The iTunes App Store is a very valuable and powerful marketing, publishing, sales, and distribution resource. It was created by Apple to attract 3rd party developers to the iPhone, with the ultimate goal of selling more devices to more users. They succeeded wildly.
Apple would not and cannot prevent you from reading an Android magazine on your iPhone, but they are under no obligation to publish, market, distribute, and sell anyone's content, especially one dedicated solely to a competing product.
If someone wants to sell an Android magazine to iPhone users they're going to have to publish, market, and distribute it themselves, over the web, just like they would have to if the App Store didn't exist. Why would anyone expect to use Apple's marketing resources to advertise a competing product? Well, they wouldn't. But it does make for a nice publicity stunt, apparently.
Placement in the App Store isn't a right, it's a privilege, just like any other store.
Your argument would be completely correct if the App Store were not the sole means of distribution of native software to iOS devices.
Because the App Store is the sole means of said distribution, the validity of your argument becomes much murkier.
In my opinion, Apple should enhance the permissions system and allow the installation of software from other sources. The App Store would still reign supreme, generate revenue, et cetera and users would largely continue to be protected from malicious software. This sort of discussion would be moot as a result and your argument would stand.
> Apple should enhance the permissions system and allow the
> installation of software from other sources.
Arguably, Apple already provides this. It's called WebKit.
More to the point, Apple could have forced all 3rd-party software to run in a virtual machine, like Microsoft, and Google, and Palm, and RIM. They could then provide graduated API access, make their app review process a hell of a lot simpler, and eliminate the review process altogether for software distributed outside of the App Store.
Instead, they allow 3rd-party apps to run on the bare metal as full-fledged OS X applications. There are advantages and disadvantages to that approach, but it's very hard to argue that they made the wrong choice given how things have turned out. Everything else is academic.
Justifying the sole control of UIKit application distribution based on the fact that either WebKit exists or that UIKit is not implemented within a VM is illogical and irrelevant.
OSX on armv6 or v7 is secure enough to not warrant the use of a virtual machine. Virtual memory and memory protection were not commonly found in mobile pre-iPhone, making the choice of the JVM or dalvik in 2003, when Android was founded, or earlier in the case of RIM, convenient.
Regardless, the review process as it stands provides little in the way of additional security, a fact that further weakens your vague argument. Static analysis can only go so far. The status quo is about desire for revenue, not supposed "technical realities". All I am proposing is that allowing apps from other sources would have little effect on either.
Call me when Apple ever allows fully native 3rd-party software on the Mac.
Android has allowed native code through the NDK since 1.6. Now, you have to use it in conjunction with the SDK and thus some of your code will have to be in Java, but the main reason I can see to get down to the "bare metal" anyway would be for performance critical algorithms.
Because it's the sole means of distribution, but they're not significantly the biggest / only fish in the pond, it falls solidly in allowable-anti-competitive-behavior land. Anti-competitive, certainly, but there are plenty of other phones out there.
If you want an iPhone, you want an iPhone and everything that goes with it, and this is one of those things. Opening it up would be nice, I doubt anyone would disagree with that, but it's fully within their interest, ability, and right to restrict it. Maybe not best interest, but it's their decision to make.
Apple would not and cannot prevent you from reading an Android magazine on your iPhone, but they are under no obligation to publish, market, distribute, and sell anyone's content, especially one dedicated solely to a competing product.
If someone wants to sell an Android magazine to iPhone users they're going to have to publish, market, and distribute it themselves, over the web, just like they would have to if the App Store didn't exist. Why would anyone expect to use Apple's marketing resources to advertise a competing product? Well, they wouldn't. But it does make for a nice publicity stunt, apparently.
Placement in the App Store isn't a right, it's a privilege, just like any other store.