If you don't like the Play Store, you don't have to use it. Android is an open platform with fewer restrictions than what Apple puts on its users. As you'd expect, it's faced criticism of its own - along with a similar departure from Epic and Fortnite. On Android, the Play Store serves a similar role to the App Store. That's not to say Apple isn't seeing any consequences of its hold over the software on the iPhone, but anyone with a phone from Samsung or Google is better off when it comes to app choices. The company has seen no shortage of controversy over its monopoly on iOS, even leading to a lawsuit from Epic that it (mostly) won.

Launched initially with iPhone OS 2, the App Store has become one of the biggest ways for the company to earn cash, simply by serving as a host for developers big and small. Alas, no luck.Īpple built the success of iOS on the back of the App Store. Still, for a company that seems intent on bringing notifications as close to your thumb as possible, you'd think app icons would follow suit. This can lead to a cluttered interface, albeit one that was partially cleaned up by the addition of the App Library in iOS 14. Apple pushes every app or widget to the first available slot on the screen, snapping your content up and to the left. Still, there are plenty of restrictions when changing your iOS experience, starting with your layout. That's to say nothing of the company's lock screen overhaul in iOS 16, which - notifications notwithstanding - has left plenty of AP's staff feeling more than a little jealous.

These days, widgets make the iPhone feel more dynamic, and icon customization is possible if you're patient enough to wade through Apple's headache-inducing tools. It took several years for wallpapers to arrive on the homescreen, leaving users stuck with a basic black backdrop. IOS customization has come a long way since the platform's earliest days.

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