iOS is not even near to the "whole economy" of mobile software.
Companies should just stop being based in the US.
With what’s happening to TikTok and this ridiculous push for a Communist-style reappropriation of Apple’s platform, it seems that the US may no longer be a safe place for businesses to become too big in (except of course, the ancient titans of oil, guns, pharmaceuticals etc. that have been happily screwing the planet since forever..)
None of this indignation is really about protecting the people, is it, but rather about taking a slice of the billion user pie, which Apple has historically denied other companies ever since they refused to put AT&T bloatware on the first iPhone.
If a single company was putting up toll booths on every intersection AFTER selling those roads to the public, then yea, call me a communist but I don’t think that’s good for the economy.
And I don’t care if that company single-handedly invented roads - there should a limit to how far you can milk the society you operate in.
If a single company was putting up toll booths on every intersection AFTER selling those roads to the public, then yea, call me a communist but I don’t think that’s good for the economy.
Interestingly, in recent years such things have happened. In Chicago, the tolled Skyway has been leased to an Australian company. And all the city's parking meters have been sold to a Spanish company.
I love how people are completely missing your point and introducing Nintendo to the discussion.
Trying to equal a smartphone and a fucking gaming console (Switch).
A smartphone has become as you said an intersection, i.e. a bridge to the digital world and has become an absolute neccessity in today's world. And as such should also be regulated.
All these people who are comparing Nintendo to Apple, try going a month without your Switch and then a Month without using your Macbook, Ipad or iPhone. Hint:Good luck
> If a single company was putting up toll booths on every intersection
Again, Apple is not the only company in this space and iOS is not the only intersection/road/whatever analogy you want.
There are alternatives and companies like Epic are absolutely free to start their own platform.
Honestly, all of this becomes much less complicated if you think of the iPhone as an Xbox, PlayStation or Switch. iPhone is not the entire mobile industry, it is one phone among hundreds.
Will you move for a forced break up of their exclusive stores too if MS/Sony/Nintendo started allowing general-purpose apps on those consoles? (They already have YouTube, Netflix, etc.)
iPads on the other hand may be a different story, given how Apple likes to market them as general purpose computers, and the reason why they forked iOS into iPadOS I think.
> and companies like Epic are absolutely free to start their own platform.
But in practice, are anyone capable of that? It's a winner-takes-it-all, and the winners are so huge it's virtually impossible for anyone to upset them. You cannot compete on price, features or anything without a hundred billion investment.
Barrier to entry isn’t necessarily part of antitrust. I can’t set up my own toll roads without billions of dollars of investment, but a toll road company isn’t necessarily breaking the law.
This isn’t about the iPhone, it’s about iOS, which is one os out of two. And they have an absolute monopoly within iOS and on iPhones, while creating a market which can and will be regulated and being a publicly traded company and therefore subject to even more scrutiny and laws.
And people care a lot less about the consoles because they are a lot less important to the economy. This is like McDonalds complaining about paying fair wages and pointing to a two-location mom and pop shop and saying “but they do it too!”. Classic whataboutism.
The interactions between companies, no matter what the contract or tos states, are governed by law. Apple can’t build anything or run any aspect of their business without the government saying ok.
And government has often ruled that anticompetitive behavior violates antitrust law.
From the Sherman Act: “Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal.”
If Apple is restraining trade (which they obviously are according to any reasonable interpretation, whether or not a court has yet ruled on it), they are breaking the law. Obviously the courts have failed us before and they take ages to rule on anything regardless, but I suspect Apple will lose in the long run.
I personally couldn't care less because I don't have an iPhone but users can't realistically choose a device based on the cross product of all the features they want. There are always compromises. Some of these problems have outsized impacts, such as the way Apple extorts money from its App Store, which isn't a place most App developers can simply choose not to be on, any more than they can simply choose not to live in a country.
Because it's an existential need for many people trying to run an online business?
And because most Apple users don't actually know what the ramifications of ramifications of Apple's policies are and instead blame the app developers instead?
And because Apple makes it a policy violation for apps to even inform the users about these policies?
And because Apple makes it practically impossible to run apps on an iPhone any other way, with even personal use requiring a reinstall every 7 days or paying Apple 100 dollars a year?
And because Apple's 30% extortion fee causes prices to rise across the board (including non-Apple users) because Apple makes it a policy violation to offer the same service cheaper on non-Apple devices, and ultimately somebody's got to foot the bill?
> Because it's an existential need for many people trying to run an online business?
There's Android, Windows, Linux and the web. And for games, also the PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch.
> And because most Apple users don't actually know what the ramifications of ramifications of Apple's policies are and instead blame the app developers instead?
Developers can pull out of iOS and inform users to use Android etc. instead.
> And because Apple makes it practically impossible to run apps on an iPhone any other way, with even personal use requiring a reinstall every 7 days or paying Apple 100 dollars a year?
Users who want to do that can use Android etc.
> And because Apple's 30% extortion fee
Android, Windows, PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, Steam, Epic etc. have the same extortion.
Not sure why you are throwing accusations of burying the question. Any post 3-4 comments deep will look 'buried' on HN.
I didn't down-vote the Question but I did choose not to answer it because it's a "Gotcha" question. Different users have different preferences on what they want out of their device or OS. Sure you can come up with a laundry list of features that exist on platform X or Y but it doesn't really answer the issue, because any given user will have their specific preference values for each, and talking about them starts pointless discussions of how one can approximate the same functionality on some other platform.
I can speak for my personal preference. I don't use iPhones so I will speak for Macbooks, but the idea is the same.
I like Macbooks for the quality of their touchpad (best in the market), their general look and feel (they don't feel plasticky), I like some UX polishes MacOS has, and I am a programer so I like that MacOS is a UNIX-based OS because I spend a lot of my time on the terminal.
Note that most or none of these have to do with Apple's software choices (such as locking down their OS much more compared to Windows) and in the future, if Apple makes MacOS closer to iOS in terms of their vice grip on what can and can't run on it, it will effectively be adding features that I not only don't appreciate, but actively find annoying. They are NOT what I own a Macbook for.
iOS is not even near to the "whole economy" of mobile software.
Companies should just stop being based in the US.
With what’s happening to TikTok and this ridiculous push for a Communist-style reappropriation of Apple’s platform, it seems that the US may no longer be a safe place for businesses to become too big in (except of course, the ancient titans of oil, guns, pharmaceuticals etc. that have been happily screwing the planet since forever..)
None of this indignation is really about protecting the people, is it, but rather about taking a slice of the billion user pie, which Apple has historically denied other companies ever since they refused to put AT&T bloatware on the first iPhone.