and be selling a real game to real people for real money in, like, an hour? Maybe 2? And it'll handle stuff like archiving all of my old versions, and I won't need to set up accounts for my users, and there's a nice integrated blogging platform, and people can comment, and currency conversion is just not an issue. Plus as a user, I don't need to provide my name/address to each developer either, only Itch needs to know where/who I am. So that neatly bypasses the privacy problem of payment systems like Paypal.
Again, none of that is impossible for us to provide in a decentralized way. But the decentralized tools aren't comparable right now; if you want to sell directly it's going to be a lot more work.
Discoverability is a big one. There are indies who do have their own stores, and they ask their fans to buy through them, but majority of their sales still come from Steam.
There are some indies who are quite open with their numbers you can google around and find the details. Steam sales are also huge for old games.
But even distribution is still an issue. Even indi games today are multiple GB in size. And on the first few days of release (or sales or bundles etc.) you have huge download spikes spikes.
Sure you can put it on aws, but better make sure to read you CDN fineprint so you don't end up with astronomical aws bill. In addition steam out of the box support partial updates,which again you can implement on your own, but that too takes time.
Payment. You can google around for problems indies who tried to roll their own store had. Today you have more options some of them explicitly catering to indies but its still an issue. Aditionaly steam supports charging in foreighen currencies, you can lower price in poorer countries etc.
Additionally steam offers their SDK that includes matchmaking and netwrking and host of other feautures, that are used by a lot of games.
Then there is in game chat, friendliest integration, cheat prevention, cloud saves and steam workshop integration, forums (which suck but are still there and have some auto moderation for spam) ...
Sure you could do all of that on your own, but some of it requires quite a bit of effort.
They exist because there is value in what they do:
They put eyeballs in front of games = sales
They handle logistics and payment = do game devs want to be a gaming company or a logistics / customer service company?
They provide quality vetting, curation and discovery for customers with a reasonable degree of impartiality.
None of these are 'hard' but they take man hours and money to do well.
Would you want same in real world also ? Walmart and Costco stores where the company decides what things are best for customer's experience. If you don't want it you can always leave and go to other companies town.
I don't think the real world works very well for these metaphors (like the parent's OEM metaphor). What if Walmart required you to generate a username and password, confirm your email, and store your payment info before you shopped? When you wanted to make a cake you had to remember which store you purchased flour or chocolate chips from.
I'm not saying Apple is in the right with how it behaves, but as a user more stores have made things like playing PC games, streaming video, and even PC apps suck more.
These are billion dollar companies fighting each other for their benefit. I'm a bit skeptical about what users get.
If there were only 2 physical stores in the US, yeah, I absolutely would want the same thing. I think anyone would.
Imagine if Walmart and Costco were the only two feasible places for most people to buy groceries. Is there anyone who doesn't think that would be a giant problem for both consumers and producers?
One difference is (at least with alternate app stores on Android, and I assume it'd hypothetically be the case on iOS), regardless of where you install a mobile app from, it appears on your app drawer/home screen. You don't have to go through a specific launcher for each store/platform as you do with Steam/Origin etc. (I think... been a while since I've used any of them). So in most senses, it may not "matter" where you bought it from (assuming all app stores can do auto-updates or notify you of available updates etc.)
I don't see how consoles fix the issue, aren't they just another choice you have to make? There's three major ones and exclusivity is blocked behind a $400 paywall and having to use entirely different hardware.
The vast majority of games are available just on steam, if having choice bothers you just pick steam or maybe epic (but steam probably has more) and ignore the rest.
This is a bizarre argument to me. Can you imagine if there was only one supermarket brand, or only one department store. Don't you think that might turn out badly?
If it's really DRM that bothers you then the only big option is GOG.
> How would the ability to sideload apps force you to install apps outside of the Apple store?
The key thing to me is supporting Apple's ecosystem. That ecosystem doesn't come out of nowhere; it's supported by the Apple Tax. If Apple can't collect that tax, they have to either reduce the quality of the ecosystem, or look for revenue elsewhere, like selling your data or obsoleting older models faster.
A third party App Store doesn’t change any of this. Apple can still collect its tax in their own store. Unless of course that everybody decides to ditch Apple’s App Store, because other App Stores are better. But then you need to ask what the value of the App Store was in the first place.
