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Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

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Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#231

Really at this point Apple control over app store is anti-competitive (and Google over play store), having to rely on community outrage to get stuff like this turned is ridiculous. They should create legislation to control access to all app stores to prevent this rent seeking - force app stores to treat all apps equally according to store defined guidelines (including store owners apps) - any submissions have to be r…

Im not really into congress defining how apps get reviewed. I’d rather see it just get broken up in some way. Either you can’t have a phone and an app store (like the studio/movie model) or they at least have to support other app stores. Side note: my iPhone autocorrected app store to App Store, which I think is another example of overreach.

The store should set it's policy, law just ensures equal rights and review process for developers

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#232

Really at this point Apple control over app store is anti-competitive (and Google over play store), having to rely on community outrage to get stuff like this turned is ridiculous. They should create legislation to control access to all app stores to prevent this rent seeking - force app stores to treat all apps equally according to store defined guidelines (including store owners apps) - any submissions have to be r…

> any submissions have to be reviewed in a reasonable amount of time and if declined must receive specific violations of the guidelines on which the denial is based Competing app stores solves this 100% because there would definitely be a market for a developer friendly app store.

Competing app stores would raise another problem though.

One that occurred with certifying agencies in the financial crisis of 2008.

In a world with competing app-stores, if a store does its scrutiny properly, and is seen as too strict, then the apps will flock to get listed in other less-strict app-stores. Thus all stores are incentivised to relax the scrutiny to retain apps for their own survival. Sometimes to the point of simply rubber-stamping their approvals on crappy stuff.

Thus the end-users lose the benefits of proper curation.

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#233

Really at this point Apple control over app store is anti-competitive (and Google over play store), having to rely on community outrage to get stuff like this turned is ridiculous. They should create legislation to control access to all app stores to prevent this rent seeking - force app stores to treat all apps equally according to store defined guidelines (including store owners apps) - any submissions have to be r…

> They should create legislation to control access to all app stores to prevent this rent seeking The same could be said by taxi drivers about Uber. It's the exploitation of the platform-economy that is the problem, really. An extra problem is that this platform-economy is a pretty new concept. I don't even know if economists have good models for it. From this, it's no wonder that governments are lagging far behind,…

Uber is a different story, competition is a lot easier and it already exists all over the place (Uber isn't even that profitable which proves this, meanwhile app store is printing cash)

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really practical to develop apps for iOS without owning an iPhone. Yes, there is a simulator available which you can run on Mac OS in a VM or on a Hackintosh, but you still will need a real device at the end of the day. Certain features like in-app purchases can only be tested on real devices. Furthermore, the App Review Board has the power to reject your app at any time until you provide them with a demonst…

> It's not really practical to develop apps for iOS without owning an iPhone This applies to all platforms. I wouldn't want to do business with a developer that doesn't own the device they're developing for, we learned that lesson with Blackberry thank you.

Any developer would gladly do so as long as you shoulder the purchasing of the hardware or subscribe to a SaaS that provides such service.

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#235

An issue I haven't seen previously discussed is Apple's enforcement of their "Business" guideline (3.2) which effectively prevents certain b2b apps from making it onto the App Store because the app is supposedly not available to a wide enough consumer audience. This is a very subjective policy because popular b2b apps such as Slack, Zendesk, etc which have a wide reach are allowed, but more industry specific b2b apps…

> We encourage you to review the other ways to distribute your business app and choose one that better meets your business needs." At least that won't take long. Lol.

Android it is.

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess that’s the value of evaluating on a case by case basis. Depends on what you define as a market worth pursuing antitrust issues for. I would also argue this informally happens when people start to talk about antitrust as it’s usually applied to markets that are general enough that more or less everyone participates in (or feels consequences from) them.

So the government should make decisions on a case by case basis? Isn’t that what everyone is whining about Apple doing - treating small developers and large developers differently? I’m much more worried about the government deciding what happens to people randomly than a corporation. I don’t have to buy Apple products. It’s a lot harder for me not to have to deal with a capricious government.

I’m with you, I’m simply stating the upside. My further point was that it is already treated somewhat case by case by the selection of antitrust cases to pursue.

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, Apple Maps, Photos, Siri, and Messages. (I'd be willing to pay a subscription fee to have them on Android. As is, I just do without, and deal with ridiculous workarounds like having my Android phone save my photos to OneDrive and them manually copying them over to Photos on my Mac.)

Really? I’m an iPhone user and even I admit that Google Maps, Google Photos and whatever Google is calling their voice assistant today are better. If I were serious about photos I would use Lightroom.

Well I've got some specific points for each of them:

Maps: Google Maps is drastically better from a POI standpoint, particularly for reviews, as it's become the de facto standard for restaurant reviews in my locale, while Apple Maps just imports the graveyard of Yelp reviews, and GMaps is mildly better for routing. That being said, Google Maps has ads, which is enough for me that I'd preferentially pay for Apple Maps to avoid ads for anything other than restaurant reviews. As is, I use a Garmin GPS in my car in large part because of my annoyance with Google Maps.

Photos: For desktop software, Photos on macOS is fine for my use, and significantly improved over the past few years. (I abandoned Lightroom after Adobe's previous macOS file-deletion snafu a few years ago.) I have no interest in a web-based photo editor/management software rather than a desktop one. Apple's photo recognition stuff is generally done on-device, which is preferable to me over a cloud service.

Voice assistants: They're pretty much all equivalent in terms of accuracy for my use. (Setting timers, setting alarms, controlling my lights and music.) The killer feature of Siri/HomeKit is that it processes commands locally, so my lights respond instantly rather than needing to bounce my requests to Amazon/Google HQs for processing.

And Apple has generally better privacy policies.

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#238
post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> any submissions have to be reviewed in a reasonable amount of time and if declined must receive specific violations of the guidelines on which the denial is based Competing app stores solves this 100% because there would definitely be a market for a developer friendly app store.

Competing app stores would raise another problem though. One that occurred with certifying agencies in the financial crisis of 2008. In a world with competing app-stores, if a store does its scrutiny properly, and is seen as too strict, then the apps will flock to get listed in other less-strict app-stores. Thus all stores are incentivised to relax the scrutiny to retain apps for their own survival. Sometimes to the…

Users won't use the store known to be full of viruses

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#239
post #202

We should have a GNU like alternative for the mobile. Mobiles are the primary computing devices now, and we should give liberty to the developers to distribute their products as they wish.

Will they use GNU HURD as a Kernel?

And have an Emacs based interface?

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#240
post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Competing app stores would raise another problem though. One that occurred with certifying agencies in the financial crisis of 2008. In a world with competing app-stores, if a store does its scrutiny properly, and is seen as too strict, then the apps will flock to get listed in other less-strict app-stores. Thus all stores are incentivised to relax the scrutiny to retain apps for their own survival. Sometimes to the…

Users won't use the store known to be full of viruses

Right because users don’t goto sketchy sites or click on wierdo popups and get virus’s to this day.
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