The thing people love forgetting is a huge part of the iPhone success is based on the North American cellular comms industry being a trustless disaster area. The deal Apple did with AT&T opened the floodgates.
Android was initially designed so that operators could customise it. The idea was apps were developed (and sold) only by operators, and everything else would be via the browser. If you had used a Nokia device in the EU in 2005 and then the exact same model in the customised form released on a US carrier you'd understand why this was such a terrible idea. The exclusion of carriers from being able to make modifications to the phone was, and remains, an active feature for end users.
People keep having to learn that developers cannot be trusted either, someone somewhere will always trend towards the very worst thing they can do, and you need look no further than this forum for the levels of avarice which have overrun the tech industry. The EU regulators live in a parallel universe where they're all dependent on WhatsApp as they've never truly internalised that there is no such thing as a free lunch and that people see them as easy marks.
> Android was initially designed so that operators could customise it. The idea was apps were developed (and sold) only by operators, and everything else would be via the browser.
I'm not sure where you got this information. The Android Marketplace arrived with version 1.0 of Android on the T-Mobile G1. Side loading has been available since the very beginning.
What you describe more closely resembles what iPhone did, except that it was never a given that Apple's carrier partners were going to be able to ship their own user facing software on the device.
Operators and OEMs can absolutely customize Android and it was more allowed in the beginning than now. As a way to reduce fragmentation and gain more control over the platform, Google started attaching more and more stipulations to allowing it's suite of software (including Marketplace, now known as Google Play) to be included on handsets.
Was there ever a case of a mobile operator launching their own software store on Android? Certainly OEMs did it, with the Samsung app store being the most prominent. Genuinely curious here, as others do note that (see the Japanese handsets post) OEMs have and even still do a bunch of customization and pre installed apps.
I was working in mobile games at the time and ended up working with Google on the Play Store launch, among other things.
But what I mentioned was not some big secret. Everyone knew Android was supposed to be the response to google having to keep stashes of j2me devices in drawers, which is ironically what everyone ended up needing to do with Android devices.
People have memory holed just what a shock the iphone caused, not just technically but strategically, and how it altered who has the power over distribution. The whole industry (google included) did not see this coming because of the power of the carriers.
Previous versions Android were nothing like T-Mobile’s G1. It was more like if Nokia made a BlackBerry device.
Just something else I was thinking about with Android. I love the Android OS but Google’s implementation is far and away the best version and while you could technically run Android with just the bare necessities and without google apps, it may as well be unusable. So, google has “technically” made it available without their services but the juice isn’t worth the squeeze to get it working how you want it.
> People keep having to learn that developers cannot be trusted either
The problem with this is that Apple is also a developer trying to sell you things. I would feel better if Apple's goals and the user's goals were aligned all the time instead of just some of the time.
Admittedly, Apple's real priority is just to make money on every transaction that occurs upon an idevice.
Yes businesses are in the business of making money. Apple is a business. The hope for you (a consumer) is that your needs and theirs are aligned sufficiently well that they solve problems you benefit from while minimizing how much they exploit you. It’s capitalism.
>Android was initially designed so that operators could customise it. ... The exclusion of carriers from being able to make modifications to the phone was, and remains, an active feature for end users.
Japanese Android phones bought from carriers are fucking horrible because they have modifications both from the manufacturer (eg: Sony, Samsung) and the carrier.
I wonder if this is partially why Japan is among the few markets led by iOS rather than Android. I hate iOS, but Android from Japanese carriers is such a hellscape it might just be worth tolerating the former.
If you think about it, this is one of the reasons I like macOS. Back then, buying a PC with windows meant having a lot of crap installed by default. Not sure if it's still the case because I haven't bought a PC in ages, but I remember that formatting my computer and reinstalling windows was step 1 when I was buying a brand new laptop/PC.
To add to that, Japan still has that horrible structure where phone makers sell to carriers, which then sell the phone to customers. For instance newer Samsung phones can't be bought outside of a single carrier (docomo/ahamo etc.).
Subsidies are also stil the wild wild west, with the regulators teppidly trying to do something about it but with no real change in sight. Buying from a carriers will reduce the real phone price up to a quarter depending on how you do it, and the carrier will have buy backs to sweeten the deal further, so you'll be eating what the carrier feeds you.
And that's all compound with the same phone supporting different network bands depending on where they're sold, and resale value plumetting because of that (even if you carrier unlock the phone, it won't support all of other carriers' network bands)
The iPhone winning so big is in no small part thanks to Apple not getting in bed with the carriers.
I remember it used to be and may still be the case that Android OS updates would be held up on both the OEM and the carrier. So Samsung may have finished their version of the update, but your carrier can't be bothered reapplying their bloatware to it so you aren't getting the update.
yall have to remember, there was a time you couldn't hook up your own landline telephone without it being one manufactured by Ma Bell herself (western electric) and rented out through an installment plan on your bill.
Culturally the phone company (and the descendant cellular operators) were very much of this philosophical outlook.
This page goes into particulars about the historically closed nature of the phone system and the cases that led to the eventual opening of bring your own equipment (Hush-a-phone, Carterfone etc):
>What made the PC era work as well as it did was a strong base of power users
No, power users rarely influenced mainstream adoption of any tech. Apple and the rest didn't become trillion dolar corps by catering to power users. Power users are niche and very picky market not worth catering to if you want to make it big.
What made the "WIntel/IBM" PC gain majority mainstream market share was that is was all open(not to be confused with open source) which allowed everyone, not just power users, but regular users too, and also any HW vendor and SW developer to decide what HW and SW they can develop and sell to users, and what users can install on their system, without the consent or added 30% tax from the original vendor or manufacturer of the system.
It was basically an open bazaar and a cost race to the bottom, where the free market decided the winners and losers based on consumer preference, but there was no global authority to say "I'm not gonna allow your SW/HW to run on the platform we developed". Microsoft or Intel couldn't gatekeep what you installed or ran on the Intel/Windows platform.
Sure, the PC platform had it's own set of issues due to overabundance of cheap low quality HW/SW that caused poor UX, and anti-trust issues from the Windows and Intel monopolies, but it was overall a net benefit due to the open playing field. Can you imagine 3dfx, ATI and Nvidia GPUs not being allowed to run on the PC platform because Intel had a closed PCI standard that only worked with their own GPUs?
That's a nice history lesson but sideloading alternate appstores (namely F-Droid) on Android works great and Apple shouldn't be allowed to forbid the same on iOS. And I don't give a damn about the "grandma conned into sideloading scam apps" scenario. Grandma is getting scammed over regular phonecalls already anyway.
> Grandma is getting scammed over regular phonecalls already anyway.
This is not a good argument. Yes things aren't perfect in many areas of technology, but that doesn't mean we should give up.
The better version of this argument acknowledges that there are tradeoffs: allowing side loading may introduce risk but the risk is low relative to the other risks users face and the benefits outweigh the costs.
