Please don't wish for a 'free' App Store

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  • Reply 61 of 82
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member

    ranson said:
    Owners of an iPhone should be able to install whatever software they want on it, without fear of their warranty for the hardware being voided. Apple impeding that ability (and bloggers discouraging it) is not a Good Thing. Certainly people should install software at their own peril, but adults who own their devices should not have someone else dictate that for them.
    Anything you buy has restrictions, so don't single out one smartphone company.  Do you get to install whatever you want on LG, Samsung, or Vizio TVs How about Roku?  Do you get to install apps on car infotainment screens? You want an iPhone, but don't like the policies? Put your money where your whine is and take it to a competitor. Some of us would prefer an appliance model that works. Now, if there were no other competitor in smartphones, maybe you have a point.
    Those are not general purpose computing devices.  iPhone, iPad, and Mac are.  Big difference.
    Now you're making an artificial distinction. 
    The LG TV has an app store installs apps, movies and music. It's a general computing device; it just doesn't fit in your pocket, a bit like my Mac.
    uraharaisrandyspock1234watto_cobra
  • Reply 62 of 82
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member

    ibanks said:
    ranson said:
    Rayz2016 said:
    ranson said:
    Having the Apple-endorsed app store, and allowing third party app stores separately, should be fine. They are not mutually exclusive. One of the areas where Apple struggles is giving users choice (e.g., do i want that icon in the control center to _really_ turn off bluetooth or just disable it for however long apple decides) and expects them to just be happy with what Apple believes to be best. That is great for 99% of the use cases, but Apple doesn't know _you_ or _me_ and can't meet every use case by locking things down. Owners of an iPhone should be able to install whatever software they want on it, without fear of their warranty for the hardware being voided. Apple impeding that ability (and bloggers discouraging it) is not a Good Thing. Certainly people should install software at their own peril, but adults who own their devices should not have someone else dictate that for them.

    Your last point is the problem. 

    Folk won't take responsibility for what they install from places outside the Apple ecosystem. They'll want Apple to fix their phones that they've installed god-knows-what from god-knows-where. They'll take to Twitter and complain that the battery life of their phone has halved since they've installed a piece or software that Apple has never seen and has no visibility over. They will not be able to prevent folk from installing cracked and insecure profiles that lay the platform open to malware.

    Seriously, there are other phones out there which allow you to install whatever you want. If Apple doesn't want to do that then I can't see why they should be forced to.

    So because there is a possibility that idiots exist in the world, Apple should lock everything down for everyone? No. And Apple will lose this battle.
    You’d have to understand how many “idiots” there may be. Every single day, I repeat every single day we have at least ten people come into my store (I work for a cellphone carrier) with issue stating their phone is messed up because one of their apps don’t work. We tell them, we aren’t in the position to troubleshoot third party apps considering our company did not create them. The very first thing they say is, “well I bought the phone from ya’ll”, and we politely say yes this is true, but we provide you the service to make and receive phone calls and access the data network. Everything else is a result of the developer of the app and you have to reach out to them for support, not us and not Apple (if it’s not an Apple app). 

    I say all of that to say that customers assume that we as wireless carriers created the phone they are using and should deal with its app issues. Therefore, if people install apps elsewhere than the AppStore, they will expect Apple to deal with those issues and it’s not their position to do so, it’s up to whomever they retrieved the software from to resolve the issue. 

    Exactly.

    So that's why I think a possible solution is a completely separate spin-off company with a completely separate phone platform.

    The only problem with this is that malware from unregulated downloads can easily infect the regular iPhones. People who are dumb enough to buy from an unregulated app store are also dumb enough to grant access to their keyboard, their address book, the file system on their connected computers … 

    On second thought, this will probably make the problem worse. 😳
    israndyspock1234watto_cobra
  • Reply 63 of 82
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member


    ranson said:
    It's not about who shouts loud enough. It is about which government agency is going to reign in Apple first, and force them to permit freedom of choice on devices that their customers own. My bet is that the EU will move first, and it will happen in the next 6-9 months. The handwriting is on the wall and there will ultimately be no alternative for Apple. The resistance between now and that time is simply a delay tactic and Apple knows it.
    I just hope you are there pushing the government to open up all digital and traditional businesses as well please.  All diabetic monitors should allow any strips to be used. All TV platforms should be opened including Samsung, LG, Vizio, Fire TV, and Roku -- HBO Max shouldn't be held hostage to Roku or Amazon for not wanting to share!  Anyone should be able to have Walmart, Amazon, or Target sell their product, with no slotting fees!  I should be able to reprogram my car's computers.. all of them, but certainly the infotainment stuff, right?