When I say "tax", I mean it to be an exact analogy: something everyone in a specific ___domain pays in order to maintain infrastructure.
If these "alternate" app stores help to fund iOS development and maintenance, then they'll have to collect a similar amount of money. If they don't help fund iOS development and maintenance, then of course they'll be able to undercut Apple on cost; but then Apple will have less revenue, meaning they'll have to either reduce spending on iOS development and maintenance and/or look for revenue elsewhere, like forcing you to upgrade or selling your data to advertisers. At which point you have Android.
Or to put it differently: The Apple Tax is not about the value of Apple's App Store; it's about the value of the entire Apple platform.
I don't think Apple is necessarily running out of money...
And it's bit ironic you call it a tax when clearly Apple isn't a big fan of paying taxes themselves. I know, it's not a very good argument but I don't think the stakes are as dire as you make them to be.
They could separate the fee as fee paid for the Apple Store and the fee paid for maintaining the ecosystem. So if you build your own App Store you can avoid paying the Apple Store fee but have to pay the maintenance fee. Which should be reasonable amount, eg 10%. They get so many synergies either way and surely run a great profit in both cases. And if they will get a little less money than currently, boo-hoo.
> Which should be reasonable amount, eg 10%. They get so many synergies either way and surely run a great profit in both cases.
If that's true, then someone should be able to raise money for a start-up with the same business model as Apple but charging only at 10% markup; and eventually everyone would go over to them because they get the same thing but for a lower price.
> And it's bit ironic you call it a tax when clearly Apple isn't a big fan of paying taxes themselves. I know, it's not a very good argument but I don't think the stakes are as dire as you make them to be.
I'm not saying Apple aren't often jerks; their "innovation" in tax avoidance harms society and makes the world a worse place. And possibly 30% really is extortionate, jerk-like behavior. But the arguments here about forcing Apple to allow third-party app stores would not only prevent a 30% "extortionate" rate, but would prevent even a more moderate 10% rate.
iPhone sales help fund iOS. Apple makes a huge profit. They surely have enough money to sustain iOS by other means. "Poor Apple can’t finance iOS otherwise" is a poor argument.
Is that why iPhones are famously cheaper than most other options on the market, and why Apple is constantly launching so many entry-level budget options for lower-income families?
> The existence of a third-party marketplace doesn't change anything about that situation other than forcing the OEMs to compete more
It changes one other thing, customer experience. Apple believes fewer problems with a device is a better customer experience and with a better experience customers will return time and time again to purchase their products. It's not right for everyone, but I believe that is true for some people.
In order to deliver such an experience, they have to backup their products with exceptional service, and they do a better job at this than most companies. Now, that level of service is not cheap, not to mention most people don't want to deal with support anymore than they have to. So, to make that level of service feasible, they need to reduce the amount of service you need. For that, their solution is to lock the operating system and hardware down very tightly and vet every piece of software that can be loaded on to the phone.
For some people, all of that sounds terrible, and those people will choose not to buy Apple products. For others, it sounds like a carefree experience and they will choose to accept the trade offs for the benefits.
Bringing this full circle to your car example, there is a lot of crossover between these two worlds. Most cars have very good warranties and pretty amazing coverage while you car is under warranty... sounds a lot like Apple. Like your car, there are certain limitations on changes to hardware and software if you don't want to void that warranty. In other words, you are limited as long as you're under warranty.
So, I can appreciate Apple's desire to lock things down... yes, it benefits their bottom line, but I think they also do it for benefits to the consumer. Now, like your car, when the warranty runs out, the OEM service isn't quite so special anymore. The OEM doesn't care what you do at that point because you're on the hook for everything. I think the same should be true for iOS devices -- when the warranty runs out you should be able to request an unlock and then you can sideload whatever you want. If you like Apple's protective measures, you can continue to run in safe mode. Apple would never voluntarily do this of course, because that would increase the value of old phones and potentially deter the purchase of new models. But, it might be a strategy that the feds could pursue.
