[HN Gopher] Dominance of Apple and Google's app stores impacting...
___________________________________________________________________
Dominance of Apple and Google's app stores impacting competition
and consumers
Author : skeletonjelly
Score : 606 points
Date : 2021-04-28 00:30 UTC (22 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.accc.gov.au)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.accc.gov.au)
| EricE wrote:
| Can you have third-party Android app stores and access to all of
| Google services that have the same level of ease of access?
|
| Nope. If adding a third party app store was so easy Epic wouldn't
| be suing Google the same as they are suing Apple.
|
| I used to be a staunch supporter of Apple and Google as
| gatekeepers of their own respective ecosystems but the more I
| watch them botch the management of those ecosystems (from not
| stopping malware as promised, automation banning valid apps with
| days/weeks/months before resolution/restoration, app banning for
| political reasons that are questionable, etc) it's clear that an
| open marketplace is still the best solution.
|
| Time to level the playing field and update antitrust laws to
| account for more modern times.
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| Its interesting that they talk about the "App Stores" and not the
| operating systems. If our phones could run open operating systems
| we would have no problem with the app stores.
| dlgeek wrote:
| > The ACCC has put forward a series of potential measures in
| response to its findings, including that consumers be able to
| rate and review all apps, that consumers have the ability to
| change any pre-installed default app on their device, that app
| developers be allowed to provide consumers with information about
| alternative payment options and that information collected by
| Apple and Google in their capacity as app marketplace operators
| be ring-fenced from their other operations.
|
| Does anyone know what power the ACCC has to make these more than
| just "proposed"? I'm not familiar with it's role in the
| Australian political system.
| justaguy88 wrote:
| ACCC likely has full power to compel compliance (within
| Australia) if Apple/Google want to continue operating in
| Australia, they use this law:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_and_Consumer_Act_2...
| [deleted]
| dmagee wrote:
| Fair bit of teeth on the ACCC.
| https://theconversation.com/accc-world-first-australias-fede...
| trollian wrote:
| God I miss living in a country with real consumer protection.
| [deleted]
| ptcampbell wrote:
| I live in the US now but miss having an avenue to pursue if
| unjustly treated as a consumer. A watchdog with a modicum of
| actual power is a good thing. A small example: at one point it
| felt as though mere mention of the ombudsman was enough to sway
| dodgy phone carriers to acquiesce on minor matters such as
| billing, misleading advertising etc.
| ent101 wrote:
| I feel like we keep getting these inquiries/lawsuits/press
| releases every year but, literally, nothing gets any better at
| all.
|
| Every developer KNOWS that Google is extremely abusive towards
| them solely because of their position in the market yet nothing
| ever improves. If these are not illegal monopolies, what is?!
| mulmen wrote:
| Well, the problem is that they _aren 't_ monopolies. They may
| be problematic but we don't have laws or regulations to deal
| with this specific situation. And when we call it a "monopoly"
| because that seems to be the closest thing then the defenders
| of these organizations can say "but it's not a monopoly!" and
| they are right.
|
| So if you think it is problematic to have two players in a
| market even when they are on equal footing then you need to
| promote legislation to make that illegal. Or if you think
| there's something specifically harmful about this pair of
| dominant players then those externalities need to be addressed
| through legislation.
|
| But shouting "monopoly" is, at this point, counter-productive
| IMHO.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| EU has previously declared them a monopoly when they fined
| Google, because they don't compete : https://ec.europa.eu/com
| mission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_18_...
|
| >Google's app store dominance is not constrained by Apple's
| App Store, which is only available on iOS devices.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| "Citation needed". Whether they're a monopoly or not is an
| opinion, one which Epic is currently trying to assert in
| court.
| paranoidrobot wrote:
| Whether something's a monopoly depends on context.
|
| If I live in a country with only one phone provider, is that
| a monopoly? To someone living in that country, yes.
|
| But, I could live in another country, and use another phone
| provider. See, I have choice, therefore it's not a monopoly,
| right?
|
| If you buy an Apple device, your only choice for where to get
| apps from is from Apple's store.
|
| Within that market, they are a monopoly. They control what
| stores run on that platform, and they choose not to permit
| competition.
|
| What rationale they use for not permitting alternative
| stores, what terms they set for apps to be on their platform,
| those are all different issues.
|
| I can choose not to use Apple's devices, sure, but that
| doesn't alter that Apple is a monopoly on their own platform.
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| Thinking about this as "App Stores" doesn't make sense for
| Apple. Forget App Stores. They tax more than half of the
| app revenue(!) just via iPhone alone.
|
| General purpose computing is something special and it needs
| to be defended, because it touches on almost all our civil
| rights discussions today. Global freedom of speech,
| privacy, etc... are all in the hands of less than a dozen
| companies.
|
| Which should start with forcing these devices open
| (everything from bootloader keys, basic information needed
| to get Linux running, etc...). I can tolerate Android like
| I tolerate Windows 10, but the iOS situation is just
| especially awful.
| hwbehrens wrote:
| In technical terms, this situation is referred to as a
| monopsony [0]; the customer can, at any time, go out and
| purchase apps from other sources. However, _app developers_
| cannot choose to "sell" their apps to other retailers,
| since there are basically only 2.
|
| It's a distinction without a difference in terms of the
| power they exert, but legally speaking, the distinction is
| relevant because the types of behaviors that are proscribed
| (in the U.S., at least) are relatively narrowly defined.
| This is not the first time these laws would have to be
| modified to account for shifts in market exploitation
| practices, nor will it be last.
|
| For a recent discussion of the topic, see [1].
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopsony [1]:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/24/opinion/joan-robinson-
| eco...
| parasubvert wrote:
| There is no "Apple market" and "Google market", there is
| just one market for apps. The respective app stores are
| direct sales channels. This direct sales exclusivity (ie.
| no resellers) exists in many other industries.
|
| The argument is about whether forcing open channel reseller
| participation is beneficial to consumers. This was done
| with the American car franchise dealership, which was
| legally enforced across most states to protect dealers from
| being competed with by direct sales, and also to prevent
| pricing and quality shenanigans with repairs in the old
| days when cars needed constant repairs and there were more
| car companies that might pull out of a market and leave
| consumers without a proper repair facility .
|
| But this model has been falling apart from a consumer POV
| who largely prefer direct sales and repairs these days (see
| Tesla), and direct sales largely save the customers money
| (the $ of vehicles is higher with a dealership model).
|
| I suspect folks need to be careful what they wish for. The
| 30% cut (or near it) will almost certainly be retained in
| an open store model if the store isn't otherwise
| subsidized.
| genuine_smiles wrote:
| > There is no "Apple market" and "Google market", there
| is just one market for apps. The respective app stores
| are direct sales channels. This direct sales exclusivity
| (ie. no resellers) exists in many other industries.
|
| I don't think this holds.
|
| I shop at multiple grocery stores, but only one mobile
| app store. Apple has a monopoly on sales of apps to
| iPhone users.
|
| If I sell fruit I can distribute it through multiple
| channels. If business though one channel sours I can take
| my business elsewhere.
|
| If I'm an iOS app maker with a popular app I can only
| distribute it on Apple's store. If I can no longer
| distribute my app through Apple's store then I'm screwed.
| Apple has a monopoly on the distribution of iOS apps.
| valparaiso wrote:
| Have you followed September's Epic vs Apple hearing? Your
| statement with grocery store vs app store already doesn't
| work since for example judge stated to Epic lawyers that
| Fortnite can be distributed on every platform - iOS,
| Android, Windows/macOS/Linux, Web and consoles.
|
| If you made an app solely for iOS it was your decision
| and investment. You could just make it for the Web so
| every person could access it from any platform.
|
| Closed platforms, as stated by judge to Epic lawyers, are
| legal types of vertical business. You have Xbox,
| Playstation and Nintendo with same rules.
|
| If Apple made their way with closed platform from the
| beginning on mature mobile market the question is why you
| decided to go to that market (and everyone else) in the
| first place?
|
| The answer is very simple - on Android most of users are
| pirating apps, so as developer you won't make a lot of
| money. Also, in 2008 Apple's 30% tax was unprecedented
| since in other places it was 50-80%.
|
| Now you, as iOS developer want not to pay Apple's tax but
| have everything they created - user install base which
| pays money, push notification services, support and
| everything else. Just don't want to pay for those
| services in which Apple invested tens of billions through
| the years.
|
| From security standpoint - just two weeks ago Android
| well known third part App Store named APKMirror was
| installing trojans on user's devices. Do we, Apple users,
| want same experience? No. That's why most of Google
| employees/engineers in California and other parts of the
| world use iPhones and Macbooks.
| clusterfish wrote:
| Our laws leave a lot to be desired, but being a monopoly is
| neither sufficient nor required to get hammered:
|
| https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=bd2b38f1-9b66.
| ..
|
| What's required, and lacking, is the political will to
| prosecute.
| wjdp wrote:
| Oh go on then, a duopoly with fairly entrenched user bases
| and no real chance of additional players.
| arvinsim wrote:
| I agree. Our current laws were not made in the time when
| these technologies were widespread. Legislation of a new law
| would be the better solution than trying to classify them as
| a monopoly.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| They're a duopoly that has effectively formed a cartel to
| abuse their market power. The market power abuse is the
| illegal part, doesn't matter how many competitors there are.
| killingtime74 wrote:
| Do you live in Australia?
| SilverRed wrote:
| They seem to be having some effect. Apple seems to have been
| opening up which may be in response to all the legal pressure.
|
| In recent times they have added the ability to set default apps
| and opened up the find my network to non Apple devices. These
| seem like things that wouldn't have happened without the legal
| pressure.
| rektide wrote:
| i really don't mind Google's app store because:
|
| 1. most Android phones I've seen let you install other app
| stores. the OS is built to support running additional app-stores.
| it takes a manufacturer being cruel to mess this liberty up on
| Android.
|
| 2. i can run other browsers on Android. iOS does not allow any
| form of competing web technology to exist on their platform. iOS
| makes everyone showing web content use Safari. on Android, i can
| use Google's app store to load other browsers which are free to
| support different sets of online technologies. on Apple's
| platforms, i will always be restricted in connecting to others
| with whatever means Apple affords me in their Safari browser.
|
| of the two entities, i only see one company engaged in outright
| anti-competitive behaviors. i would like to see both reduced in
| presence & dominance, yet i myself also often use Google's Play
| Store on my Android devices, and only occasionally reach out to
| the alternatives like F-droid. but i know, i expect & i do use
| these fallback stores on Android. and i do run other browsers. i
| would never considering buying an anti-consumer anti-competitive
| device like an Apple product, because sometimes good software
| does have a hard time making it through the gauntlet of approval
| & i do not want that constraint. i would not consider buying an
| anti-consumer anti-competitve device like an Apple product,
| because sometimes there are interesting new web & online
| standards & protocols & forever being limited to what Safari does
| is incredibly constraining. i would like to use Play Store less,
| but i am glad that the ecosystem it's built upon does not
| deliberately exclude all alternatives.
| gigatexal wrote:
| Honestly I am for a single store and for pushing all things
| through Apple Pay etc etc (send your hate of my fanboyism to
| email in my profile). But...
|
| It seems this is a fight not worth dying for. Sure Apple and
| Google will fight and spend millions on lawyers but ultimately
| whether they win in court they'll likely lose the next time
| legislation gets passed. Better to instead be thinking about the
| next must have gadget or service to further their business than
| the AppStore.
| trissylegs wrote:
| Note that Australia fought the entire cigarette industry in
| multiple courts and won. I think they deal with tech companies.
| As long as they don't send any Emus.
| snyp wrote:
| Apart from the article, I am pretty sure a lot of the arguments
| against the AppStore would disappear if Apple just paid more to
| the developers and reduced it's cut. I hope they find a good
| middle ground, we definitely need an App Store for the majority
| of the users out there, something that is relatively safe and
| allows for massive distribution but also keeps out a lot of
| malicious actors (its not perfect but its better than a lot of
| other options). It would be nice if developers also got paid a
| lot more.
| skohan wrote:
| Honestly I don't see how they can justify more than a few
| percent cut. They offer no value in terms of discoverability
| anymore, app stores essentially only serve the purpose of a
| file host.
|
| But even if they were only taking a 5% cut, I think the
| argument still stands that they have a negative impact on
| consumers in that they decide what the hardware you bought is
| and isn't allowed to do. Apple can invalidate entire business
| models if they disallow an app on their store, and an
| entrepreneur can spend millions developing a business only to
| have it rendered inviable by a change to the terms and services
| which can be made over night without warning.
|
| All of this could be solved by allowing side-loading. It
| wouldn't even have to be made easy to do - go ahead and bury it
| deep in the settings behind a bunch of scary warnings. But I
| see no excuse for not allowing this at all.
| aabbcc1241 wrote:
| Ubuntu, Archlinux, centos, npm, conda all have 'official app
| store'. They work well as gatekeeper to avoid majority users
| getting malicious software.
|
| At the same time, those 'app store' are not exclusive, they
| allow 3rd party 'app lists' or at least allow other means to
| distribute 'apps'.
| mburst wrote:
| This reminds me of the Internet Explorer antitrust issue.
| Eventually Microsoft had to give users a choice on start up. Not
| sure if it directly led to better browsers or not, but it
| certainly didn't hurt. I could see the outcome being the same
| here where users will get to choose which store(s) they want on
| their device during setup rather than defaulting to the play or
| apple store
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Well I love my Apple App Store. It protects me for certain things
| with payments, and it's another line of defense against some
| attacks.
| kaiju0 wrote:
| Yep it neatly organizes everything with subscriptions and
| vetted apps into a single location. Can't ask for more. The
| only people that want out of it is people who want a bigger rev
| cut, to bypass app store rules and infect devices.
| SilverRed wrote:
| > people who want a bigger rev cut
|
| This is not unreasonable. Apps like netfix and spotify can
| not possibly pay the Apple cut and stay competitive with
| apples own services which pay nothing.
|
| Not a single user is going to pay 30% extra to listen to the
| same music.
| subroutine wrote:
| Do netflix and spotify currently pay apple 30%?
| jackson1442 wrote:
| They don't allow you to subscribe in-app and are not
| allowed to show CTAs to subscribe online, just an opaque
| "sign in" screen.
| SilverRed wrote:
| When you install the app they throw you on a screen that
| says "You can't continue via the app. Yes, we know it
| sucks"
|
| They aren't allowed to tell you how to subscribe, they
| can just say you must and it can't be done in the app.
| While on Apples own services, it just uses your already
| filled payment details.
| sneak wrote:
| The bigger problem is the amount of PII they demand from
| users to install even free apps.
|
| I should be able to install free apps on my device without
| giving up my name, address, email, phone number, and device
| serial number. Apple's App Store requires all of these.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| I want out because Apple doesn't approve the apps I want to
| use. Everything from emulators to cloud gaming (Xbox Game
| Streaming and Google Stadia) and alternative browser engines
| (all browsers are just Safari skins on iOS) are blocked by
| Apple because of their app store rules. These types of apps
| being blocked by Apple does not benefit anyone but Apple.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| According to this reasoning Apple could make the app store
| optional and (except for "people who want a bigger rev cut,
| to bypass app store rules and infect devices") every user
| would continue to choose the app store. I suppose the
| reasoning further leads to the conclusion that there is no
| point in giving users a choice because they would all choose
| the app store anyway. I do not subscribe to this reasoning.
| If there was a non-app store option I would choose it and I
| doubt I am the only such user. Among many potential benefits,
| a non-app store repository might give me the ability to
| install/remove old versions of apps on older devices.
| gumby wrote:
| We'll me too but if there is an alternative I can still direcr
| my business to Apple's store.
|
| On the Mac I _avoid_ the store if it's possible to download
| directly from the developer so that they don't have to pay a
| cut. If there were an alternative Mac App Store I would avoid
| it too like the plague.
| gfxgirl wrote:
| I avoid the Microsoft store on Windows but I use Steam all
| the time. I've also used Steam on MacOS for those few games
| that run on MacOS that I wanted to play.
|
| I'd can see myself using other stores on iOS depending on the
| store. If Steam existed on iOS I'd certainly consider it,
| especially if buying a game that ran across platforms
| included the iOS version.
| trissylegs wrote:
| I use the MS store for MS software. But avoid Steam if I
| can as well as they also take a substantial cut (Although
| this does mean I still get a lot through steam).
|
| Although they're more flexible, if a game sells you a CD-
| key outside the store (eg on Humble, through promotions,
| etc) they don't take a cut. Steam only gets it when it's
| through the Steam store.
| post_break wrote:
| Have you ever used a Mac though? Has an App Store, and you can
| choose to install apps from third parties if you want to. Best
| of both worlds.
| cma wrote:
| What Apple should do is charge users $10 to turn off competing
| app stores, since from posts like this it seems to be worth so
| much to users to have them locked out.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Does it actually? Or does OS security models protect you from
| attacks?
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Then stick with it? Nobody is killing the app store. Having
| options doesn't kill anything except maybe Apple and Googles
| profits.
| jackson1442 wrote:
| There will also be the fragmentation that you see with
| streaming services today; apps will choose an app store,
| there will be exclusivity deals; your kid will install a
| pirate app store to get games filled with deceptive crap in
| them for free, etc.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| And fragmentation is competition. The issue with Apple App
| Store is they're using their monopoly to stop competition.
| SilverRed wrote:
| These proposed changes don't prevent that. The Australian
| government just wants the stores to be more clear with
| developers about what is going on.
|
| There is an endless stream of Android and iOS devs saying their
| app got dropped without warning and the support person refuses
| to explain or respond to them. That's just unacceptable when an
| app being removed has the ability to break a business.
| tmarsden wrote:
| It's a shame we are reliant on (2) app stores. It would be nice
| if there was a way to safely implement browser plug-ins that
| would bring some of the functionality offered by native apps. Not
| sure if WASM/WASI might save the day here eventually, but the
| path we're on now is looking pretty grim if the status quo wins
| out.
| Drew_ wrote:
| Plenty of web APIs that offer native functionality. Apple will
| not implement them in Safari for obvious reasons. Apple will
| also not allow non-Safari browsers for the same reason. Apple
| knows that even simply allowing Web Push on iOS would
| noticeably eat into their services revenue.
| kgin wrote:
| 100%. There's no reason why people can run spreadsheets and
| word processors and vector design apps on their Mac browsers
| but have to download a 100mb binary app on their iPhones to
| order pizza.
|
| Mobile web tech could support the overwhelming majority of
| use cases without jank with a few key, non-impossible
| improvements. And they would if there were any incentive for
| platform owners to do so.
| oscargrouch wrote:
| While phone apps fall into the app store trap, browser are also
| falling into the cloud trap.
|
| Its not enough to run applications on the browser, you need to
| fix some of the things that make browsers weak giving we need
| to let go all the information to cloud providers who will then
| monetize on it somehow.
|
| Years ago i've put myself into this path to build something
| that could help a little bit on this. I hope this can cover
| some ground as the future looks bad for everyone else who is
| not part of the big tech paradise, as outside of it, everything
| is being sucked by a big straw and dying a long, slow and
| painful death..
| withinboredom wrote:
| A friend of mine got a system76 computer and was shopping for
| speakers. Their partner had used iOS since they were a teen and
| never used anything non-apple. Their partner was so confused that
| you could buy any speaker, it just works, and freaked out at the
| choices. It was very interesting.
| JacobSeated wrote:
| This is just another clear example of Google refusing to fulfill
| their responsibilities.
|
| Of course, if someone violated the rules they should also be
| entitled to know exactly which rules was violated, and exactly
| what is wrong with their implementation.
|
| The fact that Google refuses to provide this information is a
| strong indication that Google is not acting with the best of
| intentions, and that is something that is worth looking into.
|
| Preferably we should push towards more open systems that does not
| rely on centralized "app stores"; of course, be it Google Play
| store or Apple's App Store, the fact that they can just block
| apps they do not like is extremely problematic. There has to be
| other ways to install apps, without using these centralized
| mechanisms.
| numair wrote:
| There is no reason Apple and Google couldn't set up an App Store
| Certification framework which would allow trusted third parties
| to operate their own app stores that were regularly audited and
| liable for breaches of security.
|
| In fact, this would be far better than the current approach,
| where these business units are largely unaccountable and hidden
| behind layers of corporate complexity (which eventually leads to
| dysfunction, which eventually leads to slower growth). Apple and
| Google could then spin off their own in-house app stores into
| independent units, which might even unlock more value for
| shareholders as these businesses would be likely to be valued at
| a much higher multiple than the parent.
