If this is absurd, then Google taking 30% and Sony taking 30% for Playstation and Microsoft taking 30% for Xbox is also absurd, right? So why aren't you complaining about that?
So because they aren’t a general computing device it’s okay? Also isn’t it bit disingenuous to suggest that side loading is an option to avoid the fee? I believe that’s why Epic also sued Google. Even when end users are given the option to download from an alternative store, most people won’t because it’s still not as convenient as downloading from the play store. Your app would have to be worthwhile enough to convince users to download from a 3rd party store.
Playstation/Xbox are general computing devices. So is my Sony TV, Tesla car and Samsung fridge.
All have an App Store and are fully capable of facilitating payments, running Microsoft Office, using SaaS apps, doing "work".
Users are prevented from doing so by artificial restrictions on their App Stores which could be lifted at any time by a simple business decision. Apple allows more freedom to developers than these platforms yet somehow should be treated differently. Seems arbitrary and capricious.
I assume you're making this argument to be absurd and reductionist, but just in case you aren't, no, those aren't general computing platforms.
Sure, they could be, with a lot of effort. But they are neither marketed nor capable of general compute today. They don't have the toolset or ecosystem to make general purpose apps. Nor do they actively encourage people to make general apps.
The only reason PlayStation and Xbox aren’t general computing platforms is by choice. They are still computers with CPUS, hard drives and RAM. Users can watch Netflix, browse the web and consume content just like you would on an iPhone. I think this idea that because iPhones are “general computing devices” they should be held to a different standard is absurd. You can’t pick and choose how one platform operates while ignoring how other platforms have the same arbitrary restrictions.
My PS4 and Sony Android TV are general computing platforms in every sense e.g. Salesforce is open right now on my TV.
It's simply that Sony won't approve non-gaming or non-entertainment apps. And if Apple were to follow the same path and block productivity apps then it would somehow stop being a general computing device ?
I can't load Intelij, Xcode, Xamarian, JVM, etc on my iPhone or my PlayStation "without a lot of effort".
What is your definition of "general" that makes one of them general, and the other one non-general?
To me the only reason an iPhone seems to be "general purpose" is because the "number of developers has reached some critical mass and wants it to be". Which seems like putting the cart before the horse.
Sanity Test: Should my microwave be a "general purpose" device because it is built with a Raspberry Pi and a touch screen?
Funny, some Apple fanboys claim that if side-loading is allowed the the Apple Store will get empty and you get 10 new App Stores and others like you claim the reverse (I agree with you, allowing side loading and other stores will not empty the main store)
And is not like curated App Stores did not had mallware, tracking stuff inside apps, minors spending all the parents credit card on gems etc. You basically want to force a "kid mode" without an opt-out for everyone.
Do you run Windows PCs and complain that it isn’t open source or do you use Linux? If not, why buy an iOS device instead of an Android if it meets your needs better?
I run Linux only for 3 years, I was dual booting before that.
This is not about what shit smells better, see people (not your tribe) complained and now Apple did something , is this article surprising you because you thought Apple policies are perfect and now because of this complains the good Apple had to give up some money to improve it's PR.
Remember the keyboard issues with broken keys, people like you were accusing uses that they are using it wrong and stop complaining, Apple is perfect and those genius engineers don't make mistake, Apple is always right and the complainers are trolls or guys that eat at their laptop? If you don't remember Apple was forced by lawsuits to aknowledge that their genius engineers are not perfect and were forced by those lawsuits to replace the broken parts (again Apple was not protecting the users but was trying to avoid losing money )... so if you can reflect 1 moment you could maybe(low chance though) that Apple sometime is not perfect and sometimes users that complain are in the right (it happened so it is not impossible)
I said no such thing. No one said that there weren’t keyboard issues. Apple was getting eviscerated for years by the Apple pundits for their horrible keyboards.
But you know what I didn’t do? I didn’t buy a Mac laptop with a keyboard after everyone knew the keyboards were bad and then complain about the keyboards.
It’s not about Apple being perfect - it’s about people buying a product that doesn’t meet their needs and then complaining when there are alternatives.
People complained and Apple had to fix the issue, the problem is people like you wanted those guys not to complain, then you would still have shitty keyboards, crippled batteries, today. There is only 1 alternative that is the exact same shit (30% tax on apps and subscriptions).
So my question that you avoided to answer, the change Apple just made, what is your opinion? Was Apple correct yesterday or today after the change? Is not Apple perfect and developers and users should stop complaining starting today because this was the exact last issue missing from Apple perfection?
