Biden Administration Report Recommends Sweeping Changes to Apple's Ecosystem

[AppliedMicro]

nailed it. perfectly

If you believe the economies of making & selling doughnuts are the same as for mobile apps, then yes, that nailed it perfectly.

 

[webkit]

The mobile market is wide open. What is iOS's percentage of it? 20%? How do you define that as a monopoly?

The article is about the U.S. market where iOS has about 58% share of mobile OS. This issue is with iOS and Android wielding too much control of the mobile OS market, with Apple/iOS being particularly restrictive.

 

[webkit]

I’m not referring to the smartphone industry — this is about the mobile app industry that Apple created, which is what the proposed legislation is seeking to regulate and control.

Prior to 2007, there was no iPhone and no mobile app industry that could efficiently distribute mobile apps. Since the App Store was first introduced, Apple has been consistent with their commission and has only reduced it. They have spent tremendous resources in creating a marketplace for independent app developers to distribute their apps at very little cost.

Prior to the App Store, it was challenging for an independent developer to show their software to others around world, and the cost of distribution would have made it unsustainable or next to impossible. Apple has invested billions into developing this platform and continues to invest in tools to help developers.

Smartphone app stores existed before the launch of the iPhone in 2007. From Wikipedia:

Smartphone app stores
In September 2003 Danger Inc. released an over-the-air update for T-Mobile Sidekick devices which included a new catalog application called Download Fun, also known as the Catalog or Premium Download Manager (PDM). This was one of the first notable app stores on a smartphone with a framework similar to what we see today with the Apple App Store. The Download Fun catalog allowed users to download ringtones and applications directly to their device and be billed through their wireless carrier. Third party developers could develop native Java based applications using Danger's free SDK and submit them for distribution in the Catalog.

In October 2003 Handango introduced an on-device app store for finding, installing and buying software for Sony Ericsson P800 and P900 devices. App download and purchasing are completed directly on the device so sync with a computer is not necessary. Description, rating and screenshot are available for any app.

In 2006 Nokia introduced Nokia Catalogs, later known as Nokia Download!, for Symbian smartphones which had access to downloadable apps—originally via third-parties like Handango or Jambal but from mid-2006 Nokia were offering their own content via the Nokia Content Discoverer.

What seems to be missed is the internet, which can be accessed on any platform and doesn’t require the App Store to operate. If a developer doesn’t like the terms offered in the App Store, why don’t they just develop for the web?

The Internet isn't being missed but smartphones have become increasingly more popular due to their convenience, portability, ease of use, etc. Given that Apple/iOS has a significant share of the mobile OS market (e.g., around 58% in the U.S.), not developing for that platform would be missing out on a notable segment of the market.

 

[vertsix]

Louis Rossmann made a video about this article:

 

[jclardy]

This makes no sense. If you start a company, build it into a huge company, do you lose your rights to operate your product (app store) how you see fit? The competition cries and cries.. ok, so make your own phones into a trillion dollar company then? It's like if you created a bakery and grew it into a huge chain - then Krispy Kreme complained to the government that your bakery wont let them come in and sell their donuts in your stores. Like wtf kind of logic is this?

If competitive app stores are allowed on the iphone, be prepared for WAY more spyware/malware to slip through the cracks. Do you think Samsung polices their app store as well as Apple does? Sometimes bad apps slip through even WITH Apple's much higher focus on security and privacy.

And why should it? Apples App Store would not change at all in this scenario, if you are afraid of malware, don’t enable the setting to allow sideloading. This will improve security for everyone that stays within the walled garden, as the scams would move to outside the App Store.

The biggest risk is with banned apps, IE TikTok getting banned and creating their own separate store. Apps in these other stores will still need some kind of validation and won’t have access to permissions willy nilly, those are OS level security policies.

 

[MacLawyer]

mierda, actually. 💩

Mierda en Espagnol. Merde en Français. 🇫🇷 🇪🇸

 

[jdawgnoonan]

I support that too, I really want a full Firefox with extensions. I use Orion right now with some Firefox "desktop" extensions like uBlock Origin but the browser is a bit glitchy.