|
| This would be a way to get regulators and shareholders to work
| together to achieve the same end result. JPMorgan, Goldman et al
| would go nuts over the fees for the "AppStore spin out IPO." Now
| that I think about it, that would probably be the biggest IPO
| since Alibaba, or whatever the last "biggest IPO" was.
| paxys wrote:
| Funny thing is, both companies do exactly this to operate in
| China. The government does not allow companies to run their own
| app stores, so Apple and Google (and others who have similar
| kinds of online stores) have to hand over all operations -
| including app submission, storage, approvals, install etc. to
| another local government-approved company completely outside
| their control. They do all this willingly because they have to,
| and you don't hear a peep about it from them as they fight
| other governments worldwide who are trying to enforce even the
| slightest amount of control of their own.
| Gaelan wrote:
| Citation needed?
| sfifs wrote:
| Google already does this to a certain extent by allowing other
| app stores and will I think very likely move towards certifying
| other payment frameworks as app store payments is not a
| significant revenue stream for them - they'll probably
| negotiate this as part of an antitrust deal with prosecutors
|
| Apple OTOH seems to depend on this for 15-20% of annual revenue
| and this is going to be much more difficult for them
| edrxty wrote:
| By implying a mandate for auditing and liability, there's no
| reason to use any terms other than the terms they already
| attach to the existing app stores. It would just be more of the
| same policies, just enforced even more arbitrarily as people
| shop around for which store will erroneously publish their app
| if the main Apple/Google one doesn't
|
| Apple isn't going to magically endorse the "Code execution,
| Piracy, and Porn App Showroom".
| thewileyone wrote:
| Apple does use this monopoly to their advantage. You can ask the
| developers whose IP has been stolen and their app (money taken
| out of their wallets) taken off the AppStore because Apple
| decided to incorporate the app function and ability into iOS or
| an Apple app.
| exikyut wrote:
| > _" The ACCC has put forward a series of potential measures in
| response to its findings, including that [...] app developers be
| allowed to provide consumers with information about alternative
| payment options [...]"_
|
| > _" The ACCC is also concerned with restrictions imposed by
| Apple and Google which mean developers have no choice but to use
| Apple and Google's own payment systems for any in-app purchases,"
| Mr Sims said._
|
| Newsflash: Epic Games relocates operations to Australia
|
| --
|
| > _" To address this market power, we believe app developers
| should have more information about how their apps are made
| discoverable to consumers and that consumers should have the
| ability to change or remove any pre-installed or default apps."_
|
| > _The ACCC has put forward a series of potential measures in
| response to its findings, including that consumers be able to
| rate and review all apps, that consumers have the ability to
| change any pre-installed default app on their device [...]_
|
| All RIIIGHT!!! No more unremovable bloatware and background
| services!
|
| --
|
| All this hopefulness has me wondering if we could successfully
| explain the benefits of unlocked bootloaders next. :D
| hroa wrote:
| I have worked on many mobile app development projects, and I am
| grateful that google and apple try to protect the consumer. App
| devs are in full control of the stack in the app, and it is very
| easy to unintentionally (or intentionally) handle your data
| insecurely. For example, app devs can disable https communication
| with their own external APIs, secretly transmit your data on
| their own servers, harvest your data from other apps like
| contacts, and build on buggy/sketchy/outdated middleware. And,
| there is typically no visibility for the user. Yes - same is true
| for desktop apps. I appreciate Apple's recent moves to make this
| more transparent. More needs to be done. It is much harder (not
| impossible) to maliciously handle your data in browsers because
| of standard security features (like the green lock icon when
| https is enabled) and powerful dev tools to examine network
| communication and code libraries. After building many apps, I
| tend to only install apps from companies that have commercial
| pressure to handle my data properly.
| cortexio wrote:
| Google and apple are not securing your data. Any app on your
| phone that uses the internet already talks to an external API.
| And they can sell your data to anyone at any time without
| google/apple ever knowing about it. And that's normal. https
| doesnt really do much to make your data secure. But
| google/apple arent even needed to force apps to use https. Your
| phone can just say it's required by default. Google/apple are
| just pretending they do something for you, it's just all about
| control, so they can have all the profit. It's basically the
| same as the government saying they do not allow any other
| foodstores other than storeX. Because other stores might sell
| you food that's poisoned or expired. So to protect u, we dont
| allow any other stores. And storeX can just decide what the
| price is, what food you're allowed to buy, etc etc. It's shit.
| You dont want this.
| fblp wrote:
| It's important to note that competition law is broader and more
| broadly enforced than antitrust law in the US. A particularly
| relevant area for these issues is "Section 46 - Misuse of market
| power". This is distinct from laws in relation to price fixing,
| monopolies and merges. The ACCC (and possibly the later,
| Australian courts) will be trying to answer if Google / Apple are
| misusing market power as part of this inquiry.
|
| One area that is particularly ripe is "the market for in-app
| payments". The ACCC would be looking whether it can establish
| whether under s46: a) does the company have substantial market
| power? and b) is it engaging in conduct for the purpose, effect
| or likely effect of substantially lessening competition? More
| info is available here: https://www.accc.gov.au/business/anti-
| competitive-behaviour/...
|
| s46 - Misuse of market power was revised for easier
| enforcement/litigate under in 2017, and you can see a list of
| active cases include a case from Epic Games vs Apple and Unlockd
| Ltd v Google (Filed in Australia):
| https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=34d307e2-1d63...
| It is a BIG deal for a private company to take action under s46.
| There used to only be a couple cases every decade.
|
| It is possible that an undertaking or court-order that could
| emerge out of this inquiry would require Google/Apple to make it
| easier for apps to accept in-app payments from providers other
| than Google and Apple in Australia.
|
| As far as I know, the USA does not have an equivalent area of
| law, and if it does, it certainly is not enforced.
|
| *disclosure: I worked at the ACCC 2008-2011 and these are
| opinions of my own.
| therealmarv wrote:
| And they are doing that world wide. Why does the world need to
| adopt what Apple and Google think is appropriate? Like two
| companies defining basically what apps we can use according to
| the political correctness in USA!
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| You can have third-party Android app stores. Can you say the same
| about Apple? While I agree that Google has market-dominance, they
| are not anti-competition or anti-consumer in the same sense as
| Apple. Android is open source, Chrome OS is open source, etc.
| Google is actually providing and contributing something back to
| the community. Apple intentionally locks people to specific
| hardware and to their app store.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| You can have third party app stores in Android, but you can't
| have third party push notifications. And without them there is
| no way to deliver data to your app without making it
| persistent, which is increasingly difficult with every new
| Android version
| fragileone wrote:
| Not exactly. There is MQTT, Server Side Events, WebSockets,
| plus Gotify[1] which has been discussed on HN before.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19347848
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| And how are you going to deliver a message using any of
| these if the application on a mobile phone is terminated by
| an operating system?
|
| Check https://dontkillmyapp.com/ for more information.
| anoncake wrote:
| Nor can alternative stores provide automatic background
| updates.
| bogwog wrote:
| This is a bad take. Google is just as guilty of anti-
| competitive behavior as Apple. Sure, a third party store can
| _exist_ in the Android ecosystem, but what are the chances that
| it can be commercially viable? It 's practically impossible.
|
| * Google shows countless scary warning dialogs to users who
| even think about installing a third party store. Any competitor
| trying to run an alternative store needs to somehow educate
| potential consumers on the process of enabling "unknown
| sources", and convincing them that doing so won't actually kill
| you (translates directly into higher business expenses, and is
| probably an impossible obstacle to overcome to reach the
| majority of consumers)
|
| * Google regularly monitors apps installed outside of the Play
| store with their "Play Protect" thing, which is an opt-in virus
| scanner, except not really. When you install an APK, they ask
| you for permission to enable Play Protect. If you decline,
| they'll just keep asking you again and again until you accept
| either by accident, or do it so they stop annoying you. Through
| Play Protect, Google is able to arbitrarily block any app they
| consider to be "potentially harmful". Consider that they
| regularly ban apps by accident on the Play Store using their
| broken AI, and that those registered developers struggle to get
| those erroneous bans reversed. I'd imagine getting a ban from
| Play Protect reversed is nearly impossible.
|
| * Google has a full time hit squad of penetration testers
| called "Project Zero" which goes around checking competitors
| for vulnerabilities so they can make big scary press releases
| about how unsafe the competition is (even though Google Play
| itself is riddled with malware).
|
| And also, this isn't related to the anti-competitive stuff, but
| I feel compelled to point it out:
|
| > Android is open source
|
| Yes, _Android_ is open source. The operating system on your
| Android phone is not open source. Pretty much the only people
| who benefit from Android being open source are:
|
| * Device manufacturers, who don't have to develop an OS to sell
| phones, and can install whatever they want on it, like spyware,
| ads, keyloggers, etc that can't be uninstalled by the user
|
| * Power users and mod developers who are fighting the good
| fight against that kind of thing (but are hopelessly outgunned)
|
| Saying that something is "open source" usually comes with the
| understanding that it's a good thing for users and freedom,
| except in this case it's not.
|
| Say what you will about Apple, but at least they're honest
| about what they are. Google is still stuck in that cognitive
| dissonance phase from when they first became 100% evil.
| fragileone wrote:
| > Yes, Android is open source. The operating system on your
| Android phone is not open source.
|
| What you're refering to as Android, is in fact, Google Play
| Services/Android, or as I've recently taken to calling it,
| Google Play Services plus Android. Android is not an
| operating system unto itself, but rather another component of
| a fully functioning Google Play Services system.
|
| Many mobile users run a modified version of the Google Play
| Services system every day, without realizing it. Through a
| peculiar turn of events, the version of Google Play Services
| which is widely used today is often called Android, and many
| of its users are not aware.
|
| There really is a Android, and these people are using it, but
| it is just a part of the system they use. Google Play
| Services is the core: the program in the system that is
| required for full functionality of a mobile device. The core
| is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by
| itself; it can only function in the context of a complete
| operating system. Android is normally used in combination
| with Google Play Services: the whole system is basically
| Google Play Services with Android added, or Google Play
| Services/Android. All the so-called Android ROMs are really
| distributions of Google Play Services/Android!
| sichtlinkair wrote:
| Interesting perspective
|
| > The core is an essential part of an operating system, but
| useless by itself
|
| though I think this is a bit exaggerated, no? AOSP gave me
| a perfectly fine, modern Android 10 experience
| fragileone wrote:
| Not everything translated over exactly well from the
| original GNU/Linux copypasta, but I do agree here.
|
| I've tested using microG in order to gain some
| functionality which is missing on pure AOSP builds (eg
| push notifications) and even with their FOSS minimal
| implementation of Google Play Services there's still
| subpar functionality like being unable to use many apps
| with integrated maps (Uber, Tinder, Google Maps).
|
| Avoiding Google on your Android device results in an
| undeniably degraded user experience still. They
| additionally have abandoned many of the AOSP apps like
| the Calendar and Keyboard, to instead develop and
| maintain their own branded versions. F-Droid, LineageOS
| and microG in particular are picking up the slack, but
| we're still a good way from having the same level of
| functionality whilst avoiding Google proprietary
| software.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| > Google shows countless scary warning dialogs to users who
| even think about installing a third party store. Any
| competitor trying to run an alternative store needs to
| somehow educate potential consumers on the process of
| enabling "unknown sources", and convincing them that doing so
| won't actually kill you (translates directly into higher
| business expenses, and is probably an impossible obstacle to
| overcome to reach the majority of consumers)
|
| It is a single setting/message about allowing you to install
| apps from unknown sources that you can grant for that
| specific app. You can enable/disable anytime.
|
| > Google regularly monitors apps installed outside of the
| Play store with their "Play Protect" thing, which is an opt-
| in virus scanner, except not really. When you install an APK,
| they ask you for permission to enable Play Protect. If you
| decline, they'll just keep asking you again and again until
| you accept either by accident, or do it so they stop annoying
| you. Through Play Protect, Google is able to arbitrarily
| block any app they consider to be "potentially harmful".
| Consider that they regularly ban apps by accident on the Play
| Store using their broken AI, and that those registered
| developers struggle to get those erroneous bans reversed. I'd
| imagine getting a ban from Play Protect reversed is nearly
| impossible.
|
| I have multiple apps installed from F-Droid and I have never
| got a single message from Play Protect warning me of
| anything.
|
| > Google has a full time hit squad of penetration testers
| called "Project Zero" which goes around checking competitors
| for vulnerabilities so they can make big scary press releases
| about how unsafe the competition is (even though Google Play
| itself is riddled with malware).
|
| I've never seen Project Zero act unethical or unprofessional
| to gain a market advantage.
|
| > Yes, Android is open source. The operating system on your
| Android phone is not open source.
|
| Depending on the phone you get. Many people specifically pick
| manufacturers that are more friendly to open source.
| PostThisTooFast wrote:
| Come on. The Android "open-source" fraud has been exposed by a
| decade and a half of orphaned devices, as millions of users
| wait months, years, or forever for their telcos to dribble out
| hacked and essentially proprietary versions of Android for each
| device, ONE AT A TIME. And you continue to hear about people
| having to "root" their devices to do things. WTF.
|
| In the 2000s, Google managed to produce an OS without a proper
| hardware-abstraction layer or driver model, so users can't
| simply install updates as they come. Meanwhile, ancient Windows
| runs on millions of disparate hardware combinations without
| breaking the software running on top of it with every release.
| And even if you allow for different mobile CPUs, that's still
| only a few builds that should have been needed.
|
| Google should stick to what it does best: hiding from customers
| and behaving like douchebags.
| EricE wrote:
| If third-party app stores with Google's version of Android (you
| know, the one everyone wants that has all the Google
| applications - not the open source version that you can't
| legally load Google's stuff on) were on an equal footing than
| why is Epic suing them the same as they are suing Apple?
| joelthelion wrote:
| > Android is open source
|
| It is not. Android without the proprietary Google Play Services
| is utterly broken for non-technical end-users.
| yc12340 wrote:
| > You can have third-party Android app stores.
|
| This is only half-true. Google allows _users_ to install third-
| party stores. Because only handful of geeks do that.
|
| But if your competing app store gains enough adoption and you
| make deal with device vendors to preinstall it, the
| negotiations will mysteriously break down and the other party
| will grow quiet... Reportedly, because their (NDA-covered)
| contract with Google does not allow them to preinstall software
| from Google competitors.
|
| See also: Google fined in Russia for prohibiting vendors from
| installing Yandex applications on devices [1]
|
| But court decision apparently wasn't enough, so Yandex had to
| lobby the government to force smartphone vendors to preinstall
| their apps or get booted out of Russian market [2]
|
| 1: https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/17/google-
| reaches-7-8-million...
|
| 2: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-technology-
| softwar...
| ehsankia wrote:
| How come this never happened to Amazon and Samsung app
| stores?
| yc12340 wrote:
| Because the laws of corporate mob don't apply to everyone
| equally?
|
| There is a huge difference between treatment of different
| parties, even if the their contracts are same (and I doubt,
| that Samsung has the same contract with Google as everyone
| else). For example, do you know, that some Android devices
| aren't allowed to use a different launcher, other than
| supplied by Google? Or that Google Play Terms of Service
| prohibit publishing there alternative app stores? There are
| many such draconian restrictions in all Google's contracts.
| They are ignored until it is convenient for Google to
| enforce them.
|
| Back to your question, -- neither Samsung nor Amazon are
| Google's competitors. Their app stores are garbage. Samsung
| was trying to jump off Android for years. And Amazon
| devices don't come with Google's software, so Google has no
| leverage against them (except YouTube).
| bongobingo wrote:
| Android has an 87% market share. I don't really care what the
| minority players are up to.
| Elidrake24 wrote:
| As a user of iOS, this is precisely why I go with Apple, and
| why I push my family to do the same. Particularly for the more
| elderly in my family, Apple's setup (by and large) prevents
| them from doing anything that would screw themselves over.
| Removing Apple's control removes my desire to be apart of that
| ecosystem, and I know that is true for many others outside our
| insular little community here.
| swiley wrote:
| God dammit you can still install root CA certs relatively
| easily on iOS and there are plenty of online scams that trick
| people into it (especially since installing apps outside the
| App Store sometimes requires it.) Don't lie to yourself and
| everyone else that Apple has somehow created a computer where
| the user can magically avoid fucking themselves over.
|
| It's not like the App Store even prevents malware anyway. All
| Apple does during review is run the app and watch network
| traffic via a proxy and ask "does this _look_ like it 's
| violating our rules?" There's _no instrumentation_ and there
| 's nothing to prevent apps from changing behavior after the
| review. These aren't loopholes abused just by flashlight apps
| but even large companies like Facebook routinely abuse them.
| Don't forget that you can also get code onto people's phones
| by providing a _completely closed and never reviewed dylib_
| to devs and they 'll just include it in their apps if it
| solves a problem for them. This is another extremely common
| tactic to distribute iOS malware (and another one Facebook
| likes.) Also lets not forget all of the outright scams on the
| AppStore and the fact that it more or less prevents the
| sharing of community maintained software (chat apps in
| particular) which tend to align more closely with users
| interests.
|
| There is _absolutely no reason_ not to allow users to be able
| to enter an alternate App repository and push service in the
| settings App other than that it protects Apple 's monopoly.
| dariosalvi78 wrote:
| another argument: we've been fighting for computers to be
| free from monopolies for so many years (anyone remember
| Microsoft dominance in the 90s? or browsers not complying to
| standards?) and yet, here we are again with the same shit.
|
| Mobile phones are personal computers, actually of the most
| successful type. We should have learned some lessons, but no,
| people come with the same arguments as in the past decades
| (it's easier, it makes me look cool, I'm lazy). Then, one
| day, you find that your favourite app has been removed
| because of God knows what other arbitrary rule has been
| introduced in the name of the greater good, as
| undemocratically decided by a private company.
|
| And, please, don't come with the "if you don't like it,
| choose Android": at 50% market share that's not an argument
| any longer.
| stale2002 wrote:
| Fortunately, no one is going to force you to use other app
| stores.
|
| Feel free to continue using the Apple app store. You can do
| that, and after these lawsuits other people will have the
| voluntary choice to choose a different app store as well.
| AntiImperialist wrote:
| Spoken like an iTard.
|
| Here's the thing: just because Google allows the users to
| install packages from other app stores does not mean they
| have to. You can allow which app stores you want to use. In
| fact, you have to explicitly allow app stores, like you'd
| expect.
|
| There is no explanation why this is not regulated, other than
| the fact that Apple must be paying a significant amount to
| potential regulators to shut them up.
| deepstack wrote:
| It really comes down to business model. Apple is a hardware
| company, they money on things. Google/Alpha is an Ad company,
| they make money from your data. Of course they can make their
| code open source, however their practices is going to be
| targeted towards getting as much user data as possible.
| orhmeh09 wrote:
| This cliche is a little dated, considering Apple's revenue
| from services is considerably higher than that for Mac.
| There's a reason it's no longer Apple Computer. Since when
| does a hardware company do credit cards? (And, yes, they do
| make money from your data in this way.)
| fossuser wrote:
| I agree - Apple needs the control to have the leverage that
| makes their ecosystem better. It's in the interest of their
| customers for them to have this leverage and it requires that
| their 'store' is the only available store so app devs can't
| bypass their requirements.
|
| I like Apple forcing use of in-app-payments, I like Apple
| giving me subscription control to make canceling easy. I like
| Apple blocking app tracking and forcing design constraints.
|
| _That said_ , the 30% weakens their entire argument about
| this and is a racket. If they want to charge a yearly
| deployment fee or something fine, but 30% of a company's
| income via IAP? That's obnoxious and anti-competitive,
| particularly in cases like Spotify where they directly
| compete and undercut them in the same market.
|
| Apple is skimming a tax off the top and they're forcing
| everyone to pay the toll. It weakens their entire argument. I
| wish they would stop, because I think a world with multiple
| stores and such would be a huge pain and customers would
| suffer because of it.
|
| If you think it's a pain to have 15 streaming services or 10
| different game distributors all with their own shitty
| incentives - it'd be that on the phone.
| Aunche wrote:
| >That's obnoxious and anti-competitive, particularly in
| cases like Spotify where they directly compete and undercut
| them in the same market.
|
| How many Spotify users paid through their App though? I'd
| imagine it would only be a tiny fraction.
| fossuser wrote:
| Apple bans app devs from linking to sign up via the
| browser or even mentioning its existence.
|
| They also started to prevent apps that don't have IAP for
| subscriptions.
| trissylegs wrote:
| Which is explicitly mentioned in the OP
|
| > ...that app developers be allowed to provide consumers
| with information about alternative payment options...
| jbverschoor wrote:
| I used to pay in the app. Someone I know was unable to
| cancel his Spotify, because it was linked to his facebook
| account. Because of that he was fined. Spotify is a toxic
| company.
