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You’re Paying into a Broken System Whenever You Buy Something on iOS

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Re: You’re Paying into a Broken System Whenever You Buy Something on iOS

#151

Post by jotm »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #87
nerdjon wrote: post #9

>On no other platform would we accept a scenario where the owner of that platform dictated not only the tools developers can use, but restricted the ways they talk about their products and pricing. We would call it unfair, monopolistic, and overbearing. But on our smartphones, it’s just a fact of life. I am pretty sure game consoles have been doing this basically since their existence. None of them allow you to make…

I wish game consoles were open, but I don't care as much because they're single purpose. A PS4 is not designed to be your primary computer. An iPhone, by contrast, will be many people's primary or even they're only computer. What does it mean for our society if a single company has control over what that computer can display? I see this issue as broader than just competition—I think it's analogous to free speech.

It makes more sense to think of iPhones/iPads as consoles. They're just as closed down and controlled. Some people are fine with console gaming, many are fine with limited computing on their phones.

If you're not, there's a lot of Android phones, varying from open to extremely open, for general purpose computing.

Re: You’re Paying into a Broken System Whenever You Buy Something on iOS

#152

Post by Nullabillity »

nerdjon wrote: post #134
writepub wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that you cited retail. In retail, there's an actual cost to stocking items, especially in areas visible to the customer. No such cost exists on the app store, in fact Apple makes you pay extra to advertise for what retailers offer for their 30%. App stores and retailers are different. There's almost no cost to list an app (for Apple, Google) and yet they charge a 30% fee. Apple, especially, is a text…

Almost no cost except: - Credit card processing fees - Hosting the content (yes minimal but can't be ignored) - Approval process (the people) - "Editors" that create the curated lists every day - Developer support hours (technically you get with the yearly subscription but I doubt that actually covers the cost of those hours). - The engineers building the developer tools (Xcode, the developer portal, TestFlight, etc)

> - Credit card processing fees

Around 1.5%. Probably even cheaper for the big fish.

> - Hosting the content (yes minimal but can't be ignored)

S3 charges $0.0007/GB and $0.00000004/request for downloads as their baseline. Assuming a typical app size of ~50MB, each download would cost $0.00003504. Updates would be even cheaper, since they are usually tiny delta packages.

> - Approval process (the people)

A problem that they imposed in the first place.

> - "Editors" that create the curated lists every day

See above.

> - Developer support hours (technically you get with the yearly subscription but I doubt that actually covers the cost of those hours).

Then charge the actual cost for support, or improve the documentation? It doesn't exactly seem fair to make the competent developers subsidize the people who bog down the support department. (Or, if it's actually common to use these, to use their monopoly to force devs to use a platform so awful that they actually need to call the support.)

> - The engineers building the developer tools (Xcode, the developer portal, TestFlight, etc)

Which are self-imposed problems and/or inferior to free third-party tools.

Re: You’re Paying into a Broken System Whenever You Buy Something on iOS

#153

Post by Operyl »

PakG1 wrote: post #65
TheRealPomax wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And modern banks that offer their customers "one time use" credit card numbers that you load up with an exact amount, and expire after a few hours if not collected on by a third party.

Stripe gets no love? :)

Stripe doesn't offer this as a consumer service, does it? Stripe Issuing is offered as a US invite only program to businesses.

Re: You’re Paying into a Broken System Whenever You Buy Something on iOS

#154

Post by auggierose »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #113
fhood wrote: post #19

As an end user I approve of the walled garden. I don't mind the limitations on other forms of payment. I think it helps prevent fraud and insecure transactions, and I like the freedom and ease of use that comes with knowing that apps on the ios store went through a fairly substantial review process. As a developer (though it has been a few years since I wrote code for mobile) Apple's tools, documentation and librarie…

The documentation isn’t great, I’m learning Core Data at the moment and it’s unclear and riddled with mistakes. Google’s must be terrible if it’s worse.

Never understood why anyone would use Core Data for anything. What are you using it for?

Re: You’re Paying into a Broken System Whenever You Buy Something on iOS

#155

Post by Wowfunhappy »

ekc wrote: post #136
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this is literally every major OS right now.... Mac, iOS, Android, Chromium, Windows.... No it's not! I can run whatever software I want on Windows, Mac, Android and Chromium. > these are proprietary, private sector companies who fiduciary responsibilities to their shareholders, not government entities. I am not accusing Apple of literally breaking the first amendment. I do, however, think their actions have consequ…

> No it's not! I can run whatever software I want on Windows, Mac, Android and Chromium. Just as you can on Safari!

Sure, and it's great that they provide that option, but it also severely limits the capabilities of what an app can do. I also don't think it's a coincidence that Apple has been dragging its feet on support for progressive web apps.

