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You download the app and it doesn’t work

youdownloadtheappanditdoesntwork.com

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Re: You download the app and it doesn’t work

#501

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

pdonis wrote: post #488
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it’s a little like the Mafia used to do: give us a monthly payment or we’ll, ya know, make sure you’re of business. And you’re defending that?

> it’s a little like the Mafia The Mafia didn't build things. It just came in and took over things others had built. Apple built its app store. It built the iPhone. It got its users fair and square, by providing a product that users want. If you think that's the same as the Mafia, you have a very skewed view of business.

But they also prevent other stores from being built. And they prevent sideloading. It's their store or nothing. They created a marketplace and ban other marketplaces. wtf?

Re: You download the app and it doesn’t work

#502

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #453
efreak wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know quite a few people on Steam who simply refuse to but any games on any platforms other than Steam. Steam isn't an exclusive choice, but there's a nontrivial number of gamers who are loyal to Steam to the point of refusing to purchase anything that isn't available on Steam. I personally have platforms I simply will not use (or refuse to spend money on directly, like EA's Origin, where I only own/care about C&C)…

But, see, this is where I draw the line. Valve has the ability to set whatever rules they want within their store. A world where we didn't allow this would get very complicated very quickly. Do we also make Walmart and Target carry every brand? How much are they allowed to markup the price? Who decides? If Steam provides such a valuable service that consumers aren't willing to shop anywhere else even when they can ,…

There's another option to sideloading... permitting other marketplaces to exist. They ban that, too. Both sideloading and alternate marketplaces have an impact on android and windows (non-steam markets). Why wouldn't such things have an impact on iphone?

Re: You download the app and it doesn’t work

#503

Post by acituan »

pdonis wrote: post #498
acituan wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's called business. It happens all the time in every single industry And we call those situations market failures . Besides, in this case the market failure is due to a monopolistic mechanism, which doesn't happen "all the time in every industry". If we are going to do markets, let's do it properly. Increasing price %30 causes a corresponding decrease in the demand, and in aggregate this can cause a decrease in t…

> we call those situations market failures. To the extent that this situation is a "market failure", it's not one that's fixable except by users changing their preferences. > in this case the market failure is due to a monopolistic mechanism Apple only has a "monopoly" on their own app store because they built it. Users are not being forced to use iPhones; they choose to because they believe iPhones give them better…

> it's not one that's fixable except by users changing their preferences.

By definition market failures can't be fixed by market dynamics. That is why state does tons of interventions/regulations to make it work.

> That's called free market competition, not monopoly.

No. Vertical integration means there is no free market at the integration point to begin with, which integration of a software application store with a physical phone is. We are talking about a $50bil/year market that is not free.

Re: You download the app and it doesn’t work

#504

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

ilikehurdles wrote: post #295
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should software makers share their revenue with Apple? We don’t do it on android, Windows, macOS, linux, or anything else. The only value added by Apple is some kind of vetting (they don’t do code review, they just check that the app meets their recommendations... and they are called RECOMMENDATIONS not REQUIEMENTS). My app was recently rejected because i refused to sell in-app purchases and want to keep purchase…

A store owner is not obligated to give you free placement on their shelves.

This store owner bans other stores (markets). That's anti-competitive and would never be tolerated in meat space.

Re: You download the app and it doesn’t work

#505

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

jpttsn wrote: post #392
5Qn8mNbc2FNCiVV wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the issue, you can't. Simple as that, you cannot get your software onto an iPhone without paying the 30% (or offloading it to your customers)

So don’t sell iPhone versions. Sell software for platforms that support arbitrary software. Or pay Apple for distribution in their walled garden. It’s totally up to you. The parameters have been clear for over a decade, and it’s really time to stop whining that the iPhone is not an open platform. Apple is the only iPhone app distribution channel and they make the rules. If you don’t want that, don’t buy an iPhone/don…

And the other alternative is that governments get involved to force apple to allow other markets on their phones. Ones that charge 5% or ones that are even free.

Instead of, you know, just accepting bad things because they've been bad for a decade. Slavery was around in the US for more than 100 years. Did that make it right? Maybe slave owners said similar things to Abolitionists, "but it's been this way for ages!!"

Re: You download the app and it doesn’t work

#506

Post by acituan »

pdonis wrote: post #486
acituan wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is it unethical to charge a fee to developers who want to distribute their software through an app store that Apple owns? Developer don't necessarily want to distribute their software through that app store, they are forced to do that if they want to sell their software to people who happen to use that operating system. Operating system and app store are distinct products, but app store exclusively gatekeeps th…

> If app store was a standalone offering that aimed to benefit the user, there shouldn't be any problem allowing multiple competing app stores people paid for the convenience of vetted and curated apps and letting the market forces decide the winner. And if all that would benefit users more, users would be demanding it, or switching from iPhone to something else. But they're not. Users seem overall to be quite satisf…

> Users seem overall to be quite satisfied with what they are getting from their iPhones. So your claim here appears to be empirically false.

