App store bill sails out of Senate Judiciary Committee

Great news.<p>Apple has turned the magic of software development from “how cool would this be?” to “how cool would Apple be with this?”<p>That’s an environment of software suppression instead of free innovation, and Apple has felt little pressure to change.<p>For anyone concerned about the security and privacy implications, don’t fall for the misconceptions perpetuated by Apple: non-App Store apps will still be sandboxed (so they can’t access other app or system data), and also scanned for malware by Apple - just like App Store apps!

I find the FUD against third party app stores on iOS to be simultaneously crediting Apple with providing immense amounts of security in its App Store, and believing that it would be incredibly helpless without sole control through its App Store. That&#x27;s very contradictory, both in ignoring the many, many vulnerabilities and scams that have proliferated on the App Store through the years (not to mention other negative user experience), but also ignoring the great pains that Apple has in ensuring security through layers and mechanisms <i>beyond the App Store.</i><p>iOS is more secure than Android not simply because the App Store is better curated than the Play Store, but protections built in its very own operating system model. There are permissions restrictions that Apple has guarded carefully and not subject to removal through the permitting of third party app stores.<p>Furthermore, because Apple still has ultimate control of its operating system, it can design a careful flow to enable the use of third party app stores and side loading. It can hide it deep in Settings behind multitudes of &quot;are you sure?&quot; windows and security checks. It can coax users not to relinquish protections.<p>Hell, if Apple embraced the whole decentralized app store idea, it can provide an AppStoreKit SDK and sets of standards for third party app stores to adopt, a sort of security certification system that they can <i>choose</i> to conform to and be recognized for meeting Apple standards, similar to Apple&#x27;s verified third-party repair stores.<p>The idea that allowing third party app stores will doom iOS is <i>an anti-Apple critique</i> in disguise, because it claims that Apple is helpless outside of its App Store. There is a lot more Apple can do.

Sudden outbreak of common sense. I hope this passes and forces Google&#x2F;Apple to justify the value that their app stores provide, for the amount that they take from developers.

As long as this does not cause an exodus from the App Store and I am forced to start paying for apps directly, I am fine with this.<p>But a strong benefit to the App Store for me is being able to manage and cancel my subscriptions from a central place. No going through 5 screens, no being forced to call, no any of that crap.<p>I can already see apps refusing to carry through the App Store so they can control more, and I am not looking forward to that.

One downside (as a consumer) of this bill is that it requires app store owners to allow spamming users<p>&quot;A Covered Company shall not impose restrictions on communications of developers with the users of the App through an App or direct outreach to a user concerning legitimate business offers, such as pricing terms and product or service offerings.&quot;<p>Yay, more spam (probably all starting with &quot;Dear user, we have a legitimate business offer for you!&quot;)

To those who say that if I don&#x27;t sideload then this change won&#x27;t affect me, I don&#x27;t think this is true. Just because there aren&#x27;t many alternative app stores on Android doesn&#x27;t mean it won&#x27;t happen on iOS. Developers will do this if there is a financial incentive. This is a forced fragmentation of the App store and will do absolutely nothing to improve the experience of a normal, non-HN-reading end user. This will in fact weaken the security for a normal user because they now can be tricked into installing malware without jailbreaking their phones.

No idea if it will happen but I&#x27;d love a Steam App store on iOS. If I buy an game that runs on Mac&#x2F;PC&#x2F;Android&#x2F;iOS I&#x27;d love to be able to buy it once and play it everywhere. I can do that Mac&#x2F;PC&#x2F;Linux at the moment, would be nice to add iOS and Android as well. And, even if they aren&#x27;t the same game it would nice if buying a game on steam unlocked some companion app on my phone via a Steam iOS&#x2F;Android store.

