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Apple to Developers: Heads I win, tails you lose (part 2)

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Re: Apple to Developers: Heads I win, tails you lose (part 2)

#51

Post by kj99 »

dataflow wrote: post #21
detourdog wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably a familiarity with how brick and mortar business work and what it was like when software came in a box. 30% or 15% for one stop global distribution and multi-jurisdictional tax collecting is a deal all day long. Could Spotify have bootstrapped itself without the App Store?

Did brick and mortar stores have a monopoly on software distribution?

Apple doesn't have a monopoly on software distribution.

If alternative stores equated to better software, then Android would have easily outpaced Apple by now.

The only people who would benefit from forcing Apple to allow alternative stores are the unscrupulous middlemen who would run them.

Re: Apple to Developers: Heads I win, tails you lose (part 2)

#52

Post by samtho »

MBCook wrote: post #17
librish wrote: post #5

I'm surprised that so many developers are siding with Apple in this regard. If other stores and payment options were allowed I genuinely believe that: - Apple's own fees would be reduced relatively quickly - Technological savvy users will be able to discern which external sites are safe and get even lower prices when available - Very few companies will be able to afford not being on the App Store (especially if Apple…

I think Apple should’ve won the lawsuit. Epic broke TOS they agreed to, got punished, and whined a bunch to the court. They deserved to lose as they largely did. They’re also not innocent. They don’t want to get rid of all of this, they want the middleman cashing in to be THEMSELVES, not Apple. They’re no underdog hero. Apple is doing something incredibly stupid and absolutely killing their relationship with develope…

The ToS isn’t law and we desperately need to stop pretending it is.

A ToS a “shrinkwraped” contract. In Apple’s case, it’s enforceability was yet to be tested. We can agree to a lot of things in a contract, but in general, we cannot consent to letting a party break the law at your expense. A judge determined that Apples practices were unlawful and therefore the problematic stipulation of the ToS was struck.

This is an important tool to combat runaway shrinkwrap contracts that can say literally anything and attempt to enforce it.

Re: Apple to Developers: Heads I win, tails you lose (part 2)

#53

Post by kj99 »

heavyset_go wrote: post #37
redeeman wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

by purchasing the new iphone, and calling on apple to not allow third party stores, because they know they cannot say no to installing facebook, and IF thirdparty stores or sideloading were to be allowed, facebook might just get worse! (all this seen in comments in other threads on hn)

This is also known as the "B-but Facebook!" scare tactic.

By people who don't have a counterargument, maybe.

Re: Apple to Developers: Heads I win, tails you lose (part 2)

#54

Post by dataflow »

kj99 wrote: post #51
dataflow wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did brick and mortar stores have a monopoly on software distribution?

Apple doesn't have a monopoly on software distribution. If alternative stores equated to better software, then Android would have easily outpaced Apple by now. The only people who would benefit from forcing Apple to allow alternative stores are the unscrupulous middlemen who would run them.

> Apple doesn't have a monopoly on software distribution

It has a monopoly on iPhone software distribution... which is why they can set the fee at 27% without competition...

Re: Apple to Developers: Heads I win, tails you lose (part 2)

#55

Post by mschuster91 »

MBCook wrote: post #17
librish wrote: post #5

I'm surprised that so many developers are siding with Apple in this regard. If other stores and payment options were allowed I genuinely believe that: - Apple's own fees would be reduced relatively quickly - Technological savvy users will be able to discern which external sites are safe and get even lower prices when available - Very few companies will be able to afford not being on the App Store (especially if Apple…

I think Apple should’ve won the lawsuit. Epic broke TOS they agreed to, got punished, and whined a bunch to the court. They deserved to lose as they largely did. They’re also not innocent. They don’t want to get rid of all of this, they want the middleman cashing in to be THEMSELVES, not Apple. They’re no underdog hero. Apple is doing something incredibly stupid and absolutely killing their relationship with develope…

> They don’t want to get rid of all of this, they want the middleman cashing in to be THEMSELVES, not Apple. They’re no underdog hero.

There's value to be had in more competition the "middleman" market, too!

At the moment, on PC there's a healthy competition between the Microsoft Store, Steam, GOG, Epic Games, EA Origin and probably at least a dozen other smaller platforms, some of which are also available on macOS and Linux.

On Android, there's the Play Store, some of the device manufacturers have their own additional stores (Samsung), even carriers have app stores (Vodafone Germany), and enabling a completely independent store like F-Droid is three taps away. The only thing that's unhealthy is how much AOSP functionality got shifted over to the Play Store Services which means that competitors on the OS level (e.g. Amazon's Fire series) have to do a lot of work on reimplementing that to even get basic apps running.

The only platforms where app/game vendors are completely dependent on the mercy of the device vendor is Apple's iDevices and game consoles (Xbox, PS5, Nintendo Switch) - and it's high time for that to end. Users should be free to run whatever they want to run on their devices, and they should be free to decide upon another curator for trustworthyness if they so desire. If the price of that is marginally more expensive hardware, so be it - it should not be allowed to sell stuff as permanent loss leaders anyway, it's unfair business practice.

