[jmull]

I think Apple should mostly be allowed to run as crappy an App Store as they want.

But people should also be able to get apps from whatever store they want.

(Ground rules all app stored would have to follow based on technical, security, and legal concerns would be fine too, IMO.)

Of course Apple would never go for that, so we'll end up with whatever mess legal processes can wring out of them.

[matheusmoreira]

> But people should also be able to get apps from whatever store they want.

This the answer. The app store monopoly doesn't really matter, the real tyranny is needing Apple's cryptographic blessing to run software on our own computers. This should be literally illegal. Restore our computer freedom and their app store rent seeking becomes irrelevant.

[bloomca]

It's not just about that. I am sure if the court would force them to allow sideloading, they'll make sure to never promote your app if you decide to offer both options to the users.

[para_parolu]

And that’s fair. Apple doesn’t have to provide services to businesses

[Nevermark]

Punishing developers for not exclusively using their App Store would be clearly uncompetitive.

If they have to allow other stores, then they are not going to be allowed to punish developers for using them.

(Assuming the lowest bar possible in anti-competitive resolution follow through.)

[earthnail]

Not until alternative stores become competitive. Realistically they have such a monopoly thar you end up in a chiclen and egg situation. Their monopoly is so large that noone wants to distribute via small alt stores, meaning alt stores never get large.

[anilgulecha]

A chicken and egg problem is highly unlikely. Here's a few probable situations:

1) A fdroid equivalent pops up, which them becomes a collection of fantastic open source apps, and soon develops a strong user base.

2) Google launches play store for iPhone, which will on day 1 get millions of users.

3) Meta launches metaStore, which so the only way to get Facebook, threads, Instagram and WhatsApp. This becomes the fastest growing store in a matter of a week.

One may personally not like this world - but imo it's a better world than the one we have - personally for (1) to exist.

[qwytw]

> 3) Meta launches metaStore, which so the only way to get Facebook, threads, Instagram and WhatsApp. This becomes the fastest growing store in a matter of a week.

Why? They don't do this on Android.

At then end of the day the number of active users would fall if they do this. That's unavoidable. So what incentives do they have to not distribute on the App Store? It's not like (unlike in Epic's case) Apple is requiring Facebook to hand over 30% of its revenue.

fdroid is of course great. Extremely niche and not that significant, though.

> Google launches play store for iPhone, which will on day 1 get millions of users.

Amazon tried that on Android. Of course I would expect Google to do much better but that doesn't mean a lot.

[close04]

On #3, Meta could have done it for Android and I don't think they did. Actually if Android is a god estimation of how it looks like with 3rd party stores, it won't be super disruptive.

Unless the iOS market is so lucrative it will garner far more interest.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Meta launches metaStore, which so the only way to get Facebook, threads, Instagram and WhatsApp

Would note the trade off: this store will be a bastion of tracking, possibly with Meta requiring its bugs be installed for inclusion.

[crossroadsguy]

As long as they clearly give the option, at the time of first setup - or an upgrade, to select which app store becomes default; and make it very easy to change default app store later, just like default browser, default search engine et cetera. But they must not be allowed to disallow for the reason that "you are on another app store, we don't like you, go away!".

Yup, it's then fair and they can keep the banner in their App Store that screams at font size 38 "This Journal App Is Da Best", "No Other Note App Has Been Made Greater Than This One".

[Cthulhu_]

It's a tradeoff. You may have the knowledge and risk awareness to install anything, circumvent protections like you still can on MacOS, but the vast majority does not and should not have that power; this led to huge botnets during the Windows XP era when many internet connections were first set up. They overcompensated with Vista, asking permissions for everything so people developed a kneejerk "just hit accept". The iPhone came out not long after, with a safety by default - which invariably meant restricting what a user can and cannot do and install on their system.

I think it's been a net positive overall. The percentage of people that want to do and install more with it is small.

[ndriscoll]

The problem with Windows XP was that at the time you plugged it into your modem directly (or the computer contained the modem if it was dialup) with no firewall, and it would get exploited in seconds without any user interaction through some default Microsoft background service. Wifi routers were probably a much larger impact than any operating system changes. Especially anything user facing. It's also why clickbait silliness aside, running windows XP isn't actually that likely to run into issues today.