So what you want is to remove the option of safety from those that want it because you personally do not see the need for it.
iOS is not close to a monopoly. People are perfectly free to have Android devices and side load apps on to them. It is curious that the campaigning focuses so strongly on destroying the high trust part that exists and not on promoting a trusted setup on Android.
OEMs ruined Android with their "improvements". While stock Android has many issues of its own, the firmware that most users see is significantly worse.
You have neatly summarized why I feel strongly that the Internet has become a liability to humanity. I have no illusions that we can shut it down or walk away… but on a personal level I am trying harder than ever to remove it from my own life. If I can stay off Reddit, well, I can eventually remove it all I think!
The only thing Apple cares about is Apple making more money. they will gladly gouge the end User so that their executives can line their pockets. there is nobody here you can actually ”trust”.
Such a bad take, please go back to Reddit where you might be congratulated for garden variety “everyone else is greedy and evil, but I can see through them and speak truth to power”. People here have higher standards on their takes.
If all Apple cared about is making money, would they have spent upwards of 10 Billion+ on an Apple Car only to cancel it later. At its height, Vision Pro R&D cost 2 billion per quarter, yes you read that correctly, almost 25% of their yearly net profits went into development of Vision Pro Alone. Does this sound like gouging the customer to line their executive pockets to you?
If Apple executives had lined their pockets, then why is the top Apple Executive only worth 2 Billion when Apple is worth close to 3 Trillion, that is less than 0.1% of Apple’s valuation. Apple’s top executive does not even make it to the world’s top 100 by wealth. Does that not make you think?
However for Apple to keep making money they need to satisfy their users, so as with all commercial relationships there is a direct commercial incentive that aligns customer and vendor interests. The interesting question is how and why those interests align, and when and where they diverge.
The answer to that will be different for different customers, or potential customers. A lot of iPhone customers like me are quite happy with the devices more or less as they are. The vast majority of people complaining about iPhones aren't iPhone customers. Frankly I don't really see why I should care what they think.
I'm more sympathetic to actual iPhone customers, or former customers that left, but looking at the numbers satisfaction levels with iPhones are through the roof. This is a teeny tiny proportion of customers. The case for Apple harming the interests of customers directly is super thin.
The other main dimension to this is Apple's commercial relations with other companies, mainly app store developers. I'm sympathetic to the idea that such relationships should be regulated to at least some extent. I'm glad controls on links to external payment options are being opened up, and there's pressure towards more equitable revenue structures. I think this is the main area Apple's control of the platform is open to abuse, but IMHO that doesn't extend to third party app stores. The current app store should be properly regulated, I think third party stores are a complete distraction. They'll never take off, and are probably going to be a worse experience for users.
This is neithere nor there. Apple not submitting to US carriers greedy customizations and Apple allowing users to customize their devices are two completely different matters. You are throwing everything in the same bin which is the same Apple wants everyone to believe
> Apple executive Eddy Cue pushed for an Android iMessage app in 2016, but Craig Federighi responded in an internal email that “iMessage on Android would simply serve to remove an obstacle to iPhone families giving their kids Android phones.”
This conversation happened 8 years ago and it was about a product released 12 years ago. If anything, this shows how slow regulators are before they take any action and how they are effectively contributing to building the garden walls, through inaction.
The truth is, all businesses do what Craig suggested.
AirBnB isn't opening up their platform to Expedia. Meta isn't allowing your Instagram data to be accessed by another platform. Your own company isn't voluntarily making it easier for its customers to leave.
Well, yes. It's a great reason to not let businesses decide on these things, because their petty interpretation will always override a communal solution. Once you reach Apple's scale, you shouldn't expect to start replacing stuff like SMS with a proprietary alternative and get away with it.
Companies shouldn't be expected to individually make suboptimal decisions in order to preserve the health of the market. They should be regulated by a functioning government.
bad example? you can book hotels etc on AirBnB and everybody offers listing services which crosspost across the booking sites. There are few exclusives in the travel industry.
It's almost like having the rental market controlled by Airbnb instead of myriad local hotels is a bad thing
(Or to take another example of the operate-blatantly-illegally-until-you-bribe-your-way-to-legalization and loss-lead-til-monopoly industry, it's almost like having the taxi market controlled by Uber and Lyft instead of myriad local cab companies is a bad thing)
(Or to bring it back to the point of the thread, it's almost like having the mobile phone app market controlled by Apple and Google is a bad thing)
I’m struggling to see what’s wrong with Federighi’s argument. Why should he not want to protect Apple’s position? Apple has no monopoly on mobile messaging or hardware, and they didn’t 8 years ago either, so they can do what they like here.
What is Apple supposed to do? Spend time and money on interop to better the lives of Android users? There’s nothing wrong with them doing so if they like, but I fail to see any obligation they have.
Lots of Apple customers wanted the ability to send and receive rich media messages with their friends and family on Android devices. What they got instead was a monopolist who insisted on being able to monetize both sides of every human interaction.
> “iMessage on Android would simply serve to remove an obstacle to iPhone families giving their kids Android phones.”
This statement says a few extra things that Craig Federighi probably didn't realize he was saying.
1) It suggests that the iPhone wouldn't be able to hold its own in a market where interoperability with Android was easier. That demonstrates a lack of faith in it.
2) I've noticed that any time a corporation starts to clutch its fingers around its flagship product and make it less open, it starts to die. Oh sure, there's an upfront benefit perhaps in sales, but you're literally selling the future of your thing to profit from it today, by doing this.
> It suggests that the iPhone wouldn't be able to hold its own in a market where interoperability with Android was easier
It is just a statement of the obvious. Price tends to trump every other consideration, unless the difference is pretty big. See also airline ticket pricing and the race to the bottom in comfort & features. If there is no differentiator, a lot of people will just get Android phones because they cost less. They'll put up with quite a lot of abuse as long as they save a few bucks. It'd probably end up like gmail.
Regarding No 2. That is very true but it is astounding just how much inertia is in the system that keeps iPhone going.
Turns out that the curated experience of iPhone combined with a lot of fumbles from various android vendors has kept iPhone image of being the best and most desirable phone.
It is very vaguely feeling like if another big player was to come in they could actually make some waves that causes everyone else to jump. To the benefit of the users. But I doubt that will happen.
I think this article is overstating the effect that Apple's walls have on lock-in effect.
I'm an Android user, and a little less than a year ago I actually bought an iPhone, specifically due to Apple's iMessage lock-in (nearly all of my friends have iPhones, and the especially broken group messaging between iMessage and Android was the primary driver of my desire to get an iPhone).
Except the problem was that, after over a decade on Android, I had zero desire to switch over all of my data and apps over to iPhone. For better or worse the "Google ecosystem" is where all my stuff lives and I just didn't have a desire to spend a bunch of effort just to switch. I ended up giving the iPhone as a gift to an iOS-loving family member.
