All the arguments about what company is most evil entirely miss the point.
You don't make a decision on a specific issue based on what company you like more, you base it on who is right on the specific issue.
From an ethical perspective that's what having a codified rule of laws is all about. Everyone get's the same rules no matter how much you like them. You don't arbitrarily punish people for doing things you don't like by denying them unrelated things that they are entitled to unless you go in front of a judge and get a judge to order that as a punishment for doing the thing you don't like.
From a entirely practical and short term perspective these decisions do not just impact the companies you don't like, they also impact everyone else because our legal system puts a very heavy weight on precedent.
I'm strongly reminded of the quote "Freedom of speech doesn't protect speech you like; it protects speech you don't like." (though obviously in this case it is applied to justice in general instead of speech in particular).
The question from a principle standpoint is - can a company create an area where trust / safety / security are prioritized. T
Developers no doubt disagree with this, they have created a web that is filled with crap. Let's be 100% clear about that.
Spam calls via voip, spam into email, ddos floods of every sort imaginable, impossible to unsubscribe, cramming and slamming on subscription renewals and the list goes on. They don't want root on your device to help you, but to screw you in enough cases that you shouldn't give them root. Trust / security / safety are low low low on the list of almost all startup and other developers "growth hacking" etc.
Apple wanted to create their own little world. Phones with updates that keep on getting updated, an app marketplace with much more transparent pricing (lot less fine print), and the list goes on.
You need to look at what apple is doing in context. The world on the net developers and hackers here on HN have created is terrible in many ways for many many people. At some point folks are just tied of the endless scams.
Now the same folks who trashed a lot of the rest of the web (do you answer your phone when an unkown number calls?) want into the walled apple garden.
To keep the continuity of discussion, I assume that this comment was posted here because my top level comment was in part a reply to your (temp667's) comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24579860
I appreciate the attempt to connect this to the anti-trust suit, but I don't see this as a good justification for why your original critique is relevant for a few reasons:
- Many of the practices in your original critique are allowed on (or not prevented by) Apple's app store. The argument you are making here only makes sense as pertaining to anti-trust to the extent that you are critiquing practices that Apple is preventing.
- It doesn't particularly matter whether the people trying to overturn Apple's practice are the bad actors, or third parties are, since the lawsuit affects all parties (third party or not) equally. So while you could make a consumer benefit argument based on bad actors (indeed, Apple has tried to in the lawsuit), it makes little to no sense to focus on the parties suing (and simultaneously falls into the trap of just arguing that people you don't like don't deserve justice).
On a separate note - I also find the argument for Apple's bundling of services here unconvincing. I have seen no argument for why Apple's curation service needs to be bundled with the phone - which is the prerequisite of the anti trust suit. Consider that apple could perfectly well sell the hardware and OS, and separately sell (or even offer for free) a software package that locks out third party app stores and third party payment providers. Doing so would practically destroy any argument that they are using their monopoly on IPhone hardware and IOs to acquire a monopoly on app distribution and payment services. To the extent that people find the lock in useful, I expect they would install that software package.
Apple does not have a “monopoly on iPhone hardware and iOS”. This is a fundamental misunderstand of the term. You cannot have a monopoly on your own product, because a monopoly is a state of a market and your own product is not a market.
Understanding this is fundamental to the actual legal issue at hand. First, the argument against Apple is not that they are bundling an App Store with their iPhone.
The argument against Apple is that they are restricting behavior that Apps may perform on their Store and also disallowing other stores. If their App Store was downloaded separately but then enforced the same restriction, you have exactly the same legal issue. Implementing the App Store to be a separate manual download, but keeping the same restrictions in place if it is installed, would be just as illegal as exactly what they are doing today.
They would have to at least allow installing multiple App Stores side by side, if not eliminate certain contractural provisions of being able to publish on the Apple App Store itself.
As for why Apple’s curation is bundled with the phone, it’s not a question of whether it “needs to be” that way, it’s a question of why Apple chose to do it that way. They chose that route for a myriad of very significant reasons relating to user experience, usability, privacy, security, safety, brand & reputation, performance, and accountability. From a financial standpoint they chose it because it ensure apps are profitable for both Apple and Developers, as well as consistent and predictable for end users. They also eliminate almost all software piracy on their platform with their model, which increases App Store revenue.
Their model enables HCI, Privacy, and Billing policies which they can enforce platform-wide, and which they can demand otherwise abusive apps to follow, simply because there is no other option if you want access to Apple’s customer base.
"They chose that route for a myriad of very significant reasons relating to user experience, usability, privacy, security, safety, brand & reputation, performance, and accountability."
This is incredibly naive.
They chose it to be this way for the purposes of profit.
Android is testament to the fact that high degree of quality and security and consistency can be maintained without any of the most iOS aggressive restrictions.
There is no material difference between security on either platform, they're both generally fine, apps are great on Android and people are not falling off the side of the earth because of 'scams or fallouts' regarding Android.
The existence and relative quality of the Android universe renders most of the arguments for iOS walled garden moot.
The term 'monopoly' may not apply perfect, but it's reasonable in the discussion, the anti-trust issues are obvious and have many historical parallels.
If andorid is great, then folks will pick android. That's fine and competition.
Things are a lot cheaper on android to, so they win on price.
The one android phone I ever purchased
1) Shipped with bloatware in the base install (!!!)
2) Shipped with an older android version.
3) The updates never came
4) The messaging story was CRAP (unsecured SMS / spam SMS)
Meanwhile I'm getting 4-5 years of updates on every iphone I have ever purchased. I've never gotten spam imessages I don't think. etc.
Apple choses these features because they think it will let them charge more for their stuff - which I think it does. Making a product people want by reducing scam behavior shouldn't be illegal, and people wanting your product and being willing to pay extra for it doesn't make you a monopoly. Def makes apple rich though!
Maybe you stopped reading. I also said they did it for financial reasons.
To say they did it purely for profit is overly reductionist.
But in the sense that they believe the policies they have put in place make their device superior in the market, and make the App Store generate more dollars per user (both for Apple and for Developers), then you could say that profit is always an underlying motive. As it is and as it should be in capitalism.
Whether you believe Android is great or not is irrelevant. I personally think you are glossing over some very high profile failings and failures of Android, but it’s totally besides the point. Similarly totally irrelevant whether they could have made different technical and policy choices over the last 12 years which may or may not have obtained the same or similar outcomes.
Apple does not owe anyone the right to distribute their Apps on Apple’s own store, no more than any product can demand placement on their own terms in any store. Only if Apple holds a monopoly on smartphones could Apple’s right to enforce their own policies on their own phone be limited. That’s why the term monopoly is important.
The existence and relative quality of the Android universe renders disagreements over Apple App Store policy beyond the reach of an anti-trust act.
> Apple does not have a “monopoly on iPhone hardware and iOS”. This is a fundamental misunderstand of the term. You cannot have a monopoly on your own product, because a monopoly is a state of a market and your own product is not a market.
> Eastman Kodak Co. v. Image Technical Servs., Inc., 504 U.S. 451 (1992), is a 1992 Supreme Court decision in which the Court held that even though an equipment manufacturer lacked significant market power in the primary market for its equipment—copier-duplicators and other imaging equipment—nonetheless, it could have sufficient market power in the secondary aftermarket for repair parts to be liable under the antitrust laws for its exclusionary conduct in the aftermarket.[1] The reason was that it was possible that, once customers were committed to the particular brand by having purchased a unit, they were "locked in" and no longer had any realistic alternative to turn to for repair parts.
This has been held at the appeals court level to apply to products as well as repair services (because why wouldn't it). See newcal industries v. ikon office solution. Unfortunately since a large portion of the opinion focuses on this, it's hard to find a single quote that summarizes. Read the background and then search aftermarket in the opinion: https://www.leagle.com/decision/20081551513f3d103811540:
Here is my best attempt at picking out a relevant paragraph that explains the law:
> Taking these cases together, three relevant principles emerge. First, the law permits an antitrust claimant to restrict the relevant market to a single brand of the product at issue (as in Eastman Kodak). Second, the law prohibits an antitrust claimant from resting on market power that arises solely from contractual rights that consumers knowingly and voluntarily gave to the defendant (as in Queen City Pizza and Forsyth). Third, in determining whether the defendant's market power falls in the Queen City Pizza category of contractually-created market power or in the Eastman Kodak category of economic market power, the law permits an inquiry into whether a consumer's selection of a particular brand in the competitive market is the functional equivalent of a contractual commitment, giving that brand an agreed-upon right to monopolize its consumers in an aftermarket. The law. permits an inquiry into whether consumers entered into such "contracts" knowing that they were agreeing to such a commitment.
So I don't think it's a slamdunk whether or not Apple's secondary markets here are aftermarkets that anti trust can be applied to because of the third point in the above paragraph, but it's not a slamdunk the other way either, and your claim that you can't have a monopoly on IPhone apps because IPhone is apple's product is fundamentally flawed (rather, if it's true, it's because purchasing an IPhone is akin to signing a contract that you will only use IPhone apps distributed from Apple, and that you will only use Apple's payment system on those IPhone apps).
Note that Eastman Kodak is viewed in legal circles as the exception to the general rule of disallowing single-brand relevant markets, due to the particular circumstances of the case.
In Kodak, customers originally purchased Kodak copiers without any restrictions, and then several years later Kodak changed their policy and stopped selling repair parts to third-party servicers, which left customers locked into buying repair services from Kodak instead.
In Newcal, IKON amended their lease agreements with their customers without disclosing to the customers that the length of their service contracts would be extended as well, similarly leaving customers locked into buying services from IKON.
In both of those cases, there was an element of deception, and customers did not know that they would be restricted in the aftermarket when they made their original purchase. It's tough to argue that those circumstances apply here, since Apple's policies have been clear since the launch of the App Store and have never changed. In fact, some courts have interpreted Kodak to mean that absent a change in policy, Kodak does not apply.
Note that the paragraph you quoted specifically says: "the law permits an inquiry into whether a consumer's selection of a particular brand in the competitive market is the functional equivalent of a contractual commitment, giving that brand an agreed-upon right to monopolize its consumers in an aftermarket." I expect Apple will be able to successfully convince the court that this is indeed the case.
If I was epic I think I would be focusing on the fact that consumers generally don't have any idea about the restriction on payment providers, and that the terms of that restriction have changed over time.
But that gives up on half the case, so we'll see what they do.
That's true, but for Epic's tying claim they've argued that the tying product is iOS app distribution and the tied product is payment processing, which again relies on establishing that iOS app distribution is in fact a valid antitrust market.
If that fails, they might be able to amend their claim to argue that iPhones are the tying product, but then that opens up a different set of questions about how much market power Apple has in the overall smartphone market.
(They also need to establish that payment processing is actually a distinct product or service from app distribution, which is not necessarily obviously true and depends on a separate set of factors.)
> "Your claim that you can't have a monopoly on IPhone apps because IPhone is apple's product is fundamentally flawed".
I never claimed that at all.
It's a question for the courts to decide if it wants to allow Apple's current App Store contract to stand, and if not, what remedy they propose. But it wouldn't be because Apple has a "monopoly" on the iPhone or iOS, it would ride partly on the question of, from your own source, "whether consumers entered into such "contracts" knowing that they were agreeing to such a commitment", and I suppose partly on whether the contract is illegally anti-competitive even if it was entered into knowingly.
Further quoting from your own source, Newcal v Icon;
"First and foremost, the relevant market must be a product market. The consumers do not define the boundaries of the market; the products or producers do. Second, the market must encompass the product at issue as well as all economic substitutes for the product. As the Supreme Court has instructed, "The outer boundaries of a product market are determined by the reasonable interchangeability of use or the cross-elasticity of demand between the product itself and substitutes for it." As such, the relevant market must include "the group or groups of sellers or producers who have actual or potential ability to deprive each other of significant levels of business."
Further reading of that case (a great example by the way) involves discussion of an interesting case against Domino's pizza. Franchisees attempted to sue because they were contractually required to purchase ingredients from Domino's, and Domino's therefore held a monopoly on their ingredients. It's not that substitute ingredients didn't exist, they just weren't allowed by Domino's to buy them.
Similarly with the App Store, it's not that other apps don't exist, it's just that contracturally, iOS doesn't allow you to download them. There is a competitive market for apps (very clearly!) but yet the market for apps on an iPhone is contractually limited in a way which you might be tempted to call a monopoly. The Third Circuit ruled otherwise. As long as customers knowingly entered into this contract, the existence of the contract provision does not create a illegal monopoly.
> "The Third Circuit held that the contractually created difference among otherwise-substitutable products was insufficient to create an economically distinct antitrust submarket."
The counter argument is given as Kodak v. Image Technical Services. In this case, Kodak is monopolizing the market for repair parts and services. The Supreme Court rules that buyers of Kodak machines could not reasonably predict that such a purchase would lock them into buying overpriced Kodak parts and services down the line.
> The Court rejected that analogy on the ground that the consumers could not, at the time of purchase, reasonably discover that Kodak monopolized the service market and charged supracompetitive prices for its service. Id. Kodak's market power in parts and services, therefore, did not arise from a knowing contractual (or quasi-contractual), arrangement.
By comparison, no one who is buying an iPhone could reasonably be unaware that the App Store is the only way to install apps on it.
More importantly, Apple isn't being sued by consumers. It's being sued by App Developers, who did certainly quite knowingly enter into a contract with Apple to write apps for their platform.
I don't know of any statue that requires Apple to provide access to their own device to third party software developers. Third parties can write an app for iOS or not, but when they do so, developers enter into a contract with Apple that decidedly comes with some conditions.
Perhaps I don't know what you mean "monopoly on iPhone Apps". I said they don't have a monopoly on iPhone or iOS, because such a statement is nonsensical.
It seems to me that you moved the goalposts to talking about iPhone apps.
I mean, they obviously don't have a monopoly on iPhone apps either (probably 99.99% of all apps are not written by Apple). What they have is significant and costly contractual terms which they require developers to agree to before they let you publish an app on their device. Some argue that those terms may be illegally anti-competitive, but it wouldn't be because of a "monopoly".
The court case you referenced emphatically states that explicit contractual provisions cannot form the boundaries of an antitrust submarket.
Fundamentally consumers have a choice when they buy a smartphone. They can choose from several different manufacturers, and the market is highly competitive. The whole beauty of a capitalist market is that companies get to choose the features and experience their product provides to differentiate themselves, and as long as consumers have a choice between products, those products should live or die based on those features and experience.
Apple is clearly doing quite well in a highly competitive market making the product design choices they are making, because consumers are choosing that experience over the alternative.
To bring it back to the Kodak case, if we were to consider whether Apple has a monopoly on iPhone repair & service, I would say, "Hey gpm, that's entirely possible. I don't know if they do or don't, but it's important that they aren't anti-competitively dominating that market!" Repair and service of a brand is logically quite different from the brand itself.
> To the extent that people find the lock in useful, I expect they would install that software package.
Deep down I would guess that most people will still object on consequentialist grounds, because they know that not enough people will opt in unless forced, and so vendors will be able to ignore the walled garden. Apple sure as hell wouldn't be able to take 30% if there were other ways onto the iPhone, as big vendors would avoid it, thus requiring most users to give up the safe walled garden.
I still come out strongly against Apple on this one however as I am not a consequentialist.
Selling separately destroys the iPhone brand and business model. Far fewer would pay for a separate OS, iPhones would have to be more expensive if they didn’t bundle a services component, customers wouldn’t trust iPhone as much.
There is a simple solution, and it’s not misguided delusional antitrust talk. It’s buying the other type of smartphone that is 85% of unit sales world wide.
It’s far more than two choices since their are hundreds of Android manufacturers, many whom add their own software to the stack. It’s more like dozens of differentiated competitors, of which Apple is rate largest but still only a small minority of the market.
There aren’t many freer markets. The automobile business was still a free market when Henry Ford refused to paint cars in your choice of color.
You don't have to agree with apple, but they clearly think the halo effect of having just one reasonably fair app store on their platform increases their platform brand power and profits both. I think they are right.
Can I ask a question. When your elderly parents or kids ask for a phone (assuming they are not developers), does it give you no comfort that if its an apple from end to end including app store things will be a bit more reasonable?
And you do realize if things are unbundled, then EVERY phone company will dump their crap onto every users phone except for the folks who know enough to go uninstall / use the lockout thing you are talking about. And you don't think that will damage the overall apple brand?
> You don't have to agree with apple, but they clearly think the halo effect of having just one reasonably fair app store on their platform increases their platform brand power and profits both. I think they are right.
I agree, but "it makes us more money and gives us more power" has never been a defense against anti-trust law. Indeed if this was not true I imagine that anti-trust law would never have been necessary in the first place.
> Can I ask a question. When your elderly parents or kids ask for a phone (assuming they are not developers), does it give you no comfort that if its an apple from end to end including app store things will be a bit more reasonable?
First I have to point out that the unbundling solution solves this problem entirely. I just install the "lock this to the apple ecosystem" software before I give them the phone and I get all the current benefits as it pertains to children and elderly tech-dependents with none of the anti-trust issues.
I have to admit that I can only answer this question in theory. I have no kids (and don't plan on future kids) and my parents are more technically competent than average. The extent that I manage their technology is "this is good value for the price" and installing ublock origin everywhere.
The honest theoretical answer though is I don't think it would. There are a number of reasons for this.
- I really don't trust the app store to stop abusive behaviors in the first place.
- I could lock probably lock down an Android to the extent that I'm as happy as I would be with an apple (not very).
- I would (and do) worry a hell of a lot more about the internet than I would (do) about apps.
- I worry about the internet a hell of a lot more on IPhones than I do on androids, because I can't install a proper adblocker, because of Apples anti-competitive policies regarding browsers (the ad blocking api's in safari are gimped compared to firefox).
- At the point where I don't trust someone with a phone, I also wouldn't trust them with a credit card in general... at which point none of the payment stuff is problematic (But I acknowledge that the social reality w.r.t. the elderly and credit cards makes this a hard problem).
> And you do realize if things are unbundled, then EVERY phone company will dump their crap onto every users phone except for the folks who know enough to go uninstall / use the lockout thing you are talking about. And you don't think that will damage the overall apple brand?
This can be solved with apple only providing phones to sellers who agree not to do that easily enough. While I know epic has some issues with this strategy (as it pertains to Google and pre-installing fortnite) I do not.
> I worry about the internet a hell of a lot more on IPhones than I do on androids, because I can't install a proper adblocker, because of Apples anti-competitive policies regarding browsers (the ad blocking api's in safari are gimped compared to firefox).
This is silly. Who determines what a "proper adblocker" is? There are plenty of adblockers available for iOS. In fact, you can even use Firefox AS an adblocker.
On the ad-blocking side, Android fans are blowing this out of proportion.
First of all, Safari’s content blockers, while far less capable than uBO, are pretty adequate for the time being. In my experience, iOS Safari + Wipr is fine.
Also, and this point is underrated, content blockers work in most app web views. For example Twitter’s or Gmail’s. Not all web views of course. Facebook for example chooses to use a web view, for opening links, that doesn’t have support for ad blockers.
Moreover, alternative browsers, such as Firefox, or Edge, or Brave, or Vivaldi, could still implement ad blocking. Not via an extension, but built in. And they in fact do. Microsoft’s Edge included.
Firefox on iOS is a little weak of course. They are only blocking domains meant for tracking, and they use the Disconnect list. Which is rather short. But they do take care of common ad exchanges, when in strict mode.
Also, Safari itself blocks third party tracking by default. It doesn’t block the requests themselves, but it does block the cookies they set. So it doesn’t block a request to Google Analytics, but it does block its cookie. New in iOS 14 is that this capability became available to all web views. So including Firefox on iOS. Users have to opt-out if they don’t want it.
Also iOS 14 has disabled the advertising ID, by default. Users have to opt-in explicitly, screwing the plans of Facebook, whose SDK is used by a lot of apps to gather metrics.
I would love to have full Firefox on iOS, but truth is, this is a false narrative. Given Firefox’s popularity on Android, I can tell you that iOS users are in fact more protected from trackers and ads, out of the box.
And it’s not just about Firefox’s popularity btw, I’m a huge Firefox supporter, but on Android it sucked in terms of performance, behavior, and compatibility with the web. From simple things, like pinching to zoom, with the fonts getting all blurry. As a technical user, you might live with that, but you wouldn’t subject your parents to it.
You make it seem like on Android you have choices. Well, not really. Most people use Chrome, or Samsung’s browser.
On iOS, did you know that the only browser without ad blocking capabilities is Chrome?
Not to mention that you can also do DNS-level blocking, via NextDNS, or Pi-hole.
And there’s another aspect. My son has an Android and a majority of games are ads-driven. Imagine a drawing app that forces kids to click for more ads in order to receive clues/rewards, without which they can’t advance in the game. Quite brilliant if you ask me. It also forces them to disable any ad blocking that their parents installed ;-)
Well, on iOS people actually spend money on apps. And Apple has a new subscription even, called Apple Arcade, which gives people access to a collection of games without any ads, or in-app purchases. Just pay a subscription, and the games can’t play tricks on you. This is what curation does.
Unfortunately my son wanted an Android for now. So I’ll have to wait about 2 years, until his Android tables becomes unsupported and obsolete. And in the meantime my iPad Pro from 2015 will still be upgradable to the latest iOS.
If you’re saying that you can’t trust iOS’s ecosystem more than Android, for you children, then you’re seriously unfamiliar with it, sorry.
> From simple things, like pinching to zoom, with the fonts getting all blurry.
This is an aside to your conversation, but just wanted say we're currently rolling out webrender to more devices in the new version of Firefox for android, and it fixes the blurriness when zooming.
Sure Apple can create their area of trust/safety/security in their apple store allowing those who want that to stay there. They can't however do that on a device they've sold to customers.
The question from a principle standpoint is - can companies stop a customer from modifying a device they own when it only effects the customer.
Or more realistically there is more than one question and you have to make trade offs between the right answer to all of them (and what people believe the right answer to be).
My view is: Make it hard to install out of App store, warn people about all the security/trust/safety there losing each time they enable a fine grained permissions. It's a simple security rule; don't install anything not in the app store, yes pay the 30% premium for that security. Yes it's not perfect but the current situation definitely isn't either.
>Trust / security / safety are low low low on the list of almost all startup and other developers "growth hacking" etc.
Yeah I find this general argument that developers should be "trusted" with the "freedom" of an "open" ecosystem, with all those happy buzzwords, so off-putting. I mean, sure, I might perhaps trust the small indie developer working out of his basement to not screw me over, but by and large the software that end users are interacting with are coming out of faceless billion dollar behemoths looking to squeeze every dollar out of their users (and associated data) as possible. I have zero reason to trust them, particularly given the conduct of the Internet giants (ahem... Facebook).
Perhaps if these businesses had a more user-friendly business model, end users would've been comfortable using a less restrictive mobile software platforms, similar to what we used to have on desktop computers. Facebook et all have reaped what they sowed, and they get zero sympathy from me regarding their App Store situation. They're the reason that users (even on HN) generally celebrate when Apple imposes an ever growing list of privacy restrictions on their activities.
Apple can have their garden, nobody is complaining.
The issue is one of choice and consumers ability to go beyond the walled garden.
The issue of 'scams' is a canard: there are browsers on iPhones that allow users to be involved in any number of hustles.
"Now the same folks who trashed a lot of the rest of the web (do you answer your phone when an unkown number calls?) want into the walled apple garden."
This just doesn't make any sense, moreover, it has nothing to do with 30% margins.
> Apple wanted to create their own little world. Phones with updates that keep on getting updated, an app marketplace with much more transparent pricing (lot less fine print), and the list goes on.
Other than anti-trust and similar laws, there is nothing stopping Apple from eventually creeping it onto the web. It's "their" device after all.
The wider context around the specific issues can still be useful in deciding what's "best" (distinct from "right"). EG: look at the antitrust case Apple lost over eBook pricing. The rules said they should lose in order to ensure a fair market for eBooks, a minute's consideration of the wider context said that if they lost Amazon would suck up the entire market. Which it did. The net result, even if narrowly within the rules, was a loss for consumers and for competition
No, the rules say organizing a price fixing ring is illegal. The result of which was literally to simultaneously raise prices for consumers across all platforms.
It's particularly ironic in this case because the whole point of the exercise for Apple was to increase prices so they could still charge their extortionate 30%. Amazon wasn't remotely that greedy.
That’s the silliest perspective on this case you could have. Apple gave publishers the right to set their own prices, but in return required they don’t undercut those prices on other platforms.
Apple had only a a small market share at the time.
Publishers could have said, nah, we are happy with Amazon, and refused to agree to Apple’s terms. This is about as clear a free market as one gets, that it became an antitrust issue shows how crazytown antitrust law has become.
This was attractive to Publishers because they were terrified of an Amazon monopoly. Amazon selling ebooks at cost did nothing for Publishers long term because it was killing other ebook competitors. This offered a viable competitor to be an ebook outlet.
Instead the misguided Justice department and a judge made Apple back down and what do we have now? Exactly what publishers feared, an Amazon monopoly.
"It's awful that a $2 trillion tech company's price fixing conspiracy flatlined and consumers in 2020 pay really low ebook prices. What is American justice coming to?"
Do we, though? I feel like most ebooks on Amazon are priced similarly to their paperback counterparts, or at least not significantly lower to the point that it reflects the fact that they don't have to manufacture a physical good or get someone to drive a truck to bring it to me.
Forget art, they're a software developer working for a software company that produces software for other software developers. Zero physical items created. Sit around all day getting paid great money to produce nothing tangible and then thinks something dodgy must be happening for ebooks to be close to physical books in price. Very odd.
> The major value of a book, to a consumer, is the words it contains not the paper it’s printed on.
Yes, and that's exactly my point.
If a paperback book is priced at $10, and it costs $2 to manufacture, $1 to ship, and $3 to market (made-up numbers, but the values don't matter), with the rest going to the author/publisher, then we're saying that piece of art is worth $4. If the e-book edition costs $8, perhaps that $3 marketing cost is still there, but the marginal cost of storage and distribution is probably a few cents... so somehow now that piece of art is worth $7? That doesn't add up.
I mean, I get it: the price you pay for something is generally just the highest price that the market will bear, a price that maximizes profit... and the "intrinsic value" of something doesn't matter or maybe doesn't even exist. Even the cost to produce it may not matter, if the seller wants to use a particular item as a loss-leader.
What I object to is, back when e-books started being a thing, the big promise was that they'd be so much cheaper than physical books, because the marginal cost to "produce" and "ship" one is near-zero. But of course that promise never materialized; it was just marketing to get people to buy Kindles.
From the Department of Justices perspective value is tied to price. They wanted to stop Apple from asking for price parity with other outlets because it would drive prices up.
And what happened after their victory is that prices didn’t go down, they look like they went up.
Of course this has little to do with the artists, they typically don’t get to price their novels, and only get a royalty that’s not likely impacted much either way. Higher prices are higher royalties per unit, sure, but if they lead to lower unit sales it’s not likely better.
"This is about as clear a free market as one gets, that it became an antitrust issue shows how crazytown antitrust law has become."
It has nothing to do with platform prix fixing, it has to do with de-facto monopoly over a portion of US mobile devices, or rather, an oligarchy between Google and Apple.
The same issues existed with oil, electricity and telephone networks - there were claims of 'choice' but really there was not.
"Best" for whom? Any action has the potential to be either good or bad, depending on who you ask. But if it has a positive impact on society as a whole - that's probably good enough. And striving to do the right thing, upholding important beliefs like fair access to justice and freedom of speech, these certainly fall in that category.
If a smaller company, or even one of us on HN had sued Apple would that suddenly make it okay? Apple's actions haven't changed, why should the identity of the plaintiff matter?
Regarding your specific example - if Amazon is doing something wrong, then an antitrust case should be brought against them too. But that doesn't (and shouldn't) give anyone the right to continue doing something unethical and illegal.
The ethics of speech protection and laws are a complicated subject - I strongly agree that being moral judgements into punishments is a dark road that has led to a lot of racism and other discrimination in the past... but justice isn't blind and unmoving, justice should evolve to reinforce changes in ethical thinking in society at large. There have been several prominent incidents recently that have shown that the portion of legal enforcement relying on societal norms in the US has been broken, I think due to our general acceptance that greed and money are good and having those things means you've succeeded in life.
Legal judgments that leave a bad taste in your mouth shouldn't be ignored but examined to see if the laws that we have actually fit the society we're trying to maintain - people shouldn't be arbitrarily persecuted for actions and ex post facto protections are very well intentioned and wisely put in place to protect against some really heinous abuses - but questioning whether the law should be changed to prevent future incidents isn't bad - it's how our legal system evolves.
I think the discussion and analysis of each company's prior behaviour is exactly on point--the question before humanity in the general case is "what are these companies really up to?"
Each (including Apple) has a hidden agenda. They can be both beneficial and harmful. They are not our friends! They deserve our scrutiny, suspicion and supervision.
A company is a system that was created to pursue an agenda. That agenda is nothing like the agenda of a typical human individual (except at absurd levels of abstraction) and is not necessarily net-beneficial to actual humans in the short or the long run.
It's an axiom of systems analysis that behaviour trumps speech when you are trying to figure out what a system is really up to. To say it another way, we would like to identify the actual operant utility functions of these companies, so we can predict what they are really working towards, and what their behaviour and impact might be in the future. Their prior behaviour is the best signal we have!
To force the discussion to revolve around "laws" and "right" is to pretend that current ethical positions and laws are optimal and can't be gamed. A superficial inspection will show these premises are false.
The ongoing work of governance is to try to figure out economic, social and legal rules that "work" for some consensus definition of "work". That requires a clear understanding of what is actually happening, and good scenario analysis for the range of possible outcomes (including unintended consequences). Maybe that's unrestricted free markets, maybe sometimes it isn't. Maybe it's the law as it currently stands, maybe it isn't.
At the time I posted this the top comment and many other highly voted comments were just criticizing epic, spotify, and tinder. E.g. complaining that epic sells to kids, spotify doesn't pay artists enough, and that tinder sells sex and commits age discrimination.
Regardless of whether or not they are valid complaints, they aren't at all related to anti trust (or if they are, no one was bothering to make the connection).
This was the comment that was the tipping point for me making the post, and was at the time ranked fairly highly (hence all the replies to it): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24579479
This is absolutely true though? I fail to see your point.
You are free to say what you want, and other people are free to criticize you for it. If you don't support the right to criticize, you don't support free speech.
Depends on the consequences. Usually this is invoked to mean "it's fine for me burn down your business or destroy your life because I don't like you because consequences <grin>"
In general, the statement CANNOT be true, because the chilling effect explicitly suppresses free speech -- being a result of consequences. Ergo, consequence (of a particular type) is in fact suppression of free speech.
It is more of "free to criticize' vs 'free to destroy livelihood' thing. Some would say both are same or second is just an implementation detail of first.
Free speech is the right to not be arrested for speaking. It's not the right to not be punched in the face for saying stupid things (there is a separate law for face punching).
> Free speech is the right to not be arrested for speaking. It's not the right to not be punched in the face for saying stupid things (there is a separate law for face punching).
No, the 1st Amendment is the right to not be arrested for speaking (in the United States). Free Speech is a philosophy that would absolutely cover not committing physical violence against someone for what they say. Violence in response to speech is probably a good starting point for the definition of unfree speech.
This is spot on. In addition the first amendment is theoretically protection against punching you in the face not being prohibited because of something you said. The government could make face punching legal in general, but not legal only if the victim first makes an idiot out of themselves.
Yes, the reason we have laws against face punching people who say dumb things is partly to protect free speech in the philosophical sense (there are obviously other reasons too, such as that it hurts).
This still doesn’t mean that speech without consequences is possible. The grandparent comment mentioned the loss of a livelihood as an example (unsure exactly what it refers to but could be e.g boycotts).
Can we just link directly to the advocacy group's page (https://appfairness.org/)? I'm not certain the article is adding anything.
----
I'm generally supportive of at least some of Epic's arguments towards Apple, and I do believe that Apple (and multiple other FAANG companies) are engaged in anti-competitive behavior that's currently hurting the market. But a lot of the arguments I'm reading on the App Fairness site in particular seem really poorly phrased, almost to the point of being incoherent.
From their objection on "user freedom":
> Think about this a little differently: A box of Cheerios costs about $3.00 at Kroger, but sometimes Cheerios offers a coupon which lowers the price to $2.50 at any store that offers Cheerios. What Apple is doing is basically like Kroger telling Cheerios that they’re not allowed to offer coupons, and if they do, Cheerios is at risk of being kicked out of the cereal aisle. Consumers wouldn’t stand for this type of monopolistic behavior over their cereal, so why should they allow it for the apps used on their mobile devices?
I had to think really hard what they mean by this and how it actually relates to user freedom. Most resellers are allowed to choose their own prices for goods. I don't think this analogy corresponds at all to what Apple is doing. Apple is banning apps from telling consumers in app about other purchasing options. That's a totally different objection.
I'm pleased to see developers banding together, but if this is the result then I wish they'd spend more time making more reasonable, understandable arguments. If this site was my first introduction to the debate over app store policies, I think I'd probably be on Apple's side.
What I learned from past experiences is to never use analogies. They are almost always a source of distraction, people start to argue about the analogy itself instead of the topic at hand, which is almost always completely counter productive.
Also it often only makes sense in the mind of the author...
> They are almost always a source of distraction, people start to argue about the analogy itself instead of the topic at hand, which is almost always completely counter productive.
My experience is that this is very true among a certain group of people, particularly literal-minded software enngineer types. But it is much less true in the general population where a single good analogy can accomplish more than pages of prose.
My experience is analogies are erroneously as supporting arguments to jump from premise to conclusion of an unrelated topic. I saw them a lot at my family's various religious/cult gatherings when I was a kid. The preacher would state something and then "prove" it with an analogy.
Analogies don't accomplish anything in basically all of the uses I've seen. People want them to serve as proof, but it's a lazy way of getting out of showing the validity of a conclusion.
That's assuming a level of critical thinking that exists on HN and a few other forums but isn't really common to the general public.
Most people go into a new topic or new issue area with a basically neutral stance. They aren't looking to disprove the argument, nor do they even view it as an argument. Rather, they're thinking "OK, show me how this is relevant - tie it into my life and how it affects me, then I'll make up my mind based on my feelings afterwards" (in a far more subconscious way - basically nobody actually goes through these thoughts consciously). Analogies are your chance to do that. Get the right one and people associate your issue with something they already hold a positive position on. Get the wrong one and they just ignore you.
Or bad actors can use analogies to mislead people. Or a neutral actor erroneously uses them and the result is still misinformed people. My opinion is analogies do more harm than good, at best wasting people's time, and at worst, resulting in people coming to the wrong conclusions.
People should be educated the rhetorical mechanism they are using doesn't do what they think it does, though. It's part of developing critical thinking skills. It would help people not get taken advantage of, too.
In this case the problem is constructing poor models and using them to understand the world; it doesn't have to be used to intentionally mislead, people often can use analogies to explain things to themselves and get it wrong.
It's not without it's uses as a technique but you have to make sure the model the analogy constructs is, well, actually analogous to the situation you are modeling.
I'd like to try to change your mind on analogies, and even without analogies (although I _will_ use an example)!
Analogies are an attempt to generalize an argument. Say we are trying to prove that "It will rain" is a valid conclusion from "If it is cloudy it will rain and it is cloudy". We can generalize this to "A -> B" & "B" -> "B", which you will recognize as an application of modus ponens from formal logic. Analogies try to use this power on fuzzier topics.
A normative principle like "We should build a new post office" are so abstract that they cannot be tackled head on (try defining "should" in the comments section and having no one point out a flaw to see why this is difficult). Because of this, we try to make comparison to other, seemingly similar, cases in an attempt to draw out the underlying logical structure. Because of this, I think they are a powerful and useful argumentative strategy.
I agree that analogies are useful to illustrate (in some scenarios), but I would not use them to support my argument (outside of a discrete math course).
If I were to argue that Apple's app store policies were harmful, then I would do just that. I would define terms, define the parties involved, show the harm and to which parties, maybe provide some examples, show which laws it violates, and maybe suggest solutions.
But I don't see why involving Cheerios at a brick and mortar retail store would help clear anything up.
I think the main point against analogies is when they are used as proof for the situation they are being compared to.
I'm not versed in formal logic, but I believe it would be:
"A -> B", and I want to prove that "C -> D"
So I make the analogy that "A is similar to C, and B to D in some ways" thus then C -> D"
A lot of people will take this as a valid proof. But it has yet to be proven that A and C, and B and D are actually interchangeable.
Edit: To refer this back to the original argument, saying that the AppStore is like a brick and mortar store, and Cheerios is like Epic games is a nice analogy, but it can't possibly prove anything because they are just not the same thing.
What they may do though, is potentially align the reader's point of view with the writer's, but not necessarily towards the _right_ point of view, assuming there is one.
> a single good analogy can accomplish more than pages of prose
I think that's where the danger lies. In the end we are not explaining much, just passing a vision of the issue in terms of good/bad/meh depending on the analogy we choose.
That's also how we convince people a lot of stuff is just "against freedom", or "big <xxxx> acting selfishly" etc.
As you say it accomplishes something, people take a position very quickly. But is it a good thing ? I'm torn.
I think what you're noting is that analogies are powerful tools. They can create a deep visceral association between A nd B that strongly affects how someone feels about B based on their existing feelings about A.
Like any powerful tool, it can be misused. But it can also do great good when used well. We live in a world surrounded by fiendishly complex systems with layers of abstractions and deep chains of emergent phenomena. Our primate brains aren't geared to process the consequences of our actions in a space that far removed from the forests where we evolved.
Analogies are one of the best tools I know to let us do that. But we do have to be careful about which analogies we choose to believe.
> What I learned from past experiences is to never use analogies. They are almost always a source of distraction, people start to argue about the analogy itself instead of the topic at hand, which is almost always completely counter productive.
As other's have mentioned, perhaps this is only for literal minded thinkers. In Pre-suasion by Robert Cialdini metaphors are identified as the most effective persuasion device. Essentially, take something the audience understands well and use it explain something else.
An anecdote Cialdini provides is from a person who had many years of being the top life insurance salesman in the country. He used a metaphor of "when you check out, your life insurance checks in". The metaphor brought up feelings of abandonment and support in a way that people quickly understood and bought into.
That's exactly the problem with analogies. It fools people by falsely parading as a valid argument.
