The App Store's primary purpose should be to steer third-party apps toward excellence; split screen multitasking in Gmail for iPad should't have taken 5 years
or even use — iOS.” @daringfireball https://daringfireball.net/... @zachnfine : @gruber re: “millions of iPad users are satisfied using an email client that is a poor iPad app” - some of us have no choice due to work. My work email can only be accessed via the gmail website or app, it's part of the provisioning :( Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life : As a developer I'm not a fan of Apple putting more requirements on apps to be in the App Store but I agree with @daringfireball that pushing apps to support the latest OS features is better user value than the push to extract 30% of subscription revenues https://daringfireball.net/... https://twitter.com/... Kontra / @counternotions : “Apple undeniably wields great power from the fact that the App Store is the exclusive source for all consumer software for the iPhone and iPad. Why not use that power in the name of user experience? ” (There'd be no end to pundits bemoaning the evilness of UX policing.) Ben Thompson / @benthompson : For the record, I do *not* think that Apple should restrict apps based on arbitrary features. Gruber's point, though, is that if Apple is going to exert dictatorial control, he wishes the company were doing so in service of the user experience, not the bottom line. Steve Troughton-Smith / @stroughtonsmith : Just in case you weren't swayed by the ‘App Store is a public utility’ antitrust argument before https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Gruber's argument lands mid-2020, when App Store criticism was already running hot: OneZero had documented potentially anti-competitive ways iOS restricts consumers and developers, and Stratechery warned that every self-favoring Apple decision invites scrutiny of its power. He flips the frame — the issue isn't only the 30% subscription cut Dare Obasanjo criticizes, but that Apple barely uses its gate for quality at all: Gmail went around five years without split-screen multitasking on iPad, and commenters note some users can't switch anyway because employer provisioning locks them to Gmail.
That lock-in is the deeper point: as earlier coverage argued, [[a:954924|the App Store holds users because it is the only choice, not because it offers exceptional distribution]]. A gatekeeper with captive users has no market feedback forcing it to steer apps toward excellence — which is exactly why Gruber thinks steering should be the store's primary purpose.
First-order effects
- iPad users whose workplaces provision Gmail are stuck today with what Gruber calls a poor iPad app — one missing basic OS features like split screen — because the store's exclusivity leaves them no substitute.
- Apple faces a pointed question about what its review process actually enforces: Obasanjo's developer view is that mandating support for the latest OS features would deliver more user value than the current emphasis on extracting 30% of subscription revenue.
Second-order effects
- If Apple leaned into quality mandates, it could offer developers a trade — stricter feature requirements in exchange for movement on the take rate — converting a one-sided complaint into a negotiable bargain with the developer community.
- The argument also sharpens Apple's critics' case: a gatekeeper that fails even at steering quality has less justification for blocking alternative distribution, feeding the anti-competitive narrative already under construction in regulatory coverage.
Third-order effects
- The endgame splits by platform: under the EU's DMA, iPadOS falls below thresholds and won't get third-party app stores or browser engines, so whatever Apple's quality-gate role becomes, it persists on the iPad even as the iPhone opens up.
- If the pattern holds, a gatekeeper's legitimacy will increasingly be judged on curation outcomes rather than mere existence — regulators and courts asking whether the review process demonstrably improves apps for users, not just revenue for the platform.
The trend: The platform-power debate is shifting from how much gatekeepers charge to what their control is legitimately for — quality enforcement versus rent extraction.