Comment by bitpush
8 months ago
Two days, two app store news. Yesterday it was Google and there was a large discussion.
And today it is Apple, and I'm curious to see whether HN folks feel the similar passion. Historically, people pick up pitch forks for Google but give Apple a pass - so looking forward to the conversation here.
I think most people concerned with sovereignty over their own devices gave up on Apple long ago.
This is the kind of conduct I expect from Apple and the reason I have no interest in using one of their devices. I think it's bad for them to do this. I think it's bad for them to have the ability to do this. I don't think ranting about it on HN will accomplish anything. It has been this way for nearly 20 years and it will only change if governments make even stricter laws against it.
Google, on the other hand is trying to lock down a previously (somewhat) open platform. That's a rug pull for those who picked Android for its openness, and it's possible that sufficient outrage from the tech community will stop that plan.
>and it's possible that sufficient outrage from the tech community will stop that plan.
I highly doubt that. It would take the common non-tech person to be outraged. This is where google makes all their money. Not from a small minority of tech workers.
Oh yeah for me personally iPhone was never a consideration because I despise being treated like a toddler and dislike "ecosystems".
And Apple being a middleman parasite for every app wasn't something that I had much sympathy for.
That looks actually healthy! I don’t understand the fixation on wanting to make Apple allow anything on their platform. Don’t like the platform? Don’t buy the hardware. It’s simple.
As one of the people objecting to Google's actions yesterday, I think I was pretty clear that I was objecting to them descending to Apple's level, not below.
This is the behaviour I, unfortunately, expect out of Apple.
Thanks for the reasonable response. If you are a company and you saw your competitor was "getting away" with something so egregious, which also turns out to be hugely profitable, wouldnt you also do it?
I'm not sure it matters what I would do if I was the company. I'm an individual evaluating what phone to buy next, regardless of motivation, Google being less abusive is no longer a reason to purchase an Android.
But to actually answer the question, I think this is a strategic mistake. I'm broadly of the opinion that:
The android ecosystem is reliant on Android capturing part of the high end market, without it their won't be sufficient money in the ecosystem. Money in the ecosystem is necessary to justify things like developers making apps, phone companies investing in product lines, advertisers paying high prices for in app ads, etc.
Android captures part of the high end market only because of enthusiasts and developers choosing and evangelizing the less abusive company. From other perspectives (hardware quality, software quality, signalling wealth, etc) Apple has generally been better. There's the occasional exception like Android being the first to flip-phone-touch-phones, but not enough to sustain an ecosystem.
And thus Google's general movement to matching Apple here is shortsighted, and likely to significantly contribute to the collapse Android's phone ecosystem, which in turn will destroy the huge source of profit that is Google Play.
2 replies →
There seems to be a difference between Google announcing an official policy change and speculation about why this developer is having issues distributing their app.
As mentioned in TFA:
> While there may be a perfectly logical explanation for iTorrent’s revoked rights, Apple’s handling of the matter so far only fuels speculation. Some might even argue that the lack of transparency in revoking distribution rights violates the letter or the spirit of the EU’s Digital Markets Act.
If Apple is truly trying to block an app that has substantial legal uses that is being distributed outside of its own App Store, there is a problem.
Its interesting that you're giving the benefit of the doubt to Apple, when all signs from the past point to Apple kicking the developer out and protecting their app store control.
You're technically right that we havent seen Apple do the thing _in this instance_ but why do you still give the company the benefit of the doubt.
The issue is app distribution outside of the first party app stores.
One one hand we have an official policy announcement from Google, and on the other hand we have speculation about why one developer is having issues distributing one app.
Speculation is not on the same level as an official policy.
16 replies →
Mostly because the people who want sideloading are using Android. And on Android the situation is constantly getting worse, while on iOS it's largely just sticking to the status quo.
Nevertheless, this serves as an excellent demonstration of the problem with the changes Google are making, since they would allow Google to do exactly what Apple just did.
the article that caused such outrage yesterday was about Google making it more difficult for devs to deploy arbitrary software on Android mobile devices outside of the official store. This is something that Apple does not allow at all for devs on iOS devices (except in regions where forced to by law). I don't like Google's changes, but its still better than Apple's stance.
I don't feel similar passion but that's because I don't have an iphone and gave up on ios long ago. I use android because it gave me more freedom. The freedom to root my phone, the freedom to install whatever app I wanted to.
I use a macbook pro as my main laptop because macos is bearable (also it's become steadily worse in the last few years) and their hardware is great. But, ipads and iphones are just locked down trash from my perspective and I refuse to use money to get a device that I can't control.
the developer had his app distribution rights removed in mid-July.
TorrentFreak are the first to respond to our emails, Getting the news out is hard.
(i am the one who alerted Ernesto, but i had no input in the article.)
We aren’t a monolith, as evidenced by the supportive comments in response to yours and throughout the comments here. I also don’t think Apple deserves a pass.
You're right, but hard to ignore the fact that the other article had 2000 (!!) comments, and this thread has 120 comments.
They are not at the same level.
It's a big change for Google, and a reversal from what Android was originally all about. For Apple, this is just business as usual.
You will not see the same level of engagement. Many more people care about changes to sideloading on Android as a whole than something affecting one torrent app on one app store in one region on iOS.
I admit that many give apple a pass, but I think the outrage is greater for Google because people think there's a chance they'll actually listen to their consumers
HN folks won't feel a similar passion. Apple has a way better PR department than Google and the reality distortion field is still strong.
Google did away with the “do no evil” slogan. That irked a lot of people. Apple never pretended they were anything else.
Just a slight modification. They dropped the “no”.
What? Apple keeps pretending to care about things like privacy yet they run a 6B ads division and phone home when you execute apps in macOS.
> Historically, people pick up pitch forks for Google but give Apple a pass
This hasn't really been the case for the past year or two. People are pretty fed up with Apple's BS, even here in their historic stronghold.
What I'm seeing is that we need a true open source phone and os. Looks like there's been some work on those fronts, but we need to do more.
Yes and not just that but we also need things like bank apps supporting it and not blocking everything for 'security reasons' like they do with alternative Android roms.
What was the other app store news?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45017028
[flagged]
I would love to see iOS be unchained for users to do what they want with it. But in realistic terms, buying an iPhone comes with the baggage that you are basically opting into Apple owning your device for you.
So when stuff like this happens, it's kind of the expected outcome. Cue the lawnmower analogy.
For as long as I've been on Hacker News (2015?) there has been an obvious Apple bias. I don't really think that has changed that much.
I always thought a lot of developers who were big Apple fans would fall off as Apple started pushing stuff like the Mac App Store and Gatekeeper on macOS, but no. At this point I am unsure there is much Apple could do to lose support of its biggest supporters. All Apple needs is some plausible excuse for why something is a good idea and people take it largely at face value. (At least, Apple never really seems to lose much supporters in the long run.)
I pay too much attention to comment votes and replies on this website, probably mainly because all of the other discussion forums I used to go on are dead. But in threads about Apple, I kind of get the idea of what the votes really represent.