Edit: The use of a life insurance salesman as an example is hilariously appropriate given the scam that whole life insurance is and how many people are fooled into buying it.
Im curious, how is life insurance a scam? Yes investing the money is probably better, but insurance is a hedge against the risk of not having saved enough because of an early death. I'm not familiar with the life insurance industry though, so I'm maybe missing something!
Insurance is for minimizing losses you can't afford. Term life insurance is good if you have dependents and their life would be negatively impacted by the loss of your income. There is very little profit and commission in term life insurance, so life insurance salesmen will push whole life.
Whole life insurance is rarely necessary, and extremely expensive compared to the alternatives. See links below.
Also it's used as a part of a strategy to hide money from taxes in a term policy, where you can later "borrow" against your premiums to pull your money out later in a lower tax situation. That seems to be the main purpose of large life insurance policies I have seen among wealthy people.
That applies to so few people though. Most people who buy it are just wasting money. In my experience, immigrants with few assets who don't know better are targeted by immigrants of their own race (since they're presumed to be more trustworthy).
Every journalistic or popular science or economics book I’ve read recently seems to go to great lengths to come up with helpful analogies (sometimes dragging on for pages.) But there is a fundamental contradiction in that the topic of the book is supposedly interesting or remarkable because something about it is novel, otherwise the book wouldn’t need to exist. The analogy can give readers a fake feeling of following along, but whenever I study the topic in detail I find the analogy based understanding was incorrect.
I only find them useful for topics I do not understand because they are very complex and abstract. For example the explanation of linking voltage/current/watts to pipes with flowing water made sense to me because electrons moving through a conductor is too abstract but saying "Voltage is like water pressure, it makes the electricity move faster" makes sense.
I hate the water / electricity analogies because they don't make sense.
Voltage is not like water pressure. If you have a high water pressure, water will inexorably be pushed through the pipe to relieve the pressure. That's so regardless of whether the pipe is 1 inch or 1 yard in diameter.
Voltage on the other hand means nothing without current. A high voltage on its own - like static electricity - will not move many electrons through the conductor.
A high water pressure in a container will also not move. High pressure water moves to low pressure areas just like high voltage moves to low voltage when a path exists.
A larger pipe will push more water at a lower pressure like a low resistance wire will move more energy at a lower voltage.
What does it mean for an analogy to be powerful? I typically see analogies used to support an argument, which analogies don't do. Hence you see the conversation break down into whether or not the analogy is accurate or not.
Analogies illustrate a concept. They don't establish reasoning or causation or proof.
They can certainly work as a proof, it's just one of the conditions on it being proof usually fail. Argument by metaphor says that A and B are isomorphic to one another and that since they are isomorphic, we can apply proofs from A to B (maybe with some modification). The problems come from either establishing the isomorphism or in mapping properties/predicates from one to the other.
I think they can be helpful for achieving that initial critical mass of understanding around a topic ("a is to b as x is to y... oh okay, I better understand the relationship between a and b"), but yeah, if you don't unwind the analogy afterward, then it can be a false understanding.
I found this kind of thing a struggle in engineering math courses, where you'd often move equations into transformed spaces (frequency domain, whatever), perform operations on them, and then un-transform them to pop out a result. It's like, yes, the transform is obviously an immensely powerful abstraction, but I didn't really trust what was going on in there unless I did at least a few of the exercises from first principles as well, in order to prove to myself that doing operations in the transformed space was "safe".
argument by analogy is something like A -> B, C is similar to A in all ways that matter, thus (A -> B) -> (C -> D). analogies are powerful when the other person already agrees that (A -> B) and doesn't notice any important differences between A and C. if you use an analogy where the other person doesn't agree that A -> B in the first place, you'll never get anywhere. if they are really stubborn, they will come up with an endless list of reasons why A isn't quite like C, but at least you have a chance of refuting these.
analogies are not very good in arguments where the other person is resisting the conclusion you want to draw. they can be great when you are trying to teach/explain something to someone who trusts you though.
I have never seen this be determine-able in real life scenarios
>analogies are not very good in arguments where the other person is resisting the conclusion you want to draw. they can be great when you are trying to teach/explain something to someone who trusts you though.
This is a great statement to show why analogies are bad and how they are abused.
I wouldn't agree that analogies are bad, per se. as a sibling to my original comment pointed out, an analogy is essentially an informal isomorphism. this is a perfectly valid way of proving things in math, and it can often lead guide you to valid conclusions in mathematically grounded fields like physics.
>> C is similar to A in all ways that matter
> I have never seen this be determine-able in real life scenarios
this much I can agree on. when discussing human issues, analogies should be understood to be solely a rhetorical device, useful for persuading people, but not so much for getting to the truth of the matter.
Effectively illustrating the right concept is, in my opinion, the hardest part of communication. Analogies are powerful because they're intuitive illustrations.
> I typically see analogies used to support an argument, which analogies don't do
Yes and no. Analogies communicate concepts, and concepts support arguments. Analogies neither support arguments nor fail to support arguments; the concepts they communicate do that.
They're hard to use because they can be distracting: if you choose the wrong analogy, you may illustrate an irrelevant concept, rather than the one you mean to. That's why people argue: you mean to illustrate [concept A], but what pops into the receiver's mind is [concept A] AND [concept B]. So now you're not on the same page about what was just said.
Look at the cheerios example: how may related-but-not-the-same examples have popped up in the comments? It's a bad analogy: it needs to be much more narrow and specific.
Seriously though, there's good evidence that literally everything the human brain does is use analogies. The classic example being if I asked whether something is "in" your field of view. Without even thinking, you know how to conceptualize something that only exist in your mind as a physical container.
Analogies being bad? I think it depends where. Here on HN? Yeah, despite it's affinity for the straight and narrow threads go often the rails often enough. Sure, the discourse is civil. But it's still off on a pointless tangent.
This is a flawed analogy. The correct one would be Cheerios printing "If you buy me at Costco, I cost $1 less" on the outside of the box. No rational retailer that isn't Costco would carry that product.
Eh. A better analogy would be Cheerios sticking an insert inside their box of cereal that said, "save $1 at Costco". That kind of behavior is pretty common with physical retailers; most boxed products I buy will contain inserts that advertise replacement parts and other products from other sources.
Apple isn't just banning apps from mentioning competing stores in app descriptions, it's banning them from mentioning competing stores inside the app.
Serious question: what counts as "inside" the app, when the app itself is free?
The free-to-play model that Epic is relying on (and, with some variability, the other players are relying on, where the apps themselves are "free" with a paid service) somewhat breaks the conventions we're used to discussing, and there aren't really analogies.
The closest comparison I can make to these services are how PC MMORPGs (think World of Warcraft) used to be sold -- at retail, a user would make a single purchase that included a version of the game's client and a code that granted them some time in the game, so they'd be getting a "complete" product with the purchase. If Fortnite cost $5, but included whatever that'd convert to in VBucks, this discussion would be very, very different; same with if Spotify charged $10 for their app but included the first month free. In this case, Apple & Google, as retailers, would get their percentage (as non-recurring revenue), but Epic and Spotify would be free to continue booking 100% of revenue on an ongoing basis, but would need to invest a lot more in marketing, since free on-boarding is a massive driver for user adoption.
For me, the price of the app isn't really the distinguishing characteristic of whether you're 'inside' the app or not.
If I'm using a free app, and a bug causes it to break, would I report the bug to Apple or to the developer? If I saw something objectionable, or ugly, would I say that iOS is ugly, or would I blame the developer? I think that regardless of the price, when I'm using an app and I find myself in the state of attributing the experience to the developer instead of Apple, that means I'm playing in the developer's space, not Apple's. Getting past all of the analogies, what Apple is doing is saying that you're not allowed to mention competing storefronts even when you're inside your own space.
In contrast, if I went to a app store page and the app store crashed, or the app didn't download, I'd contact Apple, because I'm not in the developer's space there, I'm in Apple's.
There is some fuzziness there, and there's also some fuzziness around whether or not it's OK for Apple to decide what you can and can't do inside your own 'app space.' Different people can have different opinions on that, and ultimately the courts/Congress will probably end up deciding whether that is Ok.
But that's the non-analogy, purely app-centric explanation I would use -- Apple is dictating what you can say to customers when you're in your own space, and they're doing that to a degree that goes beyond protecting users from malware or fraud. I personally think it's very difficult to argue that keeping people from mentioning prices elsewhere is a restriction that's purely designed to protect users. It's not really the same as restricting phishing attacks or fraud inside of an app would be. So to me, that makes me feel less charitable about arguments that Apple should be able to have that kind of control about what happens in the developer's space, because I don't see a compelling reason for them to have that power.
>In any communications with another eBay member, refer to or promote external websites that facilitate sales outside of eBay
I would count sending a "letter" along with your product to be a form of communication.
>Use contact information obtained through an eBay transaction to offer to buy or sell an item outside of eBay
This would prevent you from adding the insert to the package.
>Offer catalogs or other items that are used to order items directly outside of eBay
An insert is effectively a mini catalog. So they pretty much explicitly banned inserts. If you aren't even allowed to sell them for a price then sellers clearly wouldn't be allowed to give them away for free.
Sending an insert along with a product breaks 3 policy points at once. Can you describe which part of the policy actually allows inserts? All I see is that Ebay wants to have complete control over communications between seller and buyer.
You're interpreting this in the way Apple would, not in the way eBay actually does.
>>In any communications with another eBay member, refer to or promote external websites that facilitate sales outside of eBay
>I would count sending a "letter" along with your product to be a form of communication.
This means one can't use eBay's messaging for promotion, but one can use one's own product. The way you're interpreting this would mean that no one selling in eBay could send letters (or even advertise) anywhere outside eBay because it might reach an eBay member.
>>Use contact information obtained through an eBay transaction to offer to buy or sell an item outside of eBay
>This would prevent you from adding the insert to the package.
This means one can't use the paypal address for direct mail for these purposes. However, you don't even have to know who the customer is to add an insert or to package your product such that it refers to your website.
>>Offer catalogs or other items that are used to order items directly outside of eBay
>An insert is effectively a mini catalog.
It's basically Google's rule on not promoting other App Stores in their Play Store.
Fact: Plenty of people do this in practice and eBay is not cracking down. Maybe it's not interpreted the way you think it is?
Indeed, it seems as though communication within the product, or its box, is ok. If you buy an Xbox on ebay, it's allowed to sell you games within the Xbox.
Yes, but remember that retailers can (and often do) promise to match the best price that you can find at their competitors. This is because retailers are in competition with each other for the same products.
This analogy does not apply to Apple, because it has no motivation to price match, because nobody is allowed to sell i-device apps except for Apple.
Edit: in addition, if we follow your analogy further, Costco could demand 30% from Apple on all purchases made through the App Store, for iPhones sold in Costco. Just like Apple demands a cut of all purchases after they sell a product in their store.
However the flaw in your analogy is that there is very little lock-in to particular retailers where is there is a huge lock-in to a phone you just bought.
And additionally there's dozens of supermarkets, thin margins and high competition. The mobile app market has exactly two companies with the exact same fees...
Your own change to the analogy isn't really all that accurate either: What you are saying would be closer to, saying "This game is cheaper in Android" in the Apple store's product description. I have no idea of what the courts will rule here, but if you are limiting this discussion to whether there's precedent to advertising a store the manufacturer themselves controls, there sure are examples.
This might not be all that popular a plan with Cheerios, but perfectly normal with all kinds of items available at retail stores: For instance, Simple Modern water bottles will come with a discount coupon for buying replacement caps at a discount on the manufacturer's online store. Some printers have, inside the box a leaflet for ink discounts. At least one major vacuum cleaners brand will point you to their website for replacement bags, with an online coupon. Or, back in software, if I buy a Nintendo Switch at GameStop, I will still get ads on menus for buying games online, even though my relationship with Nintendo started at GameStop.
All kinds of retailers carry the products I mentioned, even though there really is far more profit in habituating the customer to buying the consumables in your own store than in the original item. You could argue whether this is good or bad, legal or illegal, but the examples definitely exist.
Its not on the outside of the box, its on the inside. Apple forbids in-app discussion. I wonder what Apple would say if the app had a browser component that directs users to a web-page. These draconian rules are such a clusterF* hope these guys succeed.
BTW, all analogies are flawed in some manner or another. If you take away the abstraction, every single one breaks down. And then you end up talking about the intricacies of the thing you wanted to abstract away making it moot! :)
That is great, you can avoid using app stores you don't trust. Why prevent other users from using stores they trust? Apple isn't the only company that can run an online store. There are countless online web stores selling all kinds of things, and people trust them with their money. Apple is artificially preventing competition in iOS stores here because they can abuse their dominant position.
The biggest issue is that in a native app you can fake the entire display. There is no way to know if it is a store you trust. It could look just like your paypal login down to the last pixel and it instead be bad actors collecting your information.
Indeed, what is the cheerios example supposed to show? I don’t expect the discount coupon comes out of the store’s cut. Tinder or Epic are free to discount boosts or in game purchases, and spotify can give free months.
The cheerios example probably involves a fair bit of negotiation between manufacturer and retailer. Whereas apps can discount whenever they choose, without permission.
Right. I'm honestly having a hard time thinking of situations where a seller like Cheerios would be able to say, "no, everyone is going to offer our products at $2.50 for the next week." I'd be tempted to call that anticompetitive in the opposite direction, of course a seller should be allowed to set their own prices and decide for themselves whether they want to participate in a promotion.
It's not like there aren't at least somewhat better analogies they could have used. Imagine if you bought an Apple Phone from Best Buy and then that compiled version of iOS wasn't allowed to mention anywhere that you could get support from Genius Bars instead of Best Buy. Or imagine if you bought a vacuum cleaner from Walmart, and the manufacturer wasn't allowed to include any inserts inside of the box that linked to their own store for replacement parts.
But even with a better analogy, why is this argument being brought up in this specific section? I expected their user freedom section to talk more about sideloading, or right to repair, or emulation, and they just can't stop fixating on the 30% fee.
From the same section:
> Here’s an example of how this problem manifests itself: Epic produces once of the most popular video games of all time, Fortnite. If a Fortnite player were to buy an upgrade in the App Store, that individual might be charged $9.99. However, that same upgrade costs only $7.99 when purchased directly through Epic.
Cool argument, but that has nothing to do with user freedom; users are still perfectly free to buy upgrades from Epic directly.
It feels like they came up with one objection and then poorly pasted it into 3 sections.
> having a hard time thinking of situations where a seller like Cheerios would be able to say, "no, everyone is going to offer our products at $2.50 for the next week."
> I don’t expect the discount coupon comes out of the store’s cut.
That's how it used to work at the grocery store I worked at. The flyers were prepared a couple weeks in advance, the sales matched up with every other store that ordered food from loblaws, it was ordered down from loblaws to the stores that carry the products they ship and sell what things would be on sale on any given week throughout all the stores.
This is why superstores, extra foods, the independent grocers and super valus all have the same stuff on sale the same weeks.
The only things the store decided to put on sale was clearance stuff getting close to the expiry date.
I'm guessing you don't have a CPG background. It's a horribly flawed analogy as retailer can and will demand special SKUs, kick brands off of aisle all the time, demand premiums for shelving units, etc.
There are 2 sides of analogies. I can also argue by saying Epic is analogous to a renter who doesn’t want to pay rent. It’s mostly because they can’t find any other point but to find something similar.
There is 10e6 times more diverse supply in the rental market than for app stores, even though renting housing is a regulated market with high transaction cost.
Exactly. Which for me is a reason - no matter how much I hate Apple's tactics- to dismiss also this counter action. All of these entities just don't care for the users one way or the other
Yes, I was thinking of joining, but the fact that the site didn't work without turning off my ad blocker was a turnoff. Why do they even need cookies? Terrible first impression.
The amount of blindness I'm seeing from companies on both sides of this fight about how to handle their optics is kind of staggering.
One of Apple's core arguments for why they need this kind of control is privacy. If someone is launching what is essentially a PR campaign against Apple, one of the first things to do is to make sure the website doesn't have any appearance of violating people's privacy.
Make it work without JS, make it work without cookies. Be conscious of the target audience. Requiring cookies is a really tone-deaf decision for them to make.
This. The problem is regardless of it being either side of Hanlon's razor, malice or stupidity, I have built trust with Apple and prefer the centralized Apple (over the decentralized dev-houses of the world) to do its best to ensure neither malice nor stupidity in the product I use most throughout the day.
> I have built trust with Apple and prefer the centralized Apple (over the decentralized dev-houses of the world)
IMO this is a false dichotomy. Epic and Spotify are not the size of Apple, but they're still giants compared to little indie developers.
I trust indie devs way more than any of the BigCos. It's just natural: the fewer customers you have, and the less market power you have, the more you care, the more you have to care, about your individual customers.
I appreciate this sentiment, but I've lived through too many of these transitions to agree. e.g. Blizzard, Google, YouTube, Curse, Sun Microsystems, Zynga, Minecraft, Occulus.
Indie developers / startups either become the size of Epic and Spotify, or get bought by companies the size of Epic, Spotify and Apple.
Find me the indie developers / startups that cannot be "corrupted" (converted?) and I'll invest as soon as they IPO.
Meanwhile, there are some companies that make it their business model to build trust at scale. Apple, Valve, Nintendo, Microsoft (exclusively for enterprise clients) are a few great examples.
For me they are both: Small groups of people passionately working towards a unique vision, typically under-funded to address a niche that is under-represented / under-invested by "the incumbents".
I'd be happy to view them differently. I just haven't been educated on the differences.
It focused mostly on the 30% apple charges, which is both common and reasonable. It mentions the anti competitive behavior but mostly how it inflates prices, which is exactly how apple is trying to frame the debate.
Also they have cookies on an entirely static site and disable scrolling until you press accept in the cookie dick bar (something you should probably never do, certainly not on a static site.) The thing is only readable in w3m/elinks.
In my (unpopular) opinion almost all of these "apps" should really be sites anyway. App store curation doesn't provide any reall security (especially since the apps are never instrumented) so someone so incapable of measuring the safety of software that they need that level of infantilesation should really only trust software to the same degree a browser does (that is, not at all.)
Common and reasonable according to which standards? One of the arguments of Epic in court is that Apple set the standard and other stores are simply following it.
* The social media companies that had to deal with having their apps blocked because of Apple's puritanical stance on nudity.
* The recent rule change banning vaping and tobacco related apps.
* The inability for FOSS projects to easily distribute to users without paying a $100/year fee for something they want to give away. Users can only acquire it through the app store, or compile themselves and go through an inconvenient signing process to load it on. And I believe that's very temporary.
It's pretty offensive that a company thinks they can dictate what sort of software you run on your own device.
The original analogy is pretty disingenuous and conveniently ignores a crucial detail: in the cereal example Kroger (presumably) still gets paid when the discounted box of cereal is sold. Whereas what they're asking for is the equivalent of Cheerios demanding to be placed on Kroger's shelves while cutting Kroger out of the transaction entirely. Why would Kroger ever agree to that?
Epic doesn't need the tiny number of technical people to win their case. Epic needs the vast number of users to be on their side in order to win their case.
Your cereal aisle analogy is a bad one, for two reasons.
For one, everything about the merchandising of a particular product in a big box store is agreed upon in advance between the retailer and the manufacturer before the product is placed in the store: the product placement on the shelves; what kind of manufacturer incentives (e.g. coupons) the retailer will honor for the product and how renumerations will be made from the manufacturer to the retailer for them; what kind of sales volume is required to trigger volume discounts, etc. These agreements are highly bespoke in a way that couldn't be scaled with the sort of volume that's on app stores.
Second - physical retailers are compensated by the manufacturer when they accept a manufacturer's coupon. The transactions are logged, summarized, and traditionally the physical coupons were collected and sent to the manufacturer. Barring a pre-negotiated agreement to accept less than face value in exchange for a coupon, the retailer isn't losing revenue on the deal. However, when an app publisher offers a means to circumvent the app store payment system, Apple/Google DO in fact face a loss of revenue.
It's not my cereal analogy, it's theirs. I brought it up specifically to showcase that a lot of the arguments I'm reading on their site don't map the current situation.
Device freedom is a must. Any device should be completely controllable by the end user. There's two parts to this to me: app stores and the data collected by the devices. Users should have the freedom to install any software on their devices, period. Users should also have the freedom to stop all data collection by these devices. This applies to all electronics--video game consoles, TVs, printers, who knows what else in the future.
If we keep letting manufacturers create these "walled gardens", we're not only creating a ton of trash because they will stop supporting them eventually, we're also stopping innovation and integration across platforms. Give me government mandated open protocols, open firmware, and let me install linux on my printer if I want. As devices get smarter, we should all reap the benefits of it through our own ingenuity and hacking.
> Device freedom is a must. Any device should be completely controllable by the end user.
I have the choice of buying a completely controllable android device if I want to install mystery apps willy-nilly. I'm not interested in that, and there are millions like me. I want a locked-down device that keeps developers in check.
This situation is much like the browser nightmares of the past, where Firefox users complained that the browser was slow. People didn't really take into account that the slowness wasn't fault of Firefox, but of the zillion janky browser extensions people freely installed. Chrome came along, and people were wowed by how fast it was, not realizing it was 'fast' because they hadn't installed 47 browser extensions yet. Apple doesn't want to be Firefox, and I don't blame them.
I want my phone to be like a Nintendo, I don't really care about the freedom to install any random code I download (even though I really could if I wanted to install something I built locally with XCode). First and foremost I want developers to be terrified of getting their publishing privileges yanked if they step out of line.
So, let’s apply this same logic to accessibility. Let’s say the government says “devices must have voice over functionality”. Ok, great. Apple puts that as an option, and we’re done.
The same applies for if the government said “you have a right to install apps of your choice”. Apple adds a setting in the settings menu. You still get your locked down device by default, and much like blind people, people who care about controlling their device are given that option, too.
What you’re arguing is akin to saying, “I’m not blind, so Apple shouldn’t ever even have a Voice Over option, because it’s not my preference, even if it’s just in the settings”.
There’s a false dichotomy - Apple can still keep it locked down by default. You still get your device just as safe and sound. And much like accessibility settings, most people wouldn’t bother to find the setting, and if they did, they would have a big warning (and of course Apple could have another big warning on every install, as well as keep all their sand boxing and permissions access rules active).
There’s no loser here. If grandma digs deep into the settings and ignores multiple warnings, it seems she is proficient enough to take on the risk. Forcing blind people to not have any voice over because grandma may accidentally turn it on and have a bad outcome is a weak argument.
> The same applies for if the government said “you have a right to install apps of your choice”.
I don't like the idea that the government can force you to build things you don't want to build. If I don't want to build a general purpose computing device, why should the government be able to force me to?
There's a compelling argument for requiring building in handicapped-accessible features, but that is relevant to the equal protection clause of the constitution. There's no implied constitutional right to general-purpose computing.
Better question: how are they at all relevant? The health and safety regulations are proscriptive: you must not harm consumers. On the other hand, product features are creative expression. It would be like the government telling you that your novel must include at least three references to other writers' works.
Anti-trust is about anti-competitive practices and consumer benefit. Carterfone and Microsoft are possibly the most relevant examples. Google and Apple are a duopoly in the phone market, and Apple's (and Google's in the case of Epic) behaviour towards these companies could be seen as anti-competitive.
If you want to run a platform business, you'll need to be mindful of anti-trust law more than anything else. The Apple platform is perfectly capable of anti-competitive behaviour given it's market share, and doubly so given Apple and Google control 99% of the phone market.
Our justice system is good at drawing squiggly lines. It’s luckily based on intent and outcome and not exact wording.
There’s no reason the law couldn’t carve out a class of devices as “general purpose computing devices” which would exclude fine homemade / artisanal / hyper-focused kindles, gaming consoles, etc. of course these lines get moved around and tested in many ways. Much like how assault weapons are hard to define, and yet regulated in many places.
But laws like this exist all over, and many do great good for the common cause. Accessibility is one example.
If unlocking general purpose computing devices drove trillions in GDP and innovation, didn’t harm anyone, and generally improved consumers lives, I don’t see why we need a direct precedent. We have laws on return policies, lemons, telephone usage, and all sorts of consumer driven things. There’s plenty of indirect precedent.
> If unlocking general purpose computing devices drove trillions in GDP and innovation, didn’t harm anyone, and generally improved consumers lives, I don’t see why we need a direct precedent.
If this was really such a boon, wouldn't the devices where you can already do this have a huge market advantage? If so then why are we talking about forcing it on consumers and manufacturers?
Well Android has 80% market share, but there’s too many confounding factors to know why.
I’m certain there would be a new generation of startups especially focused on selling digital goods.
Further, you need to look at incentives. Apple would almost certainly respond by lowering their fees as a move to stay competitive. That extra cash trickling downstream would enrich many more people, who then would go on to create new things.
Not sure you have an argument that it would already have happened if it was so much better.
> Well Android has 80% market share, but there’s too many confounding factors to know why.
If the vast majority of devices already have this capability, what difference is it really going to make forcing it on the remaining 20%? Why hasn't Apple already been forced to lower their fees if they are the underdog in terms of market share? For that matter, why hasn't Google been forced to, given how easy it is to sideload?
I think you've moved the goalposts quite a bit in this thread and I've engaged just to refute the sub-points, but the main points stand.
Apple has dominance in many markets, like the US. In fact you could say the reason Android has such global market-share is because they commoditized their OS, ie, allowing for competition to drive down prices. So you're claiming the same forces wouldn't affect software? Android apps are generally cheaper, as well, though it's hard to pin why. The general principle of competition = lower prices applies here.
I'd rather debate on what's right for consumers not whether some technical definition of a monopoly applies or anything like that. But to be honest there's not much more to be said - if you are against the legislation, then fine, it's a perfectly valid opinion. I think legislating allowing more freedom on personal general computing devices would be a good thing with many benefits to society as I've enumerated already.
> I think legislating allowing more freedom on personal general computing devices would be a good thing with many benefits to society as I've enumerated already.
This seems on the surface to be the libertarian position, but imho it's subtly authoritarian - you weren't able to convince most people to use the freely available unlocked hardware you're advocating for, so instead you'd like to use the full force of the law to make all product designers create what you want them to create. If the benefits of unlocked hardware were so evident, surely the consumers would already be reaping the rewards on the unlocked hardware they can buy right now?
That’s not how lock-in works, and you’re trying to go back to free market libertarian philosophy. Handicap elevators , building codes, emissions standards are “authoritarian”.
Libertarian philosophy is maybe the least compelling of them all in my opinion.
> Handicap elevators , building codes, emissions standards are “authoritarian”
Safety and accessibility are human needs, and regulating markets to address those needs is a completely reasonable requirement.
Forcing product designers by legislative fiat to add a cool feature you want, on the other hand, is pretty authoritarian. Nothing is stopping you from buying a general purpose computing device right now, or building one and selling it.
Two of the top 10 biggest companies in america captured 99% of the market, there’s something pretty big stopping me.
You’d have been pro Bell I guess back in the day. “What’s stopping you from building a competing telephone service?” Oh only not having capital > all VC investments made in any given year.
> Two of the top 10 biggest companies in america captured 99% of the market, there’s something pretty big stopping me.
Correct - and Google's very popular, but not dominant OS will already let you sideload whatever code you like, which is a big part of why you'd have a hard time competing. I'm sorry, running arbitrary code on your daily driver phone is just not the game-changing feature you're making it out to be.
Then epic games, netflix, spotify and several other apps will have a tutorial on how to remove the lock, so that they can install the app or alternative appstores. And if apple makes it incredibly difficult to remove the lock, then company like Epic will sue again for making it so difficult to install 3rd party app stores (eg: Google play store)
> if the government said “you have a right to install apps of your choice”. Apple adds a setting in the settings menu. You still get your locked down device by default,
Users will just flip it off for the first evil app they told to install by friends. Think about 95% of all users.
Do you need the outside app to have access to bluetooth, location, storage etc? And if apple restricts the storage, then a company will sue apple again for the restrictions saying that the iOS photos app have unrestricted access to photos, whereas an outside app doesn't.
Isn’t one of the points Epic is suing Google for because Google has a ton of warnings when side loading? I’m curious if there is a middle ground where grandma is protected but developers don’t feel they are described as potential malware.
> This situation is much like the browser nightmares of the past, where Firefox users complained that the browser was slow. People didn't really take into account that the slowness wasn't fault of Firefox, but of the zillion janky browser extensions people freely installed. Chrome came along, and people were wowed by how fast it was, not realizing it was 'fast' because they hadn't installed 47 browser extensions yet.
Not really relevant to your point, but Chrome was legitimately faster than Firefox for a long time. It wasn't just extension bloat, V8 was a huge leap in JS speed and Chrome optimized the hell out of rendering. Firefox wasn't able to bridge that gap until their recent Quantum initiative.
> I want a locked-down device that keeps developers in check.
That's fine but how does from that statement follow that it's a good idea to let Apple do it to everyone? You don't want things, that's fine, don't get them. Nobody is asking to add anything to the things you already like, ruining them for you. People are asking for freedom of choice.
It's like saying you want to live under permanent surveillance, which you can do, you can have a security company install a camera in every room of your house, but why does that need to apply to the entire city block?
How are you worse off if Apple is required to say, allow third party app stores, which you don't need to touch? In the same vein, why was Firefox ruined for you by addons if you didn't need to install any?
A lot of people don't or aren't even aware of the dangers of walled gardens. Like it or not goverments job is to regulate and protect people and the economy: be it monopolies, user data or anti-competitive practices.
Libertarians aren't ios target, it's average casual tech ignorant people who'll blindly trusts the system because they don't care.
The logical conclusion then is that the only device that should be allowed to be manufactured is a personal computer.
Companies producing specialized hardware/software couplings does not preclude another company developing open options.
I usually choose an open option for most of what I do but when it comes to some mindless gaming or my phone that I use for some sensitive matters I want them limited in their scope in a big way.
I don't understand this all-or-nothing argument that seems to be made when it doesn't reflect the reality of the situation.
> does not preclude another company developing open options.
Agreed. But they don't. I think this the point of government intervention to require or provide incentive to do something which benefits society even if it doesn't benefit the company.
Automobile safety and emissions limits comes to mind for me.
> The logical conclusion then is that the only device that should be allowed to be manufactured is a personal computer.
Nah, the capabilities can be limited, just not artificially so. I understand there is a bunch of nuance in that statement that we can get lost in discussing, but the brief salient point is "if the manufacturer can do something to my device, then they should not add restrictions for me to try to do it also". We don't need to get lost in the what-ifs that such freedom discussions often devolve into.
> The logical conclusion then is that the only device that should be allowed to be manufactured is a personal computer.
I would be comfortable with a high quality legal encoding of the Your Device principle:
"To the extent a device, or part of a device, behaves like a general purpose computer or could easily and reasonably be made to behave that way if not for artificial restrictions placed upon it by a vendor, the effective owner(s) of the device or part shall have the right to use and control the general purpose computer aspects as they deem appropriate."
"Effective owner means those using the device as if they own it, so where a device is technically rented or licensed from a vendor, the renter or licensee is deemed the effective owner for application of this principle".
Details of what that means in practice for non-obvious edge cases would be fleshed out by precedent and the courts I guess.
It would not limit what devices can be manufactured, but it would place a requirement of access and control on some kinds of devices.
Genuinely curious, how would you give users "the freedom to stop all data collection by these devices" without some kind of walled garden. Is the solution something like flatpack for all apps? but then how do you make sure all apps don't just refuse to work without permission to collect data or manage to collect information without users knowing? You can't force developers to be honest about what their app does without having a means to prevent it from being installed. Specifically for apps, I can't think of a solution that has no restrictions of software installations, but wouldn't be trivially turned into an incredibly user hostile environment.
You can monitor what calls an app makes. LittleSnitch on Mac is an example example of this.
There are going to be nefarious actors who still manage to bypass it, and there are going to be risks outside of a walled garden - and that's a meaningful choice we can provide users.
"Hey, you can stay inside the app store and get these promises, or you can install what you want and risk X, Y and Z."
Android does this.. decently well. There are issues with the google framework, but otherwise it's functional - my elderly family doesn't need me to reset their phones every month, yet I can sideload all my games and FOSS apps.
This isn't good enough. Sure you can monitor it if you have a load of time, but then what do you do when you find out its doing something evil? What do you do when you find out every app is doing something evil? You either opt out of proprietary software entirely or you let apple use their weight to force apps to stop being evil.
because you're only thinking of technical solutions. A comprehensive privacy framework that requires explicit user consent to data collection and gives user transparent controls accomplishes just that, without having to resort to user-hostile or complicated tech.
As a developer, a huge reason I don’t mind walled gardens is the massive reduction in piracy. I’m glad people want to download & pirate the apps I poured blood, sweat, and tears into... but I’m not down with theft. Each dollar I earn represents the time I’ve spent away from friends & family.
I’ve worked on games that have been copied outright. All assets and artwork, but a new name and “publisher” being sold elsewhere. It eats into profits.
When the walls come down, developers will be knocked off. This will hurt indys far more than larger companies, as “developers” opportunistically exploit the work of others.
Apple & Google are great at reducing and shutting down this kind of activity. If people can install the Pirate Bay store and install anything for free, many folks will.
If users can be coaxed into privileging an app, malware will control the majority of phones. People are still falling for the Nigerian prince scam.
All games on computer are piratable. On mobile they are not as easy to pirate as you noticed. Do you think the gaming environment is better on mobile? Are dev better paid on mobile? From what I have seen I could answer no to both, and would even say the walled garden is really really not helping indie devs break through on mobile.
I see actually many ways in which devs are impacted :
- discovery is basically null, both on Android and Apple. You need to just pay ads if you want people finding your game. Steam is much MUCH better at it.
- you can't really have a good mod environment or a hackable game, which is very important for a lot of indie games
- you cannot do some kinds of game. Right now that include gore and sexual games (see kawaii killer for instance) but also some other things like a weed growing simulator. Who knows what it will be tomorrow
- as Google is going into gaming, and who knows maybe Apple at some point, you are basically on the hands of a competitor many times your size with no alternative
If users didn’t want these things, users wouldn’t buy them.
For the vast majority of people, and iPhone is way, way better than a computer that can run any app, precisely because it can’t run any app they click on.
I’m a hacker, so I would love to be able to install any software I want on my iPhone, and introspect it in other ways.
Most users, however, would have a way worse experience using their phone if they were given this option, because a non-trivial percentage of them would follow the tutorials online provided to them by malware authors to install their malware.
This is precisely what happened to desktop computers. Has everyone forgotten about Bonsai Buddy?
People who want a general purpose, configurable device that can run any code they want on it have options. They’re big, clunky, out of date phones.
Apple is being punished for their success here. They happen to make the best phone hardware at the moment, and they bundle the best phone hardware with cryptographically-enforced editorial decisions about the best software that runs on it.
I think the real danger here is that of censorship: if the state commands Apple to delete (or actively remote-disable) certain apps, a huge problem exists. Today it’s WeChat or TikTok. What if tomorrow it’s Signal? iMessage’s encryption has already been backdoored for the feds in the default configuration via iCloud Backup (which is not end to end encrypted and backs up the entirety of chat history from the device to Apple each night). The state could literally command Apple to prohibit any type of secure communication from the device via this method and they’d have to comply, and iPhone-owners would have no recourse due to the DRM. That’s the real danger.
There’s a real argument to not allowing Apple to do this, but I don’t think “consumer choice” is it. Consumer choice chose the walled garden over the anarchy of Desktop Computer Malware.
I have this discussion nearly daily when talking with Android users. The iPhone is not a modular unit that can be tampered with at all, but despite even being a software developer, I do not actually care about my phone being modular. I want it to work and I want it to work well across the entire platform. Not only does iOS severely limit your options for changing your phone's UX, something a lot of people lament about quite often, but they also have rigorous design-guides that push every developer in the eco-system to have it look the same way. Something as simple as the date/timepickers that Apple removed in iOS 14 can't be changed by the user, but Apple does their hardest to make sure everyone makes it look the way they've set it up, and for my purposes I legitimately prefer that over deciding it myself but having the apps on the platform ultimately use either or willy-nilly.
There definitely are issues with Apple, but the user not having full access to changing their device isn't really one, and that's coming from someone who most definitely has the know how to do pretty much anything and still remain safe, I'd dread to see users be stuck having full root access to their phones without even knowing what the fuck that means.
There absolutely needs to be options for those that want to be able to hack away at their phone to their hearts content, but it doesn't need to be every phone, and Apple aren't criminals just because they don't offer that possibility and users happen to want their phones anyway.
Please don't give me root access to my iPhone, I do not care about it, I have no need for it, and I do not want it.
> The iPhone is not a modular unit that can be tampered with at all, but despite even being a software developer, I do not actually care about my phone being modular. I want it to work and I want it to work well across the entire platform.
I'm precisely in this boat. I enjoy playing with electronics, but I want my microwave to just work. I also enjoy fiddling around with PCs with total freedom, but I want my phone to just work.
I am also a developer, I love tinkering, but my router and especially my phone, I want it to just work. I need my phone, if I could tinker with my phone it would be broken half the time!
Haha yes, I used to do all the WRT54G stuff and tended to have bugs and an overheated router. I also used to tinker a bunch with jailbroken iPhones and rooted Android phones. I'll never have anything against that, but now I personally want an option that just works!
I actually have 3, two iPhones and one Android, and 3 iPads.
Once I gave up on private cross-device sync on iOS without iCloud (a bummer, to be sure), I started using the iPads as single-purpose devices instead of wanting every file on every screen all of the time. One is just for hacking (editors/ssh/browser), one is loaded with books and maps, one is for a special project.
The phones are split between primary/production, emergency backup (n+1), and hacking/testing/fun. I’ll probably end up with a fourth phone at some point (hacking * two platforms).
I’m all for people wanting rootmode, I just don’t want more freedom and choice on my device, I see no need for it and I like the way Apple can streamline everything by forcing everyone to interact with their device on their terms.
And obviously I realize that this doesn’t go for everyone, and that’s completely okay. I just don’t think Apple should be forced to make their phones into full-on computers just because some people say they want the choice, when you could just as easily get a phone. If most customers really wanted to root iPhones Apple would probably have implemented it by now. I don’t believe for a second that Apple’s desire to unilateraly control their ecosystem trumps shareholder greed, why would it?