|
| The only thing I really like about Spotify is spotify
| connect. I don't understand why none of the competitors
| have anything competing. It's the key selling point for
| Sonos
| amelius wrote:
| > Apple needs the control to have the leverage that makes
| their ecosystem better.
|
| You and Apple are conflating "App Store" and "Content
| Filter".
|
| We can have multiple App Stores and multiple types of
| content filters. It doesn't need to be like the current
| situation, with Apple in full control over everything.
| Redoubts wrote:
| 50 years of worse-is-better ruling the software world
| suggests otherwise.
| amelius wrote:
| Some people prefer the safety of Disney World.
|
| Others like to go base jumping from some mountain in the
| Alps.
|
| Shouldn't _both_ be possible? Or do we want a Mickey
| Mouse in the Alps telling us to go back for our own
| safety?
| emodendroket wrote:
| It is hardly impossible to install third-party software
| on your phone if you're up for base jump levels of risk.
| amelius wrote:
| It's getting more difficult every day.
|
| And I don't want to punch Mickey Mouse every time I go
| climbing.
| Redoubts wrote:
| Yeah, but that's what Android is for. I have absolutely
| no faith that developers won't pick the easiest,
| cheapest, least restrictive distribution channel
| available. And I have every inclination they will
| sacrifice every user desire for privacy and integrity to
| get there.
| amelius wrote:
| Yet I have no such problems on Linux.
| zepto wrote:
| Do you actually think that's a reasonable comparison? GNU
| Linux is not a consumer operating system used by billions
| of people on their phones.
| Redoubts wrote:
| Glad we've entered the year of the Linux desktop.
| fossuser wrote:
| This doesn't work.
|
| It's not content filtering that I care about, it's the
| ability for Apple to enforce standards around usability
| and features that are better for their users.
|
| Without control of the store they lose that leverage.
|
| App devs will just ship outside of it and include all the
| tracking they want. It'll also block Apple from being
| able to require things like Apple ID or Apple Pay support
| which provide direct benefits to users, but can run
| counter to what app devs want.
| aabbcc1241 wrote:
| You as a user has absolute right to choose whatever app
| that fulfill your own standards around usability and
| features, w/wo any app stores.
| fossuser wrote:
| When incentives are not aligned it's effectively moloch
| [0].
|
| The choice I want won't exist in that world and I don't
| have the leverage to require it to exist.
|
| Apple _does_ and that 's why I choose their products.
|
| [0]: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-
| on-moloch/
| skohan wrote:
| I just don't find this very compelling. It's fine for me
| if the "default mode" of use for Apple's products is a
| filtered, curated experience. If users have to jump
| through even a few hoops to side-load apps, 99% of casual
| users will not do it.
| jliptzin wrote:
| They could lower the fee to a much more reasonable 10% and
| still be the biggest company in the world.
| shawnz wrote:
| Their choices have been a net benefit for you so far, but
| what if in future they implement restrictions that you
| don't like? It would be difficult to change platforms over
| it.
| fossuser wrote:
| What happens when they start leveraging their power to
| hurt their customers rather than to benefit them?
|
| That's when they're actually in violation of monopoly and
| consumer protection laws. Consumer harm is part of it.
| shawnz wrote:
| I don't mean a situation like that. What if you just
| disagree about the best way to achieve the ideal
| ecosystem? Surely not every customer has the same
| opinion.
|
| Like for example, consider their restrictions on third-
| party browser engines, JITs, etc. Are you happy about all
| those choices too?
| fossuser wrote:
| Ah - I think that's a fair point.
|
| I would have to think about it honestly, I don't know
| what I think.
|
| It's a little funny because I think someone reading my
| comments absent context would think I don't care about
| general purpose computing. I do care about it though, a
| lot. I think the centralization of communication services
| behind a few megacorporations is a sad outcome and a lost
| promise of decentralized communication between users on
| the net.
|
| The issue I have is the inbetween - in 'the world as it
| is' at least apple has leverage to stop the shittiest
| data mining, tracking, email harvesting, call-to-cancel
| retentions, just general user hostile 'features' on our
| behalf. If they don't have that leverage, we don't
| suddenly gain a better environment - we're in the same
| shitty centralized thin client world, but now it's worse.
| In the idealized world of decentralized applications or
| strong data protection legislation I'd be in favor of it,
| but in our world I think the tradeoffs are serious and
| its one of the main reasons I buy Apple hardware.
| emodendroket wrote:
| It's actually quite easy to change platforms (at least in
| part because so many cross-platform apps will store your
| settings in the cloud anyway). My wife and I did it last
| year and it was not much fuss.
| nisegami wrote:
| There's always been a trivial fix here in my opinion -
| allowing services to charge Google Play and App Store users
| more. Let users decide how much the safety and convenience
| of billing through Apple/Google is worth.
| fossuser wrote:
| Some do, YouTube does this.
| laurex wrote:
| There are restrictions to even offering alternate payment
| methods set by Apple and Google.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| More specifically, there are restrictions on advertising
| or mentioning alternative payment methods, but there can
| be an alternative payment method outside of the app
| stores.
| CppCoder wrote:
| Developers, or publishers already do play a yearly fee
| (~100USD ~100Euro) to Apple in order to publish apps to
| their app store.
| lostgame wrote:
| I'm not sure why people keep using the 30% number. For
| businesses that make less than $1mil a year (I am assuming
| that's most of us who are hobbyist or indie developers
| here), you literally have to push a button to enable the
| small business program (it was that easy for me) to reduce
| it to 15%.
|
| It has been this way since November, and it seems like
| either nobody noticed, or they seem to still enjoy quoting
| the 30% number. If you make more than $1mil a year you
| probably can afford to deal with that. You're also probably
| putting significantly more bandwidth off Apple's servers
| than an app that's had 100 downloads.
|
| Unity does a similar thing, but it's free for up to a
| certain income, pay after that.
|
| I personally would like to see that reduced to 10%, but at
| least Apple _responded_ to the constant criticism that 30%
| was ludicrous.
|
| From Apple:
|
| * Existing developers who made up to $1 million in 2020 for
| all of their apps, as well as developers new to the App
| Store, can qualify for the program and the reduced (15%)
| commission.
|
| * If a participating developer surpasses the $1 million
| threshold, the standard commission rate will apply for the
| remainder of the year.
|
| * If a developer's business falls below the $1 million
| threshold in a future calendar year, they can requalify for
| the 15 percent commission the year after.
|
| Source: https://www.apple.com/ca/newsroom/2020/11/apple-
| announces-ap...
| inspector-g wrote:
| > If a participating developer surpasses the $1 million
| threshold, the standard commission rate will apply for
| the remainder of the year.
|
| _And_ for the entirety of the following year.
| ngokevin wrote:
| It's 15% now for most developers, right?
| fossuser wrote:
| Not really - it's 15% if you register as a small business
| and it changes to 30% once you hit $1M in revenue.
|
| That's probably technically 'most', but it's not the
| large sector that matters.
|
| Also 15% is still quite high.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| And it's been 15% for recurring revenue after the first
| year.
|
| That 15% includes the 1-3% creditcard processing fee.
| They also take care of VAT and multi currency for your
| customers.
| CppCoder wrote:
| Plus providing the infrastructure for users to download
| the million of apps and updates. The tools Apple provides
| to even develop for their platform, like XCode and all
| the SDKs and APIs to even make apps. And many other
| things Apple provides.
| tannedNerd wrote:
| That 15% does not include VAT, it is taken out after.
| amelius wrote:
| The 30% is like an inverse volume discount.
| echelon wrote:
| > Apple needs the control to have the leverage that makes
| their ecosystem better. It's in the interest of their
| customers for them to have this leverage and it requires
| that their 'store' is the only available store so app devs
| can't bypass their requirements.
|
| I don't understand this argument at all.
|
| You're almost certainly taking more risk _driving in a car_
| than downloading an app, yet you 're probably willing to
| embrace the full degrees of freedom of the roadway.
|
| We shouldn't be afraid to use computers. Security is
| possible without an app store.
|
| Apologizing for Apple's exploitive system is doing us all a
| disservice. It's making it harder to do business, launch a
| startup, use your own device, refurbish your device, and
| compute freely.
|
| Technology wasn't always a locked-in time share. We're
| witnessing a hostile takeover. An invented scam, sold to us
| by the Jobs and Ballmers of the world.
|
| The Apple and Google stores make us serfs in their
| kingdoms. We're renting, not owning.
|
| Your choices are impinging upon _my freedoms_. The more
| people that accept this, the more companies are willing to
| take.
|
| A Department of Justice breakup is looking like the only
| solution at this point.
| yossarian1408 wrote:
| You don't have to do business on the App store. You don't
| have to launch a startup on the App store. You can buy
| any device you want, and if there isn't currently one
| sold that meets your specific criterion, society might be
| better off if someone takes the initiative to meet this
| demand rather than force a company to roll out the red
| carpet for it's competition.
|
| Your liberty is not at stake here, nor any real detriment
| to your quality of life really. The more companies take,
| the more opportunity for disruption there will be.
|
| A Department of Justice breakup is certainly the easiest
| and most immediately gratifying solution. It is hardly
| the only solution, and in my mind I am certain it is the
| wrong solution.
| echelon wrote:
| > You don't have to do business on the App store.
|
| Yes, you do. If you want to reach 50% of Americans,
| you're forced to build and distribute an app on the App
| Store.
|
| Try building Netflix without an iOS app.
|
| Try writing a new social media app and not building for
| iPhone.
|
| Pick any modern vertical without an iPhone app. You just
| can't do it. Apple is the new AOL for a lot of folks.
|
| You immediately surrender 30% to reach 50% of your
| customer base, and on top of that, you have to dance to
| Apple's arbitrary rules and app approval release trains.
|
| 1. This is not how technology should work.
|
| 2. Apple's fees are extortion.
|
| 3. This is using monopolistic advantage to strong arm an
| entire industry.
| dwaite wrote:
| There are competing video services to Netflix which are
| accessible through the web browser on iOS. Also keep in
| mind that Netflix does not manage subscriptions through
| in-app purchases (anymore).
|
| Several people (including me) access social media sites
| through the browser rather than having a native app, in
| part because of the abuses done by social networks in
| device profiling in the past.
|
| > Apple is the new AOL for a lot of folks.
|
| So the same sort of companies who made a marketing
| decision to invest in AOL keywords are now willing to
| write an app and give money to apple so that users can
| find their service through a search in the app store?
|
| > You immediately surrender 30% to reach 50% of your
| customer base
|
| I assume you do not realize that it is well documented
| all of the ways you can pay less (e.g. subscriptions,
| small business program) or nothing (external payments and
| subscriptions - you are only limited by your ability to
| advertise those as alternatives to offering in-app
| purchases, and can raise your in-app price if you prefer
| to cover the difference).
| Mindwipe wrote:
| > There are competing video services to Netflix which are
| accessible through the web browser on iOS.
|
| There really aren't, because the HTML5 DRM implementation
| isn't reliable enough.
| Mindwipe wrote:
| > Your liberty is not at stake here, nor any real
| detriment to your quality of life really.
|
| Yes it is.
|
| iOS controls a sufficient part of US revenue that wider
| ecosystem effects on what is permitted speech come
| directly from the app store terms, or at least in some
| cases about trying to second guess the inconsistently
| applied, arbitrary and vague as hell App Store rules.
|
| We've got direct testimony from all sorts of app makers
| that what speech they do and do not censor on the
| platform (especially around sex, impacting the
| fundamental liberties and safety of sex workers, queer
| communities, artists and educators) is _directly_ because
| their business is such that they need to watch the terms
| of the app store.
|
| We've seen examples in China of Apple blocking apps that
| literally lead to people failing to escape authoritarian
| governments and them disappearing, quite possibly to
| their death.
|
| Liberty is the fundamental reason that a singular control
| of what software can be run on mobile device is a thing
| too dangerous to be allowed to exist. Competition law is
| probably the most expedient route to fix it, but a
| centralised app store should be a criminal act on it's
| own merits.
| yossarian1408 wrote:
| Except there are no negative rights being infringed upon
| here. You can hardly appeal to natural law for the right
| to publish what you want on someone else's platform.
| Liberty is defined as being 'free from', not 'free to'.
|
| > We've seen examples in China of Apple blocking apps
| that literally lead to people failing to escape
| authoritarian governments and them disappearing, quite
| possibly to their death.
|
| This seems very flimsy but I would be genuinely
| interested in reading up on this, if you could provide a
| source/reference. Either way, this is a great reason not
| to use and publish on the iOS platform. But the irony of
| suggesting government overreach as a cure for the ails of
| extreme government overreach in another country is not
| lost on me.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| I want freedom from Apple controlling iPhone that is now
| my property. Where is my liberty?
| modo_mario wrote:
| >society might be better off if someone takes the
| initiative to meet this demand rather than force a
| company to roll out the red carpet for it's competition.
|
| Would you say the same if the car market suddenly
| coalesced into a duopoly and the car companies become
| very restrictive? Would you defend only them being
| allowed to do basic repairs in the interest of safety?
| One going as far as saying you need to buy their tires or
| tires from companies that pay them tribute or the car
| won't start, their seat covers unless you manage disable
| some weird detection, etc The other allowing such stuff
| just making it a pain. Would you then say a company just
| needs to pop up and meet this demand? Despite all the
| stuff involved and the size of cars would be a lot lot
| easier. Because at least cars don't necessarily need an
| ecosystem, userbase and developer community outside of
| the company to get of the ground and get sales.
|
| As soon as you apply these things the other industries
| they start sounding ridiculous and hilariously
| anticompetitive but with phones people for some reason
| have come to accept it.
| fossuser wrote:
| I don't totally agree with your analogy framing.
|
| My take:
|
| Car company requires third party manufacturers to adhere
| to its quality standards and pass review before being
| installed. The car company installs all of the third
| party parts for you and distributes them globally,
| handling payment, they charge 30% (or 15%) to the third
| party for this.
|
| If you refuse to adhere to their quality standards they
| refuse to install your third party accessory.
|
| Drivers can only get approved service from the car
| company.
|
| Seems fine? Probably an exclusive benefit for owners of
| that car. I could see people choosing that car because of
| this.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Except in the real world Apple purposefully prevents you
| from getting your hands on replacement parts, they sue
| anyone distributing scematics, refuse to repair equipment
| that's 4 years old and repairable and refuse to do data
| recovery.
|
| So no, there is no part of that thats fine.
|
| When laws around cars were put together people actually
| cared about their liberty, and I have the right to open
| car repair tomorrow and BMW and Toyotas of the world wont
| interfere. And unlike iPhones,cars actually are
| dangerous.
| echelon wrote:
| That is not right at all! The world should not work like
| that.
|
| Your car, your choice.
|
| You want to install an aftermarket supercharger and fish
| fins? Your prerogative. Toyota and Apple have no right to
| tell you what to do.
| fossuser wrote:
| Then you can buy a different car from the other company
| that doesn't have this policy.
|
| You can even still hack the fins on your car despite the
| policy, but it might be difficult to do yourself and
| it'll void your warranty.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Firstly, thats not how warranty work - if I add fins to
| my car that does not give you the right to void wrranty
| on the engine.
|
| Secondly I vote to get laws passed that they make sure
| they can shove this policy. I've had enough of this
| corporate lawmaking and stockholm syndrome victims
| covering for them
| fossuser wrote:
| The web exists, android exists, etc.
|
| I like local control, I think urbit is cool and hope they
| succeed. I'm a little disturbed by the need for mighty
| and how we've ended up in a such a messy state of things
| with modern computing.
|
| It's not about reducing risk or scam apps really - it's
| about Apple being able to incentivize user-benefiting
| behavior that ad-driven business models corrupt. Maybe we
| wouldn't need this in a world that had more CCPA laws
| with teeth, I'd be happy to live in that world, but we
| don't.
|
| At least with Apple I have the option to buy hardware
| from a company with aligned incentives that gives a shit.
| echelon wrote:
| > It's not about reducing risk or scam apps really - it's
| about Apple being able to incentivize user-benefiting
| behavior that ad-driven business models corrupt. Maybe we
| wouldn't need this in a world that had more CCPA laws
| with teeth, I'd be happy to live in that world, but we
| don't.
|
| Apple isn't doing this out of their own good heart!
| They've built one of the largest monopolies in the world.
|
| Is it okay for one megamonopoly to tax everyone else
| simply because they reached market penetration first?
|
| Let's fix our laws. This is utterly unfair.
| fossuser wrote:
| I agree the 30% cut is wrong.
|
| But the control and leverage is good.
| Mindwipe wrote:
| > But the control and leverage is good.
|
| The control and leverage are fundamentally evil, and they
| get people discriminated against and killed.
| emodendroket wrote:
| Yes, one takes more risk using the road than using an
| unofficial apk. But I'm not aware of an "App Store-like"
| method of transportation that would let someone get where
| they're going just as easily and quickly without any
| risk. And if we're talking about the average user, the
| harm done by malicious software may be much harder to
| detect in the first place.
| [deleted]
| FpUser wrote:
| >"It's in the interest of their customers for them to have
| this leverage"
|
| Most likely it is in the interest of majority of consumers
| conditioned to this type of control. I realize that it is a
| benefit for older computer illiterate people. It completely
| sucks for people like myself.
|
| >"10 different game distributors all with their own shitty
| incentives"
|
| That's one classy way of describing business approach. Yes
| they're shitty in a way that they're there to help you part
| with your money and everything else is but a fluff around
| it. You just forgot to add Apple itself to that group.
| fossuser wrote:
| > "I realize that it is a benefit for older computer
| illiterate people."
|
| It's a benefit for computer literate people too.
|
| - IAP allows easy tracking of subscriptions and
| cancellation. You don't have to call and argue with a
| retentions rep for an hour to cancel a service.
|
| - Apple restrictions on tracking limit abuse from ad
| driven business models.
|
| - Apple can require features like Apple ID to be
| implemented alongside FB connect or whatever. Apple ID
| has privacy friendly features for users like obscuring
| your email via a relay. This would never be implemented
| by app devs because hiding your email is counter to their
| incentives. If they could deploy outside of the store to
| avoid these constraints they would.
|
| Apple's interests are aligned with their users. The
| reason they can get away with charging 30% is because
| Apple's users don't care about all the shitty anti-user
| things Apple blocks app devs from doing.
|
| The reason I care about the 30% is because it worries me
| that they will be forced to allow side-loading or
| multiple stores and lose their leverage over app devs. If
| they lose that leverage we as Apple users will lose these
| benefits, and for what?
| FpUser wrote:
| >"It's a benefit for computer literate people too."
|
| Sure, maybe. I do not care as I personally do not feel
| any benefit. I am most likely in minority but that does
| not mean I have to tailor my opinions.
|
| Not even really criticizing Apple / Google. I want my
| phone to be able to function as normal Windows / Linux PC
| except that its phone capability would be able to
| function even if the rest of the OS is crashed. Such
| product simply does not exist outside of half baked
| attempts and I am not willing to waste my time/money on
| those.
| Mindwipe wrote:
| > If they lose that leverage we as Apple users will lose
| these benefits, and for what?
|
| Because you literally don't get people in autocratic
| regimes killed because the single choke point of software
| that might enable them to escape detection is removed.
| Because you remove Apple's rampant discrimination against
| some kinds of speech and the people that effects. Because
| Apple attacks businesses with any involvement in sex
| whatsoever.
| frusciante19 wrote:
| So you're ok with children being able to buy porn mags in
| the same store they can buy sweets, but you're not ok
| with Apple controlling what bad actors might sell in the
| app store?
| fossuser wrote:
| > " Because you literally don't get people in autocratic
| regimes killed because the single choke point of software
| that might enable them to escape detection is removed."
|
| If anything, Apple's control here enables better
| protection for users. You think authoritarian regimes
| don't own phones? You think Android is safer in China?
| cdogl wrote:
| I agree with your points about sex workers and speech
| about sex in general, but your comments about people in
| autocratic regimes ring a little hyperbolic. Chinese [1]
| users were able to use Signal until the Chinese state
| seemed to block it at the network layer. WhatsApp is
| blocked too. That's unfortunate, but what's Apple got to
| do with it? And what exactly could they do to prevent it
| that the state wouldn't get in the way of?
|
| [1] I'm assuming that "autocratic" here refers to China -
| though despite the lack of political freedom and the
| awful situation with regard to ethnic minorities, I don't
| think that's a very helpful or expressive label.
| emodendroket wrote:
| For people like yourself, there is Android and there is
| jailbreaking. But I suspect most people do not actually
| desire complete control over their phones more than they
| desire a curated experience.
