I just wished my “great product” wasn’t crippled. If I want to buy a Kindle book, that’s my right!
Having looked at the U.S. Constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the First through Fourth Geneva Conventions, I cannot find a reference to a right to purchase books in the Kindle store via in app purchase. However, nothing Apple does prevents you from purchasing books from the Kindle store. Apple does not even prevent this from happening, Amazon does. Apple has defined a set of rules for its ecosystem and Amazon has decided that the benefit to the consumer is not important enough to take the profit hit of pay Apple a percentage of sales
via in-app purchase. Overall, this must have had very little impact on consumer purchasing behavior or Amazon would have decided to enable it.
And if I want Google maps as my default maps app, that’s my right!
Again, I cannot find that right enumerated anywhere.
Apple’s biggest annoyance is that they want to control what we’re able to purchase and customize on our phones, and that’s not ok. Sure, privacy is amazing and very welcomed. But you can’t just keep calling your devices “great” when you intentionally cripple them.
However, given that you are in the U.S., I am fairly confident that, given how important these issues are to you, nothing prevents you from purchasing devices that allow in-app purchase of books from the Kindle store and have Google Maps as the default. I think Google makes one called the Pixel, and I am pretty sure I have read about others (I do not currently own any, so I cannot say for sure).
Like any product, Apple products have trade offs between features one likes and features one does not and between features and prices. Apple is very clear about how their devices work with respect to the features you want to have and until something changes, will not let you do what you want, but nothing forces you to purchase an iPhone (or any Apple product). If these trade offs do not work for you, you are free to switch to a system that offers a better set of them for you.
Are you seriously suggesting that Apple Maps and iBooks are better than Google Maps and Kindle? Because that's objectively untrue. They're not even remotely as good.
I own several Kindles, but have not used any of them for years. I simply decided that carrying a second device with me for reading not worth it. I do read some books that I get with my prime subscription
via the Kindle app on my one of iPad Pros. I tend to purchase my books using the iBooks store where I can, as I like the ability to share them with my family. So while you may like the Kindle app and store better, its advantages do not out weigh its disadvantages for me.
As for Google maps, having done experiments with friends (three people starting at the same point, one using Apple Maps, one using Google Maps and one using Wayze), my experience is that there is not a substantial enough difference to make giving up my data to Google worth using it to me. In addition, there are some features I like in Apple Maps better (
e.g. noting when a merchant accepts ApplePay). Apple has spent a lot of money and effort improving Apple Maps, and I am really happy with the results. However, even before that, it was good enough that I was happy to use it rather than give Google all my data.
Your evaluation of the trade offs is clearly different, and nothing stops you from doing that evaluation on your own. At the moment it seems that you have chosen to use iOS despite these trade offs. At some point, your evaluation may change. You might decide to switch to Android, or decide that your privacy matters more than the incremental differences in data and switch to Apple Maps.
I have no problem with Apple deciding to allow a switch of the default mapping app, as long as it does not take any resources from development of features I want more, nor does anything that makes my user experience worse.