Not all phones are for everyone and I think that’s OK. More options and more modular devices means everyone will setup and use their device differently, like with a computer, this is fine for many, but I think it would adversly affect the streamlined nature of iOS (even if it is ‘just an option’), so I’m still against it.
in a vacuum, there's really nothing wrong with apple's choices regarding iOS. as far as I can tell, most iOS users really do appreciate how the whole system is locked down, or at least don't understand why they should care.
what sucks is that in the big picture, there's really no viable option for someone who cares about security/privacy and is willing to pay for a premium device, but wants full access to their phone occasionally. the security update situation on android is still a mess except for the pixel line (which usually has subpar hardware) and a handful of other flagship devices. even if you're willing to pony up, you're still buying into an ecosystem that's designed to exfiltrate data from your device. it's frustrating because the iphone is so close to having everything I want from a device. if I could just have the ability to temporarily elevate privileges, even from some obnoxiously buried menu deep in the settings (or bootloader), I would buy one in a heartbeat.
> I just don’t want more freedom and choice on my device
Then don't turn on root mode? Is that really such a large infringement on you? The fact that there might be an option in your phone, to turn on root mode, and the mere fact that this switch exists somehow mind controls you and makes you turn it on?
If an easy switch in the phone exists that says "Allow competing app stores to be installed", why can't you simply not switch that on?
My previous bank forced installation of a rootkit in Windows and Mac, and required full permissions in Android just to open. Their website didn't even work in Linux because they didn't make a Rootkit.
I didn't really have an option at the time: this was before my government made a law allowing you to use any bank, so I needed the bank to access my salary.
I'm all for freedom of fully owning your own device, but the reality is that software developers and software companies will abuse this freedom.
You're not wrong. I also understand the viewpoint stemming from that truth that having the option is not worth the extra features. I still think the trade off is worth it.
Just like while we have people tricked into buying apple gift cards for scammers we still don't decide to ban those cards because they do offer utility.
The number of steps and warnings required to unlock the bootloader on an Android device is so large that I have never heard of anybody being tricked into it. On the other hand, iOS is so rife with rootable vulnerabilities that it's becoming too cheap to meter.
I really think we should rename "root mode" to "DANGER 90000 VOLTS AHEAD" or something similar.
Root mode _is_ that dangerous. You wouldn't want to allow astronauts "root access" to their starship launcher; you don't want car drivers to have "root access" to tinker with the brakes in their car. You don't want patients on ventilators to have "root access". You don't want non-doctors to access their health data without a doctor's to walk them through it. Certain pieces of data left to mere mortals can have devastating consequences.
It's not a question of "don't turn on root mode". Or saying "don't re-jigger the brakes".
People (tech experts or otherwise) should not be allowed to mess with systems that can literally end their life by exploding in their pockets! That's how dangerous it is!
Sure, some of the consequences are that you can't tinker with your UI. But honestly, that's a reasonable price to pay because the software that controls the behavior of these systems can cause real-world damage, if not configured properly.
Heck, we've seen this in the recent 40 years. The whole freaking Metric vs Imperial system disagreement has caused unintentional rocketship explosions. Imagine, if some inane argument between a couple of high-schoolers or teenagers led to the same type of bug killing them because their phone exploded. All because someone with root access misconfigures a constants plist file to prove a point!
> should not be allowed to mess with systems that can literally end their life by exploding in their pockets!
This is non-sense fearmongering.
Giving people the ability to install fortnite, on an official fortnite app store, is not going to cause people to die from phone explosion
It is just not going to happen. Fortnite is not going to blow you up.
The reason why I know this to be the case, is that half the US smartphone market, allows people to side load APKs, and install fortnite that way, and people aren't being blown up because they had fortnite on their phone.
They do not have the ability to install it through a competing Epic Games app store.
Allowing people to install fortnite, through an Epic Games app store, that is not approved by Apple, is not going to cause people's phone to blow up.
> not the ability to install Fortnite
In my post, I specifically said "on an official fortnite app store", but it seems like you ignored that for some reason.
That is what I am referring to. If you agree with me, that:
"Giving people the ability to install fortnite, on an official fortnite app store, is not going to cause people to die from phone explosion"
Is the case, then cool. You agree that there is not going to be a blowing up phone problem, if Epic Games, has an app store on people phones, that is run by Epic Games, and not Apple.
Your style of thinking cannot be popular on HN, but we all know why this is good for the consumer - in this day and age, businesses will completely rip apart the consumer in every which way. They'll not miss a chance to fuck the consumer's privacy, financial state, psychology, innocence and addiction.
HN crowd wants something they can run sudo on. But people here have not got a slighest idea of how to run a device for close to a billion+ people.
> Your style of thinking cannot be popular on HN, but we all know why this is good for the consumer - in this day and age, businesses will completely rip apart the consumer in every which way. They'll not miss a chance to fuck the consumer's privacy, financial state, psychology, innocence and addiction.
Apple is among the worst offenders here, too. They expressly permit all sorts of embedded spyware in almost every single app in their App Store, and their view is that you agreed and consented to it when you accepted the iOS/App Store Terms of Service.
They could build platform security features like Little Snitch into the OS to allow users to prevent it, but they don't.
They could make App Store rules to keep apps from spying on you when you use them, but they don't.
They could end to end encrypt device backups, so the US military and FBI couldn't read all of your iMessage history whenever they want without a warrant or probable cause, but they don't. (In fact, they were going to, but then specifically stopped.[1])
The "Apple respects user privacy" story is just brand marketing, not reality.
Thanks for providing the source about encrypted backups, that's chilling.
Can you provide sources for other claims in your comments? I want to read up more on what sorts things these apps do.
Apple is by far the best when it comes to privacy relative to the others. Would you trust Microsoft, Google, or literally any other company (even Canonical Ubuntu) more than Apple?
Microsoft, Google, and Apple are all participants in the PRISM program, which provides data to the US federal government without a warrant (FBI and military intelligence) under the authority they claim via FISA Amendments Act Section 702. Edward Snowden is the reason we know about this.
Any data you provide to any of those companies (or any others that have been added in the time since, which presumably includes Dropbox and AWS) that is not end to end encrypted should be considered compromised by the state, or able to be compromised by the state at any time the moment they want to look. (PRISM is not mass surveillance, they specify the accounts they want data for.)
As far as the other apps go, you can watch it yourself. Install the iOS app called Charles Proxy, and you can see all of the hidden connections that apps are making.
Alternately, install NextDNS, and make sure your custom configuration settings (on their setup portal) is set to retain logs for a few hours. You’ll be able to see all of the different hostnames to which your phone connects.
I have stopped using iCloud, and only use Google for YouTube (or corporate/work stuff, for which I have no special desire for privacy from the state). I give my clients the option, though, if they wish to use a different method of collaboration.
The spying thing is a problem with US gov. Why are you dinging Apple for that? In fact, Apple refused to unlock the phone when FBI requested for the famous shooting case (I forgot). Others do the same - Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. Apple is complying to the law.
Also, Apple is putting encryption in hardware to prevent this sort of a thing. They don't have keys to the device.
Google implemented end-to-end encrypted backups for Android devices, which prevents the government from getting anything useful when they pull the device’s backed up data from Google.
Apple does not implement end-to-end encryption for their backups, which is why I’m “dinging” them. The iCloud device backups that happen each night on the device are backed up with Apple keys, which means that Apple can decrypt your entire message history for the device, without the device. iCloud Backup is on by default for every iPhone and iPad, which it is not inaccurate to describe as an effective cryptographic backdoor in iMessage’s end-to-end encryption, because it escrows the iMessage keys (as well as the complete message history) to Apple with Apple keys, each and every day. They don’t need any “keys to the device”.
Apple’s on-device hardware encryption has nothing to do with this problem. This is a software design issue that Apple chose. Google chose a better, safer way to do it.
The fact that it’s a problem with the US government is a red herring. There are still good and bad choices in cryptographic system design.
Please do read the linked URL. Apple was on track to fix this glaring issue, and then, according to Reuters, Apple Legal shut down the project. Whether it was done specifically on FBI request, or proactively by Apple to butter up the FBI, is irrelevant: the FBI has no legal basis to command Apple to drop this project, so the decision not to safeguard user data from government snoops rests solely with Apple.
Additionally, the phone that Apple famously refused to unlock is irrelevant: Apple had already provided all of the related account’s iCloud data (presumably including a full device backup) to the FBI. It’s not in Apple or the FBI’s interest to draw attention to this detail.
I wonder if perhaps the news story about how “Apple vs FBI for user privacy” was an FBI reciprocation to aid Apple’s privacy brand narrative in exchange for Apple not encrypting backups (so Apple can always provide all of the device data to the FBI without the phone).
The vast majority of people you're talking about don't realise they're having their prices jacked up with taxes or their options curtailed by Apple. They just assume the App Store is where you get the apps because it's been programmed into them over the last 12 years.
Allowing third party app stores doesn't change the API or permissions system already baked into the OS. If Epic wants to start an App Store with lax policies then if you and Apple are right about the value of their policies then that'll become apparent quickly enough and will still be a selling point of the App Store.
This is nothing like what happened with desktop computers, where the security model had to be welded on after the horse had already bolted. Windows (just as an example) wouldn't allow blanket admin permissions to software if there was a way to stuff the legacy software genie back in it's bottle. Unfortunately fixing permissions retrospectively would break a multitude of legacy software that hasn't been updated in years, in some cases decades.
Apple is not being punished for success, and you don't understand the problem or the legal case, which is entirely not at all related to Apple protecting or not protecting their users from pop-up ads.
Consumer choice didn't chose anything. Most phone users don't even understand that they are in a walled garden.
> Allowing third party app stores doesn't change the API or permissions system already baked into the OS.
It does precisely that. Apple invests huge amounts of money into people and infrastructure to ensure that exploit code (that can subvert platform security) never makes it into the store or gets signed by Apple. If it does, they can immediately revoke it.
Third parties providing app downloads would not invest the anywhere near same level of care, for the most part. Platform security can only do so much if you can run any code you want to try to attack it.
But you cant run any code you want. You’re still in a restrictive sandbox, and you still need to explicitly request the limited expansions to the permissions scope that the OS allows the user to grant you - neither of which is dependent on the App Store.
I don't believe you understood my comment. Third party app stores with more lax, less resourced app review procedures would result in arbitrary attacker code being run on end-user devices, that, given enough time, would escape the sandbox. It's a layered defense: signing/developer identity account, app store review, sandboxing, specific user-approved permissions.
No one part of it is bulletproof, as we saw with CVE-2020-3883.
>Most users, however, would have a way worse experience using their phone if they were given this option, because a non-trivial percentage of them would follow the tutorials online provided to them by malware authors to install their malware.
I think Apple fans exagerrate when they say that most users are so "inexperienced" to get taken advantage off.
- this number of completly inexperienced user is not proven to be as large, if you look at Android or OSX you don't see 51% of users having malware on their machine
- with the amount of money Apple has they could afford to improve the security by adding more sand boxing and making unlocking of the phone by "tricked incompetent users almost impossible"
- I assume apps and websites can use your microphone and camera on your phone, it is under soem popup/permission prompt, why do you trust the "inexperienced users" with the camera permissions some bad person could trick them.
- "protecting" an unknown small number of users by limiting the rest makes no sense, what makes more sense is MONEY, Apple makes more money by locking things down and getting 30% from apps, subscrip[tions and the much hated lootboxes
> this number of completly inexperienced user is not proven to be as large, if you look at Android or OSX you don't see 51% of users having malware on their machine
> "protecting" an unknown small number of users by limiting the rest makes no sense, what makes more sense is MONEY
For creating policies 51% is a bad measure. Its inherently biased to be regressive. Setting policies at 51% disproportionately hurts the bottom 1%, 10% and 25% of the populations that need our help the most. This is true of all policies and especially laws.
Meanwhile, if you've ever helped your grandma or parents with their computers, you'll realize just how much malware they have already downloaded. I also remember what I was like on Limewire and Kazaa as a kid. There is/was an entire industry built around it for Anti-virus and Malware protection.
iOS doesn't require anti-virus or malware protection because Apple builds protection and privacy into the product as a core feature. Sadly, built into Android is malware but even Android is less susceptible to malware from unknown entities.
I understand your point but we don't even know if the number of this users that need protecting is even 10%. This imaginary group of people must have this properties:
- they are gullible , so bad people can trick them to ignore OS security warnings,create some extra account or security key to unlock the device (Apple can do it hard enough it must not be just 1 click)
- at the same time this users are not that gullible to paste their credit card in random websites or on Apple approved chat messages
- at the same time this users can be trusted with the app permissions for files,contacts, camera, location
For me if I intersect all this sets of users I get void and your argument should be that everything should be locked down, no permissions allowed for this users, there should only Apple approved websites, apple approved contacts, Apple should scan your messages not to send your card details or do stupid things. This people should use an iOS version made for children and adults could use the unlocked version.
> they are gullible , so bad people can trick them to ignore OS security warnings
> For me if I intersect all this sets of users I get void
I work at a pretty big company, where we are trusted to make a lot of important decisions but as I understand it even small companies have trainings to identify "phishing, clickbait, social engineering, etc". Every relatively big company also pre-approves devices that can connected and access the internal network. Installing software needs to be pre-approved. Even my browser Firefox or Chrome settings are pre-selected to ensure no compromising behavior can occur.
I know from past-experience, friends and colleagues that my current company is not unique. Because all humans (even the smartest sets) are gullible, it just depends how time constrained, sleep deprived or drunk they are.
Additionally, preventative protections on devices are used often even in personal contexts. When I help my mom set up her computer I pre-install everything and she doesn't have the admin password. This is the general recommendation for and by anyone helping someone under-educated about technology and abuse vectors. I've asked if she would rather me teach her and she just prefers using the computer without worry. Neither her, not this situation is unique.
That said, I have previously and do agree, Apple should make it easier to boot non-iOS iPhones. However, Apple should only provide that to the registered adult owner of the device, in person at an Apple store after delivering the caveats that the device will no longer be supported by Apple (regardless of resale) and any warranty is void.
The issues you describe are happening on computers where by default there is no sandbox, so an evil game or a bad application can do a lot of damage. But in an OS with strong sandbox and a good permission model the fact you add a dude to review your app does not add some extra security, from what I see this review people will check to make sure you follow the GUI /UX guidelines and also make sure you don't give the users information Apple won't like (like you could buy this cheaper from this webpage)
I agree, with a strong enough sandbox I am very happy to use sideloading. Fortunately, iOS provides Safari for such a sandbox.
According to screen time on iOS, I use Safari 2x more than all my other native applications combined. Including to play games. Especially with "Login with Apple", and "Apple Pay" I find that most websites are as easy to use as native applications.
I absolutely resent the implication that protecting the bottom n% of gullible users is mutually exclusive with giving power users the access they desire. they seem to do a decent job of it on their OSX machines, so why not iOS?
You're right! I disagree that the perfectly balanced system is OSX but overall I agree iPhones should have better "hack-ability".
As I've posted elsewhere:
I agree, Apple should make it easier to boot non-iOS iPhones. Even provide some tools to write custom OSes for the iPhone hardware. However, Apple should only provide that service to the registered adult owner of the device, in person at an Apple store after delivering the caveats that the device will no longer be supported by Apple (regardless of resale) and any warranty is void.
> I agree, Apple should make it easier to boot non-iOS iPhones. Even provide some tools to write custom OSes for the iPhone hardware. However, Apple should only provide that service to the registered adult owner of the device, in person at an Apple store after delivering the caveats that the device will no longer be supported by Apple (regardless of resale) and any warranty is void.
this kinda misses the point. I don't want to write my own OS for the phone or run ubuntu or someone else's jailbroken iOS image. I just want to run normal iOS, get updates, and also have the ability to escalate privileges from time to time. why is there not an amount of money I can pay for this?
also, does apple distribute any third party drivers in iOS? if so, they might not be able to make non-iOS iphones possible, even if they wanted to. not as familiar with the apple world but IIRC, this has been a longstanding issue for true alternative OSes on android phones.
I think I'm onboard as long as the procedure is cumbersome enough, and the registered adult owner of the device confirms that they understand and agree the warranty and support is void.
If you want to keep iOS as well... at that point, I do feel Apple is also in its right to remove all trademarked content from the phone running an iOS-like OS. AppStore, applications, remove all reference to words like "iPhone". So it would be a very bare-bones iOS-like.
Because otherwise it could negatively impact their brand. Their brand is built on the premise they build amazing products for customers who want those products. If someone looks at your "modified, uncurated iPhone" and thinks it "feels janky" or "poor UX" or "bad battery life" or ..."" that could result in that person not buying/recommending an iPhone.
Apple clearly values its brand highly and I can see why they would want their brand to be distanced from the type of device you would like.
Can you think of what a bad application can do to a user when side loading but is impossible to do when Apple reviews it,
If I am a bad actor I can submit an app for review and activate an evil mode after the application is approved.
Maybe we can stop pretending that the lock is in place to protect the users, most Android users do not root their devices or install random evil applications and then complain to Google about it, can't we just be sincere and say , "yeah is the way Apple keeps control on things for financial reason" . we could focus on the correct stuff then like how we can protect the small set of very gullible users from bad apps(that can be in the store) or bad webpages or evil messages.
> If I am a bad actor I can submit an app for review and activate an evil mode after the application is approved.
While this is of course still possible, the store model allows you to disable the app and remove the store listing to prevent further distribution of the bad app. You would be giving this up ability if you allowed third-party distribution. The fact that review is necessary in the first place also serves as a deterrent, and if a bad actor is caught their developer account can be banned to prevent them from submitting any more apps.
> Maybe we can stop pretending that the lock is in place to protect the users
Not sure why you think this is a pretense. In 2019, Android devices were responsible for 47.15% of malware infections compared to 0.85% of iPhones (https://onestore.nokia.com/asset/205835). There is a clear security benefit to the locked-down store model.
>the store model allows you to disable the app and remove the store listing to prevent further distribution
You do not need a store to blacklist a known bad application, you can have the OS do what OSX is doing now(I read on HN about this, I don't run any newer OSX versions)
check an app when it starts against a blacklist.
I agree that a review will catch low level effort of malware and I am not advocating for no official store if is possible users should use applications from the sore or on Linux from the official repositories but if some application is not in the store/repo (maybe you live in one of those countries that ban apps) you can have the option to side load the application.
The statistics for malware on iOS vs Android could be problematic if you don't compare equal user groups, Like a rich kid will buy the games from Steam or Apple store, some poor kid will try to get some free games so IMO we should compare similar population.
Blacklisting may be an appropriate solution for malware but doesn't help with privacy issues because apps distributed outside the App Store by definition won't be subject to the App Store privacy rules.
> The statistics for malware on iOS vs Android could be problematic if you don't compare equal user groups, Like a rich kid will buy the games from Steam or Apple store, some poor kid will try to get some free games so IMO we should compare similar population.
Even within the Android platform Google has reported an 8x difference in malware between devices that use side-loading compared to devices that use only the Google Play Store (https://source.android.com/security/reports/Google_Android_S...). In other words, it is specifically side-loading and third-party app stores that cause the biggest problem.
We've already seen this same story play out on Windows. Why would we expect it to be any different here?
> because apps distributed outside the App Store by definition won't be subject to the App Store privacy rules.
Can you explain? Side loading apps won't disable the sandbox so the app won't have access to your files, sensors or peripherals without permissions. The OS could be even more privacy focused by allowing power users to enable an option to fake private data like contacts,photos,location etc for apps that would refuse to run without this permissions.
Second thing, what extra privacy a manual review of a guy would add to an app that can't be done better on the device by sandboxing and code?
Side loading would be used by power users most of the time or people in countries with censorship.
We will not repeat the Windows story , we would repeat the Linux story where we always had trusted apps on trusted repos and only power users would "side load" stuff, on Windows the story wad different, you needed something you used google and run the first thing you find.
Consider, for example, an app that might initially request access to your contacts for a legitimate purpose (like messaging your friends), but secretly scrapes your contacts and sells it to third parties. This is a privacy abuse that is not prevented by sandboxing since the user explicitly granted those permissions. The problem is the user has no control what the developer actually does with the data after the permission is granted.
At least with an app review policy you can say this type of behavior is not acceptable and you will be banned if you abuse it. I'm not saying that will perfectly catch all abuses but at least it serves as a powerful deterrent that otherwise would not exist if all apps were directly distributed with no oversight.
> Side loading would be used by power users most of the time or people in countries with censorship.
Not sure why you think this but it simply doesn't match existing statistics. Side-loading and third-party stores are quite common in certain countries and it leads to large numbers of regular people getting infected by malware. For example, Kaspersky reports that 60% of mobile users in Iran and 38% of mobile users in India have been attacked by mobile malware. (https://securelist.com/mobile-malware-evolution-2019/96280/)
Those poor people will never buy an iPhone or expensive phone, you should compare how many Samsung Galaxy or Pixel users in US vs iPhone users in US that have same financial situation get infected, otherwise you could compare iOS users in US with XP users in China it is "lying with statistics".
The guy that reviews the Apple Store has no idea if the developer sells the data to a third party, the chances that somehow Apple finds this out in time to help you is minimal, it would help if Apple would let you give this people fake data or more granular data (like I want to give them a first name, 1 picture, and a city location but not much more details). Many existing apps are using FB SDKs, other advertising related library in the apps, loot boxes and other dark patterns and Apple is not blocking this because they have a financial interest.
I don't understand your point. Are you actually suggesting that poor people don't count?
If you consider the US alone you're still looking at ~17 million malware infections last year on Android devices.
> The guy that reviews the Apple Store has no idea if the developer sells the data to a third party, the chances that somehow Apple finds this out in time to help you is minimal
The fact that they can ban these developers serves as a deterrent. What you're suggesting is the equivalent of saying there's no point in having laws against stealing because some people will steal anyway. What you should be considering is the net effect of the rules against the overall frequency of the problem, not whether it prevents them 100% of the time (which is impossible anyway).
> Many existing apps are using FB SDKs, other advertising related library in the apps, loot boxes and other dark patterns and Apple is not blocking this because they have a financial interest.
Now imagine how much worse it would be if Facebook (and every other app) was directly distributed and had zero oversight whatsoever.
My stats point is this, let me show a simple example. Say in my small poor country nobody has the latest BMW and most people use some 20 years Renaults. Then you can create some stats to show BMW is perfect and Renault is crap. Where would be fair to compare cars that are in the same price category, same age, same driver category etc.
Is the same statistics shit Apple fanboys use when they want to show that Apple can't be a monopoly/duopoly the use a world wide stat(where in fact in US Apple and Google are around equal (iOS appears on top on this source but who knows how credible it is https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-sta...)
About laws, it is more like because someone is getting hurt with his power tools then we ban power tools and we allow only children friendly tools. This is not how it is sone, we can ask for safer tools but if someone injures himself with his power tools it is his fault. (and now I expect the argument about "Apple branding needs to be protected" dude Apple shipped bad keyboards and refuse to aknowledge the issue until a a lawsuit, Apple fucked witht eh battery behind the users back and a lawsuit had to happen for this to be shown, Apple branding is not something as a user you need to care about because it promotes antiuser behavious.
Sounds like you're reaching for excuses to dismiss the obvious malware problem on Android.
No one is advocating banning power tools. There are plenty of power tools (Android devices) out there for people who want to buy them. What you're advocating is that Apple shouldn't be allowed to sell their own, safer, tools to people who want to buy those instead.
- if Apple wins vs Epic then Google and Microsoft have precedent and they can lock down their platforms , previous legal precedent was with IE bundling
- because Linux exists that does not mean the Microsoft can do whatever they want, similar because at this moment Android devices exists and some power users can side load and an even small umber of users can root them does not mean that others can lock things down.
Your statistics are misleading and you are avoiding to compare apples to apples. Show me how much malware is on OSX because that platform was not as much locked,
> - if Apple wins vs Epic then Google and Microsoft have precedent and they can lock down their platforms , previous legal precedent was with IE bundling
Bundling IE with Windows was never established to be illegal in the United States, the issue was overturned by the appeals court and precedent was never set. What was found to be illegal was forcing other companies (like OEMs) to include IE on computers they manufactured as a condition of obtaining Windows licenses.
> - because Linux exists that does not mean the Microsoft can do whatever they want, similar because at this moment Android devices exists and some power users can side load and an even small umber of users can root them does not mean that others can lock things down.
The difference is Microsoft had 95% of the market during their antitrust case. If they had 5% of the market the outcome would have been very different.
> Your statistics are misleading and you are avoiding to compare apples to apples. Show me how much malware is on OSX because that platform was not as much locked,
Are you unaware that Mac malware is a growing problem?
It is my expectation that Apple verifies the identity of developers submitting to the AppStore. It is my expectation that if the initial review doesn't catch the abuse, and my contacts list is scraped and sold that Apple will eventually find out and ban the app from the store.
It is also my expectation that Apple will file a suit for damages, and help a legal firm file a class action suit against the developer on behalf of the victims.
If you are right and this isn't happening yet, I hope Apple starts doing it.
Yes Apple will terminate a dev account for not respecting the terms but I am not aware of Apple or Google trying to bring to justice developers that sold private data, at least in US there is a big resistance against having a GDPR like law so you could use the courts to punish some developers. Also we know that Apple (like Amazon and others) used contractors to have them listen to private recordings of users without asking consent (like hey user , I do not understand this can I send it to the cloud so strangers can listen and do stuff with it ?) , so for Apple privacy is a tool for making money, it aligns with your interest until a point (but as with Siri example you can see it is not 100% aligned with your interests)
With sideloading allowed, an application/appstore that is actually a trojan horse could request permissions once to "download X" where X is innocuous. Later the trojan auto-downloads other applications to your phone to mine bitcoin, run a bot net, etc. Basically selling your hardware, bandwidth and battery life to the highest bidder.
With sideloading, alternate APIs could be scraped together into a "new std lib". These APIs would just be some C/asm lib that is a part of any application and accesses hardware without any permission management. At that point every possible bad thing can happen. "Sandbox it!" sure... but that is what Apple is currently doing... its just also auditing source code to ensure no one is maliciously trying to break out of the sandbox. With enough time, people will break the sandbox or people will complain the sandbox is too limiting and not "true sideloading".
All this said, is Apple's auditing system a 100% guarantee? No. But at least I know once the bug/issue is found Apple will close the hole. Meanwhile, its in a company like FB or GOOG's best interest to force ever more tracking onto users, and they know people will continue to use their services regardless of the complaints (like what happens today).
You might argue, "this is where government should step in". I agree! The problem is that the government isn't doing a good enough job protecting users from digital abuse (arguably might make it worse with weaker encryption). So in the meanwhile, I'm happy that at least Apple currently is trying to protect users.
Apple is not reviewing the source code, they probably looking at what system calls you use and maybe they do what anti-virus software do on Windows, check for signatures or something like that. From my limited knowledge you can have your executable very obfuscated and make it impossible for someone to easily understand what is happening.
The thing is nobody would force the normal users to side load things, the number of applications for Android that are not in the store is small and I think only Fortnite was one with popularity and the number of people sideloading it was not that big.
> if you look at Android or OSX you don't see 51% of users having malware on their machine
Have you actually looked up the statistics? According to Kaspersky (https://securelist.com/mobile-malware-evolution-2019/96280/) mobile malware attacks in 2019 affected: 60.64% of users in Iran, 44.43% in Pakistan, 43.17% in Bangladesh, 40.20% in Algeria, 37.98% in India, 35.12% in Indonesia, etc. These are not small numbers.
> - with the amount of money Apple has they could afford to improve the security by adding more sand boxing and making unlocking of the phone by "tricked incompetent users almost impossible"
Sandboxing can protect against system vulnerabilities but does not help protect privacy in the same way App Store review guidelines do. (For example, by disallowing user tracking in games designed for children.)
> - I assume apps and websites can use your microphone and camera on your phone, it is under soem popup/permission prompt, why do you trust the "inexperienced users" with the camera permissions some bad person could trick them.
Temporary access to a microphone or camera is nowhere the same level of security risk as allowing third-party applications to install other applications on your phone.
> - "protecting" an unknown small number of users by limiting the rest makes no sense
Again, these are not small numbers of users, nor are they unknown. Android malware routinely infects millions of devices:
Everyone should keep in mind your points when thinking about improving the situation. The current setup does have advantages for both consumers and developers.
Did the majority of the app revenue end up flowing through the Apple by chance or did the rules that setup facilitate that system? As you said, consumers who spend money have largely chosen the Apple walled garden.
Apple's advertising is built on security and privacy — allowing other App Stores on their system would only open up users to invasive tracking & attacks. I want my desktop system to be open as can be; I'm perfectly happy with my phone being (somewhat) locked down. That said, Apple could allow users to choose to install other App Stores on their devices, but at the cost of their devices being considered hopelessly compromised and no longer eligible for support from Apple. Let the market decide: a wider variety of games/apps, or a (fairly) secure system with attached privacy promises.
You can jailbreak device, Apple still will have to respect the guarantee but they don't have to support you whatsoever.
Sure, Apple patch it, but then those are true vulnerabilities that are used to jailbreak it. Maybe they should just have a switch somewhere that would go "enable unsupported mode" that'd show a lot of angry texts at you before allowing you to do that.
That'd solve most of the coalition claims probably. Epic can always put their software on Cydia...
Except Apple is obsessed with taking responsibility for the entire user experience. Also, as people experience the subpar user experience w other app stores, they will still bring it to Apple for support. And probably blame apple - “it’s their logo on the cover”.
> Apple's advertising is built on security and privacy — allowing other App Stores on their system would only open up users to invasive tracking & attacks.
But why? If sideloading requires explicit user action and acknowledgment of danger, why would this affect their brand of safety and privacy in any way? The users who want a safe controlled environment can easily choose to stay in that environment. I just do not understand this argument.
Because these users, regardless of what they previously clicked, will expect Apple to support it. And end to end support is kind of one of the big deals about the iPhone.
This references an even older blog post (that has been lost to time) which was quoted:
> Look at the scenario from the customer’s standpoint. You bought programs X, Y and Z. You then upgraded to Windows XP. Your computer now crashes randomly, and program Z doesn’t work at all. You’re going to tell your friends, “Don’t upgrade to Windows XP. It crashes randomly, and it’s not compatible with program Z.” Are you going to debug your system to determine that program X is causing the crashes, and that program Z doesn’t work because it is using undocumented window messages? Of course not. You’re going to return the Windows XP box for a refund. (You bought programs X, Y, and Z some months ago. The 30-day return policy no longer applies to them. The only thing you can return is Windows XP.)
This is the same sort of thing that Apple faces with iOS. If an application breaks when the system is upgraded, it is the system's fault - not the application (at least in the minds of many consumers) and it is also considered to be the responsibility of the operating system vendor to fix the problem.
(This is part of why the Catalina upgrade was such a big deal because it was known that they'd break a lot of things in doing that)
If someone gets an app from a hypothetical 3rd party vendor store, and it breaks on an update of the operating system (or allows you to download an app that doesn't run) - its seen as company that wrote the OS's fault even though there is nothing that the company that wrote the OS can do about it - they can't even refund the app.
I appreciate the dialog. I'm still struggling with it though and I'm wondering if we have different premises. This seems like it assumes that users are complete buffoons, and aren't capable of understanding a simple message like, "if you enable this feature, you open yourself up to possible security holes. Apple also makes no guarantees that software installed in this way will work, either now or in the future."
At a minimum it seems like the system is designed around the lowest common denominator of user at the expense of more power users.
I used to work tech support at a big tech company. I have little faith in the technical literacy of people outside of those who have specifically studied the issue and done an informed risk analysis on what they want to do.
I feel (especially in today's world) that people are too willing to accept risks that put themselves and others in danger without being informed of the implications or that they maintain a "yea, it will never happen to me" attitude.
That willingness to take risks is especially prevalent in younger demographics. With respect to fortnight when Epic was doing a "disable this check and load from another site" there were numerous copies of the software with malware installed because people were ignoring the risk and looking at what they have. https://www.theguardian.com/games/2018/aug/10/fortnite-on-an...
If you are a power user, and want those features, jailbreaking the phone and doing whatever you want to it is an option. Or maybe, not using an iDevice and going with something that is more open.
There are a lot more people out there that want the training wheels on their technology experience than there are power users.
Personally, after having a linux system that I built myself and compiled kernel patches for back in the day - I'm glad I have the experience and I'm quite happy to let Apple do that now and not have to spend time on that level of verification of software and administration of my own devices.
On the phone itself - I've got lots of personal information, credit cards tied into NFC, email, and IoT controls. And while I'm not going to take risky actions with my phone, I am confident that others will take those risks. As part of Apple's brand identity is privacy and security - allowing people to take those risks works against that brand identity.
One of the frequent comments on HN in the past is "HN may not be the targeted demographic."
But it's not just users that have this behavior. There was major outcry from some developers about Apple removing Carbon even after 12 years of deprecation and no updates. There was a lot of support from developer-centric community like HN. An example: [1]
Considering that even developers are not too understanding, it's no wonder people assume non-tech people will react the same way.
I really don't see a good solution for that. Even if Apple open sourced Carbon, I doubt Carbon users would be able pick up the slack, since they had 12 years to update but couldn't (or 20 if you consider Carbon was always marketed as a stopgap/compatibility solution).
Marketing only works for the first generation of purchases. Apple has the highest consumer satisfaction ratings year after year so when a new product comes out, consumers know they will get a product they will be really happy with. That is not the case with many other companies.
> The vast vast majority of users don't consider anything except the marketing.
If marketing was all that mattered, and Apple's products were actually disappointing, they would not have repeat customers or high satisfaction after the purchase:
Yes, this is partly about Apple being "punished" for its success. That is a good thing. Entities that are too successful become too powerful and should be "punished" for it.
> You’ll be competing with multi-billion dollar corporations who have exclusive content and nobody will bother with your store.
What does me building a store have anything to do with its adoption? I build lots of low/no-adoption software for fun or for small/personal use. This line of thinking, that if you can't be a top-level player in a competitive market, you can't build anything is foolish. You shouldn't confuse the building and marketing concepts, especially not to support disallowing the former.
All manner of well-funded corporations would be able to start app stores on mobile, and several (Epic, Valve/Steam, Microsoft) would start app stores the second they were able to.
They'd also be competing for software - as there's a lot of fat that can be trimmed in those 30% margins.
The competition, which would be fierce, is more than enough to solve the issue of price fixing.
Any fat trimmed in the margins (which is less than you think) would not accrue to developers because they’d have to deal with multiple stores and multiple rules sets.
They also wouldn’t have to offer the same terms to every developer. All they would need to do would be to lock in some exclusive popular apps. ‘Competing for developers’ doesn’t mean making things better for all developers. It just means securing enough exclusives that people can’t ignore your store.
On Android there is the F-Droid software repository, and there is no issue of competition with the Play Store. Would things be different on Apple phones?
F-Droid does not offer any form of payment, anyway. All the apps offered by F-Droid are open source and the majority of them ad-free, and it's honestly a fantastic resource for me. It actually has quite a lot of apps, including games, productivity tools, utilities, and other things. Something like this wouldn't be possible at all on Apple's platform.
> As of June 2017, the Google Play store hit 3 million apps by 968,000 developers, trumping the Apple App Store. In comparison, the Amazon App Store only has around 600,000 apps by 75,000 publishers, as of Spring 2016.
It refutes your claim that developers will end up having to support alternate app stores or risk losing on market share. Despite the potential for greater revenue on the Amazon Appstore, developers don't seem to be flocking to it.
People seem to be buying into Epic's own claims of self-importance. They may be the ones to have finally advanced grievances against the App Store to the lawsuit, but they do not- nor should they- have the ability to frame the entire discussion. Their standards for openness are debatable.
It doesn’t really refute my claim. For one thing for most developer, Android is an afterthought in terms of profitability because of iOS, and for another, secondary app stores don’t function on an equal footing with the play store, which is why Epic is also suing Google.
Android just isn’t a model for what would happen on iOS. Obvious really, because Android has never had anything like the same success in app sales.
Android also have a lot of malware issues. I’ve had to help factory reset Android phones quite a few times because friends and family ended up getting spammed with sex notifications and had their search engine hijacked. Windows and OSX suffers from the same problems. The reason these platforms suffer from malware, while iOS does not, is because they allow third-party installations.
From what I've seen, the majority of Android malware either comes from Google's Play Store, or gets included on the phones by certain OEMs. F-droid in particular, due to its open source requirement, hasn't ended up hosting any malware so far.
This is incorrect. Google's own statistics (https://source.android.com/security/reports/Google_Android_S...) indicate that devices that use side-loading have an 8x relative higher incidence of malware compared to devices that only install apps from the Google Play Store.
(Note: I believe Google's absolute numbers are significantly underestimated due to the poor performance of Google Play Protect compared to other malware detection tools, but so far they are the only source I have found that publishes relative numbers between the Play Store vs side-loading.)
F-Droid is even more locked down than the App Store, and even if they turned it into the default app store then Android would still be riddled with malware.
As to how the Android users keep acquiring malware, I have no idea whether it’s from the Play Store, or if they download free apk files of paid apps, or if they download it through ads or from emails or whatever. I just know I have to help fix them regularly, and if iOS is forced to open up then iPhones will suffer from the same malware issues that you see with OSX/Windows/Android.
IMHO there would be a large market for local stores that promote local apps. It would usher in an era of local discovery and decentralization. I think it would be a huge win for everyone except companies abusing the monopoly like characteristics of demand aggregation.
I don't see how that's relevant. Epic isn't suing Apple so that they can have exclusive rights to open a second app store, they're suing to allow third-party app stores in general. If Epic wins, they aren't going to be part of a small group of store owners; anyone would be able to open their own competing store.
We have already been through the multiple "app stores" model and it was fucking awful. Back before the iPhone and Android there were dozens of different stores for PalmOS, Symbian, and PocketPC/Windows Mobile, even boxed software sold on CDs.
There were no guarantees with any of the stores. Many didn't even host stuff they sold. So you'd buy from the "App Store", download from the developer's site, and then deal with whatever license system the developer used. Since there was no standard way to work with the store there was no standard mechanism of distributing licenses. Signing was also a joke as there was no good way to let end users validate, in a usable way, the signatures of apps or even that the signing entity was who they claimed to be.
Piracy was rampant because stores sucked, prices were onerous, and cracking the software or just sharing licenses was too easy. The current App Store model developed as a response to a broken market for mobile apps.
