Apple Says App Store 'Welcomes Competition' Following Criticism From Spotify and Others

[jlc1978]

So, third party developers are the essence of the App Store. The App Store would not exist without developers making great apps. If developers formed a union and boycotted the App Store by removing their apps from sale, what would happen?

They’d go out of business long before Apple did. A few of the bigger ones who are multi platform would survive but a lot of the small shops would go under. They need the audience and exposure the App Store brings, and thus pay a price to be on the App Store.

 

[robgendreau]

Heh. One of Apple's arguments that the MAS isn't a monopoly is that it's filled with junk. If it were a monopoly, and closely curated, the ratio of quality to flotsam and jetsam would be higher. You've got FCP alongside what, two million "video converters"? Seems they'll sell most anything you throw at them.

 

[Khedron]

Does anyone know what the current percentage of subscribed Spotify users are iOS, as opposed to android? The figures I've seen it's only 16% iOS in 2017.
With Spotify's 96+ million subscribers, with (lets say 80%) of them android users, losing 30% of a 20% revenue seems a bit petty. Are Spotify's margins so slim?

Why don't you volunteer 6% of your income as a gift to Tim just for enjoying Apple products? It would be petty not to right?

Are Apple's margins so slim they needed to remove the SIM eject tools from their $1000+ phones and the spare tips from their $100+ pencil?

 

[LordVic]

Why don't you volunteer 6% of your income as a gift to Tim just for enjoying Apple products? It would be petty not to right?

Are Apple's margins so slim they needed to remove the SIM eject tools from their $1000+ phones and the spare tips from their $100+ pencil?

Nothing to do with slim margins, and everything to do with maximization of profit.

I know those sound similar, but when you have to cut to keep any profit due to slim margins, there's going to be a certain level of acceptance. As you generally, as a consumer aren't necessarily going to feel fleeced.

But when costs are ut dramatically just so that a companies profits can go from 30billion to 35billion. It starts to feel like profiteering. And this is where consumer behaviour will tend to turn against a company.

We all are generally OK with paying for things and having someone earn profit for those things. But when user experience suffers, while the company continously boasts constantly growing revenues and margins, it starts feeling more like a tax, than just normal profit.

And yes, little things like nibs off pencil tips add up. Lets say you sell 5 million Apple pencils
if you provide everyone with a spare nib at .05 cost, the cost is $250,000.
If you don't provide everyone with a spare, but charge $1 for them. Though only 50% buy replacements you wnd up with an actual profit of $2,250,000


So when you and to volume it starts making a massive difference in the accounting of it all. Apple has definitely shown in recent years that this sort of cost saving measures to drive revenue growth is a thing. It's the reason for the 3.5mm jack removal. it's the reason for not including dongles/adapters in their devices (which most of the competition does). This has been very true in behaviour and we can see that by Best Buys reports that their #1 selling items are dongles and adapters, not devices themselves.

 

[rtomyj]

I wonder if Apple knew this former exec was going to do a podcast with Mark Gurman and write a Medium post criticizing some of Apple’s practices? Maybe that’s why this website just went up?

https://medium.com/@phillipshoemaker/apple-v-everybody-5903039e3be

I don’t get this though:

Apple believes if they bring you the customer, then they are entitled to their share of the purchase.

Is Apple not brining Uber or Lyft customers? How about food delivery apps? Or just food apps in general, like Panera? Apple isn’t taking a cut of those purchases.

The easiest way for Apple to solve this problem is to update their business model to say they won’t take a cut of subscriptions where they directly compete, especially in instances where they’re not hosting content. To me that seems the most fair.

Physical vs Digital goods? Honestly, being a dev I know I have to research if an app I want to make is viable. That includes $$$. Spotify is bad at being a business.

https://www.macrumors.com/2019/04/29/spotify-100m/
Let’s take 100m at $9.99.
That’s $999m
$669.3M after Apples “unfair tax”
Lets say they pay the record companies 50% of what they make. Might be steep but it’s for arguments sake.
$349.65M per month in Spotify’s pockets.
$4.195B a year.
Let’s say they have 200 employees at 100k salary - that’s $50M
Let’s say they spend another $50M for servers....

