How does Nintendo get away with being so closed off and controlling with their systems? Seems like people just go for apple cause it’s apple.
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Fortnite's Return to iOS in the UK Uncertain as Epic Games Criticizes 'Weak' Apple Regulations
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The biggest issue with having multiple app stores isn’t just competition, it’s cybersecurity. More stores mean more attack surfaces for hackers and more confusion for everyday users who aren’t tech-savvy. That kind of fragmentation increases risk. If anything, that should outweigh the “competing stores” argument. Best practices in cybersecurity focus on minimizing entry points and streamlining access, not multiplying them.
If the next consoles feature absolutely no physical media option and make it so the only way you can possibly buy games is through the online store then they just might.
Because Nintendo are not the only storefront for their platforms. You can buy physical games on carts as much as you can buy voucher codes from werbsites like CDKeys. You also have the option of buying 2nd hand carts if you don't want to pay the full price. You can lend them (and digital purchases now!) to friends and family.
And if you don't like Nintendo you can always buy a PlayStation. Or an Xbox. Or a PC. Or a Mac! Or a retro console. Or a PlayDate. Or an Evercade. Or one of those chinese retro handhelds. Or don't buy a device at all and stream them directly to your TV. Pick a PC or Mac and there are loads of storefronts to choose from.
The videogames market is nothing like the mobile one because there is a lot of choice over where you get your games from. Microsoft will likely drop physical media altogether on the next Xbox but are building a 'Living room PC' with 3rd party stores (Steam etc) baked in.
Apple are the sole provider of apps and games on their platforms. And not factoring in localised chinese companies like Huawei Google has over 90% of the market share on App distribution on Android irrespective of 3rd party vendors.
Indeed, I know Sweeney is a disagreeable human, but Apple's walled garden is crumbling in various territories and is just setting precedent for others. Is it really worth the hundreds of millions of dollars of court costs and a decade of bad publicity while they try and maliciously comply with judges in different countries? Or do they take control of the narrative to present themselves as a magnanimous gatekeeper?
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Its why, from Apple's point of view implementing the same sideloading controls into iOS as they have on the Mac would magic away all their problems.
Except that would be worse for the vast majority of Apple’s customers who aren’t tech enthusiasts like us posting on MacRumors. More viruses, more scams.
If you are on a flight and looking at the entertainment screen and say. Hmm the airline should allow passengers to side load apps because passengers should be able to play fortnite on a plane. A malicious guy might say, well if this plane allows side loading - how easily can I remotely control the plane with a side loaded malicious app and get away with some nice cash as ransom.
Most people will not board such a plane for good reason, why should your personal phone be left open to such security issues, do you want your device to be in that state before you say. Oh jeez this was a bad idea, why didn't apple do something about this.
You cannot silo a side loaded app, you are basically allowing an app to sit inside a phone and continuously attack the device until it finds a weakness or bug and then its game over. The more sensible option is to never allow malicious software to be loaded on a device in the first place, prevention is better than cure.
Most people will not board such a plane for good reason, why should your personal phone be left open to such security issues, do you want your device to be in that state before you say. Oh jeez this was a bad idea, why didn't apple do something about this.
You cannot silo a side loaded app, you are basically allowing an app to sit inside a phone and continuously attack the device until it finds a weakness or bug and then its game over. The more sensible option is to never allow malicious software to be loaded on a device in the first place, prevention is better than cure.
Its probably not best for the customers but in this case its about what is best for Apple. And they do continue to market the Mac to these very same customers even if they don't buy it. There must be an assumption inside Apple that the end user, any end user can cope with an open platform regardless of IT literacy. They are after all working on an even lower-cost Mac to widen their userbase. Macs are sold as much to professional workers as they are to email grannies who don't want an iPad.
We can then hypothesise that Apple's tight control over the iPhone and its unwillingness to break it comes not from protecting users but rather how much it pays out to shareholders. A company is entirely within its rights to protect its profits of course, but (not aimed at anyone in particular) there do seem to be some customers who think that Apple has got their backs which is more by coincidence than design.
So, to sum up if Apple thinks that the IT illiterate (not meant as an insult) can cope with a Mac and seeks to sell them to iPhone owners why does it not trust iPhone owners with the same level of personal responsibility?