Hate on the App Store model all you want but it solved significant problems that plagued the industry for years.
And worse for consumers. No way I'm dealing with entering my CC again and again. The current situation is not perfect, but it does have advantages for both consumers and developers.
Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Apple already have my CC number. If I could buy all my apps through (ex:) the Microsoft store that exists on PC, Android, and iOS I could delete my CC info from Google and Apple. That's a win in my book.
Maybe the competition would force all of them to innovate a bit. Wouldn't it be nice if you could give your CC number, but set a hard limit on in-app purchases? Ex: Here's my CC, but you're not allowed to charge more than $50 / month to it. I bet there are a lot of people that have gotten multi thousand dollar IAP bills that wouldn't mind a better system for some of that stuff.
So if Apple had entertained the original pre-lawsuit request, would epic have fought until Apple allowed app stores other than Epic and Apple existing?
Epic is suing Google for pressuring OEMs against preinstalling its app store on devices, not for preventing users from installing its app store themselves. It's true that app stores not signed with the system key can't automatically update apps, and users would benefit even more if they could, but users already benefit from being able to install apps outside of the official app store at all.
I never disputed your point (though it is technicall bwrong because some phones have other app stores installed on the system partition) because as I already pointed out, your point is irrelevant. The fact that users can install apps from other sources at all has massive benefit, as Android has already shown. There would be even more benefit if other apps could do automatic updates, but there is already benefit with what is available.
"They want to be part of a small exclusive group of store owners who get to share in the benefits of Apple’s investments"
False.
Epic made very clear, early on, IN THEIR COURT FILING that their case was an attempt to legally force Apple and Google to allow for third party app stores to exist equitably on iOS and Android.
Does that benefit Epic substantially? Of course it does. They want a mobile Epic Games Store on both platforms. But it would also break the stranglehold duopoly that Google and Apple have over the mobile software marketplace.
Example to prove the point: Nothing in Epic's proposals or court filing would prevent Steam Mobile or the Microsoft App Store from launching on iOS and Android on the same terms that Epic prevailed on in court. That's about as far away from anti-competitive behaviour as this court case could possibly hope to be.
Nothing I said is false. Third party stores will not exist equitably on iOS and Android because there don’t exist equitably anywhere else.
I said a small group, not just Epic. That group would be made up of the usual suspects - Epic, Amazon, Google, Facebook, various other TenCent properties etc.
Nothing about it would make it either developer friendly, nor consumer friendly.
> Nothing about it would make it either developer friendly, nor consumer friendly.
That doesn't sound too bad to me from either side TBH. As a developer, it would be useful to have a choice between multiple publishers with the advantage of only needing to deal with one at a time instead of three. I also think competition in app stores would spur a bunch of innovation.
As a consumer with an Android phone, a Windows PC, and an iPad as a tablet, the idea of buying all my stuff from one company's app store and having the licensing work across all 3 devices is extremely appealing.
I think one of the biggest fears of Apple, Google, etc. is that it's very possible someone will come along and build a better app store with better policies for both developers and consumers.
Here's a concrete example of "better". Judging by this [1] apps in iOS 14 can specify a DoH resolver to use for DNS.
> Apps will be able to specify a DoH resolver that will override the DNS resolver set by DHCP or RA for queries made from their app.
Guess what that means? Apple is going to let developers override MY choice as a network admin and DoH is going to be used for un-blockable ads. Why should they be able to do that? I would absolutely buy into an app store that forbid that behavior and forced apps to observe DHCP settings over app settings.
I'd also be fine with an app store that didn't force the use of sign in with Apple or Apple Pay. And that's where the problem is for Apple. Forcing developers to use Apple technologies isn't benefitting anyone but Apple. You might argue that it's better for consumers, but if those are features wanted by developers' customers, developers will add them without being forced to.
Android is already both more developer friendly and more consumer friendly than iOS despite not having full automatic update support for third party app stores. If that were in place, it would be even better.
As a developer and a user, I do prioritize Android.
People don't buy luxury jeans because they are better jeans than Levi's. People buy luxury jeans because of marketing. The same applies here. Consider how many people in the HN comments say they like iPhone because of privacy even though it is so clearly worse for privacy (can't install an app on your device without telling Apple, can't get your GPS location without telling Apple, etc.).
Android allows the user to prevent data from going to third parties as well. The difference is it also allows the user to prevent data from from going to the OS manufacturer. This is strictly greater privacy.
You are wrong about GPS location requests:
"By enabling Location Services for your devices, you agree and consent to the transmission, collection, maintenance, processing, and use of your location data and location search queries by Apple and its partners and licensees to provide and improve location-based and road traffic-based products and services."
It will also send your location to Apple when no app is requesting your location:
"If Location Services is on, your iPhone will periodically send the geo-tagged locations of nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers in an anonymous and encrypted form to Apple, to be used for augmenting this crowd-sourced database of Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower locations."
Unlike on Android, you cannot get your location without sending this data to Apple:
"To use features such as these, you must enable Location Services on your iPhone"
This is not so hard to reverse given that Apple also has your location tied to your identity from other Apple services you use. Once you match that location to the encrypted user, who is often seen requesting their location data from work or home, you get the encrypted user's location data identified.
Compare to Android, where you don't have to send your location data anywhere to get your GPS location. iOS location privacy is strictly worse.
You also ignored the fact that every app install gets reported to Apple tied to your identity, which is arguably even more egregious.
> can't get your GPS location without telling Apple, etc.).
I'd rather an iOS app have location listed as a capability in the manifest than have Android send my location to Google for the purpose of selling advertising based on store visits.
Me too. Luckily, on Android, apps must also request the location permission, and you don't have to send your location to anybody. This is unlike iOS, where Apple gets your location no matter what.
Consumers do not prioritize Android devices as a market for buying apps. Android has 75% market share but iOS users have spent twice as much in total on apps.
The common misconception of HN crowd: assumption that everyone are like them and actually want complete control. There is a nontrivial cost to having that control and not many actually want it. They want something that works and is useable.
I don't mind if people want to pay for someone to curate their apps, but I don't see any reason developers shouldn't be able to charge those people +43% for buying through the curated app store. If there's really as much value as everyone claims then users won't have a problem paying extra, right?
I also think it's crazy that IAPs are viewed as anything more than a simple payment that would incur normal payment processing fees. You'd never find anyone willing to argue that VISA or Mastercard should be able to charge 30% for payment processing because of the infrastructure they provide for merchants.
Framing the 30% as "payment processing" is a fundamentally flawed comparison. Apple builds the entire ecosystem and suite of tools that developers use to actually make apps for the iPhone.
Visa and Mastercard only provide payment processing, they don't provide the equivalent of the iOS SDKs, Xcode, the App Store, etc., to their merchants.
I think there's some value in that tooling for building the apps, but for IAPs Apple's not doing anything more than payment processing. There's nothing special or difficult about processing an IAP and there would be a line of competitors around the block to do it for <5% if they were allowed to.
You're not going to get open firmware. Cell phones are radio transceivers in the hands of millions of unlicensed users. The only reason any of the cellular infrastructure works is all the devices run tested and certified firmware.
For most cellular basebands the PHY is more powerful and capable than the regulations would normally allow. They only get certified for consumer use because the firmware bounds the operation to the regulated envelopes.
No devices would ever be allowed to be sold on the consumer market if end users could go tweak the firmware or run uncertified firmwares. They shouldn't be allowed to be sold. The difference between a transmitter and jammer is a pretty fine line.
True, but anyone mildly determined can get a two year old device, 0day the baseband, and have full access. I remember old iOS exploits that gave access to the full baseband as well.
That's nothing at all like a consumer device being offered for sale with an intentionally tweakable baseband firmware. Getting a device certified by the FCC (and equivalents) doesn't require that the baseband firmware be 100% free or 0-day exploits. You can hack certified devices in all sorts of ways but you're then breaking the law (wrt to the radio portion) and doing so completely outside a relationship with the equipment manufacturer.
It's not hard to make a jammer if you're setting out to build one. The problem is when you inadvertently turn your phone into a jamming device because you tweaked some firmware settings.
I'm surprised at all of the negativity here. The changes proposed would be great for developers, even if (most) of the companies involved are shady, their reasons are selfish, and the obvious "astroturfiness" of the website is laughably dissonant and reeks like a dirty think tank that hasn't been cleaned in months. Apple has no qualms about absolutely screwing developers historically. I'm happy to see some pushback.
Support for Epic never took root on HN because techno-entrepreneurs see themselves not as mere fart app developers but as temporarily embarrassed billionaire monopolists.
Idk about that. The iOS developers I've seen have largely been supportive of Epic's actions, even Epic's motivations might be unsavoury. It's the users that have pushed back, out of fear that a more "open" iOS could turn their iPhone into a Windows XP-esque privacy, security and UX nightmare.
I support opening up Apple's ecosystem, but I don't support Epic. They say they want to give user's the freedom to choose, yet they took a video game I purchased away from my chosen storefront (rocket league being taken off of steam)
Google does the same shit. I bought Shadowrun: Dragonfall from the Play Store and it was later removed without any warning or trace. Not coincidentally, that was the last money I will ever spend on the Play Store.
I have also been really surprised with the whole debate on this saga here. For developers, this looks like such a no brainer because they should personally relate to what these companies are asking for.
It's also a no-brainer from the business and marketing side. Unless Apple somehow forces certain rules on third-party app stores to require their apps to comply with advertising, tracking, and security measures, there's no reason for these third party app stores to care if the apps they have on their store track the user for advertising via something other than the tracking identifier - they'd all bypass the tracking consent popup via fingerprinting and other techniques.
Are you kidding? Being able to sell on more than one store is a massive advantage. Besides the obvious lower risks and lower fees, you can also benefit from better exposure and discovery (two things that are terrible on the app store and google play) especially in niche stores.
Being forced to sell on multiple stores and comply with multiple sets of store rules just to access
the same set of consumers is a massive disadvantage.
There will be greater risks. It’s conceivable that fees will be a little lower, but this will only benefit larger developers who can absorb the increased costs of dealing with all the stores.
It will be nothing but destructive for smaller developers.
This is scaremongering. Android has alternative app stores and most apps don't bother releasing to them. iOS would not fragment overnight into dozens of app stores if it was to become open. Likely the majority of apps would still target the App Store, with a handful of major competing stores. These competitors would be incentivized to attract developers, otherwise they would end up with the same lack of apps that killed alternative smartphone operating systems. Not to mention, there would be some degree of standardization of store rules across these platforms, because that's how industries with multiple players tend to function.
You're describing an entirely extreme position without any basis.
The basis for this belief is that Epic also sued Google Play for creating the existing conditions that you describe. Epic doesn't want to turn iOS into Android (which is bad enough on its own), they want to open the floodgates on Android, too.
But I don't care about Epic, nor am I talking about them. I'm talking about the hypothetical scenario where Apple allows alternative app stores to exist. I'm not framing this under Epic's terms.
The handful of competitors would be multi-billion dollar corporations, e.g. Epic, Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft.
The incentive for developers is as always, customers. The stores would be incentivized to acquire customers. Developers would be forced to support any store that had more than a few percent of customers.
Acquiring customers can be done without giving good terms to most developers. All you need is a small number of exclusives. Epic has their own content, and the others would be able for trivially bid foe the top apps. Facebook and Amazon would simply extend their existing iOS apps into becoming stores, and presumably Google could do this with Chrome for iOS, which they’d trivially market via search results.
There is no reason these stores would need the long tail of apps as long as they had a few very popular ones, and that would reduce exposure for the long tail that did remain in the Apple store.
Your point about standardization of store rules isn’t obvious - what industry do you think this compares with?
There is no reason to think that this would do anything to democratize the industry, indeed it would be likely to have the opposite effect, of increasing barriers to entry for smaller developers.
My position isn’t extreme in the least. It is the obvious extrapolation of the behaviors of current players.
An extreme position would be the emergency of a utopia of developer centric stores all bending over themselves to make things better for the little guy.
> Developers would be forced to support any store that had more than a few percent of customers.
Look at the Amazon Appstore for Android and you'll see an anemic limited app marketplace that while subpar, doesn't seem to be doing anything particularly nefarious to consumers nor developers alike. And it's precisely anemic and limited because it contains far fewer apps than the Play Store. We have the entire Android ecosystem to use as a case study to see why competing iOS app stores wouldn't be a threat to either to the App Store's prominence nor to the livelihoods of developers.
> Acquiring customers can be done without giving good terms to most developers. All you need is a small number of exclusives.
Which does not obviate the ability of the vast majority of non-FANMG affiliated developers to stay on the App Store as they please, or only join the specific app stores that they wish to live on out of desire and not necessity.
> There is no reason these stores would need the long tail of apps as long as they had a few very popular ones, and that would reduce exposure for the long tail that did remain in the Apple store.
You seem to be operating under the misunderstanding that the existence of alternative app stores creates lock-in.
> Your point about standardization of store rules isn’t obvious - what industry do you think this compares with?
I'm saying any industry that involves multiple players will see the standardization of norms and operating conventions, much like how UX patterns across different apps standardizes over time. (Take the adoption of the "hamburger button" to mean menu back in the '10s). If there are multiple entrants into the app store space, standard business practices will arise as a new and exciting place for entrepreneurs is created.
> There is no reason to think that this would do anything to democratize the industry, indeed it would be likely to have the opposite effect, of increasing barriers to entry for smaller developers.
And there's no reason to think that the existing situation is any more democratic than the hypothetical you're spinning.
> It is the obvious extrapolation of the behaviors of current players.
And is it being borne out on Android? There's no Facebook nor Microsoft Play store there. There doesn't even seem to be interest in that direction. Yes, comparing the iOS and Android ecosystems (especially in the service of delineating a hypothetical open iOS ecosystem) is imprecise, but it's useful for the sake of this discussion.
> An extreme position would be the emergency of a utopia of developer centric stores all bending over themselves to make things better for the little guy.
Which isn't what I'm arguing for, either. I think there's the potential for that. Certainly more than in the status quo.
Your premise seems to be that the current situation on Android is a good model for what would happen on iOS.
Epic themselves are suing Google because android doesn’t actually allow competing stores to operate in an equal footing.
That’s really all that is needed to dismiss this like of argument.
My extrapolation is not being borne out on Android because Android also doesn’t allow stores to compete on an equal footing, which is why Epic is also suing them.
I’m assuming you just didn’t know about this.
There will be no new and exciting place for developers. There will be exactly the same platform, but a whole load of additional predatory business to deal with.
If you truly think I’m wrong (and honestly, I’d like to be), perhaps you can flesh out a realistic hypothetical about what developers can expect rather than waving away the idea that say, Facebook and Amazon would get involved.
If you're going to dismiss the majority of my arguments and points, as well as reality in favor of your own framing, then you're refusing to debate in good faith.
Epic's lawsuit is immaterial, imo. We don't know how the courts will decide. Rather, what's being debated is what a hypothetical open iOS will look like. Even if they lose the lawsuit, Pandora's box has been opened. Years of developer dissatisfaction and corporate strategizing has called Apple's dominance into question, and we are now examining potential futures if Apple opens up. I don't believe a forced opening on Epic's terms is inevitable, nor is it the only model for opening up.
One can even imagine a scenario where Apple opens up on its own terms. Perhaps they provide SDKs that allow the creation of third party app stores with stringent security mechanisms built in, and license that out to partners. They certainly have the resources to undertake such a process, and forcing such stores to pay a license fee would both allow them to recoup on lost revenue and allow them to maintain a level of control over their platform. Epic would scream but again they're neither the first to cry foul over the App Store monopoly, nor the last. If the bulk of the developer grievances can be sidestepped by Apple themselves, Epic would then truly just look like a litigious rent-seeker, rather than a company that's accidentally doing something that's helping the little guy.
> perhaps you can flesh out a realistic hypothetical about what developers can expect
How about the gaming market, especially over the past decade. The rise of Steam, the presence of somewhat niche alternatives like GOG.com, GamersGate, Humble Bundle, (I believe Blizzard was the major publisher with their own digital distribution store early on), then the sudden proliferation of other publishers from EA to UbiSoft and now Epic.
Does it require significant overhead for developers to support multiple stores? I'm sure it isn't free. But is it significantly detrimental to them? I'm not sure. Valve has been criticized over Steam's former near-monopoly of the gaming digital distribution market[0]. At least the present situation gives them alternatives to work with. The AAA publisher stores are often derided, but more from a consumer standpoint than a developer perspective. Having a ton of game installers and store accounts to manage is a pain. It's definitely not frictionless. But again, you're arguing on behalf of developers, and I'm not sure if they're unhappy with having more choices than just Steam.
> There will be exactly the same platform, but a whole load of additional predatory business to deal with.
Again, you have to provide examples in other segments where Facebook, Microsoft, et al have successfully created trouble for developers by offering them (and developers) more choices.
I assume your argument invoking Android as a model wasn’t in bad faith, and I can certainly dismiss the conclusions of it in good faith too, because it is inapplicable as a model.
And no - I don’t have to provide examples of where Facebook, Microsoft etc, have already “caused trouble”. It just has to be reasonable to expect them to want to compete, and to employ commonly used tactics that are not necessarily good for developers or consumers. That is all I am suggesting. Facebook and Microsoft have been hyper competitive companies who generally do whatever they can get away with. Neither are known as friends of either developers or consumers, although I accept that Microsoft has been doing better since they have been an underdog. This is common knowledge.
As for opening up the Apple opening the App Store on their own terms, or indeed a bootcamp solution enabling people to do whatever they want with the hardware: I’m actually in favor of these, and I think talking about them is constructive.
What I am not in favor of is Epic winning a court supervised solution, and I separately think that simply assuming that more choices are better is a dangerous dogma that could easily make things a lot worse.
I actually strongly believe we need the smartphone software environment to be opened, but the path by which that occurs and the nature of the openness obtained is very important to whether there is a net gain for anyone other than the already rich and powerful.
> I assume your argument invoking Android as a model wasn’t in bad faith, and I can certainly dismiss the conclusions of it in good faith too, because it is inapplicable as a model.
Why is it inapplicable? Because Google is behind it instead of Apple?
> And no - I don’t have to provide examples of where Facebook, Microsoft etc, have already “caused trouble”.
Then you have no evidence substantiating your claims.
> Neither are known as friends of either developers or consumers, although I accept that Microsoft has been doing better since they have been an underdog.
You are bringing moral weight into this discussion, which is fine. However, I would not be willing to assign any additional moral weight to Apple either. It does not do to assume any company- especially one in the same realm of financial success- is particularly more virtuous or honest than others, nor incapable of predatory business tactics of its own.
> What I am not in favor of is Epic winning a court supervised solution
And that is the crux. I do not favor Epic, but I recognize that they are the first to put skin in the game as far as grousing over App Store policies go. They are a necessary evil in terms of forcing Apple's leadership to recognize that App Store policy is worth a reexamination. Without a challenge, Apple management is content to pursue its present course without recognition that there is indeed a world outside of Cupertino. They have perhaps the highest market cap of any corporation in history- they're no underdog in this tale. But I also don't care about Epic in the context of this discussion. We can map out ways in which Apple could open up iOS without dragging in Epic's legal demands into this.
> I actually strongly believe we need the smartphone software environment to be opened, but the path by which that occurs and the nature of the openness obtained is very important to whether there is a net gain for anyone other than the already rich and powerful.
This whole “you have no evidence to substantiate your claim thing” is empty. The evidence is plainly there in present normal competitive behavior. That’s all that is needed.
Google is not a model for what would happen if Apple was forced to open the App Store.
There are two reasons for this. One is that Google isn’t the app market leader and so the pressures aren’t there.
The other is that secondary app stores are basically crippled on Android by comparison to the play store, which is why Epic is also suing google.
It just isn’t comparable, so you can’t use it as an example of what would happen.
I’m not bringing moral weight really. I think Apple provides a lot of benefits to users and developers.
I think we ultimately need a more open environment where what people can install is not controlled by Apple.
However I just don’t believe that the competitors who want access to Apple’s customers have any incentive to maintain an open marketplace or to serve developers.
They have every incentive to fight bitterly and use their own assets of one kind or another to lock-up parts of that market and to try to monopolize it just as Apple has.
That just isn’t going to be good for developers.
If Epic’s grousing leads to better terms from Apple, with Apple still in control, then I’d agree that it was ultimately a win for everyone (even including Apple).
If on the other hand we get a court mandated soliton, or anti-trust action, I think we’ll end up further away from a truly open, competitive environment than ever.
All the air will be sucked out of that possibility into what will effectively be a government authorized cartel.
> There are two reasons for this. One is that Google isn’t the app market leader and so the pressures aren’t there.
And yet, the Play Store is still the dominant app market within the Android ecosystem despite Google's lackadaisical caretaking of it (leading to security and quality issues). This situation would only be heightened in an opened iOS situation, because Apple would still maintain control as is its wont, and because most consumers would be fine staying with the App Store.
> The other is that secondary app stores are basically crippled on Android by comparison to the play store, which is why Epic is also suing google.
Which is a situation that could likely repeat in a (semi-)open iOS for any number of reasons, Epic's legal adventures notwithstanding.
> It just isn’t comparable, so you can’t use it as an example of what would happen.
I disagree. Even if it doesn't exactly repeat, it's likely very similar to it. Ultimately, iOS and Android are more similar than different in that they were both created and promoted by a single business entity. We're not talking about an ecosystem launched by a secondary less powerful company (webOS) or an open source project (Firefox OS, Ubuntu Mobile).
> I think we ultimately need a more open environment where what people can install is not controlled by Apple.
We agree on that.
> If on the other hand we get a court mandated soliton, or anti-trust action, I think we’ll end up further away from a truly open, competitive environment than ever.
All the air will be sucked out of that possibility into what will effectively be a government authorized cartel.
I think given the anemic nature of antitrust action in this country over the past few decades, this is likely politically infeasible, a doomsday scenario bordering on hysteria. Hence, we arrive full-circle: scaremongering.
There is so much wrong with everything you're saying, but I am not going to spend the time to point it all out, especially since you seem to have thoroughly convinced yourself that these assumptions are true.
But I'll just point this out:
> sell on multiple stores and comply with multiple sets of store rules just to access the same set of consumers is a massive disadvantage.
The only way this might be a problem is if all of the 1 billion+ iOS users were your customers, because then maybe some of them might decide to stop using the appstore completely, and maybe that'd happen instantly over night. Then maybe you'd have to publish your app on a second store (which would mean selling your app for a second time to those users who decided to leave the app store and never look back).
But regardless, if you have 1 billion customers, supporting a second or third for 40th store is not going to incur any significant costs. In fact, it might even lower them as most competing stores would likely distribute to both Android and iOS at the same time (Google Play would undoubtedly start selling iOS apps). Plus there will 100% be third party services for managing store pages across all the stores out there for a nominal fee (or even for free).
If you are a new app developer and there was just one additional store, which had just 15% of user attention, you’d have to support it or lose 15% of potential revenue.
This is more than likely as Facebook would almost certainly start selling apps directly through the feed.
>Not having choices is a bad situation. I would be surprised if you thought otherwise.
really? I completely disagree, let me illustrate. I don't have much choice of toilet paper when I go to the bathroom, especially in a public restroom. Theres usually only one dispenser, but somehow nobody cares, no one is asking the government to regulate for every Walmart in the country to offer dispensers for every manufacturer, or to regulate residential construction so that every bathroom has one of those industrial size dispensers (or space to install one!) so homeowners can use the jumbo rolls seen in public restrooms. But let's play pretend and imagine if every time you went to use a public restroom there were 8 different toilet papers in the stall. What benefit would that serve, and how would it be a better situation vs the "bad situation" of no choice in toilet paper? Sure, its a bad situation for Charmin as the only toilet paper offered at thousands of Walmarts in the US is probably some cheap Marathon or Georgia-Pacific product, but is it really a social responsibility to make sure that every public restroom has a selection of toilet papers? I would be surprised if you thought that choice would be good here. Given my assumption, why is it not a social responsibility to demand toilet paper choice, and how is toilet paper choice different than app store choice? Serious question, because they seem about equivalent to me.
Moreover, I detest this type of pointless choice in most areas of my life because it is an absolute waste of my time and mental resources. Choice is good for macro economic reasons, not social reasons, and sometimes its not even good for micro economic reasons[1]. It allows for competition in a marketplace, driving down prices as a typical consequence. However competition is also typically a waste of resources, whether it's the consumer's time or engineering costs for duplicate/redundant products/factories/supply chains, and it can certainly lead to lower consumer satisfaction.
Your links are from a developer's point of view, but like it or not developers are businesses, and Apple and the government don't exist to serve them, they exist to serve everyone(or in Apple's case their shareholders and by extension everyone who can afford an iPhone), developers are a small minority of that everyone. It sucks for those developers, sure, but business is rough as a rule, and I find this whole "but the app developers" like a bad joke. I'd be interested in an example of another cottage industry like app development that got some sort of regulation on stores similar to this. Honestly it seems if we look at precedent in the economy, usually this sort of intervention is anti-consumer; the dealership model for car sales drives car prices up 10% [2], for example.
I think small developers should be fearful of this lobby. App development could be a lot more regulated, considering the amount of personal information on a phone and the importance of them in modern life, it seems crazy that the production of eggs is so much more tightly regulated than the production of phone applications. I could probably bounce back from getting salmonella in a month or less, but if all the information on my iphone got stolen and used maliciously it would take me years to recover my identity, if I ever did. I wouldn't be surprised if this is the next type of thing that this lobby went after. Let's create a government body to do randomized security audits on smart phone applications, with arcane and pointless rules. Seriously, check out the laws in the US on the sale and farming of eggs and then tell me you want to let big business get the government involved in regulating apps.
Can you bring your own toilet paper to a public restroom?
An Apple restroom would prohibit you from bringing your own toiler paper, plus, it would force you to use the new iPaper worth 6 times more than any other toilet paper.
It doesn’t follow at all that a worse time for developers means worse apps or less-happy consumers. Any time Apple enforces any kind of standard it’s “worse for developers”. I’m sure lots of developers are annoyed with Apple’s approach to fine-grained and highly visible app permissions, and wish they could just have full access to the user’s device. Screwing those people over is obviously good.
> It doesn’t follow at all that a worse time for developers means worse apps or less-happy consumers
Sure, it's not guaranteed to be a net positive for consumers but it's correlated.
Admittedly not exactly the same, but the Sega Saturn had trouble attracting developers because it was really difficult to develop on, despite the hardware being pretty good. As a result, people who bought a Saturn ended up getting fewer and worse versions of games.
I agree that they shouldn't necessarily always always do everything to appeal to developers, there's a balance, and I'm not suggesting that we get rid of community guidelines and the like, I'm just saying that the more difficult it is for a developer (or anyone) to do something, the less likely they are to do a good job at it, if they do it at at all. Worse apps means a worse experience.
That's absolutely not true. Developers can and often do have a hostile relationship with consumers who use their software. The most obvious example of this is malware developers. Operating systems and software distribution platforms often have rules to prevent malware. That's clearly a restriction on developers but (if done well) it means better apps for consumers. I think the same can be said for less obvious cases, like adware, tracking, shady free trial or subscription plans, bait and switch pricing in e-commerce, and many other antipatterns or dark patterns.
> That's an easy opinion to have when it's not your livelihood.
Isn't this sensationalist?
Developers, just like Apple or any other software maker, can be incentivized to work _against_ the consumer. PC on '00s had many developers whose livelihood compelled them to bundle their apps as "free trials" in PCs. As a user, I had to deal with pop-up after pop-up asking me to buy the full thing; each of those apps took up disk space, power and, most importantly, my brain cells. ugh.
Developer livelihoods are not as important as a frustration-free user experience.
I appreciate that Apple's high bar makes it harder for all iOS developers to make a living. However, with all respect, there might just be too many iOS developers.
Apple setting an increasingly high quality bar that weeds out the bottom 90% of all iOS developers might seem draconian for anyone weeded out but this is competition at its finest. It is how markets in general ensure the best quality product.
Obviously, there is also the matter of "How much should Apple get paid to enforce these policies? Is 30% too high for in-app-purchases?" those are good numbers to negotiate. But frankly all non-FOSS software products I've encountered before and after iOS continually proved they need developer policies to ensure they are built to be long-term customer centric.
Many people's livelihood is malware development, probably including many people who think it's unethical and would prefer to have another livelihood if there was an option. I genuinely feel bad for those people, but I still think blocking malware is the right decision for an OS or software distribution platform.
If your livelihood relies on, say, gambling for 10 year olds, or rooting around in my personal information without my knowledge or meaningful consent, then I will be delighted for you to starve in a gutter.
Not exactly sure if it's astroturfing, but there's definitely been a lot of non-devs commenting on this issue.
You can see this when they go off on some security tangent while the App Store is in fact host to thousands of malware in disguise. They trust that Apple is manually reviewing each and every App for security holes, that's why the App Store exists in the first place and totally why there's a 30% toll. I'm starting to imagine it's not really about security but about the illusion of security for a lot of people.
Unless people have specific evidence, the overwhelming majority of the time, these perceptions turn out to be illusory. Other commenters having different views than one's own does not constitute specific evidence (or rather, it's evidence merely that a topic is divisive). Plenty of past explanation here: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
Security and privacy are just like those 200 metres waterproof watches they were selling in the '80s. Most people who bought them hardly went deeper than their bathtub.
You buy the concept, and caring about the expensive details is a nice signal of affluence and self-esteem (I deserve this much security & privacy).
tangent, but that 200M rated depth matters even if you don't go deep underwater because it's only rated for static pressure, i.e. when the device/water aren't moving. Thrashing your arm around underwater will create momentary pressures much greater than the static pressure of a few feet of water. The temporary pressure from a wave at the beach hitting you can easily ruin a 50M watch.
On the iphone, if I buy a used phone and a scammer has popped a cheapo battery in to show no battery life slow down - apple alerts me (also unpopular on HN BTW).
If I buy an android phone from most carriers, their "security" involved pre-loading it with unremovable adware and tracking apps. This is more secure - are you serious?
The google play store has less malware? The permissions process for android apps has been terrible.
With apple, I can now give apps access to specific photos in my camera roll, it works great. It alerts me to folks doing background tracking and makes it easy to turn off (even after I said yes earlier).
What's nuts is that developers don't understand why consumers benefit or like this and want the DOJ to blow open this little bubble of sanity so they can push their crapware through or their auto-billing app stores through.
In the meantime, nothing stops a scammer from selling you a jailbroken device.
App permissioning has nothing to do with the App Store and it's hostile policies towards developers. You can set the same permissioning rules on rival devices as well.
The false narrative that the App Store exists to protect you needs to be dispelled forever. The trust consumers have to install any App in the App Store is far more terrifying.
Apple as an ecosystem that emphasizes trust. They believe they can charge a premium for this. Whether you think this should be "dispelled forever" is up to you - feel free to market your carriers phone however you want.
The app store, as the method that pricing, refunds, subscriptions etc are handled, is part of this story of trust or lack of trust.
And yes - apple does review use of permission by developers upon submission. Want to use a touch bar api, they may ask you to show how that feature is used in app (third party libs would use these features to help fingerprint machines etc). The irony - we've had people here complaining about how unfair it was their app was rejected (often because they link without knowing to some scam monetization library that abuses or tries to abuse apis).
What is incredible is that developers on HN seem to have no clue why people actually like what apple does. For example, when they notified you that you had a non-genuine battery - that was met with HN outrage. When they did things that made replacing certain key security sensitive parts harder (finger print sensor for unlock etc) - again outrage, and apparently they figured out a way to make it easier without losing security.
The name of the game these days is trust. Do you trust you telecom to ship a bloat free phone? Apple? The folks who have that trust are going to be able to charge a premium and gain more control.
The desire to have consumers installing any app from anywhere on the web that you can browse to using the web browser is FAR FAR more terrifying - but is what HN comments push over and over. Reality - when it comes time to buy their kids a phone, these same outraged HN folks - buy their kids an iphone :)
And yet, all top 10 apps currently on the App Store are considered the worst repeated violators of data privacy.
There's no need to pretend to be naive, PII does in fact go beyond telemetric touchbar behavior or your fingerprint sensor. The rest of what you said continues to have nothing to do with App Store review processes.
So true. They are so busy optimizing their dark patterns they don't understand why - in the big picture - clear pricing on subscriptions, easy cancellations etc - helps the entire ecosystem and brand. It's the tragedy of the commons I think.
Why should I read this website and take it seriously if I can't even read the cookie policy without accepting cookies, and when I actually do attempt to read the policy (thanks Reader Mode) I am told that to opt-out I have to disable cookies in my browser?
Looking further and reading their privacy policy in the section titled "Your European Rights", I see this:
> You have the right to ask us not to process your Personal Data for marketing purposes. We will usually inform you (before collecting your Personal Data) if we intend to use your Personal Data for such purposes or if we intend to disclose your information to any third party for such purposes. You can exercise your right to prevent such processing by checking certain boxes on the forms we use to collect your Personal Data.
This is backwards. It is my right to not have you process my personal data for marketing purposes unless I opt-in, not my right to opt-out. This is an important distinction, and the fact that they have a poorly worded privacy policy on this makes me feel like they didn't really do their due diligence on this very basic stuff.
Absolutely. I like the status quo and I'm not eager to find out what my new world will be like when the companies signaling that they don't really care about consumers have the power instead of Apple.
"does the fact that mr. crocodile eats small, flightless birds invalidate his argument that he can get me (a small, flightless bird) across the river faster than i could do so alone?"
I didn't say 'show me an example of how motivations can invalidate an argument', I am talking about this particular example - how does Epic et al's desire to make money invalidate their argument that Apple has a anti-competitive monopoly on the app store?
> No app store owner should prohibit third parties from offering competing app stores on the app store owner’s platform, or discourage developers or consumers from using them.
I don't disagree but does this mean Sony should allow, for example, Steam to be installed on the PS5? Or is the definition of "App Store" used here narrow and arbitrary?
Yes, it means Sony has to add Steam to PS5 or else it is narrow and arbitrary.
To me the iPhone is a console, end of story. If you like the console experience, it’s a great device. If you don’t, there are a million android and even alternative OS based phones out there which are more like a PC. If you want your phone to be a PC, you should do what most people around the world do and buy one of those.
Instead we have these companies who are trying to force Apple to sell PCs instead of consoles. It’s in their business interests, so I get it. But I hope it doesn’t work, because there are a lot of us (myself included) who really LIKE the console experience, both on iPhone and on PS4, and don’t want a PC experience on those devices.
From a purely technical stand point it may be true, but for a large chunk of the population, the smartphone is their one and only connection to the digital world. It controls their connection to their bank accounts, governments, news/discourse, family, friends, dating life, education (formal and informal), medical information, insurance policies, wayfinding, weather forecasts and emergency services.
For those with disabilities, it affords them a quality of life they might not otherwise have. For others still, it contains their most personal thoughts, ideas, dreams and memories.
One can certainly argue that because of all that, the app ecosystem should be tightly controlled. That's fair. But the smartphone has grown beyond a simple "nice-to-have" utility. It's a base-level necessity for modern life.
Since this trend is only accelerating, we need to recognize that and frame our discussions accordingly.
> But the smartphone has grown beyond a simple "nice-to-have" utility.
Lets frame the discussion accordingly indeed. Not all gaming machines are consoles and not all smartphones are iPhones.
Why should we prevent Sony from providing a console just because the PC is much more than a nice-to-have utility and their console competes with PC's? Apple is not a monopoly, and they are not even the majority of smart phones. Why should they be forced not to deliver a console experience (that many even if not the majority enjoy) simply because the category as a whole is an essential utilty?
Why should we enforce through law what can be perfectly well accomplished by people voting with their feet and just buying the smartphone devices that aren't walled gardens?
I don't particularly like Pepsi, and rather enjoy coka cola, but I'm not going to go out on a mad rager about how "cola products are abundant throughout our society, so we desperately need to force Pepsi to change their recipe to align with coka-colas because otherwise our society is going to suffer from drinking bad cola!"
If you don't like iPhones don't buy them. If you don't like consol don't buy them. But trying to argue that the pc is such a essential utility and that it competes in some subset of functionality and that no-one should therefore be allowed to produce or own consoles is just absurd.
I don't follow what point you're making. I mentioned nothing about monopolies, disallowing anyone from making a phone or console(?), nor Apple specifically. My comment was about smartphones in general.
It's pretty simple. Gaming consoles are primarily (almost exclusively) for entertainment.
Smartphones are for accessing information, essential services (ie. banking), directions, forecasts, and news. They also facilitate communicating with family, friends, business associates, emergency services and in many cases the government itself. Oh, they also contain our most intimate thoughts, plans, ideas and memories.
It's not even comparable. At all.
>I don't particularly like Pepsi, and rather enjoy coka cola, but I'm not going to go out on a mad rager ...
Absolutely terrible analogy. How about instead you were denied the right to own a smartphone? But were told it's okay because hey, you have a console! It's a perfect substitute!
> Absolutely terrible analogy. How about instead you were denied the right to own a smartphone?
Who exactly has been denied the right to own a smartphone? Speaking of terrible analogies...
You are repeatedly conflating the iPhone with all smartphones. Saying that the smartphone is a mandatory device does not contradict the idea that the iPhone (a specific luxury brand of smartphone) is not.
If you quote me, please don't omit the context. Which was:
How about instead you were denied the right to own a smartphone? But were told it's okay because hey, you have a console! It's a perfect substitute!
A game console is not, as I'm sure you'll agree, a substitute for a smartphone. Which is what the (intentionally ridiculous) hypothetical was illustrating. The analogy of the parent was Coke v. Pepsi, but that falls flat because one is near perfect substitute for the other (for the vast majority of people).
>You are repeatedly conflating the iPhone with all smartphones.
The parent said "the iPhone is a console, end of story" which means all smartphones are consoles.
I understand the context but I think you've actually largely misunderstood the point of the original poster you were quoting:
> To me the iPhone is a console, end of story.
That poster was suggesting the iPhone is an intentionally locked-down device similar to the way that consoles are locked-down devices. They also suggested there are alternative devices on the market (Android for smartphones, PCs for gaming) that are not locked-down for users who prefer that approach.
Whereas you've interpreted the original post to mean that smartphones have the same level of utility as consoles, but no one actually suggested that. So you jumping in to point out that smartphones are more useful than consoles is, while true, not really relevant to this particular discussion.
> The parent said "the iPhone is a console, end of story" which means all smartphones are consoles. Right?
