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I fear App Review is getting too powerful (2015) [pdf]

judiciary.house.gov

251–260 of 369 posts

Re: I fear App Review is getting too powerful (2015) [pdf]

#254

One thing missing from this discussion is: where is academia? The WWW was created inside academia, and it's because of that that it's still open and competitive. The internet itself was created in the military. Where is the equivalent for mobile apps? It's a problematic category that is wholly dominated by 2 actors, one of which isn't even interested in phones. We need a common set of standards for mobile development…

It is called "websites" - not being sarcastic, browser code is pretty portable although of course there needs to be efforts to test it for all platforms.

Also that wouldn't be Academia's wheelhouse. Standard serting and propagation are set by "industries" in practice. Academia is more theory development which essentially catches on "by accident" at best.

There are a few free software phones but they are a niche even by desktop Linux standards.

Re: I fear App Review is getting too powerful (2015) [pdf]

#256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Silverlight? What did you use it for? The only public Silerlight code I ever came across was Netflix’s client for Windows Internet Explorer around 2010-2012, then everyone switched to Widevine.

Riot’s League of Legends launcher’s was done in Silverlight for a while.

I think you meant Adobe Air?

Re: I fear App Review is getting too powerful (2015) [pdf]

#257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I was groveling. This was my livelihood and I was employing 20+ people. I did not want to give up on this and have to tell the team our work and their jobs were over. I tried to be honest and explain the situation, because I believed if Tim Cook understood what happened, he would make it right.

FWIW, I don't think you were groveling. I think you were justly concerned with the livelihoods of your employees. The GP just didn't want to put in the effort to empathize with your struggle, so he tried to paint you as pathetic and stupid and therefore deserving of suffering.

I actually think it's awesome that you went to bat for your employees.

Re: I fear App Review is getting too powerful (2015) [pdf]

#258
post #237

The legislation I'd get behind is to enforce import / export of data across platforms a la. Google takeout but better where you can both export and import with a single click. That is, rather than getting into some abstract arguments on what an App store should or shouldn't do the focus should be on lowering the cost of switching mobile / wearable computing platforms down to a single click of a button. There is no is…

Isn't that issue orthogonal? I don't think the iPhone has the userbase it does because it takes more than 1 click to switch to android. Many people have expensive devices that they like along with the software they prefer. The fact that android and iOS compete for users is irrelevant to the fact that Apple has a monopoly over access to iOS users and Google has a monopoly over access to Android users. If you want to a…

Monopoly over iOS or Android is a bit murky definition IMO. They are both creations of those companies and it seems fine for them to have a monopoly over them.

Ring devices by Amazon or Nest devices by Google can have a monopoly over the devices in their ecosystem but no one cares [yet].

Mobile computing is what Apple and Google have created and of course you need to go through them to access the users there. You have to go through MS and Sony for example to access game console users, duh!

The issue is if for example tomorrow a new company builds a nicer hardware and software package there's no easy way for users to migrate. The migration cost is super high. That company can't emulate iOS or Windows to be compatible with the existing apps. I don't think they can do a clean room reimplementation of the OS calls either. The users would need to repurchase all the apps, music, games, movies and other media they've already paid for even though none of those content were created by the platform owners.

Imagine running a web server on Azure VMs and try to migrate to AWS to GCP but then realize you need to repurchase all the stock images you used in your website and any other software you run on your servers.

I think for popular enough platforms like iOS, Android, Windows, etc. the cost of switching should be regulated. That way the quick feedback loop from consumers will ensure the platforms owners are always kept on their toes to keep all the consumers happy without relying on the moat they've built.

Re: I fear App Review is getting too powerful (2015) [pdf]

#259
I don't really understand why Apple is allowed to have the amount of power it has today: it provides the hardware, the operating system, the software store (which they make sure is the only way to get software for most users), _and_ gets to decide whether any particular piece of software is allowed on the store? Surely there needs to be some separation of powers? e.g. a third party (could be set up by the government or in some other ways) will review the apps and Apple only maintains the software store without having much power over the contents in the store.

It was understandable at the time when everything was uncharted territory so Apple got to do whatever it wanted, but now that smart phones are so tightly integrated into the lives of many people, it seems Apple shouldn't be allowed to hold on to all those power. Is anything being done in that direction that might become effective?

Re: I fear App Review is getting too powerful (2015) [pdf]

#260
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like apple didn't want any competition for in-store ads

I still don't understand those. I paid god damn 1200 euro for this phone. Why am I seeing ads for shitty apps?

Because you paid $1200 for a device that doesn't allow you to run arbitrary software.
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