[Rebelgecko]

This is a bit subjective, but IMO the guidelines don't provide a better end user experience. Sure, some of them do. But decisions like banning apps that compete with Apple don't seem to be done to help the end user

If the guidelines are actually good for the end user, why does Apple violate so many of the app store guidelines in their own apps?

[RomaTesla]

I'm curious if Apple banning competing apps is a real thing or just something media/haters created to create drama. I don't have an insider looks, so I honestly cannot know how those things go down. Do you happen to know any specific details? Genuinely curious :D

[toyg]

It's a real thing. Take f.lux: they spearheaded a feature, were never allowed onto iOS, then Apple developed a copycat feature.

Or the browser: there is no technical reason for stopping alternative browsers from getting onto iOS, but it would make Safari commercially irrelevant.

[jsjohnst]

> Take f.lux: they spearheaded a feature, were never allowed onto iOS, then Apple developed a copycat feature.

I love the subjective memory / interpretation here. Apple didn’t block f.lux, there was no API available on iOS for it to work. Apple decided rather than provide a public API method, they’d just provide the feature itself. Sucks for f.lux, but far less than it did for LumaDisplay and Sidecar.

> there is no technical reason for stopping alternative browsers from getting onto iOS

1) alternative browsers exist on iOS. Chrome for example! Sure, you’d be fair to say “not real Chrome”, but then see point 2

2) the technical reason you claim doesn’t exist very much does. Web browsers require the ability to have dynamic code execution from untrusted sources. Look at all the OS compromises historically from browser bugs and you can potentially understand why Apple wants to try to exert control there. The counter argument of course is that Apple has also failed here, there’s been multiple jailbreaks which could be triggered by visiting a webpage, but I see Apple using that to justify their actions further (if even we can’t get it right always, no way others will). I’m not claiming that parenthetical mentality is justified, but it likely plays a part in what Apple thinks.

[toyg]

I think the selective memory is not just mine... f.lux was working on iOS in 2011. Sure, they used a private API not allowed in appstore, but it worked fine - a whole 5 years before Apple released its copycat version.

As for the browser: dynamic code execution is a red herring - there are plenty of runtimes like python available on the appstore, and they execute all sorts of crap just fine. Modern browser engines are sandboxed so hard, they are equivalent to (or better than) anything you find in an OS. The security angle nowadays is just a flimsy excuse to keep Safari (the IE6 of our times) from becoming utterly irrelevant overnight.

[jsjohnst]

>> there was no API available on iOS

> they used a private API not allowed in appstore

So how did I have selective memory again?

[toyg]

private API != no API