That's the thing about both iOS and Android platforms - I think you'll find anyone who has been in those platforms for more than a couple years will be extremely reluctant to switch just due to the effort. Our cell phones are often the center of our digital lives now: apps, headphones, watches, etc. The lock-in I think is more from that "ecosystem effect" than any amount of particular lock down.
As a European, it's baffling to me that your friend group wouldn't simply switch to a messaging app with good group chat support. WhatsApp, Signal, Messenger (FB) - these are all great alternatives that are extremely popular, and all have more features than iMessage.
For example, in Scandinavia the current marker leader on all platforms is Facebook Messenger, despite this also being one of the only markets where iOS is the dominant platform compared to Android. Further south on the continent, WhatsApp is the undisputed leader.
People have all of these apps, and it's my impression that using iMessage exclusively is extremely rare. Cross-platform support is a feature that impacts which app people use, and they are perfectly free to use a different messaging app.
In the United States, if your friend group is using FB Messenger, all their messages are* readily pullable by police looking at someone two or three times removed from any one of them without a warrant “investigating” whether someone in their network asked a friend what to do about an unplanned pregnancy.
That's less likely to happen to you in Scandinavia, perhaps since Puritans found it safer to set sail for New England than keep trying to evangelize Vikings.
Also, yes, everyone's perfectly free to use a different messaging app, and in different cohorts everyone does, which suggests it's not Apple's "walled garden" causing these difference.
* This has been true at various times, including times FB has said it isn't true. I did see the WhatsApp founder walk away from a billion dollars over various issues, and stopped using it then too.
I don't really disagree with anything you're saying, except to say that, yes, the situation in the US is completely different than Europe, and nearly every time I comment about this situation, everyone who says they don't understand is European.
The fact of the matter is that in the US, especially for specific socioeconomic groups, iOS is by far the dominant platform, and for many people since iMessage is the default, their definition of "texting" is simply iMessage. You state, "it's baffling to me that your friend group wouldn't simply switch to a messaging app with good group chat support" - except that completely ignores network effects, and many times I am literally the only person on Android. If I'm, say, going on a vacation with friends and literally 10 of them are on iOS and I'm the only one on Android, it's a losing battle to try to convince the other 9 to switch, especially since nearly all of their other contacts are on iOS/iMessage. A restaurant in Austin, TX, famous for their funny signs, even had a joke about it: https://www.instagram.com/p/CwLKeGRLieb
The reason the situation in Europe is different is primarily due to 2 factors:
1. iOS was never as dominant in the EU as the US
2. Perhaps more importantly, what is often forgotten is that in the EU and elsewhere about ~15 years ago, per-SMS rates from telecoms were egregiously expensive, while in the US by that time they were mostly unlimited with a flat monthly rate. So there was never a huge drive to get off SMS in the US (this is why WhatsApp first took off much faster outside the US than within it). In a pretty brilliant "Embrace/Extend/Extinguish" move, iMessage initially simply because the default SMS app on iPhone. Users never really "picked" any messaging app, they just continued to use the "texting app" that had always been on their phones.
You're right that lock-in isn't just about one application. Like a wall, it's made up of multiple bricks. But different bricks matter more to different customers: for some people (usually teenagers who have relatively little data invested in other apps) the blue-bubbles iMessage is the most important brick, for older users it's usually the piles of data in cloud services, password manager, photo library or purchased media. Typically companies use some features to bring people into their ecosystem, then gradually them in with all the others.
Unfortunately our anti-trust laws were written in the 19th century, so they deal with very specific types of anti-competitive behavior. Modern tech firms basically grew up in an environment where the goal was to maintain the absolute minimal level of competition and user choice that stays within the law.
> broken group messaging between iMessage and Android was the primary driver of my desire to get an iPhone
I'm not a group messenger, and basically mute any group messages I'm a part of, so please excuse my ignorance. What's actually broken between iOS and Android with group messaging? Are Android-only group messages better? Will RCS improve this at all?
I realize the apps are all on iOS, but to say "there is no barrier to switching" is a bit annoying as it pretends my experience, where I actually got an iPhone but decided not to keep it due to the barriers to switching, didn't exist.
I'm not saying is impossible or something, but it's just way more effort than it was worth to me. E.g. so many iOS apps by default are set to use iCloud. All of my photos for years were in Google Photos. There is a Google Photos app for iOS, but it is in no way as seamless an experience as on a Pixel (e.g. camera integration). And I think a lot of people would say that if you get an iPhone but specifically avoid Apple's services like iCloud for photos so you can stay on Google's services, that defeats a huge part of the value of being on the iOS ecosystem in the first place.
I'm a recent convert to the iPhone and I'd say Google's apps are definitely worse on iOS. Many of them are missing features, buggy or plain weird. Big ones being Search, Home, Gmail, Calendar and Photos. Overall I get the sense that iOS apps are an after thought at Google.
I’ve been a recent convert to the iPhone. It gives me a unique perspective since I’ve spent almost my entire life in the Android ecosystem.
I first bought an iPhone 5c on a whim, which is well out of support by apple, 5 versions behind the modern iOS. If you turn it on, all the default Apple apps work, in 2024.
You can stream Apple Music and download podcasts with no App Store whatsoever. It’s a powerful little device, more then ten years later.
Compare this to the Android system, where google has wholesale deprecated their podcasts app. You’ll have to find a 3rd party one if you want to access that functionality.
The point I’m trying to make is that for Joe Consumer, everything on an iPhone just works. Modification isn’t even something they consider doing.
In the end, Epic and Spotify get a fat 30% boost in revenue and nobody notices anything different.
Guess what? Joe Consumer lives in a society that has an economy. And that economy thrives on open markets and competition. US antitrust law knew this from Teddy Roosevelt all the way until Ronald Reagan gutted that notion, and began to focus only on consumer harm. But consumers aren’t the only part of an economy! They’re probably not even the most important part. Open competition is vital for a diverse and open economy where all sorts of market entrants can participate, and create companies that pay taxes, and create jobs for people who are also, in turn, consumers. Sometimes higher prices are worth it if an economic sector is open and thriving. We know this intuitively when it comes to trade protections, as countries like Germany go to great lengths to protect domestic manufacturing at the expense of cheaper cars.
You make no sense. Germany protects domestic manufacturing to keep their engineers and workers employed, admirable. Who exactly is US trying to keep employed? Please tell me something concrete, don’t use Orwellian terminology like Open markets when you mean Govt Regulated markets.
Without Apple’s introduction of the smart-phone, millions of app development jobs would not exist. Apple’s 30% tax is reducing profits of some developers, the biggest ones are complaining but none of it is gutting the economy, app development is not being shifted overseas because Apple made the cost of development too high. If anything it is the literal opposite, SWE salaries are still increasing because the demand for app developers still outpaces the supply, and people are more than willing to pay 6 figures+ for a good SWE.
