Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes

appfairness.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

681–690 of 1001 posts

Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes

#681

Post by Apocryphon »

zepto wrote: post #611
FreeFull wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On Android there is the F-Droid software repository, and there is no issue of competition with the Play Store. Would things be different on Apple phones?

Developers can safely ignore the F-Droid store because it represents no significant market share. This will not be true of the stores that Epic, Facebook, and Google, and Amazon et al would start up on iOS.

> As of June 2017, the Google Play store hit 3 million apps by 968,000 developers, trumping the Apple App Store. In comparison, the Amazon App Store only has around 600,000 apps by 75,000 publishers, as of Spring 2016.

https://www.businessofapps.com/news/amazon-app-store-vs-goog...

Interestingly, there appears to be more revenue made per user on the Amazon store than on Google Play:

https://www.mobilemarketer.com/ex/mobilemarketer/cms/news/re...

Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes

#682

Post by zepto »

bogwog wrote: post #646
zepto wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost no stores will be able to compete with Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc, who already have giant reach and network effects, Consumers will have to deal with them all, as will developers. There will be a small group of store owners.

> Almost no stores will be able to compete with Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc, who already have giant reach and network effects, First of all, that is not true at all. And second, even if it were true, it'd be a far better situation for developers than the current status quo.

Having to deal with multiple stores would be strictly worse for developers than the current situation.

Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes

#683

Post by throw_m239339 »

makerofthings wrote: post #263

As a consumer, I really like how the AppStore works and I buy iPhones for me and for my family specifically because there is only one store and one way of subscribing and one way of using in-app purchases. I really, really hope Apple win this. I just don't want to have to deal with the possibility that every app is going to have its own in-app-purchase dark patterns. If everyone that wants to be able to side-load alt…

Not a fan of Apple here, but my parents clearly prefer the Apple experience with IOS, even though they started with Android. I prefer Android, because I'm a developer and I don't need to buy a Mac, get a dev license and use specific IDE and compiler X or Z to develop and deploy an app on my Android device. But common people don't care about that.

Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes

#684

Post by ThatPlayer »

sixstringtheory wrote: post #678
ThatPlayer wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What other app store is there on iOS?

iOS is a product in a larger market. It is not the market itself. There are other products in the market in which iOS is a product, and there's nothing stopping more entrants (besides the enormous engineering/business effort, the likes of which have already been undertaken by current players like Apple/Google). Your argument would be equally invalid if you were to say Uber is a monopoly because Lyft can't get a slice…

Yes, iOS is a product in a larger market, but I'm talking about the Apple App Store itself, not iOS.

The EU has already ruled "Android App Stores" is a market which Google is dominate in for example: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_18_...

>The Commission decision concludes that Google is dominant in the markets for [...] app stores for the Android mobile operating system.

It's not a stretch to say iOS apps are another market

Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes

#685

Post by freedomben »

shagie wrote: post #551
edmundsauto wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because these users, regardless of what they previously clicked, will expect Apple to support it. And end to end support is kind of one of the big deals about the iPhone.

(supporting this point) You can see this sort of thing in an old post by Joel on https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/06/13/how-microsoft-lost... This references an even older blog post (that has been lost to time) which was quoted: > Look at the scenario from the customer’s standpoint. You bought programs X, Y and Z. You then upgraded to Windows XP. Your computer now crashes randomly, and program Z doesn’t work at al…

I appreciate the dialog. I'm still struggling with it though and I'm wondering if we have different premises. This seems like it assumes that users are complete buffoons, and aren't capable of understanding a simple message like, "if you enable this feature, you open yourself up to possible security holes. Apple also makes no guarantees that software installed in this way will work, either now or in the future."

At a minimum it seems like the system is designed around the lowest common denominator of user at the expense of more power users.

Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes

#687

Post by zepto »

Apocryphon wrote: post #655
zepto wrote: post #629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The handful of competitors would be multi-billion dollar corporations, e.g. Epic, Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft. The incentive for developers is as always, customers. The stores would be incentivized to acquire customers. Developers would be forced to support any store that had more than a few percent of customers. Acquiring customers can be done without giving good terms to most developers. All you need is a s…

> Developers would be forced to support any store that had more than a few percent of customers. Look at the Amazon Appstore for Android and you'll see an anemic limited app marketplace that while subpar, doesn't seem to be doing anything particularly nefarious to consumers nor developers alike. And it's precisely anemic and limited because it contains far fewer apps than the Play Store. We have the entire Android ec…

Your premise seems to be that the current situation on Android is a good model for what would happen on iOS.

Epic themselves are suing Google because android doesn’t actually allow competing stores to operate in an equal footing.

That’s really all that is needed to dismiss this like of argument.

My extrapolation is not being borne out on Android because Android also doesn’t allow stores to compete on an equal footing, which is why Epic is also suing them.

I’m assuming you just didn’t know about this.

There will be no new and exciting place for developers. There will be exactly the same platform, but a whole load of additional predatory business to deal with.

If you truly think I’m wrong (and honestly, I’d like to be), perhaps you can flesh out a realistic hypothetical about what developers can expect rather than waving away the idea that say, Facebook and Amazon would get involved.

Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes

#688

Post by pb7 »

bobobob2 wrote: post #674
pb7 wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly are consumers impacted by Apple's App Store? Other than having a consistently good experience where they are safe from malicious actors, privacy violations, manipulative subscriptions, malware, etc.

Here are some examples: https://appfairness.org/issues/anti-competition/ > Apple has manipulated its rules and policies to disadvantage Tile, a popular Bluetooth finding hardware and app developer, in favor of its competing Find My App. > if a Kindle customer wants to purchase an ebook from the Kindle iPhone app, they’re met with a confusing situation: consumers can search for books, even read samples, but there’s no…

Take it up with Amazon. Kindle gets a free ride on the App Store because they do this. They could allow purchasing through the app but they choose not to because they don't want to give Apple a cut.

Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes

#689

Post by mailslot »

candiddevmike wrote: post #62

Device freedom is a must. Any device should be completely controllable by the end user. There's two parts to this to me: app stores and the data collected by the devices. Users should have the freedom to install any software on their devices, period. Users should also have the freedom to stop all data collection by these devices. This applies to all electronics--video game consoles, TVs, printers, who knows what else…

As a developer, a huge reason I don’t mind walled gardens is the massive reduction in piracy. I’m glad people want to download & pirate the apps I poured blood, sweat, and tears into... but I’m not down with theft. Each dollar I earn represents the time I’ve spent away from friends & family.

I’ve worked on games that have been copied outright. All assets and artwork, but a new name and “publisher” being sold elsewhere. It eats into profits.

When the walls come down, developers will be knocked off. This will hurt indys far more than larger companies, as “developers” opportunistically exploit the work of others.

Apple & Google are great at reducing and shutting down this kind of activity. If people can install the Pirate Bay store and install anything for free, many folks will.

If users can be coaxed into privileging an app, malware will control the majority of phones. People are still falling for the Nigerian prince scam.

Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes

#690

Post by threeseed »

mthoms wrote: post #237
burlesona wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it means Sony has to add Steam to PS5 or else it is narrow and arbitrary. To me the iPhone is a console, end of story. If you like the console experience, it’s a great device. If you don’t, there are a million android and even alternative OS based phones out there which are more like a PC. If you want your phone to be a PC, you should do what most people around the world do and buy one of those. Instead we have…

>To me the iPhone is a console, end of story. I'm so tired of hearing this ridiculous analogy. From a purely technical stand point it may be true, but for a large chunk of the population, the smartphone is their one and only connection to the digital world. It controls their connection to their bank accounts, governments, news/discourse, family, friends, dating life, education (formal and informal), medical informati…

Note that I can do all of that with my Sony TV.

And this idea that a smartphone is a necessity is ridiculous given that most of the world doesn't have one.

Post reply on HN