See they still have a **** ton of money. They can get 10k employees at 100K salary for $1B. And that is overkill for this service. I’d say 50 devs is also over kill. They don’t need many business people. It’s a damn streaming service. Meaning they can save money on employees. And if they are paying $50M on servers... wow.

So they are making billions where they couldn’t have without the App Store. Keeping in mind they also make money off Ads...They SHOULD have a lot of excess money. Instead of fixing their company they are making excuses.

The website was just free publicity. They have a link in the bottom for devs to sign up. Reading the site - id say it is more for potential partners rather than saving face from a rando employee.

 

[Khedron]

Nothing to do with slim margins, and everything to do with maximization of profit.

I know those sound similar, but when you have to cut to keep any profit due to slim margins, there's going to be a certain level of acceptance. As you generally, as a consumer aren't necessarily going to feel fleeced.

But when costs are ut dramatically just so that a companies profits can go from 30billion to 35billion. It starts to feel like profiteering. And this is where consumer behaviour will tend to turn against a company.

We all are generally OK with paying for things and having someone earn profit for those things. But when user experience suffers, while the company continously boasts constantly growing revenues and margins, it starts feeling more like a tax, than just normal profit.

And yes, little things like nibs off pencil tips add up. Lets say you sell 5 million Apple pencils
if you provide everyone with a spare nib at .05 cost, the cost is $250,000.
If you don't provide everyone with a spare, but charge $1 for them. Though only 50% buy replacements you wnd up with an actual profit of $2,250,000


So when you and to volume it starts making a massive difference in the accounting of it all. Apple has definitely shown in recent years that this sort of cost saving measures to drive revenue growth is a thing. It's the reason for the 3.5mm jack removal. it's the reason for not including dongles/adapters in their devices (which most of the competition does). This has been very true in behaviour and we can see that by Best Buys reports that their #1 selling items are dongles and adapters, not devices themselves.

Apple charges $19 for the replacement tips not $1

 

[LordVic]

Apple charges $19 for the replacement tips not $1

I was pulling numbers out my ass for simplicity sake.

I'm well aware that the numbers and margins on these small items are absolutely massive.

It likely only costs Apple 50c - 1.50 per dongle that they sell for 19.99.

 

[Rogifan]

They explain in the App Store guidelines. Has to do with whether the service is part of the app or external, not based on which particular company is providing it.

Again, that’s the what, not the why. Why does it matter whether the service happens in the app or not? Uber owes its success to Apple/iOS more than Amazon, Netflix or Spotify do. And I guarantee you if Apple could take a percentage of Uber transactions they would. And if these commissions are legit because Apple’s bringing these companies the customers or it covers the cost of running the App Store then why does Apple allow reader apps?

 

[Khedron]

I was pulling numbers out my ass for simplicity sake.

I'm well aware that the numbers and margins on these small items are absolutely massive.

It likely only costs Apple 50c - 1.50 per dongle that they sell for 19.99.

Which is why it's such a terrible argument to ask why companies should complain about giving Apple 30% of their revenue when Tim's Apple is so desperate for all the money it will demand ~1000% markups on accessories like dongles, pencil tips, watch bands, phone cases...

 

[jonnysods]

"Apple Says App Store 'Welcomes Competition' Following Criticism From Spotify and Others" ...
Isn't that what every monopolistic company says? The app store should be independent of Apple now that they are competing in it with their own apps.

Spotify's viewpoint:
https://www.timetoplayfair.com/

This was a really good read, very eye opening actually, thanks for sharing that.

 

[jaxemer83]

That's true per Apple rules. No linking to an outside website.

But... if a person is serious about joining Spotify... they could surely find their way to Spotify.com, right?

Personally... I always sign up for services directly on the vendor's website. I want to go directly to the source.

My Netflix account is through Netflix.com. If I had Spotify... it would be through Spotify.com. It's better to have a relationship directly with the vendor rather than though someone else.

