Which app is it!? Why is it so hard to find the app he's talking about ... sigh
A top-grossing scam on the App Store
131–140 of 285 posts
Re: A top-grossing scam on the App Store
#132Apple has just engineered the worst possible situation for themselves by being the only way to get apps on the store and by simultaneously incessantly marketing the store as "Safe and Secure". The former encourages them to maximize the number of apps on the store, while the latter encourages them to shoot first and ask questions later. If side-loading or alternative ways of getting apps onto the iPhone existed, then…
> If side-loading or alternative ways of getting apps onto the iPhone existed, then they could implement far stricter controls knowing that, worst case scenario, you can still get an app onto the iPhone. This is how it works on the Mac. Tor isn't on the Mac App Store, but that of course doesn't mean Tor can't be used on the Mac. And if side-loading was alowed then every big player whose app users "have to have", e.g.…
> And if side-loading was alowed then every big player whose app users "have to have", e.g. Google, Facebook, Abobe, Zoom, Epic, would start their own independent app store (or distribution just for their apps).
That didn't happen on Android. But at least on android you can download the apk from github, or use f-droid
Re: A top-grossing scam on the App Store
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it would still poison the “Apple experience” to have many AppStores all competing with their own closed ecosystems. The Apple Experience of not being able to install some apps sucks, but its always been easy for me to help someone with an iOS device. That’s not true with Android or Windows. A walled garden ecosystem isn’t for everyone, but it does have value. Instead, I’d like to see Apple be forced to provid…
> I think it would still poison the “Apple experience” to have many AppStores all competing with their own closed ecosystems. I actually think Apple could find a way to navigate it. They already allow one prominent alternative choice on iOS: non-iMessage SMS. If Apple allowed third-party stores, I could see them using their product, UX, and branding mastery to create the equivalent of the blue-bubble and green-bubble…
I don't understand how a social stigma would work for sideloading apps. It works for iMessage because it's a social product. But how would anyone else even know if the apps on your phone were sideloaded or not?
Re: A top-grossing scam on the App Store
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
> So it's not just a scam, it's a scam pretending to be a medical app? The walled garden method has been proven a failure and needs to go urgently. It sounds like you are arguing that more medical scams would be better . App review fails sometimes, but removing it would be worse.
Who said remove them? Access to other app stores could just as easily let you pick one with more control and review instead of less. That should be up to the user. Not you, me or Apple.
> That should be up to the user. Not you, me or Apple.
It’s pretty obvious why this is flawed: a lot of people will end up being sold on scammy or privacy invading stores.
You’ll be able to blame them for making the wrong choice, but it won’t actually be their fault. It will be the fault of those who prevented Apple from offering a curated environment.
Re: A top-grossing scam on the App Store
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not defending Apple, and I dislike the walled garden model too, but you can't just blindly claim that this is a failure and a non-walled method would do a better job without any evidence.
> without any evidence Do GNU/Linux repositories count? F-Droid?
F-Droid is orders of magnitude smaller, and its users are generally far more advanced, hence not worth trying to scam. The same applies to GNU/Linux too, though there's also other differences there too. Scale is really the issue, Android has 3 billion users, iOS probably has over a billion too.
Re: A top-grossing scam on the App Store
#136Apple has just engineered the worst possible situation for themselves by being the only way to get apps on the store and by simultaneously incessantly marketing the store as "Safe and Secure". The former encourages them to maximize the number of apps on the store, while the latter encourages them to shoot first and ask questions later. If side-loading or alternative ways of getting apps onto the iPhone existed, then…
> If side-loading or alternative ways of getting apps onto the iPhone existed, then they could implement far stricter controls knowing that, worst case scenario, you can still get an app onto the iPhone. This is how it works on the Mac. Tor isn't on the Mac App Store, but that of course doesn't mean Tor can't be used on the Mac. And if side-loading was alowed then every big player whose app users "have to have", e.g.…
This relies on a lot of assumptions:
1. It is highly dependent on the mechanics of how Apple implements side-loading (again, if it has a scary warning or requires you to turn something on deep in Settings, it's unclear if this would actually be the case). Especially considering that for many apps Apple now has their own versions, so it might not be a great idea for Google to put more hoops to jump through to get to Maps when Apple ships a (now) fairly competent Maps app built in.
2. It also disregards the other benefits the AppStore could provide aside from being the only game in town, as it does now. Again, there are many features that make a lot of sense to be tied to AppStore accounts, the most obvious of which is anything having to do with ease of payments. You might be leaving a lot of money on the table by completely abandoning the "one tap" payments that AppStore payments gets you (especially with in-app purchases, etc.). Separately, users will expect Family Sharing to "just work", etc. Again -- this aligns incentives really well on both sides: a lot of these features are implemented fairly poorly today by Apple because there's no rush, its not like there's another option. With a good incentive to make Family Sharing shine with respect to the competition, it could start being far less confusing and be far more flexible too. It might not take 5 year stretches to get bottom-of-the-barrel basic features like paid app updates or app trials, etc.
3. This actually flips a lot of current economics of the app store on its head: it is an open secret that Apple grants sweetheart deals to big companies on the AppStore who don't pay 30%. This is the worst of both worlds: the big players are given an unfair advantage on the AppStore. However, if they were attracted by their greed to try to "do it on their own" outside the AppStore, then small startups have a real shot at going head to head by being the "AppStore-compliant" version of the app, since 30% is an easier pill to swallow when its not billions of dollars in revenue.