However, this may also be how the Chrome Blink engine will finally take over the world and that's a very bad thing. Google could finally have the web fully in its hand.

The funny thing is that I want this, but I won't install Chrome on my phone if we get it. I want Firefox for one. But I also want Brave and Vivaldi. I know that those last two are Chromium based, but I have no desire to use Chrome.

 

[code-m]

Yes there is. It is no longer up to the individual but up to the developers. Facebook will leave Apple's store. Maybe Office will. Maybe Affinity will. Maybe Adobe will. Epic will create their own store, and purchase up exclusives (proof: They are doing that on PC to "compete" with Steam, so to "compete" with Apple's store, there will be exclusives). Its now developers.

And again, I keep repeating this yet NOBODY HEARS IT: Epic sued google for it being "too difficult to side load", so changes WILL come to Android too. All the people advocating this on this forum are NOT looking at the big picture. They just go "YAY I CAN EMULATE NOW!!!!".

What is SO EXTREMELY BROKEN with iOS that it is impacting the customers? Emulators? Porn apps? What? Tell me.

This is being driven by companies NOT people. Android will have changes too, things will be much worse. Let's stop it NOW before it's too late. Think more than 6-12 months down the road. Think long term, think of the ramifications.

I am tired of hearing the same thing over and over and over again that "we can keep it locked down, it changes nothing", it changes EVERYTHING. It's now under Epic, Meta, Microsoft, Adobe's control if I side load or not. And if you counter saying I can no longer use those apps, well you don't need to use emulators now too.

Nobody has answered if it can be 100% guaranteed that any and ALL iOS apps MUST 100% be offered in the Apple App Store too. Unless that is included in this law/regulation, then everything is going to change. The minute our favorite apps leave Apple's App Store, we need to side-load.

NOTE: Emulators is the most common discussion point in these conversations. If you don't care about emulators, take it as a generality.

You are making it sounds like the apocalypse is nearing for the official AppStore when in-fact several options can be made available by Apple. Here is an example: if said developer opts it’s potential customer or returning customer to download and purchase the app in question from their website then the developer is paying for storage, server traffic, processing fees etc and can opt to either use the official AppStore as a marketing venue to either have an Advertisement with a redirected link or the option to download and purchase from Apple. In this scenario Apple similar to many other forms of media enters the marketing and promotional industry and can charge said fee if the link/redirect is successful. This approach is helpful to the developer to see what marketing and promotion methods work and what needs additional attention while Apple collects AD revenue money which can be an additional pay package with the $99/year developer account.

The mindset that you are accustomed to is not beneficial to the customer, developer and places Apple ad a control freak. The scenario in my prior example highlights a synergistic solution for the parties involved but you prefer only one solution due to Apple’s conflict-of-interest fear mongering that people are not able to escape. It’s sad really because a developer can offer promos without restrictions instead of confirming with another party such as Apple in this situation.

Actually I purchased Affinity V2 directly from the developer and since Apple does not provide an option to download said app directly from the developers site I was redirected to download the app from the AppStore. In this situation Apple gains data as to what apps what user is downloading from their store and one cannot download from the official AppStore without an AppleID, privacy; OKAY 😒

 

[Ethosik]

It’s not in that new EU law, it’s in Apple’s law. Apple simply doesn’t allow any way to install apps on iOS/iPadOS other than by downloading them from the appstore, where Apple gets a hefty 30% cut off of the developers’ revenue from paid apps and/or in-app purchases. That’s what the new law in the EU intends to change.

You didn't answer the question. If side loading and additional stores are to be allowed, can it be 100% guaranteed that every single iOS app is also on the Apple App Store?

 

[AppliedMicro]

You didn't answer the question. If side loading and additional stores are to be allowed, can it be 100% guaranteed that every single iOS app is also on the Apple App Store?

While I'm not lartola, I will answer:
It can not be guaranteed.

