Great I'm going to submit one about how the Apple iOS store forces you to get rid of your old devices and buy new ones.
They make it extremely inconvenient to find out which apps are supported on your device. They don't hide the apps that aren't, so you are forced to download the app and wait to check to see if it's compatible or not.
I think this falls a little below the level of what should be a federal crime. It's an annoying usability issue, but ultimately which devices are supported is up to individual developers and not Apple. (It cuts both ways: there are some apps that aren't updated to run on the newest devices. So you could take that as Apple encouraging you to keep your old device and to NOT upgrade.)
Think about it this way: you want to haul Apple into federal court because they poorly cache app store search results on a CDN. The DoJ will have to hire new expert attorneys to prosecute this, and it could take years. That means they either stop prosecuting other federal crimes while working on that one, or your taxes increase to pay the new attorneys necessary for this case. The ultimate outcome for Apple will be paying some tiny fine that probably is less than a year's salary for a software engineer and being forced to fix their CDN setup, while the taxpayers pay millions of dollars. Best case. The worst case could be years of legal costs for the government, and absolutely nothing in return for the taxpayers.
I think you have to choose your battles, and this isn't the pick. Consumers aren't getting severely fucked, it's just kind of annoying to some people. We can use our limited tax dollars more effectively.
>So you could take that as Apple encouraging you to keep your old device and to NOT upgrade.
Does Apple show you apps that won't run on the newest devices/OS versions in the app store?
>It's an annoying usability issue, but ultimately which devices are supported is up to individual developers and not Apple.
But Apple runs the store, so the onus on them is to present the store in a way that gives me what is compatible with my device. When I go to the physical store, I don't expect to find kid's sizes in the adult clothing section (and vice versa). Even if the "clothing developer" in question only makes child sized clothes.
>prosecute
Whoa, hold on. We're in a thread asking for public comment on dark patterns.
Look at point 6 in the event announcement PDF:
> What harms do dark patterns pose to consumers or competition? For example, do certain dark patterns lead consumers to purchase products or services that they might not
otherwise have purchased, pay for products or services without knowing or intending to, provide personal information, waste time, spend more on a particular product or service, remain enrolled in a service they might otherwise cancel, or develop harmful usage habits?
(emphasis mine)
>Consumers aren't getting severely fucked, it's just kind of annoying to some people.
Sorry, I'm not understanding your point. Most dark patterns don't severely fuck anyone and are just kind of annoying to some people. I think that's the point of this FTC public comment - to get a consensus on what dark patterns are.
>The App Store doesn’t let me download apps that are not compatible with my device.
Let's not split hairs over this.
I just got rid of my iPad that does. You tap "get" on the app and after doing something for 5-10 seconds it pops up a modal that says it's not compatible.
Why was the app store showing apps to me that are not compatible or, rather, why was there no way to filter out the ones that are not compatible?
I’m not sure what I want with this - on MacOS it’s goddamn infuriating trying to download an OS that you want to install on a machine that isn’t the one you are browsing from.
You can’t just use the App Store and end up doing all sorts of horrible things.
I’ve commented on this before and had people send me links that show you can do it in the US App Store, but I can’t from NZ.
Oh are you talking about how you how certain things are hidden from search in the macOS app store? I found that annoying too. I had an old machine that I wanted to upgrade to Catalina and searching through the app store gave no results. Some how I found this link[0] and it magically brings me to macOS Catalina in the app store. Why didn't it come up in the search?
You aren’t being forced to do anything. Apple already supports their devices much longer than the industry standard. If you don’t like Apple stop using their products.
Everything you said is true but it still has no bearing on the fact that it's a dark pattern to make it inconvenient to have an old device. They have the means and technology to filter out incompatible apps, but they've decided not provide it.
There's a "Compatibility" section under each app which tells you whether it works on your device. You can also click on it so it tells you exactly which OS versions are supported.
So instead of filtering it out or graying out the "get" button, I need to click on the link in the app store and find the compatibility section (the last part of the page) to find out if it's compatible?
It's been a looooong time since I've had this issue, but I distinctly remember the "get" being grayed out (for example, gps-dependent apps on a non gps-enabled iPad). Has this regressed?
Yes. It's regressed. This video [0] is an example of what happens, EXCEPT on mine the pause was considerably longer before the "unable to purchase" pop up came up.
[0]: https://youtu.be/lMMrU732w6Q?t=82 (and if you look at the comments, you can see that I'm not the only consumer frustrated by this issue)
As a user, I should be able to have the experience of browsing an app store with only apps that are compatible with my device and OS version. As a user and average consumer, it was not obvious to me that there was a compatibility section at all because I have to scroll past reviews and app privacy to get that information.
They make it extremely inconvenient to find out which apps are supported on your device. They don't hide the apps that aren't, so you are forced to download the app and wait to check to see if it's compatible or not.