Question: If you signed up for Spotify though Apple... what happens if you decide to get an Android phone? Do you have to cancel your account through Apple... and then sign up for another account through Spotify? I'm not sure how that works exactly.

It would be weird to keep going to Apple to manage your Spotify account when you don't use Apple products anymore... if that's how it works.

But like I said... I'd rather sign up directly through Spotify itself and use my login on my iPhone, Android phone, PC, whatever.

Yes... you can't get to Spotify.com from a link in the iOS app. But gosh... finding the website for the largest streaming music service on Earth can't be that difficult. It's actually better to go to their website anyway.

This just accentuates the very problem that is being discussed. If someone is "serious" about joining Spotify, then yes ... of course they will figure out that they need to go to the Spotify website to sign up for a subscription. But neither Spotify nor Apple Music want to limit the scope of their subscriber base to only those that are "serious" about joining their platform. They want to make subscribing as easy as possible so even those that have just a casual interest in trying out their service will take the chance. But because of Apple's obviously anti-competitive App Store rules, those that are casually interested in Spotify cannot subscribe, or find out how to subscribe, from within the app ... at least not without Spotify paying a 30% tax to Apple to obtain that feature. Apple Music, on the other hand, can obtain subscriptions through their app without paying the equivalent tax. That gives Apple Music an obvious and real competitive market over Spotify in the iOS app marketplace and it is, in my opinion, a violation of antitrust laws.

 

[macfacts]

You think the App Store as a market on its own. My argument is the the Apple App Store is not the market

You didn't provide an argument. You just wished the definition of market as something else.

 

[jaxemer83]

People keep saying this but as I have shown multiple times, Spotify will direct you to their website to sign up for premium.

Here, I re-install Spotify and open it up. It immediately advertises premium with an icon in the bottom right tool bar. On clicking, it then asks if I want to learn more. On clicking learn more, it opens the Premium page directly in Safari to sign up and collect their cash outside of the Apple ecosystem. I really don't see how hard this is given Netflix et al do the same thing.

View attachment 839568 View attachment 839569 View attachment 839570
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As a developer, you should already be aware that the $100 annual fee is for access to the SDK's, documentation and other development tools. Without paying that, you won't be writing any apps for Apple devices.

There's a reason why it says "Learn More" and not "Click Here to Subscribe."
[doublepost=1559234958][/doublepost]

You’re the one that have a false understanding of a market. There’s no such thing as “iOS app stores market”, and thus there’s no monopoly. If you buy a Gillette razor, can you replace its blade with other brands other than Gillette’s own? No. But nobody’s calling Gillette as a monopoly. There’s no Gillette replacement razor (iOS App Store) market. The market is on the actual complete razor (smartphone), where there are healthy competition with other brands (other smartphone brands),

Spotify’s argument are weak, Netflix and Amazon have figured out a way to bypass Apple’s fees. If Spotify couldn’t figure that out, that’s their problem. Meanwhile, Spotify themselves are engaging real anti competitive behavior in many markets by making deals with carriers so their service won’t use up user’s quota (anti net neutrality behavior).

The market is the market for iOS apps, which of course is a market ... and which, of course, Apply has a monopoly on. It exercises complete control over the sale and distribution of iOS apps. The legal test for the existence of a market, and market power, is whether consumers would go elsewhere if there was a small increase in the price of the all the products in the market. If Apple decided to charge an extra $.10 cents to consumers for each iOS app that is downloaded, then consumers could choose to pay the extra fee or not download the app, but they couldn't go somewhere else to get the iOS app because THERE IS NOWHERE ELSE TO GO!

Also, of course there is a market for iOS App Stores. Just because there is no competition in a market, does not mean it is not a market. In fact, that is the definition of a monopoly (a market with only a single seller). If apple started charging a nominal price to download the App Store app (like $.50), would people be able to find another source for obtaining iOS apps? No ... because Apple has a monopoly on iOS app stores.

