The security in iOS is tied to the sandboxing model - not the app store. The app store is there to protect Apple's interests. If a customer wants to load a separate app store, thats on them.
Apple doesn't own the hardware. We do. It should be our choice to open it up to apps and ecosystems (native app stores) that are competitive.
I disagree. Sandboxing is designed to prevent your phone from being compromised but it doesn't prevent bad actors from using legitimate APIs in malicious ways.
As an example, the App Store review guidelines enforce certain privacy restrictions such as not allowing third-party analytics or advertising in apps designed for children. This is not something that is intended to be enforced via sandboxing.
Edit: As another example, consider an app that might request access to your contacts for a legitimate purpose (like messaging), but then secretly transmits and stores that data for an alternative purpose (like selling your contacts to third parties). Also possible within the sandbox but forbidden by the review guidelines. Now, I'm not saying the review process is going to catch all abuses of legitimate APIs ahead of time, but at least there is an enforcement mechanism if the bad actor gets caught.
They licensed the OS to you with a specific set of permissions to enable a specific business model. I understand how you would want them to not get paid but I don't see how that's fair.
If a customer wants a different app store, the customer can buy a non-apple device. Apple doesn't have a monopoly in mobile devices or app stores.
Not saying he is wrong - but let's not pretend that he is not usually at the forefront of every pitchfork carrying moment in the Apple ecosystem.
I think that’s the point. Marco usually isn’t someone who rushes to pitchforks against Apple.
The fact that Marco, of all people, has had consistently very negative things to say about Apple during this whole saga shows how far their behavior has pushed developers.
Let developers choose between any “certified“ payment provider. Apple would be one, and then you could add Square, PayPal, and other big companies that could jump through Apple’s hoops. Like making sure the refund experience is easy so no one can make really convoluted anti-user workflows.
Maybe app purchase still has to go through Apple, it’s only IAPs that can go through anyone.
Apple, naturally, would be forced to lower their cut because otherwise why would anyone choose them?
I’d be happy to choose them as a user over other payment providers if given a choice. I like the current payment experience on iOS.
Apple can even keep all their crazy rules like Marco is talking about. It’s just the other payment providers wouldn’t have to follow them. Let Apple see how well that goes.
Anyone can take payments, using any big provider, for anything on iOS. Seems easy enough.
I don’t think it’ll ever happen without government intervention though.
What web have you been using?
Most companies already have the facilities to accept credit cards. For those that don’t, Apple could also be the merchant account.
Ultimately, Apple would like to earn money from the products they make. There are a variety of models to do so:
* You can sell the hardware, sell OS upgrades, and let third parties sell apps without taking a cut. This was the original Mac model.
* You can sell the hardware, give away OS upgrades, and privilege third party developers who give you a cut, while preserving a way to side load. This is the current Mac model.
* You can sell the hardware, give away OS upgrades, and take a cut from third party apps. This is the current iOS model.
* You largely let others build and sell the hardware, give away OS upgrades, take a voluntary cut from developers, and sell or monetize the user's data. This is the Android model.
* You give away the hardware and OS upgrades and live off venture capital. This is a popular startup model.
Each of these is viable to some extent. None is 100% popular with customers.
But what some people seem to be asking for is "Gilette, but give away razors and adopt an open standard for the razor blades".
I assume the market would quickly drive Apple‘s fee down to a reasonable number.
But if Apple wants to keep charging 30%, why not? There are alternatives in my plan, so it’s not hostile.
I think they are preparing for that moment already! Saw this job posting for partner payment systems: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/1995030919/
If IAP was so great and in consumers' best interest, surely consumers would still choose it even if they knew it's 10x more expensive than card processing.
Apps are required to use in-app purchase if:
(1) The customer relationship originated in the app; and
(2) The primary nexus of the purchased item is to improve the purchaser's personal in-app experience.
Rules get complex around edge cases even when the principles are simple. Sometimes Apple makes the wrong call on those edge cases based on those principles (Hey, WordPress, in-app fitness training calls), and today's rule changes feel like Apple's acknowledgement of that.
Apple has also signaled that they don't feel the simple principles need any adjustment.
Why does that matter if the one who brought the customer to download the app in the first place it was you, through your own promotion, and not Apple? Apple should take their cut only if they promoted the app to the user that would have not installed it otherwise.
I don't believe all software has to be free software, in the GPL sense, but I will not use a computing device as personal as the modern phone if the vendor gets to control what software I can run.
Imagine all these other 3rd party App-Stores, they need to flag and request updates from their developers. All this causing a sh*tstorm on the iOS device and the customer will expect Apple to fix it at the Genius Bar. Proof of this already happening is the Microsoft Stores. People bringing in their OEM laptops for repair and workers providing them with phone numbers to call Sony, Toshiba, Lenovo, etc.
Regulating Apple like credit card processors will continue to allow Apple to set detailed rules on what payment processing Apple wants to do, which is the subject of this article.
The real issue is that in the real world the merchant can also choose not to do business with American Express and just accept say Visa and MasterCard. That's not currently a possibility on Apple's platforms.
