As a consumer, why can't there be an alternative App Store on IoS if I don't like the Apple terms? Apple shouldn't force consumers and developers to provide them with 30%.
Except it isn't. There is no fundamental technical limitation that prohibits Apple from allowing third party app store. It's only because of their arbitrary policy.
This simply isn't true, the market is too diverse to make any assumption like you just did. Some do upgrade based on "hardware specs." Go ask your mom what mhz are. Yea, I'll wait.
iOS is the large reason people choose iPhones over Android. The phone is simply a portal to iOS.
Without the OS the phone is essentially a brick. To argue the hardware is the only product is an absolute falsehood.
The App Store didn't exist before iOS, it was created for it. It is not a separate product.
None of these questions get you anywhere. You made the claim that hardware was why people upgraded - which is false because of the diversity of the market and the fact that the hardware is only a portal to what they want. You haven't dealt with the argument - that the App Store is a separate product from an iPhone. It isn't.
Google Play is allowing Epic to do it. Fortnite is still on the Google Play store.
(The writing has been on the wall and Google is already adapting - they sent out surveys last month to some developers about dropping the 30% fee and charging developers an annual listing fee instead - possibly also fees for bandwidth/storage used like a hosting company does. The survey also mentioned plans to spin off the Google Play store as a separate non-Google company.)
Aha, saw that myself an hour ago too. Wish I'd downloaded Fortnite now when I could. Thanks for the correction.
The Google survey I received specifically asked about experiences as a developer with the Epic Store, whether I thought customers would pay a subscription fee for access to the Play Store & Android updates, and whether I would trust the Play Store & Android if they were no longer owned and run by Google/Alphabet. So it will be fascinating to see how the court rulings change the tech landscape.
These proceedings are not about users having no choice (though, they really don't: Has anyone here except you even heard of "mer"?)
They're about developers not having any choice. Developers have to release on iOS. There's no other option, because that's where most users are. Apple has a captive audience, and they're using that captive audience to abuse developers, who have no recourse.
The issue with many armchair commentators on HackerNews is that we look at the philosophy of the situation, and not the reality. The philosophy is "its Apple's platform, it's their right to run it however they want." The reality is "a billion people use this thing." The rules change when you get that big; its not about philosophy, its about doing what's best for everyone. To some degree, Apple does have a right to run their platform how they want: Fuck Their Rights.
> They're about developers not having any choice. Developers have to release on iOS. There's no other option, because that's where most users are.
They do have a choice. You target Apple users and agree upon Apple's terms, or you don't, and publish your app in F-droid/Jolla store, hoping somebody would pay.
The reality is that apple has built an infrastructure which allow you to gain profits and deliver to a huge amount of customers.
> The reality is "a billion people use this thing.
Because Apple put quite a lot of resources to build it. It's their right to operate it as they do.
> Fuck Their Rights
Sure, but let's start with turning your home into a shelter for homeless people for the sake of the society, Fucking your Right, and then we'll fuck theirs. People are always quick to deprive others of their rights as I see.
> Sure, but let's start with turning your home into a shelter for homeless people for the sake of the society
And here, a perfect example of slippery slope. You are doing exactly what 013a called as "armchair commentators", and not looking at reality.
The reality is that there are two OSs for phones, and two stores. This arrangement is detrimental to developers and consumers, and, as it stands, there's no getting out of it without resources that no one, apart from Amazon, has.
>The reality is that there are two OSs for phones, and two stores.
Nope. In reality I've owned n900, n9, Jolla 1 and now iphone. I've owned phones with 4 different OS (not counting symbian).
And of course there are various stores for Android, at least some of my friends live well enough with AOSPs without Gapps.
If you don't like iphone, don't develop for it, you are free to leave.
> there's no getting out of it without resources that no one, apart from Amazon, has.
There is no getting out because people try to force apple to fit their needs instead of giving other platform chance.
