An iPhone is the private property of the user, and if you are skilled enough you can jailbreak it and there is nothing Apple can do about it. If you're not skilled to do it, then that's your own problem. No court of law would go against you if you took a soldering iron and your expertise to change your iPhone in any way you please. Apple shouldn't be obliged to help you in those efforts, though.
> Apple is unfairly forcing themselves into the dev-user relationship here.
Who was forced to buy an iPhone? Who was forced to develop for Apple devices?
> An iPhone is the private property of the user, and if you are skilled enough you can jailbreak it and there is nothing Apple can do about it. If you're not skilled to do it, then that's your own problem.
No, because Apple chooses to prevent me from controlling the device the way I want. The skill involved is about finding holes in the system, not in enabling an "expert mode" or something.
The imbalance of power is itself a problem. A hardware manufacturer should be legally prohibited from designing their devices in such a way that they retain more control over them post-sale than the actual owner. Device ownership should mean maximum control over code execution.
> Who was forced to buy an iPhone?
Nobody, but I'm not a free market absolutist.
> Who was forced to develop for Apple devices?
Every developer who wants to cater to ~half of the mobile user population (~85% if it's young Americans)
I assume an expert mode (where you can sideload anything you want) is what you are asking for. To that I raise the standard objection: how do you protect grandma from having a criminal social-engineer her into enabling expert mode and then having her sideload malware onto her device?
I mean if you're gonna stop people from owning their device and doing what they want with it just because of the possibility of crime occurring then their are quite a few more things that probably should also no longer exist because of their potential use in crime.
That's a pretty ridiculous argument if you ask me.
You can say that about a lot of things in life. Legalized gambling, for example. Tons of people ruin their lives with it and this creates big externalities for society. But we tolerate it so that everyone has the freedom to gamble.
Apple on the other hand offers a locked down product that many people want because they don’t trust themselves. I think a lot of people have short memories for all the hacking and spyware that plagued Windows users a couple decades ago. I think we also need to remember that Apple is not the government so people have alternatives to buying their devices.
Personally, I think people should have the right to buy a locked down device. It’s not on Apple to provide open competitors to their product. And why should developers have a right to develop for the platform? Heck, I wanted the iPhone back when it didn’t even have 3rd party apps at all.
> Apple on the other hand offers a locked down product that many people want because they don’t trust themselves
The idea that, for many people purchasing an iPhone, the inability to install apps from alternative stores or the web is a selling point seems rather questionable.
On top of that this could easily be provided by an optional switch that enables you to enforce this on your own device if you so desire.
It is a poor reason to request that all app distribution for everyone else also has to go through Apple and its terms, basically for your convenience.
I’ve already given one reason why the switch is a bad idea. Another reason is that powerful third parties such as Meta and Google could force users to disable their own protections and give those apps full access to all data as a condition of installation.
Ultimately, an option becomes a requirement and then the protection for users is totally gone.
>>hacking and spyware that plagued Windows users a couple decades ago
And that still plagues every computing platform now. Including Apple platforms. So the lockdown clearly didn’t completely solve that problem like a lot of people seem to claim
That is exactly what Apple has decided to do. You have named the tradeoff. Stop the possibility by disabling everyone. It has always been this way. People have had nearly 20 years to leave Apple
> No, because Apple chooses to prevent me from controlling the device the way I want.
They have no power to prevent you from doing anything you want to your device. Just like Ford has no power to stop me from modifying my truck in any way I want. Or any other product from any other company.
Not helping you is something different, that's not preventing.
> Every developer who wants to cater to ~half of the mobile user population (~85% if it's young Americans)
That's a choice for them to make. You might then say that Coca-Cola is forcing supermarkets to carry their product because customers want to buy them.
> They have no power to prevent you from doing anything you want to your device. Just like Ford has no power to stop me from modifying my truck in any way I want. Or any other product from any other company.
They have the technical ability to prevent me from running the code I want, and they exercise that ability for that purpose. They're not a passive actor in this situation, they explicitly block me from doing things that they themselves can do, even after the sale.
Again, this should be a concern merely because of the power imbalance.
> That's a choice for them to make. You might then say that Coca-Cola is forcing supermarkets to carry their product because customers want to buy them.
Not the same thing at all. The mobile app market is a top-level one in a way the Coca-Cola one is not. Apple is controlling a huge amount of commerce for products that have nothing to do with them, besides being digital accessories to iDevices.
