Archive for November 22, 2024

Friday, November 22, 2024

The App Store Era Must End

Jason Snell (tweet, Macworld, podcast):

To a kid growing up in the 1980s, the idea that the maker of your computer would actively stop you from using software it didn’t approve of would have seemed beyond the pale. It certainly would’ve been a deal-breaker. And yet so many of today’s computing devices are locked down—for some good reasons, but also a lot of bad ones.

What do we want the world to look like in the future? Is the destiny of the most important invention of the last half-century, the computer, to become a series of locked-down devices controlled by the giant companies that designed them? Should the iPhone be the model for all future devices?

If Apple’s locked-down approach in the App Store era is our future, it’s a bleak one indeed. […] When we consider the future of computing devices, the Mac is the model we should aspire to, not the iPhone.

[…]

But over time, the inevitable happened: Apple used the exclusivity of the App Store and its total control over the platform to extract money through rent-seeking and to bar businesses from admitting that the web existed outside their apps. Perhaps worst of all, the App Store’s exclusivity allowed Apple to essentially treat app developers as Apple employees, forcing them to follow Apple’s guidelines and please Apple’s approval apparatus before their apps would be allowed to be seen by the public. Whole classes of apps were banned entirely, some publicly, some silently.

Stephen Hackett:

It’s not often I want to shout “Amen!” as I read an article, but here we are. I think I startled my sleeping dog.

Nick Heer:

I do not know that there is a new argument here. But to see them in a single document is compelling.

[…]

I worry the App Store model and the regulatory response has irreparably damaged Apple’s entire ethos. Not destroyed, but definitely damaged. Apple prides itself on making the entire widget: hardware, software, and services. No competitor has a similar model. It has gotten away with this through a combination of user trust, and not being nearly big enough for regulators to be concerned about. But the iPhone fundamentally upset both these qualities.

[…]

There are certainly plenty of people who believe Apple should be able to do with the iPhone what it wishes, and that — thanks to the power of the free market — people who do not like those changes will simply go buy something else. Perhaps. But perhaps, too, Apple’s influence over a billion users worldwide is something worth checking on. If Apple had responded more amenably to concerns raised over the past decade, maybe it would not find itself in this position today — but here we are.

Sarah Perez:

TV Time, a popular TV and movie tracking and recommendations app with more than 30 million registered users, disappeared from Apple’s App Store for several weeks, leading to questions about its future from the app’s avid fan base. Considering that 2.5 million users use the app every month to track what they’re watching and to engage in a social network where they can comment on individual episodes, vote for favorite characters, post images and GIFs, and connect with other users, its disappearance didn’t go unnoticed.

On November 1, the company announced via a post on X that it was aware the app had been removed from the App Store and that it was “working with Apple to get it back ASAP.”

[…]

After TechCrunch reached out to TV Time and Apple about the app’s removal, the app was reinstated on the App Store.

[…]

“Despite Whip Media having complied with the DMCA and explaining that to Apple, the complainant notified Apple that its claim was ‘unresolved,’ and Apple decided to remove TV Time from the App Store,” he says.

Malcolm Owen:

Musi believes Apple acted improperly, breaching its contract with the app removal before investigating the claims made by YouTube.

[…]

In many cases, it’s probably justifiable for Apple to boot the app, especially in extremely obvious instances of copyright infringement. However, an increasing number of developers believe that copyright claims are being handled poorly and that Apple’s power to kick apps is too much.

Joe Rosensteel:

That bureaucratic failure of a developer falling between the cracks is merely one of many that have happened over the years.

[…]

That old, and irrelevant inventory is a key problem. The apps people want to really use generally aren’t going to be found in the Mac App Store unless they’re apps Apple makes.

[…]

Surely, we don’t want this disinterest to fall on iOS? We don’t want another disused, gray, box of a store. If people aren’t held by force inside of this magical font of app development then no one will ever use it!