| FpUser wrote:
| Modern phone is a powerful computer but both Google and
| Apple along with the phone manufacturers do not really
| want me to use it as one. And I am not prepared do dance
| around their platforms doing some hacks.
|
| The end result is that my current smartphone is mostly
| just a phone with couple of off-line apps like GPS and
| apps to install firmware to various gizmos like a drone.
| I do not even have data plan.
| emodendroket wrote:
| Well, I don't really like to fiddle with it that much
| either... but that's part of why I appreciate the App
| Store. I don't have to vet the software myself and if I
| buy a new phone everything just gets installed after I
| log in. It might be nice if they provided a way to
| install third-party apps without resorting to Test Flight
| or a dev certificate or jailbreaking, but I don't think I
| would actually use such a capability. I never did in many
| years of using an Android phone.
| simonh wrote:
| Subscription services like Spotify only pay 30% for the
| first year of each subscription. After that they pay 15%
| and this has been the case since 2016.
|
| Apple has done a lot to revise the App Store charging
| policy over the last few years, and I think they deserve
| credit for that. Also their hosting of free apps for only a
| nominal developer registration fee is a huge boon to users
| and a lot of iOS developers.
|
| So I don't think those criticisms are entirely accurate or
| fair. I am ok with regulators looking into this though.
| Apples revisions to their charging structure probably
| wouldn't have happened without the threat of regulatory
| review. It's important they be held accountable. However
| Apple invested many, many billions of dollars to develop
| the technologies in iOS over many decades and took huge
| commercial risks. iOS and these devices are their product
| and they have the right to decide how they work and what
| features they have. Those who don't like that do have
| alternatives. The fact is an awful lot of people do like
| the way Apple does things.
| fossuser wrote:
| > "Subscription services like Spotify only pay 30% for
| the first year of each subscription. After that they pay
| 15%."
|
| That's still pretty extreme imo when you control the only
| store and you directly compete with them/undercut them.
|
| > "Also their hosting of free apps for only a nominal
| developer registration fee is a huge boon to users and a
| lot of iOS developers."
|
| They charge a fee for it, I wouldn't consider it nominal
| - the ecosystem of apps also obviously benefits apple.
|
| ---
|
| I'm a huge Apple fan which is why I find this racket
| irritating, it worries me that it'll blow up in their
| face and we'll end up worse off.
|
| I'd probably charge a (low) flat annual fee for app store
| distribution and that's it. Apple should be focused on
| making money with great products, not taxing devs they
| force through their channel.
|
| Keep the rules, lose the tax.
| Spivak wrote:
| > That's still pretty extreme imo when you control the
| only store and you directly compete with them/undercut
| them.
|
| Regulators don't (yet I suppose) care about this because
| of opportunity cost. If I'm making $3/user/mo off your
| $10 subscription and I decide to enter the market and
| compete with you at then every user I steal and every
| user if not for me would have gone with you costs me
| $3/mo plus cost of providing them service. So if I'm able
| to still undercut you then either I'm ridiculously more
| efficient than you or you have fat margins.
|
| Neither of these are true so something else is going on
| here. Either I'm bleeding money and this is some
| strategic play in which case it might be unfair for
| different reasons, or the market is segmented and we
| actually have two different customer bases with
| insignificant cross pollination.
| fossuser wrote:
| If Spotify is $10/month and paying $3 to Apple they get
| $7/month.
|
| If Apple enters with Apple Music and charges $10/month -
| they're undercutting Spotify while charging the same.
| Spivak wrote:
| You're ignoring opportunity cost which was the whole
| point here. You didn't say how much Apple was getting.
|
| If Spotify charges $10 and pays Apple $3 then Spotify
| makes $7 and Apple makes $3.
|
| If Apple enters the market and charges $10 then consider
| a user that would have otherwise went to Spotify. Spotify
| makes $0 and Apple makes $10 from the subscription but
| loses $3 from what they would have been paid from Spotify
| so Apple makes $7.
|
| Apple has lots of advantages stemming from their control
| of the platform but "not having to pay the 30% fee" isn't
| one of them.
| fossuser wrote:
| Apple gets $10 or $3 from a user
|
| Spotify gets $7 or $0 from a user
|
| How is this not an advantage?
| simonh wrote:
| How many billions of dollars, over how many decades did
| Spotify spend developing that platform, OS and app
| distribution system? How many times did they almost go to
| the wall over the commercial risks that took?
|
| Anyway as I already pointed out it's effectively 15%, not
| 30%. Also the vast majority, over 99% (literally, I
| looked it up) of Spotify app users earn Apple nothing
| because they use it add supported and all the add revenue
| goes to Spotify.
| protomyth wrote:
| _Also the vast majority, over 99% (literally, I looked it
| up) of Spotify app users earn Apple nothing because they
| use it add supported and all the add revenue goes to
| Spotify._
|
| They bought the phone from Apple, so Apple made their
| money.
| Humdeee wrote:
| This is the comment that lost me. I'm sorry, how should
| more of the pie go to Spotify here using that argument?
|
| Apple 'made their money' on the hardware, therefore
| Spotify is entitled to a larger ratio on the software? Is
| that the correct interpretation?
|
| Edit: I'll take your downvote as being it was the correct
| interpretation. It's okay, I didn't expect a reply.
| fossuser wrote:
| Assuming you're asking in good faith - Apple sells the
| hardware, they don't make the software of other company's
| apps.
|
| They force companies to ship through their store, I think
| that is okay because it enables them to enforce quality
| standards for users.
|
| I think it's wrong for them to force this distribution
| model and then take a cut from every software company.
|
| In the Spotify case Apple forces them to pay a tax and
| then Apple shows up in their own store priced the same
| where they obviously don't have to pay a tax to
| themselves.
|
| Spotify is entitled to an even playing field.
| Humdeee wrote:
| This is already way off topic to my post I'm wondering if
| I'm the right person you replied to. Let's stay focused
| on this, because I agree with most of your points in this
| thread.
|
| Apple makes money off the sale of their iPhone from the
| user, with Spotify's existence here being completely
| irrelevant. Should Spotify be granted increased monetary
| entitlement to their app creation because of this
| physical material sale between Apple and the user?
| fossuser wrote:
| I'd argue your question is a warped framing that confuses
| the issue in an attempt to be leading.
|
| iPhone sale to user is irrelevant.
|
| Apple forces distribution via their store and they force
| companies to pay a cut.
|
| I think this is bad, but at least it's across all people
| that participate in the store.
|
| Then Apple _itself_ enters the market via the store
| selling the same product at the same price, but without
| the tax.
|
| That's cheating. It has nothing to do with the 'physical
| material sale' - it has to do with requiring store
| distribution and taking a cut of competitors margins, but
| then entering yourself. It's not Spotify 'getting more of
| the pie' it's Spotify not having to pay an anti-
| competitive tax to the platform controller.
|
| They can either allow distribution outside of the store
| (which I would not want) or they can remove the tax on
| apps that they directly compete with.
|
| I'd prefer they remove the cut entirely and replace it
| with some low yearly fee for distribution.
| Humdeee wrote:
| > iPhone sale to user is irrelevant.
|
| Thank you. I agree. The iPhone sale to the user is
| irrelevant to Spotify's return.
|
| The rest of the post is yelling at a cloud. I have not
| given my position on any of that so I have no clue to
| whom you are arguing with.
| Hasnep wrote:
| My impression is that the ad revenue from that 99% is
| users is still less than the subscription revenue from
| the 1%.
| pentae wrote:
| When the average subscription to just about any online
| service is 3.3 months, the 15% after 12 months is simply
| PR. Nothing more. Apple crunched their numbers and knows
| exactly what they are doing. What's more amazing is that
| everyone, including you, has fallen for it.
| OpieCunningham wrote:
| Considering most cancelled subscriptions are cancelled
| within a trial period, the average subscription duration
| is heavily weighted down. Your point would be something
| worth considering if you had an average that excluded all
| cancellations within, say, the first month.
| simonh wrote:
| The idea that subscriptions are the main issue is just
| fluff. Under 1% of Spotify app users subscribe, for the
| rest all the add revenue goes to Spotify. Apple
| distributes the app and gets nothing.
| fredophile wrote:
| As someone else pointed out in a different comment, Apple
| benefits from the app ecosystem even when they aren't
| getting cash for an app so they aren't getting nothing.
| Apple also has their own ad network so they can profit
| directly on iOS apps that are ad supported [0].
|
| [0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/08/07/
| apple-a...
| edrxty wrote:
| By the same logic we should just eliminate free will because
| it's dangerous sometimes. I hate these arguments as it is
| allowing incompetence to drive innovation. There are plenty
| of other options whereby 3rd party apps/app stores could be
| installed safely, just like on any other computer system. If
| you need to give someone with diminished mental faculties a
| locked down device, that can be made explicit.
| oblio wrote:
| > By the same logic we should just eliminate free will
| because it's dangerous sometimes.
|
| In moments of fear, hardship and crisis a decent percentage
| of people everywhere (30? maybe more) ask for the
| reassuring hand of a dictator.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| Exactly. I don't understand the argument Apple users are
| presenting. Its like they can't comprehend that they can
| have an option to install third-party apps but they don't
| have to enable or use that if they like being "protected"
| from hurting themselves.
| [deleted]
| parasubvert wrote:
| There is comprehension. But many just don't want it
| because it over complicates the experience.
|
| It really isn't that hard to understand: many Apple users
| value a certain set of design and simplicity criteria
| over other factors.
| ThatMedicIsASpy wrote:
| Hey Apple users do want stuff like
| https://support.discord.com/hc/en-
| us/articles/1500005389362-...
|
| This alone makes me never touch Apple - and I have
| considered it (because I still use my 6yr old Windows
| Phone). My only phone consideration is a Pixel with
| GrapheneOS
| havernator wrote:
| Right now, ~100% of the software available for iOS has to
| follow Apple's rules, offer a consistent and safe payment
| method, and install through the App Store.
|
| I assume you think that would change, else why have other
| app stores. That's what I don't want. I want as close to
| 100% of the software for iOS as possible to have to
| follow the rules. That's part of why I _chose_ iOS.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| Sorry, but why exactly do you want _other users_ to be
| deprived of software choice on iOS? Like how is that
| enhancing your experience?
|
| I get that people want to use Apple only software, in
| which case I'd understand why they don't want other
| software on the Apple Store, but how the hell is _your_
| experience worse if there is another store available on
| the phone? Just never use it?
|
| It's like as if Microsoft locked down Windows and the
| only option you have available is to install things
| through the Windows Store and someone goes "yeah that's
| why I use windows man, I don't want anyone to be able to
| install Steam". Has anyone ever argued this? how did it
| become a thing
| havernator wrote:
| Apple can no longer force vendors who want access to iOS
| to play by the rules that I _want_ them to be forced to
| play by, is the main risk of adding more stores. I bought
| iOS devices in part _for_ the effects of that leverage--I
| _chose_ that. It 's also a choice.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| "Apple can no longer force vendors who want access to iOS
| to play by the rules"
|
| Yes, thank you for spelling it out thst you want apple to
| continie violating other people's freedom and
| perpetuating anticonpetitive practicea
| simion314 wrote:
| Sure, but can you take a short pause and parse what you
| say:
|
| "I personally love it how Apple is taking my freedom, I
| love it so much that I want to force Apple rules on
| everyone else."
|
| The fact you like current Apple rules and you got scared
| by some FUD should not make you entitled to ask other to
| stop fighting for more freedom(my family have Android
| phones and they did not installed any other store, side
| loaded apps or got hacked). Apple could give the iPhone
| locked and give you a code on a paper you can use to
| unlock, you can FUD your parents to never use the code,
| you can burn the code, you can also not side load
| applications. You could also demand dear Apple to
| implement some safe sandboxing/jail where you can be safe
| to run anything, I heard they have enough money so maybe
| they could pay better those security engineers that keep
| finding bugs in their shit.
| fossuser wrote:
| You're missing the core value. It's not hacks, it's
| policy.
|
| Apple leverages their power against app devs and for
| their customers.
|
| - IAP, Apple ID, No Tracking, Notification Control, etc.
|
| In a world where Apple doesn't have leverage via the
| store they can't enforce these things. App devs would
| ship outside of the store and include whatever crap they
| wanted. This is a worse experience and there is no
| 'choice' available for the users to pick a better one.
|
| Apple is effectively acting as a legislator here,
| improving the quality of apps via their leverage in the
| interest of their users. It's a standard I'm willing to
| pay extra for and enforces good standards around privacy.
| The government law makers are largely owned by regulatory
| capture and lack of technical ability - why would we
| destroy the ability for one company that actually has
| incentives aligned with their users to enforce standards?
|
| If Apple loses that leverage we lose that high quality
| option - you can't have it both ways because the leverage
| is what allows the incentive control.
|
| People that don't care about it should use Android.
| simion314 wrote:
| This argument is FUD. Until Epyc games had the courage to
| complain I could have asked you to name an example and
| you would not find anything that is not on Google Play
| with exception of maybe Free Software.
|
| If this is not FUD do you have a source that shows that
| thousands of poor grandmas that have Android were forced
| to side load Farmville and if this happened what was the
| damage (except that some bilionaires made a few less
| millions)
| fossuser wrote:
| Android app store doesn't have the same review process or
| restrictions so it's not really a relevant comparison.
|
| If Google tried to enforce more policy app devs would use
| other stores/side load.
|
| In hostile countries the google play store is usually not
| present at all.
| simion314 wrote:
| >In hostile countries the google play store is usually
| not present at all
|
| Isn't this a good thing? In countries like China you
| could force Apple to spy and censor users where Android
| users can side load applications from trusted sources.
|
| >If Google tried to enforce more policy app devs would
| use other stores/side load.
|
| What kind of policies ? Any example of such policies?
| GUI/UX stuff or you mean policies where you can't link to
| a donate page because Apple wants that sweet tax, I think
| you are not ready to admit that you are spreading FUD,
| reality does not match and you are still building a
| fantasy.
| fossuser wrote:
| Phones in China are owned at the network and software
| level - you can't safely side load anything. I'm not sure
| Apple is safe here either, but I'd guess the security is
| better? Just guessing though based on reading what
| security people have blogged about the platforms.
|
| For the policies - things like requiring better ID auth
| or blocking tracking or requiring IAP. I agree that the
| tax is bad and stated so elsewhere.
|
| > " I think you are not ready to admit that you are
| spreading FUD, reality does not match and you are still
| building a fantasy."
|
| This kind of rhetoric when you disagree with someone
| isn't helpful and doesn't change minds.
| simion314 wrote:
| Sorry but not sure how I can make my point more clear.
| You created an hypothetical situation like "If Apple
| devices were not locked then for sure all the developers
| will remove their apps from the store and offer them from
| their own webpage to get around the big tax" my argument
| is that Android exist and this does not happen, so you
| should stop inventing hypotheticals and look at the
| reality,
|
| Then you invented other hypothetical, something about
| developers will lower the bar of quality because the only
| reason all those popular apps in the store are of quality
| is because Apples high standards. This is also something
| that you imagine, most rejections I read about were about
| Apples greed and other such stupidity.
|
| Maybe you are not spreading FUD because you are really
| scared, then it means the FUD worked on you, I am sorry ,
| hopefully the reality I shown will calm you down a bit,
| my family are running Android phones and they did no
| sideload any application, there is an exception of a
| Huawei phone I got where they were forced not to put
| Google Play on it, I had some issues getting Youtube to
| work but except that app it works OK for my son.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| I understand that's what you want, I want to know why you
| want that. Apple being able to exercise market power is
| _bad for you_ , it means that Apple can command higher
| prices that are being passed on to you. It's like saying
| you only want Walmart in your neighborhood, because that
| means Walmart can coerce its vendors. The only one who
| benefits from this is the platform owner. Competition is
| good (for you, the consumer, _even if you only shop at
| one store!_.
| Gaelan wrote:
| That's the thing: Apple's exercising market power does
| bring all sorts of benefits to users. Obvious examples
| include the new privacy rules they're imposing, in-app
| purchases allowing any subscriptions to be cancelled with
| zero hassle. If Apple allowed other app stores, Facebook
| would almost certainly move to one that let them produce
| a far more invasive app. And the vast majority of the
| users will just download Facebook from the new store,
| because most people (myself included, tbh) value
| convenience over any absolutist stances about the
| software they use--see the past several decades of the
| free software movement.
|
| The net result: Apple losing their monopoly means a huge
| influx of user-hostile behavior in apps.
|
| Now, you're not wrong either--Apple does, in some cases,
| abuse their monopoly, and probably takes more of a cut
| than is fair from IAPs. (Although, quite frankly, I'd be
| shocked if the money from cheaper IAPs went to reducing
| prices and not increasing profits.) So yes, Apple's
| behavior here is harmful in some ways, but it does good
| in others. Like pretty much everything in this world, it
| ain't black and white.
| berkes wrote:
| In essence that is arguing that an abusive monopoly
| (facebook) must be fought with another abusive monopoly
| (apple).
| fossuser wrote:
| It's not abusive if it benefits its users.
| Gaelan wrote:
| Yeah, I suppose that is what I am arguing. Apple is
| absolutely an abusive monopoly, but tackling them alone
| without simultaneously handling Facebook and co would
| result in a net loss for the average consumer.
| havernator wrote:
| Absent government regulation? Yes, exactly. If Mecha-
| Godzilla shows up I'm very, very happy to have Godzilla
| around to fuck them up, even if Godzilla is a dangerous
| monster and it would be better to have no monsters.
| Mindwipe wrote:
| And screw the vulnerable people your Gozilla murders
| under it's feet eh?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _that is arguing that an abusive monopoly (facebook)
| must be fought with another abusive monopoly (apple)_
|
| Plus the entire den of pests that is adtech and its
| various tracking companies, most of whom are far from
| monopolies.
| edrxty wrote:
| That's nice and all, but the rest of us would like to be
| able to use our hardware, that we paid for up front, for
| whatever we need. Unfortunately iOS boots with an
| encrypted bootloader, so you can't replace it, and once
| booted, only supports this lovely walled garden of cat-
| meme consumption.
| havernator wrote:
| Then choose something else? I mean, lobby for the change
| if you like, but you're eliminating _my_ favored choice
| if you succeed.
| edrxty wrote:
| We can both have our cake and eat it too, we just need
| either an unlocked bootloader, or the ability to sideload
| apps over an ADB-like usb interface. People who don't
| want that functionality will never know it's there and
| there won't be any decrease in security.
| macintux wrote:
| As soon as Apple offers that, companies like Facebook
| will tell their users that in order to install their
| apps, they have to sideload it.
|
| And people will go willingly into that dark night.
| [deleted]
| havernator wrote:
| Unlocked boot loader would be fine. Sideloading's fine as
| long as the UI's bad enough that normal people can't,
| say, click a link on a website and keep clicking "OK"
| until the app's installed on their phone, and it also
| can't (somehow? Not sure how this restriction would be
| enforced) be scripted into a desktop-based store (as ADB
| could be, and likely would have been if alternative
| stores couldn't just be installed directly on Android
| devices).
|
| Essentially as long as nothing threatens Apple's ability
| to tell other companies, including other tech giants, to
| play ball or pound sand, I'm fine with it.
| jjav wrote:
| > Essentially as long as nothing threatens Apple's
| ability to tell other companies, including other tech
| giants, to play ball or pound sand, I'm fine with it.
|
| Is your premise is that the vast majority of iOS users
| want the Apple control of apps exactly as it is today?
|
| If that premise is true, then having additional app
| stores available will not change your experience at all.
| The vast majority, as you assert, of iOS users will want
| no part in the alternative app stores, thus the Apple app
| store retains dominance and Apple doesn't need to change
| their behavior at all. So nothing changes for you. And
| the few oddballs who want to run non-Apple-approved
| software, still can, but they'll be a fringe.
|
| But if you're worried that there will be a mass exodus to
| the non-Apple app store, (if that was allowed) then I'm
| hearing that there is in fact large percentages of
| unhappy users, which is itself proof that removing
| control from Apple is required.
|
| What doesn't make sense it simultaneously assert that
| nearly all iOS users are happy with the Apple iron fist
| but large percentage of them are itching to break away
| from it the second they could. One or the other can be
| true, not both.
| fossuser wrote:
| It probably reduces security - if your phone gets taken
| by a government to be analyzed.
|
| Authoritarian governments would probably require side
| loaded apps.
| hugi wrote:
| Sounds like you don't want an iPhone. So buy a different
| phone that does what you want.
| edrxty wrote:
| I have several in fact, including the PinePhone which I
| quite like but isn't really ready for daily use. The
| issue is Apple is developing a monopoly on high end
| hardware and there are fewer reasonable options by the
| day.
