> No developer should be required to use an app store exclusively, or to use ancillary services of the app store owner, including payment systems, or to accept other supplementary obligations in order to have access to the app store.
Apple doesn’t have a monopoly here they don’t even have 50% marketshare. Nobody forces developers to develop apps for Apple devices, that’s a choice that was made. Why should Apples rights over its own IP get trumped by others?
I find it hard to see as a win for consumers based on the scummy practices of the companies in this advocacy group. Comparatively consumers are much better with Apples requirements from my perspective.
So given that there is potential for significant harm AND developers have a choice of platforms to develop for why should Apples rights be taken away?
> No developer should be blocked from the platform or discriminated against based on a developer’s business model, how it delivers content and services, or whether it competes in any way with the app store owner.
So if I sell an app that does something like only sells to white people Apple shouldn’t be allowed to step in even though the negative press is likely to harm their brand image?
> Every developer should have timely access to the same interoperability interfaces and technical information as the app store owner makes available to its own developers.
Apple should be forced to work on behalf of other companies with no benefit for them?
> Every developer should always have access to app stores as long as its app meets fair, objective and nondiscriminatory standards for security, privacy, quality, content, and digital safety.
Is this not true today? If it’s not Apple setting those standards it’s surely some other biased entity right? How is one better than the other?
> A developer’s data should not be used to compete with the developer.
This seems fair.
> Every developer should always have the right to communicate directly with its users through its app for legitimate business purposes.
Why does communicate mean in this instance? I can see how the definition of communicate could be exploited to allow apps to override permission defaults set by Apple. For example perhaps you get an add and the app owner things it’s valid to start the microphone so the communication channel can be opened? Perhaps I want to communicate based on location? Should I be allowed to access GPS information without permissions?
> No app store owner or its platform should engage in self-preferencing its own apps or services, or interfere with users’ choice of preferences or defaults.
Why? It’s their platform. Developers are free to develop their own phone / OS, right?
> No developer should be required to pay unfair, unreasonable or discriminatory fees or revenue shares, nor be required to sell within its app anything it doesn’t wish to sell, as a condition to gain access to the app store.
Apple would surely say developers do not pay an unfair or unreasonable amount. Who sets this standard?
> No app store owner should prohibit third parties from offering competing app stores on the app store owner’s platform, or discourage developers or consumers from using them.
Why? If your App Store bricks an iPhone, Apple shouldn’t be able to prevent that from
being installed on their devices?
> All app stores will be transparent about their rules and policies and opportunities for promotion and marketing, apply these consistently and objectively, provide notice of changes, and make available a quick, simple and fair process to resolve disputes.
Transparent is subjective. I don’t see how this won’t result in the same types of TOS that people without legal degrees are not equipped to parse/understand.