I feel Apple decided it was better for their ecosystem that for real world goods and services that many of these platforms could make a web app that provided that capability which would make their push for native applications moot. In a sense it's a pragmatic decision to delineate services that would otherwise work just as acceptably in a web browser versus a native application. All of those other examples have web presences that could be modified to work as a web app in a way that doesn't impinge upon their usability significantly. In that sense the native app provides a significant value add over a simple web app by providing a set of experiences that can be accelerated in a different way.Whats the rationale for not requiring say Best Buy, Amazon, your Grocery Store … to implant its in app purchase device in their App?
Out of the Epic case we're able to see that behind the scenes Apple dedicate engineering resources to helping Unreal Engine work more efficiently on the device and resolve issues. A lot of the specialised native SDK support predominantly benefits these over apps like Best Buy that doesn't need a better 3D renderer support. In part Apple recoup that cost of investing in making developer tooling better, including third party platforms like Unreal, through their App Store model.
I'm not allergic to regulation but I'm also hesitant to get behind much of the legislation that has been proposed in many places as well. Apple have had much of this model for over a decade now and all of a sudden it's now problematic. I disagree that compelling the only alternative to Android to act like Android is a pro-consumer move, it's anti-consumer and is removing choice. If this was important to me, I wouldn't buy the Apple device, I'd buy the device that provides the capability I want. There exists choice on the market to do so yet some the iPhone is still gaining market share.If there is no rationale to regulate this, don’t know what kind of commercial relationships have.
As I've noted elsewhere the biggest problem in the smartphone market is that there are only two choices for operating system: Apple's iOS and Google's Android. Google undercut the smartphone operating system market eviscerating the marketshare of Blackberry, Microsoft's Windows Phone platforms (why pay Microsoft $50/device when Google was giving it away?), Nokia's operating systems and some of the smaller Linux based systems (OpenMoko, Maemo). Google now has a monopoly position over that market with almost all smartphone OEMs using Android, even Microsoft now are shipping Android devices.
Yet the majority of the focus is on how we regulate the only alternative to Google.
I disagree that it's the least web app friendly platform, they've pushed forward a number of features even after they made the pivot to native they've continued to add features to the web app platform and improve it. An example of this was that Apple worked to bring their Nitro enhancement to the home screen launched web apps. Amazon Luna seems to demonstrate the ability to run a game streaming service through the web browser. To be honest I feel that this is again Apple pragmatism, they've been clear from the outset that they will control and limit what is in the App Store. Now a web app is going to have a disadvantage because the DOM is a really expensive way of rendering an interface, native UI elements are able to be optimised in a way that a DOM/JS interface is unable to be so I am curious to see a deep dive on how Luna operates.EDIT: Another note. If you are thinking ... 'Oh just use web apps'. Well compared this is fundamentally a back door to this model, a keyhole ... they control that keyhole too. Its least web app friendly thing on the planet. All protecting you, all to protect your fundamental human rights like Privacy and Security, .. right?. Welcome to the Matrix.
That said I remember years ago the Financial Times had created this really nice web app for the iPhone leveraging local storage and the full screen interface. For me it was a cool demonstration of just what could be achieved.
Yes but some how Apple still ended up paying for it. I flag it as a cautionary aspect because Apple seemed to be implementing a similar.I think they are two different situations. In the bookstore case, the companies conspired to keep prices higher than what might have been absent the price fixing. That hurt the consumer.