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Apple-Developer Relations

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Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#41

Post by Steltek »

minimaxir wrote: post #37
echelon wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you don't like the terms, leave. Apple captured 50% of the American economy. You have no choice. This is why the DOJ must act to bring an end to these anticompetitive behaviors.

50% is not 100%, which matters if you're accusing a company of monopolistic practices. (and why the Epic lawsuit is fighting that gray area)

False. Monopolies and monopoly practices are legal. Anti-competitive practices, however, are not. Microsoft was not convicted of being a monopoly, it was convicted of leveraging its monopoly to stifle competition in another market.

In the US, this is further narrowed to include "harm to the consumer". For example: increased prices or deception. Under this guideline, Apple's on shaky ground.

Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#42

Post by Terretta »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #4

Apple has historically never considered their products as a platform, but rather as a final product, useable as-is. iOS was initially completely closed, for bullshit reasons. Helping developers is never a priority, and it is easy to feel when you try to build something running on their products. This is unfortunate and I think it is highly irrational.

Arguably iOS was originally intended and designed to run HTML5 web apps without intermediation. Web tech based applets downloadable and runnable from a home screen, similar to Palm Pre and WebOS.

Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#43

Post by stephc_int13 »

minimaxir wrote: post #37
echelon wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you don't like the terms, leave. Apple captured 50% of the American economy. You have no choice. This is why the DOJ must act to bring an end to these anticompetitive behaviors.

50% is not 100%, which matters if you're accusing a company of monopolistic practices. (and why the Epic lawsuit is fighting that gray area)

Armchair lawyers again, not knowing how monopolies does not mean 100% of a market.

Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#44

Post by echelon »

minimaxir wrote: post #37
echelon wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you don't like the terms, leave. Apple captured 50% of the American economy. You have no choice. This is why the DOJ must act to bring an end to these anticompetitive behaviors.

50% is not 100%, which matters if you're accusing a company of monopolistic practices. (and why the Epic lawsuit is fighting that gray area)

50% of consumers for any way you want to reach them.

You can't get them anymore because Apple has them locked up.

It doesn't matter if you're a video game or a dating app or a movie marketplace. You have to pay the Piper.

Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#45

Post by Steltek »

orbz wrote: post #25
echelon wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1000%. Apple created the most anti-developer, anti-computing protection racket our industry has ever seen. They captured 50% of all American consumer computing and won't let you have a relationship with your customer, won't let you bill your customer without extracting obscene margin, make you jump through weird hoops, won't let you deploy at your cadence, and won't let you write software the way you want. This shoul…

On one hand, the developer in me agrees with you that it does make life harder. On the other hand, as a consumer I've found that I'd rather not trust developers to write software however they want. I want them to have restrictions on how much of my stuff they can access, how they can update their software and how much of a blast radius there would be from messing something up.

You don't need control of the app store to do that.

Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#46

Post by causality0 »

actuator wrote: post #38
atonse wrote: post #2

I am deeply invested in the Apple ecosystem and yet, can’t wait for the DoJ to throw the gauntlet on the App Store. I really hope they get broken up, with the App Store being extracted into a separate business.

App Store should be just the start. Mobile web for more than 50% of the US users is also restricted to Apple's whims. They should be forced to allow competing browser engines(not just skins on Safari engine) on the platform. If Microsoft couldn't even bundle IE on Windows, it should be possible to make an alternative browser(along with engines) for iOS.

Looking back on Microsoft in the 90s they seem almost childish. If the Apple/Google duopoly had existed forty years ago the government would have smashed both companies into dozens of pieces.

Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#47

Post by jclardy »

orbz wrote: post #25
echelon wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1000%. Apple created the most anti-developer, anti-computing protection racket our industry has ever seen. They captured 50% of all American consumer computing and won't let you have a relationship with your customer, won't let you bill your customer without extracting obscene margin, make you jump through weird hoops, won't let you deploy at your cadence, and won't let you write software the way you want. This shoul…

On one hand, the developer in me agrees with you that it does make life harder. On the other hand, as a consumer I've found that I'd rather not trust developers to write software however they want. I want them to have restrictions on how much of my stuff they can access, how they can update their software and how much of a blast radius there would be from messing something up.