    If you own it, you should be able to do whatever.  I fear the outrage culture here will have governments  forcing Apple to change  and appease, and it will be great for some, but terrible for many, many others..  Entitlements is alive and well.

    Yup, it will be a disaster for the majority, and once unregulated malware is rife across the ecosystem, pretty much the end for Apple's key selling point.
    israndyspock1234watto_cobra
  • Reply 64 of 82
    uraharaurahara Posts: 733member
    Agreed with @Rayz2016 on 99% of his points/explanations.
    spock1234watto_cobra
  • Reply 65 of 82
    Opening up the platform to third party AppStore’s would besides stifle user experience / Security and Privacy, stifle the small developers. The big ones or the ones that are making it want this as they can create and drive their own store, the grass root developer will be the victim. How so? Simple Apple would need to ask more money so in fact killing off the grass root developer community, ah but there are free alternatives, yeah wright the majority of customers would not use / find them let alone trust them with their credit cards ... So opening up will stifle the small grass root developer ... but hey that is something I would do if I have an above average mail app that is being challenged by small innovative developer companies ...
    israndyspock1234watto_cobra
  • Reply 66 of 82
    dysamoriadysamoria Posts: 3,430member
    ...blah blah blah “virtue-signaling” ...blah blah blah...

     Using this phrase makes people sound like red pill cult members or social-injustice-warriors...

    And why the gell dows autocorrect still not work correctly on this damned forum??? Undo also doesn’t work. Paste text, undo does nothing. WTF? Double-tap doesn’t select words anymore either?

     Also: why is the actual functional text box smaller than the outline on this form? It makes tapping to get the keyboard really annoying and makes it so that a tap elsewhere inside what seems to be the text box results in losing the keyboard.

    web-based text editing continues to be a PITA on iOS, especially on certain forums. I came
    here to reply to the laborious editorial and I end up ranting about this STILL CRAPPY Safari text edit field behavior. It’s been since 2013 that various problems of this type have still not been fixed. Do Apple not USE their own products??
  • Reply 67 of 82
    jdb8167jdb8167 Posts: 626member
    Rayz2016 said:

    jdb8167 said:
    Here’s how I would go about fixing the complaints.

    1. Add a feature that allows users to change their default apps. Mail, Web or anything else. (This might be already on its way).

    2. Create an alternate distribution service within Apple. Applications still need review but only for preventing malware, copyright violations, and egregious privacy problems. The developer pays Apple reasonable hosting fees per application and for download bandwidth at a price similar to cloud services like Amazon’s AWS. Apple supplies the developer with a web address that the developer can link to on their own website or app store where the user can download the app. The developer is responsible for all purchase or subscription requirements. Apple does not advertise or promote these apps on their App Store.

    Apple controls the download web addresses so piracy is no more of a problem than with the current App Store. If a copyright or other legal problem comes up, the app download is removed. The apps are marked with a flag that says battery or performance problems on any device where the app is installed does not get Apple Care support until those apps are disabled or removed. Apple could provide an easy mechanism to turn off or delete non-curated apps for diagnosis and general cleanup.

    This does not seem particularly difficult to set up and it should stop the vast majority of complaints and solve the no third party app store problem. Anyone can host their own website and promote their own apps and do their own sales and marketing.

    This won't work because the sheer cost of reviewing every single piece of crap that turns up on every store would cause months of delays and would be impossible to forecast and plan for.

    Yes, of course it doesn't seem difficult to set up: you don't run an app store servicing a billion customers, that's why it doesn't seem difficult to set up.
    Apple already does a form of this for their TestFlight service. The hosting fees could cover the cost of review. Most developers would continue to use the current system.
    israndy
  • Reply 68 of 82
    k2kwk2kw Posts: 2,075member
    darkvader said:
    If Apple will end the monopoly on iOS app sales they can charge whatever they want for their app store.  All they have to do is let us load apps from wherever we choose.

    If they won't do it willingly, then they need antitrust regulators to force them to do it.
    Last thing I want is any change in Apple's control of what's on the hardware.    That protection is the reason why I'm will to keep using Apple with it's crappy Siri versus the Google Assistant.   But what the government should be doing is imposing at least 50% tariffs on electronics manufactured in China.   Trump was pretty much a failure there.
    muthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 69 of 82
    israndyisrandy Posts: 13member
    Yeah, those Chinese are victims of their own success. They just need to work in an iPhone factory of a few years and bam, back to the country with enough money to support their families for the rest of their lives.