This is obvious if you look at Android. Google Play is just one place where you can obtain android apps. There are other app stores out there. All of them are free, as far as I'm aware, but there is nothing stopping anyone from charging for access to an Android app store. If someone started charging an entrance fee to an android app store, and didn't offer any extra value for the additional cost, then of course people would stop using that app store and choose another one. That is the definition of a market. The same situation exists among iOS app stores. The fact that Apple is a monopolist in that market, by virtue of software restrictions (not competitive success), does not mean there is no market.

 

[realtuner]

Microsoft used their monopoly in OS to hurt Firefox. Apple is using their monopoly in iOS app stores to hurt Spotify.

No on is saying apple has a monopoly in the smartphone market. That is a strawman argument you made up so you can tear it down with ease.

The only thing I see is you using false equivalency to try and claim Windows and iOS are somehow similar so you can then claim Apple is abusing their position the same as Microsoft.

iOS doesn't have a "market dominant position" (the actual terminology used in the antitrust case against Microsoft). So they can't be guilty of abusing their position because they don't control the majority of the market like Windows did. Android would be the one who has this "dominant" position (as Android fans are all too quick to remind everyone about their market share).

You first need to be in a market dominant position before you can abuse that position. By definition this is impossible for Apple to do based on the market share of iOS.

You didn't provide an argument. You just wished the definition of market as something else.

No, you're the one who's trying to change definitions to suit your narrative. The market is iOS vs Android, not The App Store vs "insert whatever I want here".

 

[jlc1978]

The market is the market for iOS apps, which of course is a market

But not in terms of determining market power; you have to look at the broader market for apps.

... and which, of course, Apply has a monopoly on. It exercises complete control over the sale and distribution of iOS apps. The legal test for the existence of a market, and market power, is whether consumers would go elsewhere if there was a small increase in the price of the all the products in the market.

No. the legal test is not would they go elsewhere, but do they have sufficient options so the company cannot simply raise and maintain higher prices and they have no recourse. In addition, there is the question of long term durability of the position.

If Apple decided to charge an extra $.10 cents to consumers for each iOS app that is downloaded, then consumers could choose to pay the extra fee or not download the app, but they couldn't go somewhere else to get the iOS app because THERE IS NOWHERE ELSE TO GO!

Sure they can; switch phones. In looking at a market is important to look at who are the competitors and what is their strength in the market.

At any rate, being a monopoly is not necessarily illegal; per the FTC: Obtaining a monopoly by superior products, innovation, or business acumen is legal

 

[macfacts]

Physical vs Digital goods? Honestly, being a dev I know I have to research if an app I want to make is viable. That includes $$$. Spotify is bad at being a business.

https://www.macrumors.com/2019/04/29/spotify-100m/
Let’s take 100m at $9.99.
That’s $999m
$669.3M after Apples “unfair tax”
Lets say they pay the record companies 50% of what they make. Might be steep but it’s for arguments sake.
$349.65M per month in Spotify’s pockets.
$4.195B a year.
Let’s say they have 200 employees at 100k salary - that’s $50M
Let’s say they spend another $50M for servers....

See they still have a **** ton of money. They can get 10k employees at 100K salary for $1B. And that is overkill for this service. I’d say 50 devs is also over kill. They don’t need many business people. It’s a damn streaming service. Meaning they can save money on employees. And if they are paying $50M on servers... wow.

So they are making billions where they couldn’t have without the App Store. Keeping in mind they also make money off Ads...They SHOULD have a lot of excess money. Instead of fixing their company they are making excuses.

The website was just free publicity. They have a link in the bottom for devs to sign up. Reading the site - id say it is more for potential partners rather than saving face from a rando employee.

Are you trying to make an argument that Spotify is making too much money?

 

[jaxemer83]

The only thing I see is you using false equivalency to try and claim Windows and iOS are somehow similar so you can then claim Apple is abusing their position the same as Microsoft.

iOS doesn't have a "market dominant position" (the actual terminology used in the antitrust case against Microsoft). So they can't be guilty of abusing their position because they don't control the majority of the market like Windows did. Android would be the one who has this "dominant" position (as Android fans are all too quick to remind everyone about their market share).