| leadingthenet wrote:
| And there's a reason for that. You're making the mistake
| of thinking Apple's special sauce is the hardware. It's
| not.
|
| It's the experience.
| shawnz wrote:
| I don't think they were making any kind of claim about
| Apple's "special sauce", only that Apple has a monopoly
| on high-end hardware, which is true.
| skydhash wrote:
| I'm always confused by this one. Every hardware company
| has a monopoly on their stuff. Sony with their
| PlayStation is a prime example of this. I've never seen
| anyone says they want to run their own game on it.
| fossuser wrote:
| It is a little weird though.
|
| - Apple has built a world wide empire selling these
| products in this way people seem to like
|
| - As a result Apple has funneled that money and made
| world class hardware that's better than everyone else and
| leads in security/privacy
|
| - Therefore we should force them to break their model
| because the others that didn't follow suit have hardware
| that sucks
|
| That's not the most charitable interpretation, but
| there's some truth to it.
|
| There's some extra irony that the others in this case
| fuck over their users by leveraging their data to target
| ads.
| leadingthenet wrote:
| Yes, thank you. That's the idea I wanted to express, but
| only managed to do so in a much less capable way.
| dariosalvi78 wrote:
| the rules a company has undemocratically decided that
| affect millions of users.
|
| One day an app you like, or your life may even depend on,
| suddenly disappears because of some arbitrary, pointless
| rule is brought by that company, whose decisions are, I
| repeat, outside of democratic control.
| fredophile wrote:
| Would you be willing to pay a premium for that? What if
| Apple allowed other stores and simultaneously allowed
| apps to sell things for more on their store than they
| charge on other stores? Then an app maker could release
| on both and charge more to account for Apple's cut and
| any extra expenses they have releasing on their store.
| simondotau wrote:
| > Would you be willing to pay a premium for that?
|
| That's literally what millions of customers do, whether
| they do so explicitly or not.
| fredophile wrote:
| Could you explain what you mean about customers paying a
| premium today? I don't think any apps that are on iOS and
| other platforms charge more for iOS. I also don't believe
| an iPhone costs more than a similarly high end Android
| phone. Where's the premium?
| havernator wrote:
| Some definitely do charge more for e.g. subscriptions on
| iOS than they do if you go through their website. They
| can't _advertise_ the website option _in their app_ , but
| it can exist.
|
| Last time I made that mistake the site's subscription
| management interface was rather... uh, minimum viable
| product. Switching to paying the Apple premium was well
| worth it.
| fredophile wrote:
| Thanks for that info. I wasn't aware that apps were
| allowed to charge more for subscriptions via iOS. I
| thought their only options in this regard was to not
| offer in app subscriptions at all.
| simondotau wrote:
| Those very few ultra-premium models are exceptions which
| prove the rule; a few ultra-expensive, ultra-premium halo
| products for price-insensitive customers. Android phones
| are almost always superior value for money.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| iPhones start at $400, and come with 5+ years of prompt
| software updates.
| theli0nheart wrote:
| > _~100% of the software available for iOS has to follow
| Apple 's rules, offer a consistent and safe payment
| method, and install through the App Store._
|
| Scams are _rampant_ in the App Store. Give an unlocked
| iPhone to a 5 year old and they 'll spend $1000 before
| you know it. This is not something worth defending.
|
| https://9to5mac.com/2021/02/12/developer-reveals-fake-
| app-st...
| havernator wrote:
| Pointing out one bad thing doesn't change a bunch of
| other good things, nor does adding more app stores seem
| like a useful solution to the problem raised.
| 8note wrote:
| Really it's that adding more app stores doesn't remove
| those things either.
|
| Even with things going through apple, you don't have a
| safe and consistent payments scheme.
|
| With more app stores, you can still get every app that's
| available on the Apple app store, just as you can now.
| You may not have access to every app, but you don't today
| either
| efraim wrote:
| You could very easily not install any other store or use
| any other payment system if you don't want them. You can
| keep your device 100 % Apple approved even if there exist
| alternatives. Why take that choice away from others?
| Gaelan wrote:
| > You could very easily not install any other store
|
| But in practice, there are apps we need to use--people
| who we mostly communicate with over Facebook, movies we
| want to want that are only on Netflix, etc. In the status
| quo, we can use those apps, and they're beholden to
| Apple's guidelines, hopefully reducing the privacy, etc
| abuses. I can use Facebook _and_ still have some amount
| of privacy.
|
| In the world where alternate stores exist, I have to
| choose between using Facebook _or_ having some amount of
| privacy. Sure, I could not use Facebook, but I 'm a real
| human living in the real world, and that means I miss out
| on social opportunities that I would rather not miss out
| on. I--and the vast majority of iOS users, who aren't
| particularly interested in 3rd party stores--lose a less-
| terrible Facebook app.
|
| (Not that I'm too happy with Apple here either. Some of
| Apple's policies are bizarre and abusive, and there are
| apps I'd like to run that aren't allowed. But I'm not
| entirely sure it's worth the tradeoff.)
| havernator wrote:
| It could fragment the Apple software ecosystem. Since a
| non-fragmented ecosystem is what I want, I don't like
| that. Add more stores and _my_ choice to buy into a
| unified platform is at risk.
| fredophile wrote:
| Why is fragmentation a problem? There's already
| fragmentation of the smartphone software ecosystem. How
| is an app that ships on iOS but not the apple store any
| different to you than an app that doesn't ship on iOS at
| all? Either way if you choose to only buy apps through
| apple you can't get it.
| simondotau wrote:
| Fragmentation means that many apps I want would no longer
| be available through a vendor that I trust. No, that
| trust isn't blind or absolute. Yes, I recognise that
| Apple's review process is patchy at best--but most
| developers also fear getting on the wrong side of them
| and THAT alone has been pretty damn effective at keeping
| most apps under control.
| fredophile wrote:
| I'm not convinced this is as big a problem as you think
| it is. If I chose iOS over Android specifically for
| privacy reasons I'd be interested in knowing what
| companies avoid the app store to bypass their privacy
| restrictions. Do you really want to use a product from a
| company that would do that as soon as they have the
| chance or would you rather label them as untrustworthy
| and find an alternative?
| simondotau wrote:
| If the dominant reason to bypass the Apple App Store was
| to avoid their privacy controls, I'd wholeheartedly agree
| with that argument.
| havernator wrote:
| Some apps that would choose to be in the App Store if
| they had to, would instead use an alternative store. Some
| apps that wouldn't otherwise exist on iOS, _would_ exist
| on alternative stores. I 'd rather sacrifice that second
| category to ensure that the first category has to be
| released on the App Store. If I change my mind, I'll get
| an Android device. I knew what I was getting into when I
| bought Apple.
| 8note wrote:
| Your choice to buy into a unified platform does not
| require it to be Apple's unified platform. You can
| probably find a windows phone and opt into that unified
| platform.
|
| What you don't get regardless is an apple that "throws
| its weight around" to force competitors and the like to
| do what apple wants. That's abuse and bad for everyone.
| That you happen to like it doesn't make it legal
| shawnz wrote:
| What if they change their mind about the rules and their
| vision becomes inconsistent with what you want? You'll
| have no recourse and vendor lock-in will prevent you from
| switching platforms
| hugi wrote:
| Wat? No. I'd buy another phone. There's plenty of
| choices.
| shawnz wrote:
| It will be inconvenient and even impossible to migrate
| some things (for example contacts, iMessage history, app
| data). Espcially consider how difficult it would be for a
| novice user to migrate. And what are those other choices?
| Presumably you are not considering Android devices.
| simondotau wrote:
| It's not Apple's fault if Android devices aren't suitable
| alternatives.
| shawnz wrote:
| Of course not. But the limited selection of alternatives
| certainly adds to the pain of switching platforms.
| Therefore it's not so simple to "just buy another phone".
| simondotau wrote:
| I wholeheartedly agree with that. I just find it
| difficult to blame Apple when the accusation is that the
| competition sucks.
| shawnz wrote:
| That's not the accusation. The accusation is that
| disallowing sideloading and forcing all customers to
| observe a single philosophy is _especially_ big of a risk
| to the user considering that there 's little competition.
| The fix isn't for Apple to create better competition,
| it's to allow sideloading. I am not saying it's their
| "fault" for having a lack of competition, that is just a
| reality of the market they are in.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Right now, ~100% of the software available for iOS has
| to follow Apple's rules, offer a consistent and safe
| payment method, and install through the App Store.
|
| The same would still be true of all the apps in the App
| Store. There would just be other stores. You wouldn't
| have to use them. Other people could.
|
| The issue here is that many people want the hardware or
| the OS without the App Store. If you give it to them,
| "people who only use the Apple App Store" will be a
| smaller number of people and Apple will have less
| leverage.
|
| That's the point of prohibiting anti-competitive
| practices. Apple does a lot of things with that leverage
| that are bad. Like prohibiting apps that compete with
| theirs (e.g. browser engines), and imposing political
| censorship in authoritarian countries, and extracting 30%
| from captive developers.
|
| You presumably want Apple to have the leverage because
| then they can use it against e.g. Facebook. If everybody
| on iOS thinks like you then you win -- everybody only
| uses the App Store even though other stores are available
| and Apple still has all the same leverage.
|
| But if most of the people disagree with you, right now
| you're holding them hostage. Forcing them to use only the
| App Store even though they don't want to, so that the
| world's largest corporation can have more leverage.
| havernator wrote:
| I'd care about this a lot less if the government first
| outlawed most personal data collection & hoarding (by
| tech companies and others) before we go destroying the
| libertarian solution to this (outsource regulation to a
| company, which is what I'm choosing to do, given the
| alternatives)
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| It's not really destroying it. You can still refuse to
| install any apps not approved by Apple, even if other
| people do.
|
| It might even be a good test. If Facebook decides they
| can't be in Apple's store even though the app is free and
| there is no government pressure for Apple to block it,
| you might take pause to ask why and decide that you don't
| _want_ that app.
| havernator wrote:
| I already don't use Facebook, but I take your more
| general point. The main thing I don't want is to feel
| network-effect pressure from some huge non-Apple platform
| to install from sources with worse privacy and security
| guarantees. iOS is so big that effectively no mass-market
| mobile software can afford to ignore it, and Apple's
| rules force them to play (somewhat) nice when they show
| up.
|
| Let's say I did like Facebook, or at least tolerated it
| because all my family was on it, and chose to use it only
| on iOS _specifically_ because it was relatively secure
| and limited their snooping somewhat. Your scenario is a
| strictly worse situation for me. I was using it and was
| OK with the situation, now I have to either risk more
| snooping or drop it. That 's not better.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > The main thing I don't want is to feel network-effect
| pressure from some huge non-Apple platform to install
| from sources with worse privacy and security guarantees.
|
| What you mean is that you do want app developers to feel
| network-effect pressure from the huge Apple platform
| which has those privacy and security requirements. Which
| you still have as long as a large number of people feel
| the same and refuse to install apps outside of Apple's
| store.
|
| It may even benefit you for Apple to have less, but still
| some, leverage. For example, a third party store might
| start offering a BitTorrent client for iOS, which Apple
| only prohibits for bad reasons that don't help you. Then
| the availability of the apps in another store might
| convince Apple to allow well-behaved BitTorrent clients
| in their store to prevent you from switching (since their
| reasons for prohibiting it are bad). Then you get a
| selection of vetted clients when you currently have none.
|
| Likewise, if there were other stores then there would be
| no reason for them to continue their otherwise-useless
| prohibition on emulators or virtualization.
|
| Meanwhile you could still install all of your apps from
| their store and they would plausibly still have enough
| leverage to keep them well-behaved, just not enough to
| prohibit well-behaved things that you actually want if
| it's easier to get them some other way.
|
| > Let's say I did like Facebook, or at least tolerated it
| because all my family was on it, and chose to use it only
| on iOS _specifically_ because it was relatively secure
| and limited their snooping somewhat. Your scenario is a
| strictly worse situation for me. I was using it and was
| OK with the situation, now I have to either risk more
| snooping or drop it. That 's not better.
|
| What we're after here is a situation where the
| combination (you, Apple) has enough leverage to cause
| Facebook to provide an app that isn't ruinously bad on
| privacy. It's not clear that we're there even now --
| Facebook has a huge network effect and basically the only
| reason Facebook is an app and not a web page is so it can
| suck up more of your personal information -- but suppose
| we were. Apple's leverage relative to Facebook is doing
| you some good.
|
| The answer is then to make sure _your_ leverage against
| Facebook is sufficient to keep them honest. This could
| imply some antitrust action against Facebook, e.g. so
| that you can use an app not written by Facebook to
| contact your family who uses Facebook, and then choose
| one willing to meet Apple 's standards even if Facebook
| itself won't. So it's still possible to solve problems
| like this, to the extent that they exist, through other
| means.
| havernator wrote:
| I just know that these things won't happen right now:
|
| 1) Job interview? The big corporate sales prospect I'm
| courting? "Company policy is that we do all our calls
| through [some corporate communication tool]. It's on
| [store that popped up to cater to enterprises, so they
| could ship more spyware to their employees]" So I cancel
| the calls, or install that store and their probably-
| spying app.
|
| 2) That chat app or social network your entire family &
| friend group is on? Crippled or absent on the App Store,
| full version only on an alternative store.
|
| For #1: "So use a different phone for all business
| interactions" OK, but right now I don't need to. That is
| a solution, but right now it's not one I need, and I
| don't want to need it.
|
| Maybe those wouldn't happen. Right now, they _can 't_. I
| chose my mobile devices in part _for_ that feature.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| That is a really good point that I haven't even thought
| of before.
| [deleted]
| parasubvert wrote:
| It's not incompetence or "reduced mental faculties", or
| even removing free will.
|
| It's that we don't want iOS to be like any other computer
| system - the simplicity and lack of choice is a feature,
| not a bug.
| edrxty wrote:
| Some people need more functionality than iOS and its
| associated apps provide to do their jobs (ie embedded
| development/testing) among other things. Sure, "just go
| to Android/whatever" but Apple is quickly gaining a
| monopoly on not-shitty hardware and the combination of
| these two things is not ok by any stretch of the
| imagination.
|
| Apple could provide the option of unlocking the
| bootloader and providing some driver code for their
| peripherals so we could make our own system, but they
| don't and that fact suggests there's a more sinister
| objective to this game. They exist to make as much money
| through their app store as possible and will not give up
| any control.
| meepmorp wrote:
| > Apple is quickly gaining a monopoly on not-shitty
| hardware
|
| By "quickly gaining a monopoly", do you mean they've
| somehow made it impossible for another multi-billion
| dollar company to do a decent job on designing and
| building a phone?
| 8note wrote:
| Specifically the building gets quite hard when apple has
| purchased the chip making capacity
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The building gets hard when the executives at Microsoft
| and Samsung and Intel or Alphabet get complacent with
| their rent seeking from Windows/Office licensing, or ad
| revenue, or whatever other reason they can't stomach
| investing billions of dollars into R&D and in person
| retail customer service.
|
| Microsoft really cracks me up, they went as far as
| opening up retail locations all over the country, they
| just needed to invest for another 10 years and come up
| with something that can compete with iOS, and they
| decided to call it quits after a few years. Presumably
| because the expenses during the decade that is required
| to build trust with the public would cause an
| unacceptable hit to their financials and hence the
| bosses' pockets, even though it would have benefited
| Microsoft after 10 to 15 years.
|
| And now they get to compete with Apple's own processors
| for laptops and desktops, for which they are behind
| another 10 years. Because they choose not to invest in
| their own employees and R&D, because they already have
| that sweet Office licensing revenue so why bother.
| varjag wrote:
| That's a very recent excuse, but the status quo been that
| for some time.
| meepmorp wrote:
| Nonsense. Samsung has its own chip fabs.
| parasubvert wrote:
| " Some people need more functionality than iOS and its
| associated apps provide to do their jobs (ie embedded
| development/testing) among other things. "
|
| The open PC market is doing really well these days. Like,
| there's a huge silicon shortage.
|
| "Apple has a monopoly on not shitty hardware"
|
| I have to chuckle. It's almost like we want Apple to
| become a utility that must by government fiat build this
| great hardware but we now are going to force their
| software to operate the way a committee wants.
|
| I am for regulation when it benefits consumers broadly
| (though unintended consequences abound). But this feels
| like pandering to a niche: potential dealers and tech
| tinkerers that never wanted the PC to become a consumer
| product.
|
| There is nothing sinister of about running a business
| with focus and vertical integration. Apple tried an OEM
| model once, it didn't work well for them (in part because
| Microsoft and Intel had that model locked up).
| kittiepryde wrote:
| "Apple has a monopoly on not shitty hardware"
|
| I had a chuckle at that too, I've seen a lot of monopoly
| arguments devolve into, [x] is too good, [y] can not
| compete with a similar but lower quality offering, this
| is anti competitive.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| It really does read like satire.
| ninjin wrote:
| This point of view comes up from time to time and it is and
| has always been a false choice. What you need is a consensual
| mechanism to relinquish in part or entirely aspects of your
| control to Apple in exchange for convenience/security. Think
| "parental control", it does not come with the need to shut
| down a device as a whole, but simply with an interface to bar
| certain areas off if you so desire.
|
| Now, implementing this technically could be somewhat
| challenging and there is no obvious line to me where the
| boundary for customisation/freedom should be. But I think a
| first step is recognising the false choice that you present
| so that we can move the discussion to the details of where
| that technical/societal line should be rather than talk in
| freedom/non-freedom absolutes.
| orangeoxidation wrote:
| It's not possible to make this a switch the user can turn
| on or off (with reasonable effort).
|
| Take the alternative app store. If they are allowed you
| will have some with exclusive apps. Those apps are then
| outside the apple rules and you have to have to hit the
| switch if you want them. So you loose out on the app or on
| all your apps being apple rule / account / payment
| compatible.
|
| If there is no alternative store you will get all apps the
| apple way.
|
| Apple is providing a real benefit here. Of course they are
| also leveraging their semi-monoplostic position to "extort"
| money and to distort competition.
| ninjin wrote:
| > It's not possible to make this a switch the user can
| turn on or off (with reasonable effort).
|
| Frankly, citation needed. If phone manufacturers can find
| ways to unlock bootloaders, I refuse to believe that
| there is no way to allow for sideloading of some form on
| iOS. It particularly disturbs me how this comes from the
| "Think different" camp which praises the quality of its
| software to high heaven. Nowhere have I argued that the
| line should be drawn at "free mixing of application
| stores", yet I continue to get the same boilerplate
| arguments that any move from the current status quo will
| lead to a complete collapse of the allegedly all so
| superior iOS ecosystem. I do not buy it.
| Hasnep wrote:
| > I refuse to believe that there is no way to allow for
| sideloading of some form on iOS.
|
| I don't think GP meant that it wasn't technically
| possible, they were saying it isn't possible for this
| switch to exist without some popular apps eventually
| getting almost everyone to flip the switch and negate the
| whole point of having a switch.
|
| I don't think I agree with them because Android already
| has this switch and I can't think of many apps that lots
| of users would want to sideload, except for Fortnite.
| ninjin wrote:
| Just to clarify, I do not think that orangeoxidation
| holds the position that it is technically impossible. I
| just think that there is no evidence that it is either
| technically impossible or - like you - that there is any
| evidence or good reason to believe that sideloading would
| turn iOS into the wild west.
|
| Rather, I think that the argument is sloppy, lazy, and
| frankly relies on a severe lack of imagination and
| rigidity of mind from those that present or accept it.
| Thus we should stop parroting it as it makes for a very
| boring discussion.
|
| Instead, maybe there is an interesting discussion to be
| had as to whether Google maintains control using Google
| Play Services? Technical aspects of how a consent
| mechanisms could work relative to bootloader unlocking?
| The viability of Apple's offerings in terms of better
| privacy and payment UI if something like Fortnite "broke
| free" and started a competing store? All this sounds
| endlessly more fun to read and contribute to compared to:
| "I am content with the status quo, it serves me well, and
| I see no reason to discuss this further with you freedom
| zealots!".