Also if you can expand why people should not complain or express their negative opinions when they are on topic on this article thread? If you are tired of reading why X is not perfect and how it should be fixed then skip this topics and maybe watch a movie.
So first you said that “people like me” didn’t complain, but now you are saying that people did complain? All of the well known Apple pundits complained - John Gruber, Marco Arment, John Siracusa, etc.
The difference was that people who owned the devices complained. How many Apple pundits spent time complaining about Android devices instead of just not buying them?
Well Gruber always buys the top of the line Android device that Google sells and had a lot of good things to say about the assistant and the camera but that’s besides the point.
Was Apple correct yesterday or today after the change? Is not Apple perfect and developers and users should stop complaining starting today because this was the exact last issue missing from Apple perfection?
No one ever said that Apple was perfect. I’ve bought a few Apple duds. What I am saying is that people want the government involved instead of just not buying the device when their are alternatives.
OK, this is the first time you mention government, so then you acknowledge there is a problem but you are scared that the government can get involved? I don't see how free market can solve this since there is a duopoly that is happy how things are at the moment(they don't want to compete on the 30% tax)
The argument was that you wanted the ability to use your phone as you please and download what you want. You can do that now.
How much money have you really spent buying apps or doing in app purchases over the past year? What’s more likely to happen, you will save money or the developers will keep more of a cut?
On the other hand, most money on either store is not being spent buying apps from Indy developers - it’s being spent on loot boxes and pay to win games. Do you think that getting rid of the 30% is going to all of the sudden mean indy developers can make a come back like they did in 2008?
>What’s more likely to happen, you will save money or the developers will keep more of a cut?
Could be both, Why are developers evil and they should not get the money but the overlord that does (almost)nothing.
It is like if a farmer goes to a market and the mafia forces them to pay 39% for protection, then if mafia is destroyed you feel bad if the farmer gets more money now.
Not all developers are EA level of evil, some of them deserve every cent IMO.
Related to the money I spent I have some subscriptions and I bought some PC games and some PS4 games for my kid, I hope that consoles would be investigated too, there is not enough competition to have a fair market.
I never said developers are evil. What I did say is that the dream of the Indy developer making money on the App Store died a decade ago. Most money on the App Store is coming from in app purchases for loot boxes and virtual currency. I posit that every company making money that way is evil.
Besides, not only now are you arguing about a phone that you don’t own, you are also complaining about an in app system where just as I thought - you haven’t spent any money. Most people don’t spend money “buying apps”. The money is coming from in app purchases from games.
As far as the “farmer”. If the farmer is selling tobacco - an addictive substance just like loot boxes and coins for play to win games. I don’t feel sorry for either. This is not just my opinion. The government is investigating virtual loot boxes as gambling.
I think we are focusing at 2 different parts of the same beast called "Developers". You are concerned about lootboxes and I agree there should be better laws about lootbox === gambling.
I seen case of good developers that have free games (they are passionate and use Patreon to get some money) and I see this developers creating Win,Linux, Mac and Android versions but no iOS version. So then you have the iOS users looking at all this plartforms that are supported but he is excluded, what do you think? Could there be a way that would make everyone happy(but maybe less money from some rich gy yacht?).
If a judge deciders that is OK iOS is locked down this means OSX,Windows and Android can be legally completely locked-down , in the future, do we want this?
A bit offtopic, I am trying to keep away from Apple related topics, but sometimes there is one comment that I need to respond to correct something and then a threads starts, I will try not to get as involved next time, I feel we are 2 groups that are in a way "paranoid" that 2 different bad things will happen , some think that everything will get more and more locked and DRMed and others are afraid that competition will destroy apples garden.
> I seen case of good developers that have free games (they are passionate and use Patreon to get some money) and I see this developers creating Win,Linux, Mac and Android versions but no iOS version. So then you have the iOS users looking at all this plartforms that are supported but he is excluded, what do you think? Could there be a way that would make everyone happy(but maybe less money from some rich gy yacht?).
I think Apple is already trying to address that through Apple Arcade, it is giving indy developers that make games that don’t have in app purchases or advertising advances to publish games. Apple Arcade has to be a loss leader to convince more people to buy iOS devices.
I would go one step further, if they really want to support good, ethical games, prominently display ethical games (no in app purchases or advertising besides games from the same publisher) in the App Store, increase the minimum price that a game maker can charge - gets rid of the race to the bottom - and take a 15% cut. This would make iOS the platform for “premium games”.
They could also say that it “protects children”. Politicians eat up “think about the children”.
> If a judge deciders that is OK iOS is locked down this means OSX,Windows and Android can be legally completely locked-down , in the future, do we want this?