By that you also give a choice to app makers, some of whom will happily sell you out to bigcorps. Even after switching from appstore to playstore I felt how the latter is less secure than the former. It is unimaginable in the appstore for a gallery app to demand access to your sms and address book. Or that moving items to trash/hiding instead of permanent deletion would require a cloud setup. On android, it seems absolutely normal that even stock apps do that. Calculator may require your geoposition, IR remotes may require the access to your messages. Often it's not just a suggestion, they refuse to work if you do not comply. And that's only the "safe" playstore.
Now imagine that Epic wins the fight, has millions of teens on the fortnite needle and no one to prevent them or some inside bad actor to demand whatever device clearance they want. The same goes for regular apps. I'm sure there are well-intended galleries, calculators and remotes, but they are buried under tons of promoted evil contracts, never seeing neither the light, nor a profit/visibility.
Apple may be a bit greedy with a 30% share, but really acts in interest of its customers by kicking the hell out of arbitrariness.
> By that you also give a choice to app makers, some of whom will happily sell you out to bigcorps.
No. If the app wants to sell me out to bigcorps, Apple will ban them from the store.
Of course, as a consumer, I'll have the choice to leave the Apple store and follow my favorite apps elsewhere. But if the 3rd-party stores end up with a reputation of being insecure, then consumers will refuse to use them. And everything will be fine.
> Now imagine that Epic wins the fight, has millions of teens on the fortnite needle and no one to prevent them or some inside bad actor to demand whatever device clearance they want.
Then Apple will ban them from the store, and teens will either follow them elsewhere, or they won't.
In theory, this is already possible with Android. But people can't have this argument both ways.
- If jumping ship to Android is easy and available to everyone who owns an Apple device, then clearly having an escape hatch out of Apple's store isn't a big deal and consumers are smart enough to choose whether or not they want to download apps from a secure store.
- If consumers aren't smart enough to choose their own platform based on security, and the cost and difficulty of moving outside of Apple's ecosystem is the only reason why stupid teens aren't being exploited by Fortnite right now, then clearly the "consumers voluntarily choose to stay with Apple" argument is nonsense.
Nobody is talking about forcing Apple to get rid of their store. You will always have the choice to opt into downloading apps only from a secure, strictly managed, curated storefront.
>But if the 3rd-party stores end up with a reputation of being insecure, then consumers will refuse to use them. And everything will be fine.
This logic will not work for fortnite users, because you do not expect a knowledge about insecure stores more prevalent among them more than that there is fortnite. You logic works for highly logical and disciplined people, but not for those who want that unique thing that everyone has. Epic simply doesn't care as much as apple/google about a platform sanity, because it is not their net loss in the end. It's the reason very similar to why we ban drugs off the streets. Drugs are fun, but they have heavy strings attached, and much less than everyone realizes that in full detail, while sellers lose nothing.
>You will always have the choice to opt into downloading apps only from a secure, strictly managed, curated storefront.
You seem to have missed the "app-makers" part. If apple to allow more profiting stores, the culture of selling there will grow exponentially and there will be no apps left in appstore beyond few generic and very safe-statused. All custom calculators, galleries and unique apps will be able to demand your AB, geo, etc, because it is even more profit. And they will be listed at the top because more money means more promotion. It is a systematic problem, not just one of a choice.
> If apple to allow more profiting stores, the culture of selling there will grow exponentially and there will be no apps left in appstore beyond few generic and very safe-statused.
Then why hasn't this already happened? Are app developers free to abandon iOS and move to Android or not? Why haven't they all done so?
And if developers can't realistically abandon iOS or reject Apple's terms and remain profitable, then doesn't that add a lot of evidence to the idea that Apple is a duopoly with a stranglehold over a significant section of the market?
> this logic will not work for fortnite users, because you do not expect a knowledge about insecure stores more prevalent among them more than that there is fortnite.
Why haven't the Fortnite users all moved to Android so they can install the manipulative apps and games that aren't available on iOS?
If they're free to switch platforms, and they're not smart enough to avoid following bad apps around to lower-quality platforms, then why have they stayed on iOS?
> Then why hasn't this already happened? Are app developers free to abandon iOS and move to Android or not? Why haven't they all done so?
Some of this is due to Apple trying to push for products to be sold for money (up-front, upgrades, subscriptions) rather than being free and advertising supported. Google pushes for apps to be free and advertising based because they are an advertising company.
