Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

The core problem here is that Apple is still disallowing users from side-loading / installing iOS apps from outside of the official App Store.

My question: what is stopping us from demanding a legislative solution that requires Apple to open up the iOS platform to allow installation of apps outside its sanctioned ecosystem?

With ARM Macs now on the market, the hardware architecture / software differences between their mobile and desktop platforms is becoming smaller and smaller. The argument that mobile devices should be treated differently from any other general computing device has always been weird. But now the disparity is now ever more glaring given how similar iPhones, iPads, and Macs have become. We should be demanding openness and the right to modify software as the end user sees fit. This does not preclude users looking for a more secure experience to continue exclusively loading apps from the App Store.

Why not get an Android device?

Because they sell your digital soul to advertisers.

Which is exactly what would happen if there were third party app stores.

It would be a race to the bottom where they all ended up with zero margins but where your data is sold to third parties.

Nobody would stop a quality alternative from holding out. Not unlike Apple surviving the onslaught of cheap PC clones.

How does me being able to install an application i downloaded from F-Droid, GitHub or whatever other place i might trust or even developed myself on my phone without having to pay or get Apple's permission mean that Apple will sell my data to 3rd parties?

Android is hobbled, as well. The only way to implement automatic upgrading, background installation or batch upgrading/installation of apps is via the Play Store. Not only that, but most people have no idea how to side load apps, and Android doesn't make it easy.

Both Google and Apple have kept a stranglehold on the mobile app distribution market for over a decade now.

Source?

> What is stopping us from demanding a legislative solution that requires Apple to open up the iOS platform to allow installation of apps outside its sanctioned ecosystem?

Apple is already tying two products together (App Store commissions and iOS). I think the answer is to have a court opinion declare that app store commissions are not naturally related to iOS. It shouldn't be too hard to prove this given that third-party developers are not the same developers that created iOS and that iOS is a fully-featured enough to be considered a general computing device.

There's already legal precedence for this with United Sates v. Microsoft where Microsoft tried to ban Netscape and Java from being installed on Windows [1]. Epic could/should be using that in their lawsuit in order to be allowed to run on iOS. The App Store is Apple's territory, and that's fine. iOS isn't the App Store and the user should have the right in deciding what code runs on the device they purchased.

> Tying is the practice of selling one product or service (ie: commissions from App Store) as a mandatory addition to the purchase of a different product or service (ie: iPhone). In legal terms, a tying sale makes the sale of one good (the tying good) to the de facto customer (or de jure customer) conditional on the purchase of a second distinctive good (the tied good). Tying is often illegal when the products are not naturally related. In the United States, most states have laws against tying, which are enforced by state governments. In addition, the U.S. Department of Justice enforces federal laws against tying through its Antitrust Division. [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor.... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tying_(commerce)

Not GP, but if enough people were conditioned to install their apps from sources outside of the appstore, Apple may end up seeing their AppStore margins shrink and do a pivot to selling user data.

That's not it, even with the numbers Apple touts they are getting from the App Store, they could comfortably live without.

It's the third party app stores that would sell the aggregate data instead of taking a cut off sales.

> Not only that, but most people have no idea how to side load apps, and Android doesn't make it easy.

I completely disagree. I'm not sure how they could make it much easier without defaulting to allowing it. Download the APK, open it, click install (or if the setting disallows it, follow the prompt to change the setting).

The tour via settings isn't that easy for "Joe Average" and updating isn't easy as well.

> Which is exactly what would happen if there were third party app stores.

there already are lots of third-party android app stores, if you look at the variants of android packaged and shipped on new-in-box phones in mainland china.

You are not a lawyer I presume. This isn't remotely related to tying - and buying an iPhone doesn't force you to buy anything at all from the app store.

And it's completely unrelated to any commissions from the App store.

If you read more of the wikipedia article, you'll see Apple and Microsoft come up - but either entirely different issues that are wholly unrelated to their App Store pricing.

Automatic updating is technically possible for any system app, including Samsung's app store on Samsung's devices.

It is still far better than iOS, and it might get better: I have seen Google employees comment on here that the next release of Android could allow the install apps permission to non-system apps.

The point is that this is analogous to Microsoft shipping Internet Explorer with Windows to try and kill Netscape. Apple does the same thing with their app store. Except this goes a step further: imagine how the Microsoft antitrust suit would have gone if in addition to shipping a free competing product, Microsoft had built something into Windows so that Netscape wouldn't run at all and demanded Netscape only sell their browser through Microsoft Internet Explorer with Microsoft taking a 30% commission.

This is a good thing! It shouldn't be too easy, just easily possible for someone who knows what they're doing (What we used to call "power users", what happened to those?)

Does it still nag you repeatedly about your device settings being insecure as well after you enable it to load from non-Play sources? It's been a while since I was on Android, but remember that being immensely unfriendly to the whole idea.

Joe average doesn’t want to sideload apps. That’s what people don’t understand on here.

Only the first time you enable it and the first time you install an app from a particular source. I don't remember ever getting repeated nags.

No, he definitely does when he can't get what he wants on the app store (e.g. Fortnite).

Except it's not really an analog at all.

Microsoft didn't lose their antitrust case because of any of that - they lost because they were paying OEMs to not install software - and if they did, they were punishing them. The rebate scheme was really central to the issue.

Then, they didn't clearly say "you can't install software" or "everyone who wants to install software has to do X" they just made installing Netscape or removing IE functionally broken.

That's really different than "everyone who wants to make money through my platform has to pay me 30%".

The place Apple might actually have trouble would be Spotify - where Apple is competing with their product, allowing subscriptions in-app for their own platform, but not for Spotify unless they cough up 30% or whatever.

I agree with you, it just click -> (prompt setting) -> install. Android would ask me to only allow once, which is super convenient since I would like to disable it after finish installation. I don't understand how can it be easier while remaining security. Beside, third party app store is allowed.

The point in this sun thread is "phone creators make it hard to use other app stores, that's anti-competitiom", the GP claimed "it's easy on android, come on" I refused that notion. I didn't make a statement about the value as I'm conflicted. I see the issues of the Windows desktop, where users install whatever they find as administrator without second thought, but I also see the issue of gatekeepers apple and Google ...

> Beside, third party app store is allowed.

Third party app stores on Android are not allowed to compete with the Play Store on feature parity because of limitations put in place by Google.

Again, the only way to implement automatic upgrading, background installation or batch upgrading/installation of apps is via the Play Store.

But that isn't something that has to happen, only something that Apple may choose to do. They do not have to, however.

There are third party app stores in China, like taptap. https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2020/09/listening-...