Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

I'm a customer (and I have no apps on the AppStore), and I constantly feel that the customer perspective is the best reason to want multiple AppStores: the Apple AppStore sucks.

1. Search is worthless. It's basically only useful for exact string matches on app names. And even then, you get the competitor app's ad that takes up 80% of the screen. They took every bad aspect of Google's search (the confusing take-up too much space ads), with none of the good parts (you know, the actual searching smarts).

2. The review section sucks. Instead of providing a streamlined system to get help from the developer, they just give you a place to rant. Reading the reviews isn't exactly ergonomic on a phone screen either, so it's just a waste bin to throw complaints at. Imagine if Apple actually lived up to their lip service of app quality and integrated a support mechanism that would reward apps that promptly replied (they would be marked with the "helpful developer" badge and get more prominent search placement for example).

3. Discovery is non-existent. At some point in the last 5 years I kind of just stopped "window shopping" the AppStore. I used to think that the Top Charts were a lazy way to encourage trying new things out -- but wow, it was way better than what we have now. The first thing the AppStore shoves in my face is these absurdly long profiles on developers or whatever as if the AppStore is a magazine I want to read. I don't. I don't care about some editorial article about the makers of some game. And it takes up the entirety of the start screen instead of trying to customize a variety of app suggestions just for me. This is such a missed opportunity. I would spend so much more money on the AppStore if it helped me at all to see new things. The experience instead requires you to be proactive to find things. Hence why it's really just a glorified database that's only really useful if you already know exactly what you want ahead of time.

4. It isn't safe at all. There are so many scams on the store. Subscription scams, etc. Apple does this weird thing where they simultaneously pretend they don't exist, and uses them as proof that their arcane review system is needed. If the store had no scams, they'd say "see, our filters work!". If it does have scams, they say "see, this is why the filters are so necessary, imagine how much worse it would be without them!". Anyways, as a customer, being "on the AppStore" no longer means anything to me from a quality or security perspective.

5. The UI feels generally like it was designed by a government bureaucracy or something. The tabs are: "Today", "Games", "Apps", "Arcade", "Search". The only tab that makes sense on first glance is Search (but then you find out how much the Search sucks). Why is there an "Apps" section in the "AppStore"? Aren't they all apps? It's like how there's Apple TV+ in the TV app of Apple TV. And what the hell is the difference between Games and Arcade? 40% of the UI is dedicated to games, but split into two opaque categories, with "Apps" in-between them. And "Today" is of course this stupid magazine interface I've already complained about. It seems like it's an infinite scroll interface of random bullshit, but eventually you do reach the end of "Today," where you find how to redeem a gift card and read the Terms & Conditions. All very "Today" items.

Anyways, the AppStore Tim describes only makes sense in the abstract. I wish they would just open the stupid store on someone's phone in the trial and just try to use it. They've managed to perfectly capture the combination of boredom and cheapness of the free samples section of a grocery store, complete with the employee not knowing what aisle you can actually find the product at if you end up actually liking it and wanting to buy it.

> Same here -- every app would turn free, and charge to unlock features within using their own payment mechanism.

Not necessarily. Apple would likely be unable to extract the rents it currently does, but if a dev has the choice of paying a 5% fee using an rarely-used payment system, or paying a 15% fee using a payment system that most users already have set up and that has very little friction, the latter is likely more profitable.

True, but we probably don't want to remove the ability to receive calls just because users might receive a scam call or the browser just because it can be used to trick someone to give their information. It's the same with apps, especially when Apple bans more than just apps with malware.

If a major app moves to a different App Store, people will install the second (and third, and fourth, etc.) No one will say “oh, well, I want Instagram because all my friends have it but I’m not going to install Facebook’s store to get it because I want to keep my phone secure.”

The problem is that security and privacy benefits are somewhat intangible and hidden, so they are not enough to convince people to weight them heavily - this is the same reason why people download random software off the net and why the web is such a mess of trackers.

Apple’s approach tries to remove the need for users to think about the issue at all. Of course, it has downsides as well, but don’t underestimate what the ecosystem would be giving up once the door is opened to multiple stores.

It is tricky. Most people are pretty trusting of things they don’t understand. But a world where you walk into a cafe and 80% of the devices around you are malevolent is worse than one where only 5% are malevolent. I would like root on all my devices and also I would like to be able to run apps that want more permissions than I want them to have and they just get fake data when they call get location or whatever. But I don’t want to have to security assess all the apps I might like. To be sure mostly my apps are like the browser, the like doe reader, and find my iPhone. But I do have a weakness for solitaire and free flow and similar games. It seems very hard to get the open source versions of these and the other ones seem to display questionable ethics and to be ad revenue driven (where as I would happily pay a bit for new levels etc).