4. The idea that because one or two apps convince users to side-load means that it would open the flood gates to every single scam app doing it is a fairly BIG slippery slope to... slide down? Again, if the process is fairly onerous for each side-load, then you might find that ONLY big names can actually convince people to do it, or important apps like HKMap.live or other apps that nations try to use the bottleneck of the AppStore to prevent. As mentioned elsewhere in these comments -- side-loading wouldn't necessarily mean you don't have to jump through some other Apple hoops.
And most importantly, I would argue that the current situation is worse. Apple tells everyone the AppStore is safe, and thus every app that appears on the AppStore is "Apple approved" (LITERALLY!). This precisely lulls people into installing scammy apps. Apple can't pop up a disclaimer every time you download something from the AppStore saying "HEY NOW CAREFUL, THIS APP MAY BE A SCAM," because it would go against the entire marketing of the AppStore. But they CAN put such a disclaimer in front of every side-load, because they owe those apps nothing and it hurts Apple's reputation none at all in that case.
Re: A top-grossing scam on the App Store
#137Apple and Google are poor stewards of the mobile app distribution market. It's time that their 13+ year stranglehold on app distribution is disrupted.
You know, I was thinking last night about the parallels between this and the anti-trust investigation into Microsoft back in the 90s. Back then Microsoft was in a heap of trouble over the fact that they bundled IE and didn't allow vendors to bundle other alternative browsers. Users could still install other browsers, but the fact that the OS came bundled with IE was seen as an abuse of Microsoft's market position. Ye…
I think this analysis misses how dominant Microsoft was in the 90s and the myriad methods they used to stay in that position. Apple may be a huge chunk of the North American phone market, but Microsoft's share of the PC market in the 90s was over 90%. The only computers around were PCs[1] (desktop or laptop) and servers - there were no phones - so if you had a computer in your house, it was almost certainly running DOS/Windows.
To maintain this monopoly Microsoft employed tactics like offering discounts if OEMs promised exclusivity. Basically punishing any manufacturer that might want to ship another operating system. My read on the browser verdict was that this was what the justice department thought was sufficiently low-hanging fruit to convict Microsoft. But it was far from the only anticompetitive tactic Microsoft used at the time. "DOS ain't done till Lotus won't run"[2]
[1] I'm ignoring exotic stuff like SGI workstations that were priced out of reach of typical consumers.
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10434133
Edit: Here's an example. In 2002 Dell started offering PCs without Windows pre-installed[2] - this was considered a big deal in the linux forums I hung out in. Why? Because until then you had to pay Microsoft to own a PC (practically the only consumer computing hardware available at the time), even if you wanted to install Linux on it. This is like if nearly every phone had to come with iOS pre-installed (and Apple collected a licensing cut), even if you wanted to install/use Android.
[3] https://www.computerworld.com/article/2577666/dell-offering-...
Re: A top-grossing scam on the App Store
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I think it would still poison the “Apple experience” to have many AppStores all competing with their own closed ecosystems. I actually think Apple could find a way to navigate it. They already allow one prominent alternative choice on iOS: non-iMessage SMS. If Apple allowed third-party stores, I could see them using their product, UX, and branding mastery to create the equivalent of the blue-bubble and green-bubble…
I don't understand how a social stigma would work for sideloading apps. It works for iMessage because it's a social product. But how would anyone else even know if the apps on your phone were sideloaded or not?
Apple could easily put in UX to identify the apps as not from the App Store, similar to how green text bubbles signify non-iMessage messages. The very fact that the color differentiation exists has led to a bifurcation in texting, which has been discussed elsewhere, as in here:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/ugh-green-bubbles-apples-imessa...
Apple is good at social psychology through product design, and it's not hard to imagine them employing similar methods to single out non-App Store apps on the phone to make them seem suspect for being less official. Less technically-savvy users will shy away from third party apps and sideloading if Apple's UI makes those apps seem scary. Thus, this can be a means for Apple to allow additional freedom while deterring most users from pursuing it, minimizing their potential exposure to third party insecurity.
Re: A top-grossing scam on the App Store
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If side-loading or alternative ways of getting apps onto the iPhone existed, then they could implement far stricter controls knowing that, worst case scenario, you can still get an app onto the iPhone. This is how it works on the Mac. Tor isn't on the Mac App Store, but that of course doesn't mean Tor can't be used on the Mac. And if side-loading was alowed then every big player whose app users "have to have", e.g.…
>And if side-loading was alowed then every big player whose app users "have to have", e.g. Google, Facebook, Abobe, Zoom, Epic, would start their own independent app store (or distribution just for their apps). >Users would have no recourse than to install the app for there (or do without Facebook or Zoom etc). We are already aware of a platform that allows easy sideloading - Android. And most apps on Android are dis…
Money. There is way more money in the iOS ecosystem.
Re: A top-grossing scam on the App Store
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
You know, I was thinking last night about the parallels between this and the anti-trust investigation into Microsoft back in the 90s. Back then Microsoft was in a heap of trouble over the fact that they bundled IE and didn't allow vendors to bundle other alternative browsers. Users could still install other browsers, but the fact that the OS came bundled with IE was seen as an abuse of Microsoft's market position. Ye…
You said it yourself: > an abuse of Microsoft's market position Apple has no such market position to abuse. It's perfectly legal to put restrictions on your product. It's perfectly legal to be a monopoly. It's only a problem when you abuse your monopoly position to restrict competitors.
They do. They have a total monopoly on phones running iOS. Way stronger of a monopoly than PCs running windows in the 90s, given that every single iPhone is locked into this vertically integrated market.