Scams are everywhere irrespsctive of sideloading. We had a warning email go around at work that a malicious entity had put a load of legit-looking QR stickers on the parking meters designed to clone a persons' card details. No amount of walled gardens and gated ecosystems can protect against the real world.
There is perhaps an arguement that gating users into a more controlled experience actually hampers their IT literacy making them less observent to these sorts of dangers. In a world of autonomous vehicles, nobody would know how to drive.
I am getting so sick of Epic games and their constant whining.
It appears they went for the 1st option.
And do you think if Apple did the 2nd that regulators would say 'Oh, well, all is well,' and go away? Or would they say 'Ah, look! We have made the world a better place, and that was easy. What more can we do?'
Some people are going to be up in your business and have to be fought eventually whatever you do.
Mac has 100 million active users. iOS has somewhere between 1 and 2 billion. So the Mac a much smaller target for the bad guys. And even given that, there are WAY more virus, scams, etc. on Mac than iOS. Why do you think that won't happen to iOS if Apple is forced to open up? Magic?
You can hypothesize that, but it's just your opinion, and one that I thoroughly disagree with. We shouldn't be setting national policy based on hypotheticals either.
I'd argue the average Mac user is significantly more technically savvy than the average iOS user, but admit don't have any data to back that up. But the fact of the matter is Macs are significantly less safe than iOS devices. I firmly believe the iOS model is better for the average user than the Mac model, and opening sideloading will make the average user's experience worse.
Mobile is more dangerous than desktop. The attack surface is greater. The devices are almost always on the person, are always connected, are location aware, and are sensor rich. It's a much more attractive target with significantly more risk if compromised.
The Mac came out long before downloading software was a thing. MacOS was born open (because it had to be), and iOS was born secure. It's harder to take away access than to never grant it. Taking access away would provoke enormous backlash from power users and developers who’ve built workflows, in some cases 40 years worth of workloads, around it. iOS, on the other hand, never offered an open experience. Users and developers entered the platform under the expectation of guardrails. Apple even advertises those guardrails as a selling feature and Google argued they were a reason to choose Android. Users who selected Apple knew what they were doing.
The walled garden has always been part of the deal on iOS. The government shouldn't be taking it away because Tim Sweeney doesn't want to pay for use of someone else's property.
One key difference between MacOS and iOS is perceived market dominance. If you're a malware producer targeting personal computers, you're probably going to target Windows PCs, because that market is so much larger. Why limit yourself to a niche player? That's not to say there's no Mac malware, but the Mac ecosystem benefits security-wise from Windows dominance.
That doesn't apply to iOS, one of the 2 smartphone OS market leaders.
True, but it's also true not gating people does not force them to develop IT literacy competence. There are a lot of people out there who, if you grabbed them off the street for a spontaneous survey, could not tell you what phishing or trojan malware are about. They may have heard of computer viruses, and have a very vague concept of ransom-ware.
This is worth expanding on a bit more. We on MacRumors are presumably personal computing enthusiasts who enjoy 'getting into' personal computing. Most people out there aren't like us. My wife is nearly iPhone-exclusive; she gets on a computer when she has to for a specific task. Our kid is mostly iPhone-based but gets on a Windows PC when she needs to for school work, to play Roblox on a big screen, etc... Their 'computer savy' is probably not good.
I get lots of e-mail. Some tells me my account has been charged to renew services with various businesses but if this is in error call this number. One tells me some guy hacked my system, spied on me for weeks, has dirt on me and if I don't send him money he'll 'out' me. One advertiser on Facebook for Away-brand luggage has a really nice sale...but I e-mail Away about them and was told it wasn't legit. Bogus crap, but more sophisticated over time and I don't know that my wife or kid are up to detecting it. Some of it 'challenges' me. And A.I. is making the sophistication level worse. I do online searches with ratings sites like Trust Pilot to see if some businesses look legit.
Some of these online scams are sophisticated enough to effectively challenge personal computing enthusiasts. Much of the public are not and never will be personal computing enthusiasts.
