Agreed. Instead of rectifying this via monopoly abuse laws, there should be regulations applicable to all hardware providers for allowing alternative software distribution mechanisms.
You want to make it illegal for someone to make a piece of hardware that can only run binaries signed by the manufacturer?
I can’t understand this at all. If I go through the trouble to create a product and I want to control the user experience for that product, that’s my right and privilege. The market will decide if they want to purchase my product or not.
Consumers have spoken, and spoken extremely loudly, that they like Apple’s approach. Why would you want to deny the right for this product to exist?
It’s an amazing product, and what Apple has accomplished with their App Store is nothing short of incredible. I love their approach and I think they are 100% entitled to charge what they want on their own marketplace.
> You want to make it illegal for someone to make a piece of hardware that can only run binaries signed by the manufacturer?
I'm not sure why this is supposed to be controversial. It's not a prohibition on checking signatures, it's just a requirement to give the user the option of doing something else.
Once you sell something it's not yours anymore. Companies shouldn't be allowed to stick up everyone in an ancillary market just because they have more market power.
> I can’t understand this at all. If I go through the trouble to create a product and I want to control the user experience for that product, that’s my right and privilege. The market will decide if they want to purchase my product or not.
That's assuming that markets are perfect. What you're saying would be true if there were two versions of the iPhone, one that could only run signed apps and one that was exactly the same but can also run unsigned apps and the customer chose the first one. But that isn't the case, and because that isn't the case you end up forcing someone who wants an iPhone for a reason other than mandatory signing to accept mandatory signing (and the consequent app store monopoly) even though they don't want it. That isn't the market deciding, it's the manufacturer deciding for the market.
> Consumers have spoken, and spoken extremely loudly, that they like Apple’s approach.
This is not really supported by the evidence. The large majority of phone customers chose Android and even among iPhone customers there are multiple other reasons (hardware, UI, status signaling) to choose an iPhone even if you don't want or don't care about app gatekeeping.
The fact that customers don't want it is the whole issue. The first time most users are given a choice between installing an app they want that isn't approved or not having the app, they're going to install it. And given a choice between a distribution method that restricts apps and then charges 30% more and one that doesn't and has lower prices, they're going to pick the lower prices. Otherwise Apple wouldn't have to lock all the doors and windows from the outside -- you could just choose to never install anything outside Apple's store, even if you had the option to do otherwise.
>> Consumers have spoken, and spoken extremely loudly, that they like Apple’s approach.
> This is not really supported by the evidence...
This isn’t about Apple vs Android or market share. The success of iOS speaks for itself, and in particular the success of the App Store speaks for itself. It is self-evident from the billions of dollars that apps have earned (is it tens of billions now?) that the model is successful and widely used both by developers and consumers. Apple users are much more prolific spenders on the Apple App Store than users of the Android market as well, the majority of that money going directly to developers. This is partly demographics, but also partly the security, reliability, and trust provided by the walled garden.
> And given a choice between a distribution method that restricts apps and then charges 30% more and one that doesn't and has lower prices
As long as apps that are not sold through the Apple Store do not use any Apple APIs to operate, that would be fair.
But if you want to use the massive infrastructure that Apple has built [1] then I think you have to play by Apple’s rules.
The iPhone is a device which you own, yes, but it is also a massive collection of services which Apple spends 10s of billions of dollars developing and supporting in order to deliver the overall experience.
As an app developer, the APIs, services, documentation, training, support, and marketing combine to justify the 30%. The “App Store” application itself, and all the search, discovery, reviews, auto-updates, billing, services, and support is just one piece of the massive infra that Apple provides to all the apps running on its platform.
> The success of iOS speaks for itself, and in particular the success of the App Store speaks for itself. It is self-evident from the billions of dollars that apps have earned (is it tens of billions now?) that the model is successful and widely used both by developers and consumers.
Requiring everyone to use something and then claiming that everyone wants to use it because everyone uses it is a bit circular, isn't it?
> This is partly demographics, but also partly the security, reliability, and trust provided by the walled garden.
But why do you need the walls instead of just a sign that says "now leaving Apple's garden"? If being in Apple's store means you're trusted and make more money then go be in Apple's store. That still doesn't explain why it should be prohibited for a user to install an app outside of it. And then we would find out which factors actually make the difference, instead of claiming it's this and then taking an action inconsistent with it -- if nobody wanted to install apps outside the store then there would be no reason to prohibit it because no one would be trying to do it.
> As long as apps that are not sold through the Apple Store do not use any Apple APIs to operate, that would be fair.
They don't even allow that. If they did you would soon have alternate APIs from Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Canonical, Mozilla or others. But Apple encouraging that would be like Microsoft encouraging use of Sun Java. Apple gets more from people using their API than the people get from using it instead of an alternative.
Whether this is your right and privilege is determined by laws and regulations. At the moment, it is. At the same time, there are clearly different opinions as demonstrated by this thread, and your 100% agreement may or may not reflect how society overall feels about this issue or whether it's a good idea.
Neither does my opinion, of course. And either way, the fact that people like the Apple user experience doesn't mean they like or are even informed about the benefits and drawbacks of the iOS App Store model. They may have spoken for that model, or they may hate that model but still buy iPhones because they communicate with the rest of their Apple devices, or because the hardware is innovative and superior, or because they don't want to be tracked by a much scarier surveillance machinery. Without separating the parts and letting each compete on its own, we'll never know what about it is something consumers want and what about it they'd rather pass on.
I'm not calling for an end to products like Apple's. I think it's great that people have access to devices that follow clear policies and security practices which are guaranteed by a trustworthy party.
I do think, though, that this decision should be made by the user in the end. The opportunity to set defaults is already an extremely strong lever for the first-party vendor, and people such as yourself who like it as is have no reason to change anything about it.
I also think that competition can and should happen on different levels, and that control of e.g. hardware or system APIs should not automatically translate to exclusive control over the third-party ecosystem, unless the user explicitly wants this. One possible approach to regulating this, without preventing actual highly integrated products, could be to require the vendor to allow third-party app stores if the product ships with an app store itself. If the iOS experience is actually better with iOS App Store compared to a third-party app store with e.g. lower fees, better search and less stringent controls, why not let them battle it out and let the consumer decide?
It's important to recognize that Apple has created world-class products. It's also important to recognize that the existing duopoly is an extremely strong detractor against competition. It's like the government inviting bids for a giant construction project - if they require the bidders to do everything and the kitchen sink, then only the largest consortiums will be able to apply, whereas if the project is split into several reasonably-sized parts then smaller companies can compete as well and the end result will be cheaper, better executed and more accountable. I think we all agree that competition is a good thing, the question is how large to draw the boundary of what constitutes an integrated product and what should be considered out of scope, to compete in a different market. I think we owe it to society and to future businesses to ensure that a superior product still has a chance of succeeding in the marketplace.
I can’t understand this at all. If I go through the trouble to create a product and I want to control the user experience for that product, that’s my right and privilege. The market will decide if they want to purchase my product or not.
Consumers have spoken, and spoken extremely loudly, that they like Apple’s approach. Why would you want to deny the right for this product to exist?
It’s an amazing product, and what Apple has accomplished with their App Store is nothing short of incredible. I love their approach and I think they are 100% entitled to charge what they want on their own marketplace.