[gambiting]

I just don't understand. I really try hard to understand, but I physically can't I think.

Let's say that hypothetically, there was another store present on iOS. Does that stop you(or anyone) from only ever using the Apple App Store?? On Android, there are several other stores available, yet I have never felt the need to use any of them - they exist, they have their own customers.....but....that's it.

It's like if you already have one shop in your village, so you prevent others from opening even though literally nothing would force you to go to these other shops and you can still enjoy the original shop as much as you did before. Literally nothing changes in your life, but you want to prevent others from having a choice, even if you yourself don't appreciate the choice. That's mindboggling to me.

[koyote]

Reading through the replies you got for this post is really quite interesting. I feel like what it boils down to is that there are a decent amount of people that prefer life under an authoritarian regime (whether governmental or corporate). A regime where someone they trust decides for them how they should enjoy their life and protects them from bad choices. Merely allowing a different party from offering a competing choice would undermine the whole premise.

It's a bit like the cruise ship industry where you forgo choice (compared to traveling outside of a tour) but gain safety and the benefit of not having to research or make decisions. If anyone could open up a restaurant or organise an outing on a cruise ship, then that perceived safety disappears and the need to make conscious decisions arises.

As this seems to be a reasonably common theme in these posts I wonder if there's a market for more products that follow a similar purchase incentive, like a fridge that only allows you to insert groceries you've bought from the trusted supermarket.

[Seanambers]

I pay the Apple tax so to say - so that my mobile experience is as hassle free as can be. And yes, it's worth it. It just works, and i never have to worry about shady apps or wonder too much about the quality of the apps that i download - theres always some lesser than others, but on the whole its all good.

Arguing for other app stores / unsigned apps on the iOS platform is counter intuitive to what made the ecosystem great in the first place.

I had android phones and did all the custom stuff & rooting from the G1 and forwards for many years, in the end i only regret not changing over sooner.

There is nothing great about the "freedom of choice" on the android platform, it all makes for a lesser experience unless you're really into it for other reasons - political/principle.

[gambiting]

But....but .....literally no one is forcing you to install and use these other stores. NOTHING about your experience changes at all. Again, I can install the Amazon store in my phone, but.....I just don't. Why is this such a revolutionary idea?

[chrisseaton]

Apple would have to do the work to modify their software to support multiple stores, and they’d have to support the code for that going forward.

They’d be doing that instead of something else productive that I could use.

So it’s a loss to me and other Apple users who appreciate the curated system at the moment.

Your analogy is ‘prevent’ but really it’s ‘not want to do the work to enable’. See how that’s not the same thing? Instead of 'not preventing someone opening a new shop in the village' you're asking them to cut a hole in the side of their store so someone in a greasy food cart can connect up to it and sell smelly burgers with poor food hygiene standards in the middle of their boutique, and then maintain that hole going forward.

They don't want to do that! Many of their customers don't want that! Those customers that do want it can go somewhere else, like Android!

[saagarjha]

How much work do you really think that it would take them to remove the entitlement on the daemon that installs apps? I have heard that entire App Store frontend was maintained by like a single engineer until like iOS 8. The change would be fairly simple; the amount of time they spend on fighting these things both in court and with technological measure in the OS is many orders of magnitude more than this.

[chrisseaton]

They think it’ll be worse. Many of their customers agree. If you don’t can’t you go elsewhere? Why impose on people happy minding their own business?

[gambiting]

>>If you don’t can’t you go elsewhere? Why impose on people happy minding their own business?

That's the same argument, word for word, that people used to defend businesses not serving coloured folk - after all, can't they just go elsewhere? And we as society decided no, they shouldn't have to go anywhere - if you run a business, you have to serve everyone, end of story. I think it's time to do the same for Apple - if you want to run an app platform, you have to allow choice. And if your choice is to stay with App Store and only install apps curated by apple - that's perfectly valid. No one is taking that away from you.