[zb3]

> It's a tradeoff. You may have the knowledge and risk awareness [...] but the vast majority does not and should not have that power

But that power is not more dangerous than having guns, right? So.. while I can apply for a gun license, I can't apply for an unrestricted computing license, so something is wrong here, don't you think? Unless you believe guns are less dangerous.

[matheusmoreira]

> But that power is not more dangerous than having guns, right?

It actually is.

Free computers are intolerably subversive. They can literally wipe out entire sectors of the economy just by copying artificially scarce things. They can defeat police, judges, militaries, governments by democratizing access to strong cryprography.

They want to control our computers at all costs. We must resist. Computers are too important for us to allow them to be controlled and limited.

[kjkjadksj]

I can shoot an executive and it would tank the stock far more than anything I could do with a computer.

[echelon]

> > But people should also be able to get apps from whatever store they want.

The web. Without scare walls or hidden "enable downloads" menu settings.

And apps should no longer have to use first party payment rails, first party authentication/sign in rails, or be forced to jump through review or upgrade hoops.

[c0balt]

> The web. Without scare walls or hidden "enable downloads" menu settings.

I'm not too sure about that, for non-technical users the warnings before installing an APK on Android are very likely a good thing. There's a lot of malware out there and, similar to running a downloaded Exe on Windows, you should at least explicitly confirm it's execution.

[nchmy]

The warnings arent needed on the web, because it's vastly more secure, flexible, etc.. Steve Jobs even coined the PWA concept before going the fiefdom route

[labcomputer]

I don’t know whether to feel happy or sad for you.

Happy because you have nobody in your life in a vulnerable position to be taken advantage of the inevitable malware that will be installed on their device as a result of your wish.

Or sad because those people are most likely to be grandparents or elderly aunts and uncles. Perhaps you never even got to know them.

[tekkk]

What a stupid argument. Maybe grandpas and grandmas should get a different phone then, like a Doro, and stop bringing the rest of us down. And it doesn't even hold water as my mother has been scammed by legitimate App Store apps that have charged extra-fees just because they could.

[ben_w]

> Maybe grandpas and grandmas should get a different phone then, like a Doro

They did, they got an iPhone.

> my mother has been scammed by legitimate App Store apps that have charged extra-fees just because they could.

Did it empty her bank balance by abusing the private NFC payment APIs that Apple are being ordered to open up?

Did it cryptolock all her files?

Did it activate the camera and mic to spy on her for blackmail?

These are things that we need to worry about with random things we download on desktop these days. It's not 2007 any more, I have an entire spare computer for untrusted software.

[tekkk]

I don't want to get into politics but dont you think it's funny when you can purchase assault rifles, made for killing people, yet we are so afraid of having the poor individuals in control of their own phones. Or farming equipment - the list seems to keep growing.

It's just corporate propaganda that all hell would break loose, you could just offer installing baby mode at Apple physical store that can only be removed at said places. Yeah some people would still climb the fence and touch the power lines but look, can we save them all? Should we? In this world of merciless exploitation, wouldnt it be just fair we stopped pretending it never was about anything else but money?

[ohdeargodno]

>Did it empty her bank balance by abusing the private NFC payment APIs that Apple are being ordered to open up?

NFC payment APIs have been open on Android for decades and no such thing of the sort has ever happened. You cannot magically conjure up a payment from Apple Pay to <X> without user involvement and confirmation.

>Did it cryptolock all her files?

Apps do not have write access to all your files.

>Did it activate the camera and mic to spy on her for blackmail?

Every mobile device now has a giant notification saying that the device is using the microphone or recording video.

The disingenuous "having an open app store/not being locked in the walled garden is a security risk" is getting tiring, especially when it's basically all lies now. Unless your argument is that Apple is too incompetent to write APIs properly, in which case I wonder why you think that said APIs being private would prevent anything.

[labcomputer]

Or maybe the iPhone should be that phone and those who don’t like the closed ecosystem should get something else?

Why would buy a phone that doesn’t work the way you like when alternatives exist?

[matheusmoreira]

Because we want the iPhone on our terms.

[tliltocatl]

Yet another "think of the children", except now it's think of the elderly. We CAN NOT make the world safe for everyone without also making it a total crapsack for everyone. It's simply not an option that exists.

[dangus]

You say “they would never go for this” but they do it on the Mac.

It’s funny how they are their own counter example. They have no leg to stand on.