Re: Apple to Developers: Heads I win, tails you lose (part 2)

#56

Post by amiga386 »

nickthegreek wrote: post #42
HDThoreaun wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares what Epic wants? Their incentives align with mine so I supported them. Apples practices here clearly harm consumers by reducing competition on iOS. It is obvious to me that if Epic won iOS would be a better product, at least for me.

Some would argue that Apples practices clearly protect the consumer from malware, privacy issues and scams. It is obvious to me that if Epic won iOS could be a worse product, at least for me.

Exhibit A: https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/30/21348130/apple-documents-...

> Jobs said, “[i]t’s time for Amazon to decide to use our payment mechanism or bow out [of the App Store],”

> Jobs said: “I think this is all pretty simple — iBooks is going to be the only bookstore on iOS devices. We need to hold our heads high. One can read books bought elsewhere, just not buy/rent/subscribe from iOS without paying us, which we acknowledge is prohibitive for many things.”

Tell me how this clearly protects the consumer from malware, privacy issues and scams.

Re: Apple to Developers: Heads I win, tails you lose (part 2)

#57

Post by kj99 »

sneak wrote: post #25

Since when did we as an industry start championing rentseeking that adds no value? Yes, the App Store is valuable. No, generic payment processing rails aren’t. Even the 1-3% charged by CC companies is bullshit. Apple, of course, charges 10x this. The only reason they get away with it is because they have leveraged cryptography to stifle competition. If other app stores were possible on iOS, Facebook and Epic and Netf…

A dishonest comment since we know the app store fee is not just for payment processing.

Re: Apple to Developers: Heads I win, tails you lose (part 2)

#58

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

jwells89 wrote: post #31
bmoxb wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not advocating in either direction, but I'm curious what elements of iOS's UX you prefer over Android's?

For me a big part of it is how gestures track, the curves used by animations, inertia, bounciness, etc. Under iOS it all feels refined and naturalistic, whereas Android’s counterparts land somewhere in the uncanny valley and come off as more mechanical (fitting given its name, I suppose). Aside from that, in general you can feel more “seams” between components and rough edges all throughout Android’s UX. It reminds m…

> you can feel more “seams” between components

That's it. I've been struggling to figure out what I can't stand about iOS and it just clicked. It's the lack of seams. When something breaks I can never figure out what specifically broke, so I can't reason about my mistake (or know who to contact if it's not my mistake).

I like seams so much that I'm running google play services in a sandbox (Graphene OS) so google has to grovel for my permission like everybody else whenever they want to do something. It's a little annoying, but it's teaching me where the seams are.

Re: Apple to Developers: Heads I win, tails you lose (part 2)

#59

Post by janalsncm »

willsmith72 wrote: post #45
speedylight wrote: post #9

I don’t understand this issue too well to feel one or another. I just want all of my purchases and subscriptions to remain tied to my Apple ID and cancelable from my place. It makes life so much easier and saves money because it’s very hard to forget about subscriptions I no longer use when they’re all listed in one place. Also if I want to refund a purchase for whatever reason I can deal directly with Apple instead…

isn't that more of a personal finance problem than a tech platform problem? you can find all your subscriptions there in one place until you start a new subscription on the web (maybe because it's cheaper), or you have one on a console. now suddenly you have multiple places to look again there's no reason subscription management couldn't be managed at a higher level, outside of any tech platform. if 99% of banks were…

It is a problem of personal finance. One of the best things to do when fixing personal finances is to get organized. Having many subscriptions in the same place is a big step towards that.

The fact that not all subscriptions can be found there doesn’t take away from the ones that are. Perfect should not be the enemy of the good.

And that doesn’t even begin to touch the security aspect of it. Apple isn’t perfect but I trust them a heck of a lot more than the median no-name app developer out there.

Re: Apple to Developers: Heads I win, tails you lose (part 2)

#60

Post by jayski »

threeseed wrote: post #30
talkingtab wrote: post #14

This is an example of the incredible arrogance of companies like Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Facebook. They have the ability to pour an enormous amount of money into lawyers and lobbying so that even companies like Epic or countries like the Netherlands have little chance of controlling misbehavior. Even the IRS is having a hard time getting Microsoft to pay their 28 BILLION dollar tax bill. It should be cle…

You're simply wrong. And every court and government around the world agrees. Companies have a right to charge a fee for using their platform. Apple can not be forced to give you their SDKs, Services etc for free and help you sell that product on their marketplace for free. They have a right to charge something . You can rightfully argue that the 27% is way too high and courts have agreed. But those like Epic hypocrit…

> Apple can not be forced to give you their SDKs, Services etc for free and help you sell that product on their marketplace for free.

The argument is we wouldn't need their marketplace and services if they allowed users to easily download and install software downloaded from regular websites.

you know... the way it always worked and still works in Linux/BSD.

There are obviously security implications to this, but I believe if I own the device I should be able to take the risk.

As far as their SDKs they actually do need to provide those for free, otherwise nobody will develop software for iOS and they won't be able to sell devices.

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