Again, how exactly does that inconvenience you, personally? No one is forcing you to use these other stores, no one is imposing anything on you. They will just exist somewhere for people who want them. Again, I'm on Android but I don't feel like I'm losing anything by the mere existence of the Amazon App store - it's there if you want it, if you don't then that's cool.

And yes, I absolutely think you are overexaggerating the technical difficulty behind allowing people to do this - all Apple needs to do it allow apps to install other apps from packages. It's hardly a groundbreaking architectural change, come on.

[chrisseaton]

I don't think it's a reasonable argument to put people oppressed due to their race with people who want their smartphone to work a bit differently at the same level.

> if you run a business, you have to serve everyone, end of story

This isn't even true! You can deny service to anyone for any reason as long as it's not a protected characteristic! Apple already cannot deny your app based on your race.

If a restaurant doesn't like your attitude they can ask you to leave. Can't Apple do the same?

> Again, how exactly does that inconvenience you, personally?

Because the smartphone gets worse. Less locked-down, less simple, more complex, more avenues of attack. More expensive to make and maintain.

But why does anyone have to justify why they don't like it? I think 'I don't want to do this' should be reason enough for Apple to not do it. As long as they aren't impacting people who aren't their customers it's their business not yours.

> no one is imposing anything on you

Yes you are you want to impose that Apple change their software to suit you - it's selfish.

You want it your way, I want it my way. Hope can we resolve this? How about we let Apple choose who to market to?

We can't make it a legally protected right to have products designed for people's random whims.

[gambiting]

>>I don't think it's a reasonable argument to put people oppressed due to their race with people who want their smartphone to work a bit differently at the same level.

Well, perhaps, my broader point is that the ability of businesses to govern themselves and set their own rules does end somewhere, and that line is decided by societies and can change with time. Things that were acceptable few years ago maybe aren't acceptable now, and vice versa.

>>Because the smartphone gets worse. Less locked-down, less simple, more complex, more avenues of attack

I just don't see that at all, sorry. The experience for 99.99% users won't change at all. Apple could have enabled this last week and you wouldn't have seen any difference at all.

>>We can't make it a legally protected right to have products designed for people's random whims.

Well, but it's not just a random whim, that's the crux of the issue. Once the size of a company and the market it controls gets big enough, it's only natural that they are forced to open to others. It happened to every industry before, why should apple be immune to this? It's the whole epic vs apple discussion again - if two sides want to engage in lawful business contract(sell each other software in this case) why should apple be the arbiter of these transactions? Or rather - why should you, the owner of your smartphone, be forced to use apple as the arbiter.

>>How about we let Apple choose who to market to?

They still can, literally nothing changes on that front. They still market to the same people, they still curate the apps like they used to, they still have 100% control of their app store and the device. The only thing that I would like to change is that ability to say "this is my device apple, I paid for it, let me install software that didn't go through your filter". Again, entirely optional. But we looped back to the first point that we are going to disagree on again - you think that will make the experience worse, I don't think it will.

I think we should agree to part ways on that - the discussion is as always enjoyable, but we might have exhausted the potential here :-)

[edmundsauto]

It would be a negative for me, because I would need to train my parents to never use this other store. Then their friends will get them to use it, because a sketchy app will be in that store that offers free money, or some other scam. My parents will then breach the secure containment of their phone, without really understanding what they're doing.

It would harm Apple, because when users try the third party app store and have problems, they will expect Apple to support it. If Apple doesn't do the support, it tarnishes their brand to that user.

[gambiting]

Well but that's like saying that cars shouldn't allow mods, because someone will convince your parents to install aftermarket mods and they will mod their cars and crash and die.

Like, sure, it can happen. But if your parents can be convinced by someone to install a 3rd party store and download something from it, they can be equally easily convinced to go to a dodgy website that will scam them from something else and their magical iPhone won't save them from it. Besides, the whole idea that adult people should be prevented from having choice for their own good is almost offensive to me, like ....don't we believe in personal freedom and choice? Your parents should be able to choose to lock down your their phones(or you can do it for them) but equally, if they want to unlock it - they should be able to.