    We should put a stop to that kind of success right now. Make them all buy cars and live in big houses with air conditioning as we do. Of course, then there is India that would come along and take up the labor market that China has currently taken from Japan.

    You know, maybe it would be better if we just all lived in huts and grew our own food, much less strife. Hmmm... Actually, there are a bunch of us doing that now, they live under the freeway overpass. Those guys are pioneers!
  • Reply 70 of 82
    canukstormcanukstorm Posts: 2,695member
    Rayz2016 said:

    ranson said:
    Owners of an iPhone should be able to install whatever software they want on it, without fear of their warranty for the hardware being voided. Apple impeding that ability (and bloggers discouraging it) is not a Good Thing. Certainly people should install software at their own peril, but adults who own their devices should not have someone else dictate that for them.
    Anything you buy has restrictions, so don't single out one smartphone company.  Do you get to install whatever you want on LG, Samsung, or Vizio TVs How about Roku?  Do you get to install apps on car infotainment screens? You want an iPhone, but don't like the policies? Put your money where your whine is and take it to a competitor. Some of us would prefer an appliance model that works. Now, if there were no other competitor in smartphones, maybe you have a point.
    Those are not general purpose computing devices.  iPhone, iPad, and Mac are.  Big difference.
    Now you're making an artificial distinction. 
    The LG TV has an app store installs apps, movies and music. It's a general computing device; it just doesn't fit in your pocket, a bit like my Mac.
    edited June 2020
  • Reply 71 of 82
    bulk001bulk001 Posts: 764member
    Yay, Dan jumps to the most extreme POV as usual. Instead of a rational debate we get this? The idea is not about free. It is about fairness and right now Apple is losing this argument. 
    tobian
  • Reply 72 of 82
    tobiantobian Posts: 148member
    I love your articles Daniel, I mostly agree with your thoughts. I wish you more courage to talk about shortcomings as well, so you would feel entirely believable rather than willfully blind evangelist. It seems that this article reflects recent discussions here, but "don't wish for FREE AppStore" sounds to me like extreme oppositioning. Did anybody sane here wished for non-profit AppStore? It recalls me about one of your articles once again praising the state of everything Apple... I say all true - but Siri! When you're praising everything, I can't recommend your articles as objective source. That's pity, because you are reasonable overall.
    spock1234avon b7muthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 73 of 82
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,333member
    ranson said:
    Having the Apple-endorsed app store, and allowing third party app stores separately, should be fine. They are not mutually exclusive. One of the areas where Apple struggles is giving users choice (e.g., do i want that icon in the control center to _really_ turn off bluetooth or just disable it for however long apple decides) and expects them to just be happy with what Apple believes to be best. That is great for 99% of the use cases, but Apple doesn't know _you_ or _me_ and can't meet every use case by locking things down. Owners of an iPhone should be able to install whatever software they want on it, without fear of their warranty for the hardware being voided. Apple impeding that ability (and bloggers discouraging it) is not a Good Thing. Certainly people should install software at their own peril, but adults who own their devices should not have someone else dictate that for them.
    This is a beautiful, or perverse, depending on your perspective, example of "entitlement mentality" spoken by someone who does not comprehend what it means to be a product owner, as in the entity that designed, constructed, certified for use, guaranteed, warrantied, assumed liability, and made available to the global market for customers to purchase. When you are the product owner, like Apple is with all of its products and services, you get to decide what aspects of your product you wish to keep proprietary, which aspects you share with close partners or licensees, and which aspects you open up for extension, and the mechanism used for such extensions. 

     Product owners have responsibility for every instance of every product they sell. This is one obvious reason why individual product extension makers have no right to (even think that they can) impose requirements on product owners that would jeopardize the product owner's global responsibility for the entire population of the products that are in use. Putting the global population of products at risk for the individual desires of an extension maker, i.e., app developer, makes no sense.

    As the product owner you are under no obligation whatsoever to open up your product to any extensions at all. Likewise, as a purchaser or accessory maker of extensions for the product you are not entitled to anything from the product owner beyond what the product owner has made available to you at the time of purchase or when you bought-into making extensions or add-ons. If you as a buyer decide to bypass the extensibility mechanisms provided by the product owner you assume personal responsibility for the consequences and have no recourse from the product owner. 