No, see my above explanation. Regardless, they specifically used the word iPhone, why did you think it was appropriate to interpret that to mean all smartphones? If I said "a Ferrari is X" no one would reasonably interpret that to mean "all vehicles are X".
Try to re-read my comment detached from the original posters overall argument since I actually made no mention of it.
My problem (as I though was clear, perhaps not) is with dismissively equating (any) smartphone with consoles. Especially as it relates to business models and user freedoms. It's intellectually lazy and is especially a disservice when used dismissively ("end of story"). We can and should do better.
So you took a single sentence from an entire paragraph out of context and proceeded to post an elaborate counter-argument against an argument the original poster hadn't actually made? Literally the same thing you were complaining about two posts above?
No one actually suggested smartphones have the same level of utility as a console. The original point was that one specific aspect (tightly controlled software distribution) of one specific brand of phone (the iPhone) is similar to the console experience and is something certain users might actually prefer, which is an entirely fair point to make.
Lets say theoretically PC gaming didn't exist. If the only way to play games was with a console from Sony, Microsoft, or Nintendo do you really think they would be selling consoles at a loss[1]? PC gaming is what keeps consoles priced competitively. If smartphones are like consoles, then currently you can only buy consoles. Sure Android is a little bit more open than iOS but not by much. There's not a problem with the existence of walled gardens / console-like devices, but there needs to be options available that aren't so restricted. Currently 99% of the smartphone market is controlled by Apple and Google, neither of which are willing to give up their control so I think this is a case where some kind of intervention is required to introduce competition.
Only 10 years ago, none of what you said was true. Who knows what the world will look like 10 years from now. Basing policy on the current ephemeral norms rather than consistently applied principles seems ill-advised.
Also, even in a world where the mobile phone is that ubiquitous and important, there's no inherent societal obligation that one absolutely NEEDS to use a particular company's phone, especially in a market that has plenty of alternatives.
My comment was not about a particular company, nor was it advocating for any specific policy. It was merely illustrating why equating smartphones with consoles is foolish and lazy.
>Basing policy on the current ephemeral norms rather than consistently applied principles seems ill-advised.
I agree. What "consistently applied principle" did you interpret my comment to be against?
> I agree. What "consistently applied principle" did you interpret my comment to be against?
The principle that would be applied when considering game consoles. In other words, it's not "foolish" or "lazy", rather it is what consistently applying a principle looks like in practice. The perceived difference between user behavior or criticality on big glass app-based smartphones vs consoles is ephemeral.
>The principle that would be applied when considering game consoles.
What "principle" is that, specifically? I genuinely don't understand.
Is it my usage of disparaging terms? If so, that's fair. If not, can you articulate why the idea put forth that it's useless to compare consoles and smartphones is somehow violating a "first principle".
To summarize the conversation so far: burlesona extended an analogy by suggesting that console software lock-in is a feature that gamers seek out, and for those gamers that don't like it, there is a more than acceptable option that other gamers seek out. Their argument is that the principles that would apply with gaming consoles should also in theory also apply with app-based mobile phones.
You countered that it was a "ridiculous analogy" that it's "foolish" and "lazy" (really, try cordially engaging with an argument next time) — suggesting that mobile phones are more critical than game consoles because the former are practically a part of people's everyday life, and more than just a "nice-to-have".
I (and a couple others) responded by pointing out that the practical reality you pointed out is true now, but wasn't true as recently as 10 years ago, and that it's hard to know if it will continue to be true 10 years from now. I explicitly referred to this as an "ephemeral norm", and that basing policy on ephemeral norms rather than abstract principles is ill-advised, to which you agreed. The market conditions will most probably change as different technologies are invented, as has been the case for the last century.
Apple's walled garden is a feature to a lot of its customers (myself included), and people like me seek that out. For those customers that don't like it, there is a more than acceptable OS option (and many acceptable hardware options) that they may seek out. That is the abstract principle.
You misread my comment. I wasn't advocating for, or against, Apple or any other company. My comment applied to the entire smartphone market, and how it was different from the entire console market.
Saying that because a certain model (seemingly) works in consoles, that it should also work in phones is lazy thinking. Saying "the iPhone is a console, end of story" is a ridiculous analogy. It's also an analogy that exclusively comes from (predominantly white) wealthy westerners.
Try asking anyone not in the top 5% of the worlds wealth if a gaming console and a smart phone are of comparable importance. Then, ask them if smartphones and consoles should be afforded similar consideration and protections by their society.
You'll be laughed out of the room because there's no comparison. One gives them access to the entirety of the worlds knowledge, the ability to communicate with anyone in the world, and captures deeply intimate thoughts and ideas. While the other...?
It plays Grand Theft Auto[0].
The rest of your argument, seems to be that "the market will sort it out" and any interference with the space will stifle growth and innovation. Maybe. But I'm sorry, that's not a universal "first principle", that's an opinion. My opinion is that smart legislation could actually accelerate growth and innovation while at the same time enhancing user freedoms and protections. But that's getting off track and wasn't the point I was making:
Equating smartphones with gaming consoles is as intellectually lazy as it is troubling.
[0] I love GTA, and gaming in general, so this is not a knock on it.
> Try asking anyone not in the top 5% of the worlds wealth if a gaming console and a smart phone are of comparable importance. Then, ask them if smartphones and consoles should be afforded similar consideration and protections by their society.
You're not directly addressing the argument. Literally nobody here suggested that they are of comparable importance. Everyone concedes that smartphones are far more "important" than gaming consoles. The argument is that the "importance" of smartphones today is an ephemeral condition. You yourself agreed that basing policy on ephemeral trends is probably not a good idea, so the best way for you to stay internally consistent is to prove that this is somehow not an ephemeral norm.
> The rest of your argument, seems to be that "the market will sort it out" and any interference with the space will stifle growth and innovation. Maybe. But I'm sorry, that's not a universal "first principle", that's an opinion. My opinion is that smart legislation could actually accelerate growth and innovation while at the same time enhancing user freedoms and protections. But that's getting off track and wasn't the point I was making:
No, the central argument is that the current reality has only been true for < 10 years. That's not an opinion, that's an observation of history. And the definition of "user freedom" is blurry here, because some of us enjoy the freedom to use a tightly controlled operating system for our own convenience, and see the desire to break that up as a violation of our original choice. You might have a good point to make if consumers originally expected to have some level of control over their Apple phones, but people explicitly signed up for the opposite of that — we've always known that the walled garden was a part of the deal. You might also have a good point to make here if there was no alternative in the market, but just like PC's and Consoles, there is a more than acceptable alternative that's conveniently also cheaper and more within reach for the "non-5%". The entirety of the worlds knowledge, the ability to communicate with anyone in the world, and the deeply intimate thoughts / ideas are equally accessible on both platforms, and switching between the two is fairly straightforward considering most major services are provided on both platforms, and the credentials you would use to access your bank account or your medical records or your email work on both types of apps.
> Equating smartphones with gaming consoles is as intellectually lazy as it is troubling.
Again, you're really not addressing the central argument, and you're relying on insults to make your point. The central argument is that while there is undeniably an "importance gap" between the two, we ought to apply the same principles because the gap is ephemeral. If you really believe that the current norms are NOT ephemeral, make that case, you might even have a good point. But you don't need to attack the people making the argument, which undermines your case (and yes, calling an argument "lazy" and "ridiculous" and "troubling" is just a thinly veiled attack on the person).
> The central argument is that while there is undeniably an "importance gap" between the two, we ought to apply the same principles because the gap is ephemeral.
That's the argument you are trying to make this comment thread about. It has nothing to do with my objection to equating smartphones with consoles today (which I should remind, you is the comment you replied to). I only suggested that: "we need to recognize [the societal importance of smartphones] and frame our discussions accordingly." Equating smartphones with consoles diminishes their significance for the purpose of framing an argument in a certain way. It's just not helpful.
You're saying that my take somehow violates some universally "consistent first principle" because the current state is ephemeral. Yet, I made no claims about what one should think in the future. I described how it is now, and articulated that the trend is likely to continue. You seem to agree with my take on the current state and the trend right?
Then, you went off on a tangent and said the following:
>some of us enjoy the freedom to use a tightly controlled operating system for our own convenience
>the desire to break that up [is] a violation of our original choice.
>You might have a good point to make if consumers originally expected to have some level of control over their Apple phones, but people explicitly signed up for the opposite of that
>You might also have a good point to make here if there was no alternative in the market,
>are equally accessible on both platforms, and switching between the two is fairly straightforward
Whoa. You're arguing like 5 or 6 different point I never tried to make. It's like you saw the word "iPhone" and immediately went into super defensive mode. That's... uh.. shall we say, concerning.
What I did say was in support of (most of) what you've said above "One can certainly argue that because of all that, the app ecosystem should be tightly controlled. That's fair."
It's actually funny because despite what you've assumed, I'm actually an Apple user and developer. I've exclusively used their phones and computers for over a decade. I love them. In my living room (where I'm sitting right now), there are over $10k worth of Apple products. Yet somehow you keep assuming that I'm anti-Apple. And you're relentlessly countering arguments I never made. Stop it.
Please.. for the love of everything, re-read my comments now that you know I'm an avid Apple user. Note especially that I've pointed out (at least twice) that my comments are about the entire market and have nothing to do with individual manufacturers. I genuinely don't know how to make it any clearer than:
>My comment was not about a particular company, nor was it advocating for any specific policy.
>I wasn't advocating for, or against, Apple or any other company. My comment applied to the entire smartphone market, and how it was different from the entire console market.
So, what are you arguing? When you reply, try not to use the phrase "(universal) first principle". Your use of that phrase to describe an opinion comes across as condescending and arrogant.
> Equating smartphones with consoles diminishes their significance for the purpose of framing an argument in a certain way. It's just not helpful.
And I just made the case for why it's acceptable to equate the two despite the significance for smart phones.
> Whoa. You're arguing like 5 or 6 different point I never tried to make. It's like you saw the word "iPhone" and immediately went into super defensive mode. That's... uh.. shall we say, concerning.
I'm arguing 5 or 6 different points that explain why I think that the (very real) significance of smartphones isn't necessarily consequential to whether we ought to treat them like we treat game consoles.
> It's actually funny because despite what you've assumed, I'm actually an Apple user and developer. I've exclusively used their phones and computers for over a decade. I love them. In my living room (where I'm sitting right now), there are over $10k worth of Apple products. Yet somehow you keep assuming that I'm anti-Apple. And you're relentlessly countering arguments I never made. Stop it.
I don't think I ever made that assumption, and if I did, I apologize.
> So, what are you arguing? When you reply, try not to use the phrase "(universal) first principle". Your use of that phrase to describe an opinion comes across as condescending and arrogant.
I never used the phrase "first principle", so I'm not sure what you're on about. What I'm arguing is that we ought to pick a principle that can be consistently applied analogously. If you find an analog that you think is inappropriate (mobile vs console), try and identify why it's inappropriate. You did that by arguing that mobile phones are socially far more significant than consoles.
In my argument, I made the case that the analogy is in fact totally appropriate despite the fact that mobile phones are (in this moment) more significant, because the circumstances that make the two markets different are actually ephemeral.
Anyway, you've been fairly hostile in this entire conversation (more so than anyone else in the thread), so it's probably not worth my time to engage any further.
>you've been fairly hostile in this entire conversation
Fair. But I take offence at being told my ideas/thoughts are violating "consistently applied" (universal or wholly agreed upon) principles[0]. It's condescending and smug.
It's especially annoying when you can't seem to clearly articulate what that principle is, or why it trumps the principle that "we should do what is best for society and the economy" that I am putting forth.
[0] Technically, you're right. You didn't say "first principle" so I apologize for that. However, you did say "consistently applied principles" and the gist is pretty much the same (as in "it's a universally agreed upon truth").
Nothing you are saying is false, but why can't people who want a different experience just buy an Android or alternative phone? A smartphone may be an essential utility, but an iPhone specifically is not.
I feel your argument is like saying I want my car to be gas-powered and I want it to be a Tesla. It doesn't matter that it that many other manufacturers exist, I demand Tesla make gas-powered cars so that I can buy a Tesla and run it on the energy source of my choice.
Absolutely. The iPhone is actually a "nice to have" utility. A $100 phone from Walmart will fulfill the "base-level necessities for modern life." The game console is an awesome analogy.
Making laws based on ephemeral societal standards lays groundwork for abuse. I would rather a law on the technicality of things, than opinions and feelings.
I agree actually. This is indeed a great argument for Apple's approach.
FYI, I'm not necessarily in the "open up IOS" camp. In my comment above I'm only claiming to be in the "equating smartphones with consoles is lazy" camp :-)
That is not true, people think they couldn't survive without their smartphones but anecdotally, and as a systems engineer, I feel free without it. I use a PC for work and play, but not having a computer in my pocket constantly spamming me with trivial notifications helps me delineate life and the digital world. I used to waste way too much time on my smartphone as well, with a daily screen time of 5 hours, so now I find that I've got more time for hobbies, friends & family. </anecdote>
Most of the world doesn't have toilets, running water or democratically elected governments either. But in the west those are still considered "necessities".
I'm not equating the need for a smartphone with the above things, of course. The point is that "necessity" in this context is relative to those you compete with, and is not a binary black or white. It's a scale of grey.
In my opinion, having an informed, engaged, educated, and well connected populace is indeed a necessity. The smartphone (+ the internet) facilitates that better than any invention since the printing press IMHO.
This would be true if iPhone would be only a toy. But it's also the only source of person-to-person communication, source of news and primary computing device for large part of USA population.
And that makes it very different from a PS5. By market share. By use. By impact. And IMPACT is what we're measuring here.
The fact that is is my primary communication device is the REASON I want my iPhone to be a console. I'm paying extra for it.
But this is very important: Nobody has to buy an iPhone. The majority of people around the world buy Android, which does allow side-loading. If you need side-loading as a feature, you have many, many options available.
There's no coercion of consumers going on. There's no mandate to buy an iPhone or to use any part of the Apple ecosystem, and there are abundant alternatives.
Ultimately these arguments against the Apple model are very judgmental and paternalistic. "I think that Experience X is the only morally right thing, thus society must prohibit people who bought and like Experience Y from enjoying it, because I think it's morally wrong."
To me that's a really dangerous line of thinking, and I hope it fails in court.
Where do you draw the line, though? PlayStation / Xbox are basically computers from a technical standpoint. They have hundreds of millions of users. They also store your personal data and credit card information should you provide it.
Not to consumers, it's replacing the computer market (especially in the developed world) and even Apple themselves market their products as computer replacements.
But that shouldn’t be an imposition on Apple to make an identical experience to what it’s replacing. It can be both a console and a replacement to a computer. The intended purpose of the two can be the same but have a different way of going about it.
This is so ridiculous. Do you sign into your bank or trade stocks on your XBox? Where would you access important documents outside of your desktop/laptop?
Playstation Network does store my credit card details on file for future purchases. It stores my personal data. It also has a web browser that could be used for pretty much anything.
Well, then the good thing for you is that you have to simply not install those other stores, and keep buying from Apple's official app store. Why prevent other users/devs from using them?
"console" doesn't mean much. Phone is special because for how humans actually live, having one phone is strong preferred over 5. But habit consoles isn't as much of a big deal. And despite what the binary thinkers claim, how humans actually live matters in law, at least as long as companies insist upon the peculiar formation of intellectual property rights.
Because it can’t be both ways. If tomorrow Facebook decides to only offer its app only through Epic App Store, consumers now have reckon with a privacy compromised app. And Apple now has to spend tons more resources playing a failing game of whack a mole closing all sorts of security and privacy holes that could have been avoided if the misbehaving apps weren’t allowed in the first place. Lots of people buy an iPhone for the walled garden, peace of mind experience.
Most of the recent jailbreaks involve Safari vulnerabilities, so you don't even need to install an app to compromise your iPhone, the walled garden is just security through obscurity.
That's like saying "let's compare species of ants on Africa, Asia, America vs Antarctica", you would need to melt the ice first; iOS is uncharted territory.
No it isn’t. iOS have had malware problems as well as a result of people jailbreaking their device to install software from third-parties. Apple fortunately makes it increasingly difficult to jailbreak it.
We can also see that Apple were unable to protect their OSX devices as a result of allowing third-party app installations.
You can have a PC experience by buying literally any non-Apple phone. There are hundreds to choose from. The large majority of phones sold around the world are, in fact, not made by Apple.
What gives people who prefer the PC experience the right to ban consoles from existing?
No it does not. Sony isn't like Apple. I can freely buy things in / for PlayStation games with my credit card. Not so in iOS apps. There all payment goes through Apple, taking an additional 30% cut above the 30% cut of the app price. Neither Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo does this.
This is not true, they all take a cut, please provide proof of an app/game on one of these platforms not taking a cut if you are going to make a claim like that. It's ~30% but it can vary.
> To me the iPhone is a console, end of story. If you like the console experience, it’s a great device. If you don’t, there are a million android and even alternative OS based phones out there which are more like a PC. If you want your phone to be a PC, you should do what most people around the world do and buy one of those.
This! A hundred times over, and over again.
An iPhone is an iPhone, competing with a million other phones (well, maybe thousands).
An iPad however, is another story, as Apple themselves like to push it as a general purpose "computer". Maybe that's why they forked out iPadOS, so that if they're ever forced to make changes based on device classification they could limit those changes to the iPad?
> For most purchases made within its App Store, Apple takes 30% of the purchase price. No other transaction fee — in any industry — comes close.
This is a straight-up lie and Epic, being in the gaming industry, knows it. Steam takes the same 30% (unless you're huge) and is Epic's direct competitor on PC. Not to mention every other gaming platform[1].
> This is a straight-up lie and Epic, being in the gaming industry, knows it. Steam takes the same 30% (unless you're huge) and is Epic's direct competitor on PC. Not to mention every other gaming platform[1].
And Epic managed to fight this by offering a store that takes a lesser maragin. Something Epic or anyone else is ever allowed to do on Apple due to how they deliberately built the product.
If anything, the Steam situation is the perfect example of how broken the mobile world is when it comes to enabling competition.
I think the the underlying game here is that epic wants to run its own app stores. It's not allowed to do that because every platform has followed Apple's model and mandated that theirs is the one and only app store on each platform.
Otherwise we end up with many app stores, which requires users to care about where they get candy crush... You can pay more or less at each store, and have different probabilities of picking up some terrible malware based on your decisions. On the flip side, we might see lots of apps using weird disallowed OS functionality in off-brand stores, leading to a second round of innovation in apps.
Realistically, it ends with many stores of varying quality and mark up. People brainwashed enough to pay the apple tax will probably continue paying the apple tax, for the most part. But the overall game changes substantially.
I generally support the "fight" against the Apple tax but I'd have to agree that this is grossly misleading.
Apple is doing much more than providing transaction services in exchange for their cut.
Whether or not what they do is actually worth 30% is up for debate (IMHO), but it's dishonest to say that that their cut is merely a "transaction fee".
It isn't a lie. Steam takes a cut too yes, but Apple takes a cut after that 30% you mention. You don't pay 30% to Steam from in-app purchases. No one except Apple force you to use its payment system and take an additional 30% cut after the first 30% cut of the app price. Unless you are a small indie developer you end up paying way more to Apple than any other platform.
I don't think this is true. I don't own that many games on steam that offer in-app purchases, but monster hunter's redirect you to the steam storefront, and steam definitely takes their cut of those.
What? They still force you to list DLC in steam store listings and to use the steam system (aka 30%) unless you have a special contract with them like apple does with Amazon.
Also why limit to app stores. I want to sell my own cosmetics on their fortnite item store (jk, I don’t). Valve allows that for games like CSGO, if I understand that correctly. The whole „they build a platform, I want a part“ is weird.
Because app stores are acting as platforms as well as used to restrict third parties and improve first party products. Does Fortnite even have a platform for developing cosmetics and selling them? If not, then this argument misses the mark.
Why isn't Epic forced to make it a platform? They have a large captive audience with money and I want a cut of it. Opening it up to everyone will drive competition to the digital skin market, and as we all know from this thread, that's a good thing. Why does Epic get to monopolize their game's monetization?
That is a silly oxymoron. One game doesn't constitute a monopoly; users who don't like it for whatever reason can go play any one of the vast number of games that computing has produced for half a century.
What you're saying is like why should Burger King have a "monopoly" on what sauce goes into a Whopper? Gosh, darn it, the market should be open so that you can order a Whopper with MacDonald's Big Mac special sauce.
Yes. Exactly why the Epic store is not a monopoly. There are alternative stores available. There is no alternative to the App Store on iOS so one cannot go sell in another store.
Games and sports are usually their own artificial sub-context with intentional limitations and scarcity of items, rather than following the real-world market and having item cost being based on time to develop.
For example it's obvious that you could produce Pikachu Illustrator cards (https://i.imgur.com/Q9kUFq8.png) for far less than the $200,000 one sold for. Or create a new card with arbitrarily high stats.
I don't think it's reasonable to expect regular market rules to apply to a game, or vice versa.
> Why does Epic get to monopolize their game's monetization?
The answer to this question is quite obviously that the smart phone market is much much larger, and has a much higher impact on society, than an in game cosmetics market.
This is what courts care about. They care about real life consumer impact.
And anyone who is not stupid, or intentionally trying to mislead people, can understand than the smart phone market matters a whole lot more, than an singular in game cosmetics market, which means that preventing monopolization in the phone market is way more important.
How exactly are consumers impacted by Apple's App Store? Other than having a consistently good experience where they are safe from malicious actors, privacy violations, manipulative subscriptions, malware, etc.
> Apple has manipulated its rules and policies to disadvantage Tile, a popular Bluetooth finding hardware and app developer, in favor of its competing Find My App.
> if a Kindle customer wants to purchase an ebook from the Kindle iPhone app, they’re met with a confusing situation: consumers can search for books, even read samples, but there’s no option to purchase. I
Take it up with Amazon. Kindle gets a free ride on the App Store because they do this. They could allow purchasing through the app but they choose not to because they don't want to give Apple a cut.
Not being able to use apps that Apple deem inappropriate: there's no PornHub app for anyone who wants that. Or more recently Microsoft's xCloud streaming app has been blocked even though it's not different than something like Netflix.
To show good faith, I will wholeheartedly agree that allowing Netflix and Spotify but not allowing xCloud, Stadia, Facebook Gaming, and now presumably Luna will be the straw that breaks the camel's back, moreso than Epic et al. There is no practical distinction between streaming video frames of The Witcher from Netflix and The Witcher 3 from xCloud.
Edit: Genuine question. Is it common for any mix-use store, physical or digital, to have hardcore pornography available?
And that's why to me the issue isn't Apple's App Store, but rather Apple App Store's monopoly on iOS apps. I'm not asking for those apps to be on the App Store, but I think as an owner of the device, I should be able to get whatever app I want on MY device.
It may seem that way but I am 100% sincere. Of course, those questions are rhetorical because I know what the answer I will hear is and I believe the same answer applies to Apple. If you believe that rules apply to one multi-billion dollar company but not to another, I want you to at least sweat a little bit in defending it because it sounds absolutely ridiculous to me. The conclusion I'm seeing is that if you want to be a consumer-hostile monopoly, you better do it in a market that's bigger than all other forms of entertainment but isn't critical to day-to-day life like, say, video games.
Bethesda and valve tried this with skyrim paid mods, it didn't go over well and valve canceled it. They tried again with creation club, but it's not too popular. https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Creation_Club#History
Well it depends on what your bar is for a monopoly. E.g. I can only use Comcast where I live. Comcast is not technically a monopoly - I could move somewhere else where other providers are available. But the friction to change is high enough that they effectively are a monopoly to me.
No company is a monopoly if you are flexible enough. Where antitrust starts to become relevant is a bit of an arbitrary line. If you think "mobile phones" is the industry then Apple does not have a monopoly. But there are many people who would put up with a lot before switching from iOS to Android, because of apps, iCloud, iMessaging, or whatever.
iOS is a product in a larger market. It is not the market itself. There are other products in the market in which iOS is a product, and there's nothing stopping more entrants (besides the enormous engineering/business effort, the likes of which have already been undertaken by current players like Apple/Google).
Your argument would be equally invalid if you were to say Uber is a monopoly because Lyft can't get a slice of the profits from Uber drivers, or that Pepsi is a monopoly because Coca-Cola receives no royalties from sales of Pepsi products.
Dominoes is not a monopoly. They make pizzas in a market that is larger than just Dominoes' pizzas. Nobody could reasonably argue that Dominoes is a monopoly just because you can't purchase Pizza Hut pizza at a Dominoes location.
> Since 2011, Google has imposed illegal restrictions on Android device manufacturers and mobile network operators to cement its dominant position in general internet search.
> In particular, Google:
> - has required manufacturers to pre-install the Google Search app and browser app (Chrome), as a condition for licensing Google's app store (the Play Store);
> - made payments to certain large manufacturers and mobile network operators on condition that they exclusively pre-installed the Google Search app on their devices; and
> - has prevented manufacturers wishing to pre-install Google apps from selling even a single smart mobile device running on alternative versions of Android that were not approved by Google (so-called "Android forks").
None of this describes anything Apple does. I don't think this ruling means what you think it means. It's talking about the _combination_ of search engine, licensing the OS to hardware vendors, _and_ the Google app store. None of those on their own led to this ruling.
It's all about how Google controls the licensing of Android, by controlling hardware vendor's licensing of other flavors of Android. (edit to add: and how this all feeds back into their search engine dominance. That is another point the linked document repeats on multiple occasions.)
> As a licensable operating system, Android is different from operating systems exclusively used by vertically integrated developers (like Apple iOS or Blackberry). Those are not part of the same market because they are not available for licence by third party device manufacturers.
Maybe it should be something like, "if your platform doesn't allow side loading of other apps, or other app stores, then the store on that platform can take no more than X% commission on sales"
There is a menu item labeled 'Add A Non-Steam Game To My Library', after adding you can also use steam's compatibility tools (Proton, or DOSBox or whatever custom compatibility tools) with the games as well.
As a user, I don't want more app stores all over my phone. I don't want more app stores all over my game console or PC either. Compare it to the Windows gaming world, where if you want game 1, you need to go to store A, if you want game 2, you need to install store B, if you want game 3, you need to install store C. Yuck! What end user wants that hassle?
I would definitely want more app stores on my game console. Sometimes the deals are just not there, for PC it has a lot of options, and it has been good for consumers, Epic store has been giving away free games like it was going out of business
> Or is the definition of "App Store" used here narrow and arbitrary?
The whole thing is narrow and arbitary in service of the dishonesty of the companies involved. If they care about choice, why is Epic forcing me to install their store to access games on a PC or phone? If they care about consumer choice, why can fans of Joe Rogan no longer access his material without becoming Spotify customers? Why do Epic and Spotify not have the courage to compete on a level playing field?
None of this is aimed at consumer choice. None of the companies have a commitment to that, or I could have downloaded Borderlands 3 for the PC on the same day via Steam, the Epic Game store, or the Windows store. Instead, Epic chose to make it an exclusive to prevent consumer choice.
> I don't disagree but does this mean Sony should allow, for example, Steam to be installed on the PS5?
That would be great for the hundreds of millions (billions?) of consumers and thousands of developers in the global game industry, but bad for exactly 3 companies: Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft.
It would also largely undo the business model of having consoles in the first place, and likely result in there never being another gaming console.
Which would be bad for a whole lot of businesses besides Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft, and for a whole bunch of consumers who really like the console gaming experience as distinct from PC.
Yup, it's why the NES beat out Atari. They had strict control over the quality of games published for their console and so everyone bought NESs over Ataris.
And if consoles are forced to allow alternative stores, we won't be able to buy these consoles at the current prices as they won't be subsidised anymore. Loss for consumers
Well they never want to take this to its logical conclusion which is every manufacturer would have to provide the means for anyone, including direct competitors, a means to sell software through their device.
So do we also force any app store owner to also provide access to their payment services as well? If Apple is forced to open the iPhone do they also have to grant access to the phones secure means of payments? This sounds like a paradise for world intelligence agencies.
So what prevents Apple from permitting third party stores but still restricting that only signed and reviewed applications can run?
> which is every manufacturer would have to provide the means for anyone, including direct competitors, a means to sell software through their device.
Nope! This is not true.
The court case is only regarding companies that have significant market power.
So, if a device manufacturer does not have significant market power, then the court case, which is regarding section 2 if the Sherman anti trust act, would not apply and they would not be forced to do anything.
> So what prevents Apple from permitting third party stores but still restricting that only signed and reviewed applications can run?
What prevents them is that they have significant and durable market power, and that their behavior is anti competitive.
Why would they have to open up secure payments? Is that an API that first party apps on the App Store access? Or are the apps that access it part of the operating system?
This is mostly targeted at apps like Apple Music where Apple allows deep Siri integration without allowing the same to competing apps.
They added support in the last year or so on iOS an CarPlay if you say “Play something on Spotify”, but it will not be default. They gave themselves an advantage there for years.
The most underrated thing we might get with multiple app stores:
Devs do not need anymore XCode or a Mac to develop for iOS since Apple couldn't enforce any specific runtime or proprietary tool-chains anymore. I have an extra Macbook lying around here just for that reason.
Who knows if Google will then offer Android Studio for iOS or Facebook a real React Native. Good times ahead and I cross my fingers. You don't have to like Epic, Spotify or Tinder but if they're successful developers in particular will benefit due to a richer iOS dev ecosystem.
That's such an arbitrary delineation. What consoles or in-app markets? Should epic also be forced to allow arbitrary third party on fornite store for example and Nintendo the switch? And why limit it to digital markets?
I feel like this is like trying to legislate walmart into leasing floor space to set up their own shops just because they don't want to pay their own stocking fees. It just makes no sense as anything other than a blatant attempt at regulatory capture which I'd argue is far more anti-competitive and extractive in spirit than what Apple/Google are doing.
The pro competitive move for these companies should do is team up with each other and create their own ecosystem like what Google did with Chrome and Android when they were freaked out at the prospects of an Apple and Microsoft controlled mobile space.
If they truly think they can provide so much more value to both devs and users but for the 30% app store fee then please actually do so and we'll all be better off. It's not like they're short on capital collectively.
Apple built their controlled ecosystem and set their rules. And now others are insisting that Apple should not have that control (even when they themselves are doing the same thing).
And furthermore, the Apple ecosystem is so popular because Apple curates the app store. I recommend their stuff to my non-techie relatives because I trust that they're not going to stumble their way into installing malware from some weird knockoff from Elbonia.
With an iPhone, for better or for worse, I can point them at the App Store... app... ("say 'app' again! I dare you!") and be reasonably confident they're getting the official Instagram app. There are multiple apps with "Instagram" in the name, but the official one is the top search result.
Contrast with the Chrome Web Store. The search results for "Instagram"[0] have a bunch of results from who-knows-where, and many of them contain the official logo somewhere inside their preview image. They all look they could be the real thing, but as far as I can tell, none of them are.
Going to the family's house for holidays use to mean spending some time cleaning the weird programs off of the in-laws' computer. Now it means uninstalling the odd Chrome extensions they've manage to find, and making them change their website passwords.
If it ever becomes super easy for Apple users to install random software they find on the Internet, I am throwing my older family members' iPhones into a lake and giving them a flip phone.
But it is impossible to bypass the store for any normal person.
Think about it, you are a normal person who wants to continue to use an application and for some reason the dev has been kicked out of the store (this often happens and the devs often have no idea why or how). You would be frustrated no?
Not to mention the mental stress of the poor devs which are subject to inhuman automated responses, neglect, and abuse by Apple/Google. Apple/Google is essentially shutting down small businesses arbitrarily and remorselessly. The only way action happens is if the dev somehow gets enough attention on sites like this that Apple is forced to act.
These tech monopolies have MORE than enough money for a customer/creator/dev service department - they just don't care, or, perhaps, maliciously use the lack of one to control their platform: "Oops sorry, you have been talking to our super-smart infallible AI, we don't know why its acting this way, but we are sure its right! You have one week to fix the issues - have a nice day!"
So I’m not sure what point you are arguing but it’s either that consumers are stupid and don’t really want a secure phone and walled garden and would want to take that choice away from customers by law.
Or that Apple needs to charge less for access to the App Store while also spending more money (to stop the inhuman auto replies and actions)
Apple has more than enough money to both protect users and actually help developers - it doesn't need to squeeze them. For example, why isn't it a one-time fee for the initial scan? Why must they take a share of every purchase.
Without competition (like gasp competing app stores) Apple will continue to be negligent to devs and ban applications that compete with their services.
For example, the Apple watch without cellular cannot use Spotify in offline mode since that would compete with Apple music. My girlfriend and I had to find this out after the purchase and completely defeated the purpose of buying the product for her workouts.
You start off with Apple has enough money and supposing that you know better how to run a successful App Store than the company with the most successful App Store. Maybe the App Store is so successful because it’s customers are the people that own the phone not the devs. I know I absolutely don’t want competing app stores, that ends with fragmentation and having to deal with a pile of installed app stores to download a couple of apps. It also means that apps will go to the least restrictive stores that let them get away with the shadiest anti-consumer practices.
I’ve not run into the Spotify issue. I don’t listen to music from my watch, but I agree that is annoying. The alternative sounds so much worse and why I stay away from Android.
Lets replace "Apple" in your response with AT&T. "You think you know better how to run a successful phone service than a company with the most successful one?". No, I don't exactly, but I have enough common sense to see that they are doing wrong.
And sure they have the most successful (and only) app store compared to the only other app store.
But yea fragmentation/choice is just awful and without a doubt will lead to a less rich experience... totally
Your reply comes off as very authoritarian and controlling. If you like the app store then you should have the choice to use it. What you are saying is that devs shouldn't have access to other options because you dont understand why they wouldn't use the perfect one already there.
>Your reply comes off as very authoritarian and controlling. If you like the app store then you should have the choice to use it. What you are saying is that devs shouldn't have access to other options because you dont understand why they wouldn't use the perfect one already there.
Oh, I get that the App Store isn't perfect for developers. That's perfectly fine though. My concern is end users, not developers (software developers aren't benevolent actors).
Developers, such as Facebook, haven't exactly conducted themselves in a way to earn my trust. I'm happy to see them ensnared in the App Store's rules (at least the ones pertaining to privacy, security and general user experience). There's a reason you see users (even right here on HN) celebrating when Apple imposes an ever growing risk of privacy policies on developers. It's because users have learned we cannot trust developers.
> For example, the Apple watch without cellular cannot use Spotify in offline mode since that would compete with Apple music.
IIRC this is related to Spotify's music licensing agreements only permitting streaming and not copying of music and has nothing to do with Apple itself. I don't believe there are any technical restrictions preventing Spotify from implementing offline playback on the watch, they simply have chosen not to do so.
iOS has around 70% share of mobile app revenue and most of the premium customers. If you're building a business, media or communication tool you can't compete without an iOS app.
Apple's "walled garden" approach is exactly the reason why they have gathered 70% share of mobile app revenue. One of the reasons is that people feel generally more safe on iOS because there's almost no malware there. The other is that Android being more "open" actually hurts the developers because there's rampant piracy on Google's OS [1]. On iOS piracy is almost non-existing (unless one jailbreaks their phone which nowadays pretty much no one does [2]).
> Standard Oil dominated the oil products market initially through horizontal integration in the refining sector, then, in later years vertical integration; the company was an innovator in the development of the business trust.
Horizontal then vertical integration is exactly what Epic is doing, by first getting onto a bunch of platforms and app stores, then creating their own app stores and auxiliary purchasable items. Apple has always been vertically integrating, when have they horizontally integrated? AFAIK they've always been a platform into which other companies, like Microsoft with their original Office suite, have horizontally integrated.
> The Standard Oil trust streamlined production and logistics, lowered costs, and undercut competitors.
The group of companies coming together to form this advocacy group is a trust. Apple is not.
From Wikipedia's entry on US v AT&T [1]:
> [AT&T was] using monopoly profits from its Western Electric subsidiary to subsidize the costs of its network
Companies selling apps on the app store are not subsidiaries of Apple, they are customers of Apple. A company reinvesting profits into itself is not anticompetitive. Maybe you had a different idea of why AT&T relates to Apple, but I don't see it.
Notice how those two companies were broken up for abusing their positions in different ways? Weird, huh? It's almost like the issue was them abusing their positions, not how they were put together?
I'll save you some additional wikipedia searches:
Microsoft was under significant legal assault for bundling its browser with its operating system. It paid out billions of dollars and was forced to allow computer manufacturers to bundle other browsers.
Ok now compare the iPhone's market share to Standard Oil and AT&T's market share at the time of their breakup. One of these things is not like the others.
It's about power. The importance of mobile platforms has grown over the past decade. Apple is in a much different position now than they were when the app store started. It makes some sense that opinions on that have changed.
>And now others are insisting that Apple should not have that control (even when they themselves are doing the same thing).
Exactly Apple organized developers, giving the developers a collective power to rival Apple's unilateral dictatorship...sure Apple could call their bluff like they always do with any one single developer, except if these developers collectively withdraw from the Apple ecosystem in mass, Apple would lose developers/market share/market cap.
Now if only consumers would collectively organize against big tech in the same fashion, big tech wouldn't seem so big, and consumer could begin to dictate how these platforms collect use their data.
I think you're right. Although I'm with Apple on this one, in other contexts I've made the argument that I want my markets free as in GPL, not free as in BSD. That is, I want the market itself to be free, even if that means its participants have some restrictions.
Actually, in this case I guess that means I like the restrictions that Apple's app store places on developers. Sure, lose the ability to publish malware and other profitable things, but that protects my ability to use it peacefully.
It's using an advantage in one area to force concessions in an unrelated area that I believe is illegal.
For example, Microsoft had an effective monopoly over PC operating systems.
That was unfortunate, but not illegal.
It was when they used that monopoly to disadvantage a rival browser maker --- Netscape -- that they broke anti-trust law.
I'm most interested in seeing what happens over Apple's decisions to force app providers to use Apple Sign-in if the offer any other 3rd party SSO.
As a developer, I may have valid security concerns regarding Apple Sign-in.
So their app store dominance seems unrelated to SSO infrastructure. And I don't fully understand how they can force me to use it if I decide to support Google or Facebook SSO in my app.
So I do wonder if that is an anti-trust violation.
> It's using an advantage in one area to force concessions in an unrelated area that I believe is illegal.