Re: You’re Paying into a Broken System Whenever You Buy Something on iOS

#156

Post by throwawaycert »

Crinus wrote: post #94
throwawaycert wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scenario you propose would eliminate the ability to develop apps for iOS. Are you suggesting Apple is actively trying to kill the iOS app store?

Why would eliminate the ability to develop apps for the iOS? You could be able to download a development environment "app" from the Mac App Store just like now. You'd be a bit more confined inside the environment itself, but there is nothing that would prevent developing applications with Apple's own tools while disallowing installing anything outside of MAS.

Any ability to execute arbitrary code is the ability to bypass the MAS. What's more, it's nice and efficient - iOS apps in development are compiled right to x86 machine code for the "simulator" that is little more than a thin VM.

100% of the projections I've seen about MacOS becoming a walled garden have been from people that don't actually have any real familiarity with Apple's ecosystem as developers.

Re: You’re Paying into a Broken System Whenever You Buy Something on iOS

#157

Post by Wowfunhappy »

scarface74 wrote: post #41
nothis wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Maybe Apple intends to change that some day, but that's speculation, not reality. I'd say it's pretty obvious that this is a desired outcome on Apple's part. You can either wait until it's too late or bring it up before it's happening.

So if it is the “desired outcome” why is it taking them over a decade? The Mac App Store was introduced in 10.6 - 7 releases ago.

I obviously agree with you, but tiny nitpick—the App Store was not introduced in 10.6, it was added in a 10.6 point release. So your "7 releases ago" statement isn't quite accurate, although it depends on how you count.

Re: You’re Paying into a Broken System Whenever You Buy Something on iOS

#158

Post by crankylinuxuser »

icebraining wrote: post #128
wheelerwj wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What does it mean for our society if a single company has control over what that computer can display? this is literally every major OS right now.... Mac, iOS, Android, Chromium, Windows.... > I think it's analogous to free speech. what? no it isn't. these are proprietary, private sector companies who fiduciary responsibilities to their shareholders, not government entities.

The First Amendment of the US Constitution is restricted to the government. Free Speech is a wider concept than that.

Why do we chain ourselves to such a limiting construct?

Companies; S,C, LLC. They did not exist, and by request they were willed into 'personhood' at the signing of a government pen. They were not required to approve the incorporation request. So, I ask this:

Why do we not enforce incorporated entities to also abide by the Bill of Rights as being extensions of the government?

They certainly weren't born, and there's no corporate death penalty. So it tells me they're an extension of government, as they were willed into being with their explicit consent.

Re: You’re Paying into a Broken System Whenever You Buy Something on iOS

#159

Post by asark »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #113
fhood wrote: post #19

As an end user I approve of the walled garden. I don't mind the limitations on other forms of payment. I think it helps prevent fraud and insecure transactions, and I like the freedom and ease of use that comes with knowing that apps on the ios store went through a fairly substantial review process. As a developer (though it has been a few years since I wrote code for mobile) Apple's tools, documentation and librarie…

The documentation isn’t great, I’m learning Core Data at the moment and it’s unclear and riddled with mistakes. Google’s must be terrible if it’s worse.

It is. It's really, really bad. Their platform overall is also a lot less... well, good, frankly. You end up bringing in third party libraries a lot for basic stuff if you don't want life to be a living hell of re-discovering reasons people don't use some of the built-in stuff, or stumbling over years-old hundred-comment bug reports that remain unresolved (you'll still hit some of those, just less frequently).

Support for major Google features and initiatives often sucks—Material generally, and as of a couple years ago their Maps library was worse than the JS version in some important ways, such that you'd end up calling out to javascript if you needed something as little-used as, say, address components (rather than one big address string). Yes, seriously. This is a pattern for them. I don't get it, but that's the way it is. Android's not built on a great foundation, and sees a surprising amount of neglect and half-assery in its ongoing development.

Re: You’re Paying into a Broken System Whenever You Buy Something on iOS

#160

Post by Wowfunhappy »

throwawaycert wrote: post #156
Crinus wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would eliminate the ability to develop apps for the iOS? You could be able to download a development environment "app" from the Mac App Store just like now. You'd be a bit more confined inside the environment itself, but there is nothing that would prevent developing applications with Apple's own tools while disallowing installing anything outside of MAS.

Any ability to execute arbitrary code is the ability to bypass the MAS. What's more, it's nice and efficient - iOS apps in development are compiled right to x86 machine code for the "simulator" that is little more than a thin VM. 100% of the projections I've seen about MacOS becoming a walled garden have been from people that don't actually have any real familiarity with Apple's ecosystem as developers.

There are all sorts of restrictions Apple could place on software compiled "unofficially" with Xcode. For example, they could automatically sign it with testing certs that automatically expire after 7 days.

macOS is a more open platform because Apple has decided to leave it that way, not because the property is literally essential for development.

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