[rootusrootus]

I don't think the Mac is a great counter example. It started as a fully open platform, so the expectations are different. The iPhone was never anything other than an appliance, Apple is not trying to turn an open garden into a walled one, because it started that way.

[johnnyanmac]

Sure, in theory.

But what really happened is that apple kept a stranglehold on what more and more became a general computing device. And they've done enough anti-compettive maneuvers to have the EU make them open up. I wouldn't be surprised if the US eventually comes to a similar decision.

Apple may not be as blatant about it as the other big tech, but I hope it's not contentious to say that all three big companies needs a round of anti-trust overhaul.

[jterrys]

I think the problem is that the app store is perceived as a general computing platform compared to what it was originally birthed from: Built in immutable applications on a mobile phone.

[epohs]

Counter example to what? Why should they not be able to run both a relatively open ecosystem and a mostly closed one?

I don’t think Apple is arguing that it is impossible to allow more open ways to install apps on iPhones. I think they’re saying that they don’t want to, and that they shouldn’t have to.

[jchw]

> Counter example to what? Why should they not be able to run both a relatively open ecosystem and a mostly closed one?

> I don’t think Apple is arguing that it is impossible to allow more open ways to install apps on iPhones. I think they’re saying that they don’t want to, and that they shouldn’t have to.

Apple volunteers the position that they couldn't possibly open the iOS ecosystem themselves, not just that they don't want to, making some very amusing claims in the process.[1] They also don't want to, but the more you dig into possible "whys", you get into a lot of troubling realities quickly.

Epic Games, on the other hand, is arguing that they actually should have to, at least to some extent. There are actually a lot of reasons why Apple's App Store practices might violate the law, and to my understanding, Epic Games is alleging that Apple's App Store practices constitute "illegal tying" whereby Apple unlawfully ties its payment processing service with its app distribution. That's far from the only potential legal issue that the App Store could face just based on current, existing law. (Note: I am not a lawyer, so take this with a grain of salt; but nothing I am saying is too original or groundbreaking.)

And of course, it's always worth remembering that what's legal today can be regulated tomorrow. I don't really believe lawmakers or the general public really have had enough time to take a look at the impact that Apple/Google app stores have had on the software market and decide if these practices should be legal. The EU seems to think they shouldn't, and while I don't agree with the EU on everything, I tend to agree.

[1]: https://observer.com/2021/05/even-craig-federighi-apples-hea...

[jajko]

Luckily corporate greed it not the only thing that matters in this world. If they want to sell in half a billion rich market of EU, they will soon need to start behaving more morally. If not they can fuck off, write off 20-30% of company value and EU will have better products, (almost) everybody wins.

Given how low morally they are, the room for improvement is massive and easy to move into. As you write, they didn't do it so far because they were not forced, and waiting for some good moral behavior 'just because it would be nice from them' is rather dumb.

[jjtheblunt]

It's possible they'll allow this on iOS once finer granularity logging of battery usage is pervasive, how fine is anyone's guess, so as to track down what apps, and of whatever provenance, degrade some kpi like user impression of battery life.

[mrandish]

This is about money not battery life. Apple makes billions of dollars in highly profitable revenue by cryptographically blocking users from controlling their own devices.

[jjtheblunt]

You could be right.

That said, i was an engineer for several years in Apple and primary internal concerns were battery life and its influence on user experience; the removal of Flash viability, favoring html5, is an example: profiling of Flash apps written in the wild showed code that routinely drained battery with aplomb...inexplicable to end users not also programmers.

[mrandish]

It's unsurprising that the internal narrative focused on the plausible user, product and technical issues which happen to align with sustaining the multi-billion dollar monopoly. Senior leadership isn't going to say the 'quiet part' out loud in all-hands meetings.

I also worked in a valley giant with a multi-billion dollar monopoly position being preserved in a similar way. But I was senior enough to see both sides - the divisional all-hands mtgs and (some of) the exec staff mtgs (my boss was an EVP reporting directly to the CEO). The instructive part was observing what happened in the senior staff mtgs when a serious user, product or technical issue emerged which directly conflicted with sustaining the multi-billion dollar monopoly. Even in small mtgs with just the CEO, a couple EVPs and a handful of their direct reports, I never witnessed any explicit collusion or overt manipulation. The reason is surprisingly simple, they don't need to. They can make "the right thing" happen without being so obvious - just by controlling the agenda, attendees and context and then asking the right questions, prioritizing certain concerns and selecting the right working group leader to "come back with options which balance these concerns". These EVPs didn't get to where they are by plainly speaking their mind, although they are masters of appearing to do so when it serves them. At that level, there are degrees of subtlety and multi-dimensional chess that make Machiavelli look like a toddler.