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Take the alternative app store. If they are allowed you
| will have some with exclusive apps. Those apps are then
| outside the apple rules and you have to have to hit the
| switch if you want them. So you loose out on the app or
| on all your apps being apple rule / account / payment
| compatible.
|
| But how is this different than Android? There could be
| apps exclusive to Android, presumably there are. If you
| want them you have to choose Android. All the people who
| only trust Apple can't have them, the same as all the
| people who would refuse to turn the switch.
|
| And even if some of the people who currently have iOS
| devices would turn the switch, the people who wouldn't
| are still a huge market. Unless they're not. But in that
| case what you're really saying is that people don't
| actually want the Apple-controlled market and most people
| are only buying iOS devices in spite of rather than
| because of it.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| If you lose out on an app because they decide to exclude
| themselves from the app store, couldn't you just find
| another app that doesn't exclude themselves that caters
| more towards your philosophy?
| Gaelan wrote:
| The top 10 free apps on the App Store, at time of
| writing, are TikTok, HBO Max, YouTube, Instagram,
| Facebook, Messenger, Snapchat, Zoom, Gmail, and Google
| Maps. Until Gmail, every single one of those provides
| access to content that can't be accessed thorough another
| app--a more ethical Snapchat doesn't have any of my
| Snapchat-using friends, and a more ethical HBO Max
| doesn't have the movie I want to watch. So no, in
| practice, the option is to get the app, wherever it's
| available, or decide to do without whatever it's
| offering.
| ccouzens wrote:
| YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and Google Maps all have
| good enough experiences using a mobile web browser. You
| don't need their app to access their content.
| o_p wrote:
| iOS is for idiots, noted.
| devwastaken wrote:
| This is also why I don't let anyone else drive or have a bank
| account, or anything potentially dangerous at all. Free
| choice and the ability to make mistakes by ignorance means
| they can hurt themselves. Therefore the best solution is
| revoking that ability by force instead of putting the
| responsibility of learning unto them. It's perfectly
| acceptable that I get to control everything and crush
| businesses and users with anti competitive practices with my
| control. Or else - who's going to keep you 'safe'?
|
| The idea of loving apples walled garden comes from a position
| of extreme privledge. You have to have lots of money to
| afford apples ecosystem. The hard reality is just like
| automobiles an iphone has become a societal requirement to
| participate in the common market.
|
| You can't install 3rd party apps by default in android, you
| have to turn it on.
| emteycz wrote:
| People should be able to freely choose a walled garden.
| There are benefits that might be important for the person
| choosing it, and other people can simply choose another
| platform. I don't see any reason why a single platform
| should be forced to cater to any and all.
| devwastaken wrote:
| Not when theres only 2 choices, and effectively only 1
| choice depending on your work. The rights of wider market
| and it's consumers involved are higher. This is precedent
| that's been set time and again in every other consumer
| facing industry and it applies just as well here.
| emteycz wrote:
| Yes, even when there are only 2 choices. No customer has
| any right, legal or otherwise, for iPhone-the-universal-
| and-open-computing-device. Not only that, most customers
| are customers _because_ it 's a walled garden. What are
| you going to say to a company after it loses customers
| and revenue and its expenses rise because you took away
| what made it unique? "Sorry, that's how the system
| works?", I guess?
| devwastaken wrote:
| Yep, that's how the system works. I have no qualms with
| forcing the richest company in the world to play fair.
| You may be under the idea that computers are optional -
| they're not. Almost everyone has a mobile device, even
| homeless. They're required to participate in government
| and business. It's how we rent apartments, pay bills and
| operate in society. The market has become a public
| problem by apples hand. Markets no longer belong to their
| creators when they of their own choices create matters of
| significant public issue. Apple is not special.
|
| We have plenty of precedent from microsoft being forced
| to allow software before. Apple and friends have lobbied
| (bribed) heavily for antitrust and antimonopoly to no
| longer have teeth. If it were 30 years ago apple would
| have been put through the meat grinder.
|
| If we need the legal right then we'll legislate it.
| skydhash wrote:
| A lot of people here in my country would say no, that
| you're wrong. No mobile device for anything, physical
| presence and cash rule here.
| the_local_host wrote:
| > Free choice and the ability to make mistakes...
|
| It sounds like the parent poster's relations have freely
| chosen to delegate their technology management to him or
| her, and in turn the poster is comfortable delegating that
| to Apple and their walled garden. If Apple is selling
| safety, security, and control, and people are buying it,
| what's the issue?
|
| Potentially the issue is a lack of competition in the
| market when there are too few options; but it sounds like
| you're saying that no one should prefer a walled garden
| option at all.
| rawtxapp wrote:
| That also gives you a false sense of security and putting too
| much trust on Apple, some people have discovered it the hard
| way [1].
|
| 1: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/03/30/trezo
| r-...
| ksec wrote:
| >prevents them from doing anything that would screw
| themselves over.
|
| That was the case when App Store was born, it really did
| provide the security and curation of Apps. But now that is no
| longer the case, scam Apps and low quality apps / games are
| everywhere. They are not as bad as Android but still bad. Not
| to mention Apple doesn't care about your IP, if someone make
| an app that is 99% the same with look and graphics. There is
| no way to challenge that because Apple said they dont take
| side ( What ? ).
|
| Especially when they hold the majority of market shares.
| Today, the iPhone has 66% market share in the United States,
| 75% of U.S. App Store revenues, and over 80% of time spent on
| the mobile internet. And these numbers are pre iPhone 12,
| judging from the trend it looks like the current number will
| only be higher. They cant hide behind privacy and curation
| forever.
| jjav wrote:
| OTOH if the elders of your family are not hacker tinkerer
| types, they're not going to install an alternate app store
| even if that was possible on iOS. So the existence of an
| alternative wouldn't change their usage or your need of
| involvement at all.
|
| It just provides a way to run applications of my choice on my
| hardware to people who want that.
| dariosalvi78 wrote:
| the problem is that mobile phones have become such a
| necessary tool for day-to-day life that one company cannot
| control what goes into them and what not. Apple can either
| allow additional stores (with all the checks and warnings) or
| that curation should be done by an independent, public and
| international third-party.
|
| The first option looks far easier.
| lofi_lory wrote:
| That's not the argument tho.
|
| You liking Apple's ecosystem doesn't mean they aren't
| anticompetitive.
|
| And really your point is kind of... weird. It's not like you
| don't have to go out of your way to get third-party apps on
| your Android phone. And you would lose nothing, if Apple did
| the same, maybe even more buried in hidden settings and
| behind disclaimers and warnings. Reads like the typical
| retrospective justification of any limitation Apple features.
|
| "A single USB-C port? Yeah, I love it! Keeps you focused and
| mindful about peripheral devices!"
|
| Every god damn time. Beyond bizarre.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| My GF has no idea how to administrate her phone, she has an
| android, and certainly doesn't side load apps, install them
| from websites or use an alternative app store.
|
| She wouldn't know how to do those things, so this point seems
| kinda moot.
| tgragnato wrote:
| Only someone who never tried to compile AOSP can write
| seriously that "Android is open source". That the platforms
| are open source is a moot point too.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| I don't talk about open source anywhere in my comment.
|
| I'm simply noting that those "dangerous features" are,
| practically, only accessible to the people that are tech
| saavy enough to understand the risks.
|
| So the "it's to protect the innocent" argument doesn't
| seem to hold well.
| tgragnato wrote:
| I agree with you.
|
| My sentence thinks over the top comment and the one you
| are replying to, both highlight irrelevant factual
| positions.
|
| Both are interesting details for techies, but in the real
| world they have no practical value.
| fyzix wrote:
| So you don't use or recommend Mac for your family members?
| Because third party apps can be installed...
| Redoubts wrote:
| iPad is probably the best choice for most, and is what most
| of my older relatives have independently chosen.
| bengale wrote:
| Exactly, and as is pointed out with android supporting
| different stores, the alternative already exists. I don't
| understand why people want to force their way of thinking on
| everybody else. I'm quite happy in my walled garden, and
| happy that those who don't like it can go to the other place.
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| It's not true for anyone outside of Hacker News. Most people
| have no idea that this is even true about Apple/Google (that
| one disallows third party apps and the other does not).
|
| People here always say the walled garden is good (maybe they
| are right) but most users don't know it even exists and to
| act otherwise is to forget the actual users of such software
| who use what they do because they have to and don't know any
| alternative (and can't afford the time and money to switch)
| cglong wrote:
| There's always this fear that apps are going to going to
| become exclusively available via alternative app stores, and
| yet this has yet to happen on Android. The only app I can
| think of that's not in Google Play is Fortnite, which, as we
| know, is to prove a point.
|
| Even Amazon (who pushed heavily on their alternative Appstore
| a few years back) never removed their own apps from Play.
| wluu wrote:
| There's AltStore, but it's obviously not as straightforward as
| the Apple one. https://altstore.io/
|
| Came across it while following the development and distribution
| of iSH (https://ish.app/), which has now made it into the main
| app store.
|
| Prior to publishing to AltStore, iSH was only available on Test
| Flight, which has a limitation on the number of users who can
| join (10,000). So they'd periodically have to kick inactive
| users off the TestFlight so others could try it.
| camhart wrote:
| AltStore requires a software developer to set it up and use
| it. Not anywhere close for non-tech people, let alone
| elderly.
| wluu wrote:
| Yeah, I said it's not straightforward.
| tracer4201 wrote:
| I specifically buy Apple products because I trust their App
| Store. I trust Apple with my information. I'm counting on these
| guys to get out software I download from the App Store. And I
| trust them to protect my privacy, better than anyone else.
|
| You're calling them anti consumer. But that's wrong. This is
| why I give them my business, and if they bowed to pressure so
| people can execute whatever software on my device, I'd exit the
| Apple ecosystem and buy a $300 phone instead of a $1000 phone.
| It's actually that simple.
|
| Edit: Sitting at -2 votes because people don't approve of my
| consumer habits. Censor people you don't agree with instead of
| having an actual response. Okay.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I seek this asinine take everywhere around here. Opening
| these platforms doesn't kill them, it forces them to compete.
| [deleted]
| tracer4201 wrote:
| Yes, you know better than me and my opinion is stupid and
| foolish. Your post doesn't really offer than alternative
| take. All you did is bully me and engage in cyber
| harassment.
|
| When your immediate response is to have an emotional
| outburst and tell people they're stupid, it actually shows
| you lack intelligence.
| parasubvert wrote:
| It is not asinine just because you disagree. They already
| are competing. There is Android, and there is iOS.
|
| Apple certainly could be hemmed in on clear areas of
| conflict like Spotify.
|
| Opening the platform is not traditional antitrust because
| consumers _like it this way_ - it's more about charity for
| the competition.
| twitch-chat wrote:
| By consumers do you mean the loud but very small minority
| that defend Apple in comment sections of online articles?
|
| Because if you ask me, my guess is that the average Apple
| consumer couldn't care less if the platform is opened up
| or not.
| parasubvert wrote:
| By consumers I mean the people that vote with their
| wallets by buying iOS devices.
|
| If it helps you sleep at night, keep thinking it's a very
| small minority. It's really not.
| [deleted]
| saurik wrote:
| I'm glad you realized the connection with voting, because
| it is the same issue in a real sense: no one gets to vote
| for an open or a closed system, they only get to vote for
| an iPhone or a Samsung (which is pretty locked down) or
| some random third-party phone that will probably suck;
| you are acting as if the people who voted for an iPhone
| are agreeing with every single decision made about that
| platform instead of merely wanting it "on the balance". I
| honestly mostly use Apple devices because I think their
| touch screens and trackpads are so good as to be "evil
| magic"... I thereby own a zillion of them and even use
| them as my personal devices _despite also currently suing
| them over this very anti-competitive App Store issue_ ,
| and yet my "vote"--and the votes of everyone like me (and
| I imagine there are many many such people)--are being
| counted by you as "voting with my wallet" for a closed
| system. The reality is that I am simply making the best
| of a shitty situation with buying an iPhone, and the fact
| that Apple is able to _get away with_ having a closed
| system _because of some other key benefit_ doesn 't mean
| they should get to do so :/. Hell: at this point, it
| would be extremely expensive to switch platforms, because
| Apple and Google have conspired to build a massive wall
| preventing people from importing purchases of apps from
| one platform to the other. I would even lose easy access
| to all of the music and movies I had gotten on iTunes
| (which is another reason a lot of people get Apple
| devices: because they are tied into a vertical content
| monopoly and a lot of the content I want is effectively
| only available from Apple). ...and like, I hope you
| realize that the ridiculously large number of people who
| bought and iPhone and then--despite it being extremely
| difficult to do so with requiring the usage of often
| scary software from annoyingly people from random
| websites--jailbreak it so they can fix this one key flaw
| they see in this product... a number that is already
| stupid high--we tended to get like 12% of users at steady
| state--but which would obviously be extremely high if
| only it could have been easier to do!
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I think it's asinine.
|
| Fragmentation: If Apple competes well there won't be any
| because their app store will be the best on merit not at
| gunpoint.
|
| Safety: Don't sideload or install unsigned apps. Keep
| your phone up to date. This doesn't change much except
| possibly give you the option to be unsafe.
|
| Payment processing: We already see integration with Cash
| app, Google wallet, Apple pay, Stripe, PayPal, etc. This
| is not an issue.
| zmmmmm wrote:
| the problem is you are presenting a false dichotomy:
|
| > if they bowed to pressure so people can execute whatever
| software on my device
|
| Who is proposing that? Nobody.
| tracer4201 wrote:
| The post I responded to explicitly wrote about alternative
| app stores. What's the main purpose of that other than
| getting rid of apples regulations?
| fredophile wrote:
| Part of the problem I have with them is they're bundling
| things in ways I don't want. What if I like their hardware
| and want Siri but don't want to use their app store? I don't
| believe most iOS buyers are buying it for privacy reasons. I
| bet if this was unbundled and their was an alternate store
| for iOS that openly used your data but apps cost 10% less a
| lot of consumers would choose it. You can argue that might
| not be a wise choice but right now its not a choice they're
| given.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Let's not pretend they do these things as charity.
|
| Chrome is open source because, as a fork of WebKit, it has to
| be. For other things, they use open source to drive adoption.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Apple was a big contributor to webkit waay before Chrome even
| existed.
|
| I don't really understand the love for Android (and sometimes
| Google) and hate for Apple. The first versions of Android
| were a clone of blackberry until Apple unveiled the iPhone.
| lacksconfidence wrote:
| > I don't really understand the love for Android (and
| sometimes Google) and hate for Apple
|
| The reasons are all over this discussion, just spend some
| time reading it. My takeaway might be that some people
| value autonomy and ownership, and feel like Android gives
| them more of that.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| Chrome is not open source.
| Gaelan wrote:
| Sure, but Chromium, which is ~identical, is.
| ehsankia wrote:
| This kind of logic is so annoying. If it's so easy / good for
| profit / advantageous / smart business, then why doesn't
| Apple do it?
|
| The whole "they only do X for profit" is such a lazy
| argument, because it can be used to argue any side of the
| argument if you try hard enough.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| idk, Apple does have open source? Swift is *incredibly*
| open, but probably a outlier for Apple. It's operating
| systems aren'tt, but kernal is (right?).
|
| None of these companies are open sourcing their core
| competencies. Google Search isn't open source.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| LLVM has been pretty import for Apple. Webkit has been
| important. BSD has been important, but afaik they don't
| really contribute a lot back anymore, although Darwin is
| open source.
| ajayyy wrote:
| This is not true, webkit is BSD license. If that were true,
| then Edge, Opera, etc. would also be open-source.
| josefx wrote:
| Going by the wiki entry only Apples additions are BSD the
| original project is LGPLv2.
| 0xDEEPFAC wrote:
| Open source has nothing to do with it when it is difficult /
| impossible / highly unlikely that anyone actually has a free
| device. What kind of developer would make something for an
| alternative app store which would be installable on 0.001% of
| devices?
|
| If anything they _took_ more from the community in terms of the
| Linux kernel etc then they have given back with useful
| technology when it comes to phones.
| trapped wrote:
| It's HW made by private corporation with their own SW and they
| can insist rules to make sure HW and SW systems are not abused
| so that most of the users get better user experience. They
| (Apple) are doing this to protect their users. If you don't
| agree with it don't buy their HW.
|
| Can you install applications from third party providers on
| other app bases HW? such as Gaming (XBox, Playstation,
| Nintendo) Cars (Tesla, Benz, Nissan)
|
| Or in non SW/HW world can you force stores such as Walmart,
| HomeDepot, Macys, Nordstorm to sell goods from third party
| seller? And, even these stores charge fees for selling items
| made by other manufacturers.
|
| If you don't like ecosystems made by Google and Apple don't buy
| their HW/SW.
| osrec wrote:
| Thanks for the advice. I don't agree with Apple, and don't
| buy their hardware or software.
|
| When I'm buying a general purpose computing device (which is
| what smartphones have become), I expect a significant degree
| of flexibility in how I can use it, and don't need the vendor
| to arbitrarily start placing limits on that flexibility to
| "protect" me. Especially when those limits happen to coincide
| with the financial goals of the vendor.
| MINPOOL wrote:
| > You can have third-party Android app stores
|
| It's just completely unrealistic that a classic consumer will
| install any other app store on their device, they just use what
| is there and that's for the majority of Android phones the Play
| Store.
|
| If Google would truly be open for competition, they would let
| the consumer choose the app store, the search engine and
| everything else when they first turn on the device.
| marticode wrote:
| Sure, but at least you have that option of installing what
| you want on the hardware you paid for.
|
| In contrast, Apple retain full control of the phone. You buy
| it, but you don't control it.
| [deleted]
| bern4444 wrote:
| I view this in a different light. We have two options for
| platforms, one for each idea. One idea being a platform that
| allows for third party app stores (android) and another
| platform that does not (apple).
|
| We already have a choice, between these ideas, some prefer one
| over the other.
|
| I personally prefer the platform that is better integrated,
| designed, and backed by the company already making the hardware
| and software. If I have an issue, I know who to go to.
|
| If the other option were more obviously beneficial, why haven't
| alternative App Stores on Android succeeded yet? What's holding
| the maintainers of those alternative stores back from growth?
|
| Maybe the answer in this case is that it really is just better
| (in a relativistic way) for the majority of people to interact
| with the same entity producing the rest of their phone's core
| software and perhaps even easier for developers to not have to
| contend with varying rules and policies across multiple App
| Store platforms.
| thefourthchime wrote:
| I think it's a bit of a false argument. The walls to entry
| are high.
|
| Thanks think if users had to enable "unsafe" apps on the App
| Store than that would be fair. The whole "Benefit" from these
| walled gardens was that they would have some validation.
|
| In reality their walls are revenue funnels.
| hugi wrote:
| Google is an ad company. I do not understand why people would
| choose to use an operating system created by an ad company,
| designed to harvest their personal information.
|
| I'm happy to use an iPhone, knowing my personal information is
| safe and it reduces my chances of being Harvested by Google.
| diogenesjunior wrote:
| >I'm happy to use an iPhone, knowing my personal information
| is safe and it reduces my chances of being Harvested by
| Google
|
| LOL. Instead of bowing down to one master, you chose to bow
| down to the other?
| hugi wrote:
| I choose to spend my money on devices from a company that's
| explicitly and repeatedly stated that their mission is
| privacy.
|
| But if you choose to buy phones from ad companies, it's
| your decision.
| alfongj wrote:
| Please point to a single source from Apple claiming their
| mission is privacy.
| hugi wrote:
| For me their actions speak volumes. But if you want
| sources, here's Craig Federighi, Senior VP of software,
| literally yesterday:
|
| "It [privacy] is a value that is so deep in us. Personal
| information can be used and abused and even weaponized in
| ways that can be really, really destructive. Often in a
| way that's not at all apparent to the person who might be
| giving up that information." and "These devices are so
| intimately a part of our lives and contain so much of
| what we're thinking and where we've been and who we've
| been with that users deserve and need control of that
| information. Abuse ranges from creepy to dangerous".
|
| He says more about privacy in that same interview,
| recommended listen.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G05nEgsXgoI
| anoncake wrote:
| Reminds me of the "We value your privacy" pop-ups Google
| keeps popping up. A for-profit company will say anything
| that it believes is profitable. PR statements like the
| one you quoted convey no information.
| m4rtink wrote:
| Unless the device runs open source software under your
| full control you can't trust any company behind it.
| harry8 wrote:
| They'll flip the nanosecond it suits them. Their
| commitment isn't valuable or enforceable or anything
| other than a dodgy sales pitch. Really.
|
| They can encode it in contact in a second and _choose_
| not to.
| hu3 wrote:
| > They'll flip the nanosecond it suits them.
|
| Like when Apple dropped end-to-end encryption on iCloud
| because FBI asked them politely.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-
| exclusiv...
| meepmorp wrote:
| https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2021/01/apple-fbi-and-iphone-
| back...
| hu3 wrote:
| "The encryption keys are stored at Apple' own servers"
|
| Thanks for confirming that there's no privacy in iCloud.
| meepmorp wrote:
| You should actually read the article, perhaps after first
| setting down the axe you're grinding. The details are
| interesting, and they discuss the Reuters piece you
| linked to.
