Apple: Person-to-person experiences do not have to use in-app purchase • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple: Person-to-person experiences do not have to use in-app purchase

#431

Post by trzeci » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 10:13 AM UTC

> 3.1.3(d) Person-to-Person Experiences: If your app enables the purchase of realtime person-to-person experiences between two individuals (for example tutoring students, medical consultations, real estate tours, or fitness training), you may use purchase methods other than in-app purchase to collect those payments. One-to-few and one-to-many realtime experiences must use in-app purchas

In Sweden, via-app medical consultancy gets a standard way for this services as a first - line support. Payment for this is fixed and goes to the registry, where after certain amount of payments, you're getting free consultancy (It's by the health care system). How they are going to handle that?

Too me this new guideline is like a wide net - most of top application will have to violate some rules there, but in case of miss subordination (like Epic) then having that rule is a simple case in court.

Re: Apple: Person-to-person experiences do not have to use in-app purchase

#432

Post by AnthonyMouse » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 10:27 AM UTC

thothamon wrote: post #377

rmrfrmrf wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason why developers want to make apps for iOS is because there's a large market. That market exists because Apple has done a great job prioritizing the protection of their customers' privacy and payment information. If third party App Stores are ever forced onto iOS devices, that market vanishes completely. Crashes, slowdowns, battery drain, malware, and information theft will become the norm. Go no further tha…

I don't see that at all. The value Apple supposedly provides is safety. If consumers want the safety that Apple offers, they can continue to limit themselves to Apple's App Store offerings, while those who don't value safety as highly can use a different app store. Just because you value something in a certain way does not mean everyone else should be forced to adhere to those same values.

> If consumers want the safety that Apple offers, they can continue to limit themselves to Apple's App Store offerings, while those who don't value safety as highly can use a different app store.

I'm not even convinced that those who do value safety as highly wouldn't be better off with other stores. For example, Google Play has the actual Tor Browser, with all of the anti-fingerprinting work they've put into it, which isn't available on iOS because it isn't Safari. I think F-Droid does a better job of keeping out malware than Google or Apple, because by their nature they're more selective of what they put in. The platform's own store is going to be under a lot of pressure to include e.g. the Facebook app, whereas F-Droid is happy to not. And there is value in that to the user who places a high value on safety and security.

Re: Apple: Person-to-person experiences do not have to use in-app purchase

#433

Post by antihero » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 10:34 AM UTC

Bud wrote: post #117

Shivetya wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well at least he upheld the First Amendment when uttering that statement but the rest of his text basically shows he knew that First Amendment rights were more important than his moral code and asked if he could define what would cross the line he could not do so satisfactory. Now as to Apple, I don't have to buy their products and if I do I know what to expect. If it really mattered or should I say bothered me enoug…

Abuses in China? So what are you planning to purchase instead? Because Apple is doing better with worker rights in China than any competitor is.

As an Apple user I'd like to believe this but it would be good to get some citation on that.

Re: Apple: Person-to-person experiences do not have to use in-app purchase

#434

Post by simion314 » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 11:00 AM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #429

simion314 wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

>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.

Re: Apple: Person-to-person experiences do not have to use in-app purchase

#435

Post by scarface74 » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 11:13 AM UTC

simion314 wrote: post #434

scarface74 wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

>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,…

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.

Re: Apple: Person-to-person experiences do not have to use in-app purchase

#436

Post by nodamage » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 11:22 AM UTC

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #355

tonyarkles wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think you massively overestimate how many people would use that functionality. I admit that I know very little about Fortnite and am not a regular Android user, but my understanding is that, right now, anyone who wants to play Fortnite on Android is sideloading it. That's a lot of people who are opening up a pretty brutal attack vector to be able to play a game that got kicked out of the official Play Store. http…

It didn't get kicked out of the store for violating people's privacy or some such, it got kicked out because they didn't want to pay Google money in exchange for absolutely nothing. Sideloading Fortnite is not opening up an attack vector unless Fortnite itself is malicious, which it's not, because it's a huge game from a huge company. As long as the official download source is known to everybody, I think it's fine. I…

I think you're understimating the level of risk associated with people attempting to sideload Fortnite. People aren't necessarily intentionally seeking shady versions (but even if they were, I find this kind of victim-blaming counterproductive). They were doing things like searching "how to install Fortnite" on Google or Youtube and getting sent links to fake versions with malware loaded. [1]

How were non-sophisticated users supposed to figure out that the Epic link was the correct link to click among the thousands of search results? How many of the people wanting to play Fortnite for the first time even knew what Epic was?