All those years of being "in the room where it happens" fairly frequently and there wasn't one moment where I thought, "Wow, if I leaked a tape recording of the last 60 seconds, somebody very important is losing their job." These people are far to experienced and skilled at this for it to be that simple. Which isn't to say there may not have been some very private conversations between only the CEO and an EVP or two where things were said explicitly - but I'm not even sure that was necessary. Frankly, the euphemistic language and context control is sufficient that it's probably easier for the them to "stay in character" all the time. In fact, I think some of them sort of believe it themselves - or at least prefer to avoid stewing on the more "unpleasant realities" of the job. Most of these people are, in their own minds, still the 'good guy' in the story they tell themselves.

[azangru]

> But people should also be able to get apps from whatever store they want.

I agree with you. But, as devil's advocate, why not suggest that Apple should be allowed to run as crappy a store as they want, while people should be free not to buy Apple?

[Y-bar]

People are free to buy Apple (or an Android flavour, or no smartphone at all). But there are many many things which goes into a buying decision than what manner of software delivery is available.

This duopoly does not truly offer a lot of choice, so any criticism must happen from within the confines of the current reality.

I’m not going to tell a pedestrian who wants safer roads to stop being a participant in traffic, I accept that they have very little real choice.

Having to uncritically accept anything and everything the manufacturer of your device does is not really viable and is a recipe for a worse future.

[nabla9]

> Of course Apple would never go for that

They do in EU, because they were forced to.

AltStore PAL https://altstore.io/

Buildstore https://builds.io/

Aptoide https://en.aptoide.com

.. and so on

[troupo]

They also go out of the way to make these stores prohibitively expensive to set up and still applies app review to apps distributed through those stores (even though they claim they don't and won't)

[nabla9]

> prohibitively expensive

fact checking

Apple Tier 1 mandatory store services:

  0.5€ Core Technology fee per install
  2%   Initial acquisition fee 
  5%   Store service fee   

This includes app reviews, manual updates, and fraud protection. This tier is mandatory for any app that promotes external payment options.

Compare that to 20-30% that Apple's own AppStore take and its a bargain.

Even with Tier 2 with marketing tools, automatic updates, app recommendations, analytics dashboards, and promotional features the cost is only 10% for small business program members, 15% for others.

[troupo]

> fact checking

You forgot that just to set up an alternative app store you need this:

--- start quote ---

Provide Apple a stand-by letter of credit in the amount of €1,000,000 from a financial institution that’s at least A-rated or equivalent by S&P, Fitch, or Moody’s, and maintain that standby letter of credit as long as your alternative app marketplace is in operation

--- end quote ---

> 0.5€ Core Technology fee per install

per install

So if your app is suddenly popular, you have to pay through the nose.

> This includes app reviews, manual updates, and fraud protection.

Why is Apple involved in app review on alternative app stores?

Why is Apple doing manual updates?

Considering the amount of scam apps on App Store, Apple isn't doing fraud protection in their own store.

> This tier is mandatory for any app that promotes external payment options.

Why? What does Apple have to do with external payment options?

[half-kh-hacker]

50c per install (of which there are hundreds of thousands) to a party who should be uninvolved is not reasonable

[crossroadsguy]

I wonder what Apple's bigger fear is - losing that ~30% cut, which is massive, or when they have to compete with alternative app stores and when finally people see how forward "software finesse" has come to in 2025 and how pathetic Apple's software/service ecosystem has been, losing most of the remaining whatever reduced cut it was; i.e. getting hammered at both ends. I think that's why they are fighting tooth and nail to keep the curtain as it is on the grand stage of privacy theatre.

[merelysounds]

> how pathetic Apple's software/service ecosystem has been

Compared to what?

Also, are we certain that a better alternative would really appear? E.g. I’m aware of f-droid and I’d install a similar ios libre software store, but I’m not aware of any, even in the EU where alt stores are possible.

[pabs3]

... and we should be able to run whatever OS on Apple phones we want.

[Cthulhu_]

But the OS is the main thing that sets Apple apart from other phones; you can get equivalent hardware for half the price, and you get to install whatever OS you want already. The prison is mainly in your head in this case.