The funny thing is your frame has some truth to it, it’s just your entire thinking is hopelessly muddled that you focus on everything that doesn’t matter. There is case, where the government can step in, raise the price of the iPhones to employ more people, cause net consumer harm but still be better for society. That is in iPhone manufacturing where all the jobs have been shifted overseas and no trade worker in US gets employed to make iPhones. This is a real problem, and yet no one in the FTC cares about this, they may not even know this problem exists in their desperate bid to grab power and come up on the front page of NYT with a big win. And what will they achieve? They will let some other app developers make more money, but no offense to 99% of HN, you guys are highly paid and a 30% higher potential margin really doesn’t matter. They will dictate design decisions to a company that is probably 100000x better at design than the FTC is and get fawning reviews from NYT, get invited to talks at universities, maybe even get called to a late night show (has happened before) and that is probably all that matters to them.
Compare this to the Android system, where google has wholesale deprecated their podcasts app. You’ll have to find a 3rd party one if you want to access that functionality.
My Galaxy S1 still plays podcasts just fine....I keep it hooked up to bluetooth speakers just for that.
Google disabled the ability to download new/updated apps that could run on this phone long ago, but the apps already on the phone still work. Indeed, it works better than the iPhone 5c, since I can use any micro usb connector to charge my phone, but the 5c is stuck with a proprietary connector that isn't made or sold anymore.
The point I’m trying to make is that for Joe Consumer, everything on an iPhone just works.
This hasn't been true for years, if it ever was. Siri never worked properly, and most people complain about the horrible accuracy of the fingerprint and face unlock. Text messages sent to/by Apple users frequently disappear into the ether, discovered only when the communicants physically meet up. The cloud software is prone to overwriting files or accidentally deleting them. And don't even get me started about all the people holding their phones the wrong way...
This has nothing to do with the classic Apple vs Android debate. It's about Apple's practices of pushing people to purchase the iPhone even if they might not want to.
> In the end, Epic and Spotify get a fat 30% boost in revenue and nobody notices anything different.
Well, let's be clear here: Neither Epic nor Spotify are selling anything with Apple today. Epic's games are not available on iOS, and Spotify requires you to make all purchases through their website.
Spotify's motivation for wanting change on the iOS platform is primarily due to how limiting Apple's profit share and App Store rules are toward expanding its lines of business. Spotify wants to be able to sell one-off audiobooks; but the margins are already razor thin, and would become impossibly thin if Apple had to be paid 30% of every sale. In the most egregiously and obviously monopolistic thing Apple has ever done, they also sell audiobooks via the Books app, where I'm (wink) certain they're paying the 30% fee to (wink) themselves.
One alternative Spotify hasn't tried is marking audiobooks up 30% to account for the fees. Maybe this is something that is contractually extremely difficult to do? Like, authors and publishing agencies don't assign pricing rights to Spotify, they have to sell the audiobooks at the same price they're available for sale on Amazon/Apple Books/etc. I don't know. But, regardless of that, it's a shit card to deal consumers, anyone with half a brain would just buy the audiobook from Apple Books where its 30% cheaper, and Spotify is very reasonably trying to drive traffic to platforms they have higher agency within.
This isn't really about boosting revenue by 30%. Its about unlocking fundamentally different business models from Apple's grasp; business models which Apple has found extremely profitable for itself, yet refuses anyone else to share in.
No one I know uses Apple audiobooks, I thought it was only Audible in this market.
Spotify is a loss making company finding reasons to blame its problems. What annoys Spotify is that Apple Music exists, this is the age old problem between vendors and distributors, where vendors hate it if Walmart comes out with its own peanut butter jar to sell. The fundamental problem with the vendor here is their product is not differentiated, Apple isn’t worried if Walmart sells other smartphones, they don’t care but Reese’s is extremely worried and will make a huge hula about private labels and such. Spotify as a technology has nothing unique, their audio isn’t even lossless yet, their music is now available through Apple, Amazon, YouTube, Tidal and who knows what else. They basically have some network effects due to social media and are living off a first mover advantage, meanwhile as their see their dominance erode they are trying to find boogeyman’s to blame. If Apple removes 30% tax, Spotify won’t magically become a successful business, Spotify still needs to find something more differentiated than the sea of music streaming apps out there. Netflix kind of did it with originals and superior efficiency, Spotify won’t be able to do anything until they take a hard look at their business and truly diagnose why it’s such a trash heap.
When my Android phone broke in the past I was lent an iPhone 6s to use in the meantime. It was absolutely slow and many things didn't work. I ended up getting rid of it because having no phone was better than using it.
I’ve got to be honest while I appreciate the direction they are forced in, I have yet to find anyone outside the tech industry who actually knows or gives a crap.
Also the only reason Epic and Spotify are after them is not some altruistic reason but they want to be the guys charging the 30% margin.
Spotify does not want to charge a “30% margin”. Spotify wants to not give up 30% of their revenue to Apple, who coincidentally had a competing service effectively free from the 30% tax.
The epic game store charges 12%; against which developers are partially handcuffed due to steams price matching requirement.
Relevant: Spotify already hands over 70% of their revenue to music rights holders to cover the various performance and mechanical royalties. All of their other operating expenses have to fit into the remaining 30%, meaning they often have quarters that report a loss.
Apple trying to take 30% of subscriptions while operating a competing service as a value-add that can afford to be a loss leader is highly anticompetitive.
> I have yet to find anyone outside the tech industry who actually knows or gives a crap.
Lots of school kids who get mocked for being "Green Texters" with crummy images and videos in their group texts. They really want their parents to shell out for an iPhone so it stops. Just because non-tech people don't know the cause, doesn't mean it doesn't affect them.
I'm not in the US but this is not a thing anywhere in the UK at least. Everyone uses WhatsApp. Same with all my friends in Europe. Same with my kids and their friends, although they all seem to be on SnapChat more than anything.
Actually we don't even tend to bother even talking about which phones you have. It's just meh. My best friend doesn't even know what iMessage is as an example.
> Lots of school kids who get mocked for being "Green Texters"
So, you decided to try solving a social problem with a technological solution?
Don’t make me tap the sign.
Open SMTP relays never made anyone not get bullied in the email days either. If the apple is a status symbol, then kids will use it to be cruel regardless of the internals or regardless of the services it uses on the backend. They will find something else to ostracize you over.
How is it "charging a 30% margin" to keep more of your own revenue? Epic wants everyone to be able to keep more of their own revenue; they proved this by rejecting the sweetheart deal Apple offered them. If a company's revenues are 30% higher they now have the ability to lower their prices (unless one of the major players demands price parity to thwart competition, as does happen)
I’ve come full circle on this but I now think native applications on smartphones was a mistake.
There is no technological reason why applications can’t be distributed as PWA packages similar to the days prior to the App Store.
This would serve two important functions:
1. Remove most if not all distribution monopoly concerns
2. Create application standards that function nearly identically across the myriad of screen sizes and input types that are now available.