You first need to be in a market dominant position before you can abuse that position. By definition this is impossible for Apple to do based on the market share of iOS.



No, you're the one who's trying to change definitions to suit your narrative. The market is iOS vs Android, not The App Store vs "insert whatever I want here".

It all depends on how the market is defined, which is a crucial question when you are talking about antitrust law. Of course you are right, if you define the market as all mobile apps on any platforms. If the correct market to analyze is just the market for iOS apps, then, of course, you are clearly wrong. Apple clearly has a "market dominant position" in the market for iOS apps.

Choosing the proper market to analyze requires a market analsis. How many people switch between iOS and Android over apps? Certainly some do (it is one of the reasons I choose Android). But I doubt that it is the motivating factor for most people. If people would not switch to Android if the price of iOS apps increased slightly, then the market for iOS apps is what should be analyzed. That is an empirical question, not one that can be resolved by speculation on a message board.
[doublepost=1559237122][/doublepost]

But not in terms of determining market power; you have to look at the broader market for apps.

It's an empirical question, not one that can be answered on this board. If people wouldn't switch to Android if iOS apps cost slightly more, then the market for iOS apps is exactly the market that should be looked at when analyzing market power.

No. the legal test is not would they go elsewhere, but do they have sufficient options so the company cannot simply raise and maintain higher prices and they have no recourse. In addition, there is the question of long term durability of the position.

I may have been less than precise in my description. The legal test is whether a hypothetical monopolist (not necessarily Apple) could maintain incrementally higher prices for their products without consumers switching to other products. You suggest that people can switch to Android if they don't like what Apple is doing with iOS apps. It is certainly true that they could do that, but the relevant question is whether they would make such a switch. I'm doubtful that a large number of iOS users would switch to Android if Apple increased the price of all iOS apps by an incremental amount. I could be wrong though. It is an empirical question that requires a market analysis.

Sure they can; switch phones. In looking at a market is important to look at who are the competitors and what is their strength in the market.

At any rate, being a monopoly is not necessarily illegal; per the FTC: Obtaining a monopoly by superior products, innovation, or business acumen is legal

Again, the question is not what consumers can do, but what they would do if a hypothetical monopolist started exercising its market power. Given that Apple's market share in the mobile phone OS market is still growing, despite its increasingly restrictive policies towards apps, suggests that there are not many people that would switch to Android over an incremental increase in the cost of iOS apps.

You are right that being a monopoly is not illegal, but obtaining monopoly power through improper means is illegal. And abusing monopoly power to extend your monopoly into other markets is also certainly illegal.

 

[Khedron]

The only thing I see is you using false equivalency to try and claim Windows and iOS are somehow similar so you can then claim Apple is abusing their position the same as Microsoft.

iOS doesn't have a "market dominant position" (the actual terminology used in the antitrust case against Microsoft). So they can't be guilty of abusing their position because they don't control the majority of the market like Windows did. Android would be the one who has this "dominant" position (as Android fans are all too quick to remind everyone about their market share).

You first need to be in a market dominant position before you can abuse that position. By definition this is impossible for Apple to do based on the market share of iOS.



No, you're the one who's trying to change definitions to suit your narrative. The market is iOS vs Android, not The App Store vs "insert whatever I want here".

Surely Apple are dominant in the "premium smartphone" market?
[doublepost=1559238647][/doublepost]

Spotify complains to Apple, but still haven't found any time to include SOME way to make scrolling through playlists with 100+ songs easier?

Oh.

They did but Apple refused to publish the update.

 

[Black Magic]

Problem is Apple doesn’t let me shop in other stores

Other shops could degrade the iPhone experience. No quality control and viruses would run rampant similar to the Google play store. The end user wouldn't know any better and think the phone sucks due to all the the issues. I seen it before with iPhone users on Sprint's crappy network. The users couldn't do much when they were out and about because Sprints network is slow and spotty coverage wise. The users thought the iPhones sucked and Sprint would blame the phone as well and try to sell them another phone.