| hu3 wrote:
| I did read the article. It nitpicks on Reuters article
| but the point still stands. Apple has the keys to iCloud
| backups.
|
| There's no axe to grind because the lack of end-to-end
| encryption is a fact. Your own link states that.
| Nitpicking Reuters won't change that. I don't understand
| this mentality of religiously defending something that's
| clearly wrong. It will only make the platform you use
| worse.
|
| By the way you should read HN guidelines. Don't comment
| whether someone read an article.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| hugi wrote:
| Sure, they can flip. But currently Apple's business model
| is based on privacy, and they're going for it HARD. Like,
| really hard. And I like that. The moment they stop doing
| that, I won't support them.
|
| Meanwhile; have you you seen Google stand up to the
| despicable behaviour of Facebook? No? I wonder why.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| Privacy like tracking your app launches?
|
| https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-says-itll-change-how-it-
| coll...
| hugi wrote:
| Did you even read the article you linked?
| commoner wrote:
| > Now, Apple says it has stopped logging user IP
| addresses collected by the feature, and will delete
| previous logs of IP addresses. Without IP addresses,
| there's far less danger that records of app usage could
| be tied back to users.
|
| https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-says-itll-change-how-it-
| coll...
|
| Apple is still tracking app launches in macOS, even
| though it has said that it will stop logging IP addresses
| along with that usage data.
| simion314 wrote:
| Yes fanboys, Apple cares so much about privacy that they
| sent your app launches unencrypted and with the IP
| address to their servers, they are only "fixing" it
| because of bad PR.
|
| If you use your brain you can conclude that Apple does
| not care about privacy enough to hire competent
| developers, this feature design was clearly insecure and
| against privacy that my any person with a bit of brain
| and not emotional invested can see it clear, "privacy is
| only PR, when it comes to actual implementation is
| irrelevant" ... though I think you could convince me that
| there is a chance that we could explain this just with
| pure stupidity, somehow Apple has such a broken process
| that stupidity triumphs over sane architecture, then yeah
| I hope you love the fact you use a product from someone
| that loves privacy but is to stuipid to offer it to you.
| [deleted]
| imoverclocked wrote:
| There is a promise in the marketing that customers expect
| to be kept. Apple has done lots of research and work to
| create privacy preserving versions of services that
| competitors simply harvest lots of user data for.
|
| Apple has invested heavily in this vein.
| harry8 wrote:
| It's the work of moments to put it in a contract that
| data sourced from you cannot be sold or provided to a
| third party without the law requiring it.
|
| They choose not to do this.
|
| Apple have invested heavily in their /marketing/
|
| If you believe they won't flip on you the nanosecond it
| suits them I've got a bridge over here that might
| interest you...
|
| Besides even if you believe the current people
| controlling Apple, all of them, you can't possibly know
| who will control it next year let alone in 5 or 10 years.
| This "I want to believe" garbage is just ridiculous.
| Seriously. You expect anything you like and Apple won't
| care a damn if your expectations are trashed for their
| profit or something else.
|
| If they won't put it in a contract it only because they
| reserve the right to to flip you off. Hard and rough. No
| other reason.
| stale2002 wrote:
| Well you will continue to be allowed to make these
| decisions if you want, but after these lawsuits go
| through, other people will also be free to use other app
| store as well.
|
| Problem solved. You get to keep using apple app stores,
| and other people can choose something else.
| 8note wrote:
| How do you know that apple isn't using your information to
| sell you things?
|
| They sell plenty of things, including these apps
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| You may feel you're safer, but there is no proof that Apple
| implements better privacy practices than Google. There are a
| lot of different vendors that provide Android without Google
| services and you can also unlock your bootloader and install
| a custom ROM:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_custom_Android_distrib.
| ..
|
| Last, Google allows you to disable their activity history and
| other options that may be concerning from your Google
| Account. Apple has very few options to limit your amount of
| data sharing.
| fnord77 wrote:
| there is proof - recently researchers showed google phones
| send an order of magnitude more data to the mothership than
| Apple does.
|
| Of course that's at this point in time. Tomorrow Apple
| could turn around and be worse.
| NorwegianDude wrote:
| Are you referring to this one that says Apple is
| collecting more personal details, but is communicating
| less than Google?
|
| "Android sends 20x more data.."?
|
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/03/android-
| sends-20x-mo...
|
| Take it with a huge grain of salt, but also note that
| Apple sends more personal data to themself than Google
| according to that article. Not in the amount of bytes,
| but in they amount of different data send, according to
| the article.
|
| I think most people would agree that fewer personal
| details being shared is more important than the amount of
| data used to communicate. So in that regard Apple is
| worse.
|
| All in all, I think this whole discussion is pointless.
| Both are collecting as much as they can get away with and
| both suck when it comes to privacy.
| paxys wrote:
| It is possible for a company to do multiple things, sometimes
| even conflicting with each other.
|
| Google is an ad company, and a hardware/smartphone company,
| and an enterprise collaboration company, and a cloud hosting
| company, and lots more.
|
| Similarly Apple is a hardware company which is getting more
| and more of its revenue from digital sales, subscriptions and
| even advertising every year. They can and do track their
| users exactly like Google.
|
| It is naive to think that any company at that scale has your
| best interests at heart. They will do whatever it takes to
| make more money, period.
| hugi wrote:
| > It is naive to think that any company at that scale has
| your best interests at heart. They will do whatever it
| takes to make more money, period.
|
| Exactly. And Apple makes money of privacy. It's their
| thing.
|
| Google's business model is based on abusing my privacy.
|
| Apple's business model is based on securing my privacy.
|
| That's why I use Apple stuff and won't touch Google with a
| 10 feet pole.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| > Exactly. And Apple makes money of privacy. It's their
| thing.
|
| Apple makes money by (among other things) appealing to a
| certain set of privacy conscious consumers. That's
| different than "making money off of privacy".
| colinmhayes wrote:
| only if you think consumers are idiots.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| I thought by making the argument that users shouldn't be
| allowed to install apps themselves you were making that
| insinuation and that people supporting Apple's anti-
| competitive behavior are willfully ignorant.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| https://twitter.com/Carnage4Life/status/13871539776204513
| 36
|
| I think that Apple is often deceptive about the degree to
| which they themselves track users and store user data. I
| think its simultaneously true that Apple stores less
| information about [advertising] users that Google does,
| but is less straightforward about the information it does
| track, and keeps more than the average Apple user thinks.
| hugi wrote:
| How so?
| roody15 wrote:
| Privacy from whom? Apple fully complies with all law
| enforcement requests and turns over all icloud data from
| a valid warrant.
|
| https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/law-enforcement-
| guidelin...
|
| Some it seems thinks Apple keeps data private and
| anonymous. In fact they do the opposite and encourage
| using an icloud account over and over (after ever
| update). All of this data is easily acquired via a
| warrant at any law enforcement level.
|
| A county cop (without a college degree) investigating his
| neighbor can get all this info simply submitting a
| scanned PDF of a warrant from a county judge.
| hugi wrote:
| Are you seriously equating a legal warrant with the
| realtime harvesting of user data by applications (such as
| Google/Facebook and others)?
| NorwegianDude wrote:
| If you think Apple is collecting less personal data using
| iOS than Google is collecting using Android then you'll
| be disappointed...
| roody15 wrote:
| Not really, I am pointing out data privacy means
| different things to different people. From my experience
| many are surprised how easily a users data can be
| obtained. There appears to be a misconception with some
| that Apple fights legal battles and refuses to comply
| with law enforcement because Apple believes so strongly
| in data privacy.
|
| One example: There was a person harassing people on
| facebook in a small local community. Sending obscene
| images and making threats. To solve the crime local law
| enforcement ended up compiling a list of just under 20
| possible suspects.
|
| Hoping to match an iCloud photo to a post on facebook a
| warrant was issued for all 20 users data. Apple sends an.
| encrypted file with all the data and then another email
| with the passwords
|
| Long story short the offender was caught however almost
| 20 people's data was looked through by local law
| enforcement. I stress local because this is not some
| federal agent solving a major crime but just a neighbor
| police officer who sends his own kids to the same schools
| as these other innocent people.
|
| Disclaimer: I assisted law enforcement on this case and a
| couple of others.
| fnord77 wrote:
| I have a couple of friends who worked at google. they're
| always baffled why I would want to block trackers and data
| harvesters.
|
| And I'm baffled why they're baffled. Is the koolaid that
| strong and that permanent there?
| rleigh wrote:
| Yes, it is. I went to interview at Google (a few years back
| now). Frankly, I was disturbed at the cult-like behaviour
| and attitudes of the majority of the employees I interacted
| with. For most of them, it was clearly their first job out
| of college, and they had no prior experience of working for
| a large corporate, or any objective perspective about what
| they were doing, or why. One hopes they will gain a little
| more maturity along the way, since such people are going to
| be exploited by their corporate masters without them even
| realising it.
| TheDong wrote:
| It's not quite so black and white as that.
|
| It's possible to run open source android phones (including
| without google play services) which protect your privacy
| pretty well. As part of android allowing more consumer
| control, there's a larger culture of open source apps, so you
| can get further with fdroid. Open source apps are usually
| pretty unlikely to compromise your privacy and harvest data.
|
| On iPhones, it's true that the phone itself doesn't track you
| as much, but there's other downsides. You're unable to use
| firefox+ublock origin, so far more websites on iPhone will
| track you. There are fewer open source apps, so it's quite
| plausible you get tracked by more apps individually. There's
| no ability to uninstall default services whatsoever, again
| unlike android.
|
| I think for the default user who doesn't make an effort to
| search out privacy-preserving software, an iPhone will
| probably harvest less data.
|
| However, for someone who knows how to run LineageOS, install
| ublock on firefox, and install apps from fdroid, I think you
| can get a phone that harvests less of your data with android.
|
| I also think that there are enough distinct data-points on
| each side of this argument that it's difficult to claim
| either is better with certainty.
| imperio59 wrote:
| Apple runs its own Ad network for app advertisements. They
| conveniently do not need to deal with iOS 14 requirements
| when it comes to using their users' data to target ads and
| track app installs in their own network. Can you say monopoly
| power?
| marticode wrote:
| Your data on iPhone aren't safe from Apple though, a company
| that relies increasingly on selling subscription and content.
| As long as you use cloud-hosted service, you trust a company
| to store your data.
| sfifs wrote:
| If you're like the majority of people on HN, you're likely
| (relatively) "rich" - perhaps in top 5-10 percentile of
| income globally.
|
| The other 90% use Androids. They could use "second-hand"
| iPhones - but those don't work quite as well and stay
| compatible with the latest apps whereas the latest cheap
| Androids do.
| sneak wrote:
| The iPhone and iPad transmit their fixed and unchangeable
| hardware serial number to Apple every time you open the App
| Store, like a permanent supercookie.
|
| Apple has just as much reason to harvest your personal
| information and track you in their App Store as anyone else.
| fogihujy wrote:
| I'd love to buy an iPhone that is waterproof, has decent
| battery life, durable screen (that part apparently has gotten
| better recently, though), can run Firefox (the actual one
| with proper ad-blocking options) and is generally made to
| withstand punishment from being used in the field.
|
| Until such a beast is released, I'll stick with my
| (admittedly) crappy and de-googlified Android phone; I simply
| can't afford to buy a new iPhone 3-4 times a year because
| they keep breaking.
| arvinsim wrote:
| Please check your privilege. Not everyone can afford iPhones
| even if they want to buy one.
| insert_coin wrote:
| > You can have third-party Android app stores. Can you say the
| same about Apple?
|
| You can buy an Android Phone, and install whatever app store
| you want.
| [deleted]
| simondotau wrote:
| This report is somewhat bipolar. On one hand it's arguing that
| Google and Apple exert too much control over smartphone app
| marketplaces.
|
| On the other hand its proposed remedy asks that Google and Apple
| exert _even more_ control over these app marketplaces by stamping
| down on anti-consumer practices like subscription traps and
| scams.
|
| On the other _other_ hand it proposes that Apple and Google
| should allow third party payment options, making it harder for
| Google and Apple to thwart subscription traps and scams.
| fblp wrote:
| This is an interim report. It's okay for it to be proposing
| multiple directions that benefit consumers and competition.
| simondotau wrote:
| It is okay to propose multiple directions if they benefit
| consumers and competition. This isn't what they did. They
| proposed one direction that benefits consumers at the expense
| of competition[1], and another direction which benefits
| competition at the expense of the consumer[2].
|
| [1] Calling on Google and Apple to further clamp down on
| subscription traps and scams;
|
| [2] Calling on Google and Apple to give up control over the
| mechanisms which have allowed them to clamp down on malicious
| financial activity including some (but not all) subscription
| traps and scams.
| fblp wrote:
| In what part of the report do they call on Google and Apple
| to "give up control over the mechanisms which have allowed
| them to clamp down on malicious financial activity
| including some (but not all) subscription traps and scams."
| ?
| simondotau wrote:
| The "mechanisms which have allowed them to clamp down on
| malicious financial activity" are their payment gateways,
| the rules surrounding their use use, the ability to
| perform oversight over app payment activity, and the
| threat (whether actual or perceived) of total banishment
| if they are caught--particularly in Apple's case where
| there's no alternative path to customers.
|
| In the same breath, Google and Apple are also being told
| that these very same mechanisms are a concern to the
| ACCC.
| fblp wrote:
| Hey sorry i don't see how stating these mechanisms are a
| concern = calling on them to give up control (or
| "threatening banishment") per your comments. Your
| comments seem presumptive given the actual content of the
| preliminary report.
| Mandatum wrote:
| Agreed. It's "the stores are extracting too much money for the
| services they provide and the way they run" without any
| concrete asks. Likely because we're in unexplored territory, I
| expect ACCC is using this release as a form to push other
| agencies to move first to see what happens.
|
| Australia NEVER moves first on these things. They want EU or US
| to make a move first to see what works.
| hydrox24 wrote:
| > Australia NEVER moves first on these things.
|
| I think it is uncommon for Australia to move first, but we do
| move first sometimes. I thought the recent news revenue-
| sharing laws[0] are an example of that.
|
| > They want EU or US to make a move first to see what works
|
| It's always nice to know how a policy will work beforehand,
| but I don't think it's remarkable how rarely Australia moves
| first. Putting aside cultural differences, we're a medium
| power in a world with many medium powers, even in the West,
| why would we expect to be first, ahead of European countries,
| or North American ones, or developed nations in Asia?
|
| [0]: https://www.reuters.com/business/media-
| telecom/australias-ne...
| simondotau wrote:
| The revenue-sharing laws were a scam, basically the
| Government forcing Google and Facebook to pay arbitrary
| bribes to a few big media companies.
|
| If the laws weren't a scam, that money would have gone to
| pay for journalism, not prop up the bottom line of
| companies which are consistently cutting back the number of
| journalists under their employ.
| simondotau wrote:
| And it's worth remembering the ACCC's central role in
| this scam.
|
| https://www.accc.gov.au/focus-areas/digital-
| platforms/news-m...
|
| My advice to any future Federal Government would be to
| gut the ACCC and rebuild it from the ground up. And then
| if the rebuilt entity demonstrates competence,
| significantly increasing its funding.
| robryan wrote:
| We were one of the first on having overseas companies signup
| and remit GST directly for low value personal imports.
|
| NZ/UK have copied this model and the EU is following mid this
| year.
|
| The scheme has a special definition for marketplaces so that
| they can rope in eBay and Amazon to collect for them rather
| than having to go after every little Chinese eBay seller.
| zmmmmm wrote:
| Yes it is a shame - while the ACCC often is well motivated, it
| lacks any sense of philosophical purity in its solutions.
|
| So you often see things that are highly anti-freedom, anti-
| democratic and ultimately anti-consumer come out as a result of
| its actions. The recent forced negotiation of Google/Facebook
| with news publishers is an example of this where they have no
| problem compromising completely fundamental aspects of the
| internet (the freedom to link to somebody else's intellectual
| property without fear) to achieve some dot point in their
| bureaucratic consumer-focused mandate (ensure consumers have
| access to a diversity of news).
| [deleted]
| inopinatus wrote:
| The release does not say these things, and it is misleading to
| intentionally paraphrase as to invent logical conflicts that
| aren't present. In particular, it is wrong to equate the
| existence of controls with the abuse of market power.
|
| Examples:
|
| Kicking a scammer off your app store is a use of power that
| benefits the consumer.
|
| Obliging service providers to mislead the consumer about their
| subscription options is an abuse of power and a barrier to
| consumer choice.
|
| The desired outcomes are not "bipolar"; they are consistent
| with advancing consumer choice and consumer protection. They
| would only appears as conflicting demands to a rent-seeking
| organisation that prioritises its market share over consumer
| outcomes, which is of course why regulatory agencies like the
| ACCC exist.
| simondotau wrote:
| > The release does not say these things
|
| I'm sorry, but it does. Just because they chose not to phrase
| it exactly as I did doesn't mean they didn't invoke these
| logical conflicts. But please, there's no need to take my
| word for it--I invite anyone to read the press release and
| form their own conclusion.
|
| > it is wrong to equate the existence of controls with the
| abuse of market power.
|
| I agree that it's "wrong" to equate them, but equating them
| is a common theme among complaints about Google and Apple's
| dominance of their platforms' app ecosystems.
|
| You make it sound like the ACCC is inherently on the
| consumer's side in any matter. One look at the borderline-
| corrupt Media Bargaining Code would quickly disabuse any
| objective observer of that notion. It could be argued that
| the ACCC was somehow incapable of comprehending what an
| internet link is or how news article snippets come to appear
| on Google and Facebook. That's certainly a more charitable
| hypothesis than the ACCC being corrupt unduly influenced by
| the political interests of the current elected Government.
| Whether it's incompetence or malice (see Hanlon's razor) it
| doesn't look good for them.
| inopinatus wrote:
| > they chose not to phrase it exactly as I did
|
| Quite so. Let's emphasise that: _they chose not to phrase
| it exactly as you did_. And by my reading, significantly
| so.
|
| > I invite anyone to read the press release
|
| How about going one better: read the report that the media
| release accompanies.
|
| > equating them is a common theme among complaints about
| Google and Apple's dominance of their platforms' app
| ecosystems
|
| That's by the by, because _this_ report does not make the
| same category error, and is a nuanced, lengthy, and
| considered analysis of the myriad different modes in which
| their controlling power is underused in some ways that
| leave the consumer unprotected, and overused /abused in
| other ways that harm consumer choice, create barriers to
| market entry, and enable rent-seeking behaviour, and
| suggests how changes in specific behaviours might correct
| those pathologies.
|
| > You make it sound like the ACCC is inherently on the
| consumer's side in any matter
|
| Well, yes, this is their job, their remit, their _raison d
| 'etre_. Deviation from that premise is the exception, not
| the norm, and frankly they are known globally as one of the
| most effective consumer regulators, and the ACL as gold-
| standard legislation that sibling institutions in other
| nations can only dream of administering. Trying to
| discredit the organisation because they got pulled into the
| federal Murdoch toadying over the MBC looks like
| misdirection.
|
| Which makes me reach for my high school Latin: what _is_
| the equivalent of _ad hominem_ when the target entity is an
| institution, not a person?
| simondotau wrote:
| > Well, yes, this is their job
|
| And we all know that people always do what their job
| title says they should do.
|
| > what is the equivalent of ad hominem
|
| _Sigh._ It seems 2021 is the year of calling things _ad
| hominem_ which aren 't. It's not _ad hominem_ to accuse
| the ACCC of being untrustworthy because of prior bad
| actions in a recent, comparable matter. It _would_ have
| been _ad hominem_ if I said that the ACCC is
| untrustworthy because everyone who works there is very
| ugly.
| inopinatus wrote:
| Okay, so what _is_ the phrase for a shallow and
| transparent attempt to undermine the findings of a report
| by slinging mud about its origin, after being called out
| for misrepresenting the actual content?
|
| Rule: you can't say "sledging", only the other
| Australians will understand.
| simondotau wrote:
| _" The Daily Telegraph"_
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Kicking a scammer off your app store is a use of power that
| benefits the consumer.
|
| But in a world that was taking consumer choice seriously
| would be primarily a job for law enforcement. We don't
| delegate traffic enforcement to the people who build and
| maintain roads.
| inopinatus wrote:
| Actually I think this'd be a recipe for scams to
| proliferate. Law enforcement processes mostly occur after
| the fact, often long after, and in any case, a great many
| nations already _do_ take consumer choice seriously.
