ArchStanton

crowley said:

AppleZulu said:

crowley said:

Beats said:

crowley said:

The security argument is a decent one, but Apple invite ridicule when they also wield the App Store rules as a competitive weapon and use it as a profit base.  It's a clear conflict of interest, claiming to be guardians of customers' privacy and security, but with the caveat that all their purchases get a slice delivered to Apple, and Apple get to set all of the content rules according to whim and fancy.

Developers would be much more sympathetic to the security argument if Apple hadn't arbitrarily acted like dicks so many times over the past several years and made so money from their developer tax.

Geez the replies just get dumber as I go through the pages.

”developer tax”??
So any profit a company makes is a “tax”?

What about the 30% Nintendo “developer tax”? Sony 30% “developer tax”? Wal-Mart, Coca Cola, McDonalds, Target, Samsung, TCL, Roku, Microsoft, Netflix, Disney…

…oh wait, it’s only a “tax” when Apple makes money.

No, I'd describe all of those similarly.  They aren't playing the victim though.

Without Apple providing the platform, developers would have no customers. Oh, wait. That’s not true.  Developers have customers on all those other platforms. Let’s correct that. 

Without Apple providing the platform, developers would have no Apple customers. So this argument is entirely about developers getting access to Apple’s customers, isn’t it? Why would they care about that if they can reach people on all those other platforms? There must be something special about those Apple customers. As it turns out, Apple’s customers are documented to be more willing to spend a buck on apps and services delivered through those apps. There are probably a couple of reasons for that. One, Apple doesn’t build cheap hardware, so iOS customers probably skew to higher incomes. Two - and this is important - Apple customers buy those devices in no small part because of their reputation as more stable, more secure, and more protective of the customers’ privacy. Both one and two above are true because Apple spends money to build better devices and to pair those with integrated operating systems that are designed to be more reliable, secure, and protective of customers’ privacy. 

So why is it again that Apple should provide all that to developers free of charge? You could argue a chicken-and-egg case that the apps are actually what deliver customers to the platform, except the App Store has been around for only a dozen years or so, and it has clearly delivered the entire mobile app market to the developers, since Android didn’t exist before iPhone and the software publishing market was fundamentally changed with the introduction of the App Store. So we actually do know which came first.

So Apple invented the mobile app paradigm, and, by producing high-quality hardware and integrated operating systems, curates the most lucrative customer segment of the mobile market. Yet, some developers think it’s an injustice that they’re not provided access to all of that, free of charge. As it turns out, I was right with the first sentence. Without Apple creating the platform, developers would have no customers.

Wait. Who is playing victim in this scenario?

Apple.

JaiOh81 said:

rcfa said:

It’s one thing to warn people against the practice, it’s another to prohibit people from doing something on devices they own.

if I wanted to install Android on my iPhone (not that I ever wanted to) I should be able to do it: it’s my damn hardware.

Apple can warn against a practice, refuse software support for devices with sideloaded apps, etc. but prohibiting, is another matter.

Having used NeXTstep (aka macOS, iOS, Darwin) since version 0.8 I’d like to e.g. run a NeXT emulation software. With a “huge” hard drive back then being 8GB (split in four 2GB partitions) and a lot of RAM being 128MB, emulating a NeXT cube and running legacy software is something the iPad Pro can do without breaking a sweat. But it’s not possible without side loading and even that was sabotaged in the latest iOS releases. For no good reason, on a device of that class. Running things well isolated in a virtual machine isn’t or shouldn’t be a security risk.

Heck even running virtualized macOS or Windows should not be an issue, that’s the whole point of virtual machines. Heck, Apple could run a virtual iOS session for third-party apps, totally isolated from the AppStore side of things.

The excuses Apple brings for saving its revenue stream are transparent and invalid, at least as far as the latest crop of devices and their powerful hardware is concerned.

So why not just get an android phone? There are plenty that have similar or better specs than iPhones. This is what I don’t understand. If you want the experience of being able to do all the things you want there are plenty of devices that allow you that freedom. Why buy a phone that has the “restrictions” Apple has? 

gatorguy said:

ArchStanton said:

 You want to see Google and Facebook blow a gasket? Another bill from dopes in DC requiring all private data have the ability to be turned off, and it is off by default. They’d be mass heart attacks in Mountain View and menlo park simultaneously.

Why, would companies suddenly stop advertising? LOL. 
Now would Facebook suddenly feel exposed from a business perspective? That's possible. Google not so much IMO.