What is the Apple Walled Garden? How does it work?

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[OscarCP]

This initial comment is really a question prompted by my ignorance and by my curiosity and desire to learn from others things they know and I don’t. Also because this looks like a good starting point to get from here to the heart of issue at hand on something of interest to people considering to buy and start using a Mac.

So I hope the “Apple Questions” forum is the right one. If not, please MVPs, move it to where it might be better situated.

I have been reading here repeatedly in AskWoody some generally negative comments on the “Apple’s Walled Garden”, but do not recall any detailed explanation of what it is like. I just got this vague sense that it has to do with one having to use applications from Apple’s “Apps” online shop, if one wanted to use them, which seemed a sort of circular argument to make against the “Garden”, so there had to be more to it than that. I have heard also on restrictions to “sideloading”, but I understood that was just Apple following the application developers’ express wishes.

As I just wrote above, I am not knowledgeable of what are the “Walled” problems, in my case for *Mac users*, when it comes to installing applications that might or might not be from Apple’s “Apps” shop.

Before starting this thread, I have done some reading and come up, among other things, with this, from a year ago, but that still might be relevant (I recommend “Slate” to those who are interested in reading about many different things):

https://slate.com/technology/2021/06/apple-wwdc-ios15-new-features-walled-garden.html

Excerpts:

“The core issue is not so much that Apple plans to provide services for which there are already serviceable competitors: It’s that it will do so in a closed system. Unlike Google’s Android, which allows the “sideloading” of apps from outside the company’s official app store, Apple maintains a vise grip on user behavior in iOS. When Apple purged Fortnite from the App Store last year for violating its payment terms, iPhone users had no recourse. The game was simply gone, and it remains so to this day. Google removed the game from the Play Store for the same reason, but Android users can easily install the game via the open web.”

To begin, this is my own ignorant question:

Is this only an issue for people that use iPhones?

“Apple is also known to kneecap its rivals. Services that directly compete with Apple’s own offerings—Spotify or Netflix, say—are subject to a 30 percent fee from the tech giant for any subscriptions processed on its platform. (This is why you often cannot purchase digital goods in a third-party app—they simply refuse to give Apple its cut.) ”

That never ever has happened to me. I subscribe to Netflix, as have for years, even before I got my Mac and started to come out gradually from Windows, five years ago. I have never had to pay Apple a penny on account of Netflix. And I have bought a number of videos from Amazon Prime using a browser on the Mac, which, rightly or wrongly, I imagine is what is referred to in the excerpt above as Apple’s “platform.”

Now here is the thing: I have a Mac laptop, not an iPhone or any of the other “i” devices, and have not had any “Walled Garden” problems that I’ve noticed: I run some third party applications, not from Apple at all. I have bought some of those, donated to the developers for others that were “free”, using the Mac for that, and have run them for years: all my browsers, Thunderbird as my email client, for example (I do not use Safari or Mail, Apple’s own client.) And a few others.

So I welcome the stories of other loungers, particularly those that have and use Macs, with their opinions and experiences on this, but I hope that if the opinions are negative, they are more than a blanket perfunctory dismissal of the type “Apple is no good and I’ll never buy a Mac”, because that would be besides the point.

In particular, I would very much like to read about the specific details of the relevant experiences of other Mac users. The floor is now open.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

• This topic was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by OscarCP.
• This topic was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by OscarCP.

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The walled garden is most seen as the iphone app store, the difficulty and rarity of installing an app from somewhere else.  In order to appear in the store, restrictions the app developer may not want are enforced – any purchases go through the store and/or are charged a high fee to Apple.  The app store also bans a lot of offensive or adult content.

For years, the removal of flash from iphones meant that many video and game websites did not work, diverting iphone users to the app store and its Apple paid fees.

But the walled garden also applies to other things with computer macs.  To install an program, it must be signed and a developer fee paid to Apple, or there will be a warning.  This hit Seamonkey (a close relative of Thunderbird).  https://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=14881191#p14881191

Another example was that with many Macs, standard computer upgrades such as hard drives and memory could not be installed.  Only proprietary ones worked, or worse the components were soldered in.  Difficult to replace batteries meant that many laptops or phones were disposed of early in their life. -BB

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Anonymous: Thanks for taking the time to write your explanation.

Two points I would like to make about this, based on my own experience and knowledge:

(1) “To install an program, it must be signed and a developer fee paid to Apple, or there will be a warning.”

