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I fail to understand why any of these companies can’t make a web optimized mobile version of their software. They already make web versions, mobile versions would be free from any restrictions. Zuckerberg even said they had booming web platforms. Instead of complaining and spending resources fighting the mobile platform providers, imagine if they spent that time and resources on improving web platforms and their adoption of them.
 
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To me, facebook seems like an anticompetitive monopoly, as the only kind of general purpose real world connection network, who should have never been able to buy out their competition.

I think it's time that we see formation of a real Facebook competitor. Someone to help with market competition.

I think one area that Facebook is lacking is with privacy options, where a competitor could introduce to help push the market forward toward better privacy.

a hypothetical facebook competitor could start off similar to facebook but it could use some much needed features.

1. the ability to completely *turn off* any reverberations would be nice. Currently, if you change something on your profile or add some sort of photo or update or anything, there will be dozens or hundreds of little reverberations through the network where people are notified of everything you do, and like, there should just be an option to just completely disable that.


2. I think a "virtual delete" friend option should be available. When you just want to kinda "virtually delete" a friend but it would be something that you could undo, unlike delete which is permanent. Virtual deletion would not notify the friend and so to them it would just appear as if nothing really changed from a user interface perspective. That's just one example of many ideas that I think facebook or a competitor to Facebook should have


3. It's good they finally added the ability to do profiles, but for many, who created separate Facebook accounts before profiles were a thing, it's kind of too late. So I would hope that a competitor would have multiple profiles from the get-go.

Another thing would be the ability, when adding new friends, to not have them show up first on your profile. From what I remember, if I send a friend request, and they accept, its going to do that annoying reverberation thing where everyone that that person is friends with will get notified, which is one thing that we (the sender or them as the recipient) should have the option to disable.

Another important privacy feature - currently, if they accept, then that person shows up *first* on their profile, when in reality, it might be nice to give users the ability to specify if they *don't* want to show up at the top of the list...like a "quiet add friend" or an "incognito friend


Theres other ideas and I'll try to add them here as I remember them/think of them

it's just frustrating that it doesn't have more privacy options.

it would still be nice if Facebook had a proper competitor but part of the problem I think, is that they were allowed to "buy out" there competition in the early 2010s (WhatsApp, Instagram, oculus, etc...) when they should have been completely *forbidden* from any of those purchases. And because of that, I almost kind of / sort of hope meta fails. Because they as a company have just stagnated for way too long, and so to me, and I think others, it's *good* to see competition rising up.
 
Facebook is the only website that gives me agita.
The scroll bar disappears multiple times and I have to re-start the page.
When I click on a notification within the list they stay bold
I get maybe 75% of notifications if that
Terrible website, bad on Safari, Firefox and Chrome
 
Awww, poor Zuckerberg. It’s so sad what bad ole Apple did to him. 😭🙄

Facebook is just an advertising wasteland and a bunch of groups posting “photos” that are actually just poor AI images. It doesn’t stop all of the bots from oohing and aahing about how beautiful they are.

It should just go the way of MySpace.
 
There are no rules, no bounds, when it comes to Apple love.
On this thread, they’re apparently almost solely responsible for facebooks billions of users. Without Apple and the AppStore, people cry, Facebook would still be only relevant to college students.
Hop over to other, let’s say more political threads, and Apple is simply a bit part player in the industry, with a mere 30% of the market, no sway at all and an underdog in the mobile space dominated by Android.
 
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This is like a "the worst person you know made a good point". Apple needs to open up iOS more, they control access to too much of the market for developers to ignore, forcing them to deal with Apple.

I've been playing around a bit with Android recently and I love F-droid, Homebrew on the iPhone would be fantastic.

I fail to understand why any of these companies can’t make a web optimized mobile version of their software. They already make web versions, mobile versions would be free from any restrictions. Zuckerberg even said they had booming web platforms. Instead of complaining and spending resources fighting the mobile platform providers, imagine if they spent that time and resources on improving web platforms and their adoption of them.
A lot of people have thought Apple is deliberately limiting Safari (and disallowing other browser engines) to prevent things just like that. Even Safaris tracking prevention and private relay are part of it. You cant monetise Apple users through ads on the web, so you have to through subs and IAP on the App Store, allowing Apple then gets their cut.
 
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I'd lean INTO the monopoly argument, if I were Apple (after first pointing out anyone is welcome to go to Android every day of the week). But, back to monopoly. Unlike Windows, where Microsoft made exclusive contract deals with the major hardware providers (initially IBM, then later, Compaq, HP, Intel, others to gain an unfair advantage over both hardware and software to lock Apple out of the PC market, Apple created the iPhone in a very competitive market, and eventually people in the market chose to use iPhones despite Apple's higher up front costs and the competitive advantages other companies originally had (Microsoft, Nokia, Blackberry, Samsung, Google). Apple is NOT a hardware company or a software company. It's both. People (me) really like being able to go to a single company when there's a problem with their hardware/OS. This is true of Mac and iPhone/iOS. Apple controls the whole widget. Yay! Let's keep it that way.
 
I'm of firm belief that iOS (and iPadOS) should allow app installation aside from just the App Store. I understand the risks — but everyone needs to understand the risks.
There is lies the bulk of the problem with an open platform allowing side loading - irrespective of where one might sit in this, I like you might understand the risks, however everyone will not and you will never get to that point either.
People blindly click on things and just recently had to help a user who was scrolling trough Facebook (ironically) feeds and saw "your device is infected with XXX viruses, click here to fix". Caused them to install and pay for an unwanted app and into a recurring billing cycle. Little did they know this was an add for something rather than a real warning.
This is the world and the range of people we are in unfortuantely
 
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I know, right? It's as if it is easy to create an App Store and an ecosystem. Apple worked hard for it, and (I would argue) the rules made it the success it is. I also believe there is a need for some regulation when companies and their offerings become too big, but I hate freeloaders like Meta and Epic...
And it’s not like Apple was doing it in secret. :) Anyone watching could have taken a page from Apple and done better. But, nope!

I would only have a problem with their offerings being too big if they attained that size due to buying and shutting down phone makers, requiring developers to sign exclusivity agreements, or forcing places like Best Buy to NOT carry competing phones in order to get preferential access to iPhones. Those things, I would have a problem with. Making a tightly integrated platform where all the pieces work together well to the point where people with money like and prefer them? That’s what businesses SHOULD do. Do people really want Apple to have a motive other than “Making things cool enough for some profitable subsection of the market to prefer?”
 
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And just chosing Android over iOS is not choice. There is not enough competition to provide a proper choice. So I am not saying if you don't like Apple's repulsive behaviour, you must not complain and just chose Android. I am saying that Apple should be held accountable for using its power (together with Google), to limit users ability to use their device in a way that provides choice, both for users and third party device makers, developers etc.
It quite literally is a choice though. Apple’s marketshare is small because people don’t prefer it it isn’t what they want in a phone, so they buy something else. As long as ANY company exists that can freely limit how users use their devices (Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft), then it doesn’t make logical sense to place an arbitrary restriction ONLY on the one named Apple. Either the restrictions should be anpplied across the board for ANY company that limits their device or none of them.
 
There needs to be much more real competition before we can rely on solely on market forces without government intervention.
There WERE market forces. What remains are the only solutions profitable enough for the companies involved to continue to invest in them. Actions taken to try to reduce the profit motive won’t work. Unless the government wants to BUY Apple, Apple is free to get their money from these huge developers in any way they wish as long as it doesn’t go against the stated limitations. I would guess that some unpopular changes may be announced at WWDC. For example, Apple’s current structure is that ALL developers pay $99 for the dev program. From the one man dev shop to the multi-billion dollar companies. But, it’s always been Apple’s option to charge more, they just haven’t. They can’t charge a fee for purchases, but they can DEFINITELY charge a fee for dev program access. And that’s not the only thing they can create a complex tiered structure around.
 