If anyone actually thinks we’re going to be in an objectively better spot in 2 years because of this bill, I encourage you to take a real good look around at the actual world we actually live in.<p>Things I guarantee you will see because of this: 1. You will have six different app stores on your phone. The Apple one, the Facebook one, the Google one, the Epic one, and at least two more, probably one from Disney and one from Spotify. 2. Those apps will absolutely not follow anything even close to App Store guidelines, and will wholesale be grabbing everything they can and exploiting every available opportunity to at best take your data and at worst add any kind of adware, malware, or anything else they can. 3. You thought payment dark patterns were bad Now? 4. Every goddamn app you want from every goddamn anything will be side-loaded. Some of these will be legit versions of the app you wanted.<p>You live in a world in which large predators want to devour you and small predators want to gnaw on you. You live in a world in which goddamn websites are running crypto-miners in your browser. You live in a world in which every company out there is aggressively hacking your dopamine circuits to try to get you to use their app more, and every company out there is grabbing every bit of data they can on you so they can sell it to whatever shady asshole’s willing to give them money for it. You live in a world where nation states are actively targeting you and everyone else around you from across the goddamn world. For fuck sake, you live in a world in which every entertainment studio out there is yanking their content from every other channel and demanding a subscription for them alone.<p>The App Store is an extractive tax on developers. It restricts user freedom. These things are true. But the goddamn naivety it takes to seriously think that the ability to side-load is going to make our actual lived day-to-day lives better instead of just hypercharging this dark forest hellscape we’ve invented for ourselves takes my breath away. Where the Hell have you people been Living for the last decade?

The main question is: What about push notifications? WHAT ABOUT PUSH NOTIFICATIONS?!!<p>Even if we sideload an app, with modern mobile OS architecture many classes of apps will be almost useless if sideloaded apps will not be able to use push notifications provided by an operating system.

As an indie dev, I&#x27;m really not getting this.<p>Android has had alternate app stores for years. I don&#x27;t recall any of them being a panacea for poor struggling devs held captive by Google Play. I stopped offering my apps on any of them as it was never worth the bother.<p>What problem is this trying to solve for who exactly? I don&#x27;t see any way this ends up as a win for small devs.

Good.<p>At the very least, people should be allowed to install browsers that aren&#x27;t Safari.

There is no way this will get much floor time on the Senate.<p>The only real path forward is that a stripped-down version of it is added to some sort of big spending bill, similar to what they did with the tobacco minimum age[1].<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;tobacco.ucsf.edu&#x2F;congress-raises-minimum-age-tobacco-use-21" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;tobacco.ucsf.edu&#x2F;congress-raises-minimum-age-tobacco...</a>

Does this apply to XBox and PlayStation?

People seem mostly mad about the IAP thing, so I don&#x27;t understand why everyone keeps lumping third-party payments and third-party app stores together. They&#x27;re completely orthogonal.

This is great. I kind of assumed a judicial ruling would be necessary but this would make things a lot easier.

&gt; New rules could require them both to allow app side-loading — installing apps from non-sanctioned marketplaces — and alternative payment processing systems. Apple and Google have argued vehemently against the bill.<p>Doesn&#x27;t Google already allow side loading or is that no longer so?

I personally can’t wait for students to be forced to install apps from third party stores that collect all their information because their schools have a contract with the developers and have made it mandatory.<p>Same will be true of employees and their employers.

Does this bill meaningfully impact Android users in anyway. Alternative app stores, alternative payments, side loading have all existed for years. The article claims Apple and Google are both opposed to the bill but doesn&#x27;t really say why.<p>I can only think of a couple.<p>Potentially opening up of services like notifications so that apps that don&#x27;t have play services can get notifications without destroying the users battery.<p>Disabling or neutering of the awful SDK banking apps and games use to detect root and not run.<p>They&#x27;re small but annoying things but hopefully are outcomes from this bill.

&gt; New rules could require them both to allow app side-loading — installing apps from non-sanctioned marketplaces — and alternative payment processing systems. Apple and Google have argued vehemently against the bill.<p>Imagine if Google were forced to allow sideloading on Android. then other companies (like Amazon) could offer their own App Stores; Google Play&#x27;s profits would tank, and they&#x27;d no longer be able to charge 30% platform fees. Right? ;-)<p>Oh, wait...

Looking forward to porn apps and or app stores on iOS. Seriously. There&#x27;s several Android only sex apps (sideloaded), and lots of PC only sex apps, that could be on iOS if there was a way to load them. Many are made in Unity so it could be as simple as just re-exporting, but until now there was no way to ship them for iOS.