    The statement "Owners of an iPhone should be able to install whatever software they want on it, without fear of their warranty for the hardware being voided" is duly noted as a personal opinion. But it has no relevance on the global responsibilities of product owners who deliver new products to market for sale. I have no doubt that every one of those who make this claim are not product owners but are instead folks who believe that whipping out a credit card of stack of cash entitles them to dictate how the relationship between those who build and guarantee products and those who buy products should work. These same folks could build, and thereby own, a product for their own use and sale to others (got a few hundred million laying around?) or they can purchase alternative products that are more to their liking. And sure, opinions about what product owners "should do" can always be passed along to the product owner for consideration, but until you own it, you don't control it. And no, buying an iPhone instance does not mean you own the iPhone product line.
    watto_cobraFileMakerFeller
  • Reply 74 of 82
    I have no solution to the problem but no one is looking at the core basic principle of things. 

    Developers can sell to different platforms (IOS + Android). This is fine

    But digging deeper we can see that sellers and buyers on the Android platform have options of where they sell and where they can buy from (regardless whether it's safe or not). The point is this: there are various outlets for acquiring apps between the various "app vendors". Developers can compete with Google play if they chose to. There is a free market within Android platform

    The problem for IOS is that If you want to sell to iphone users you can only do it in one place, Period, This is where the complaint is coming from. The point is: There are no other outlets for acquiring/selling apps within the IOS platform.  Developers cannot compete against the App store even if they choose to.  in other words there is no free market within the IOS platform. 

    It isn't about the developers not being able to sell their software, it's about the developers not being able to use another venue to sell to OS users or even compete against the IOS app store. 


    avon b7
  • Reply 75 of 82
    tundraboytundraboy Posts: 1,884member
    It's as simple as this:  App Store detractors want antitrust enforcement on a product that is not, repeat, IS NOT, a monopoly or anything close to it.  Apple would basically be punished because the consuming public likes their products a lot.  Ponder that.
    dewmecat52watto_cobra
  • Reply 76 of 82
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,333member
    I have no solution to the problem but no one is looking at the core basic principle of things. 

    Developers can sell to different platforms (IOS + Android). This is fine

    But digging deeper we can see that sellers and buyers on the Android platform have options of where they sell and where they can buy from (regardless whether it's safe or not). The point is this: there are various outlets for acquiring apps between the various "app vendors". Developers can compete with Google play if they chose to. There is a free market within Android platform

    The problem for IOS is that If you want to sell to iphone users you can only do it in one place, Period, This is where the complaint is coming from. The point is: There are no other outlets for acquiring/selling apps within the IOS platform.  Developers cannot compete against the App store even if they choose to.  in other words there is no free market within the IOS platform. 

    It isn't about the developers not being able to sell their software, it's about the developers not being able to use another venue to sell to OS users or even compete against the IOS app store. 


    There actually IS a solution to the problem, but it would require independent app developers to work together and collectively take on a hell of a lot more work and responsibility than what they are currently getting from Apple for a token fee. I'm only saying this because I've dealt directly with this exact same "problem" and its solution for decades. The solution is very common and is called Open Standards.

    To follow this path to the solution everyone must agree to the following basic tenets:

    1) Products are owned by entities like companies and individuals who have total authority to maintain the intellectual property embedded in their products in a proprietary manner.
    2) Adherence to the Open-Close Principle of architectural design and extensibility. This means that designs are Open to extension, but Closed to modification. In other words, behavior changes and extensibility of a product/system can only be done by extending the implementation using the specified extensibility mechanisms implemented by the product owner in their products. Extensibility implemented by modifying the internal or core architecture (or code) of the product/system is prohibited.
    3) The Open Standards body must define, design, specify, manage, come up with compliance testing requirements, and define standard logos/marking to convey adherence to the Open Standard on products so customers know what to expect. 
    4) Product owners can volunteer to participate in the Open Standard but are not required to.
    5) Product owners are still free to maintain separate proprietary extensibility mechanisms in addition to the Open Standard mechanisms within their own products. However, they do so at the risk of customer backlash.  
    6) Customers of products that adhere to the Open Standard should expect a uniform quality of service for products that adhere to the Open Standard, regardless of the product vendor.  

    We see the Open Standard model applied nearly everywhere and extensively in Apple products for video processing, USB, Bluetooth, WiFi, Ethernet, encryption, file compression, web browser markup languages, programming languages, etc. This isn't new and it's very common practice. However, to make it happen somebody has to do a lot of work to make it happen. This work is usually taken on by a committee or working group with participants from many companies collaborating on all of the intricacies to bring the Open Standard together and to get product owners to adopt the Open Standard.