The second is that android phones may be bought by people who do not intend to use a lot of the smartphone/app features of the device. Apple users tend to go into the store and onto the web more often.
The third being that Apple products tend to attract more profitable demographics of people - people who actually are willing to pay money for things.
These extend outside of the App Store as well, which is one reason why Google pays quite a bit of money to Apple for Google search to be the default search engine of Safari.
I know you're not the original commenter(s) and I don't want to falsely attribute their arguments to you, but this is all kind of arguing in circles. The things you describe seem to me to be market forces that go beyond, "consumers will just go wherever the apps are."
If Apple users are generally higher spenders, generally more advanced users that buy apps more often -- then that sounds a lot to me like market pressures that will make an official app store attractive even if iOS allows sideloading. In which case, why are people so frightened of sideloading?
If iOS allows third-party stores, all of the same demographic forces you describe will still exist. Consumers will still want to use a store that offers up-front pricing rather than ads, the iOS market will still be filled with power users who buy apps more often, and they'll still want their apps to be included in a user-friendly, secure store.
If those users you describe are attractive enough to force companies to target them now, then they'll still be attractive enough to force companies to target them after third-party app stores are introduced.
I don't know how to reconcile "devs target iOS because of its unique, opinionated user-base who want a secure platform" with "users are dumb and just follow bad apps without thinking". It can't be both -- either Apple users are too dumb to understand security decisions and can't be taught to avoid shady 3rd-party ad-filled stores, or Apple users are smart enough to consciously opt into a locked-down environment and they understand the implications and tradeoffs of that choice. But how can they be both?
Thanks for the cue, I didn't know that. But I'm afraid that most "stock" users will never use that option. Heck, even knowing it I can't be sure if I want to spend time to research this (there is a word "jailbreak" behind your tip, right?) or just to admit that my switching experiment failed and to go buy yet another iphone instead.
This idea of faking may be the solution against bad actors, but not until apple and google would make that option official. And even then most of naive users will be tricked and burdened into not using it.
I would argue that the technical limitations of iOS are what accomplishes this, rather than app review. For a malicious actor, sneaking prohibited behavior past app review is incredibly easy - look at what Fortnite just did! The reason that apps on iOS can't damage your device is that apps are sandboxed, and that the OS requires user permission to access data and places limits on how many resources an app can use. There's no reason that the same sandboxing system couldn't be applied to apps from outside the store.
(VPNs and provisioning profiles are sort of an exception to this, because they can escape the sandbox, but a) the number of scary warnings presented by the system should be enough to limit their impact, and b) they will also continue to exist separately from the app store issue).
Sandboxing is important, but is only one part of the protections.
There's also:
- App store guidelines on what is and is not permissible in different cases
- Restrictions against using private APIs
- Restrictions against jailbreaking the device
There are a variety of VPN apps available on iOS. Why was Onavo blocked? Because it violated the guidelines on the use of the information, which is the kind of thing that it difficult to automate.
Restrictions against using private APIs are semi-automated, and would be difficult to completely automate.
The fact that you can't get an iOS app that jailbreaks the device in order to do whatever it wants is in part due to human review - if one existed in the store, it would get pulled, and the developer cert would get revoked. Jailbreaks exist, and human review in the app store is one way they are mitigated.
I for one remember the bad old days when playing a CD could (and did!) install a rootkit.
Here's already another platform that does just fine with sandboxing. It's been running for 27+ years. It's called a the web browser. Restrictions against using private APIs.... you can't call any private APIs, it's impossible. Find an exploit? It's generally fixed in a few days.
Software isn't even installed, new versions are downloaded daily or more so the concept of sandboxing as been throughly tested and proven effective for those 27 years.
The difficulty with that argument is that Apple has gone out of their way to make webapps second class citizens. PWAs can't do everything installed apps can.
But that's not the point - the point is, sandboxing largely solves these issues without the need for restrictions on side loading, restrictions to a single app store or similar abuses of consumers rights.
Apple should build a better sandbox, the idea that "private APIs" exist and the only thing stopping them from being used is a basic string search on the app store review is pretty horrifying.