Bottom line: Apple created a platform and can set rules how they please. Apple was dead broke back in the day probably because they listened to idiots that wanted them to give things away for free and open up.

 

[jaxemer83]

Other shops could degrade the iPhone experience. No quality control and viruses would run rampant similar to the Google play store. The end user wouldn't know any better and think the phone sucks due to all the the issues. I seen it before with iPhone users on Sprint's crappy network. The users couldn't do much when they were out and about because Sprints network is slow and spotty coverage wise. The users thought the iPhones sucked and Sprint would blame the phone as well and try to sell them another phone.

Bottom line: Apple created a platform and can set rules how they please. Apple was dead broke back in the day probably because they listed to idiots that wanted them to give things away for free and open up.

What evidence do you have that this is true of the Google Play Store? I keep hearing this from Apple fan boys. I've used the Google play store for years and have never once gotten a virus or failed to find quality apps. And there are thousands of crappy apps available in the iOS App Store (I have an iPad, so I also use that all the time). This is the definition of a straw man argument.

 

[LizKat]

Whatever third party apps I have on my mobile devices would not be there if I had not acquired them from the App Store, with the possible exceptions of stuff from a few vendors whose desktop products I purchased before there were even mobiles to run iOS versions on. But otherwise, and to the extent a dev takes 70% of the revenue from a sale to me of a mobile app, he or she gets that money mostly because I want the curation that's provided by Apple before I buy the app in the App Store.

There's no way I want to go back to the wild and woolly internet days of checking out every single app on a spare machine isolated from the rest of my gear. And forget about the devs who didn't even have sites and so had to rent space on some middleman site which then may have elected to add its own little gifts to what essentially became a potentially "custom download" of the original app with (at best) unwanted spamware aboard, to which mods the developers agreed because how else get their work bought and downloaded. No thanks!

Those days were a freaking zoo in app-land, for devs and customers alike. No one was really in charge, least of all the devs themselves, by time end users got ahold of a product "somehow". And their products sometimes unjustly took flak for stuff that ended up in there courtesy of dicey distribution systems.

Sign me older, wiser, somewhat weary and even lazy nowadays. My days of checking other people's code are over. But I still want it checked by someone besides the developers.

From my viewpoint the developer writing today for Apple gear users is better off using the App Store just paying a revenue cut to Apple and having a reliable showcase, and the consumer's better off for knowing Apple has examined the devs' work and has helped guide fixes of common glitches (never mind tossing apps that attempt to include downright nefarious code).

Sure there are some software vendors I've dealt with and that I ended up trusting before iOS even existed, so I may well have elected to go instead to their site for the mobile versions whenever they turned up. Barebones Software comes to mind, for instance. But when it comes to new third party iOS apps these days, well... if you want to pitch to me, put it in the App Store or I'll never check it out. It's possible I might migrate to a directly vended version of some new app in future, but only after a few seasons of running the Apple-curated version.

 

[Khedron]

Whatever third party apps I have on my mobile devices would not be there if I had not acquired them from the App Store, with the possible exceptions of stuff from a few vendors whose desktop products I purchased before there were even mobiles to run iOS versions on. But otherwise, and to the extent a dev takes 70% of the revenue from a sale to me of a mobile app, he or she gets that money mostly because I want the curation that's provided by Apple before I buy the app in the App Store.

There's no way I want to go back to the wild and woolly internet days of checking out every single app on a spare machine isolated from the rest of my gear. And forget about the devs who didn't even have sites and so had to rent space on some middleman site which then may have elected to add its own little gifts to what essentially became a potentially "custom download" of the original app with (at best) unwanted spamware aboard, to which mods the developers agreed because how else get their work bought and downloaded. No thanks!

Those days were a freaking zoo in app-land, for devs and customers alike. No one was really in charge, least of all the devs themselves, by time end users got ahold of a product "somehow". And their products sometimes unjustly took flak for stuff that ended up in there courtesy of dicey distribution systems.