Apple is dominating because it's good enough and provides some good merits which other vendors don't (like long term support). As Microsoft's attempt to enter the market has shown, you can't just beat it having the resources, devs and customers need a reason to switch.
I would prefer apple to become less convenient forcing the developers and customers to seek for alternatives and develop for good and more free platforms like Sailfish, making the market more diverse.
Anyways as Windows phone and Sailfish examples have shown, a 30% fee is not a good enough reason to start to support another platform. And if so, I don't see why we should go the authoritarian way forcing apple to change their fees.
30% seems a fair price for using the infrastructure they've built, if it's not a good reason to switch to any other infrastructure, which existed and still do.
I strongly believe in rights for People. I have less belief in rights for Corporations. And even less for mega-corporations worth two trillion dollars.
CORPORATIONS. ARE. NOT. PEOPLE.
If tomorrow the government fined Apple a hundred billion dollars, for literally no reason except for the fun of it, I could focus my entire being, every ounce of willpower I have, into attempting to expel one milliliter-sized tear, and would still have dry eyes.
When an indie developer spends her days and nights producing a work of passion, only to pay the US Government 25% and Apple 30% of the few thousand dollars she makes, and the next day Apple announces that they made a hundred billion dollars last quarter: I stand with the indie developer, not with the faceless mega-corporation.
I couldn't lose ten seconds of sleep over some perceived injustice that this developer used the piece of literal garbage Apple excretes every year and slaps an "xcode" label on to develop her passion project, and that somehow entitles them to the billions of dollars they make in taxes.
I won't curl up in the fetal position and cry when thinking about how much Apple DESERVES the billions of iPhone users out there, stuck in a duopoly between two mega-corporations who treat ethics the same way I treat toilet paper, people who spend thousands of dollars on that hardware, and thus Apple DESERVES to control what they can and cannot use their phones for, thus Apple DESERVES to control which developers they interact with and how they compensate them.
The gall I must have, to not log on to the internet and defend a trillion dollar corporation against this horrible, mean indie developer for coming after their 30%! Hank Rearden earned that 30%! By god, through the sheer force of paying other people to build a fence, and a little luck convincing customers to live inside of it, they earned it!
There is no such thing as rights of corporations, only rights of people.
According to your logic nobody can turn my home into a homeless shelter, but if I and my friend together build a hotel, it's fine to expropriate it since we are corporation.
But we are still people and it's our rights, we're not a faceless entity.
> When an indie developer spends her days and nights producing a work of passion
Well, it's fine to fuck an indie dev's rights, if she works in a team. They are a corporation after all.
I bought my device. I own it outright. It should be up to me, not Apple, what software I would like to run on my device. It is extremely unethical for a company to dictate what software I am allowed to run on hardware that I own. It is even more unethical for that company to then take a portion of my payment away from the developer without allowing another avenue for the transaction to take place.
This would not be an issue if Apple allowed users to easily side load apps.
> It should be up to me, not Apple, what software I would like to run on my device.
Sorry, you are building a strawman here.
1) You have the full right to do whatever you want with your phone. I don't argue with that, it's the truth.
2) Apple need not to help you to do whatever you want with your phone.
For some reason you confuse your right to do whatever you want with your phone with Apple's obligation to help you with that.
Do reverse engineering, flash custom OS, jailbreak, it's your right, but Apple has no obligation to help you with that. If it's to hard for you to do whatever you want with their device, buy another vendor's device then.
Honestly curious, since I haven't been following news as closely as I probably should have: has Apple done anything to actively hinder those who wish to jailbreak their devices beyond patching exploits?
It is the purpose of government to work ensure a healthy market economy. Although, ethics is important, it is far from the only goal. Backwards looking regulation patches places where the reality of a companies actions, lead to a stagnant and poorly competitive arena.
It’s well within the governments rights to say a transactional middleman service can only charge a certain fee. What is important to society is the success of the producers, not the rent seeking middleman.
Apple has a long history of using their leverage and power to extract more value from their business relationships when they can.In what way is it unethical to meet Apple on their own terms?