[…]

The reason that the Mac App Store gathers cobwebs is because Apple gave up on caring if it earns money when compared to its far more profitable predecessor. It couldn’t come close to the money the iOS App Store made, which is why Apple today expends so much effort arguing for iOS to remain as it is. It’s not because apps outside the App Store kill the App Store, it’s because the App Stores need to compete for business and if you don’t compete, well, you’re an office supply store owner hoping someone just doesn’t know how to shop on the internet.

Jeff Johnson:

“Yes, the App Store was a hastily rewritten version of the system Apple used for iTunes, a decision that sealed the fate of Apple’s software platform as a hit-driven marketplace backed by systems designed for record companies to upload music.”

I’m glad to see this acknowledged in the news media. It happens so rarely.

Christian Tietze:

“Once again, the only way forward is the Mac”

[…]

I wish that this would become the future. Fewer nag dialogs, fewer lock-downs. Maybe not for my tech-averse aunt, but for people who want to.

laotang:

The funny things is that this single move most likely would solve most issues with the iPad and the Apple Vision Pro instantly.

Simon B. Støvring:

Eye tracking isn’t available and access to the camera wasn’t available at launch. It is now, but it’s locked behind an entitlement only available to enterprise apps. This seems to neglect part of what makes the platform special.

You need the entitlement in order to try it out at all. You need to sell Apple on your use case before you can even start building.

Previously:

Update (2024-11-25): See also: Hacker News.

nilrog:

I have said it many times. The generations before us created these awesome computers that we played with and learned to make awesome stuff on. But we used that to create these locked-down, stupid, devices so the next generations can only consume stuff on.

Jeff Johnson:

If you were a Mac developer in 2006 and earlier, you didn’t have to do anything that Apple wanted.

You didn’t even need an Apple Developer account, or indeed an Apple ID (which was used primarily for iTunes Music Store purchases). The Xcode developer tools came on disc with every Mac.

I’m not sure that developers today can imagine such a world of freedom. They come in adopting a servile mindset.

Update (2024-12-10): Isaiah Carew:

nearly every other major negative change to software industry in the past ten years can trace some roots to app store ubiquity[…]

Apple Directly Selling Apple News Ads

Sara Fischer:

Apple has started selling its own advertising inventory for Apple News, two sources familiar with the effort told Axios. It’s pitching new ad units that it hopes will maximize revenue for itself and its publishing partners.

[…]

Beginning next year, Apple will sell premium sponsorships of editorially curated content for relevant events, such as the Met Gala, the U.S. Open, and more.

In addition to premium sponsorships, the Apple News team is also pitching banner placements and video ads across 17 different formats, including carousel ads that feature different products.

Advertisers will also be able to sponsor specific feeds within Apple News, should they wish to contextually align with certain topics.

[…]

While the company doesn’t break out its advertising revenue from its broader services revenue, analysts estimate advertising makes up roughly 10% of that business.

Via John Gruber:

Apple News+ is a really good product. Scanning its main Today tab in the morning has become my modern-day equivalent of scanning the front page of a printed newspaper — a way to get a sense of what’s going on in world news. There’s a level of editorial curation and presentation in Apple News that I don’t think has a peer. Apple News itself doesn’t publish or report anything, but there’s clearly a talented, level-headed editorial team that is picking and choosing the most important and most interesting (which are often very different things) stories from a wide variety of sources.

This is the highest praise I’ve ever seen for Apple News. Personally, I really dislike the app’s interface, so I wouldn’t use it in this way even if I liked the selection of stories. I still accidentally end up in Apple News from time to time after clicking a link. I wish there were a way to stop that. I’m offended that it doesn’t have a built-in keyboard shortcut to open the story in your browser and that the menu command says Open in Safari even if you’ve chosen a different default browser. (The Default web browser setting has moved over time and is now in System Settings but cannot be found by searching for “browser.”)

I don’t look to Apple News for anything related to tech. […] But for national, world, and general interest news, Apple News is really good. I don’t know what it’s like without a News+ subscription, but with one, it’s truly excellent.

[…]

But, my god, the ads suck — low-rent and highly repetitive.

