A federal judge in the United States has ordered tech giant Google to open its Android smartphones to rival app stores. The order comes after an antitrust case in which a jury decided Google had illegal…
Apple can take action and remove apps that are malicious, and they’re really good at it. Of course you won’t hear those people on facebook worrying about app permissions because there usually isn’t anything to worry about.
Adding a new app store is a HUGE attack surface that requires a ton of resources, and im getting the feeling that people aren’t understanding the effort Apple takes to keep their app store nice.
It wouldn’t be such a problem if it was just about quality control. But the app stores pocket big bucks from the apps you download, including a large cut of subscriptions to services entirely unrelated to the store just because you downloaded the app through them. If I recall, Google takes something like 20 percent and some takes something like 30 (I can’t recall the exact numbers, just that Apple is marginally worse about it).
For example, I love Dropout, a comedy media platform from the former people at College Humor. They offer a $5.99/month subscription for access to their entire catalog. If I went to their website, created an account and bought a subscription, that is $5.99 directly into the hands of the creators I wish to support. I can also then go download the app and enjoy the same service throught that account on my phone or other devices.
However, if I go to the app store, download the app, and buy my subscription in it, Dropout now has to pay Google or Apple a sizable chunk of that $5.99. And not just for that month. For every month that follows for the life of that subscription. Just for the benefit of having an app available to users on devices that hold monopolies on these services.
You might be thinking, well, they could just raise the price for the subscriptions when you sign up through the app to offset the extra fees. You would think that, but no. If I recall correctly, Apple and Google both also require apps to sell subscriptions at the same price as they would be sold outside the apps. If you don’t comply with that, they’ll drop your app altogether. That means that everyone has to pay more, whether you got your subscription through the app or not, to offset those extra costs.
There are many other problems, including anti-competitive/antitrust practices, and ironically, shitty quality control. But such things are inevitable with monopolies.
It’s worse than that. Apple charges application developers just to put their apps on the app store. This is a big contributor as to why there are so few OSS iOS projects: I’m happy to share, for free, the app I wrote for myself, but I’m not going to pay someone money to do it.
All I can see is the big giant security hole this opens up for both platforms.
Text messages, photos, contacts, sleep patterns, bank information, heart rates, stocks, phone calls, menstrual cycles, voice memos, 2 factor authentication apps, password managers, medications, blood oxygen levels, baby monitors, cameras, wifi lights, internal home network servers, hotel rooms, emails, etc harvested, sold, and exploited all because [email protected] wants his iPhone 13 to be able to install fornite aim bot mods.
“Is there any reason why this calculator needs permissions for my camera, microphone, contacts, and files?”
—said no one ever who posts on facebook that their account was hacked
Apple can take action and remove apps that are malicious, and they’re really good at it. Of course you won’t hear those people on facebook worrying about app permissions because there usually isn’t anything to worry about.
Adding a new app store is a HUGE attack surface that requires a ton of resources, and im getting the feeling that people aren’t understanding the effort Apple takes to keep their app store nice.
It wouldn’t be such a problem if it was just about quality control. But the app stores pocket big bucks from the apps you download, including a large cut of subscriptions to services entirely unrelated to the store just because you downloaded the app through them. If I recall, Google takes something like 20 percent and some takes something like 30 (I can’t recall the exact numbers, just that Apple is marginally worse about it).
For example, I love Dropout, a comedy media platform from the former people at College Humor. They offer a $5.99/month subscription for access to their entire catalog. If I went to their website, created an account and bought a subscription, that is $5.99 directly into the hands of the creators I wish to support. I can also then go download the app and enjoy the same service throught that account on my phone or other devices.
However, if I go to the app store, download the app, and buy my subscription in it, Dropout now has to pay Google or Apple a sizable chunk of that $5.99. And not just for that month. For every month that follows for the life of that subscription. Just for the benefit of having an app available to users on devices that hold monopolies on these services.
You might be thinking, well, they could just raise the price for the subscriptions when you sign up through the app to offset the extra fees. You would think that, but no. If I recall correctly, Apple and Google both also require apps to sell subscriptions at the same price as they would be sold outside the apps. If you don’t comply with that, they’ll drop your app altogether. That means that everyone has to pay more, whether you got your subscription through the app or not, to offset those extra costs.
There are many other problems, including anti-competitive/antitrust practices, and ironically, shitty quality control. But such things are inevitable with monopolies.
It’s worse than that. Apple charges application developers just to put their apps on the app store. This is a big contributor as to why there are so few OSS iOS projects: I’m happy to share, for free, the app I wrote for myself, but I’m not going to pay someone money to do it.