---- The problems with letting all apps advertise external payment systems:
• Someone may publish a free app to avoid paying anything to Apple, and then charge users [an asston of] money to ""unlock"" via an alternate payment system.
• Users may not be able to see a list of all in-app purchases (and their guaranteed prices) as they can on the App Store, without downloading the app.
• Sharing your payment details and other information with multiple entities, and having to continually trust each of them (e.g. to not abuse or leak).
• Confused users may clog up Apple's customer support with complaints related to third-party payment systems.
• Angry users may demand Apple to offer refunds for shit that was paid for via third-party payment systems.
---- The problems with allowing third-party app stores on iOS:
• How will iOS sandboxing be enforced for apps delivered via third-party stores? Will those apps still have to be submitted to and signed by Apple?
• Store apps would need the privilege to write binaries on your iPhone. How will that privilege be regulated to prevent abuse? e.g. what happens if a store starts writing malware?
• Users may sometimes have to wait longer for an app to update on one store than on others (as already happens on Steam vs GoG).
• Developers would no longer be assured that they will have access to literally all the users that iOS has, by publishing on just one store.
You would have to submit to each store, wait for approval on each of them, update for each of them... to come close to the userbase that you can currently access by just publishing once on the App Store.
• Developers will no longer all play by the same rules. One store may allow some content while another may prohibit it.
For example, take porn: Should any third-party store be allowed to serve apps with "adult" content, or will they still ultimately be bound by Apple's ruling on such matters?
• iOS Parental Control settings may be ineffective on other stores (and browsers if third-party engines were allowed too).
• If an app or game is exclusive to a store that a user isn't already using, they would have to create a new account and download an additional app just to access that one exclusive.
• Not all stores may be compatible with the iOS backup and restore system, or the APIs for app-thinning and on-demand resources.
You get all these people screaming about how unjust Apple is! Everyone has been doing this for decades in different markets.
I don't think this list is very compelling because external payment systems are already permitted for physical goods and it doesn't seem to be a huge problem that you give your credit card to Uber and Grubhub and Amazon separately.
> The problems with allowing third-party app stores on iOS:
On the other hand I largely agree with this, mandating third-party app installs would lead to a malware and privacy disaster and should not be forced, except perhaps as some kind of developer mode where you are thoroughly warned that you're going out of bounds of normal app distribution.
Yes, but enabling that mode would need to be a very deliberate process that nobody could possibly get “tricked” into. Think of the people who are not so tech-savvy at all.
Something like a sandboxed developer/hacker environment that requires a computer to enable and gets disabled on every restart (to help with panics where shit behaves unexpectedly) would be ideal, and should satisfy everyone.
Your first mistake was assuming that they care about those more than maximizing shareholder value
It’s no surprise a lot on HN readers/posters care here, because there’s “free money” on the table for them if Epic win. Money they knew Apple was gonna take if they’d looked at AppStore guidelines any time in the last 12 years or so, since the AppStore first debuted. Nobody has _ever_ developed an iPhone app, without knowing the rules to get into the AppStore include a 30% cut to Apple. IAP is newer, but it’s still the same deal, in my opinion.
Non HN reading iPhone owners, largely, don’t give a fuck about developers feeling hard done by paying a 30% cut to Apple. A non technical friend of mine explained to her son why he can’t install Fortnite on a new phone right now, saying “They’re fighting with Apple over the rules to be allowed to have apps on iPhones.”
This is totally not customer or customer PR problem for Apple, and they know it. Epic haven’t worked that out yet.
I could see developers simply adding a 2nd line item "Apple Fee 30%" and gross up the price by that amount. Then let Apple answer the questions why there is a 30% fee added in their products, but not others (if that's the case).
But everyone notices and remembers the comments they dislike the most [2], so each side thinks that "HN" is slavishly and perversely on the other side [3]. It would be good to get a little more awareness into this process.
[1] Like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24310804 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24249613.
[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
[3] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
Would be cool to see a UI that added friction to that.
Make upvotes and downvotes public, and do something to reduce the constant flood of throwaway accounts who do nothing more than constant trolling on contentious topics.
do they have an infinitely long checklist?
Apple collected $15 billion from the app store in 2019. I'd wager that $15 million would cover the operating costs, which I'd guess are largely the salaries of app reviewers. Even if I'm off by 2 orders of magnitude, that still leaves 90% of Apple's cut as profit.
The app store is a huge driver toward selling the hardware. If Apple were banned from charging any fee at all, they'd still run the app store. They're not dependent on the 30% cut.
EDIT: I'm not saying that, therefore the fee is wrong, or too high, or whatever. Just that the cost of operating the App Store is not a justification for their current level.
So, their (likely) largest expense is 0.5% of their total revenue. Even if I'm off by a factor of 10, the numbers are absolutely mind-blowing.
"help pay for" is cute phrasing. The app store made Apple 15 billion dollars in revenue last year. It's a veritable fountain of money.
2 trillion dollar company doesn't get to tell sob stories how they're struggling to serve these apps while reporting that their services are hugely profitable and growing.