Gus Mueller:

I really think Apple should get out of the ads business, starting with the App Store. I find it corrupting, ugly, distasteful, and most of all an anti-premium experience.

Guy English:

First: I agree with @gruber that “The economics for ad-free news just don’t work, and never have.”

Second: Apple at least claims to operate with one bottom line where units don’t carry their own profit and loss. So I find the first claim incongruous with that.

Previously:

Update (2024-11-27): Nick Heer:

The Google document is speculative and external to Apple, so it does not represent Apple’s actual strategy. This is what Google, an advertising company, thinks Apple could do if it wanted to really commit to selling ads. Does losing its Google revenue share tip Apple’s hand? I sure hope not, but I am not the person trying to figure out whether to take a massive financial hit for users’ trust and enjoyment. If Apple has good taste, I hope it will make the right call.

Previously:

Unreal on Internet Archive

Timothy Geigner:

But it just doesn’t have to be like this. Companies could be willing to give up their iron-fisted control over their IP for these older games they aren’t willing to support or preserve themselves and let others do it for them. And if you need a real world example of that, you need look only at how Epic is working with The Internet Archive to do exactly that.

John Walker:

Epic, now primarily known for Fortnite and the Unreal Engine, has given permission for two of the most significant video games ever made, Unreal and Unreal Tournament, to be freely accessed via the Internet Archive. As spotted by RPS, via ResetEra, the OldUnreal group announced the move on their Discord, along with instructions for how to easily download and play them on modern machines.

It’s hard to convey just what a significant moment it was, in 1997-98, when Quake II and Unreal came out within six months of each other. Marking Epic’s entry into the graphics arms race with id Software, the two games were both utterly brilliant shooters in their own rights, but also became the names behind the engines on which a generation of games would be built. Half-Life was based on the Quake engine, while Unreal’s was under the hood of Deus Ex.

OldUnreal:

Our installer supports Windows 7 and later. We are working on installers for Linux and macOS.

Previously:

Type to Siri

Tim Hardwick:

With the introduction of Apple Intelligence in iOS 18.1, communicating with Siri has become more flexible since you can easily type your requests instead of speaking them. It’s a subtle but powerful change that’s perfect for those moments when you need to be quiet or [discreet].

Enabling Type to Siri is straightforward. Head to Settings -> Apple Intelligence & Siri, tap Talk & Type to Siri, and make sure the Type to Siri toggle is switched on.

Apple:

To type to Siri, double-tap the bottom of the screen, then enter your request.

Dave Mark:

My one nit here is that tapping the microphone icon switches you back to plain old Siri.

No. When I tap that microphone, I want to dictate text that I can edit as I go. Perfect for complex queries, or for words/names that Siri gets wrong.

As is, feels like tapping the mic icon causes Siri to hijack my keyboard.

I had the same thought, expecting that I would be able to mix and match speech and typing. I also wish there were different ways of invoking Siri so that you could go right to typing or right to speech. Otherwise, if you enable typing, it always takes an additional tap to be able to speak. On the Mac, I can double-tap the Command key to activate Siri for typing, but then I have to take my fingers off the keyboard to click the little microphone icon. Hey Siri could work around this, but I have it turned off on all devices except my iPhone because otherwise it always seems to respond on the wrong one.

Leon Cowle:

It’s sad that not even these super-basic parts of Apple Intelligence are available on slightly older phones (14Pro is my case). Boo!😒

My 4th generation iPad Air doesn’t support Apple Intelligence, but it does support Type to Siri, though I’m unable to invoke it by tapping.

Filipe Espósito:

Code suggests that “AdBlocker” will download audio fingerprints from Apple’s servers and then use the Shazam API to match them against audio captured by the device’s microphones using the Hey Siri API. When certain audios match, the new framework will temporarily disable Siri’s trigger commands.

Presumably, Apple will use audio fingerprints from its TV ads and keynotes to prevent any mentions of Siri from triggering the virtual assistant on users’ devices.

Previously: