Are App Stores a Barrier to Innovation?

Apple and Google artificially stifle the creativity of software developers. While some operating system restrictions are reasonable—like limiting access to your exact location—many of the limitations imposed do not appear justified.

The software on your phone today is, in some ways, similar to software from the ’90s, and in other ways, completely different. One of the biggest shifts is the concept of sandboxing.

With sandboxing, your application runs as if no other programs are active on the device. This design brings significant benefits for stability and security but requires different treatment for accessing private and shared resources.

For commonly accessed resources like photos or location, the system requires user permission. However, for other resources, like CarPlay, developers need special permissions called “entitlements” just to use the feature.

When done well, the entitlement process is reasonable (we’ll dive into this more tomorrow). What’s frustrating, though, are features that exist on the Mac but are either restricted or entirely unavailable on iOS. This restriction is one of the reasons some of the best Mac software isn’t even on the Mac App Store—and why it often can’t be brought to iOS at all.

Ultimately, some of the best software that helped keep the Mac platform alive can’t exist on iOS today. It makes you wonder: what future-changing software might be out there, waiting to be built, but is held back by unnecessary limits?