The better analogy would be: there are only two store companies in the entire US. If you want to sell any product at all, of any category (silverware, food, lawnmowers etc) you must contract with them and there's no other way, and anyone who wants to purchase any product whatsoever only has those two options.
> which unfair market conditions made it impossible
Bank applications depending on various os or device level security features? Good luck getting developers to build applications for your platform in general until you have a very large number of users (even Microsoft couldn’t manage it when the oligopoly was way less entrenched)
Well then you aren't forced to purchase an iPhone, are you? Much less forced to develop for an iPhone. If a developer isn't satisfied with having access to billions of Android customers, then they should change careers or stop complaining.
Developers also had every opportunity in the world to offer their software for Windows Phone and BlackBerry devices. Or offer their own devices with their software. Which is an easy thing for banks to do. Their laziness and incompetence isn't an excuse for them to turn around and point fingers at Apple for being successful. They made their own bed.
> with having access to billions of Android customers
The average Android user is almost worthless economically compared to the average iPhone user. If you calculate the market share based on revenue and not total users Apple has a much bigger proportion of the pie than the raw user base would suggest.
> Which is an easy thing for banks to do.
The victim in this case are the consumers, not banks.
Overall the smartphone OS market is a not very competitive oligopoly, the government’s job is to make sure that markets are competitive.
> around and point fingers at Apple for being successful. They made their own bed.
To get into the position where you can abuse your position in the market you have to do something right, certainly. That doesn’t mean you should be allowed to do that in perpetuity.
> The average Android user is almost worthless economically compared to the average iPhone user.
But how and why is Apple to be blamed for that?
> The victim in this case are the consumers, not banks.
The culprits are the banks, who aren't offering their customers adequate service. The culprit certainly isn't Apple. They aren't a bank.
> Overall the smartphone OS market is a not very competitive oligopoly
Some of the biggest companies in the world are competing against each other on smart phones. And customers have a great variety of devices to choose from. Smart phones is a prime example on where the free market worked: Fierce competition between several very large companies resulted in amazing devices being offered to customers. And since customers are free to choose what they purchase, they will choose the best device they can get at whatever price they deem reasonable and affordable. Companies who cannot offer good enough products fall away from the competition by the nature of the free market: Nokia, Microsoft, BlackBerry, Siemens, and more. All of them were powerful corporations.
Current hacker ideology has mixed the worst parts of capitalism and communism into weird standpoints which make no sense. Am I supposed to feel sorry that developers (they are mostly giant corporations) can't figure out how to make money without depending on Apple? And that therefore the government should intervene to guarantee the profits of these giant corporations?
Enough, already. Apple has no unfair advantage against the competition, except for the incompetence of said competition. Let them have their win, and if they are acting against the interest of their consumers, then they won't have their win for long.
It’s not about blame, the point of anti trust and competition laws is just that, maximize competition and consumer surplus. Yes that inherently penalizes the most successful companies we collectively as a society judged that to be a fair bargain.
> The culprit certainly isn't Apple. They aren't a bank.
Sure, it’s easier to go after Apple not banks, though.
> have a great variety of devices to choose from
Physical hardware sure. Effectively there is no choice when it comes to software though.
> device they can get at whatever price they deem reasonable and affordable
Sure, but again physical hardware is not whats being discussed here. All major device manufacturers make it either were hard or impossible to install alternative operating systems (especially that got much worse for Android devices over the years).
> can't figure out how to make money without depending on Apple? A
When it comes to certain sectors that’s true. Or rather you are supposed to pay a very significant proportion of your revenue as rent to Apple to for very little in return (Apple benefits almost as much from third party developers as developers do from Apple).
> Apple has no unfair advantage against the competition, except for the incompetence of said competition
Yeah, that how most monopolies work. They are just outright better than their competition until they are in a dominant position and can get a higher proportion of the pie because they ran all the competitors out of business. That’s exactly when regulators should intervene to make the market more efficient.
Based on empirical evidence free/efficient markets can almost never exist without regulation.
So if you were forced to keep f.e. a door lock on your house (that you bought), because as part of the purchase the developer required it - would you be fine with it too? You could technically jail break it...
> Apple is unfairly forcing themselves into the dev-user relationship here.
Who was forced to buy an iPhone? Who was forced to develop for Apple devices?