The current status quo of some service that makes my life easier or better only being available in a browser or only available on one or two of my devices (or, most often, available in a few ways but only bug-free or full-featured in only one method of access) isn’t the future I want.
> but I now think native applications on smartphones was a mistake.
That seems a bit like rose-colored glasses. PWAs only really became viable in the past couple years (especially on iPhones when push notifications only were made available to PWAs in the last year), and even if you ignore Apple dragging it's feet, it's hard for me to imagine another scenario where all the hardware-based APIs (e.g. access to camera, media streaming, various sensors, in addition to push) didn't come out in native apps first before they were made available in the browser.
1. what about something like a usb flir heat camera? yes i know webusb exists, but having to go to a website to use a peripheral (and give it permissions to that peripheral) is not ideal
2. apps can change on you at any point, potentially maliciously. I'm not naive enough to think the app store will catch this kind of thing every time, but at least you have control over updating apps, and some guarantees that everyone gets the same binary
PWAs can also just disappear if devs get tired of running them or become incapable of maintaining them. In similar situations with native local-first apps, the binary will at least remain on your phone and continue to work for several years, offering better a better opportunity to find and transition to alternatives.
Native apps can also be archived for use with emulators at some point down the road, as we’re now seeing with efforts to emulate iOS 2/3 and some of the earliest iOS apps. Had those apps been PWAs they’d all be gone for good outside of the tiny handful where the dev decided to open source them.
OS cohesion/themes are already kind of a dead idea. These days the priority is cohesion within the app and platform. When I open Discord, it looks basically the same on Android, iOS, Mac, Linux, Windows, and web. If I know where something is on one platform, I can find it on all the others. I don't care that Discord on Mac doesn't look like Spotify on Mac.
The others are also kind of mute points, No one is auditing app updates, and I'm not sure how an app can be more trusted with access to a usb/bluetooth device than a website. they are both 3rd party programs doing the same thing.
There are quite few technical reasons people pony up the app store overhead instead of make a PWA. Performance, UX, lack of standards. PWAs are popular but how often do you see comments bemoaning the use of web stacks and pining for native apps?
> but how often do you see comments bemoaning the use of web stacks and pining for native apps
On HN, all the time, but it's not something that regular users notice or care about. It's not that native apps can't be on some level superior, but most people can't tell the difference and frankly, most native apps I've had to use are just as bad on all performance metrics as Slack and company.
What people are really complaining about is that most apps are made as quickly and cheaply as possible, and those lazy apps are disproportionately web apps because web is cheap and easy.
Steve Jobs would have agreed with you at one point.
I'm not sure what changed his mind (or if he ever even really did), but he also thought that aside from the native apps that came with the iPhone, everything else should just be a web app.
One thing that I haven’t seen mentioned in discussions of communications tech monopoly (or “monopoly” in many cases) is the risk of future political censorship by a hypothetical future evil Apple. Centralized market power here isn’t just about unfair profits or bad products, it’s also about control of information (and therefore control of minds).
Especially considering how these big tech companies seem obsessed with gobbling up communication, and seem to want all of their users communication to go through them.
Sure, Apple makes grandiose statements about its security and privacy. But they are protecting you from others. Apple has the keys to the kingdom and if they want they can just silently push a targeted software update to your device.
They can make your phone send messages you never typed. They can make your phone show you things that never happened. They could trivially influence an election, and it doesn't even take the entire org being in on it.
Everything you said is hypothetically true but fails to withstand scrutiny.
Apple has a brand of trust and security. If they decided to become even the tiniest bit evil in that dimension their “secure” brand would evaporate overnight.
Unless you think they control all media and levers to power too?
There is a lot of discussion going on about this. Most of it is not very constructive, but "power structure" research is a scientific thing that might interest you.
> the risk of future political censorship by a hypothetical future evil Apple
Apple's already exercising a great deal of editorial control over all political content on Apple TV+, so it's not too hard to imagine them extending this philosophy to other domains.
Unlike HBO, Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc. if you want to make a TV show on Apple TV+, you're not allowed to criticize technology or technology companies too heavily in dystopian fiction. They forced Jon Stewart to straight-up leave because he wanted to make an episode critical of China, and also wanted to interview Lina Khan.
I think this is because we haven’t really seen it. Though there is a subset of the right wing that’s been saying exactly this is happening, to them in the context of Facebook and Twitter. I don’t recall seeing any convincing evidence though.
I recently bought an iPhone due to peer pressure after using pixel for years. I think the ux is better on android, every common function takes more gestures on iPhone. Typing this comment reminds me of how annoying it is to edit text with an iPhone. I think there was maybe a time when iPhone ux was better but maybe not. Still I feel better from the perspective of pure vanity when I pull the iPhone out, or those blue texts show up. It sucks.
For example when you're on a group chat and somebody sends a video and the quality gets degraded and so somebody makes funny of the guy who shared the video but the guy is like "somebody on the group chat has android". and then my pixel was literally being held together by tape and one of the guys is like, dude, why are you such a contrarian, just get an iphone, and true detective was good!
Readit News
Android was initially designed so that operators could customise it. The idea was apps were developed (and sold) only by operators, and everything else would be via the browser. If you had used a Nokia device in the EU in 2005 and then the exact same model in the customised form released on a US carrier you'd understand why this was such a terrible idea. The exclusion of carriers from being able to make modifications to the phone was, and remains, an active feature for end users.
People keep having to learn that developers cannot be trusted either, someone somewhere will always trend towards the very worst thing they can do, and you need look no further than this forum for the levels of avarice which have overrun the tech industry. The EU regulators live in a parallel universe where they're all dependent on WhatsApp as they've never truly internalised that there is no such thing as a free lunch and that people see them as easy marks.
I'm not sure where you got this information. The Android Marketplace arrived with version 1.0 of Android on the T-Mobile G1. Side loading has been available since the very beginning.
What you describe more closely resembles what iPhone did, except that it was never a given that Apple's carrier partners were going to be able to ship their own user facing software on the device.
Operators and OEMs can absolutely customize Android and it was more allowed in the beginning than now. As a way to reduce fragmentation and gain more control over the platform, Google started attaching more and more stipulations to allowing it's suite of software (including Marketplace, now known as Google Play) to be included on handsets.
Was there ever a case of a mobile operator launching their own software store on Android? Certainly OEMs did it, with the Samsung app store being the most prominent. Genuinely curious here, as others do note that (see the Japanese handsets post) OEMs have and even still do a bunch of customization and pre installed apps.
I was working in mobile games at the time and ended up working with Google on the Play Store launch, among other things.
But what I mentioned was not some big secret. Everyone knew Android was supposed to be the response to google having to keep stashes of j2me devices in drawers, which is ironically what everyone ended up needing to do with Android devices.
People have memory holed just what a shock the iphone caused, not just technically but strategically, and how it altered who has the power over distribution. The whole industry (google included) did not see this coming because of the power of the carriers.
I believe Verizon launched their own app store at one point. It was called V Cast.
