351–360 of 665 posts
That said, I do not think this is the way to fight them. Just do not make apps for iPhone, or pass the 30% Apple tax to the Apple fanboys. They enjoy being submissive to walled garden overlords and paying for the privilege, so give them what they want.
These are perfectly valid options. Create value for more open ecosystems if you want to hurt the closed ones.
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It's not controversial, you can still have your walled garden as-is. The point of this is so that there is the possibility of escaping that walled garden, arguably welcoming more users into the ecosystem. Nothing would change for you. Just like android users can keep using all things Google, they have the possibility of installing apps from other sources.
Things would actually change—developers would instead choose to distribute via the alternate means instead of the App Store. So, you see, it doesn’t matter whether Apple has the walled garden or the third-party devs have the walled garden. Either way, users will be forced to accept someone’s distribution policy. But the difference really lies in the trust on Apple and its security and privacy practices, which is a ch…
Would they? I imagine they would distribute via all available, at different price points. At least that's what I would do. Why would I want to forgo access to customers who prefer every last detail to be handled via Apple's infrastructure?
That said, if there were actually a dichotomy between "force developers to distribute via my preferred means" and "permit developers to choose whether or not to use my platform of choice" the former seems obviously immoral and the latter obviously the correct course of action. Why should you get to dictate how developers must do things? That's simply valuing your own preference over everyone else's (both developers and users) right to choose.
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> You are free to pay ~30% extra for your preferred customer experience. The rest of us can leverage discounted pricing. Customer Choice for the win! People say this stuff, but recently I re-examined my subscription to a multi-platform VPN service through the App store and found that they priced it cheaper than getting the same package through their website or through their windows client. No idea why.
Is that the norm or just an outlier?
I would presume an outlier as it seems to make poor business sense.
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> You are free to pay ~30% extra for your preferred customer experience. The rest of us can leverage discounted pricing. Customer Choice for the win! People say this stuff, but recently I re-examined my subscription to a multi-platform VPN service through the App store and found that they priced it cheaper than getting the same package through their website or through their windows client. No idea why.
I'm not sure if it is still the case after the EU cases, but it at least used to be that Apple prohibited you from charging more for paying through the app store. And that leads to increased prices for everyone, regardless of if you even own an iOS device.
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i think there are a lot of folks who would be willing to have a 27% discount (allow for ~3% card processing fee) and forego those features. if apple was saying you had to support their payment processor alongside others (so you could opt into paying +27% and getting easy cancellations), that would be one thing, but they don't allow you to have any other options available in the app, which i think is where the anticom…
> i think there are a lot of folks who would be willing to have a 27% discount (allow for ~3% card processing fee) and forego those features. This makes sense because companies are used to making 70%, so obviously when given the choice to make 30% more overnight they will simply lower prices to avoid having to deal with all that extra revenue
That is bad enough. But here comes the infuriating part. Many app devs don't want their customers to pay extra. But Apple forbids them from providing an alternative payment interface or even informing the customers that such an option exists. And the icing on the cake is that Apple used to forbid the app developers from even providing an alternative, until the courts forced their hand. Is this an anticompetitive practice or just plain extortion?
But if you ask Apple or their fanbase, they would say that it takes resources to review and host the apps. But that rings hollow when you consider all the other ways in which Apple wrings both app developers and customers dry. Then perhaps allow the users to sideload the apps? Oh no! That will break Apple's perfect safety record. How about just making it slightly hard instead? No! The user must be protected at all costs, including by holding them hostage! At this point, I'm convinced that either Apple is astroturfing, or the fans suffer from an extreme form of Stockholm syndrome, or both.
I'm not an Apple enthusiast—my rarely used iPad mini is my only Apple device—but let me play devil’s advocate. If a company invests billions in R&D to create hardware and its integrated software, shouldn’t it have the right to control who or what interacts with it? Why should I be forced to open up the carefully designed ecosystem I’ve built? If my pitch is premium, high-speed hardware and intuitive software so user-…
> If a company invests billions in R&D to create hardware and its integrated software, shouldn’t it have the right to control who or what interacts with it? Was that not the sort of rationale Microsoft used to defend its IE shenanigans back in the day? It was considered to be a violation of antitrust laws then. I don't think Apple would be off the hook now. Especially considering how much more ubiquitous smartphones…
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home screen > settings > default apps > email Easy if you know where to look. If you end up in the wrong sub menu you might simply search the web for instructions. Apple provides web pages where they explain how to use the iphone. There is a section called "mail" under "apps" that shows up in the search results. It really wants me to read the help in dutch, the "apps > mail" section has 14 pages that don't talk about…
> Easy if you know where to look. If you end up in the wrong sub menu you might simply search the web for instructions. Actually, at the very top of the home page of the settings app is a search bar. If you type in anything reasonable (default, email, mail) then one of the first 2-3 results will be “default apps” or “default email”.
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You're wrong. It's like complaining that Walmart hiked their prices after they drove away all Mom and Pop stores. > I think it's perfectly fine to prevent you from having this Yes I can, legally and morally.
The mom and pop stores in this analogy are the multitude of devices which are not produced by Apple and provide the same features, like Android phones and phones which are trivial to flash your own custom OS and software on. So no, your analogy does not support your conclusions.
You can always just build your own phone network if you don't like it!
You are on the wrong side of history.
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You are free to pay ~30% extra for your preferred customer experience. The rest of us can leverage discounted pricing. Customer Choice for the win! Also, thinking that all businesses will lock one in using friction and timewasting is not a rational argument. There are a lot of honest businesses there forced to pay the Apple Mafia's tax.
> You are free to pay ~30% extra for your preferred customer experience. The rest of us can leverage discounted pricing. Customer Choice for the win! People say this stuff, but recently I re-examined my subscription to a multi-platform VPN service through the App store and found that they priced it cheaper than getting the same package through their website or through their windows client. No idea why.
Edit: Not sure if up to date but for example: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/App-Store-Pricing-Update...
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Things would actually change—developers would instead choose to distribute via the alternate means instead of the App Store. So, you see, it doesn’t matter whether Apple has the walled garden or the third-party devs have the walled garden. Either way, users will be forced to accept someone’s distribution policy. But the difference really lies in the trust on Apple and its security and privacy practices, which is a ch…
> developers would instead choose to distribute via the alternate means instead of the App Store Would they? I imagine they would distribute via all available, at different price points. At least that's what I would do. Why would I want to forgo access to customers who prefer every last detail to be handled via Apple's infrastructure? That said, if there were actually a dichotomy between "force developers to distribu…
There are many other possible scenarios: devs forcing users to authenticate with unsecure methods, gather and unsecurely store credit card information, gather passwords, upload contacts, read SMSes, etc. The value that a third-party dev can derive from private user info is far greater than alternately offering a different version of the app that will pass App Store reviews.