I wouldn’t buy a Mac. I use Macs because it is a consumer friendly Unix with commercial applications. I could completely live in a world running Linux and open source if it came down to it.
I run Linux but I am the only one that I know in my family and friends and if the hardware would be DRM and locked down you could not get an older windows machine and put Linux on it.
Don you think that the hardware and software you bought should serve you the owner? Like if it is my own OS it should execute what I tell it to do(maybe I would need to enable something to exit the "kid mode")
My hardware does serve me. I won’t install Zoom or Dropbox on my Mac for instance because they are essentially malware. Zoom was installing a web server in the background on Macs where even if you uninstalled it, it would reinstall itself. DropBox does all sorts of invasive stuff when installed on my Mac.
On the other hand, my iPad has a strict sandbox, I can restrict apps from using cellular on an app by app basis (I wish I could do the same for WiFi), I can restrict apps from running in the background using my battery life unnecessarily (see Slack), developers have proven they can’t be trusted to have unfettered access to your computer.
Even if you don’t give an app admin access on a computer, they still have all of the rights the signed in user does.
Sure, but Google or Apple approved apps also have issues, if I remember right Microsoft updates lost user data, I think some Apple updates destroyed some users backups, Steam had a bug where it deleted all the user files.
So I think the focus should not be in locking users but in locking the apps in strong sandboxes.
Thank you for all your replyes but I notice you are ignoring a category of developers, you are only consider the ones that do it for making lot of money and ignoring people that do it for passion, as I said I see plenty of free stuff that is made for passion and shared with the community (like a small game, or a mod, or a "save cleaner/editor" tool), this communities are small and probably not that vocal but they exist - a strong sandbox and a giant warning when you install such an approved tool should be enough for this people.
If I may add, Apple allowed Fortnite and games with lootboxes or skins purchase, Apple gets 30% cut so they will not block this as long as they make big money. I know they are making some arcade but that is to handle teh case of games that have ads. it is a good way of Apple making more money and it will not stop the lootboxes, let me know if I missed something and Apple is blocking lootboxes or skin.gem,coin purchases.
Apple released a version of the iTunes installer that erased users files if the hard drive had a space in the name. Of course I don’t believe either Apple or Google were being intentionally malicious.
As far as the hobbyists, I had another proposal in another thread. Free “self signed certs” that are tied to your device. You can compile from source an app and keep it on your phone. You are free to share source code. This would also be keeping within GPL2, GPL3.
Apple making money on in app purchases is just as unethical. I think that’s the purpose of Apple Arcade.
I mean people here in HN, probably most of us here have the same credibility , this person said
"The problem with this logic is that every company is going to set up their own App Store. Microsoft, Epic, etc. Then for every app that I use right now on my iPhone I would have to source from several App Stores. It will make my experience very cumbersome.
reply"
And this is proven false since the Google Store is still very popular and I don't see people having to source 5 apps from Google store, 5 from Microsoft, 2 from Apple, 3 from Adobe. With the Epic the situation is clear, this giants are asking too much just for hosting your application and the small guys had no chance to fight this , lucky for the developers Epic started this and as we can see from this article Apple is backing down one step here, other step a month ago ...
The difference is that Google’s sideloading experience is intentionally full of warnings and hurdles. Do you really think that if Apple had a court ruling against them they could get away with that? No, Epic (et al) will be very clear about third party stores being utterly seamless to install and use.
That’s why we’d see a proliferation of stores on iOS.
So now you want third party app stores and no warnings? Even though Epic - one of the first major apps to try side loading, actually had a security vulnerability.
Ew, god no. I think Apple should be allowed to offer us their idea of a good product and let the marketplace choose between that, Google Android, or other competitors who believe they could do better offering open source Android. The idea of having parts of your product designed by the competitors who envy your success is utter madness.
That's not a big difference, with Android, because nobody is making any money doing that. It doesn't work.
I didn't mention Windows. I was discussing platforms where everyone takes a 30% cut. You may say this is mere whataboutism, but anyone who reads Hacker News knows that 99% of the anger and attacks on this practice are directed at Apple. Nobody bitches at Google and Sony and Microsoft for doing the exact same thing.
Google gets hit on the privacy front pretty regularly. I guess it depends on the issue. But not to worry, I'm sure there will be plenty of time and opportunity to complain against injustices from all corporations in the future. A significant chunk of early adopters for Apple/MS/Google products were nerds who spread the good word. Its no surprise that issues like privacy, developer freedom and hacker-ethics will drive the conversation against these companies.