A quick search led me here: https://www.pcworld.com/article/498393/verizons_android_app_...
Just something else I was thinking about with Android. I love the Android OS but Google’s implementation is far and away the best version and while you could technically run Android with just the bare necessities and without google apps, it may as well be unusable. So, google has “technically” made it available without their services but the juice isn’t worth the squeeze to get it working how you want it.
The problem with this is that Apple is also a developer trying to sell you things. I would feel better if Apple's goals and the user's goals were aligned all the time instead of just some of the time.
Admittedly, Apple's real priority is just to make money on every transaction that occurs upon an idevice.
Japanese Android phones bought from carriers are fucking horrible because they have modifications both from the manufacturer (eg: Sony, Samsung) and the carrier.
I wonder if this is partially why Japan is among the few markets led by iOS rather than Android. I hate iOS, but Android from Japanese carriers is such a hellscape it might just be worth tolerating the former.
Subsidies are also stil the wild wild west, with the regulators teppidly trying to do something about it but with no real change in sight. Buying from a carriers will reduce the real phone price up to a quarter depending on how you do it, and the carrier will have buy backs to sweeten the deal further, so you'll be eating what the carrier feeds you.
And that's all compound with the same phone supporting different network bands depending on where they're sold, and resale value plumetting because of that (even if you carrier unlock the phone, it won't support all of other carriers' network bands)
The iPhone winning so big is in no small part thanks to Apple not getting in bed with the carriers.
https://9to5google.com/2024/03/06/japan-google-pixel-sales-i...
Culturally the phone company (and the descendant cellular operators) were very much of this philosophical outlook.
This page goes into particulars about the historically closed nature of the phone system and the cases that led to the eventual opening of bring your own equipment (Hush-a-phone, Carterfone etc):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer-premises_equipment
No, power users rarely influenced mainstream adoption of any tech. Apple and the rest didn't become trillion dolar corps by catering to power users. Power users are niche and very picky market not worth catering to if you want to make it big.
What made the "WIntel/IBM" PC gain majority mainstream market share was that is was all open(not to be confused with open source) which allowed everyone, not just power users, but regular users too, and also any HW vendor and SW developer to decide what HW and SW they can develop and sell to users, and what users can install on their system, without the consent or added 30% tax from the original vendor or manufacturer of the system.
It was basically an open bazaar and a cost race to the bottom, where the free market decided the winners and losers based on consumer preference, but there was no global authority to say "I'm not gonna allow your SW/HW to run on the platform we developed". Microsoft or Intel couldn't gatekeep what you installed or ran on the Intel/Windows platform.
Sure, the PC platform had it's own set of issues due to overabundance of cheap low quality HW/SW that caused poor UX, and anti-trust issues from the Windows and Intel monopolies, but it was overall a net benefit due to the open playing field. Can you imagine 3dfx, ATI and Nvidia GPUs not being allowed to run on the PC platform because Intel had a closed PCI standard that only worked with their own GPUs?
This is not a good argument. Yes things aren't perfect in many areas of technology, but that doesn't mean we should give up.
The better version of this argument acknowledges that there are tradeoffs: allowing side loading may introduce risk but the risk is low relative to the other risks users face and the benefits outweigh the costs.
iOS is not close to a monopoly. People are perfectly free to have Android devices and side load apps on to them. It is curious that the campaigning focuses so strongly on destroying the high trust part that exists and not on promoting a trusted setup on Android.
If it’s bad and it can be done it will be done, and at scale.
If all Apple cared about is making money, would they have spent upwards of 10 Billion+ on an Apple Car only to cancel it later. At its height, Vision Pro R&D cost 2 billion per quarter, yes you read that correctly, almost 25% of their yearly net profits went into development of Vision Pro Alone. Does this sound like gouging the customer to line their executive pockets to you?
If Apple executives had lined their pockets, then why is the top Apple Executive only worth 2 Billion when Apple is worth close to 3 Trillion, that is less than 0.1% of Apple’s valuation. Apple’s top executive does not even make it to the world’s top 100 by wealth. Does that not make you think?
The answer to that will be different for different customers, or potential customers. A lot of iPhone customers like me are quite happy with the devices more or less as they are. The vast majority of people complaining about iPhones aren't iPhone customers. Frankly I don't really see why I should care what they think.
I'm more sympathetic to actual iPhone customers, or former customers that left, but looking at the numbers satisfaction levels with iPhones are through the roof. This is a teeny tiny proportion of customers. The case for Apple harming the interests of customers directly is super thin.
The other main dimension to this is Apple's commercial relations with other companies, mainly app store developers. I'm sympathetic to the idea that such relationships should be regulated to at least some extent. I'm glad controls on links to external payment options are being opened up, and there's pressure towards more equitable revenue structures. I think this is the main area Apple's control of the platform is open to abuse, but IMHO that doesn't extend to third party app stores. The current app store should be properly regulated, I think third party stores are a complete distraction. They'll never take off, and are probably going to be a worse experience for users.
Ah yes, but Apple can /s
The real lesson is that Apple can't be trusted either, and the best thing you can do is allow the user to choose who to trust.
Dead Comment
This conversation happened 8 years ago and it was about a product released 12 years ago. If anything, this shows how slow regulators are before they take any action and how they are effectively contributing to building the garden walls, through inaction.
AirBnB isn't opening up their platform to Expedia. Meta isn't allowing your Instagram data to be accessed by another platform. Your own company isn't voluntarily making it easier for its customers to leave.
(Or to take another example of the operate-blatantly-illegally-until-you-bribe-your-way-to-legalization and loss-lead-til-monopoly industry, it's almost like having the taxi market controlled by Uber and Lyft instead of myriad local cab companies is a bad thing)
(Or to bring it back to the point of the thread, it's almost like having the mobile phone app market controlled by Apple and Google is a bad thing)
What is Apple supposed to do? Spend time and money on interop to better the lives of Android users? There’s nothing wrong with them doing so if they like, but I fail to see any obligation they have.
We live in a world where every landline telephone can dial another with no trickery or fuckery from your phone manufacturer.
That is a good thing. We should extend that functionally to smartphones.
This statement says a few extra things that Craig Federighi probably didn't realize he was saying.
1) It suggests that the iPhone wouldn't be able to hold its own in a market where interoperability with Android was easier. That demonstrates a lack of faith in it.
2) I've noticed that any time a corporation starts to clutch its fingers around its flagship product and make it less open, it starts to die. Oh sure, there's an upfront benefit perhaps in sales, but you're literally selling the future of your thing to profit from it today, by doing this.
It is just a statement of the obvious. Price tends to trump every other consideration, unless the difference is pretty big. See also airline ticket pricing and the race to the bottom in comfort & features. If there is no differentiator, a lot of people will just get Android phones because they cost less. They'll put up with quite a lot of abuse as long as they save a few bucks. It'd probably end up like gmail.