I fail to understand why any of these companies can’t make a web optimized mobile version of their software. They already make web versions, mobile versions would be free from any restrictions. Zuckerberg even said they had booming web platforms. Instead of complaining and spending resources fighting the mobile platform providers, imagine if they spent that time and resources on improving web platforms and their adoption of them.
Because, the web is more locked down than the apps. :) Look at the privacy disclosure on the App Store for Facebook. Because they TELL you that’s what they’re doing, when you download and use it, that’s exactly what they’re doing! They have access to far less data via Safari which is why you’ll never see any of them lean into Web Apps.
 
no sway at all and an underdog in the mobile space dominated by Android.
If Apple truly had no sway, no one would be concerned about the paltry number of users they have. In the real world, the legal attacks are primarily because they value Apple’s App Store users (and their money) and want free access to the affluent set of users that Apple has built steadily, year over year.
 
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It quite literally is a choice though. Apple’s marketshare is small because people don’t prefer it it isn’t what they want in a phone, so they buy something else. As long as ANY company exists that can freely limit how users use their devices (Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft), then it doesn’t make logical sense to place an arbitrary restriction ONLY on the one named Apple. Either the restrictions should be anpplied across the board for ANY company that limits their device or none of them.
Take some economy classes. There are good reasons why competition laws exist. The smartphone OS market is not perfect (the goods sold are not comparable, and there are few suppliers, and it is difficult to enter the market for new players). This means that there is an increased risk for suppliers to misuse their position if regulators do not act.

Apple (iOS) and Google (Android) are in this situation. They do no longer have to make something that is good for the consumer, because they can extract way more money from them now the market has consolidated string around these two players. They know their users are used to their platform, and the fact there is only one alternative, means it is a complicated list of sub-considerations. To make its position more permanent, Apple has slowly raised the ‘walls’ of its ‘ecosystem’, confining the users in a sea of monopolistic features, that arbitrarily limits interplay with other platforms (like limiting bluetooth sharing, limiting functionality of third party watches etc (so no, I am not even talking about Apple’s own technologies)). For users it has become significantly problematic choosing the only alternative (and not only the iOS/Android, but also Apple Watch and other smart watches). These are the monopolistic powers (market misbuse) Apple is using, and fanboys like yourself are not only caught in Apple’s practices, but are also falling for its propaganda, and actively trying to spread its message.

The main problem is, you (and many others here) do not wish to have a bona fide discussion, e.g. you are pretending only Apple is hit by competition law, which is not true, and trying to bring game consoles in to the conversation, you are intentionally trying to blur this discussion with complicated comparisons with a rather different market and device.
 
Is having apps within an app against Apple's rules? What about apps like WeChat and Alipay? Those apps have dozens of apps within them and they don't seem to have any issues with Apple.
 
I want a choice. I like Apple's Walled Garden, and I do not like alternative app stores. I live in the EU, but with this, they go a bit too far. The Walled garden is enough for me. For the majority of people. If Spotify is a problem, I will move to Apple Music. It's the music I want. I use Spotify because I have always used it.

Can Apple make an option, 'Enable Apple Walled Garden?' Now, I have to disable alternative app stores via a workaround. I just want an option for that.
 
I want a choice. I like Apple's Walled Garden, and I do not like alternative app stores. I live in the EU, but with this, they go a bit too far. The Walled garden is enough for me. For the majority of people. If Spotify is a problem, I will move to Apple Music. It's the music I want. I use Spotify because I have always used it.

Can Apple make an option, 'Enable Apple Walled Garden?' Now, I have to disable alternative app stores via a workaround. I just want an option for that.
Why do you need to ‘disable’ alternative appstores? Just don’t download any, if you have none on your phone there is nothing to disable. Nothing has changed unless you change it yourself. That’s choice.
 
This is such a crock. Facebook could be just the same on the iPhone via the browser as it is on the desktop - well, except that in the old days, Facebook used Flash and, well, that was just not available everywhere nor was it secure or safe.

But if they want to do something, just make the web site do it. The apps on the iPhone can be just a glorified web browser if they want (like so many other stupid apps) or they can just have people use the web browser, like they do on the desktop.

Hell, they could make an app that all it did was open the browser to the Facebook web site!

I don't get what their problem is. There is nothing the blocks you from having a web site do whatever it wants to do as a web site. Now, it is blocked from doing insecure or privacy invading things (no access to local filesystem, no access to private data, etc).

I think Facebook is just upset that it can't just blatantly spy on its users via the app like it would want to.
 
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