A lack of reduction in observable demand doesn't imply an absence of cost.

Let's say the cost of having a singular app store for the user can be expressed as 99$, but the average utility they derive from using their iPhone is valued at 100$. It would be rational for that user to still prefer iPhone despite incurring great cost and we wouldn't see any drop in demand.

> Certainly every large corporation in the tech industry is. They all do these things; they just don't all do them with an app store.

That is appeal to tradition. Indeed, monopolistic nature of tech combined with vertical integration is a large unsolved problem of our era and it haven't completely played out yet.

Re: You download the app and it doesn’t work

#507

Post by MrStonedOne »

nodamage wrote: post #335
MrStonedOne wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not a list of "exceptions". Part of the whole point is the relation to the quote at the start. In every one of those apps signing up "doesn't work" which goes against the stated goal of ensuring that users can download the app and expect it work . How can it work if you can't even sign into it because you can't sign up for it and they can't even tell you how to.

Except the app was not rejected for failing to meet the standards of the quote. It was rejected for failing to meet the App Store review guidelines. This whole website is a strawman built against the false claim that you're not allowed to require a login to access your app, which has never actually been true.

Except its not about rather or not the app was rejected

It's about the policy creating the trend of apps that don't work in that you can't sign up on them.

Re: You download the app and it doesn’t work

#508

Post by stdgy »

ilikehurdles wrote: post #354
stdgy wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And customers aren't required to only shop at a single store. If the store doesn't have what I want, I should be able to go to another store.

And you have that option. Your Apple hardware is your Costco Membership Card. You aren’t able to buy Sam’s Club products using your Costco membership, and Costco’s under no expectation to make them available to you.

Nonsense. The App Store is the Store. For god's sake, it's literally called a store. This couldn't be clearer.

You don't need to muddy the waters by making a ridiculous analogy that somehow equates a computer to a membership card (of all things!).

The computer is a computer. Full stop. There is a store on the computer. There should be other stores on the computer but they're not allowed because the people that make the computer are partaking in anti-competitive, anti-consumer shenanigans.

Re: You download the app and it doesn’t work

#509

Post by jfoster »

rydre wrote: post #473
jfoster wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not as though a statistic about how frequently mobile users access mail via a website is a measurement of some universal value. If that's the only way for iOS users to use Hey, then would find some users who are willing to do that. What's wrong with this being put forward? I would go so far to say that this is one of the four main things that happen when an app is rejected from an app store. 1. Change the app. 2…

Apple intentionally doesn't support many the functionality required by PWA's.

That's true, and it's probably for this very reason. That said, at a minimum it's very possible to have a somewhat usable website on iOS. If ever that stops being the case, hopefully consumers will finally stop buying iOS devices.

Re: You download the app and it doesn’t work

#510

Post by pdonis »

acituan wrote: post #503
pdonis wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we call those situations market failures. To the extent that this situation is a "market failure", it's not one that's fixable except by users changing their preferences. > in this case the market failure is due to a monopolistic mechanism Apple only has a "monopoly" on their own app store because they built it. Users are not being forced to use iPhones; they choose to because they believe iPhones give them better…

> it's not one that's fixable except by users changing their preferences. By definition market failures can't be fixed by market dynamics. That is why state does tons of interventions/regulations to make it work. > That's called free market competition, not monopoly. No. Vertical integration means there is no free market at the integration point to begin with, which integration of a software application store with a…

> By definition market failures can't be fixed by market dynamics.

That's why I put "market failure" in quotes. If you think anything fixable by users changing their preferences isn't a "market failure" by your definition, fine, then the Apple situation is not a market failure by your definition.

> That is why state does tons of interventions/regulations to make it work.

No, the government does tons of interventions/regulations to favor particular market players, under the guise of "fixing market failures". In almost all cases, these interventions/regulations actually make things worse overall, but of course they make things better for the particular market players that were favored.

> Vertical integration means there is no free market at the integration point to begin with

Throwing around buzzwords proves nothing. Apple created the iPhone and its app store. It can do whatever it wants with them because it owns them. It has the market share it has because users have freely chosen to use its products instead of those of its competitors. That's the essence of a free market. The fact that you don't like doesn't make it not a free market.

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