Since you didn't answer my question earlier, I'm going to ask again:
👉 What would be the problem with that?

Apple allows apps chock-full of trackers into the App Store today.
And enforcing app sandboxing doesn't require distribution through Apple's storefront (see macOS).

You either trust the developers whose apps you download, install and use - or you don't.

 

[webkit]

If side loading and additional stores are to be allowed, can it be 100% guaranteed that every single iOS app is also on the Apple App Store?

Not every app is available in the App Store today and the same is still going to be true if/when the sideloading and alternative app store regulations go into effect.

It will be up to Apple to make/keep the App Store appealing to customers (developers and users) over possible new alternatives. If a developer doesn't make their app available in the App Store, they'll have to find other avenues to market to iPhone users. Develops who feel the App Store is a good sales and marketing tool will have their apps available there.

Hopefully new competition will push Apple to make the App Store better. More choices and better services would be a GOOD thing.

 

[inkswamp]

This whole discussion is both hilarious and infuriating if you go all the way back to the introduction of the iPhone and consider Apple's original plans for developers to create third-party apps using Javascript and HTML. Yep, for those of you who don't know, all third-party iPhone apps were originally going to be web-apps. That's why the infrastructure was there and is still there to this day for web-based code to detect phone-specific things like movement, directions, orientation, etc., and why you can save a web page to your homescreen and launch it as if it it were a discrete application. Apple had planned to build out an entire API for this and allow people a free and open platform to do as they please.

But the same crowd that is today crying about it being a closed system went on the attack. They criticized Apple viciously back then, claiming it was sooooo unfair, and demanded that Apple open up their development tools for native iOS apps. Apple resisted for a time but eventually gave in and went that route and so, kids, that's where we are today. Apple did exactly what the developers out there wanted—third-party, native code running on iOS

If they had gone with web-apps, none of this would be an issue. You could install a web-app by going to the web page where it was hosted, tapping "save to home screen" and voila. Done. No app store review. No walled garden. No restrictions on in-app content or sales.

I wonder what changed—Apple or the developers/companies who suddenly realized that begging and pleading to be locked in to Apple's walled garden maybe wasn't the best move.

 

[Kierkegaarden]

Smartphone app stores existed before the launch of the iPhone in 2007. From Wikipedia:

Smartphone app stores
In September 2003 Danger Inc. released an over-the-air update for T-Mobile Sidekick devices which included a new catalog application called Download Fun, also known as the Catalog or Premium Download Manager (PDM). This was one of the first notable app stores on a smartphone with a framework similar to what we see today with the Apple App Store. The Download Fun catalog allowed users to download ringtones and applications directly to their device and be billed through their wireless carrier. Third party developers could develop native Java based applications using Danger's free SDK and submit them for distribution in the Catalog.

In October 2003 Handango introduced an on-device app store for finding, installing and buying software for Sony Ericsson P800 and P900 devices. App download and purchasing are completed directly on the device so sync with a computer is not necessary. Description, rating and screenshot are available for any app.

In 2006 Nokia introduced Nokia Catalogs, later known as Nokia Download!, for Symbian smartphones which had access to downloadable apps—originally via third-parties like Handango or Jambal but from mid-2006 Nokia were offering their own content via the Nokia Content Discoverer.





The Internet isn't being missed but smartphones have become increasingly more popular due to their convenience, portability, ease of use, etc. Given that Apple/iOS has a significant share of the mobile OS market (e.g., around 58% in the U.S.), not developing for that platform would be missing out on a notable segment of the market.

Interesting history, but I don’t see these having anything materially to do with the mobile app industry we see today. I think a big differentiator were the tools made available to create native experiences on iOS, whereas these stores you mentioned were probably an extension of the web along with ringtone downloads. Nokia also had a big market share prior to 2007, so clearly there was no sizable industry to speak of.

Regarding the internet, any smartphone can access it — so opening up the closed native platform is not necessary because users aren’t being restricted in their use of the web. But you might argue that the native experience is preferable — well, who can we thank for that? The company that created that favorable environment shouldn’t be forced to compromise it. They invested billions into making it what it is today, and this has benefitted their users and developers greatly.

