This Week's Sponsor
Magic Lasso Adblock: YouTube ad blocker for Safari
By Jason Snell for Macworld
Apple’s worst-case scenario might be the best thing for the iPhone
If we know anything about iOS as a platform, it’s that if you want to run apps on it, you need to download them from the App Store. (If you missed it, it turns out that this decision continues to be controversial!) The iPhone and iPad have never been platforms defined by a combination of Apple-approved apps and third-party apps from random sources.
But what if that’s what iOS was to become? Certainly, as legislators and regulators circle around Apple and its practices, it’s possible that someone will force Apple to allow apps onto the platform without them going through the App Store.
It’s almost unimaginable. And yet… what if that calamity ended up being the best thing for the App Store, and improved it–and the base iOS experience–for most users?