And then you notice that your browser demands almost the same amount of resources as a 60+fps 3d game for presenting you a just a bunch of static images and some text. It is apples to oranges comparison, because a performance requires an unsandboxed, non-emulated native env, which is hard to protect from exploits. Replace a browser with any OS in existence and see how secure it is to execute an arbitrary binary on it.
All iOS jailbreaks are a result of security vulnerabilities, which Apple tends to fix almost as soon as they're discovered - and ultimately, it's Apple's responsibility to make their sandbox secure, regardless of what's running in it. I also don't see how installing outside apps would make jailbreaks any easier, given that you can already connect your phone to a computer and temporarily install an app on it (and for people who are motivated to jailbreak, this isn't much of a hurdle).
I haven't done enough iOS development to know for sure, but I'm assuming Apple could prevent private API usage by apps through technical means, rather than just app review.
Kind of. They cannot prevent private API used by their frameworks running in the same process as the app (e.g. an app can use an Apple UI widget, for example). Things that apps should generally not be able to do have already started being locked down using entitlements, which prevent third-party apps from using those APIs regardless of whether they can sneak it past review.
> and for people who are motivated to jailbreak, this isn't much of a hurdle
And also because, once you’re jailbroken, you can setup software to automatically resign the app on-device every few days, so you never need a computer again.
I thought jailbreaking worked by using exploits to disable code signing. As in, there’s no need to sign an app. Have things changed the past few years?
Most Jailbreaks today are "tethered" in some way, which means the Jailbreak disappears (to varying degrees†) once the phone is turned off. For Jailbreaks like unc0ver, this means you need to re-run a bootstrap app every time you reboot your phone, in order to return to "Jailbroken" mode and allow unsigned code.
This, of course, is a catch-22. You need to run an app to allow unsigned apps, but that app can't run if it isn't signed.
---
† The community makes a distinction between "tethered", "semi-tethered", and "semi-untethered" jailbreaks. The jailbreak I described above is "semi-untethered". You really couldn't come up with terminology more prone to getting mixed up...
IIRC Apple has the ability to push a blacklist of apps that has slipped through the review, preventing them from running, not just from being installed. To my understanding, they've only ever used it for actual malware though, not for apps that they've pulled from the App Store due to "regular" breaches of the rules.
Apple can just revoke the certificate of developers that sign malware, preventing them from running. They also have the ability to pull apps from your device, but have never used it.
A big part of the value of iPhones and iPads is that you don't have to worry about installing an app that screws up your system and requires a wipe & reinstall.
Security doesn't require a 30% cut of every transaction though, nor does it require them to ban other payment methods. Apple should be forced to compete on a level playing field, rather than leveraging their platform to bully other companies into compliance.
> Security doesn't require a 30% cut of every transaction though, nor does it require them to ban other payment methods
Epic’s fight, regarding Apple bundling its payment service with its App Store, is orthogonal to the “free device” cause. The former is compelling. The latter is interesting, but it’s an old debate that has never found traction.
> Security doesn't require a 30% cut of every transaction though
How do you think that the iOS platform is paid for? Apple's current business model is supported by paying the Apple Tax. If they don't get that tax revenue, they're going to have to either reduce the quality of their platform, or get more revenue somewhere else, like selling my data to advertising companies.
Right now I have a choice to buy a phone whose software ecosystem is supported by hardware sales and appstore taxes, or a phone whose software ecosystem is supported by spying on me. If Apple is forced to give up their Apple Tax, I will no longer have that choice.
If Fortnite wanted, they could just make things more expensive on iOS, passing the Apple Tax on to consumers. That's how stores treat sales tax and VAT in different countries; there's no reason app developers can't do the same thing. If users don't like paying more they can go to other platforms; and if users like the iOS platform, they should accept that paying more for apps is part of what makes it possible.
By a small part of that 30% cut, maybe 1% processing fees, a few % on infrastructure and staffing for moderation etc. The rest is profit built on a monopoly which should be regulated.
Perhaps Apple should give the court an accounting of what it costs to run.
The onerous terms forbid (among other things) pricing differently on the app store.
You think 1% is going to pay for the entire development of iOS?
It would be a monopoly if Apple was 80%+ of the phone market; but they're not. If you don't like Apple's business model, there are plenty of other fine phones out there to buy. It's not like Microsoft in the 90's, where they controlled 95% of the desktop market.
