Apple, Epic, and the App Store • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#101

Post by wayneftw » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 5:50 PM UTC

zb1plus wrote: post #53

jasode wrote: post #6

In the spirit of this particular story, I'd like to ask HN the following question: Should closed hardware (that owns its entire stack) even be legal to sell? Yes, it's legal today but should we make it illegal? To try another example besides Apple iPhone, consider the $35000 Prima Cinema movie server to play 1st run movies at home on day of release: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22prima+cinema%22&source=ln... In m…

Nope. If a person "owns" a piece of hardware, it should be legal to jailbreak it without any consequences (except perhaps lack of support for 3rd party software) and companies that sell products that build off of jailbroken products should be 100% legal. Edge case products like Prima Cinema can simply lease the hardware with restrictions on how can be used under the terms of the lease. If Apple feels so strongly abou…

At the beginning you said nope but based on your explanation I feel like you meant to say yep... e.g. yes, we should make it illegal.

Ahh, I see the problem - thanks Osiris - there are 2 questions, each of them opposite.

> Should closed hardware (that owns its entire stack) even be legal to sell?

and

> Yes, it's legal today but should we make it illegal?

Good thing I'm not a lawyer!

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#102

Post by reaperducer » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 5:50 PM UTC

romanoderoma wrote: post #79

reaperducer wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing stopping you from putting a Blu-ray player in your rack next to the Prima box and the cost is trivial. There's nothing stopping an iPhone owner from also buying an Android phone, and the cost is trivial. There's a common-sense argument that a person is only going to have one phone, one phone carrier There are hundreds of thousands of people in the United States, maybe even millions, who have more than…

This is a common argument, but it's wrong IMO iPhone is not an Android competitor, iPhone is a Samsung/Huawei/LG etc competitor Android competes with iOS If I could install iOS on a Samsung device or Android on an iPhone that would be different But I can't

If I could install iOS on a Samsung device or Android on an iPhone that would be different

I'm with you there. I'm so mad that I can't install iOS on any device I want. My Android phone? Nope. My HP laptop? Nope. My car entertainment system? Nope. My TRS-80? Nope. My waffle maker? Nope.

I even tried to install iOS on my cat, and she rebooted all over the rug.

Clearly this is a massive conspiracy by the Apple industrial complex to control what I do with the things I bought and paid for with my own money.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#103

Post by modeless » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 5:50 PM UTC

It's a common meme that "With a free service you're not the customer, you're the product." Well, you may be Apple's customer at the beginning when you pay for the phone, but immediately afterward you become their product. You're being sold for the 30% tax. And to enforce that tax Apple maintains ultimate control over the hardware you supposedly bought, blocking you from doing things that would threaten Apple's revenue streams.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#104

Post by pchristensen » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 5:50 PM UTC

smnrchrds wrote: post #45

baby wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Who?

On every discussion about this topic on HN, there has been at least one but typically many more commenters saying they love the walled garden and they would pay a premium for it. They trust Apple so they are OK with paying them 30% more instead of paying the app developers directly. They would never dare recommend Windows or Linux or Android to their parents but they would happily recommend them to get iPhones and iP…

I also like having a car with an automatic transmission and engine instrumentation that tells me when to get the oil changed and perform maintenance. My interaction with my car is strictly monetary and burns none of my mental cycles.

I have 4 other people in my house, plus I'm the "tech guy" for maybe another dozen people. I appreciate how simple that job is when everyone has iPhones.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#105

Post by zepto » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 5:51 PM UTC

tc wrote: post #41

Here's the thing. Even if you're OK with Apple (or whoever) controlling what you can run on your computers, this is a centralization of power that will be co-opted. Let's say that Australia wants to ban consumer encryption. This would currently be difficult to enforce for PC software. But on mobile, this is easy. Just make Apple and Google enforce it! Make them ban such apps from their stores. Now you've achieved per…

This is a good argument for enforcing open hardware at the boot loader level and requiring open driver specifications for the hardware.

It is a strong counter argument for requiring openness at the App store level.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#106

Post by romanoderoma » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 5:51 PM UTC

noncoml wrote: post #54

badsectoracula wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who do not know better and people who make money out of people who do not know better.

People who don’t want to exposed their non-technical family to the Wild West of Android.

That's just the tip of the iceberg

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/mar/11/my-kids-spent-...

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#107

Post by braythwayt » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 5:51 PM UTC

asadlionpk wrote: post #67

baby wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Who?

Me. It limits the attack surface and all the problems that come with openness, very visible in the Android world. The problem is that giving a choice to users is risky and not acceptable at scale because people are not smart, they do dumb things all the time; like pasting untrusted scripts into devtools console and getting hacked. Or replying to mail scams. So I am happy I can hand an iPad to my parent and not be the…

We used to joke about the fact that no matter what you do to educate users, if told that to see a video of funny dancing pigs[1] all they have to do is give the installer root privileges...

Users will give the installer root privileges.

History bore this out over and over and over again.

—

[1]: See also: Crapware-laden browser toolbars, Java runtimes, Adobe Reader, Windows crapware, Smart TVs, ...

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#108

Post by badsectoracula » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 5:51 PM UTC

noncoml wrote: post #54

badsectoracula wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who do not know better and people who make money out of people who do not know better.

People who don’t want to exposed their non-technical family to the Wild West of Android.

This is common FUD for Android, but i have non-technical family members and all of them use Android devices (because they were cheaper). I never had any of them complain about issues with their phones and Android doesn't exactly let you download stuff out of the box, you have to explicitly enable it and it pops up a scary warning whenever you do so.

Yes, people can ignore that warning, but considering it is there and considering all the steps they have to make, at that point it is up to personal responsibility, not making the entire society worse to avoid telling non-technical people that they screwed up.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#109

Post by wmf » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 5:51 PM UTC

vageli wrote: post #74

cschneid wrote: post #27

The Hey saga emphasized that Apple has multiple products interacting in a single app store. * Screened apps - Apple only lets "safe" apps into the store. * Discoverability - Apple in theory lets users find apps that they didn't know about before. Customer Acquisition * Payments - Apple makes it easy to accept payments, for their 30% fee. One or all of those are useful and great. Where I have an issue is when they use…

> That feels like using an existing monopoly (actually a duopoly w/ google's similar practices) to force developers to purchase products they don't want. Hey didn't want to accept payments via apple, but Apple's market power and decisions were focused on forcing them to. In order to sell goods in a place like Walmart, a manufacturer is subject to onerous terms. Why is the app store different than a retailer limiting…

Target is across the street from Walmart. But if someone has an iPhone they cannot shop at the Google Play store.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#110

Post by jtsiskin » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 5:51 PM UTC

cschneid wrote: post #27

The Hey saga emphasized that Apple has multiple products interacting in a single app store. * Screened apps - Apple only lets "safe" apps into the store. * Discoverability - Apple in theory lets users find apps that they didn't know about before. Customer Acquisition * Payments - Apple makes it easy to accept payments, for their 30% fee. One or all of those are useful and great. Where I have an issue is when they use…

A $1000 fee, or fees per download, gets rid of hobbyists, passion projects, and open source apps. For example [Bookplayer.](https://github.com/TortugaPower/BookPlayer)

It should be worth it to Apple to review and host these apps just to benefit the platform which leads to users purchasing their products. The current $99 fee I imagine covers their costs to review and host most of these types.