|
| The transportation metaphor is somewhat problematic,
| because roads _are_ commissioned and paid for by the same
| class of agency that employs traffic enforcement officers:
| domestic government. Nevertheless, delegating the
| enforcement of regulations to an accountable private entity
| is a common practice, and you 'll see it in everything from
| medicine to logistics.
| asdfaoeu wrote:
| I think the general argument is that the stores are not
| competitive and providing a low value service (having scams and
| subscription traps) while collecting a large amount of proceeds
| from developers.
| simondotau wrote:
| But the stores clearly do make it more difficult for
| developers to engage in scams and subscription traps. I
| strongly support increased pressure on Google and Apple to do
| a lot more in this regard (especially with certain kinds of
| pay-to-avoid-grinding games) but it's wrong to speak about
| this as though it was a binary state.
| hugh-avherald wrote:
| I think you're looking for an inconsistency where there is
| none. Requiring Apple and Google to stamp down on subscription
| traps and scams is not handing more control to them.
| simondotau wrote:
| I did not say it was "handing" more control to them. I said
| it was asking them to _exert_ more control.
|
| The ACCC are calling on Google and Apple to clamp down harder
| on what developers can get away with inside their walled
| gardens. If Apple and Google comply, this clamping down will
| be seen as anti-competitive in other contexts and used as
| evidence against them in other venues.
| laingc wrote:
| Why does half of HN seem intent on ruining the iPhone for the
| rest of us?
|
| The explicit selling proposition of the iPhone is that it is a
| _closed ecosystem_. I and my family buy it for precisely this
| reason.
|
| If you want a choice about what you install, you can have it!
| It's called Android, and hundreds of phone manufacturers are
| lining up to sell you a compatible handset. Leave us with the one
| phone manufacturer who has managed to reliably deliver a mostly
| safe and secure handset.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Why do you have such little faith in Apple, to think they
| cannot provide a safe and secure handset with a semi-open
| ecosystem?
| 8note wrote:
| That's not why my family bought iPhones; they shouldn't be
| stuck with anticompetitive app store practices because they
| have iPhones.
|
| Eg. My mother can't use any apps because she doesn't trust
| apple with her credit card number, and since you can't use the
| app store for free apps without a credit card, she uses no apps
| on her phone
| [deleted]
| m4rtink wrote:
| Anything legitimizing loss of user control over hardware and
| peddling proprietary walled garden as something good and
| _desirable_ is simply immoral, dangerous for the future of
| Humanity and should not be legal.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| Because at their size, developers cannot ignore them, and Apple
| is hurting developers by forcing their rules on them. That's
| what it means to have monopoly power or dominance as this
| article calls it.
| jsnell wrote:
| The full report is worth reading. It's really well written, seems
| well researched, and despite being opinionated gives the other
| side of the story.
| bewbaloo wrote:
| can we get apple/google to factory unlock bootloaders too? how
| about x64 chipset options instead of locking down their phones
| with arm?
|
| i'm kind-of not kidding, either -- more asking. is there
| precedent for governments being able to force companies to
| completely open up their systems to whatever the courts define as
| "competitive?"
| varispeed wrote:
| Do they have any teeth or is it just checkbox ticking exercise to
| make consumer feel something is being done?
|
| > There is a window of opportunity for Apple and Google
| themselves to take steps to improve outcomes for app developers
| and consumers by adopting the potential measures we have
| identified
|
| Why not just introduce new regulation? Companies will be dragging
| this as long as they can and reap profits, whereas such
| organisations continue to take salaries, do pointless meetings
| and then release more reports how the situation looks bad.
| paranoidrobot wrote:
| They have teeth, and they are the regulator.
|
| This is basically an opening statement on their view of the
| world, and puts Apple and Google on notice that this is
| something the ACCC are interested in.
|
| It is basically a standard way the ACCC announces what they're
| doing and putting industry on notice.
|
| They did this for comparison sites that had secret
| sorting/recommendations that weren't in the best interest of
| the consumer.
|
| They've done this for retailers who didn't abide by Australian
| Consumer Law on warranties and various disclaimers given in-
| store.
|
| In most cases there's usually some kind of enforceable
| agreement reached, sometimes they go to court to enforce
| compliance.
| hank808 wrote:
| I'd love to see a solid non-OS specific app store come into
| being. I own anyapp.com and any.app, let me know if anyone wants
| to partner up.
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| F-droid tends to fill the gap for Andriod, but not enough
| developers sending their apps there. I guess when there's no
| monetary incentive, it's only the open source crowd that will
| participate
| hyperpallium2 wrote:
| Only open source is allowed there.
| SilverRed wrote:
| Which is what you want. Whenever possible you should avoid
| running proprietary programs.
| m4rtink wrote:
| F-droid also has the sane condition that all apps it
| distributes need to be built from source on its build infra
| (basically all Linux distros require the same).
|
| While really good for security and debugging I can imagine it
| can be complicated to suport for many less experienced
| developers used to cooling stuff together in an Android IDE
| where a binary APK falls out at the end that they then upload
| to the store.
| SilverRed wrote:
| Fdroid was the thing I missed most about moving to ios. Sure,
| it had a limited app selection and the apps were basic. But
| every app on fdroid had a really wholesome feel to it, like
| the app devs have made this just for you to enjoy and not to
| try to squeeze money from you.
|
| Now on the app store, absolutely everything is crammed with
| adverts, tracking IAPs, and subscriptions. I can't just
| install an app and expect it to work because there is always
| some catch that ruins it.
| thombles wrote:
| Incidentally, if you have a business registered for GST in
| Australia you have to submit a quarterly activity statement. The
| tax office website had bizarre authentication requirements but
| the browser plugin was at least cross-platform. They now require
| you to use the myGovID app, which is - you guessed it - available
| only on the App Store and Play Store. You can't even run a
| business without being part of the duopoly.
| https://www.mygovid.gov.au/
| hugi wrote:
| How is that legal? Isn't that just incompetent government?
| partomniscient wrote:
| We're living in a time where if you don't have a mobile phone
| you can't complete the online form and therefore the
| transaction becomes impossible. This is even worse if you're
| on the phone and the person on the other end of the phone
| that works for the company is the one filling in the digital
| form.
|
| The fact that its now further embedded in an app. owned by
| international conglomerates is hardly suprising. They're
| slowly losing what control they had.
|
| Governments are incapable of doing sensible things involving
| ever changing technology. There are too many things
| understood by too few people for sensible decisions to be
| made, let alone worrying about do these things age well and
| just add to the behemoth of red tape^H^H^H^H digital
| bureaucratic cloud storage.
|
| Paper systems didn't have these problems (although they
| certainly had some disadvantages).
|
| The ACCC is one of Australia's few good independent bodies,
| but pretty much all of the others have had their funding
| greatly reduced over time. Whatever good ideas they come up
| with just get ignored a lot of the time, because corruption
| pays and ineptitude is normalised. The financial watchdog is
| basically toothless at this point.
|
| The Robodebt scheme [1] is just one of their recent screwups.
| Interestingly, there's now something similar that's come to
| light regarding Post Office budgets in the UK from a few
| decades ago.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robodebt_scheme
| stephen_g wrote:
| I think the ACCC actually hasn't been that great for a
| while, unfortunately. We have awesome consumer protection,
| but they've made serious missteps more recently, especially
| under their current commissioner, Rod Simms.
|
| They made a terrible ruling forcing the NBN to have 121
| points of interconnect (basically peering POPs) back in
| 2009 (originally, NBN Co wanted to have 14), to protect the
| seven or so long-distance fibre providers. In the meantime,
| these providers merged with each other so now we only have
| three, and the 121 POI policy made it extremely difficult
| for smaller ISPs to compete on the NBN, because most
| couldn't afford transit to all of them, so we saw huge
| consolidation in the ISP space. So the ACCC ruling directly
| caused a _reduction_ in competition in the ISP space, and
| it didn 't help prevent what they were trying to prevent in
| the transit market either!
|
| Then, look to the insanity of the media bargaining code.
| May have been some coercion from some Government donors
| behind the scenes there, who knows... But at the end of the
| day, which there were some legitimate concerns about Google
| and Facebook, most of their conclusions didn't really make
| sense (they conflated what actually happens, where Google
| and Facebook publish a link and one-sentence excerpt as if
| it was the same as publishing the whole article, and their
| solution was to force Google and Facebook to pay money to
| the big media organisations, which just happen to be big
| donors of the political party in power). The resulting law
| was so bad that Facebook threatened to pull out of the
| country altogether and removed news from Australian
| timelines for a while, until the bill was watered down.
|
| In terms of these policies, the ACCC strikes me as not
| having a great deal of competence, but at the same having
| huge delusions of grandeur. I really don't want to see
| another episode like the tiff with Facebook, where even
| though Facebook do super scummy things and I generally
| dislike them, in that circumstance they were absolutely in
| the right...
|
| I vaguely recall being angry at the ACCC about a bunch of
| other things over the years, but I can't remember any
| specifics - will have to try and look it up. I think it was
| blocking some mergers that wouldn't have reduced
| competition, but then approving some that posed potential
| serious damaging consequences to the market etc.
| stanislavb wrote:
| "Governments are incapable of doing sensible things
| involving ever changing technology."
|
| - I moved to Australia about 4 years ago. I'm pretty
| convinced that the Australian Gov is much ahead in regards
| to tech adoption compared to most places in EU and US. In
| my 4+ years in Oz, I had to visit an offline institution
| exactly 3 times (you can do almost everything online).
| Everything's been flawless, super easy and very well
| integrated - from procuring various docs to submitting a
| tax return.
|
| - Yes, we can always find something that could be improved;
| however, if you compare how things are run in Oz to most
| other countries, you will find out it's much ahead.
| partomniscient wrote:
| Its all fine until you have to complain about something
| going wrong and it becomes very trying to comply with
| whatever they need despite it being their fault.
|
| I got stuck in a bureaucratic loop because an OCR reader
| interpreted a 0 as an 8. The fact that the automated
| process changed status and started throwing more forms at
| me, even though none it makes sense in context. Just
| because it was programmed that way. I still get them.
| Filling in forms with 0's is easier than dealing with
| people who insist I should be getting them in the first
| place (one person worked out what had happened, but
| transferred me to another department to get it fixed
| where I inevitably had the internal phone system fail and
| hang up on me. The horrible hold music/talk experience
| where they tell you how wonderful everything is just
| makes me loathe to attempt it again.
|
| These things should happen less when human judgement is
| involved rather than cause-effect programming.
|
| You may be right though - I can't speak for many overseas
| systems.
|
| I did also get stuck in the UK tax system. They were
| sending me threatening letters, ironically I had to fill
| in multiple years worth of forms to escape the system
| even though I was in another country, and then they
| eventually worked out they owed me money.
|
| Then there were the server failures due to load, for a
| specific online petition. Noone cared, but it was
| basically due to using old MS technology called Webforms
| which creates gargantuan data blobs per user/session
| called ViewState, which ran the servers out of memory. I
| think the online census submissions process had a similar
| issue too.
|
| I do agree its nice to deal with these things from home
| rather than queue in some official building somewhere
| though.
|
| Maybe I just have a natural tendency to attract flies to
| bypewriters or something. Maybe I'm bitter because I've
| built entire sites for the government only for them to
| throw the lot away once it was done, because the site
| might make them look bad.
|
| I'm just very aware of the downsides of over-automation.
| If you're a valid case, but the existing system doesn't
| cater to you, then you become the problem rather than the
| system being the problem.
|
| Anyway, I still think its awesome that the ACCC noticed
| this entanglement and brought it to peoples attention,
| and are one of the few indepedent bodies left that have
| some teeth.
| hyperman1 wrote:
| The horrible hold music/talk experience where they tell
| you how wonderful everything is just makes me loathe to
| attempt it again.
|
| It did exactly what it was supposed to do: lower their
| costs by making it your instead of their problem.
| account42 wrote:
| Except now people like me will refuse to use phone
| support and email/mail/tweet their PR/CEO/whoever to
| resolve the issue, which are all likely more expensive
| than proper support staff.
| ehnto wrote:
| The most important aspect for me is that most services
| can be accessed via a web browser, and I see no reason
| why an app would be a smart choice for a government to
| deploy going forward. Web apps can achieve everything a
| native app can for the purposes of government
| administration.
| barbecue_sauce wrote:
| Interesting how in the US "scheme" already has the
| connotation of an evil plot, but abroad it just means
| "government program".
| Abishek_Muthian wrote:
| > How is that legal?
|
| You are forgetting the number of democratic countries which
| forced their COVID app from Appstore/Playstore on their
| citizens. They came short of calling it mandatory download
| but mandated the app as entry pass for several services.
|
| You don't use a monopoly powered smartphone? You cannot
| afford a phone at all? Tough luck buddy(/s).
|
| Only reason these COVID pass apps didn't stick around in the
| democratic countries is because the apps didn't do what's
| it's supposed to do; Ironically because the app couldn't be
| made mandatory download thereby not achieving the critical
| mass.
| hugi wrote:
| What countries were that?
| Abishek_Muthian wrote:
| Not going to name countries and trigger a slugfest. But
| will include the List of countries with official contact
| tracing apps[1] and you can search for which services
| those apps were mandated. EFF commentary on these
| apps[2].
|
| [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_apps#List_of_co
| untrie...
|
| [2]https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/09/covid-19-trackin
| g-tech...
| kbenson wrote:
| There's no point to this. If you're going to call out a
| group for behavior, you should be willing to state their
| name. You didn't avoid a slugfest, you just confused the
| issue ye being ambiguous for no reason. The only negative
| consequences here are a few lost points, and you get that
| already for making allusions rather than statements with
| evidence, and providing a list of countries that have
| tracking apps is not evidence that any of those countries
| mandated its use.
|
| If the consequences for you are larger than that because
| you think your country is somehow monitoring your
| statements, I doubt being vague like this actually helps
| and you could always supply some other country as
| evidence, since your statements imply there are multiple.
| Abishek_Muthian wrote:
| I presume you haven't read my other comment about the
| search query. Search for 'COVID app mandatory for' and
| depending upon your location the results will be either
| only about your country or the *countries/states which
| you're asking for.
|
| I assumed the statements I made about COVID app mandatory
| for services in many countries was a common knowledge. I
| failed to account that not many keep tabs on stuff
| happening outside their own country and that many believe
| the democratic freedoms they enjoy is universal.
|
| Couple of up votes is not worth it to put up with
| nationalist terrorists. Free speech cannot be taken for
| granted every where.
| hugi wrote:
| My country (Iceland) has an official contact tracing app
| listed there. It was developed by volunteers and
| contributed to the government and the source is open on
| github. Nothing you said applies to it.
| ddingus wrote:
| Nice to see. There are days here... (USA) where I browse
| about and wonder about immigration.
|
| In my view, you guys have something good. Stay vigilant!
| Abishek_Muthian wrote:
| Good to know, Good for Iceland residents. Note that I
| didn't say 'all democratic countries'.
| hugi wrote:
| Thanks. It's worked very well for us and really helped
| with contact tracing.
|
| But what democratic countries are mandating the use of
| covid apps?
| bhelkey wrote:
| Searching for mandatory and required turned up Hong Kong
| (required the app for entering restaurants) and Qatar
| (mandated when leaving the house). I don't think this is
| what OP was refering to.
| Abishek_Muthian wrote:
| Please search instead by 'COVID app mandatory for';
| depending upon your location the results might vary i.e.
| if you are from one of those countries then all the
| search results in the front page would be about just your
| country and where as if you are not then you will get
| different countries/states which has mandated COVID app
| for some service.
|
| If the former is true for you, it didn't mean I meant
| your country alone in my original comment.
| syshum wrote:
| I am not sure why people are shocked that this kind of
| thing would happen in democratic societies. People seem to
| have a rose colored view of democracy, and believe it is
| synonymous with freedom... it is not
|
| Democracies can be just as tyrannical as any other forms of
| government, doubly true when the people in that democracy
| have replaced the desire for freedom, with the desire for
| safety which most societies in the world today have less
| desire to be free, and more of a desire to be safe; falsely
| believing they can actually trade freedom for safety.
| asdfaoeu wrote:
| NSW (Australian state) actually has mandatory contract
| tracing[1] though you can use a web or physical form.
|
| [1]: https://www.service.nsw.gov.au/transaction/covid-safe-
| check
| Abishek_Muthian wrote:
| Having a web app as well would have been slightly better,
| especially if it works in feature phones(In several
| developing countries feature phone usage is lot higher
| than smartphones even then they didn't publish a web app)
| but still doesn't help those who doesn't use a phone at
| all(whatever the reason might be).
|
| Distribute free phones which is capable of running these
| COVID apps and then the issue comes down to _just_
| privacy.
|
| Alternate physical form seems reasonable.
|
| *just : Not to reduce the importance of privacy(EFF
| commentary in my other comment).
| bogwog wrote:
| Yes, Google and Apple's current situation is the result of
| incompetent government.
| simmo9000 wrote:
| Why is this not conducting in "Exclusive Dealing"?
| https://www.accc.gov.au/business/anti-competitive-behaviour/...
|
| Is the Aus Gov able to do this to simply because it is not a
| corporation? as per http://www6.austlii.edu.au/cgi-
| bin/viewdoc/au/legis/cth/cons...
| h0nd wrote:
| This is ridiculous. I start ignoring services and platforms
| that are limited to mobile OSes.
| amelius wrote:
| You can still submit paperwork manually.
| murphyslab wrote:
| When I was in grad school, the university's Student Union
| provided an extended health insurance plan. To get a
| reimbursement, you had two options for submitting a claim: (1)
| Paper forms submitted via the student union or (2) the
| insurance company's app which was only for Apple devices. The
| app's only functionality was to facilitate taking a photo (of a
| receipt) and uploading that photo, along with the user's
| details. While I've heard that they now have a Google Play app,
| I still have zero understanding of why they don't simply have a
| website where one can upload a photo and associated details.
| Clewza313 wrote:
| For many people, it's too complicated (as in, they don't know
| how) to transfer a photo into their computer and then upload
| it separately. Integrating a camera in the app is far easier.
|
| Still doesn't excuse being iOS-only, though.
| aspaviento wrote:
| Nowadays you can trigger the camera app from a website and
| get the image data directly in your web, making the
| experience of uploading a photo the same as any installed
| app.
| swiley wrote:
| The file upload input field has done this since iOS 4 or
| so.
| homero wrote:
| Banks require apps to deposit checks for instance to get
| location and other data for anti fraud
| hnick wrote:
| Or you can pay an accountant. But yes, I hate it.
| Wolfenstein98k wrote:
| As per that site, you can still deal directly with the govt and
| avoid MyGovID.
| BelenusMordred wrote:
| As an Australian overseas I can guarantee you that it is nigh
| impossible to have dealings with most federal agencies
| without using that app.
|
| It's one of the few closed source apps I have on my phone and
| forces me to install a workaround like yalp in order to get
| it. (playstore requires a google login to use)
| StopHammoTime wrote:
| Just responding to this comment because all the comments below
| it seem to be tone deaf and are just complaining about
| Governments.
|
| BAS (and all tax documents) can still be submitted via a Tax
| Agent or via Mail. There is no "lock in". Chances are if you
| own a computer, you own an android and an apple phone, who
| cares.
|
| Mountain meet molehill.
|
| Source: https://www.ato.gov.au/Business/Business-activity-
| statements...
| sdeframond wrote:
| This reason speaking.
|
| However I am still worried that governments basically make us
| choose between 1/ buying in into this duopoly, or 2/ using
| slower, decade-old processes. It feels like if you want to
| stay up to date with society, you actually have no real
| choice.
|
| I mean, those apps could certainly be open-source and
| distributed through F-Droid as well. In Republic, these are
| "public things" after all.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Chances are if you own a computer, you own an android and
| an apple phone, who cares.
|
| You're in this thread and you can't find anyone who cares
| about locking in a duopoly?
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| In India, 3 major tax departments force you into proprietary
| software via 1. Gst department makes json data which enables
| third party devs to prepare stuff but government utilities are
| in "excel" format only. 2. Income tax department had return
| utilities in "excel" form and also a "Java" which never worked
| outside of windows. Now they have made a sleek electron app and
| guess what, windows only. 3. MCA, companies registrar forces
| users to upload forms in "adobe PDF" because it has inbuilt
| forms and validation and such. Absolutely no way to use other
| than windows.
|
| Now, there are around 50 mil taxpayers in India and if the
| government wanted, they can switch them to Foss products in an
| instant but Microsoft lobby is huge. Not that it benefits
| Microsoft, I for one have never paid for a Microsoft product,
| thanks to keygens. Still,
| Siira wrote:
| > Microsoft lobby is huge
|
| I think an incompetent gov is a much more realistic
| hypothesis.
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