 

[AppliedMicro]

If they had gone with web-apps, none of this would be an issue

It wouldn't. Because Apple wouldn't be a relevant smartphone vendor today.

They criticized Apple viciously back then, claiming it was sooooo unfair

No. There wasn't any App Store business as we know it - and there was no reason to call it unfair.

Apple resisted for a time but eventually gave in

They didn't give in to external pressure from app developers. Schiller and co. were fighting with Jobs internally, trying to convince him to allow native apps. And once word around that Google was close to launching their own mobile OS and SDK allowing native apps, Apple couldn't went out for their way to pre-announce their own SDK with an open letter by Jobs - just in time to beat Google's Android announcement by a few days.

Probably one of their the wisest decisions ever for the iPhone - I am sure Apple wouldn't be a relevant smartphone maker (and the size they) are today, had they sticked with their decision not to allow native apps - if only for a few more years. Their App Store business wouldn't hold a candle to the Play Store today.

 

[HMFIC03]

You have to always ask yourself what it’s in it for Govt?

 

[HMFIC03]

To all the naysayers moaning that their security will be compromised if sideloading is implemented…

Guess what? The  App Store isn’t going anywhere. Everyone can still use the App Store.

The push for sideloading is to benefit developers, not end user customers.

sure 🐑 that’s what they want you think - but why all the interest from world governments?…it’s about creating consenting gateways for data access for government control and exploitation.. not developers and customers

 

[Yebubbleman]

About damn time!

Enforce Android compatibility with Apple Watch and RCS and/or iMessage for Android while you're at it! The degree of "you must stay on an iPhone to enjoy these things that you enjoy more than the iPhone itself" crap is 10000% anti-consumer-choice.

 

[wbeasley]

Ahhh the puppet in the white house, with his strings being pulled by the highest bidder. Wind him up and watch him mumble.

What "administration" gets into the weeds with this kind of stuff?? Does anyone take this administration seriously at all?

Shoot down the "weather ballon" Joey.

and look, they shot the weather balloon...

so your next argument is...???

 

[ksec]

This makes no sense. If you start a company, build it into a huge company, do you lose your rights to operate your product (app store) how you see fit? The competition cries and cries.. ok, so make your own phones into a trillion dollar company then? It's like if you created a bakery and grew it into a huge chain - then Krispy Kreme complained to the government that your bakery wont let them come in and sell their donuts in your stores. Like wtf kind of logic is this?

If that Krispy Kreme analogy is really what you think is happening here. No wonder why you think it makes no sense. .

 

[visualseed]

Without legislation none of this is going to happen and legislation isn't happening any time soon.

 

[DakotaGuy]

When I think of the best technology innovation and user experience the US Government and it's politicians know best! Said no one ever.

If you really want flexibility get an Android phone. Apple has a good system that works for it. I also own an Android phone. We already have consumer choice. If you think of all the manufacturers we have a lot of choice. Even within Android there is a lot of choice of different skins and companies like Samsung already have their own app store.

 

[DakotaGuy]

Without legislation none of this is going to happen and legislation isn't happening any time soon.

True. With the House going R, this legislation is as good as dead. If the Ds control the White House and both house chambers in the future this will happen.

 

[wbeasley]

True. With the House going R, this legislation is as good as dead. If the Ds control the White House and both house chambers in the future this will happen.

The Democrats did control both houses and obviously didnt consider this important enough to push through on their watch - so guess that makes you wrong

 

[BuddyTronic]

Why limit these recommendations to mobile ecosystems? Let me install Steam on my Xbox and buy games that way!

Good analogy for sure.

 

[H2SO4]

I’ll plan to explain to my Mom this weekend about side loading apps on her iPhone and the merits of various browsers and mail apps so she can make informed decisions.

Absolutely see this as the right way to go.
As with my Mac, I'll choose which apps to buy outside of the store and which to buy from it and advise those I know to do the same.