I have got those warnings every time that I have installed a third-party application, then have been asked to enter my Apple password to let the install go through. I have done that several times and have always ended up installing the third party application. To me, this has always been a very small hurdle to jump over to get what I want done.

(2) “Another example was that with many Macs, standard computer upgrades such as hard drives and memory could not be installed.”

My limited understanding is that the “Walled Garden” is about software.

But never mind that, because the hardware issues can be also of interest to people considering a switch to Apple from Windows:

There are several inconveniences with upgrading the Mac’s hardware, because how things are put together inside the Mac, but for those Macs still being fully supported by Apple from the time Apple stopped selling them to the same day and month five years later (but not from when one bought the Mac, that if bought brand new from Apple was necessarily earlier than that, so the support is actually for more than five years) those upgrades and fixes can be made at an Apple certified computer store. After support ends for an older Mac, there are shops where one can get the repairs made, it’s just necessary to find a reliable one in one’s area and that is, of course, not the best possible situation to be in.

So, going from Anonymous first quoted comment and the discussion and excerpts above, the “Walled” application issues seem, so far, to be more iPhone problems than Mac problems: for Macs they seem to be (to me, at least) more like bothers.

Please, keep those comments coming.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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OscarCP

I tend to think of the “Apple Walked Garden” as similar to a private club where you will be taken care of providing you “Play by the Rules” of the membership.   Strictly my opinion, it’s sort of a fuzzy definition.  By no means (in my opinion), is it derogatory.

In fact, I suppose you could look at the glass half full or half empty.

These membership rules are subtle.  Buying an Apple product in the past, many times was proprietary….. and Apple would provide for that for a price.  Sometimes that price could be premium.  Recently that’s gotten a lot better with aftermarket products.

But then there’s the psychological thing with Apple. And this is much like, in my opinion, Tesla.  Apple’s marketing is incredible. And they know how to appeal to a select class of people. Again this is not a bad thing, but it is part of the walled garden. Another example would be premium membership at Disneyland.   Some people might consider this to be elitist, but membership does have its benefits. Right?

I could go on about this, and I do with my buddies that have Apple products. Of course I’m the proud owner of a PC and stand outside that wild garden.

Mike

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Here is a recent run down on Apple’s ‘walled garden’ vs the world

I am in favor of Apple’s ‘walled garden’ and that’s why I choose iPhone, iPad vs Android…
I favor stability, privacy, security.. over customization, sideloading, …

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OscarCP

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Thanks, Alex. There are things in that article from 9to5Mac that do not work for me, these two in particular:

(1) That the “Walled-Garden prevents users to install third-party applications (ie. not from Apple’s “Walled Garden”). This may be true for the iPhone users, but at last in my Mac, also an Apple product, I have installed several third-party applications with no more than a warning from Apple that these are not guaranteed to be safe and, if do want to install them, I should allow that first by entering my login password in a field in the box with the warning, Once I have done that, I am cleared to install the third-party.

(2) Also the author of the article confuses “oligopoly” (from the Greek for “few sellers”), the banding of several companies to control a market, with “monopoly” (from the Greek for “single seller”) that means the use of a market-dominant company of this fact to push other players in the same market around and even ruin them. Both systems hinder and even outright prevent competition, but they are definitely not the same thing and not, as stated in the the article, merely two different aspects of the same thing: The author calls both “monopoly.”

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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OscarCP wrote:

That the “Walled-Garden prevents users to install third-party applications (ie. not from Apple’s “Walled Garden”). This may be true for the iPhone users, but at last in my Mac

All the proposed regulations all around the world vs Apple are aimed against iPhone and iPad not Mac.

Apple has monopoly on iOS/iPadOS. No third-party default apps, no removing pre-installed Apple apps. No third-party NFC payments. No side loading. No third-party browsers engines, no third-party in-app payments.. (30% cut on in-app purchases can’t be regulated (Google, Microsoft, Sony.. all take 15-30% cuts).

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OscarCP

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Thanks, Alex, That makes sense in the light of my own experience as a Mac user that I have described it in my previous comments.

The concussion, so far, is that Mac users, whatever are the things Apple does that they may have reason to worry about, the “Walled Garden” is not one of those. Nice to know.

With iPhones, though, that is a worry for their users.

Apple dominates the smartphone market, certainly here in the USA it does, with more than 50% of smartphone sales, I believe, but it does not dominate the computer market; and that may explain the difference in how it treats users of Macs vs. those of iPhones.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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