Can you find me a single example of a monopoly (excluding regulated utilities) that don't use their power to force concessions in an unrelated area? What's the point otherwise?
We are at a state where these tech companies have the same value as countries and entire stock indexes. It is obscene, and yet they make their devices more locked down, harder/ILLEGAL! to fix by paying off politicians both to not enforce laws and to write them in their favor at the expense of smaller competition.
The merger of state and corporate powers is complete. We live in a fascist world with surveillance that Stalin could only dream of.
And if you want to install whichever apps you want, AND not be spied on by your OS, there are basically no options.
Linageos is a possibility, but with the play services situation, running any mainstream app without phoning home to google is if not impossible, extremely difficult and filled with footguns.
Pine and Librem are exciting emerging possibilities but they have only been available for a very short time so it remains to be seen what will happen there.
When people talk about Apple having a monopoly they're referring to Apple having complete control over the sale of iOS software. There is no one else in that market. Apple has 100% market share.
There are other people in the _mobile software_ market; if the argument for monopoly requires being as specific as _mobile software that operates on a specific manufacturer of a minority of all phones_ then perhaps it's not a monopoly at all.
Correct. The relevant terms are "horizontal monopoly" and "vertical monopoly."
A horizontal monopoly is if one company made all the cars.
A vertical monopoly is if one car manufacturer owned all the roads in Detroit and only their cars were authorized to drive on those roads.
Apple is a vertical monopoly across its hardware, the software that runs on that hardware (they don't own the software, but they own the distribution channel), and some of the suppliers that manufacture components for the hardware.
> A vertical monopoly is if one car manufacturer owned all the roads in Detroit and only their cars were authorized to drive on those roads.
That's not a good analogy. It's more like if you bought X's car model and X had a policy that you could only buy official, certified parts from certified dealers through which they get a cut. (App Store)
You can go for after market parts but if you break the car it's on you. ("Jailbreaking" AKA flashing your device)
Sorry but a market consisting of a single manufacturer's own product is generally not considered a valid antitrust market for legal purposes. You can't simply declare an arbitrarily narrow market like this because every manufacturer would then have a monopoly over its own products.
you don't need to have a literal monopoly to engage in illegal anticompetitive behaviour, nor is having a monopoly even illegal. Apple has monopoly-like control over the mobile app market - if you don't make an iPhone app, your product is dead in the water. and apple is using that power to crush any competition to their own in-app payment solution.
Or maybe the reason iOS users spend more is because iOS users generally have more spendable money? As signaled by them having bought an expensive device.
All of this depends on how the market is defined. If we use iPhone users as the market, then Apple is clearly a monopoly. If we use smartphones or computing devices, then Apple is not. Time will tell, and lots of lawyers are going to get paid a lot of money to argue this one out.
Ok, then why doesn't Coca-Cola Inc. let other companies' sell their beverage from Coca-Cola vending machines? Clearly they have a monopoly on Coca-Cola vending machines...
Yea and Google doesn't do the same sh*t as Apple? Looking at it this way, it is impossible to avoid abusive and increasingly vague and restrictive store policies..
You think there is a chance in hell Apple and Google are not going to continue the trend of restricting devs and taking bigger profit shares for the "privilege" of being in the store? Its only going to get worse. Good for them for standing up.
Except in the retail world, there's competition between stores. Competition is non-existent in the mobile world, there's only two companies and both have the exact same fees and very similar policies.
> They can clearly afford to do so, but it seems like they just don’t feel the need to make the investment.
Is it clear? If it's that easy, how did Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon all fail in their efforts to break into that market?
It seems much simpler to force Apple to follow fair trade rules on the marketplace, than to force every other company to develop their own OS and hardware. Furthermore, the latter option basically bars anyone who isn't already in control of a large corporation from entering the mobile app market without Apple's blessing.
That's because of the market lock-in and power of both companies, you can't use any of the Apple stack and Android without the Play Store is a commercial death sentence.
Epic could market the device at first to their own customers, many of whom are kids who don’t need banking apps.
Network effects are strong, but not impossible to overcome. All they need to do is sell the device to users who don’t care about banking apps for long enough for banking apps to be uploaded to their store.
As for the the deal with OnePlus and LG. I don’t believe it was anything like what I am suggesting - that was just a co-marketing effort.
They weren’t going to create a new and open platform based on Android.
The argument that nobody can ever compete against Android no matter what they do is a weak one.
The iPod was an incredibly niche device when it was launched.
There is a proven market for handheld gaming platforms that don’t run banking apps. Epic could start there and build out, just like Apple did.
They could create a device targeting kids with games, nice controls and everything but it would just be another kind of PSVita at the end with Sony and Nintendo as competitors... It would never be a device competing in the mobile app market.
So yeah, they could do that but it would be pointless.
That's not what defines the mobile app market, what makes the mobile app market is that the device can replace a computer. Even if you could put a SIM card into a Nintendo Switch, that would still just be a Nintendo Switch.
Please refrain from breaking the site guidelines by complaining about good faith.
Are you saying that nobody can ever successfully sell a handheld gaming device again?
People in fact do buy handheld devices that play games, and there is no reason Epic cannot enter the handheld gaming market.
If they can sell a handheld gaming device, they can make that device cellular, and they can add an App Store. People won’t buy it as a phone or to run app initially, but if they sell it successfully as a gaming device, they can use that success to attract more apps to the store.
> People in fact do buy handheld devices that play games
But do people buy devices exclusively for playing handheld games? The 3DS is now officially out of production (and hadn’t had first party games in years, IIRC) and the Vita has been dead for longer. That leaves the Nintendo Switch, and while the Lite does exclusively play games in handheld mode, it plays the entire library of Switch games, including ones that were originally only designed for home consoles. And Nintendo created the dedicated gaming handheld market and was the uninterrupted leader and as often as not %70+ marketshare monopoly ever since Gunpei Yokoi made the Game&Watch AFAIK.
Apple holds ~40% of the US smartphone market[0], and >50% of mobile revenue from app store purchases[1]. Apple is one half of a duopoly.
The citations of global mobile device market share are deceptive. It is not necessary for US regulators to prove that Apple has a monopoly in India to prove that they are engaged in anticompetitive behaviors in the US. If you want to make money as a mobile app developer, deciding not to support iOS can be a crippling decision. You don't really have a choice[2].
[2]: That ends up being the much more interesting argument anyway, because Apple advocates mostly want Apple to be able to force developers to jump through hoops. I've seen a lot of arguments on this topic that say that 3rd-party app stores would be a disaster because companies wouldn't be de-facto forced to distribute through the primary app store.
For those people, the duopoly and monopolistic power structures are the point -- they're not debating whether or not Apple is so powerful that it's taking away developer choice. They want Apple to take away developer choice.
I disagree with those people, but I find their position to be much more compelling than, "India uses Android, so the US can't regulate its own market."
Why do you not have a choice? If your product is not stocked in Walmart or Amazon, who make up the bulk of U.S. retail, can you not make money? Having your app exclusively on Android can make plenty of money. Epic makes plenty of money on other platforms. Many game publishers are successful publishing exclusively for one console. Pandora was fine before mobile apps. Many dating websites exist. 40% of a particular segment of the computing sector in a market as huge as the US does not monopoly make.
It's not a question of whether you can "make plenty of money". It's whether we want to allow private regulation of markets. Right now Google and Apple are the regulators of the mobile app market - the public has no say in how those marketplaces are run, and both companies use their ownership of the OS platforms to enforce this market control.
Antitrust actions are aimed at restoring public oversight over public markets. Two companies should not have the ability to lock developers entirely out the mobile app market.
I think it's important to consider whether the "mobile app market" should be considered a separate entity from the "software" market. Arguably almost all the functionality of mobile apps can be achieved using websites (accessible on the phone) and/or computer software. For comparison, Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft have a stranglehold on the console video game market, but because consoles aren't the only way to play games (though they are arguably they are necessary to make a AAA title profitable) it doesn't seem as egregious as what Apple is doing. When you're writing regulation and enforcing regulation it is important to clearly define the line is and I don't think it's clear here where exactly Apple has overstepped the role of a curator and become a gatekeeper -- they're powerful but they are not clearly (at least to me) the only game in town or even in a duopoly when it comes to software in general. If mobile apps in particular can be unambiguously shown to be meaningful and distinct as a market category, then I absolutely agree with your point.
At least in the US, this figure is closer to half. The point is not the market share they control but that they also control and set the rates to the marketplace within. To quote Senator Warren:
>If you run a platform where others come to sell, then you don’t get to sell your own items on the platform because you have two comparative advantages. One, you’ve sucked up information about every buyer and every seller before you’ve made a decision about what you’re going to sell. And second, you have the capacity — because you run the platform — to prefer your product over anyone else’s product. It gives an enormous comparative advantage to the platform.
I’m not a huge fan of Apple’s arbitrary-feeling restrictions on developers and of their market power, but the following argument can be made to show they really are not monopolistic abusers who should be regulated against:
Costco charges a membership to use their store (“platform”), similar to buying an iPhone. Costco offers reduced-price store brand goods. Costco controls and decides which third-party goods are available in the store. This is all generally considered to be to the consumers advantage due to lower prices and good experience. If the consumer does not like Costco, they can go to a different store. If a consumer does not like the experience of purchasing their apps in the app store, they can use Safari to access the web site, purchase an Android or use a PC for their computing needs, and a console/portable for their gaming needs. The number of competitors to the iPhone platform is lower than the number of competitors to Costco, but it’s not an insignificant number of alternatives. If ALL mobile platforms did not allow sideloading and charged similar rates, AND it was impossible to create a new mobile platform (admittedly difficult, RIP Microsoft, Blackberry, Nokia, Firefox OS) AND it could be shown webapps are not viable (they are viable) then Apple plus the other platform might have an anti-trust problem.
As it is it’s a unfair to punish Apple for successfully curating a good experience where users are happy and comfortable spending money. All retailers set the conditions for sellers to sell with them.
>If a consumer does not like the experience of purchasing their apps in the app store, they can use Safari to access the web site, purchase an Android or use a PC for their computing needs, and a console/portable for their gaming needs.
That sounds like an incredible headache for the customer wishing to opt for an alternative.
> If ALL mobile platforms did not allow sideloading and charged similar rates, AND it was impossible to create a new mobile platform (admittedly difficult, RIP Microsoft, Blackberry, Nokia, Firefox OS) AND it could be shown webapps are not viable (they are viable) then Apple plus the other platform might have an anti-trust problem.
You've made my argument for me: nobody wants to use a webapp and just about no one does. There's only one other mobile platform with any market share and it's Google's Android. The Sisyphean task of launching a new OS into this fray is so high that even an authoritarian nation-state isn't going to do it, so let's just call a spade a spade and say it's impossible.
Google's Android doesn't give you blue bubbles so say goodbye to much of your iPhone-privileged social circle, which uses blue bubbles as a new kind of social elitism predicated on wealth-peacocking. You're essentially bullied into one avenue or the other and the apps you paid for a long tether of slavery to the platform you've picked. It's enough to give someone Stockholm syndrome but I'm not yet out catching bullets for them, are you?
All of these corporations need to be broken up. The problem is not just Apple. But Apple's platform is locked down so tight they will stop at nothing to get their penny's share, whether you're a cool new email service (Hey) or you want to launch a gaming cloud service (xCloud, Stadia, you-name-it).
This is not Costco selling generic fruits and meats for your consumption. This is a dominion of access to how you communicate, to how you read, to how you play.
This quote from Warren is completely divorced from the current legal reality in the US. Using her definitions it would be impossible for retail stores to have store brands, and then there would be a question about whether stores that only sell their brands are allowed as well. Clearly, since Walmart, Costco, Dillards, etc can have store brands and can pick and choose what items to sell at retail, I don’t see how her quote can be taken as anything other than a hypothetical policy position.
That's the problem. I think people keep using the term "monopoly" maybe because that's what they are familiar with, but you are correct in pointing out that courts of law have a very specific legal interpretation of that word.
Probably one solution is to place the bet on anti-trust instead. It's still not quite right, but if you bend the current legal understanding of "trust" a little bit, you can get there. Whereas, there's no amount of bending the interpretation of "monopoly" that will make Apple fit.
Nobody said the monopoly is in mobile devices. The reference was to the controlled ecosystem. That is what Epic's case is about. Their developer account was revoked when they wanted to use a different merchant processor. Apple is practically engaging in RICO activities.
Just a few months ago Apple was happy to explain to everyone that they secured more than 80% of mobile markets profits. Hiding that by citinng some nebolous market share of questionable market definition is perhaps not a good idea.
This is a bizarre definition of monopoly that, if it were applied to any other industry, would turn common sense on its head. If Amazon runs its retail operations at a small loss, is it now less of a monopoly than a boutique retailer with big margins but < 1% of the market share?
And the current lawsuits are arguing that Apple has a monopoly on payments on their own devices, not that they have a monopoly on the smartphone market. Big difference.
Apple is a vertical monopolist across a large-market-share hardware platform it manufactures and an exclusive system for putting software onto that platform.
Epic has a store, but doesn't have a large-market-share hardware platform they control exclusively to go with it. Any machine I can install the Epic app store on, I can also install Steam on.
Apple’s market share isn’t large enough for this argument to work.
If people are pushing for a change in framework where no hardware manufacturer is allowed to control what software is installed on their platform, I actually think that might be a good change across the board.
The groups targeting Apple don’t care about any such freedom. They simply want more money for themselves without having to invest.
Not all vertical monopolies are trusts in need of breaking up. Apple's market share may not be enough for the monopoly to require anti-trust intervention, but definitionally, Apple has structured its hardware and software system on mobile as a vertical monopoly.
Epic; in particular, is just handling this situation laughably at best. I can't imagine taking someone to court over my own intentionally sneaky violation of a company's set of rules.
The conversation about Apple's 30% is a valid one. Epic is, intentionally, at this point; taking a sledgehammer to any validity that conversation had.
The way Epic handled this situation was with a maturity level of a 6-year-old kid yelling 'no!' to their parents and throwing a tantrum.
We need serious, mature discussion over these issues.
Spotify, in particular; while a horrible, heartless company to artists like myself, could at least make the excuse that they could funnel more of that 30% to the artists, although I doubt any more than 1% of it would actually go to us. (Spotify CEO is worth $3.8bn and the company claims they can't pay artists more...)
I'm not sure wtf leg Tinder has to stand on beyond greed?
> Epic; in particular, is just handling this situation laughably at best. I can't imagine taking someone to court over my own intentionally sneaky violation of a company's set of rules.
There's nothing laughable about having a layered strategy of “try not to get caught, and, in case you are caught, have a backup argument that enforcement of the rules is illegal in any case.”
I believe it doesn't uphold the 'spirit' of the law. It's sneaky/sneaking. They could've had a discussion with Apple, or gone to court about it; ahead of time. What they did was sneaking around; plain and simple, and Apple just responded the way they would to any app that suddenly activated a secret backdoor that would violate their terms and conditions.
They invalidated their own potential for legal standing by intentionally sneaking around instead of working through the system like, for instance, LGTBQ+ people (I'm lesbian) did. If something is an injustice; you don't just, e.g. walk into a church and try to get married in a state or country that forbids it. You'll be prosecuted or killed. Doesn't matter that it's not fair.
Apple's stance isn't as black/white, cut/dry as gay rights. But the point is, these guys took the absolutely wrong approach, have made themselves look like fools, and taken away power from people taking the time to properly (e.g. not intentionally sneaking around, which a backdoor switch to violate their terms and conditions is, by definition) try to move through the legal system and make these changes.
All Epic has done is made that harder for real champions of Justice to approach in the future. It's the stuff conspiracy theories are made of. They're not standing for rights. They're standing for profits. Nobody's falling for it, especially not the judges.
> They're not standing for rights. They're standing for profits.
The entire reason we have a private right of action for firms (rather than just a public right of action) in antitrust law is that actors selfishly standing up for their own profits will incidentally serve the public interest. The law does not rely on or expect litigants (other than those acting in the direct employ of the government) to seek to serve any interest other than their own narrow interests, instead it is (insofar as it seeks to serve a public interest, which is sadly not always the intent of the law to start with) designed to achieve the public interest by shaping private incentives so that the pursuit of private interest itself moves the public interest forward.
So, while what you describe in the above quote about Epic is unquestionably true, that's exactly how the law is supposed to work.
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...with the only option being “I accept” (and by the way, you’re not allowed to read the cookie policy without first accepting it. Christ).
Honestly, this thoroughly undermines the message about “consumer freedom”.
Correct me if I am wrong but the advocacy group is essentially arguing that let me use your platform (marketplace) services and get a free ride doing so. Kind of like taking an Uber where at the end of the ride the driver just says: "you know what, lets ditch Uber, pull out your credit card and settle between the two of us. And I will charge you much lower!!" Aha.
No, you paid for an iPhone and the iPhone ecosystem. You might choose to pay for additional apps, at which point Apple takes 30% for acting as a payment processor and for quality assurance. No double dipping. The iPhone is perfectly usable without any third-party applications. It's your choice to spend more money.
The iPhone did not originally have an app store and was still highly sought-after. Apple chose to add an app store, and has every right to choose to do so under their own conditions.
Apple already takes $99/year for quality assurance (free-to-user apps get it too).
Apple charges for (in-)app payments literally 10 times more than competing payment processors. Apple bans apps from using competing payment processors.
Apple also bans apps from even informing consumers how much this costs, or that other payment options may be available elsewhere. There's no pro-consumer explanation for forcing opaque pricing and uninformed purchases.
I don't think "free ride" has ever described developer relationships with the App Store. The main pushback seems to be against Apple leveraging their App Store to benefit their payment processing and other services that have nothing to do with distributing software. I think it's more like Uber making drivers buy their tires through an "Uber Store" as a condition of being on the platform. It's shady and ultimately hurts the end user.
I've been trying to wrap my head around why Epic would shoulder-tackle Apple in the space of app stores, when they have their own app store. Naively, I've been thinking that any ruling adverse to Apple here also impacts Epic's business model---if the government caps app store revenue cuts at, say, 10%, that's a slice off the top of what Epic can charge developers going through its store, too.
But Epic is a game publisher first, app store owner second. A fair and regulated market is a win for them, because it decreases the barriers to competition in the app store space while, on average, probably diminishing store owner cuts, which benefits developers, of which Epic is one. So a more regulated market is a net positive for them.
It's highly unlikely that a regulator would cap Apple's cut at e.g. 10% like that. Apple is using a monopoly on distribution to enforce a monopoly on payments (and can thus monopolistically set prices arbitrarily) so it is most likely a regulator would force them to allow competition on distribution and payments, and thus allow the market to change the 30% organically, rather than just enforce a different arbitrary cut.
I think it’s worth noting how hostile Epic’s app store is to its customers.
They force you to use it to launch games you’ve already purchased from them, which just means you have to waste processor cycles to wade through a grip of their blaring ads (and can only imagine the data they’re collecting/monetizing from this)
Pure enter through the gift shop.
The dark patterns are egregious as well; a tech-savvy friend bought a game from them so we could multiplayer. I got a call from him 20 minutes later because he was unable to find the game he just purchased, even the transaction went through and it was downloaded.
Turns out they had a “feature” hidden in the preferences that was enabled by default to hide the library of your purchased games from the navigation menu.
Valve used to be a game publisher first and an app store owner second, too. I'm sure Epic's app store was in part inspired by looking at the immense pile of money Valve is now sitting on due to getting a 30% cut of most PC game money for most of the past two decades.
This is a good analysis but it always seemed so simple to me. If they win this ruling they overnight can make like a billion dollars more a year. Putting resources into this case makes more business sense then any other venture they could try.
Epic scored a lucky (?) hit with fortnite that brought them a lot of cash but I believe their bread and butter is their game engine where do they charge a percentage of the profits. Their store is more of a long-term investment, it might not bring a lot of revenue at the moment but if things go well for them it can easily convert to the top dog.
If I build an operating system + hardware, should I be legally mandated to provide tooling to make it easy for users to find and install arbitrary software?
There are all sorts of regulations in other fields, some of them serve public interest (as all of them should). Forcing a very powerful company into making their platform more open might be OK.
It might be, but you can make same argument about any curated platform.
I also don't think this serves the public interest. App developers have much less interest in maintaining the privacy of users and making it easy to cancel subscriptions, among other things.
This is a difficult issue because it involves restricting the freedom of a service provider to develop their product as they see fit. Ideally, the market itself should force companies to make things that are beneficial to the customers. Unfortunately, real customers can be manipulated, that is why there are regulations. I don't have a good answer to why there needs to be a regulation in this case, but it wouldn't be the first.
As I mentioned in another reply, both Apple and Google, despite not being monopolists, can arbitrarily restrict competition, because they have the power to refuse serving some apps. I would argue that it is dangerous, and corporations should not have that kind of power.
At one point AT&T was required to allow consumers to buy and connect their own handsets rather than only allowing them to rent from AT&T. Isn't that similar?
No, what you described was a simple change in how the product was distributed. Forcing Apple to engineer a way to add 3rd party app stores on their platform would require significant engineering effort from them and changing their operating system internals significantly.
So to stick with the telecom example, if you want to sell telecom equipment or operate a phone company you must include intercept capability for law enforcement. That involves engineering changes in the hardware and software, business operations changes to manage and execute the intercept requests, etc... Is that a closer example?
For Apple it might be less expensive to just make a single policy change - allow apps to use alternate payment providers. That feels somewhat close to forcing AT&T to allow alternate telephone providers.
Sure, but that's not new. Here in our EU country, governmennt dictates the railroad owner to allow other railroad companies to drive freight on it (although it fought tooth and nails to continue fleecing everyone by noncompetitive prices).
Competition is the basis of functional free market - and forces which prevent it are driving it to be abusive and not force of progress anymore.
Roughly, what you shouldn't be able to do is distribute a product with that requires a contract in order to build upon it or extend it. You'd have to tease out the nuance of this more in legalese for sure, but that's the gist of it. The application to OS+software is a special case, the same principle applies in e.g. why Keurig's K-Cups DRM scheme should not be legal.
In ideal world, yes. OS vendor should not dictate what runs on the OS and under which conditions. Same for HW vendors.
This is a prerequirement for free market to work - the option for new competition to crop up in different fields and give you more options, more innovation and the ability to beat the platform owner at their own stagnation.
This does not exclude the platform owner from launching their own stack and competing on its merits. It's the forceful blocking that's anticompetitive and prevents innovation and improvement.
And if there were no App Store at all would Apple have been obligated to allow one? Or any third party software? That seems to be the argument being made.
Frankly, if it's between opening up iOS to all software or no third-party software at all, I'd take the latter. That's the peace of mind I wanted when I bought my iOS item. Having a singular, curated App Store is the next best thing for that kind of platform. There are other platforms available for other designs and purposes.
I don't think you should be legally mandated to make it easy, but if you sell a product to someone you shouldn't be allowed to stop them using it in the way they want to. If you do choose to retain control over how they can use the device then you should accept there might need to be regulation over what limits you can put in place in order to stop you doing things that are anti-competitive.
> Apple doesn't stop you from doing anything with your device, Apple thugs won't break your kneecaps if you subvert their restrictions.
Apple has added code that's explicitly built just to prevent running code without their approval. They even add code that prevents usage of compatible periphelas that don't have their own DRM chip. They've built dedicated hardware just to lock you out of doing "anything" with your device.
That's a really really bizarre definition of "doesn't stop you".
Take the world "arbitrary" and we can see the truth.
Now let me rephrase this in the right way, to avoid the language tricks used on your question.
Should the user have the right to install software on the device they bough and therefore, they own?
Its not "legally mandating" the provider to be "forced" to do anything. Its just a matter of rights of the user who buy stuff from anyone.
Its a pure ethical thing to do, that protects the user freedom, and thats what the law should do, to protect the rights of the party with the least power in a negotiation between two parties. Especially if the concept of property and ownership is involved.
I dont get the half of the comments in this thread. If we depended on your point of views, we would be stuck with the Intels, Microsoft's, Apples and the likes with absolute control into our digital lifes.
Remember Prism and the collusion of goverment spy agencies and tech companies to know everything everyone was doing?
Now imagine how much power this represents? Imagine a modern fascist with that much power on his hands? What would he would be able to do?
You dont even need to get into conspiracy theories, but just think about the rights and freedoms of the users against the effort of tech companies to control them.
But to avoid the centralization of power and control would be a side-effect of people standing for those simple right's.
If you build an OS + hardware, how are you assuming apriori that you have users and also developers who write software that targets your platform? But anyway, the answer is no you should not be legally mandated in your case of boutique products.
The rules are different when free-markets fail, and one product or service dominates the entire market segment or exerts a large influence on the market (as determined by a legal authority).
The entire purpose of government is to serve our needs, if its no longer doing that we should amend laws/rules/policies as necessary. Everyone should be free to make an argument for their case.
if you want your IP protections, yes. Companies don't exist in vacuum, they are subject to laws of the land, some of them advocated by people called programmers. If it's fine for companies to demand IP protection, it's fine for developers to demand fair access to that market.
It should be mandatory to allow installing arbitrary apps, which has recently become nigh impossible, at least I couldn't find any way to distribute my rejected app.
As a consumer, I really like how the AppStore works and I buy iPhones for me and for my family specifically because there is only one store and one way of subscribing and one way of using in-app purchases. I really, really hope Apple win this. I just don't want to have to deal with the possibility that every app is going to have its own in-app-purchase dark patterns.
If everyone that wants to be able to side-load alternate app-stores could move to Android land and leave iOS alone, that would be great.
So you like having only 1 app store for convince. I get that.
But there is an legitimate argument to be made by those who do want it. The lack of competition is probably hurting you too, in the form of higher prices for everything.
If there were alternatives you wouldn't be forecd to use them.
What if apple starts trying to monetize in ways you don't like? (like trying even more aggressively to get appleTV/ AppleMusic subscriptions) You are putting a lot of trust in a company that may change its ways. If they change, where are you going to go?
I like that Apple forces app developers to use a system that is convenient and safe for me as the device owner. I don't think it would be a case of "ignore the alternatives", I expect many apps would abandon apple to save a few dollars and I would have to put my credit card into half the apps I currently use. I buy the phone and the apps for my benefit, not the benefit of Epic.
I have to be honest, I subscribe to a lot more services through Apple than I would outside because I trust their cancellation mechanism. Developers may lose 30% on my purchases but they might not get anything outside of the walled garden.
Also, I have a Sony Xperia running Sailfish, sat over there-->, for when I feel the need to tinker.
Wouldn't it be nice to use old iPhones for tinkering instead? the hardware is pretty amazing.
I guess I've decided the last few years to forsake some safety/connivance to ensure the right to use my hardware the way I want. Its harder. I have a linux notebook which is great, but requires a little more attention.
As apple moves more into services its become less of a systems company, I'm not completely trusting of them.
> If there were alternatives you wouldn't be forecd to use them.
That's just not true. If App Developers choose to only release their app on one store then i am forced to use that store.
Say this Apple loses this battle and are forced to let companies run their own Stores on iOS. What's to stop a company like Facebook moving their suite of apps to exclusively be distributed through their own Store, which conveniently bypasses the App Review process, severely undermining user privacy. If i wanted to keep using these popular apps to communicate with my friends I'd have no choice but to use their alternative Store.
> You are putting a lot of trust in a company that may change its ways. If they change, where are you going to go?
> That's just not true. If App Developers choose to only release their app on one store then i am forced to use that store.
Which store they would use is obviously the developer's decision.
Do you complain that you have to go to website X or the Steam Store to get some program instead of the Windows Store as well?
Also nobody forces you to use that one app. You don't have a right to use the app, with a possible exception for you having bought the app in the past on that other store.
Not a fan of Apple here, but my parents clearly prefer the Apple experience with IOS, even though they started with Android. I prefer Android, because I'm a developer and I don't need to buy a Mac, get a dev license and use specific IDE and compiler X or Z to develop and deploy an app on my Android device. But common people don't care about that.
It's great but I think being charged 30% on every single app purchase (and yes, you pay that -- not the developers) after paying thousands of dollars for a device is crazy. I know Apple fans aren't particularly price sensitive -- it's a trillion dollar company for a reason.
How many apps do we use that don't have an identical counterpart on another platform? I have an android phone and looking at it, I think the only app I have installed myself that isn't available on the iPhone is an app that lets you write a shader to use as your background.
Totally off-topic but worth mentioning. If you click on the "Cookie Policy" link in the footer, it takes you to the right page, but on that page it's still asking for consent before I can actually read the policy. So many websites gets something so simple wrong, even Epic, Spotify and Tinder. Where are we going really?
Don't want to pay 30%? Don't develop for the platform then. I really think all these guys trying to change a company's own ecosystem's rules that the company itself created, are paid actors. I haven't seen a more flawed argument then knowing the exact rules of the ecosystem, which is owned by a company, and trying to change it. It's their company, their platform, their rules. It's been the same way since the beginning. Get over it. Simple as that.
Agreed and I have to wonder how any of these companies would respond if it was their users who agreed and knew the terms of their ecosystem and were now asking these three companies to change their rules.
Using Spotify as an example. I can't imagine Spotify responding favorably to a consortium of musicians who wanted to publish direct to the platform and receive a better royalty rate for instance. Spotify also doesn't seem to have any problem agreeing to the terms dictated by the Big three record labels that control and the majority of recorded music that they have no choice but to agree to.
> Other founding members include ProtonMail email service owner Proton Technologies AG, trade group News Media Europe and project-management software maker Basecamp LLC.
I think that some of points are valid - especially the direct contact with the consumers. But the grand prize that Epic wants, the ability for anyone to put App store on iPhone, I hope that will never happen.
I don't care about Epic, but the moment when that is allowed is the moment when three app stores into existence - Google's, Microsoft's and Facebook's. Most people can't avoid using software from these three companies, and right now, on iPhone, Google, FB and MS can track people only when their app is active. With always active app stores the ability for tracking and fingerprinting is much, much bigger, and would negate all recent privacy stuff from Apple.
I don't see why they would advocate Apple to change their app store. Is it possible for one corporate to meddle into the product of another? They are also unlikely to achieve anything on the legal side of things.
Instead they 'd better spend for things like :
- promote awareness of monopolistic tactics to apple device owners
- create a well advertised web payments gateway where users can buy subscriptions to any app, and invite developers to join
- syndicalize the hordes of developers to blackout their apps or sth
> Is it possible for one corporate to meddle into the product of another
Not really (except via negotiation), but it is possible for the government to. I'm not completely clear on the purpose of this coalition. Presumably it is either too fund lawsuits like Epic's (which is asking the government to stop Apple violating existing anti-trust laws), or to fund lobbying activities (which is asking the government to create stronger anti-trust laws, or to enforce them themselves instead of requiring a third party like Epic to step in and argue that they should be enforced). Or both.
If they don't like the App Store rules, those companies are free to develop, sell, and promote their own cell phone hardware and ecosystem. Nobody is forcing them to use Apple.
To me this seems pretty straightforward. App Stores are directly tied and bundled with the operating system. Within the device universe there are basically 2 choices of operating systems. This is an extremely concentrated industry with an extremely high HHI. Apple and Google favor their own products and discriminate against competitors and have done for years. They also extract rent from other companies forced to use their App Stores far in excess of the services they provide.
MS vs European Commission found that the company illegally bundled Internet Explorer with their Operating System to the detriment of customer and at the expense of other businesses. Almost everything about current OS and App Store bundle seems essentially identical. To me this could not be more clear.
The difference was that Microsoft monopolized the PC OS market.
Apple does not monopolize the cell phone OS market.
Consumers still have total choice between Apple and Android, so it's not an identical situation whatsoever. If Macs had had 50% market share way back when (instead of what, 5%?), Microsoft would never have been in legal trouble for bundling IE.
Competition is good for consumers. It's very brave of Tim Sweeney et al. to take up this cause, and I hope they succeed.
We shouldn't tolerate the monopolies, duopolies, and _opolies of our age. The early 20th century progressives understand how harmful they were to the common man.
Epic went about this all wrong. They should have started by making a public campaign touting their support of developers using Unreal Engine in the App Store.
Epic should have started by offering to cover half of Apple's App Store fee for Unreal Engine devs, and made the story about supporting their own developers AND about how Apple was charging too much.
Any coalition should have been with other companies doing the same thing with people building on their platforms. This would have gotten much more positive and sustainable publicity and would have allowed them to make the case that all developers should be paying less fees.
Instead they made it about Fortnite and themselves. Epic blew this.
I'm not sure how I feel about this. I do appreciate that in the Apple ecosystem, "I'm not the product". There is a level of trust with their products and services that I do feel thankful for and will continue to pay for it. I do not want a different app store. I do not want to have apps direct access to the fundamental iOS services.
Don't get me wrong, I really like a lot of the companies that have formed this coalition but I don't think their ask is right. I cannot honestly read about the impact to democracy, primarily because we are unable to define and protect what is private data and what is public, and then agree to what is being asked for by this coalition of partners.
However they promise to safeguard the data, I don't think they have a sound business model / sound business principles / a long enough pedigree of protecting user data for me to trust them.
I also see what all of this is about - just a redistribution of the pot of money. This is not about anti-competitiveness, this is not about an Apple Tax hurting consumers (https://www.theverge.com/21445923/platform-fees-apps-games-b...)
I honestly hope that if Apple does lose the anti-trust case, that they split the iPhone into one that allows these non-Apple stores and services and another that offers a Apple managed ecosystem.
I for sure will chose the one that is governed by Apple.
This is what Epic should have done first, before going all guns on Apple.
Perhaps Epic realised that passive approach to bring attention towards Apple's tax like Spotify isn't working and so decided to approach it legally. Then again, it's hard to believe that they thought they had a chance to get a verdict in their favour.
But I don't think the attention they are trying to invoke is that of consumer, if anything it's impossible to invoke a consumer sentiment against Apple which is a aspirational buy for many and even religious investment to some. Epic seems to be targeting other app developers and so far doing a very bad job at it.
IMO, It should have worked with Facebook silently even though it has more to loose with iOS 14's privacy settings than 30% cut[1] to get Facebook, instagram, WhatsApp banned on Appstore if necessary instead of depending upon a game played by children and adults who make money from children watching them play. Just ban WhatsApp in India and see what happens.
But if Apple decides to charge tax for advertisements as well, then it could blow back for everyone who has advertising as business model. I wonder what consumers who buy for Apple's Privacy think about Apple essentially subsidising large advertising business, where as a one man developer has to pay 30% cut.
I don’t think they cared too much if they got a legal ruling on Fortnite in their favor. Fortnite is a fad that everyone has heard of but that is in decline. It was probably perfect for this purpose. I suspect they didn’t expect Apple to go thermonuclear war on them and revoke dev tools access entirely (impacting unreal engine).
I just canceled Spotify membership I had for years for now.
I don't have anything for Spotify or their fight with Apple. It makes sense.
But on the other hand I refuse to help Epic in any initiative they take or to endorse companies that sides with them. Epic is in my eyes evil company and they done a lot of bad things in area I care about. I know that few of my friends do the same right now.
It probably doesn't matter, but the only thing one can do is to vote with their wallet.
> Epic is in my eyes evil company and they done a lot of bad things in area I care about.
Can you elaborate on that? It's hard to follow for me.
Also: You don't give money to epic, you also think the goal of spotify in that case makes sense. But you are willing to hurt a goal that you think makes sense because someone you don't like also thinks that goal is worth fighting for?
This seems unnecessary and a bad strategy.
Epic introduced the concept of exclusivity on the PC gaming scene. Earlier Steam (which arguably is monopoly) provided option to buy games but those games could be distributed from outside - and many games did so. Right now Epic locks some of the games in their EGS store. Few kickstarted games were "bought" by Epic into (and which I personally backed, but I have no access to unless I accept their conditions).
There is a lot to cover, if you're interested you could probably read a lot about people's game library being locked out due to some arbitrary reasons, cards details leaking out from EGS or people being charged twice and never refunded. Epic is a bully in a sheep's skin and they already proved that multiple times both in general and in direct way.
As for the goal - the goal makes sense for Spotify, not me. I wouldn't condemn them for trying yet I don't have a stake there. They don't do this so that I can pay less, they do this so that they can earn more. I don't see why I should put my mind on helping huge, wealthy company to obtain their goals. Same goes with Apple.
> Epic introduced the concept of exclusivity on the PC gaming scene
Which event are you referring to exactly? I think the first time I encountered something related to exclusivity on PC gaming was the first time I bought CS:Source and had to download and sign up with Steam to be able to run it, even though I got it on a CD/DVD. This must have been around 2005 or so I think.
Uhm but you’re aware that CS:Source was developed by Valve company behind the Steam?
The same goes true for Unreal Tournament. You want to play it you install Epic installer. That’s fine point. Rockstar and Ubisoft have their own launchers and it’s not an issue.
Issue is that Epic holds the 3rd party games, snatching them from early access etc. effectively limit previously open access.
What games are you talking about specifically here and when? Fortnite was also developed by Unreal by the way.
Also, Epic is not the first company to buy a game + its license and then only allow people to play it via their platform. Counter-Strike was a independent mod back in the days, before Valve bought it. Same goes for Day of Defeat and bunch of others games.
I'm sure we can find even earlier examples of this happening. For all I know, this happens with every digital medium, pretty early on, and it's not news that game companies are greedy (both Valve, Epic and every other AAA studio/company)
Counter-Strike was Half-Life mod, and Half-Life was developed by Valve, so it's still the same developer. And yes, the Epic is the first company on the PC to do that. Console exclusiveness is known fact, but you could _buy_ game outside of the Steam if you wanted to. Epic started to hunt for 3rd party games and lock them in exclusiveness deals.
> Counter-Strike was Half-Life mod, and Half-Life was developed by Valve, so it's still the same developer
That's not how that works. Someone else developed Counter-Strike and released it to the community. Then around ~2000 Valve bought it + license and continued to develop it (with original developers as well).
DotA -> League of Legends was something similar as well. Third-party mods that got bought up by a company and then made exclusive to a particular store.
If you thought that the PC industry is somehow becoming like the Apple App Store, I think you're living in a fantasy. You can still download and run whatever binary you want. On a iPhone, you cannot.
> As for the goal - the goal makes sense for Spotify, not me. I wouldn't condemn them for trying yet I don't have a stake there. They don't do this so that I can pay less, they do this so that they can earn more. I don't see why I should put my mind on helping huge, wealthy company to obtain their goals. Same goes with Apple.