Turns out that the curated experience of iPhone combined with a lot of fumbles from various android vendors has kept iPhone image of being the best and most desirable phone.
It is very vaguely feeling like if another big player was to come in they could actually make some waves that causes everyone else to jump. To the benefit of the users. But I doubt that will happen.
I'm an Android user, and a little less than a year ago I actually bought an iPhone, specifically due to Apple's iMessage lock-in (nearly all of my friends have iPhones, and the especially broken group messaging between iMessage and Android was the primary driver of my desire to get an iPhone).
Except the problem was that, after over a decade on Android, I had zero desire to switch over all of my data and apps over to iPhone. For better or worse the "Google ecosystem" is where all my stuff lives and I just didn't have a desire to spend a bunch of effort just to switch. I ended up giving the iPhone as a gift to an iOS-loving family member.
That's the thing about both iOS and Android platforms - I think you'll find anyone who has been in those platforms for more than a couple years will be extremely reluctant to switch just due to the effort. Our cell phones are often the center of our digital lives now: apps, headphones, watches, etc. The lock-in I think is more from that "ecosystem effect" than any amount of particular lock down.
For example, in Scandinavia the current marker leader on all platforms is Facebook Messenger, despite this also being one of the only markets where iOS is the dominant platform compared to Android. Further south on the continent, WhatsApp is the undisputed leader.
People have all of these apps, and it's my impression that using iMessage exclusively is extremely rare. Cross-platform support is a feature that impacts which app people use, and they are perfectly free to use a different messaging app.
That's less likely to happen to you in Scandinavia, perhaps since Puritans found it safer to set sail for New England than keep trying to evangelize Vikings.
Also, yes, everyone's perfectly free to use a different messaging app, and in different cohorts everyone does, which suggests it's not Apple's "walled garden" causing these difference.
* This has been true at various times, including times FB has said it isn't true. I did see the WhatsApp founder walk away from a billion dollars over various issues, and stopped using it then too.
https://www.news.com.au/technology/online/social/im-a-sellou...
The fact of the matter is that in the US, especially for specific socioeconomic groups, iOS is by far the dominant platform, and for many people since iMessage is the default, their definition of "texting" is simply iMessage. You state, "it's baffling to me that your friend group wouldn't simply switch to a messaging app with good group chat support" - except that completely ignores network effects, and many times I am literally the only person on Android. If I'm, say, going on a vacation with friends and literally 10 of them are on iOS and I'm the only one on Android, it's a losing battle to try to convince the other 9 to switch, especially since nearly all of their other contacts are on iOS/iMessage. A restaurant in Austin, TX, famous for their funny signs, even had a joke about it: https://www.instagram.com/p/CwLKeGRLieb
The reason the situation in Europe is different is primarily due to 2 factors:
1. iOS was never as dominant in the EU as the US
2. Perhaps more importantly, what is often forgotten is that in the EU and elsewhere about ~15 years ago, per-SMS rates from telecoms were egregiously expensive, while in the US by that time they were mostly unlimited with a flat monthly rate. So there was never a huge drive to get off SMS in the US (this is why WhatsApp first took off much faster outside the US than within it). In a pretty brilliant "Embrace/Extend/Extinguish" move, iMessage initially simply because the default SMS app on iPhone. Users never really "picked" any messaging app, they just continued to use the "texting app" that had always been on their phones.
Deleted Comment
Unfortunately our anti-trust laws were written in the 19th century, so they deal with very specific types of anti-competitive behavior. Modern tech firms basically grew up in an environment where the goal was to maintain the absolute minimal level of competition and user choice that stays within the law.
I'm not a group messenger, and basically mute any group messages I'm a part of, so please excuse my ignorance. What's actually broken between iOS and Android with group messaging? Are Android-only group messages better? Will RCS improve this at all?
I'm not saying is impossible or something, but it's just way more effort than it was worth to me. E.g. so many iOS apps by default are set to use iCloud. All of my photos for years were in Google Photos. There is a Google Photos app for iOS, but it is in no way as seamless an experience as on a Pixel (e.g. camera integration). And I think a lot of people would say that if you get an iPhone but specifically avoid Apple's services like iCloud for photos so you can stay on Google's services, that defeats a huge part of the value of being on the iOS ecosystem in the first place.
I first bought an iPhone 5c on a whim, which is well out of support by apple, 5 versions behind the modern iOS. If you turn it on, all the default Apple apps work, in 2024.
You can stream Apple Music and download podcasts with no App Store whatsoever. It’s a powerful little device, more then ten years later.
Compare this to the Android system, where google has wholesale deprecated their podcasts app. You’ll have to find a 3rd party one if you want to access that functionality.
The point I’m trying to make is that for Joe Consumer, everything on an iPhone just works. Modification isn’t even something they consider doing.
In the end, Epic and Spotify get a fat 30% boost in revenue and nobody notices anything different.
Without Apple’s introduction of the smart-phone, millions of app development jobs would not exist. Apple’s 30% tax is reducing profits of some developers, the biggest ones are complaining but none of it is gutting the economy, app development is not being shifted overseas because Apple made the cost of development too high. If anything it is the literal opposite, SWE salaries are still increasing because the demand for app developers still outpaces the supply, and people are more than willing to pay 6 figures+ for a good SWE.
The funny thing is your frame has some truth to it, it’s just your entire thinking is hopelessly muddled that you focus on everything that doesn’t matter. There is case, where the government can step in, raise the price of the iPhones to employ more people, cause net consumer harm but still be better for society. That is in iPhone manufacturing where all the jobs have been shifted overseas and no trade worker in US gets employed to make iPhones. This is a real problem, and yet no one in the FTC cares about this, they may not even know this problem exists in their desperate bid to grab power and come up on the front page of NYT with a big win. And what will they achieve? They will let some other app developers make more money, but no offense to 99% of HN, you guys are highly paid and a 30% higher potential margin really doesn’t matter. They will dictate design decisions to a company that is probably 100000x better at design than the FTC is and get fawning reviews from NYT, get invited to talks at universities, maybe even get called to a late night show (has happened before) and that is probably all that matters to them.
My Galaxy S1 still plays podcasts just fine....I keep it hooked up to bluetooth speakers just for that.
Google disabled the ability to download new/updated apps that could run on this phone long ago, but the apps already on the phone still work. Indeed, it works better than the iPhone 5c, since I can use any micro usb connector to charge my phone, but the 5c is stuck with a proprietary connector that isn't made or sold anymore.
The point I’m trying to make is that for Joe Consumer, everything on an iPhone just works.
This hasn't been true for years, if it ever was. Siri never worked properly, and most people complain about the horrible accuracy of the fingerprint and face unlock. Text messages sent to/by Apple users frequently disappear into the ether, discovered only when the communicants physically meet up. The cloud software is prone to overwriting files or accidentally deleting them. And don't even get me started about all the people holding their phones the wrong way...