> how they can update their software I agree on all your points except this one. The App Store update process has grown long in the tooth. It was fine for the first 5 years or so, then they added auto-update, great.

But now 10 years in it is still all or nothing. Either the OS allows all apps to auto-upgrade, or you do it yourself. There is no way to "remove" an app from the update list if you want to keep an old version. There is no way to ever go back to an old version if you accidentally upgrade. Backing up an old version of an app requires a Mac to extract the binary. Each app already has it's own settings screen, why not add an "auto-update" toggle to each (And by default it gets your system-wide setting.)

And from the developer side - no way to have paid upgrades, unless you release the "new" version as a separate app with a bundle discount alongside the old version.

So instead you get either more apps moving to subscriptions, or more abandoned apps because the developer can't support free updates.

Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#48

Post by izacus »

judge2020 wrote: post #39
izacus wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those two things are not fully related. Apple could (and to some extend does) design a system that keeps YOU in control without being an anti-competitive platform that prevents competition in non-OS / non-platform markets. Preinstalling and pushing Apple Music / iCloud (not to mention giving it private entitlements the competitors can't use) is not related to the iOS security model by itself. There's also no reason t…

I don't think that's possible if your goal is zero (system-altering) malware - pretty much all (with the exception of checkra1n) recent iOS releases have had a jailbreak that works by chaining exploits to break out of the app sandbox and can be installed via just signing an IPA, gain root and install Cydia/other dpkg frontends. Without the app store you would see these making their way to things people can download,…

You're again mistaking security and software safety for anticompetitive business practices.

Apple loves to mix this too - after all, their marketing is spending a lot of money persuading it that those two are related. They're not. Even currently, AppStore is not without malware, so they have failed at that goal and us users have paid too great of a price by distortion of no.1 tenement that makes capitalism a functioning and decent system to live in: competition.

It's like an abused wife being afraid to run away from her husband because she thinks he's the only one that can protect her.

Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#49

Post by Drew_ »

orbz wrote: post #25
echelon wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1000%. Apple created the most anti-developer, anti-computing protection racket our industry has ever seen. They captured 50% of all American consumer computing and won't let you have a relationship with your customer, won't let you bill your customer without extracting obscene margin, make you jump through weird hoops, won't let you deploy at your cadence, and won't let you write software the way you want. This shoul…

On one hand, the developer in me agrees with you that it does make life harder. On the other hand, as a consumer I've found that I'd rather not trust developers to write software however they want. I want them to have restrictions on how much of my stuff they can access, how they can update their software and how much of a blast radius there would be from messing something up.

> I want them to have restrictions on how much of my stuff they can access, how they can update their software and how much of a blast radius there would be from messing something up.

The OS already does this for you, no software distribution monopoly (App Store) needed.

This idea that an App Store is the only path to security is FUD. If allowing 3rd party app distribution on iOS actually did allow some sort of destruction of iOS user's privacy and security, then iOS is clearly garbage.

Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#50

Post by Terretta »

CC processing and CDN is disingenuously reductive of the experience users have been subjected to buying digital software other ways.

Users don’t choose an app store based on how good the processor or download is, or even on discovery, but on trust. Some portion of this fee, arguably much of it, is a friction and trust gap between one experience and the experiences they have elsewhere.

Just as someone doesn’t choose their hospital based on patient outcomes but patient experience, normals buy from the app store because they believe it’s easy and pro user, while their experience buying software directly elsewhere has felt cumbersome or even user hostile.

All that said, I 100% agree that if people buy your app because of who you are, instead of what the app is, Apple’s app store model is not set up for you.

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