I personally think this is quite a far reaching issue we can and should form an opinion on. I don't own an apple device but I think it's an important issue of user freedom. It is a much stricter version of the exclusivity you consider a problem.
But I overinterpreted your original statement. Sorry about that.
Also: Thank you for elaborating on the issues. I was aware of those points. I just don't share your judgement about those issues, but there's no real point in discussing them further as it's super off-topic :)
It boggles my mind that there are people rooting for Apple to "win" here. Whatever you think of Epic, Spotify, etc, the changes they propose would be a win for customers to use the devices the way they want to. If you only want to download apps from Apple's approved app store, they are not taking that away from you.
I bought an Apple phone specifically because it's not open.
I think we should be allowed to have that as much as we're allowed to make a completely open and modular device. I like having the choice to have a locked down, simplistic device. The fewer openings, the better for me there.
Does Apple allow developers to just charge 30% more when users sign up through iOS, and just note in the app that access to the service though iOS costs more?
Seems fair to me, and let’s consumers know where the money is going (to Apple, presumably to pay for ecosystem things like app privacy and security reviews, billing, etc).
If users don’t like it, then the market will do it’s thing right?
It’s unclear to me what types of messaging Apple bans developers from adding though. Like is it ok with Apple for me to build an app available on web for a certain price, but block access via native iOS apps unless the user agrees to a 30% increase to cover the Apple tax?
I think this is what I would want to do if I operated a subscription service available via native app in the app store.
> Does Apple allow developers to just charge 30% more when users sign up through iOS, and just note in the app that access to the service though iOS costs more?
You are allowed to do the former but not the latter.
I think that’s where I have a problem with the policy.
I’d specify though, that it makes sense Apple would not allow developers to make the signup via web a work around, just to avoid paying Apple and still use my service through iOS.
However, if I block access to my service from native iOS apps until a user agrees to pay the 30% extra, that feels fair and still follows the spirit of the rules IMO.
Not letting me tell users what they are paying for, or why they can’t access my service on iOS until they cough up an extra 30%, that’s overreach.
In addition to being riddled with scammers and "escort" services in some regions and choosing to do nothing about it, older men are charged more for using Tinder's premium service:https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24129986
I do not respect Tinder at all. They have scummy practices and I actually got upset with Apple for giving them featured spots on the App Store so often. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you!
On the other hand, Apple unconditionally refunded my Tinder in-app purchase when I fell to one of their scams.
Seeing Tinder in any group will just make me automatically align with that group's antipode.
Sounds real fun! Of course unless you do your research you'd never find out how little they care about user safety.
Since I'm ranting, I don't see getting trapped in the Social Media matrix as being good for anyone. The old fashioned way to meet folks was to be active in your community. Since that's now seen as optional we have an entire generation of isolated miserable people.
The Social Media Dilemma ( Netflix movie )goes into greater detail , but you need real life human interaction to function. I know I've had no issue making friends (etc), since I became social media free.
The world is an awesome place. Instead of wasting money on Tinder Passport, you can get a real passport and see new places. A flight to Europe can be as low as 300$ !
Instead of complaining to one company, why not start supporting existing alternative platforms and products that support their vision? Why not support open devices where developers and consumers will have freedom from exorbitant pricing?
LMAO. Love the consumer friendly positioning of the group. If at least two of the founding members weren’t data over-reachers, this might be good theater. As things are, these folks cannot claim they represent my best interests.
OK, I get that most app publishers can't afford not to sell via the App Store and that iThings are ubiquitous, and I support freer options everywhere (even for Apple users)…
But, come on — this initiative sounds a lot like:
“Drat! We want people who, on their own volition, decided to go for an expensive, unaccountable, closed, locked system to be able to install and use our apps freely! Isn't that fair? I can has freedom?”.
Read that naïve section “our vision”. A vision is something novel. Free software is 35+ years old. And there are open distribution platforms already. Reinventing the wheel.
I mean Epic, Spotify, and Tinder are wrong here. Apple built the hardware, and the distribution mechanism for software on that hardware platform. Apple has been a closed ecosystem from day 1. It shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone and they all knew when they decided to create apps for iOS that they were party to a closed system where Apple are the gatekeepers. Don't like their rules? Then, don't do business on their App Store. Simple as that really.
What happens if you are fine with those parameters, you build a business on iOS, and then apple decides that it wants to be in your business, so it makes their own competing app default and non removable? Then it adds hardware functionality to help its own software, but locks the hardware from you, so your business suffers? This is exactly the Tile example on the linked page.
If that happened to your business, would you say "well we always knew they are a closed system, time to pack up and go home"?
If you create an app in a closed ecosystem knowing full well that this is Apple's world and they can do as they please, you shouldn't be surprised when they do as they please.
This whole issue is children screaming because they broke the rules and Mommy and Daddy have put their foot down.
Undismissable full-screen modal that forces me to get all cookies? Not gonna read it mate. You would expect an advocacy group to try and get their message out...
It is absolute insanity that they charge a 30% fee to buy some services like Fortnite, Tinder, etc, but then charge NOTHING if I buy from Amazon or Instacart.
Why is Microsoft not in on this? Apple didn't allow Xbox Game Pass, while Samsung was proudly showcasing gaming on their phones on it.
They seem to be the most hard done by unfair Apple practices. As far as I understand, they are not allowing the gaming service at all when it for all intents is nothing different from Netflix in principle.
I certainly hope Microsoft joins in on this and not cut a side deal, it will hurt other devs in the long run.
Microsoft does not allow anyone else to sell digital Xbox games.
This is the crux of all of this. Apple is doing what everyone else is doing. Google charges 30% and kicked Fortnite off the play store. Steam charges 15-30%. Microsoft and Sony have a monopoly on digital distribution of games on their console platforms, and charge some percent that I can't easily find.
Hell, if you take this thought to conclusion, Epic has a monopoly on the Fortnite digital store.
The idea that Apple is a monopoly is pretty silly. There is obviously smartphone competition, and Apple is a minority player. The idea that Apple has a monopoly on iOS and the App Store is true... but if that is illegal then it should also be illegal for Epic to have a monopoly on skins in Rocket League. I find that to be a pretty preposterous proposition.
Microsoft has the Xbox Game Pass app on Android, Apple is doing the opposite.
> but if that is illegal then it should also be illegal for Epic to have a monopoly on skins in Rocket League.
I think the analogy doesn't fit. Like a laptop/desktop, smartphones are general computing platforms. Specific purpose devices like iPods, Nintendo Switch really don't fit into this category much less a game.
Imagine if Microsoft had not allowed Windows to play nice with iPods, they wouldn't have sold the volumes they were able to move and Apple wouldn't have been able to built themselves back up.
Smartphones/tablets have been the logical successors of desktops/laptops for a lot of consumers. They have to be open for others to flourish as well. The last thing I would want is for few companies to own everything, everyone should get a chance to compete on equal terms.
>Microsoft has the Xbox Game Pass app on Android, Apple is doing the opposite.
I don't see the relevance? Microsoft does not allow any other company to distribute digital games for Microsoft consoles. You, nor anyone else, may create an Xbox store and sell digital games that will run on Xbox consoles.
>I think the analogy doesn't fit. Like a laptop/desktop, smartphones are general computing platforms. Specific purpose devices like iPods, Nintendo Switch really doesn't fit into this category much less a game.
If smartphones are computing platforms, then Apple doesn't have a monopoly, because then you can choose another computing platform. Apple products as computing platforms are an extreme minority. In order for Apple to have a monopoly you have to redefine the platform to be the App Store specifically. If you redefine the terms to just be the App Store, then that same definition would, and should, apply to any digital store.
Should Microsoft and Sony be forced to allow the Steam Store within their respective consoles? Maybe? But perhaps that is the fate Microsoft is trying to avoid and why Microsoft aren't going nuclear on Apple.
>The last thing I would want is for few companies to own everything, everyone should get a chance to compete on equal terms.
Is that not what we have? If you don't like Apple then you can go buy an Android phone. If you don't like macOS you can go run Windows or Linux. Who has the monopoly here?
> I don't see the relevance? Microsoft does not allow any other company to distribute digital games for Microsoft consoles. You, nor anyone else, may create an Xbox store and sell digital games that will run on Xbox consoles.
While I would even argue for openness there but you are comparing a specific use platform to a general computing platform.
> Is that not what we have? If you don't like Apple then you can go buy an Android phone. If you don't like macOS you can go run Windows or Linux. Who has the monopoly here?
I was talking about few companies owning everything in different verticals. I would want a independent music platform like Spotify to flourish and not just Apple Music. I would want an independent movie platform like Netflix to flourish and not just iTunes. You can see where I am going with this.
> If smartphones are computing platforms, then Apple doesn't have a monopoly, because then you can choose another computing platform. Apple products as computing platforms are an extreme minority.
Apple is not a minority by any stretch. They own half of the smartphones sold in US and a significant share in the world. If I am a platform like Spotify I have to be on it, otherwise I lose a significant userbase. Adding to this, a service like Hey saw 90% of the revenue come from iPhones. They were signing up users on the web, just turns out that 90% of their paying users had iPhones.
Adding to that, Spotify has to compete with Apple Music which doesn't pay the 30% tax, gets free placement on the phone and store and deep integrations with their product.
>While I would even argue for openness there but you are comparing a specific use platform to a general computing platform.
I don't understand the distinction you are trying to make. How is iOS fundamentally different from the Xbox OS? Microsoft owns the OS and the hardware. Microsoft have several variants of the Xbox hardware for sale, and have a complete monopoly on digital game distribution through their OS.
>Apple is not a minority by any stretch. They own half of the smartphones sold in US and a significant share in the world. If I am a platform like Spotify I have to be on it, otherwise I lose a significant userbase. Adding to this, a service like Hey saw 90% of the revenue come from iPhones. They were signing up users on the web, just turns out that 90% of their paying users had iPhones.
According to IDC[0], Apple commands 14.4% of the worldwide market share. In the US, Apple commands a little under half [1]. Apple is unequivocally a minority player in the smartphone market.
>Adding to that, Spotify has to compete with Apple Music which doesn't pay the 30% tax, gets free placement on the phone and store and deep integrations with their product.
Spotify chooses to not deeply integrate with Apple. WatchOS allowed third party streaming several years ago and Spotify is one of the few music services out there that still refuse to support it. That's on Spotify and Spotify alone. The lack of a fee on the store could be considered unfair, but is no more fair or unfair than Google offering a music service, which they do.
>As a developer does this seem fair to you?
Not really, but that is beside the point to me. We have a free market and there are alternatives to Apple. If Apple has a monopoly then I think we need to fundamentally blow up this entire market, because by that definition nearly every tech company out there has a monopoly. I believe this line of reasoning would forbid Epic from exclusively selling cars in Rocket League, and I find that absurd. If I don't like the Apple platform I can go to a competitor and support them instead.
> How is iOS fundamentally different from the Xbox OS?
If I have to explain in brief, because the intended use for it is to be a multipurpose OS just how Windows/OS X were. Xbox OS is about games and media streaming, while iOS/Android in addition to what Xbox OS does are about image editing, word processing, managing email, browsing web and much more. They are the spiritual successors to the laptop/desktop OSs.
Platforms like these have an immense amount of power as they interface with plethora of devices and services. From a waiter taking order on his phone to a project manager leaving notes on docs on the go. The sheer amount of use cases for these platforms are huge. They inherit and expand the ecosystems that PCs had, there is trillions of dollars of value there for software and hardware makers. The ecosystem should not get consolidated in the hands of few companies.
> According to IDC[0], Apple commands 14.4% of the worldwide market share. In the US, Apple commands a little under half [1]. Apple is unequivocally a minority player in the smartphone market.
I think we are going around in circles on this. Even 14% worldwide is significant enough for me to ask for regulation but the right number to look at is, app revenue generated. I gave the example of Hey already, it is not that lopsided for everyone but it is significant. As a company, you can't afford to leave that aside.
> WatchOS allowed third party streaming several years ago
That is just one integration. It gets to be the first and even sole one on many other occasions.
> but is no more fair or unfair than Google offering a music service, which they do.
Google allows you to bypass this. Apple acting like a hypocrite even makes use of this. [1]
> I believe this line of reasoning would forbid Epic from exclusively selling cars in Rocket League,
You are again going for weird analogies. I have explained the rationale in this comment and the comments before.
> If I don't like the Apple platform I can go to a competitor and support them instead.
Except for Macbooks, that's what I did. I am not talking about my choice as an end user here, I am talking about my choice as a developer. If 50% of my revenue is from iOS, I really can't afford to not be there.
>I think we are going around in circles on this. Even 14% worldwide is significant enough for me to ask for regulation but the right number to look at is, app revenue generated.
This is such an absurd comment. Revenue has nothing to do with whether a company is a monopoly. Monopoly has to do with competition. Do you have a choice to use a company other than Apple? Yes, unequivocally yes. Apple, with their 14% market share do not have a monopoly. You can't just willy nilly make shit up to fit your argument.
> I am not talking about my choice as an end user here, I am talking about my choice as a developer. If 50% of my revenue is from iOS, I really can't afford to not be there.
and as I said even in comments above, US share is 50% of devices, much higher of app revenue. If I have a product/service targeted at US, that becomes my main market.
My position is about developers here as I have stated above several times, you are conflating it with my choice as an user.
Epic and Tinder are like crocodiles asking for bridges to be torn down so more people will swim through river.
If any one thinks these guys are benign and not doing this for greed... then boy, I really hope you get what you want on Android or PC, but please, don’t loose those crocs into the only platform left in the world where they are not allowed free reign.
Corporations can do whatever they want with regards to limiting speech and throwing people out. Depending on or demanding fairness from corporations is the fundamental problem. If you want fairness, nonprofit hardware and software platforms are the only way out. Unions, petitions, and PACs aren't going to change the profit motives of FAANG/YT.
As an Android user, DAE wish we could see some similar collaboration across some of the vendors running downstream forks? The Apple tax comes up a lot, but there's a whole separate conversation to be had about Google Play APIs as a major choke point rendering other Android implementations "incompatible."
That's a great idea, Google shouldn't be exempt from criticism and activism just because Android is more open than iOS. It's also a good way to put the irritating "why don't you go after Google too?" whataboutism that abounds in any discussion that critiques Apple.
The root of this problem is that iPhones don't allow their owners to install software without jailbreaking their devices.
Any real solution must be pointed at fixing that problem, either convincing people to stop buying Apple devices or beating Apple in the trade war they started.
I bought iPhones for my parents precisely because they can't be tricked into installing software that hasn't been vetted by at least Apple and the software increasingly can't track them.
Considering Tinder's parent ( The Match Group ) got sued by the FTC for fraud, not very smart to include them. Intentionally making subscriptions hard to cancel is one of the behaviors Apple's payment system seeks to prevent.
As much as I like Tim Sweeney's arguments for lower royalties, he doesn't have half a toe to stand on.
Don't want to pay the Apple tax, make your own phone. This fairness coalition is free to manufacture Android phones with a no royalties store . Hogan's Law on YouTube has done a very good take on this. The government can not compel two companies to engage in a contract. If I set up a newspaper stand and decide anyone who wants to sell news papers needs to cut me in for 30%, you can't demand special treatment.
I could see Apple making an example out of Epic and banning them for life. You don't sneak in hidden functionality, and then flick it on via a server side command
> Don't want to pay the Apple tax, make your own phone.
Oh, so the price of entry to the mobile app market is just: "creating your whole mobile device, mobile hardware, app ecosystem and operating system". Sounds simple and really in line with benefits that free market competition brings to users!
Maybe we should put this in the physical world as well - anyone trying to open a new store on the corner with different margins needs to found its own town, build all the roads, complete all infrastructure and persuade people to mov e to this town.
Bad analogy. All of that stuff is paid for by taxes. All of the stuff offered by Apple is paid for by hardware sales and software fees.
You're closer to suggesting wanting to open a store in a town but refusing to pay property taxes, income taxes, and payroll taxes because you feel they're too high. You're welcome to go open your store somewhere else that doesn't have those taxes but presumably there won't be too many people that live there that would frequent your store and you know that.
> The government can not compel two companies to engage in a contract.
It seems like there ought to be exceptions to prevent certain gatekeeping behavior. As a very extreme example, suppose a company bought up a set of private roads in such a way that without their roads, people in a certain area could not access the rest of the country. One would hope that the government would compel the gatekeeper to do business with everyone! (Perhaps with some reasonable fees, weight limits, etc.)
Apple decided to insert themselves as a gatekeeper between iOS users and developers, so it shouldn't come as a surprise to them that deciding to "not engage" with some parties raises antitrust concerns, since it means blocking users and developers from engaging in mutually beneficial relationships.
But apple didn't buy up anything preexisting -- they created the smartphone market from scratch and grew the user and developer base organically. You could argue that they leveraged their Mac developer base for this, but 1. the first iPhone didn't support third party apps and 2. there was nothing to leverage this developer base against because there was no smartphone market when the iPhone was released.
Also, if we accept that smartphones are a necessity on par with roads, iPhones aren't the only smartphones, and Androids aren't really that inferior. As a user, if you don't like iPhones, get an Android. As a developer, if you don't like developing for iPhones, develop for Android. If either group feels like they can't leave for Android because iPhones are that much better, well, that's Apple's reward for creating a good device and growing its user- and developer bases -- should they really be punished for that success?
You make it sound as if there was no market for phone applications before the iphone, which at least in europe is not true.
And the punishment would not be because a company succeeds, but because a company abuses its success position to stiffle competition and artificially placing their other offerings in a better place.
In the world I inhabit, Apple is the one that intentionally makes it really hard to cancel subscriptions. You literally cannot cancel a subscription to an iOS app from an Android phone or Linux PC.
You can't subscribe without an IOS Device , Mac or Windows PC.
If your in some strange edge case where your subscribing to services and then discarding your IOS devices before canceling , that's on you. In a worst case scenario you could borrow a friend's Windows PC. As much as I love Linux I can't imagine most Linux users don't have at least one windows PC or Mac.
If we really want to get technical, spin up an AWS instance, RDP into it, install iCloud for windows and then cancel your subscription.
There are a few services you can sign up for without any of those... but Apple has a support page telling you how to unsubscribe from those from the devices you signed up from: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211011
Said support page also says you can contact Apple Support about it, which I imagine would also work for the "canceling an arbitrary in-app subscription" issue.
It's not an intentional trick to force you to keep paying.
The vast vast majority of people have access to a Windows PC or Apple product. How you ended up in this edge case I'll never know.
To take this to it's logical conclusion, what if you don't run JavaScript on your browsers. Would they also need to give you a cancelation page which doesn't require JavaScript.
How many users as a percentage do you think are signing up for IOS services , discarding their IOS devices and then don't have access to a Mac or Windows PC ?
Very few people use Linux as their desktop is. To be honest they should allow you to reply to the email and allow a cancelation, but you following into an edge case isn't deliberate.
Good point. I stand corrected. I still don't think Apple is doing this intentionally, but rather as a side effect of it's ecosystem. Thanks for your insight
I agree Epic's arguing in bad faith, but I also don't see why Apple (and other App Store companies, like Google) need to have change legislated upon them (or why this is something that needs to be protested). Apple got to where they are by being a successful platform that attracted users and developers with their walled garden ethos. If in fact that walled garden is bad for users/developers, then there are competitors. If Apple users felt they were getting ripped off (or Apple developers felt it wasn't worth it to develop for Apple platforms) they could go to Windows or Linux/Android.
The only way I can interpret this is that Epic & Friends see Apple has a nice cake which they now want to both have and eat. Given that Apple made the cake and there are other cakes, I think they're being entirely unfair to Apple. If Epic & Friends don't like Apple's rules, they're welcome to get off Apple's platform and focus on other platforms.
I personally don't think it's worth developing for Apple platforms myself, but the argument that developers somehow -have- to develop for Apple platforms is nonsense (the AAA market for games on PC vs Mac makes this obvious). That's only true if you decide you have to reach those users, which is only true if you as the developer decide it's economically worthwhile, in which case you have implicitly agreed that Apple's terms are economically justifiable.
"walled garden ethos" I like that. Apple is all about exclusivity and premium priced products. It seems like developers develop for them and consumers buy for them for that reason. But expecting Apple to be a free, fair, and open company, is really going against their business model.
They're the messenger. The idea behind an ad hominem is to attack the messenger instead of the message - whether the messenger is a human or corporation doesn't really matter. Who's behind the argument doesn't matter, if the argument is solid.
Basecamp, Tile, Protonmail are also some big names listed in the site. Even Prepear, the fairly obscure company that ran afoul of Apple’s aggressive trademark protection actions, is a founding member.
I wonder if Telegram will join next. It’s as if they rallied together every company that’s had a news controversy with Apple this past year, at least the ones smaller than FANG.
All three allow games, music, and dating to happen outside of their platforms. The Apple equivalent would be Microsoft not allowing any program being installed from outside their store or Tinder closing down all bars in a city to lower competition.
There is nothing _but_ their platform- from the hardware, to OS, to app store, they're arguing that their platform encompasses an entire vertically-integrated business model. Microsoft got nailed for shipping their web browser with their OS (which users could easily replace), but it's fine for Apple to control all software a user can install? Take a monopoly and call it a platform, and it's fine? No. I have little love for Epic, but I'm glad somebody has the money to try to buy some law that will ultimately result in users having more control over the technology they depend on.
No one is forcing them to develop for iOS. I will bet you dollars to donuts developers are very happy about the money they make from iOS otherwise they wouldn't be there.
They're on the App Store because they have no choice and they need to make money to pay for things like food, rent, etc.
I'll bet you dollars to donuts if some regulation required Apple to allow App Stores from other companies, most developers would dump Apple's in a heartbeat.
>They're on the App Store because they have no choice and they need to make money to pay for things like food, rent, etc.
That's crazy how before 2008 no developer was able to pay for food and rent. Sounds dreadful. Too bad there's no alternative that has an even bigger share of the total mobile market. Come on, dude.
>I'll bet you dollars to donuts if some regulation required Apple to allow App Stores from other companies, most developers would dump Apple's in a heartbeat.
Right, the same way that most car companies would abandon emissions standards if the EPA no longer forced them to (see: Volkswagen emissions scandal). That doesn't make it a good thing for consumers.
You can not afford not to publish something on iOS, if iOS were a niche platform used only by 1% of users maybe, but it is a mainstream platform used by more than 40% of users in the US.
I find it hard to believe that 100% of the market is the exact perfect amount that any given developer needs to sustain their business. 99% is already too little, and 60% is a non-starter. And yet this is the same market where tens to hundreds of companies have proliferated into billion dollar entities in mere years.
It's nothing more than greed, just like the greed you supposedly fight against.
> The median iPhone app user earns $85,000 per year, which is 40% more than the median Android phone user with an annual income of $61,000. [...] The average in-app shopping check is four times higher for an iOS user! [...] iPhone owners are also more likely to make purchases on their phones on a regular basis. These are important considerations for both retail app developers and those seeking to monetize via paid apps or in-app purchase. Mobile ads are the main source of revenue generation in Android apps.
Thank you for confirming what an incredible deal iOS developers are getting for a mere 30% fee. It sounds like Apple has created a really valuable platform that attracted wealthy customers compared to the competition and they should be rewarded for it.
It also confirms that because of Apple's dominance in terms of profitable smartphone platforms to develop for, developers are essentially obligated into having to support iOS if they want to make money. Even if you choose to spin that in a positive light, it demonstrates a power asymmetry.
It's not greed to be in the platforms where your customers are. Otherwise companies wouldn't go to difficult stretches like supporting Internet Explorer.
Denying business to your customers just because they're hostages of a greedy actor is not the best way to conduct a business.
I see this type of comment a lot in these discussions on the App Store - "no one is forcing you to make an iOS app". No, no one is holding a gun to your head to make an iOS app. But you know what, people need to make money to pay the mortgage and feed their kids.
If you're a programmer who has years of experience, who wants to make money in the field you have years of experience in, the field you likely enjoy doing and are good at, then YES you are forced to make an app on iOS because that's where the majority of the paying customers are.
It's a bogus excuse to say "don't make an iOS app then". That's akin to telling a programmer "just learn to eat a little less".
Oh no, won't someone think of the... talented and skilled white-collar worker in one of the hottest and highest paying industries of all time that can work literally anywhere? Enough with the appeals to emotion.
Apple, like every other company and individual, pays every dollar they owe and not a penny more. If this weren't the case, the IRS would be rolling up to their doorstep. If you don't like the tax laws, then petition them to be changed and I will support you.
And yes, let's side with the company that became worth a trillion dollars by virtue of providing billions of people with devices and services that enrich their lives enough for them to shell over often times their last dollars. Not the company that peddles digital skins to children that only further glues them to their screens.
If someone commits a crime, like murder, but isn't convicted of it because a jury declared them innocent it doesn't change the fact that they did murder someone.
Apple may get away with it because they can afford to spend millions on both lobbying and finding every way to avoid paying taxes that people without the same resources would otherwise pay, but that doesn't make it okay.
We don't have to side with either of these incredibly wealthy corporations having a money fight. They can both be criticized and we can demand better.
Personally I love my iPhone/iPad because I truly feel they are the best mobile hardware available. For the same reason, I have 0 interest in the Mac ecosystem because it's objectively not the best hardware on the market. (Especially as a cost-conscious person). The wheels they sell for the Mac Pro are more expensive than the iPhone I bought from them (iPhone SE 2nd Gen). Absurd.
I would like an officially sanctioned way to sideload onto my iPhone. I am in favor of court decision that would force them to allow you to bypass the walled garden. I think it's a very simple answer to the overall issue at hand. I doubt the majority of iOS users are going to bother with it if the functionality was there, and it solves the walled garden monopoly issue.
Tinder doesn't sell sex. It sells access to a Skinner box with intermittent positive reinforcement and frequent negative reinforcement where the reward is human connection.
70% of Spotify's revenue goes to rights holders. That's not ripping off artists. Streaming royalties have been the largest segment of music rights holder revenue for several years.
The record labels negotiated these deals and had all of the power. Also, all music streaming services have effectively the same deals. Spotify does not have preferential treatment.
Artists can distribute their music without Spotify. Spotify cannot distribute its app to iOS users without Apple.
Spotify is complicated because the big record companies are also big shareholders. They have a conflict of interest.
Also 70% doesn't mean anything without actual numbers. If they lowered their subscription to $1 / month and gave 80% to rights holders it wouldn't be an improvement.
I'd be more interested if they reported how many plays per month it takes to earn as much as you would in a minimum wage job.
Edit: I was curious about the minimum wage question so I looked it up.
Assuming $15 / hour for minimum wage it would take 750,000 streams on Spotify and 430,000 streams on Apple Music to earn the same in a month as you would working a minimum wage job.
My understanding is that rights holders are paid by the percentage of all plays, not per play.
Deezer is trying to fix this, but it requires the major labels to agree to the change. Deezer's user-centric payment system would apportion royalties based on an individual customer's play percentage instead of the total customer base's percentage. So if you only listen to 5 artists, all of your subscription's royalties would go to those 5 artists.
Wouldn't that be the record companies though? I have heard Kanye is trying to get more money for artists but not really sure. I am puzzled why blockchain+streaming for music hasn't taken off. Artists would maintain rights and profits from what I can tell
Traditionally payment & accounting has never been a problem in the music business, so I think blockchain would not really help. The underlying economics is what has changed dramatically. Distribution is close to free, but unlike the ~ $1 an artist might have seen out of a CD sale (before discounting for costs & advances) they now see sub-cents on a single track. You used to pay $15-20 for an entire album to get 2 or 3 good songs; now you only stream everybody's top tracks and pay less than that a month. So the artist gets a couple of pennies for the period when they are hot, then nothing.
As an actual game developer I can say that I am very happy to see this happening, and I know for a fact that this is the case of a very large number of devs.
Regardless what you think of Tik Tok, realize that if people controlled the installations on their phones they way they did on their desktops, I don't think the government would make the threat it is. The choke point of a single app store enables lots of things.
I think a solution to the App Store problem is to decentralize it, like the web. So I built a decentralized domain-based Android App Store: https://skydroid.app
If Apple wanted, they could release a decentralized app store relatively quickly, by just allowing Cydia to exists and be installed without having to require root access to the device (actually don't know if Cydia still exists, basically a app for listing/searching/installing/removing apps from any repository online)
Why don't they mention the company which started this 30% business? Why do they lie about Apple being the only company to charge 30% in any industry. What a load of rubbish.
I get that Epic and Spotify may want to create their own "stores". I don't understand what kind of store Tinder would want to create - or perhaps I do ;)
I like both sides of the argument. I would want the Steam store in Xbox or PS. But making that probably will increase the cost of console as they cannot subsidise it.
Maybe i’m oversimplifying the issue, but this can be solved by requiring Apple and Google to allow other app stores to operate on their operating systems.
Do I need to enroll to install apps on a device?
No. You can install apps on a device for free with Xcode. You’ll only need to enroll if you’d like to distribute apps, access beta software, and integrate with capabilities such as Siri, Apple Pay, and iCloud.
So, Epic, Spotify and Tinder can make their stores, they just need to automate the process.
You are limited to three total apps installed for free with Xcode, they expire every seven days, have limited API surface access (you can't build a VPN app, for example), and among the things you can't integrate with is push notifications, which is one of the key reasons people build apps in the first place. So uhhh... thanks for playing, but that isn't helpful.
Haha - this illustrates WHY the app store is so popular.
You've got Match.com (owns tinder). Repeat FTC offender (most scammmers never get the FTC slap on the wrist).
"Match Group also allegedly makes it too difficult to cancel a subscription through “confusing and cumbersome cancellation practices.” The FTC claims users must click through two pages of survey questions and cites a 2015 internal presentation that notes the cancellation flow as “hard to find, tedious and confusing.” “Members often think they’ve cancelled when they have not and end up with unwanted renewals,” More recently they were doing the fake match emails to generate signups. I'm not sure if that case has settled yet.
You've got Epic.
They are pretty famous for targeting kids and getting them to spend their parents money, auto-saving payment info parents may enter to allow a single purchase, microtransactions nightmare and using "v bucks" / bannanas etc to make it less transparent in terms of what things are actually costing. Refund / complaint procedures are horrible. "When Stecklare tried to request a refund from Epic Games, she says, it was like hitting a brick wall. She sent multiple emails over several days but says she received only boilerplate responses."....
Spotify
They find no name bands they don't have to pay to do covers of major musical acts or replace the "best of..." albums with these trash albums. They've also been sued repeatedly over their royalty practices. The lawsuit (below) alleges that Spotify has participated in "an egregious, continuous and ongoing campaign of deliberate copyright infringement" around the mechanical license for many of the songs on its platform.
Having these folks in charge of app subscriptions and setting standards inside the apple walled garden is going to be a TRAIN WRECK if they win this case. So much trust is going to be lost by users who are used to stuff in the apple world not having these and other scammers playing around in it.
Your perspective makes me sad. I'm honestly depressed because people rush to defend bad behavior of their favorite monopoly. Like, physically holding back tears. Serious.
What is wrong with us?
Our computers and technology have been locked down by anti-competitive juggernauts. Our legislators have written laws that cede more of our liberties and privacy. This modern internet sucks so much and I want to go back to when it was free.
I want a world where we're free to install whatever we want on our devices or distribute our hard work to others without having to implement it 5 different ways.
I don't want to be taxed by entities worth trillions. Before they stood up the walls, I could reach all the people I wanted for free. Now they've turned us into poor serfs.
The last bastion, the web, is even under attack by the forces of embrace, extend, extinguish. Mozilla is dying, meanwhile Google is removing support for adblock, removing the URL, promoting web bundles with baked in DRM, ads, and tracking.
These rent-seeking companies took all of the goodwill and amazing technology we developed in the open and they corrupted it. They saw the amazing capabilities we built, and realized exactly how they could adopt it, take control of it, and steer the public into their arms instead.
2020 doesn't suck. Everything since 2010 sucks. And it's getting worse.
> I want a world where we're free to install whatever we want on our devices or distribute our hard work to others without having to implement it 5 different ways.
I do too, but your appeal to emotion is off-topic. This has nothing to do with the lawsuit. None of these companies want that, nor are they working toward that. Epic and Spotify are pushing their own walled gardens, they just want to do it with a bigger profit margin.
> Epic and Spotify are pushing their own walled gardens, they just want to do it with a bigger profit margin.
There is absolutely no problem with that because it cures the one and only walled garden problem. If they implement a subpar walled garden, it will be up to the users to exercise choice on using them, which they currently can't.
This is the core of the opponent processes of markets. It is irrelevant to demand ideological purity from opponents, what matters is the resulting dynamics their actions create, in this case creating a previously non-existing competition space on iOS app installs.
> If they implement a subpar walled garden, it will be up to the users to exercise choice on using them, which they currently can't.
Epic games store is a very subpar walled garden. It's the only way to access several games that are either in exclusivity agreements with Epic or were purchased by Epic outright (RIP Rocket League). Spotify is (IMHO) a subpar walled garden. They recently purchased exclusivity for Joe Rogan, if you want to listen to him in the future you have to use Spotify. I don't see where in this process I get a choice of anything. These companies are not fighting for consumer choice, they just want to move more power over the consumer from one middle man (Apple) to another (themselves).
Eh. Not a fan myself, but it's a good example of highly popular content that Spotify is using to restrict consumer choice and promote their own platform.
Just for reference Epic has already shown us their playbook on how they plan to bootstrap a separate marketplace with the Epic Games Store on PC.
Namely, paying for exclusivity onto their store (or more accurately paying for the developer to not release onto Steam - the current incumbent). I'm not sure how you can argue that they are helping users exercise choice when this is behavior they already engage in.
> None of these companies want that, nor are they working toward that.
Being able to choose to run whatever you want on your own device is a necessary first step to opening up app stores to competition.
They support the ideal because it's the only way to get what they want. It's a mistake to assume that since they are doing it for their own benefit that we all can't benefit as well.
The downvotes for your parent and your follow-up retort don't make sense.
I'm also backing these companies' argument and I don't want a walled garden. I want an open and competitive marketplace. I want to be able to distribute my software to everyone (like I used to be able to do).
Sure, but what about the other names on the list? People are selectively focusing on only the major companies and neglecting that others have legitimate grievances.
1. I could be wrong, but I do not consider Apple to have a "monopoly" here due to the quality and availability of Android devices.
> I want a world where we're free to install whatever we want on our devices or distribute our hard work to others without having to implement it 5 different ways.
That's lovely and all, but that has never existed? I don't understand how you would even accomplish this.
> I don't want to be taxed by entities worth trillions. Before they stood up the walls, I could reach all the people I wanted for free. Now they've turned us into poor serfs.
What does this even mean?! You could never reach "all the people" for free?
> he last bastion, the web, is even under attack...
Fair
> These rent-seeking companies took all of the goodwill and amazing technology we developed in the open
Who is "we"? Are we including the department of defense in "we"? Bell labs?
If you have a point, make your point. Tell me what specifically you take issue with in the original comment.
The "bad behavior"? Are you joking. You realize people pay apple EXTRA because they value their product? Their product holds its value far LONGER on the secondary market because it is maintained so well?
You can get unlocked android phones and install whatever you want. But the reality for our parents / grandparents etc is that the folks who want to have root on their device want to scam them, auto bill them with non-cancelable billing etc etc etc, market to them by tracking everything, turn all their data over to the govt.
We have basically one company who is trying to do a consumer / privacy first play. They went toe to toe with the DOJ to avoid unlocking the phone of a known shooter.
As more and more of our life lands on these devices, I think this is the smart play. Go use another phone if you don't like it.
Would you please not post in the flamewar style to HN? Your comments in this thread are standing out as particularly flamebaity. We're trying to avoid that here.
Half of my audience is on your favorite device. I didn't have to pay for them before Apple sunk their claws in.
Even if there wasn't a tax, the lack of freedom is what really gets me. Apple built itself atop open source. They leveraged it to gain control over 40% of the CPUs used by consumers. Now we can't run code for these people.
I applaud their privacy stance. But freedom to run software is a separate issue.
My experience with freedom to run software resulted in me spending an inordinate amount of time dealing with malware.
If anyone wants to come up with a freedom to run software alternative that doesn’t result in me dealing with malware, I’m open to it.
Until then, I have to pay Apple, because I don’t have time to deal with the alternatives currently available.
Edit:
>Half of my audience is on your favorite device. I didn't have to pay for them before Apple sunk their claws in.
I might be part of that audience, but when I was purchasing tablets for my business, I chose Apple, because I didn’t want to deal with malware or google support. I knew I could rely on Apple to not have malware and to provide in person support in reasonable time. I’m also willing to pay 30% extra for a subscription via the App Store since I know it’s dead easy to cancel it.
I am aware of Apple’s injustices with their arbitrary rules and enforcement and how they are able to screw over developers. But I need to move on with life, and I need something that just works.
Having an alternative to the App Store doesn't mean you have to stop using the App Store, or suffer any reduction in quality in the apps available on the App Store. Nothing changes for you in exchange for more freedom for others.
I assume a device's security is improved by being hampering the ability to install software. Can I rely on an Android device to not be tampered with or have malware just as much as I can an iOS device?
I don't mean secure as in the NSA can't break into it. I mean secure as in normal people can't mess it up clicking bullshit links in WhatsApp messages.
I'm guessing you don't use Android at all, but it is very difficult to accidentally install something outside of the play store. I would even say it is tricky to purposely install something outside of the play store.
I did from 2010 to 2015 and while I didn't have a problem, my dad was able to get malware on his. He actually was iOS from 2010 to 2014 then android 2015 to 2018, and then he kept messing his device up so I told him I'm not helping him unless he goes to iOS.
All I know is I needed a 100% guarantee the device won't be tampered with by random people for my business and that other than turning it off and on, there was no tech support needed. To me, this meant going with Apple.
Do you know the specific method he got malware on his device? Because people assume that Android malware are from secondary illicit app stores, and not just malware that was not caught on Google's inferior official Play Store, or from exploits at the OS level.
No, I didn't bother researching that. My dad very well might have gone in the options settings and disabled some stuff if the WhatsApp message instructions told him to to get something he wanted. He has, for some unknown reason, the desire to trust all the things he shouldn't, and for him I need a device that simply can't be touched.
Especially since nowadays your financial accounts and everything is secured via SMS 2FA.
