The ethics of Apple’s closed ecosystem app store
Apple is being sued for anti competitive behaviour in the US, but where did the company's history of closed ecosystems come from in the first place? Michael Cowling and James Birt answer the question in this crossposting from The Conversation.
This July marks the tenth birthday of the iOS App Store.
The App Store originally launched alongside the release of the 3G model – 12 months after the original iPhone. The store gave developers the opportunity to write third party native apps for the iPhone, as long as they paid the 30% commission to Apple.
Unlike competing android devices, however, you can’t load apps onto an iPhone unless you get them from the official App Store. Installing apps from unofficial sources is known as “sideloading”.
This might be about to change. A recent court case has the potential to require Apple to open their device to sideloading of apps from outside of the App Store, overturning 10 years of precedent.
Could Apple finally be losing their control over the way apps are installed on their platform? And was it ethical to have such a closed “ecosystem” in the first place?
Shifting from an open to a closed ecosystem
When Apple first launched the App Store, the model they presented was quite unique. In contrast to the Macintosh platform that allowed anyone to download apps from anywhere and run them on their Mac, the iPhone store limited the apps that could be used.
Developers were required to submit apps to the App Store for review. Apple could then check the security was up to the standards of its App Store Review Guidelines. This ensured no unintended functionality was introduced, and malware was kept to a minimum.
Apple was often lauded for this decision. Known for higher quality and safer apps, they have built on this over the years by introducing stronger remote app deletion measures and developer signing requirements.
But hanging over it all was the fact this process ensured Apple secured 30% of any app sales revenue – a figure that has surely propped up their services income. At the most recent worldwide developer conference (WWDC), Apple claimed they had paid over $100 billion to developers over the years, which means Apple would have made around $30 billion of their own.
On top of this, the limitations on the App Store means some apps are not eligible. This has led to a continuing desire for some users to hack their phones through jailbreaking – a practice that allows users to run apps that aren’t available in the store.
So, in spite of the security benefits, this limitation has caused some problems. And it’s clear some users questioned the ethics of this closed approach.
Why does this matter so much?
The sandbox is fun, but sometimes we prefer the grass
Something not often talked about in relation to the App Store is Apple’s inability to bring this closed model to the Mac.
Buoyed by the success of the iOS App Store, Apple eventually introduced a Mac variant in 2011. But they struggled to reach a critical mass of apps in that store – partly because developers weren’t used to these restrictions on the Mac.
In particular, a feature called “sandboxing” – which prevents particular apps from accessing other parts of your operating system – meant many of the most popular apps couldn’t be added to the Mac App Store without extensive modifications.
Although Apple appears to have reversed this decision at the most recent WWDC, the damage is clear. The Mac App Store is nowhere near as popular as the iOS equivalent, in part due to this lack of flexibility.
The closed ecosystem has also led to some other problems for Apple.
For instance, the restriction that all purchases needed to be made in the app so Apple gets their 30% cut has caused a headache for services such as Spotify, which already have a service customers pay for outside the app. The issue reportedly led to an investigation by US antitrust regulators in 2015.
Should Apple be salty about the Pepper lawsuit?
Which leads us back to the recent lawsuit, brought by Robert Pepper et al – a group of iPhone users suing over anti competitive behaviour. The class action suit seeks to change the way Apple runs the App Store. Despite being dismissed several times since originally being brought in 2011, the suit has made it to the Supreme Court and will now be heard over a nine month window starting in October.
In what might turn out to be a landmark case, Pepper is asking to be allowed to sideload apps and avoid the Apple cut on their purchases. This presents a problem for Apple, because it means they lose control of the system.
On the positive side, this could mean more exciting apps for consumers, but it also might mean more malware. Either way, it will mean big changes for Apple, who seem to genuinely believe the closed model is best.
The bigger question is what this might mean for Apple’s culture. The company is famous for controlling all aspects of their vertical integration. What happens if they’re forced to become more flexible? Will they buck against this, or will we see a more open, adaptive Apple in the future?
Only time will tell, but it’s clear that after 10 years of the App Store, this case could mark a change that makes the future quite different from the past.
Michael Cowling, senior lecturer in educational technology, CQUniversity Australia and James Birt, associate professor of information and computing sciences. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
I don’t use crApple products because they are very very expensive, seem to become obsolete very fast (to make you buy more) and are less flexible than many others; such as a standard PC which can run many OSs. Having said that, crApple products are more secure because of the expensive limitations. I make informed purchase decisions to buy non-crApple products for cost and functionality. It should be up to the consumer to make their informed purchasing decision if they wish to be locked into an expensive walled garden (albeit a safer one). I have no sympathy for the crybaby who bought into the walled garden concept (because it is “hipster cool”) and now suddenly decides he doesn’t want the limitations that HE bought into! He should just sell his product and make another purchasing decision based on his now changed opinion. He can’t have the significant safety aspect of the walled garden and yet allow unfettered app installation. As we have seen with Android, it requires superior technical ability to mitigate the problems with rogue apps. And now that certain chinese phone manufacturers are pre-installing spying malware which phones home, and which can’t be uninstalled, it is well past time that people understand that ANY mobile phone (including crApple) is a spying device (they paid for) which knows everything about them and which they DON’T control. This is why many security experts now only use dumb phones with no internet, bluetooth, WiFi, GPS or other radio options. As we are continuously reminded in the news, everything WILL be hacked at some stage. As they currently stand crApple phones (security by obscurity) are a halfway house between safety (a completely dumb phone) and some “Nigerian prince” emptying your bank account due to rogue apps installed on your “smart phone.”
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I no sooner finish deploring “for free” than I am faced with “quite unique”. This from the combined efforts of a senior lecturer and an associate professor, no less! Gentlemen, as every schoolboy knows, there are no degrees of uniqueness. A thing is either unique, the only one of its kind, or it is not unique, being one among others.
At this rate I fear an encounter with our old friend “almost inevitable” cannot be long off.
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