Let me borrow your vehicle analogy but in a different way. There was a time in the U.S. when probably most men (oddly enough, women weren't expected to know this stuff) had some degree of auto-mechanical knowledge (e.g.: how to change oil, replace an air filter, make some adjustments). That's not nearly so true these days. Many people rely on better-made vehicles that need less in the way of 'tune ups,' warn us of problems, and professional auto-servicing vendors. So in the matter of personal vehicle maintenance, we've moved away from end user sophistication toward greater reliance on professional service providers.
For a time, anti-malware software providers were good enough to do that on the computing side. But remember when we just talked about computer viruses, not trojans, phishing or ransom-ware? At some point people heard you needed a 'firewall.' Nowadays people wonder if they ought to be using a VPN. Your credit card might offer the option to generate a one-time use number for a potentially sketchy online purchase.
I'm not a major fan of walled garden exclusivity (e.g.: I'm irked I can't get a wifi sniffer app. for my iPad like what Macs, PCs and Android devices can use, to check various bands and signal strengths around our home), but there are benefits.
Think of the restrictions IT departments in corporate environments put on computer users to prevent inadvertently downloading malware. They send out educational e-mails warning about malware, their users in theory ought to be decently sophisticated, and yet...here we are. No admin password access for you, end user!
That option exists and it’s called “buying an Android phone”. Leave the walled garden and never have to be concerned about anything else Apple ever does.
I'm going to blow your mind... you have that OPTION:
Enjoy.
The industry is already largely saying goodbye to Epic. Numerous Unreal Engine games at that, whether it's Oblivion Remastered or Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time have released without much care for Epic Games Store, despite whatever % more they might stand to make. Hell, Fantasy Life even uses Epic's anti-cheat for that matter too lol.
That said, their launcher won't be seen as much beyond a soulless alternative to get a higher percentage of profit from selling v-bucks to kids. They offer very little in terms of features that give them a one-up. Hell, they don't even allow reviews from their audience, something literally every other app store has so you can't even know if the purchase is worthwhile. (especially lame when EGS versions of a game on PC have problems that don't exist in the Steam or Xbox Store variants).
I'm all for small devs, but Tim Swindler isn't the man.
An average Android user is well aware that, with some searching and a little effort, they can have anything for free, they’re less used to paying for things. An average iPhone user is used to paying for things because getting them in a non-app store way is ‘just’ annoying enough to make it worth the few bucks. That’s the biggest trouble with sideloading and the reason why devs making money on the App Store don’t want that gravy train to end.
There IS a free market, people are free to buy an iPhone or one of many different flavors of Android phones. And, right now, today, if anyone, like Epic wanted to compete, they could release their own hardware, the only thing preventing them from doing so is money. Neither Apple nor Google are in a position to keep anyone that wants to be ON the market off of it.
The free market doesn’t mean everything exists for everyone, it means that there’s a market and companies are free to try to win that market’s business, generally by offering a set of features that meets the needs of the largest group of consumers. What that means is that there’s always going to be a set of users that want features that don’t match that of the largest groups of consumers and that no one has figured out how to deliver while making what they consider “enough profit”. Companies are free to not meet that market need if they don’t want to.
All I'm saying is that Apple could, if they so wished magic all their litigation away.
What follows is actually quite predictable: 99% of users would continue to use the App Store and remain safe just like they do on Android. My original point is it gets the EU, UK, US and other entities off their backs.
You make a compelling arguement! Personally I think it a little tragic more people don't take more of an interest in their cars but then the future is EVs which remain largely impenetrable even to enthusiasts.
Maybe. But it would make their users significantly less safe and secure, and, in my opinion, make Apple's products worse, which is why I support Apple pushing back so hard on these wrong-headed regulations.
Would you be saying "oh, Apple should just do what the government wants to get the government off their backs" if the UK/EU was demanding Apple give them a backdoor into all iOS devices? Or would you want them to fight the rules to the hardest extent possible?
The easy thing to do is to give in. I honestly don't think Apple would lose that much money if Apple opened up. I know people disagree with me here, but I think the fact that they're fighting so hard shows they truly believe this is worse for their customers.
And none of that changes the fact that, in my opinion, this is not something that comes close to the level of requiring government intervention. The free market has handled this perfectly well for almost 20 years now, and can continue to do so. Regulators should not be taking away choice from users because Tim Sweeney and Spotify don't want to pay for use of others' property.