<story><title>Dear Apple: Here’s How to Stop the Antitrust Investigations</title><url>https://astropad.com/dear-apple/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gampleman</author><text>As a consumer of Apple products I am not too keen on any of these suggestions. I agree that developers for Apple&amp;#x27;s platforms would like these and perhaps there is some trickle-down effect for consumers.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; 1: Enable users to set default app preferences.&lt;p&gt;Fine, but really Maps and Email is pretty much the only one I care about. This is the best suggestion of the bunch.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; 2: Open up alternate payment mechanisms… without the Apple tax.&lt;p&gt;Nah. Last thing I want is to have to fill out my credit card information in every app and worry about what&amp;#x27;s going to happen with it. Apple Pay and IAP work perfectly adequately from the consumer standpoint.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; 3: Allow sideloading of iOS apps.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t think we have a problem with lack of iOS apps. In fact I wish App Store Review was stricter and took more issue with quality and dodgy business practices (i.e. excessive and addictive use of IAP).&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; 4: Give third-party developers equal access to APIs.&lt;p&gt;What this is asking for is for Apple to effectively release features later or not at all. Or have some even more draconian App Store rules. I don&amp;#x27;t want every random app having full hardware access to spy on me as it pleases.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; 5: Stop sherlocking third-party developers.&lt;p&gt;Right, so Apple is not supposed to give me free access to nice features so I can continue to pay money to someone else. Right.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>_ph_</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt; 1: Enable users to set default app preferences.&lt;p&gt;Fine, but really Maps and Email is pretty much the only one I care about. This is the best suggestion of the bunch.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;That is what you care about, others might care about other default apps. That&amp;#x27;s why it should be freely configurable.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt; 3: Allow sideloading of iOS apps.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t think we have a problem with lack of iOS apps. In fact I wish App Store Review was stricter and took more issue with quality and dodgy business practices (i.e. excessive and addictive use of IAP).&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Of course there is a scarcity of iOS apps. Specifically, a scarcity of good quality apps which introduce new capabilities. There is no scarcity of candy crush clones etc. But the way Apple handles the App Store, drives developers into developing me-too clones with in-app purchases.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt; 4: Give third-party developers equal access to APIs.&lt;p&gt;What this is asking for is for Apple to effectively release features later or not at all. Or have some even more draconian App Store rules. I don&amp;#x27;t want every random app having full hardware access to spy on me as it pleases.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;There might be a few APIs, where limiting public access is justified. In most cases, we are talking about access to useful and uncritical APIs. The more Apple limits access to these APIs, the more harm they do to the App eco system.</text></comment>
<story><title>Dear Apple: Here’s How to Stop the Antitrust Investigations</title><url>https://astropad.com/dear-apple/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gampleman</author><text>As a consumer of Apple products I am not too keen on any of these suggestions. I agree that developers for Apple&amp;#x27;s platforms would like these and perhaps there is some trickle-down effect for consumers.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; 1: Enable users to set default app preferences.&lt;p&gt;Fine, but really Maps and Email is pretty much the only one I care about. This is the best suggestion of the bunch.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; 2: Open up alternate payment mechanisms… without the Apple tax.&lt;p&gt;Nah. Last thing I want is to have to fill out my credit card information in every app and worry about what&amp;#x27;s going to happen with it. Apple Pay and IAP work perfectly adequately from the consumer standpoint.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; 3: Allow sideloading of iOS apps.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t think we have a problem with lack of iOS apps. In fact I wish App Store Review was stricter and took more issue with quality and dodgy business practices (i.e. excessive and addictive use of IAP).&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; 4: Give third-party developers equal access to APIs.&lt;p&gt;What this is asking for is for Apple to effectively release features later or not at all. Or have some even more draconian App Store rules. I don&amp;#x27;t want every random app having full hardware access to spy on me as it pleases.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; 5: Stop sherlocking third-party developers.&lt;p&gt;Right, so Apple is not supposed to give me free access to nice features so I can continue to pay money to someone else. Right.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bestnameever</author><text>&amp;gt; Nah. Last thing I want is to have to fill out my credit card information in every app and worry about what&amp;#x27;s going to happen with it. Apple Pay and IAP work perfectly adequately from the consumer standpoint.&lt;p&gt;I think the thing Astropad is missing is that the App Store is not there to just facilitate payment processing.  As the name App Store describes, it is a store.  Store&amp;#x27;s often have markup&amp;#x27;s of 30% or greater.  That&amp;#x27;s how they make money.  I guess you could argue that they have a monopoly of app stores on iOS but I&amp;#x27;m not sure that matters.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Right, so Apple is not supposed to give me free access to nice features so I can continue to pay money to someone else. Right.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t even think that is the argument.  Their argument is that Apple should had tried to buy them because they came to market first.  I think third-party developers should always be wary of what Apple is planning and have a plan to compete should Apple or whoever decide to expand their core functionality that mimics what they are doing.</text></comment>