BTW if Apple wins, developers are fucked. Apples gatekeeping will become the norm.
Developers would be resigned to the role of supplicant, who have to beg to sell their apps in the App Stores.
Just as is already happening in supermarkets and the automotive industry.
The farmers and suppliers are squeezed out and the big corporations make even more money.
It's ironic that once Apple sold Macs with the spin to prevent a 1984 like computer scenario.
Now they are big brother who watches over us to keep us secure.
It"s am incapacitation of its customers.
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Please don't compare a tractor/car with the phone. Phone is a unique all-in-one system that has personal biometrics, facial recognition data, accelerometer data of my walking gait, what my sleep patterns are, emotional state, browsing habits, GPS location, home/work trips, messaging data, how often I call my doctor, network access, bluetooth access - I could go on for a few more paragraphs.
Does a tractor even come close to that level of personal information?
I agree with you and the right to repair movement. It bothers me that comes like John Deere are milking innocent farmers with equipment lockdown. It's the same with industrial robot manufacturers like Fanuc and Kuka. I once had to call Fanuc to add 128 additional registers on the controller for $10k! This is pretty rampant in B2B world and now penetrating the customer space - think about all the subscription services today! You don't own anything.
Phone is a different beast all together.
When it comes to developers, I value my device more than the developer ecosystem. For me, the phone is where I store personal data:
- Contacts - Photos - Notes - Messages / SMS - Health and Fitness
Everything else is secondary to me. So, I could give less of a damn about developers and their ecosystem than the security of the device. If I want to access external service, I use Safari or download an App.
I absolutely do not want Apps to have more control of my device. I am thankful that Apple is the gatekeeper.
I hope people see this - no one outside of HN gives a shit about Developers and I agree with them.
That's like saying I don't care about farmers I get my food from the supermarket.
What do you think who developed the programs to store your personal data?
Apple took over functions from third party apps because clever developers programmed them.
Your entire argument relies on a dichotomy between having a locked down walled garden which gives you privacy, and allowing any apps which takes all privacy away. Are you sure that's actually true? Because for example with PCs it's inverted, Linux is 110% more privacy sensitive than Windows. Openness also means you can protect yourself.
Protecting yourself is fine for you and me. Not the rest of 99.999%.
Android has an option allowing the users to install apps from any source. (You could install whole third-party app-stores this way.) Do you know of anyone who uses it?
However, it's always there, so, if my favourite Android app gets deleted from the store, I could still install it.
If your favourite iOS app gets deleted by Apple, what choices do you have?