I can already see makers of mainstream apps in China (e.g., WeChat, TikTok, Alibaba, etc) building more feature-rich versions of their apps outside AppStore and unnecessarily mandating contacts and location permissions, while putting a zombie version on AppStore. (This is already the case for Android&#x2F;Google Play)

&gt; New rules could require them both to allow app side-loading — installing apps from non-sanctioned marketplaces — and alternative payment processing systems. Apple and Google have argued vehemently against the bill.<p>Why is Google against side-loading? It is already possible to side-load on Android devices, what is their argument?

I would be more interested in having this for car entertainment systems, smart televisions, and like TBH. For my iPhone this probably causes me to install less apps and avoid subscriptions as I’m not interested in the ”install this crap so you can install that crap” pattern. If this is route, force Epic and digital platforms to open up their market places as well and let me design my own loot boxes to side-sell to let them taste the medicine of user choice and convenience of supporting alternative platform actors as well. I’m really not interested in giving more foothold for adtech and micropayment nickle-and-dimers on my most personal computing device. It’s enough I need to put up with Apple’s bright ideas of implanting my device with ”this scans everything on your phone” brainfarts, I definitely don’t need a zuccstore on my phone implanting every internal API for ”DRM purposes and best experience” as a ransom for the privilege of using WhatsApp so I can get more targeted ads for gimp suits and toilet brushes.

I blame consumers for the duopoly we have. I get that practically, it&#x27;s a farce to call this choice we have real and significant but these marketplaces exist because of the demand. Making this duopoly more convenient for app-makers only kicks the can and further re-enforces the duopoly. In an ideal world, people would fund projects like the PinePhone or PostMarketOS, but our &quot;solution&quot; to the walled-garden is apparently to make it less painful but just as preeminent. Consumers should be smarter.<p>There are a lot of passionate people trying to make these alternative hardware and software marketplaces work, but passion is no replacement for genuine demand so supply is scant. Given the unfortunate historical trajectory, quality will always be wanting. So, I guess I&#x27;m against a practical solution that entrenches the status quo when there&#x27;s an ideological solution that would make these poor options obsolete. I&#x27;m probably just holding my breath though.

Opening up the platform to allow other app stores sounds great for consumers, but developers are likely to lose money...<p>Maybe Apple will give developers the ability to determine whether the app was installed from Apple or some other source.

Surprised it took this long. If they would have taken a more reasonable 5-10% of developer earnings they’d still collect billions upon billions in rent while not angering millions of developers and lawmakers writing this legislation. Or at least charge a tiered annual publication fee plus payment processing fees. But greed got the best of them. Their fees are akin to a shopping mall owner taking 30% of store revenues off the top, plus the usual monthly rent. Oh and by the way, there’s no other malls in town to move your business to.

I&#x27;m in favor of this bill - but not sure how you can argue it won&#x27;t cause security issues with a straight face.

I can&#x27;t wait to have to break my phone&#x27;s security to install software. Hooray.

If this comes into effect will we see a plethora of appstores on each devices? Every app worth its salt will want to create their own bundle or App Store and hope to control their own end to end experience. I cannot imagine how terrible that experience is going to be.

Doesn&#x27;t Google already allow &quot;side-loading&quot;?

Would this allow alternative browser emgines on iOS?

I&#x27;d bet $20 that Google (and probably Amazon) has started or will start working on an App Store for iOS. If either of them use their dark patterns to get people to install their app stores then this could be a different situation than what&#x27;s happening on Android, where very few users actually side load apps. With the weight of one of these giants they could really get massive adoption on iOS in an alternative store.

As an Apple user, I kind of view the App Store as a kind of collective bargaining with app developers. If you want to have access to Apple Users you need to adhere to certain standards.<p>The plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Apple are some of the scummiest companies and their software is full of dark patterns.<p>Apple’s App Store does a lot to protect me.<p>I guess I view this bill much as a union member might view a “Right to work bill”. Theoretically it is increasing user choice, but in practice it will just allow a race to the bottom in terms of privacy and dark patterns.