Would anybody notice a difference if they lost 60% of their revenue? How about 95%? I mean it’s just a third party’s ledger right, so who cares?
Joe Consumer doesn’t even notice the garden has walls.
Well, let's be clear here: Neither Epic nor Spotify are selling anything with Apple today. Epic's games are not available on iOS, and Spotify requires you to make all purchases through their website.
Spotify's motivation for wanting change on the iOS platform is primarily due to how limiting Apple's profit share and App Store rules are toward expanding its lines of business. Spotify wants to be able to sell one-off audiobooks; but the margins are already razor thin, and would become impossibly thin if Apple had to be paid 30% of every sale. In the most egregiously and obviously monopolistic thing Apple has ever done, they also sell audiobooks via the Books app, where I'm (wink) certain they're paying the 30% fee to (wink) themselves.
One alternative Spotify hasn't tried is marking audiobooks up 30% to account for the fees. Maybe this is something that is contractually extremely difficult to do? Like, authors and publishing agencies don't assign pricing rights to Spotify, they have to sell the audiobooks at the same price they're available for sale on Amazon/Apple Books/etc. I don't know. But, regardless of that, it's a shit card to deal consumers, anyone with half a brain would just buy the audiobook from Apple Books where its 30% cheaper, and Spotify is very reasonably trying to drive traffic to platforms they have higher agency within.
This isn't really about boosting revenue by 30%. Its about unlocking fundamentally different business models from Apple's grasp; business models which Apple has found extremely profitable for itself, yet refuses anyone else to share in.
Spotify is a loss making company finding reasons to blame its problems. What annoys Spotify is that Apple Music exists, this is the age old problem between vendors and distributors, where vendors hate it if Walmart comes out with its own peanut butter jar to sell. The fundamental problem with the vendor here is their product is not differentiated, Apple isn’t worried if Walmart sells other smartphones, they don’t care but Reese’s is extremely worried and will make a huge hula about private labels and such. Spotify as a technology has nothing unique, their audio isn’t even lossless yet, their music is now available through Apple, Amazon, YouTube, Tidal and who knows what else. They basically have some network effects due to social media and are living off a first mover advantage, meanwhile as their see their dominance erode they are trying to find boogeyman’s to blame. If Apple removes 30% tax, Spotify won’t magically become a successful business, Spotify still needs to find something more differentiated than the sea of music streaming apps out there. Netflix kind of did it with originals and superior efficiency, Spotify won’t be able to do anything until they take a hard look at their business and truly diagnose why it’s such a trash heap.
Deleted Comment
Also the only reason Epic and Spotify are after them is not some altruistic reason but they want to be the guys charging the 30% margin.
It’s a bit of a grey victory but I’ll take it.
The epic game store charges 12%; against which developers are partially handcuffed due to steams price matching requirement.
Apple trying to take 30% of subscriptions while operating a competing service as a value-add that can afford to be a loss leader is highly anticompetitive.
Lots of school kids who get mocked for being "Green Texters" with crummy images and videos in their group texts. They really want their parents to shell out for an iPhone so it stops. Just because non-tech people don't know the cause, doesn't mean it doesn't affect them.
Actually we don't even tend to bother even talking about which phones you have. It's just meh. My best friend doesn't even know what iMessage is as an example.
So, you decided to try solving a social problem with a technological solution?
Don’t make me tap the sign.
Open SMTP relays never made anyone not get bullied in the email days either. If the apple is a status symbol, then kids will use it to be cruel regardless of the internals or regardless of the services it uses on the backend. They will find something else to ostracize you over.
Using something as an excuse to be a piece of shit is not the same as giving a crap. This isnt an example of a good reason to do this.
Maybe Apple should open up their ecosystem, that way multiple other app stores can compete and drive that percentage price down to zero.
There is no technological reason why applications can’t be distributed as PWA packages similar to the days prior to the App Store.
This would serve two important functions:
1. Remove most if not all distribution monopoly concerns
2. Create application standards that function nearly identically across the myriad of screen sizes and input types that are now available.
The current status quo of some service that makes my life easier or better only being available in a browser or only available on one or two of my devices (or, most often, available in a few ways but only bug-free or full-featured in only one method of access) isn’t the future I want.
That seems a bit like rose-colored glasses. PWAs only really became viable in the past couple years (especially on iPhones when push notifications only were made available to PWAs in the last year), and even if you ignore Apple dragging it's feet, it's hard for me to imagine another scenario where all the hardware-based APIs (e.g. access to camera, media streaming, various sensors, in addition to push) didn't come out in native apps first before they were made available in the browser.
1. what about something like a usb flir heat camera? yes i know webusb exists, but having to go to a website to use a peripheral (and give it permissions to that peripheral) is not ideal
2. apps can change on you at any point, potentially maliciously. I'm not naive enough to think the app store will catch this kind of thing every time, but at least you have control over updating apps, and some guarantees that everyone gets the same binary
3. you can kiss any sort of ui-cohesion goodbye
Native apps can also be archived for use with emulators at some point down the road, as we’re now seeing with efforts to emulate iOS 2/3 and some of the earliest iOS apps. Had those apps been PWAs they’d all be gone for good outside of the tiny handful where the dev decided to open source them.
The others are also kind of mute points, No one is auditing app updates, and I'm not sure how an app can be more trusted with access to a usb/bluetooth device than a website. they are both 3rd party programs doing the same thing.
On HN, all the time, but it's not something that regular users notice or care about. It's not that native apps can't be on some level superior, but most people can't tell the difference and frankly, most native apps I've had to use are just as bad on all performance metrics as Slack and company.
What people are really complaining about is that most apps are made as quickly and cheaply as possible, and those lazy apps are disproportionately web apps because web is cheap and easy.
I'm not sure what changed his mind (or if he ever even really did), but he also thought that aside from the native apps that came with the iPhone, everything else should just be a web app.
Sure, Apple makes grandiose statements about its security and privacy. But they are protecting you from others. Apple has the keys to the kingdom and if they want they can just silently push a targeted software update to your device.
They can make your phone send messages you never typed. They can make your phone show you things that never happened. They could trivially influence an election, and it doesn't even take the entire org being in on it.
Apple has a brand of trust and security. If they decided to become even the tiniest bit evil in that dimension their “secure” brand would evaporate overnight.
Unless you think they control all media and levers to power too?
How many microseconds do you think it'd take before someone noticed and made it into a huge PR nightmare?
Steve Jobs was barely out the door before Cook ran to allow PRISM access, something Job's had fought against for years.
Apple's already exercising a great deal of editorial control over all political content on Apple TV+, so it's not too hard to imagine them extending this philosophy to other domains.
Unlike HBO, Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc. if you want to make a TV show on Apple TV+, you're not allowed to criticize technology or technology companies too heavily in dystopian fiction. They forced Jon Stewart to straight-up leave because he wanted to make an episode critical of China, and also wanted to interview Lina Khan.
but true detective is not good, it's good bad.