This is what I’ve been saying the whole time. If we open up third party app stores, get ready for the meta store to be the exclusive place to download instagram and the Microsoft store the exclusive place to get outlook/teams, both pumped full of tracking and junk that would have never been approved by Apple, diluting the iPhone experience for many.
Because google lets these players put apps in their store already chock full of all the tracking and junk they want. They know if they didn’t, they would open their own store and google would loose their cut.
I definitely agree that they will try, but I’m sure the average FB/Insta/Threads user won’t go through the process of installing a third party store just for those apps, particularly when they’re already available on the App Store. With something like Fortnite that’s not available I could see it. But with Meta products I doubt it, particularly with the older, less tech savvy crowd that tends to use them.
I wager meta and Microsoft etc the ones big enough to make their own store will pull their apps from apples App Store. Metas store will be the exclusive place to download instagram and what’s app, and the average user will begrudgingly download one extra app to get stuff working again and then forget about it and never open it again.
This is exactly what will happen. Every app with a large user base will move. Want to easily cancel a subscription? Good luck. Want to stop tracking? Have fun with that.
I don’t think most end users are smart enough to figure out how to download alternative app stores so I don’t think that companies are going to lock themselves in to only offering their apps on a single storefront.
I am hoping this results in storefronts that offer exclusively open source and other projects that might not jive with Apple policies such as emulators or Hypervisors.
That being said I’m not downloading anything from the MS store app
No, it wouldn’t. The relevant companies aren’t the ones that want that 30% cut back. They’re the ones who want to be malware and are reigned in by Apple’s policies.
Google lets them do whatever they want so they have no reason to add friction.
I don’t see that happening just because of the technological hurdles there will likely be to get the third party store.
Android has had this ability since its very early days but most people still stick with the default Google Play Store unless they got something like an Amazon specific device.
Because of two reasons:
most users don’t know other storefronts exist
even if they did know, most don’t want to go through the hurdles of figuring out how to download the new store, get it set up correctly, disable relevant security that allows third party installation, and set up an account for another storefront
This is further unlikely to happen because Android has given Amazon and other manufacturers the ability to create their own Android devices whereas Apple has not and likely never will. You will likely never be able to buy an iPhone that has a custom ROM from Microsoft, for example.
Apple is WAY stricter about their store than google is. Google so so lax because they know giant devs would leave. Apple has gotten away with being a gate keeper making these apps play nice because there was no alternative.
Small companies will not move unless a third store really takes off. It is the big apps that everyone wants that will have the market power to move. Like Facebook, Instagram, Google Chrome, Microsoft, possibly Adobe, and all the streaming apps like Netflix.
That’s fine, I’ll install the open source App Store that replicates the functionality of those apps without the bullshit (or straight up has modified versions that remove that garbage).
I’m almost certain the corporate internet will use this opportunity to further enshitify their platforms. But it will also give end-users more powerful tools to resist that enshitification.
In the end I think it’s better to give users more freedom to protect themselves. Not to put everything on a benevolent corporate daddy to protect the end-user.
Perhaps this is the reason enshitifacation wasn’t a thing until we were put into these locked down devices?
This is what I’ve been saying the whole time. If we open up third party app stores, get ready for the meta store to be the exclusive place to download instagram and the Microsoft store the exclusive place to get outlook/teams, both pumped full of tracking and junk that would have never been approved by Apple, diluting the iPhone experience for many.
android has allowed 3rd party app stores since day 1 so this is going to be an issue on the iPhone how?
Because google lets these players put apps in their store already chock full of all the tracking and junk they want. They know if they didn’t, they would open their own store and google would loose their cut.
I definitely agree that they will try, but I’m sure the average FB/Insta/Threads user won’t go through the process of installing a third party store just for those apps, particularly when they’re already available on the App Store. With something like Fortnite that’s not available I could see it. But with Meta products I doubt it, particularly with the older, less tech savvy crowd that tends to use them.
I wager meta and Microsoft etc the ones big enough to make their own store will pull their apps from apples App Store. Metas store will be the exclusive place to download instagram and what’s app, and the average user will begrudgingly download one extra app to get stuff working again and then forget about it and never open it again.
And just like Steam showed, most of them will come running back after realising what a mistake it was.
A ton of things only happen after it’s done on iPhone.
This is exactly what will happen. Every app with a large user base will move. Want to easily cancel a subscription? Good luck. Want to stop tracking? Have fun with that.
I do not want third party app stores.
I don’t think most end users are smart enough to figure out how to download alternative app stores so I don’t think that companies are going to lock themselves in to only offering their apps on a single storefront.
I am hoping this results in storefronts that offer exclusively open source and other projects that might not jive with Apple policies such as emulators or Hypervisors.
That being said I’m not downloading anything from the MS store app
Facebook will just disable the app with some warning and redirect people visiting from Safari.
This would have happened on Android already if it was going to happen
No, it wouldn’t. The relevant companies aren’t the ones that want that 30% cut back. They’re the ones who want to be malware and are reigned in by Apple’s policies.
Google lets them do whatever they want so they have no reason to add friction.
I don’t see that happening just because of the technological hurdles there will likely be to get the third party store.
Android has had this ability since its very early days but most people still stick with the default Google Play Store unless they got something like an Amazon specific device.
Because of two reasons:
This is further unlikely to happen because Android has given Amazon and other manufacturers the ability to create their own Android devices whereas Apple has not and likely never will. You will likely never be able to buy an iPhone that has a custom ROM from Microsoft, for example.
Apple is WAY stricter about their store than google is. Google so so lax because they know giant devs would leave. Apple has gotten away with being a gate keeper making these apps play nice because there was no alternative.
Small companies will not move unless a third store really takes off. It is the big apps that everyone wants that will have the market power to move. Like Facebook, Instagram, Google Chrome, Microsoft, possibly Adobe, and all the streaming apps like Netflix.
That’s fine, I’ll install the open source App Store that replicates the functionality of those apps without the bullshit (or straight up has modified versions that remove that garbage).
I’m almost certain the corporate internet will use this opportunity to further enshitify their platforms. But it will also give end-users more powerful tools to resist that enshitification.
In the end I think it’s better to give users more freedom to protect themselves. Not to put everything on a benevolent corporate daddy to protect the end-user.
Perhaps this is the reason enshitifacation wasn’t a thing until we were put into these locked down devices?