> The onerous terms forbid (among other things) pricing differently on the app store.
Didn't know about this; this is onerous, I agree. And I would say forcing price changes for things outside of your dominion should be illegal. (i.e., forcing Fortnite to charge people more who are not buying through the Apple platform is prima facie evidence of an abuse of power.)
No, I think 1% is processing fees, and a few extra percent are required for the infrastructure (storing files for downloads), maybe a few extra percent on top of that for moderation etc. would pay for the app store, not iOS. That still leaves a lot of room in the 30% Apple have given themselves from every transaction as a payment for developers for hosting their apps.
The development of iOS is not funded by the app store, it's funded by iPhone hardware sales, and iOS is necessary for those iPhone sales - that's why they make iOS, not solely as a platform for third party apps.
The app store adds to the value of iOS, and thus the value of iphones, because of all the work put in by third parties. Apple should be thanking these third party developers, not sucking them dry and trying to force competitors in any ___domain off their store (e.g. the kindle app doesn't allow purchases and can't even link to the Amazon website because Apple wants a 30% cut of every sale).
> The app store adds to the value of iOS, and thus the value of iphones, because of all the work put in by third parties.
But conversely, iOS adds value to every app on the app store -- a lot more value. iOS adds much more value to the Fortnite app than the Fortnite app adds to iOS.
Nobody held a gun to Epic Games' head and forced them to put their app on Apple's app store (or Netflix or Spotify or Kindle). Epic did it because even with the 30% tax, they were going to be making loads more money with their app there than without it. And they are making loads of money with Fortnite. They're just annoyed that Apple is getting so much of it. (And Google too -- they were kicked off Google Play for the same reason.)
Cry me a river. Apple and Google have both created loads of value in developing and maintaining the iOS and Android ecosystems, which Epic wants to take advantage of without paying for. I don't feel bad for them at all.
You’re talking about the competition of hardware sales.
On the iOS hardware platform(s) it competes with nobody. The owner of an iPhone isn’t tossing up between Play or App stores. It’s Apple or nothing. There is no competition for methods to install apps. Both developers and users are completely at the mercy of Apple.
How did you come to the conclusion that wiping and reinstalling is a regular part of android users lives? Or that it requires you be a system admin to use it? Or that you have to worry about many types of malware?
I'm an android user, and I think you have the wrong impression of what android is actually like. Have you ever used one as your primary device for a non-insignificant amount of time?
I'm using Windows, OS X and Linux for 30+ years, didn't have a virus or a malware or anything else.
The last time I had a virus was on my Amiga which I got at a copy party in the Netherlands.
I think it is perfectly fine that you want the security from the Apple store and pay 30% on top for this, but why should I pay those 30%? It's not some kind of insurance that works better the more people take it.
> I'm using Windows, OS X and Linux for 30+ years, didn't have a virus or a malware or anything else.
Sure, neither did I, but Apple also has to provide a secure platform to my dad, my grandparents or any other non-tech-savvy person that will wreak havoc on any fresh Windows installation in record time.
After 20y of Apple with a Mac Cube, XServes, XSANs, first ipod, first ipad, Webcams, Airports, Mac Minis, first iPhone, first MacBookPro, many MacBookPros after that, iPods, iMacs, iMac Pros, iPhones, filling departments with Apple products as CTO in several companies, I no longer buy Apple because since some years they do not care about developers any more - it's no longer the same company as with Steve.
I get that this is a preference, and that this preference makes it a challenge for third parties to maintain profit margins while reaching as many consumers as possible.
So what's the other option? Just don't offer your games at all on a platform like iOS, and people need to own multiple smartphones just to get all the apps and games they want?
> If it was possible to side-load apps, then those advantages go out the window.
Who's to say what constitutes an advantage? From this discussion, half the people here consider it to be an advantage to having the possibility to load whatever they want on their phone, and have control over it.
If it was possible to side-load apps, then those advantages go out the window. To see what I'm talking about, look at apps that are skirting the apple app store.
Onavo is a good example. They:
- paid teens
- to install the Facebook Enterprise Certificate
- to side-load the Onavo VPN
- to spy on their internet traffic
- to find out about new apps or websites that might be a threat to facebook (among other things)