[samdoesnothing]

People are allowed to get apps from whatever store they want. There is nothing stopping someone from purchasing a device that supports the google play store and downloading whatever they want from that store.

I have no right to complain that I can't run Apple programs on a Windows computer, and Microsoft shouldn't be compelled to support MacOS software.

[groguzt]

apple isn't allowed to choose whatever I can install on the device that I own and that I purchased with my own money. I am not renting the device. Get your dirty fingers off of what I can or can't do with it.

[8note]

https://www.darlinghq.org/

seems like you can get it to run on windows via wsl if you want to run apps built for macs on your windows machine

is there a need to complain? windows might not be putting in support for it, but unlike apple in their store, they arent actively preventing you from doing so

[TulliusCicero]

Ridiculous argument. Microsoft isn't stopping me from running Apple programs on my Windows PC.

[LocalH]

That's not the argument, and you know it. It's not complaints that cross-platform binaries don't run, it's that Apple gatekeeps development in terms of users actually being able to use the fruits of that development (without onerous work arounds like having to reinstall once per week, or jailbreak).

[jterrys]

I agree with you in principle.

But I also, I guess, kinda just have a dumb thought about this whole ordeal. Broadly speaking, we are in a position where we, the general public with the backing of the government, want to change how a private corporation uses it's products that it sold to us. Not for any other reason that would shield us from harm or prevent risk, but rather because the corporation's products are so successful a lot of people use them too much! But wait! That's not actually true because there's enough products on the market that we don't actually need to use this product...but we like it because its incrementally the best and the chat bubbles are blue and applications run better and seem higher quality (which is a selling point of the product we are now actively dismantling but I digress...)

I know its tiring to use food cliches, but imagine if like, I make a business selling apple pies and my apple pies are incredibly successful and everyone eats them all the time and now all of a sudden I need to also guarantee that my business can make cherry pies because my apple pies sell so damn well. But truth is, its not really about the apple pies at all. It's about my baking trays. We actually just want to make sure that the baking trays of my business are now capable of also cooking for cherry pies even though that's got nothing to do with my fucking business. I sell apple pies. I'm so confused

[concinds]

Okay. Now flip this free-enterprise metaphor.

Apple is dictating the behavior of every business operating in the digital market (Apple itself brags that this amounts to over $1 trillion, with a T, in economic activity), with the App Store, which has 70-80% profit margins, and numerous dev horror stories. Rejecting your update over something they previously approved, or something they let all your competitors do. Forcing their IAP system on you. Dictating what links you can put in your app, how you present prices (don't call out the Apple tax), what you can tell consumers in emails. Forcing their direct competitors to have an inferior user experiences (can't subscribe in Spotify, can't buy books in Kindle; oh, and bundling Apple Music/Books/TV with the OS, and advertising them throughout the OS). Threatening retaliation if you complain publicly ("If you run to the press, it never helps.") Blocking VPNs or secure messaging in authoritarian countries, and you can't sideload. Sabotaging the web to keep their monopoly (even trying to kill PWAs recently).

Apple feels entitled to a higher profit margin on your business than your business will ever achieve for itself! That's nuts!

[Nevermark]

Large corporations with large marketshare can easily do significantly uncompetitive things, with little effort on their part.

No monopoly required.

All that is required is that they have large marketshare, an important product, and it is difficult for users to change to alternatives, or avoid its uncompetitive behavior.

Choosing a phone involves balancing numerous features of devices. There is no phone market with the thousands of competing devices it would take to really cover what a customer might ideally want. So choices often balance so many things, involve so much practical investment, that they make switching devices over a few things, or even many things, from awfully unpleasant to very difficult.

And, with great market power, comes great responsibility: to not become a barrier to competitive innovation and hard work.

By definition, Apple's strict gatekeeping App Store, a significant feature on a significant general purpose computing platform, is anti-competitive. There is no technical reason why side loading or side-stores couldn't thrive, on such a general purpose device intertwined in all our lives.

Onerous fees and terms and selective limitation (relative to Apple's own offerings) for developers make it even more anticompetitive.

Of course, anyone who likes having fewer options, or just the options they have now, is free to not explore others. For now and forever. Amen.

[pjc50]

> Broadly speaking, we are in a position where we, the general public with the backing of the government, want to change how a private corporation uses it's products that it sold to us

Yes, because it's "we the people" not "we the corporations".