> As long as the official download source is known to everybody

It's not, and that's the problem.

[1] https://blog.malwarebytes.com/cybercrime/2018/06/fake-fortni...

Re: Apple: Person-to-person experiences do not have to use in-app purchase

#437

Post by nodamage » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 11:43 AM UTC

ivalm wrote: post #409

rmrfrmrf wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason why developers want to make apps for iOS is because there's a large market. That market exists because Apple has done a great job prioritizing the protection of their customers' privacy and payment information. If third party App Stores are ever forced onto iOS devices, that market vanishes completely. Crashes, slowdowns, battery drain, malware, and information theft will become the norm. Go no further tha…

> I sincerely hope that those of us who have trusted Apple with our data will start to speak out before Google-backed lobbyists tranform iOS into a malware-ridden hellscape Ive had iPhone for the past year, but before that I had many years of Android. I really don’t see my years on Android as hellscape. I never had any malware, I mostly used google play store but also sideloaded some “grey” software (a mobile hearths…

> I never had any malware

I think you need to be careful about taking your experience as a sophisticated user that understands how to avoid malware and extrapolating that experience to the general population.

There's a reason fake Fortnite APK links have been plastered all over the internet and are successfully tricking less knowledgeable users into installing things they did not intend.

Re: Apple: Person-to-person experiences do not have to use in-app purchase

#438

Post by Wowfunhappy » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 12:33 PM UTC

systemvoltage wrote: post #386

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Jailbreaking your iPhone is a terrible idea. Horrifying even. And the fact that I can Jailbreak my phone has not caused your iPhone to to become safer or less private. All I want is for Apple to offer an escape hatch, completely optional. It would not affect your experience in the slightest.

I agree with you if that escape hatch requires explicit permission, warnings and a bunch of precautions. Hot links, such as reddit.com launching App Store to download their app should not be allowed because some uninformed user might just download bogus apps from 3rd party stores. Again, I support the idea of an escape hatch, but I feel like that applies to an imposssibly small slice of the total iPhone userbase. Peo…

> Do you think executives at Apple look at this feature request and spin the entire ship around so that you and I can hack a phone?

Yes, because of what happened with HKMap.live. This is incredibly important for free expression.

It’s only used by a tiny number of people until one day when it suddenly becomes essential.

Re: Apple: Person-to-person experiences do not have to use in-app purchase

#439

Post by xtracto » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 12:55 PM UTC

hn_check wrote: post #93

_qulr wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People quickly forget what a tremendous liberation the App Store created for developers. People quickly forget that software was distributed on the web long before the App Store existed. >That's what has caused this flood of software purchases from consumers. No, that was caused by a billion people buying shiny new mobile computers. They would have bought a lot of software in any case, even without an App Store. Ne…

"People quickly forget that software was distributed on the web long before the App Store existed." Independent software development was an absolute wasteland. It was extremely hard to get a user to give you money outside of a few extremely fortified ghettos (Steam, for instance, which takes a 30% cut as well). Begware was the most common tactic. Even now with multiple options, while everyone piles on Apple, we shoul…

Tell that to John Carmack or Lord British or even Microsoft. The wasteland of the 80s / 90s surely ended up their careers.

Re: Apple: Person-to-person experiences do not have to use in-app purchase

#440

Post by fouric » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 1:35 PM UTC

rmrfrmrf wrote: post #363

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regulating the app store isn't beneficial. They should be able to reject bad apps for being bad without having to go to court over it. The problem is that they restrict the user from using any other app store. So then when they get it wrong there is nothing anybody can do. And then they have less incentive not to get it wrong, because it's much harder for them to lose users to a competitor, so then they prohibit thin…

The reason why developers want to make apps for iOS is because there's a large market. That market exists because Apple has done a great job prioritizing the protection of their customers' privacy and payment information. If third party App Stores are ever forced onto iOS devices, that market vanishes completely. Crashes, slowdowns, battery drain, malware, and information theft will become the norm. Go no further tha…

> If third party App Stores are ever forced onto iOS devices, that market vanishes completely. Crashes, slowdowns, battery drain, malware, and information theft will become the norm.

This is a wild projection. Having alternative app stores on iOS, especially if gated behind a hard-to-find switch with a scary warning sign, will be totally different than any PC experience, partially because iOS has a sandboxed architecture (and incredibly solid engineering in general) that is far more secure than Windows, and partially because Windows allows you to install stuff incredibly easily with no signing or app store required. It's really obvious that iOS will have a fraction of the security issues that Windows has had over its lifetime.