151–160 of 174 posts
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What's your definition of "secure" here?
Same as everyone else's, I'd expect – less possibility (higher difficulty for attackers) of viruses / data exfiltration / etc.
I don't care or know if it counts as a "monopoly" (I guess I can use Android...), but as a consumer and human being, I would love it if governments compelled big companies to act more in the public interest and less in their own. In particular, I would love to be able to install 3rd party app stores and software w/o having to resort to jailbreaks or weird certificate hacks. To me, it seems obvious this would be a net…
is it actually a net win for society, or just a personal win for power users like those found on hn? Simply allowing all third party apps probably leads to lots of extra malware being installed on iPhones.
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> it advertises itself to developers and to users as being an open more or less market This is about as false as a statement can get. Every developer signs a contract agreeing to the rules, and Apple’s marketing page for the store highlights the curation and review as a selling point. Tim Cook says out loud we believe in curation and review at every possible opportunity. Nowhere does Apple ever suggest that the App S…
First sentence in Apple's developer agreement: > no legal partnership or agency relationship is created between you and Apple So developers have no legal obligation to follow the rules Here's the app store descrption: > The App Store for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Apple TV, and iMessage, makes it easy for over a billion customers around the world to discover and download your apps. There are no hosting fees and…
> So developers have no legal obligation to follow the rules
Another completely false statement. It’s still a binding contract.
This just means you don’t understand the legal terms ‘partnership’ and ‘agency’.
I am not an attorney but I recommend you consult one.
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Oh yes, I am not disagreeing with you, on the contrary. Well, apart for the "Apple apologist" bit. I would hate to be forced to install third-party app stores when they are allowed. We know the second they can get away with it, software from Adobe, Microsoft, and Facebook will be distributed only through their own app stores. I trust these companies far less than Apple as far as my personal and payment information is…
Which of Adobe, Microsoft or Facebook distribute their software only via their own app store on Android? Given the answer is "none of them", why do you think they'd do that on iOS?
Adobe has been much more involved on the iOS side. We have to go through their crap on their website on macOS. Same for Microsoft (though they do offer a version of Office on the Mac App Store and are generally better than other big software editors).
We all know how Facebook will behave. They’ll see an alternative App Store as a great way to slurp in as much personal data as possible, and will try to get exclusives to lure people in. Hopefully they’ll fail, but maybe not.
Then there are game companies and the plethora of launchers/stores/things. Every one of them being a PII leak waiting to happen.
I find it scary that not a single person in this thread is against the idea of the government using its force against tech. Everyone’s just nodding in unison.
This sounds precisely how government should work (assuming the people have a large enough majority). Maybe you don't think there's a large enough majority, but if that isn't your argument, what is?
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Apple recently allowed this. Tile's complaint now is that the Apple Find My integration requires that you only work with Find My, so Tile's app (and presumably related subscription products) becomes unnecessary.
Except Tile’s competitor that also works with FindMy is not subject to this constraint...
[1]: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/04/apples-find-my-networ...
I find it scary that not a single person in this thread is against the idea of the government using its force against tech. Everyone’s just nodding in unison.
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It is very difficult to prosecute though, because convergence is something that happens without collusion. You need to have a smoking gun to convict a group of companies under anti-collusion laws. Case in point, the 30% fee for digital stores existed before both Apple’s and Google’s stores.
30% on specialized game consoles, yes. On general purpose computers digital distribution was diversified among many websites. (At least apart from games or before Steam.) IOS and Android are increasingly marketed as general purpose devices which are needed for more and more parts of life.
Now, is there a law saying that you are allowed to take a cut only on non-general purpose computers? Where is the line between specific- and general-purpose? Is it defined anywhere? Why would app stores selling games be meaningfully different? Is a feature phone “general purpose”? At which point did smartphones become “general purpose”? Since when the character of a device is determined by marketing (other than for the purposes of fake advertising)? Have you got any concrete examples of phones being marketed explicitly as “general-purpose computing devices” anyway?
Until there is a definite answer to these questions, the argument boils down to “I don’t like it” or “I feel it should be different”. It might make you feel good, but that point of view is unlikely to be shared with courts.
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Do you really think that they colluded though? The exact same result can be expected if they simply independently reacted to market conditions. It’d be very hard to prove illegal coordination.
Apple and Google colluded to not poach employees from one another, why do you think they wont collude again?
I think governments should go after cartels rather than monopolies. Google and Apple combined have a >99% market share for mobile OS/app store market share. They also impose a synchronized 30% fee cut. There is a case to be made for an antitrust behavior from this cartel.
It is very difficult to prosecute though, because convergence is something that happens without collusion. You need to have a smoking gun to convict a group of companies under anti-collusion laws. Case in point, the 30% fee for digital stores existed before both Apple’s and Google’s stores.
Any market dominated by only a few participants where none of the participants is willing to compete on price needs government intervention.