Fair enough, but again the whole anti-alternate app stores narrative hinges on the supposition that these app stores will be a significant source of malware. I'm wondering if there are any Android security studies that proves or disproves that point.
So it looks like allowing users to easily sideload apps, let alone direct download and install binaries from mobile web, is problematic. Their stats on third-party app stores seems more scanty.
> In 2018, hostile downloaders made up 22.0% of all sideloaded PHAs, making this the third most prevalent category, as in 2017. While this category accounted for 0.39% of all sideloaded apps in 2017, it is down to 0.20% in 2018, a sharp decline. Last year, Trojans were particularly targeting devices in India, Indonesia, Russia, Brazil, and Mexico.
> The prevalence of hostile downloaders is due to a combination of legitimate third-party stores with poor security setups that distribute PHAs, fake stores that are built specifically for spreading PHAs, pre-installed apps that slipped through the security scans of OEMs, and plain apps that pretend to (or actually do) offer user-wanted features while downloading PHAs in the background.
Android has an "allow software from unknown sources" option buried in the settings menu. As long as you don't specifically go looking for that option and THEN approve the source of the .apk file and THEN click install on the system dialog, you can't accidentally install non-play-store software.
What privacy rules would those be? Why would iOS privacy settings be affected by the install method? What would be different from the Facebook SDK that's already installed in millions of apps on the App Store today?
Abusing private APIs would be a major issues. Binaries uploaded to the App Store are inspected to ensure that they aren't abusing any private APIs. Facebook controlling their own store would allow them to circumvent this check. In the past, private APIs have been used to track users, amongst other malicious behaviour.
I use Android, and the Google and Amazon Android devices combined have had less malware infections than iOS despite having vastly more users. I get to run my own apps on my device without telling anybody, so there is also more privacy. You've been hoodwinked into supporting a restrictive platform that benefits only Apple.
> Half of my audience is on your favorite device. I didn't have to pay for them before Apple sunk their claws in.
A big part of the reason why I bought an iPhone is the App Store. That’s because the App Store imposes rules on software developers, such as Facebook, which have consistently proven that they don’t particularly care about privacy, security or other user-centric concerns. If I felt like I could trust these developers, maybe I wouldn’t be on an iPhone. But they haven’t earned my trust.
> But freedom to run software is a separate issue.
It isn't, because it's tied to security.
I don't understand why a company, like Apple, shouldn't be allowed to create locked-down devices.
This practice isn't new either. Locked down game consoles have existed since the dawn of computing. What makes this situation special? Don't like it, then don't buy it.
Speaking of the situation at hand, Epic did in fact distribute Fortnite outside of Google Play. Until they eventually caved, because distribution via Google Play is more lucrative.
This isn't about your freedom, they couldn't care less. This is about them making Apple succumb to their demands, while still using the App Store as a distribution channel.
And yes, it matters what "champions" are fighting for your "freedoms". When the likes of Epic are your champion, maybe you're on the wrong side of it.
One reason might be related to xCloud bypassing Apple's parental controls for both screen time and in-app purchasing that Apple requires for games distributed via the App Store. I expect Microsoft will work with Apple to resolve these issues and xCloud will be eventually be released in the App Store once they are resolved.
It's sad that people fall for the "privacy first". I recently got a new Macbook and opting out of the cloud services was a real hassle, and sometimes the settings pop back on updates. Apple wants your data, they just don't want anybody else to have it.
I buy some of my devices from apple because I like the hardware. The walled garden is annoying and has nothing to do with resale value. The resale value is high because of continuing updates and nice hardware - you'd factory reset everything you buy second hand anyway.
>I'm honestly depressed because people rush to defend bad behavior of their favorite monopoly.
While techies lived in their utopia, the rest of us without the ability to compile from source were tricked into downloading spyware, profiled, and scammed from dubious "developers". These problems were known, but nothing was done about them in the name of "developer freedom".
A company comes along and offers the vast majority of people a safe computing environment at a premium. Surprise, surprise most people choose that and instead of having to trust N-developers to not do everything in their power to get a quick buck, I only have to trust 1, Apple, to do the filtering.
The problem that I'm starting to see is most people here, being developers, naturally side themselves against Apple. The alternate perspective I have is that most developers are actually user hostile and Apple is the only one that has repeatedly shown to value my dollars over abusing my data or privacy. So, no, I'm not "rooting" for Epic after the games industry and repeatedly shown they will abuse children with gambling mechanics. Why should fight for Match Group's rights at the detriment to my own?
Is a happy delusion preferable to a miserable reality?
The App Store has become a virtual Truman Show. As long as you don't look beyond its simulated reality, it's a happy place.
Developers have the perspective and ability to look behind the curtains. And what they find there is a truly miserable reality of unfair practices, deceptions, and even censorship.
The philosophical answer to the question above has long been given. In the end, a miserable reality is always preferable to a happy delusion. And it's only a matter of time until "ordinary" users will discover that harsh truth themselves.
Being a bit more unprotected is a small price in exchange to not losing your freedom.
>Is a happy delusion preferable to a miserable reality?
Your miserable reality is one where:
* Nation-states have full access to location data to many Americans
* Ad companies abusing user data to push questionable products
* Moneyed interests spreading disinformation through hypertargetting.
This isn't hyperbole. Snowden already showed the length the USG was willing to go (1). Facebook is currently under fire for (2) and (3).
So yes, I'd gladly trade away my freedom in my pocket toy to ensure I retain my freedoms in my everyday life. If it's unfair that Epic has to charge a 30% markup on "v-bucks" so be it. The Developer complaints, deceptions and censorship have been so laughably elementary compared to the level abuse that Apple's wall garden prevents. It, again, shows the level blindness that utopians who can build from source have ignored.
If I cared about device freedom, there are plenty of phones on the market that provide that. However I have explicitly bought into Apple's platform in order to prevent developers from doing whatever they wish on my device.
Your logical fallacy is to believe that you will retain your everyday life freedoms that way. The lines between digital and real life are already blurring. You will lose freedom in both this way.
I hope for you that we utopians won't have to rescue you one day with our ability to build from source. If enough of your kind would exist, we might all be working for the FANGS and nobody will be there for you anymore.
> I want a world where we're free to install whatever we want on our devices
We all have different opinions, so we're never going to get everything in this world to adhere to the same ideals. If you don't like Apple's approach as a consumer, use Android. Some of us like that Apple locks things down very tightly and want it to remain. It's not a perfect solution, but neither is Google's approach, so it's nice that there are two very different options.
> or distribute our hard work to others without having to implement it 5 different ways.
Even if Apple allows sideloading, this problem will still exist.
> Your perspective makes me sad. I'm honestly depressed because people rush to defend bad behavior of their favorite monopoly. Like, physically holding back tears. Serious.
As long as there's no law where if a company refuses to cancel a "recurring billing" with the same number of clicks that was done to create a recurring billing a customer can immediately collect N times the amount of subscription value from the company the likes of Epic, Match and Spotify can go and eff themselves. Customers like app store payments because the alternatives demonstrated to be swindling scum.
Apple doesn’t even have 50% of the smartphone market.
It sounds like you’re an App developer so perhaps it would be more honest to just explicitly state that you want to make more money rather than claim youre on the verge of tears?
> Apple doesn’t even have 50% of the smartphone market.
It looks like they command between 33% and 46% of sales in the US per quarter. [1]
That's a lot of people. Many of them use their iPhone as their only computer.
> It sounds like you’re an App developer so perhaps it would be more honest to just explicitly state that you want to make more money
I want freedom back.
I have projects that make zero money that I want to run. I also don't want to have to have an Apple SDK license or write it in their chosen technology or be required to follow their stringent UI guidelines because my audience is niche and doesn't care about that. My time on this earth is too limited to jump through more hoops.
I also don't want to have my app deleted because I'm protesting them.
Dealing with Apple is like living under an authoritarian regime. We don't have any choice but to deal with them because of the power they wield.
Apple doesn’t even have 50% of the smartphone market.
It sounds like you’re an App developer so perhaps it would be more honest to just explicitly state that you want to make more money rather than claim your on the verge of tears?
> I'm honestly depressed because people rush to defend bad behavior of their favorite monopoly.
In favor of supporting a cartel who will essentially have the same power? I don't think the OP was defending Apple, just that the antagonist is likely just as awful.
What is wrong is that somehow we believe that if you set up a system where the end goal is growth by any means necessary unless explicitly disallowed by law is the moral thing to do it'll turn out any different.
> Now you can't distribute binaries without oversight and taxation.
do you mean selling software?
On a slightly different note, I'm curious about how much of the change in your experience of the internet comes down to a change in its user base. I'm not sure when this happened, but I think the vast majority of internet users now consists of people who don't care about these issues at all, for better or for worse.
This is the same as game consoles, so it has been the case for a long time. Consumers seem completely fine with relaxing that constraint if everything else “Just works”.
Once you are no longer twelve, life's too fucking short to spend forever configuring your new graphics card unless you have explicitly decided that being A Gamer is your hobby.
The problem is when you let companies run free they do bad things. There are bad actors out there and apples wall garden keeps them at bay and in check. I LIKE not having to worry about what I install from the App Store. Adding random apks or even downloading anything from the play store can legitimately be unsafe.
At that I don’t trust companies with credit cards and subscriptions - I trust apple. I get an email for every renewal, but every charge, and cancelling is easy. Other stores and companies do not do that because letting you know means less money for then.
> Adding random apks or even downloading anything from the play store can legitimately be unsafe.
It has been unsafe, but Android was designed with this in mind and is continually improving its security model. For instance, Android 11 added a regular check-in for permissions you have granted to apps and tightened a bunch of other loose ends like background location access.
(In general, barring unpatched security vulnerabilities, it's about as unsafe as blindly clicking things in your web browser, or believing the weird robot that calls you every day really should know your bank account number. You can try to help this using technology, but it is not a technology problem).
Apple does the same kind of work all the time, tightening sandboxes and patching vulnerabilities, but they always have the crutch of app reviews to fall back on. But it is completely wrong to believe that crutch is the thing between iOS as a reliable platform and iOS as a malware-ridden hellscape. That's what Apple wants you to think, but their developers are not actually that stupid.
For evidence on how you can build a solid, reasonably secure platform without this kind of crutch, you might consider Linux on servers, desktop MacOS, modern desktop Linux (particularly stuff like Fedora Silverblue), even modern Windows. This is not a solved problem by any means, but it's solved enough that giving up, closing the gate and throwing away the key is completely counter-productive.
And by free I mean the amount of people who currently use for example WhatsApp, which allows us to freely communicate with others. Even my mother is using it! Ten years ago she hadn’t touched any kind of tech.
> this illustrates WHY the app store is so popular
No it doesn't. The app store is "popular" because Apple users don't have a choice. It's "popular" because they're forced to use it.
I'm neither defending it or criticizing it... but let's not pretend like consumers are choosing the app store.
Users in general are choosing Apple vs Android primarily for reasons that have nothing to do with an app store (i.e. hardware, support, iMessage, branding, etc.) and then simply use whatever app store they're forced to.
> No it doesn't. The app store is "popular" because Apple users don't have a choice. It's "popular" because they're forced to use it.
I spend WAY more on apps in the App Store as well as subscriptions because I know I'm not going to get screwed and I can easily throw a few dollars to a company without having to check to make sure they aren't scummy. I can cancel my subscriptions extremely easily and I get to keep my access through the current paid period. I have used both Play and the App Store and I greatly prefer the App Store over the Play store, it, along with what I perceive as higher quality apps in the store, is absolutely a deciding factor in both my choice of iOS and my recommendation to friends/family.
Speak for yourself. I try to pay everything I can via the App Store subscriptions precisely because it’s easier to cancel. I made the mistake of subscribing to nytimes and I have to call them to cancel. That’s a major brand making me do this.
No the parent is right, I manage as many subscriptions as possible through Apple and have no desire to move to another platform until they provide the same policy guarantees.
I subscribed and purchased lots of random apps through App Store because it is easy and I know that I can easily cancel my subscription or refund my money. So far, I only subscribed to Netflix and Sketch from a website.
I can easily say that I threw more of my money to random apps on AppStore.
If a subscription service would use Apple Pay and I can cancel inside Apple Pay by deactivating the virtual card, I may subscribe these services in or out iPhone. But Apple pay is not available on everywhere.
Interesting how there's so many posts here attacking the companies behind the action (ad hominem style) by specifying actions that have nothing to do with the abuses Apple and AppStore do.
It seems that the post is highlighting how the subscription and refund options of these companies provide a far worse experience than the Apple App Store which is a legitimate concern for why providing a work around can lead to worse user experiences if these companies provide their app via a different chancel that doesn't enforce certain UX requirements.
For that reason the comment does seem helpful and relevant.
Not trying to take a side here, but Epic especially is not the company I want leading the charge here. I am vehemently opposed to their (and Tencent's) primary business model.
Edit: It isn't like there aren't policies that Apple has in place that should be pushed back against. But, Epic seems to have zero qualms about targeting children misleading and manipulative in game transactions, and I think that Epic having their way is far more nightmarish than Apple's equivalent, based on my current understanding of the two companies business models.
> Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.
I think Epic Games, at least, is an all-around horrific company, and in this case has intentionally exploited the App Store to start a specious lawsuit.
Showing how App Store is consumer centric - I think that's important to put in the context where Apple has to keep a tight grip or else these savage businesses would devour the customer's privacy in instant and exploit their psyche with tricks to milk as much money as they can.
Native apps have always been major privacy leaks with little oversight while Apple has spent most of the effort on Safari. The app store doesn't change that fact.
Allowing other stores doesn't mean you have to use them. You could still have your curated experience on the Apple store. Why do you want to impose your views on others?
That's dishonest. The situation is identical on Android. Yes. You can "technically" sideload apps, but there is so many hoops to go through that you really can't distribute your application this way.
There is friction with updates as well. But we don't have to argue since even a giant such as Epic didn't manage to do it with the fortnight franchise..
Why are you, tech-savvy users, forcing Apple to allow third-party app stores/installations, which would no doubt lead to malware like we see on Windows, Macs, and Android?
I and my software friends/colleagues might be capable of avoiding this malware (assuming you don’t consider Zoom and such to be malware), but my family and everyone else I know are not. I suspect 70+% of the user base could easily be tricked into installing malware that would spam them with sex notifications, hijack their search engine, etc.
How much do you want to bet that Epic and Spotify would pull their apps from the App Store or limit the features of their apps on the App Store in order to force people to their preferred platform?
This isn't even hypothetical. Spotify already refuses to add features to the Apple Watch.
No, the argument of the poster you are replying to is that these companies are competing and rooting for one or another doesn’t benefit anybody, developers or costumers.
Who is imposing views in this situation? You don't have to use Apple devices as your platform either. Most likely you use it because you benefit from it. Especially these companies that get huge profits from it. The platform was provided to them under certain conditions that they are free to reject at any moment and to walk away if they find that they will benefit more from that decision.
Yes, it does mean that you have to use them (if you already do). If you're a user of Spotify or Tinder and they pull out of the App Store, you now have to follow whatever arbitrary consumer-hostile decisions that will make them the most money since there's no one to tell them otherwise. I like that they have to follow the strict rules in the App Store because I know they want that sweet sweet App Store money and won't pull out unless there's a less strict option. It's like giving auto manufacturers a choice to either sell via dealerships that follow EPA laws or those that don't. Gee, I wonder which one they will go with given the choice?
Forcing you to use 3rd party store for few apps is somehow worst than forcing everyone to use the Apple store for all apps?
This discussion is moot. Apple only has to lower it's cut to cost + a reasonable markup instead of abusing it's position to charge 30%. Then everybody can be happy.
It's not going to be a few apps and they might not even be a few stores. It's going to be a bunch of stores with varying rules and conditions and bars for quality and selection of apps. I'm not interested in that because I don't trust other companies to do the right thing. If you're interested in that, you can use Android. No one is forcing you to use iOS.
Also, there is no reason to believe any percentage is too high or too low. 30% is what Apple has charged since day 1 when it had no position whatsoever. You will need to explain exactly at which point in time 30% became problematic.
I think it's getting obvious that the situation is untenable. If it's not the US courts, some other court will likely enact changes.
In the end it doesn't matter how Apple and Google got to this duopoly position of power, if it was fair or of they had to work hard. The fact that matters is where they are now.
Sigh... I’ll ignore the subtle dig and respond to this straight. I don’t want my daily driver phone that I rely on to do my real hacking to be a science experiment. I want it to be a tool that always works, and I want it to be somebody else’s job to ensure that. No one is perfect at this, not even Apple, but they are the best at it in 2020 and the App Store lock down is part of that. If Android didn’t exist, I might feel that a different balance would be optimal, but it does, and it’s thriving. I’ve developed for the App Store and while it’s a pain in the ass, I actually appreciate that There are standards that must be met and I can’t be undercut by a competitor who is willing to take shortcuts.
I just find it shortsighted; you're getting immediate convenience at the expense of longer term innovation and freedom. As I keep saying, if Microsoft had the power in 1990 that people want Apple to have today, the web wouldn't exist because Mosaic and Netscape would have been banned.
I’d prefer it if Microsoft, Google, Samsung, and other device makers released products that were on par with Apple’s. We are in this situation because Apple release better products than the competition. As a costumer, I want better products.
People here are consumers too. To give my anecdata:
I used to subscribe to the NYT and made the mistake of not subscribing using Apple's subscriptions mechanism. When I wanted to cancel for a while, I had to go through a whole spiel with their sales rep to get them to honor my cancellation. With other subscription services on Apple (like many the TV streaming subscriptions) cancelling is a couple of standard clicks and you're done. No questions asked. I've cancelled and re-subscribed to thing like HBO multiple times because of it, but I will never be resubscribing to the NYT again.
I don't want 90 different ways to cancel 90 different subscriptions from 90 different stores for 90 different apps on my phone, so yeah I do appreciate having one place to do it, and I wish it were harder for developers to skirt the App Store infrastructure to push their own consumer-hostile options.
As a signifier of technological anti-establishment thinking I think that label is pretty meaningless at this point.
Most of the "Hackers" of my generation grew up to either vacuum up user data without their consent, micro-target advertising (including political propaganda), or fund those that do the above two things.
But I am a customer too. For example, a couple months ago an, ad got my mom to install an app without her consent. She said she could not escape the page until she clicked okay, and she wasn’t aware the app had installed at all. I noticed because I started receiving charges for a subscription to the app services. A simple chat with Apple support granted me a reimbursement.
As a customer, Apple treats me well. I understand where tons of developers are coming from, but as a customer I haven’t had a better experience.
If you're asking "is it possible for multiple people to be so annoyed by the business practises of tech giants that they complain about it online even when not directly related to the topic at hand"... yeah, yeah it is. No need to look for a conspiracy here.
I spent months dealing with myheritages uncancelable auto-renewal. Others make you cancel 30 days in advance, but not more than 90 days in advance, with a phone call that runs you through dumb menus
At some point you have a life, kids, wife, etc and playing these games is not worth it. Apple markets to those of us who even though tech savvey don't want to play the game some of these big scammer / microtransaction folks want to play.
Is it the job of the DOJ to help scammers make money? Or can anti-trust be about some type of consumer protection?
Apple has carved out a small but lucrative area which is basically pretty consumer attentive. I think google assistant is way better, but I just like having a hassle free experience with apple too much to switch for what might be a better spec'ed product. I get my phone for 3 years, get applecare+ on it, and away I go. I've actually used AppleCare once, I was in and out in something like 15 minutes with a new phone. I've had apple remind me to cancel app subscriptions when I delete an app if I won't be re-installing! You get a notice before renewals on subscriptions, the terms are always clear and in dollars, consistent interface to cancel and get terms (ie, no FREE 1 month (and then fine print - $50/month after)).
The irony is that these are the sleezeballs - the EXACT folks that make doing subscriptions online so annoying and illustrate what apple is trying to create with their platform - TRUST.
They make games for Xbox - I'm sure microsoft wants a cut. Playstation I'm sure does the same.
This has everything to do with the apple eco-system from the consumer standpoint. I realize the issue here is that folks like tinder can't run whatever scam they want on the apple platform. Why is this a crime again?
Don't like it? There are tons of other phones out there, apple doesn't have close to a monopoly in smartphone sales.
The standards are already a train wreck, that's the entire issue, along with consumers not having any other choice in how they install apps so popularity can't be measured in the first place.
Also Apple has plenty of supply chain problems and anti-consumer practices that equal and exceed those other issues you named.
> No developer should be required to use an app store exclusively, or to use ancillary services of the app store owner, including payment systems, or to accept other supplementary obligations in order to have access to the app store.
Apple doesn’t have a monopoly here they don’t even have 50% marketshare. Nobody forces developers to develop apps for Apple devices, that’s a choice that was made. Why should Apples rights over its own IP get trumped by others?
I find it hard to see as a win for consumers based on the scummy practices of the companies in this advocacy group. Comparatively consumers are much better with Apples requirements from my perspective.
So given that there is potential for significant harm AND developers have a choice of platforms to develop for why should Apples rights be taken away?
> No developer should be blocked from the platform or discriminated against based on a developer’s business model, how it delivers content and services, or whether it competes in any way with the app store owner.
So if I sell an app that does something like only sells to white people Apple shouldn’t be allowed to step in even though the negative press is likely to harm their brand image?
> Every developer should have timely access to the same interoperability interfaces and technical information as the app store owner makes available to its own developers.
Apple should be forced to work on behalf of other companies with no benefit for them?
> Every developer should always have access to app stores as long as its app meets fair, objective and nondiscriminatory standards for security, privacy, quality, content, and digital safety.
Is this not true today? If it’s not Apple setting those standards it’s surely some other biased entity right? How is one better than the other?
> A developer’s data should not be used to compete with the developer.
This seems fair.
> Every developer should always have the right to communicate directly with its users through its app for legitimate business purposes.
Why does communicate mean in this instance? I can see how the definition of communicate could be exploited to allow apps to override permission defaults set by Apple. For example perhaps you get an add and the app owner things it’s valid to start the microphone so the communication channel can be opened? Perhaps I want to communicate based on location? Should I be allowed to access GPS information without permissions?
> No app store owner or its platform should engage in self-preferencing its own apps or services, or interfere with users’ choice of preferences or defaults.
Why? It’s their platform. Developers are free to develop their own phone / OS, right?
> No developer should be required to pay unfair, unreasonable or discriminatory fees or revenue shares, nor be required to sell within its app anything it doesn’t wish to sell, as a condition to gain access to the app store.
Apple would surely say developers do not pay an unfair or unreasonable amount. Who sets this standard?
> No app store owner should prohibit third parties from offering competing app stores on the app store owner’s platform, or discourage developers or consumers from using them.
Why? If your App Store bricks an iPhone, Apple shouldn’t be able to prevent that from
being installed on their devices?
> All app stores will be transparent about their rules and policies and opportunities for promotion and marketing, apply these consistently and objectively, provide notice of changes, and make available a quick, simple and fair process to resolve disputes.
Transparent is subjective. I don’t see how this won’t result in the same types of TOS that people without legal degrees are not equipped to parse/understand.
>I find it hard to see as a win for consumers based on the scummy practices of the companies in this advocacy
group. Comparatively consumers are much better with Apples requirements from my perspective.
Its a clear win for users and developers because of competition in stores. Different stores will have different overheads and operating costs and can offer different discounts to both users and developers. Apple's brutal monopoly prevents that.
>So given that there is potential for significant harm AND developers have a choice of platforms to develop for why should Apples rights be taken away?
There is harm being doing today by Apple to users and developers. We need to undo that.
>So if I sell an app that does something like only sells to white people Apple shouldn’t be allowed to step in even though the negative press is likely to harm their brand image?
That went straight over my head, sorry. I didn't understand what your point was..
>Apple should be forced to work on behalf of other companies with no benefit for them?
Apple keeps their own APIs secret, or rather, artificially bans Apps from using them. This is merely leveling the playing field to allow other app stores to operate.
>Is this not true today? If it’s not Apple setting those standards it’s surely some other biased entity right? How is one better than the other?
Multiple app-stores will ensure competition.
>Why? It’s their platform. Developers are free to develop their own phone / OS, right?
I don't want Windows to ban Chrome or Firefox or arbitrarily block people from accessing websites either. "Its their platform" so they get to abuse their position of power is not a winning argument for me anyway. Clearly our views differ on this.
>Apple would surely say developers do not pay an unfair or unreasonable amount. Who sets this standard?
We set a fair income tax through the political process (however flawed) that allows stakeholders to participate. No system is perfect and we can only strive to improve the existing one. Right now, its Apple's dictatorial approach that is setting the rules. I'm glad there is a pushback.
>Why? If your App Store bricks an iPhone, Apple shouldn’t be able to prevent that from being installed on their devices?
That is ludicrous. A madman could use a knife to kill you so lets ban knifes?! If we have to be mature and rational about it, we need to evaluate things in a much more nuanced fashion.
>Transparent is subjective. I don’t see how this won’t result in the same types of TOS that people without legal degrees are not equipped to parse/understand.
Everything is subjective here. Apple's robbing of 30% of sales needs to end.
For reference, all of these practices are abusive and will void the subscription contract in civil law (Europe). Ask for a refund and perform a charge back if they don't refund.
Good lord, when you say someone has to go through a civil law litigation (in the US this is a nightmare) to just do a basic unsubscribe - you AGAIN demonstrate why the app store is popular.
Epic doesn't allow a civil law process, they force arbitration anyways. So the deck is stacked against you
I'm speaking toward Europeans of course, the US does not operate under civil law.
Epic doesn't get to set the law, the country where the consumer resides does. France for example operates under civil law and arbitration clauses are void (in consumer contracts not in B2B).
Users should ask for refund and charge back if they can't get a refund, preferably keeping a paper trail of the requests. The legal details are only relevant if one goes to litigation (this sadly happens regularly for example with children bankrupting their parents with in-game purchases).
> For reference, all of these practices are abusive and will void the subscription contract in civil law (Europe). Ask for a refund and perform a charge back if they don't refund.
Do you think that really matters to or is realistic for the average non-technical user? Heck even as technical user I don't want to deal with that crap, I want 1 click unsubscribe which I get through App Store subscriptions.
I think it matters that the law is on the side of the consumer, least the big company would sue the customer for charge back and try to take over their home as damages.
I am sorry but this is nonsense. App store is "popular" because it's the only option. We can try to imagine if it would still be popular with cheaper competition but right now there is one reason for its popularity: there is nothing else.
If trust is indeed lost than people will just use Apple app store knowing full well other ones are unsafe/offer worse experience.
Monopalies become large enough that their existence threatens capitalism itself by controlling the free market through Ill means. Markets are comprised of people, business, and money. when a market is large enough People have a right to conduct their business unduly infringed by it's creator or controller. Anything else is a fascist market that is entirely against capitalism, and therefore should not exist in a free world.
You may like your padded walls and taking authority, but the market does not belong to you. It belongs to the opportunity of business.
That s pure whataboutsm. Nothing stops apple from vetting apps without charging an extortionate 30% tax. They have plenty of money to do that. Or do you imply that apple’s tax deters scammers? Then , how are these companies accepted in the app store?
I was told in other threads that taxes, especially if they are progressive, are a good thing and that they help the society and the government to function, and that we pay them because we receive services in exchange, and that it doesn't matter how satisfied we are with those services. If you call Apple charges taxes, be consistent and respect them as any other tax in your life. Or denounce all of them. Or stop calling them taxes.
> That said, i dont see how paying the apple tax for the apps i buy is benefiting me at all, since i'm in Europe.
Do you see how VAT benefits you when you pay it when buying almost any product/service (including the ones from Apple) in your country?
I agree with your taxation stance though, because taxes are not voluntary. AppStore is, I can either pay for it and use it, or jailbreak it and use it, or walk away to open platforms and enjoy their freedom. And if there isn't one, I am free to organise with others and to build my own.
Besides, Apple doesn't want you to pay for it, it wants to get a fee from the developers who use the platform to profit from it. It's either developers who consciously put this burden of their fees on your shoulders, or there's a ridiculous law in place that doesn't allow the developers to put different price tags on different platforms, which results in higher prices for end users.
Vatc added at point of sale so in theory there is some benefit.
Apple tax is aptly named because the analogy is good: it s mandatory (though not at gunpoint) , it s proportionate and arbitrary (might make sense if it was only on app sales, but why do they mandate a cut of subscription revenue? What do they offer in return?) and it s just too unjustifiably high
Can users and developers who are in favor of keeping the App Store as is form an advocacy group too?
I’ve been collecting a list of arguments in favor of maintaining the status quo on iOS and I’ve yet to see anyone offer a good solution to these:
---- The problems with letting all apps advertise external payment systems:
• Someone may publish a free app to avoid paying anything to Apple, and then charge users [an asston of] money to ""unlock"" via an alternate payment system.
• Users may not be able to see a list of all in-app purchases (and their guaranteed prices) as they can on the App Store, without downloading the app.
• Sharing your payment details and other information with multiple entities, and having to continually trust each of them (e.g. to not abuse or leak).
• Confused users may clog up Apple's customer support with complaints related to third-party payment systems.
• Angry users may demand Apple to offer refunds for shit that was paid for via third-party payment systems.
---- The problems with allowing third-party app stores on iOS:
• How will iOS sandboxing be enforced for apps delivered via third-party stores? Will those apps still have to be submitted to and signed by Apple?
• Store apps would need the privilege to write binaries on your iPhone. How will that privilege be regulated to prevent abuse? e.g. what happens if a store starts writing malware?
• Users may sometimes have to wait longer for an app to update on one store than on others (as already happens on Steam vs GoG).
• Developers would no longer be assured that they will have access to literally all the users that iOS has, by publishing on just one store.
• You would have to submit to each store, wait for approval on each of them, update for each of them... to come close to the userbase that you can currently access by just publishing once on the App Store.
• Developers will no longer all play by the same rules. One store may allow some content while another may prohibit it.
• Controversial content like porn may still ultimately be bound by Apple's ruling on such matters, rendering moot the freedom of third-party stores in what kind of apps they may offer.
• iOS Parental Control and Screen Time restrictions may be ineffective on other stores (and browsers too if third-party rendering engines were allowed).
• If an app or game is exclusive to a store that a user isn't already using, they would have to create a new account and maintain an additional app just to access that one exclusive.
• Not all stores may be compatible with the iOS backup and restore system, or the APIs for app-thinning and on-demand resources.
----
To resolve many of those issues, Apple would have to ultimately step in anyway.
The need for third-party stores is really not that great to offset the advantages offered by the current system.
> One store may allow some content while another may prohibit it.
Yes, that's a good thing.
> How will iOS sandboxing be enforced for apps delivered via third-party stores?
This seems like a non-problem. Sandboxing is a local OS feature.
> e.g. what happens if a store starts writing malware?
The same thing that happens when the apple and google app stores do that. Reputation loss, or more likely: Nothing.
> How will that privilege be regulated to prevent abuse?
Why does it have to be? Why can't the used give an app the permission to act as an app store and install apps? This permission exists in android but can only be granted by the phone vendor (or google)
> Controversial content like porn may still ultimately be bound by Apple's ruling on such matters, rendering moot the freedom of third-party stores in what kind of apps they may offer.
It shouldn't be.
> iOS Parental Control and Screen Time restrictions may be ineffective on other stores (and browsers too if third-party rendering engines were allowed).
How so? Especially screen time restrictions is a non-issue for different stores. How is the rendering engine for a browser the restricting factor for content control?
All other points are questions of convenience.
Also many of these problems have the opposite too:
* What about content that is deemed inappropriate by apple, but users don't share that value judgement?
* What about web features that are not implemented by safari, but users might want?
* What about apps that are not implemented for iOS because the developers don't want to or can not abide by apples rules or got removed by apple for no clear reason?
> Yes, that's a good thing. re: One store may allow some content while another may prohibit it.
Please don't half-quote selectively: "Developers will no longer all play by the same rules."
> This seems like a non-problem. Sandboxing is a local OS feature. re: How will iOS sandboxing be enforced for apps delivered via third-party stores?
For an app to be sandboxed it must be submitted to Apple and signed. Ergo: You would have to go through Apple anyway.
> The same thing that happens when the apple and google app stores do that. Reputation loss, or more likely: Nothing. re: what happens if a store starts writing malware?
There has been no cross-app malware on the iOS App Store.
> Why does it have to be? re: How will that privilege be regulated to prevent abuse?
If a third-party store and/or the apps served by it contain malware, but users aren't aware of it (e.g. cryptocurrency mining, data harvesting, and other silent exploitation of users' devices), it's good to have someone who is able to remotely shut those apps down.
> It shouldn't be. re: Controversial content like porn may still ultimately be bound by Apple's ruling...
...are you seriously saying porn and "adult" apps (like prostitution services and even more questionable material) should be allowed on Apple devices?
You're literally out to forcibly dismantle the entire value proposition of a company's products.
Are you going to force Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo to do the same for their consoles? Why only Apple? Just because they're too successful? They became this successful because of these restrictions. People want a curated platform.
> How so? Especially screen time restrictions is a non-issue for different stores. How is the rendering engine for a browser the restricting factor for content control? re: iOS Parental Control and Screen Time restrictions may be ineffective on other stores (and browsers too if third-party rendering engines were allowed).
They have to go through the official APIs to adhere to system-wide content restrictions set by a user, which requires reviewing and signing by Apple, otherwise they could just skip the official APIs and ignore any parental control settings etc.
> All other points are questions of convenience.
You haven't given any solutions to any of the questions, other than:
• Don't use it.
• It's not a problem.
The same answers apply to the status quo:
• Don't use Apple devices.
• A single App Store is not a problem for the majority of users:
>Someone may publish a free app to avoid paying anything to Apple, and then charge users [an asston of] money to ""unlock"" via an alternate payment system.
So don't use that app.
>Users may not be able to see a list of all in-app purchases (and their guaranteed prices) as they can on the App Store, without downloading the app.
If a store is missing a feature you want, you can simply choose not to use it.
>Sharing your payment details and other information with multiple entities, and having to continually trust each of them (e.g. to not abuse or leak).
This is a real problem, but solving it with an app store monopoly is a case of the cure being worse than the disease. Besides, I think the risks of sharing you credit card number are wildly overstated. You can issue a chargeback on any transaction, and reverse fraudulent purchases.
>Confused users may clog up Apple's customer support with complaints related to third-party payment systems.
Confused users already have enough complaints to clog up Apple's customer support with. Apple can just tell them to contact the third party's support.
>Angry users may demand Apple to offer refunds for shit that was paid for via third-party payment systems.
And Apple may tell them no. They're adults, the made a decision, now they have to live with the consequences.
>How will iOS sandboxing be enforced for apps delivered via third-party stores? Will those apps still have to be submitted to and signed by Apple?
That's not how sandboxing works.
>Store apps would need the privilege to write binaries on your iPhone. How will that privilege be regulated to prevent abuse? e.g. what happens if a store starts writing malware?
Malware is software that acts against the interests of the user. Nobody can know what the user wants except the user themself, so it must be the user's responsibility to install only the apps that they want on their device. This is already the current situation, since malware exists on the Apple App Store.
It's worth noting the although I'm technically on Epic's side here, I don't trust Epic and I would not install any of their software on one of my computers.
>Users may sometimes have to wait longer for an app to update on one store than on others (as already happens on Steam vs GoG).
Sometimes there are good reasons for this. For example, F-Droid users usually have to wait longer for updates than Google Play users, since F-Droid has a much more thorough review process. I think it's worth waiting longer so that I know the app hasn't introduces anti-features with its updates. Other people might disagree, and prefer getting updates as fast as possible. That's fine, Android allows multiple app stores so we can both get what we want.
I think this is also an interesting point: We've talked a lot about users who think the Apple App Store's rules are too strict but what about the users who think they aren't strict enough?
>Developers would no longer be assured that they will have access to literally all the users that iOS has, by publishing on just one store.
The Apple App Store will still be installed on every iOS device, unless you choose to remove it. No one is arguing otherwise.
>You would have to submit to each store, wait for approval on each of them, update for each of them... to come close to the userbase that you can currently access by just publishing once on the App Store.
Maybe so, but this is a relatively minor inconvenience, and apps are still free to choose to provide their app only on the Apple App Store, which every iPhone will have except where the user chose to remove it.
But, can we just say: fck Fortnite.
This is the wolf calling for homes to be built of straw. We hate “free to play”/“pay to win” and in-app purchases. We HATE* them. Thank god that Apple is taking a stand.
I haven’t been so happy with a company since they refused to unlock that dude’s phone in California a few years back. (Which, I know, the lawsuit ended the same day an iOS “security” patch came out.)
Seriously. If you can’t make money by playing by the rules, GTFO.
> We hate “free to play”/“pay to win” and in-app purchases.
While I'm not a Fortnite player, I thought Fortnite was known for not being pay-to-win, with IAP being for cosmetic options, not in-game advantages; basically selling digital collectibles you can show off while playing.
I think there is a pretty big ethical differentiation between that and F2P games that have you pay for in-game advantages (with the Wargaming.net model where you pay for in-game options that are mostly not competitive advantages but broaden the scope of play choices [because most of the competitive advantage is compensated in matchmaking] somewhere in between.)
What exactly is Apple doing to combat the scourge of “free to play”/“pay to win” and in-app purchases? From where I'm sitting, they seem perfectly fine with it (as long as they get their cut).
Completely disagree. Although I don't play Fortnite, their monetization model is fine. There is no pay to win (don't conflate that with free to play), the only things you can pay for are the battle pass and cosmetic skins. Apex and many other games use this model and it's ultimately good for the consumer in my experience.
Horrible take. Doesn't matter what you think of fortnite(it's not pay to win) Epic succeeding in making their own app store would be incredible for developers and consumers. You seem to be blinded by some sort of misguided rage.
You don't make a decision on a specific issue based on what company you like more, you base it on who is right on the specific issue.
From an ethical perspective that's what having a codified rule of laws is all about. Everyone get's the same rules no matter how much you like them. You don't arbitrarily punish people for doing things you don't like by denying them unrelated things that they are entitled to unless you go in front of a judge and get a judge to order that as a punishment for doing the thing you don't like.
From a entirely practical and short term perspective these decisions do not just impact the companies you don't like, they also impact everyone else because our legal system puts a very heavy weight on precedent.
I'm strongly reminded of the quote "Freedom of speech doesn't protect speech you like; it protects speech you don't like." (though obviously in this case it is applied to justice in general instead of speech in particular).