    If the app developer community as a whole wants to do the hard work of developing an Open Standard for mobile apps, desktop apps, or whatever software extensions they want to be able to build a business around using a common extensibility mechanism that they manage - they are 100% free to do so. They don't even need Apple's "buy-in" to proceed with their initiative. They can all get together, define the Open Standard, say they call it "OpenApp," build widespread developer community support, promote the standard to end-users, and lobby Apple and other product and platform owners to adopt the Open Standard that they come up with. This is a lot of work, but if the net result delivers a lot of value and customers demand it, it may still be worth the challenge.

    In my experience, when these Open Standard initiatives are well conceived and logically constructed such that everyone "wins," getting buy-in from product owners is usually not too difficult. In fact, the major product/platform owners will typically contribute a lot of resources, people, and even relinquish a bit of their IP if the end result takes something that is costing them a lot in maintenance and upkeep off their plate. Keeping everything private and proprietary has a high cost and the value of the proprietary tends to diminish over time to the point that avoiding the Open Standard no longer makes sense. I think we're seeing that with some of Apple's moves from Lightning to USB-C. 

    So yeah, there is absolutely a clear and honest path to solving this problem, a path that many others have followed. But what is getting in the way right now is some vocal third parties and politicians are implicitly trying to recast Apple's proprietary solutions as being defacto "Open Standards" because of Apple's market dominance. These folks are simply lazy and don't want to do the hard work that it takes to create an Open Standard. Instead they are trying to browbeat and bully Apple into giving away its IP and control of its products to make third party developers jobs even easier than Apple already makes them or to ingratiate themselves with their constituents. That is in my opinion a sad commentary on the current state of affairs in business and politics. Too many folks simply don't want to do the hard work that it takes to secure their own future. They'd rather take the lazy path and take advantage of others to satisfy their own needs.
    edited June 2020 watto_cobraFileMakerFeller
  • Reply 77 of 82
    jd_in_sbjd_in_sb Posts: 1,600member
    No mention of Cydia?
  • Reply 78 of 82
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,176member
    jd_in_sb said:
    No mention of Cydia?
    Does Cydia still exist?

    Edit: Gosh. it sure does but is jailbreaking a viable option? Apple has closed most of the holes that would allow it. 
    edited June 2020
  • Reply 79 of 82
    michelb76michelb76 Posts: 612member
    No one is asking for a free store, except the 0.0001% of jail-breakers. The App Store simply doesn't meet the needs of modern developers anymore. It sucks for search, discovery, subscription and update options,  you can easily take out ads that will be shown before your competitors apps, can't do proper trials, can't do proper customer support, etc. A LOT of serious developers have reached out to Apple through the relevant channels over the past 5 years and nothing has changed, except that the vetting process has become worse. There is also so much garbage in the store that it makes you wonder if there sometimes is any vetting at all. It's not about the money, it's just that Apple can't/won't make the Stores modern. Maybe it's a technical issue? It runs on SAP after all..
  • Reply 80 of 82
    Dan_DilgerDan_Dilger Posts: 1,583member

    ranson said:
    Rayz2016 said:

    Folk won't take responsibility
    That is an increasing problem. That's why we see so many really petty lawsuits filed against Apple. Personal Responsibilty bsed upon that thing called Common Sense is fast becoming a thing of the past to the obvious glee of lawyers all over the place (sic)

    You sign a waiver/liability release to go through a Haunted Mansion or ride on a zipline, etc. Certainly (and rightfully so) Apple could require an acknowledgement of indemnity from the user when they wish to install an app outside of the official store to protect them against such things.  And certainly, if a user comes in with all kinds of problems as a result of buggy software (a problem Apple fields on mac computers already), that can be treated as non-warranty work, just as if you cracked your screen or some other non-warranty service, without voiding the full warranty. The arguments that have been presented is basically that Apple does not want to operate like every other computing company that already deals with these things.
    You seem to be describing this issue as a problem others have solved. That isn't the case. Outside of the App Store, you have the trailer park on fire that is Android and then the vacant lots of Samsung and Microsoft, and the huge bags of plastic garbage that are China's app stores. Nobody has anything resembling the App Store, and the solution you propose would be to destroy the only functional, sustainable App Store to bring Apple down to the level of commodity garbage that cant fetch a coin.

    That's like proposing that the solution to Windows NT in 1999 was to install Linux. No solution, just more problems of a more significant nature.

    It's like proposing living in your car as a solution to a difficult rental market.  
    muthuk_vanalingamfastasleepwatto_cobra
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