This is a beautiful quote because it is an example of one industry's bad behavior leading to another industry's bad behavior, upon which the first industry then users the second's similarity to justify themselves. Cars only started doing this because phones made it normal. It's wrong in both cases.
It's similar to when Apple defended it's 30% store cut by claiming it's an "industry standard"... specifically, an industry standard that Apple established.
On the other hand, you can't sideload apps onto iOS devices. You HAVE to go through Apple. You either publish on the app store, or you don't have an iOS app. That's different. That's very different. That's antitrust-can't-happen-sooner different.
> "That's different. That's very different
Is it? Why is it? You can't sell software to run on Kindle Paperwhite even though it's a full computer inside. What's the specific difference between that and iOS, other than "Apple's ecosystem and customers are desirable, so I want to use it" and "I don't want to pay for it"?
You aren't making much sense. You won't have any semblance of adoption if you don't have presence on iOS. Except maybe in India where iOS market share is tiny.
> You can't sell software to run on Kindle Paperwhite even though it's a full computer inside.
It's an appliance. It's marketed as a device to serve one purpose — read books. Amazon isn't making apps for it either, as far as the user is concerned, there's no notion of application software on these things.
By the way, washing machines and microwaves also have a full computer in them — there's CPU, RAM, and ROM. Yes, tiny and underpowered. Probably not quite powerful enough to run Doom. Computers nonetheless, technically.
Yet no one raises any objections about not being able to run arbitrary code on them. Precisely because of the marketing and expectations.
> What's the specific difference between that and iOS
iPhones and iPads are marketed as general-purpose computing devices. They are not appliances by any stretch of imagination. Yet they are crippled because Apple has knowingly and deliberately put in a limitation so they only run code that was signed by Apple. This limits their general-purposefulness. This forces developers who don't want or need the hosting and listing still go through the app store.
This is like a restaurant demanding smart shoes for customers, and you complaining that it's anti-competitively hurting your sneaker business and the restaurant should be forced to change. Customers going there are going there knowing the dress code applies to them and others, forcibly blocking that removes part of their reason for going there at all.
> "You aren't making much sense. You won't have any semblance of adoption if you don't have presence on iOS."
That is the sense, you aren't required to have any semblance of adoption. Apple is successful by building a curated, restricted, "exclusive" (by perception if not fact) experience. You want access to the customers and their money, without upholding the reasons the customers are using that platform.
> "Yet no one raises any objections about not being able to run arbitrary code on them. Precisely because of the marketing and expectations."
Now you aren't making sense. Apple never marketed or set expectations that you could sideload apps on iPhone or iOS, did they?
> "By the way, washing machines and microwaves also have a full computer in them — there's CPU, RAM, and ROM. Yes, tiny and underpowered. Probably not quite powerful enough to run Doom. Computers nonetheless, technically."
So you're going after Bosch for anti-competitively not allowing you to sell software that runs on their washing machines, and not allowing owners to sideload? Because this is all about anti-competitive, you said? No obviously you aren't doing that, which calls into question your claimed reasons. You can easily list your app on Apple's store and compete, what it's about is you want more money. Which is fine in its own way, until you try to get some legal mandate for Apple to force me to worse platform so you can avoid paying Apple money for using Apple's platform and reputation.
Once you bought a thing, you own it. That's it. It's cool to have a curated app store for those developers who want it. It's uncool for Apple to retain control of devices after they've been sold.
> This is like a restaurant demanding smart shoes for customers
You can't make this comparison. You don't get to choose what kind of mobile device other people use. You do get to choose which restaurant you visit.
> Apple is successful by building a curated, restricted, "exclusive" (by perception if not fact) experience.
Apple is successful by building great hardware and mostly good UX. Macs have had no app store for most of their history, and even though presently do have restrictions by default, there's a manual override to allow running unsigned or self-signed code.
> You want access to the customers and their money, without upholding the reasons the customers are using that platform.
I'm having issue with there being a gatekeeper AT ALL. I don't give a crap about "their customers" and "their money". I just want to make an app and distribute it straight to my users. That's it. Apple forcibly inserting itself in between me and my users doesn't do any good to either side. Especially if it's a free app and I'm doing my own marketing. It's simply a rent-seeking prude intermediary that creates more problems than it solves.
People buy smartphones because you need one to function in the modern society. They choose either Google or Apple. Neither of these corporations deserves all the credit they feel entitled to.
> Apple never marketed or set expectations that you could sideload apps on iPhone or iOS, did they?
Apple set expectations that you can do pretty much anything on an iOS device.
> You can easily list your app on Apple's store and compete, what it's about is you want more money.
I don't give a crap about money. I despise intellectual property and proprietary software. I'll never sell a byte.
I'm simply sick and tired of how relentlessly Apple wants to eradicate sex and piracy form the internet, for example. Even if you have a free app, Apple literally dictates you how you should change your ToS to be approved on the app store. Is that acceptable? I don't think so. No one should have this kind of power. If the web was invented today, a web browser would be rejected from the app store for allowing the user to view any content without restrictions.
Meanwhile they approve all sorts of scam apps, like a bunch of wallpapers with a $20/week subscription on it. Because they take a 30% cut on those. This is hypocrisy.
> "People buy smartphones because you need one to function in the modern society. They choose either Google or Apple. Neither of these corporations deserves all the credit they feel entitled to."
And you can sideload on Android, and they chose not-Android. and you could do so on Blackberry, and WindowsPhone, and Maemo and Symbian, and they all failed for not offering what people want. The only remaining good experience left is Apple, and you want to take that away as well. We know what that world looks like. It's not paradise of free choice, it's this: https://i.imgur.com/Ko5QcQl.jpg
And by "this", that's what an Android phone looks like. If you want to live in that world as a personal choice, you can easily not install the toolbars. But if there is an ecosystem you can buy into which avoids that, that should be an option. You want people who chose a limited experience to have the limits removed - but they chosing the limited experience in the first place, who are you to say that shouldn't be allowed?
> "Apple is successful by building great hardware and mostly good UX. Macs have had no app store for most of their history, and even though presently do have restrictions by default, there's a manual override to allow running unsigned or self-signed code."
Agreed, so people who want unsigned or self-signed code can buy macs, right? Choice. Nobody is forced to buy an iOS device, nobody is surprised when they can't side-load a program, because that has been the same for 10+ years and 10+ major iPhone versions, it's never been an expectation.
> "I'm having issue with there being a gatekeeper AT ALL."
I'm having issue with the idea that people willingly buying into an optional gatekeeper is some problem you think will be improved by forbidding people from having that option. The good it does is removing floods of junk from iOS users attention. It's like saying "My email isn't spam" and ignoring that spam is a huge problem and people willingly subscribe to gatekeepers at massive effort and cost industry-wide to try and protect themselves. So are robocalls, and dredmorbius suggests they might bring down the phone networks entirely[1] in the coming few years from a complete inability and unwillingness to defend itself. "Pay to send me an email or call me" would stop it in its tracks. Buying into a gatekeeper environment is another. "I should be able to bypass your spam filter because my emails aren't spam"?