Sign me older, wiser, somewhat weary and even lazy nowadays. My days of checking other people's code are over. But I still want it checked by someone besides the developers.

From my viewpoint the developer writing today for Apple gear users is better off using the App Store just paying a revenue cut to Apple and having a reliable showcase, and the consumer's better off for knowing Apple has examined the devs' work and has helped guide fixes of common glitches (never mind tossing apps that attempt to include downright nefarious code).

Sure there are some software vendors I've dealt with and that I ended up trusting before iOS even existed, so I may well have elected to go instead to their site for the mobile versions whenever they turned up. Barebones Software comes to mind, for instance. But when it comes to new third party iOS apps these days, well... if you want to pitch to me, put it in the App Store or I'll never check it out. It's possible I might migrate to a directly vended version of some new app in future, but only after a few seasons of running the Apple-curated version.

Apple don't check a single line of code for third party apps

 

[macfacts]

Whatever third party apps I have on my mobile devices would not be there if I had not acquired them from the App Store, with the possible exceptions of stuff from a few vendors whose desktop products I purchased before there were even mobiles to run iOS versions on. But otherwise, and to the extent a dev takes 70% of the revenue from a sale to me of a mobile app, he or she gets that money mostly because I want the curation that's provided by Apple before I buy the app in the App Store.

There's no way I want to go back to the wild and woolly internet days of checking out every single app on a spare machine isolated from the rest of my gear. And forget about the devs who didn't even have sites and so had to rent space on some middleman site which then may have elected to add its own little gifts to what essentially became a potentially "custom download" of the original app with (at best) unwanted spamware aboard, to which mods the developers agreed because how else get their work bought and downloaded. No thanks!

Those days were a freaking zoo in app-land, for devs and customers alike. No one was really in charge, least of all the devs themselves, by time end users got ahold of a product "somehow". And their products sometimes unjustly took flak for stuff that ended up in there courtesy of dicey distribution systems.

Sign me older, wiser, somewhat weary and even lazy nowadays. My days of checking other people's code are over. But I still want it checked by someone besides the developers.

From my viewpoint the developer writing today for Apple gear users is better off using the App Store just paying a revenue cut to Apple and having a reliable showcase, and the consumer's better off for knowing Apple has examined the devs' work and has helped guide fixes of common glitches (never mind tossing apps that attempt to include downright nefarious code).

Sure there are some software vendors I've dealt with and that I ended up trusting before iOS even existed, so I may well have elected to go instead to their site for the mobile versions whenever they turned up. Barebones Software comes to mind, for instance. But when it comes to new third party iOS apps these days, well... if you want to pitch to me, put it in the App Store or I'll never check it out. It's possible I might migrate to a directly vended version of some new app in future, but only after a few seasons of running the Apple-curated version.

Your "safe" experience on iOS is due to the safety features of iOS (sand boxed apps, app permissions, aslr, etc) not because of the app aproval process. Apple's experts never see the apps source code. Apple only checks for UI/UX/store guidelines.

 

[realtuner]

Surely Apple are dominant in the "premium smartphone" market?

Ah, yes, I was waiting for someone to say this.

Apple absolutely dominates the premium smartphone market. So if they can prove that only premium users buy Apps then they might have a case by saying Apple is in a "market dominant position".
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Your "safe" experience on iOS is due to the safety features of iOS (sand boxed apps, app permissions, aslr, etc) not because of the app aproval process. Apple's experts never see the apps source code. Apple only checks for UI/UX/store guidelines.

Funny how the number of Apps that sneak into Google Play is an order of magnitude (or more) higher than what gets into The App Store. How can you explain this when the primary difference between Apple and Google is that Google relies on software validation while Apple relies on software/human validation to approve Apps?

Also nice of you to agree that the architecture of iOS is superior to Android when it comes to security.

 

[Khedron]

Funny how the number of Apps that sneak into Google Play is an order of magnitude (or more) higher than what gets into The App Store.

Any sources for these claims?