The FTC has been asleep at the wheel with tech companies in the 21st century and consumers have suffered as a result. Apple's locking consumers into their platform, Google's steering traffic towards its sites, Amazon's forcing its merchants to give them preferential treatment. These companies have too much power and we need a government who's willing to take bold steps to curb them.
Sometime after 9/11, the US realized that it was in their best interest to have American tech juggernauts, and if they hamstrung their own tech companies with antitrust and anti-competition laws, other countries (China) would not.
That was the end of antitrust enforcement on a larger scale for US companies.
That's a backwards projection. In the early 2000s we were still blithely confident that China would just slot into a world order dominated by us. The end of history and all that.
The record was that the Bush administration came in and immediately dropped the MS antitrust case because they were 'pro-business'. I suspect GWB genuinely believed in all this.
That’s a claim that requires evidence. And either way you’re making a classic fallacy via the rational actor model, where you’re personifying the US and asserting that the US “realized” something.
A far more accurate take is that big business continued to consolidate money and power and successfully used political influence to neuter the regulatory agencies.
Personally I would like to reign in all the smaller tech companies. Every device you buy nowadays requires a smartphone app, and they insert themselves into the equation, while doing a data grab.
Completely agree here. If you think the acquisitions have been the problem, splitting up those parts makes sense, primarily for Facebook, and possibly certain Amazon/Google/Apple acquisitions too. I think a separate Instagram, Waze, even Youtube, and PA Semi would all be successful on their own currently.
The other common problematic trait I'd say is some form of bad, lack of or preferential moderation with search results, misinformation, products, and apps. I think regulation like "American Innovation and Choice Online Act[1]” handles this well. If you want to be specific about Apple/Google, the OAMA[2] is good too IMO.
I fully agree but the implication is that the government is still in control. However, it’s these companies that are in control. They have people (i.e., politicians, lobbyists, judges, and other appointments) embedded into the government to do their bidding. America has been obsessed with communism and socialism infiltrating America all the while corporations have been infiltrating to get us to the current state of affairs, that of a corporatocracy.
I honestly feel that capitalism and the love of the corporation is leading the slow death of the U.S. The only way to fix things is to completely remove conflicts of interests and self-benefits and actually enforce such rules, in addition to setting term limits and other such things. However, the people that need to pass such laws are the ones who currently benefit, so it’s not gonna happen.
It’s rather unbelievable that I, as a minion, have been previously strictly held to gifts less than a certain amount (literally a couple of tens of dollars) and reports of stock holdings, but yet, former head lawyers of corporations can be appointed to now oversee those corporations. It’s mind boggling how anyone thinks that could possibly work for anyone except the corporations.
What global problem? The largest tech companies are either US or Chinese companies. The Chinese government is starting to take a hard line on Chinese tech giants. It's only the US government who hasn't made a move yet.
For other countries, it's hard to regulate foreign companies especially if legislation can't be enforced, or in some cases, those foreign companies just threaten to leave the market. Only the EU has unquestionable power (i.e. market size) to make US companies comply, and they have made various legislation and rulings that limit the power of these tech giants (eg. GDPR).
China is a totalitarian dictatorship. The hard line they are taking includes making entrepreneurs disappear for months at a time, presumably into some sort of "reeducation" (torture) camp.
Schiller comes across as needy and with a very low confidence in their own product. Some other company shows that their product works equally well on both Android and iPhone, and his response is that it's not fun to watch?
Also, this should be shown to everyone that says they prefer the Apple ecosystem because "it just works". You really can't get more user hostile than this, where you care more about extracting money from transactions that you're not a part of than making life easier for your paying customers.
Apple let Amazon sell books using their own payment system because Amazon sold a lot of books on their own Kindle platform that Apple wanted users to be able to read on iPhones, but as soon as Apple's platform was the biggest one they altered the deal to squeeze more money out of it. Like a monopoly would do.
This kind of paranoia became part of Apple's DNA in the late 90s, when Microsoft asked Apple to "knife the baby"[1], when Adobe was threatening Apple with killing their Mac apps, etc.
Yes, me too. Is that all he thought it would take to switch? Wasn't Apple's offering good enough that such an insignificant action was all it took for him to get nervous about user flight? I get that he wants his users to be locked in as tightly as possible, but again, it comes across as very low confidence in their own product.
Please inform us of any for-profit publicly held companies that are not "out for themselves." Presumably by "themselves" you mean the stockholders. All companies are legally bound to make decisions to benefit the company. Apple is like every other company in this regard.
Google in the early 2000s genuinely cared about users. Now it is full of dark patterns especially in Google ads. This is what happens when you lose your founders.
Ironically, the experience of using the Kindle app on Android has been superior to the experience of using the Kindle app on iOS devices ever since this email thread.
Want to do a mini PSA that you should (probably) read Steve Jobs' biography if you haven't, it makes posts like this much, much more interesting when you have a fuller background.
I wasn't a Steve Jobs fan so I never read it till recently. Still not a huge fan, but you can still see the tendrils of his influence that still affect today's world (adobe flash EOL last year, this stuff by not allowing you to buy books on the kindle/amazon app on iphone, continuing to control hardware and software experience). And you can see how it's gone (4 different ipads, etc)
I spent half a day watching multiple Jobs interviews on YouTube and there is an interesting effect across these interviews: the interviewers sound dated in their assumptions, while Jobs sounds fresh and contemporary. Even though these interviews were 20-30 years ago.
One example is when Steve is being grilled about buying a “search engine company” called “Siri” and the surrounding rumors being certain that Apple obviously bought this search company to go to war with Google. Steve laughed and said “that’s not a search company, it’s an AI company.”
They were ahead of the pack when Apple bought them. Then Apple spent a year or so making them remove and reduce their functionality and then release a gimped version that was nonetheless integrated into the OS.
In my experience, Siri has basically only provided my results from another search engine, WolframAlpha, or an API I'm not allowed to see/use. If that's artificial intelligence, then I'm Issac Asimov.
Amazon's Alex is way ahead of Siri and Cortana. It's as if Apple doesn't really care about Siri anymore. I don't know if they see the market for this as dead and they're purposely not putting more resources in it, or if they just can't compete here.
They hired Google’s head of Search and AI to run Siri and are investing a lot, so they care.
It seems to be taking time for the impact to show, but his fingerprints are all over iOS 15 with on-device Siri, contextual awareness, Google Lens features, etc.
It's also far more invasive in nearly every case. It's not that Apple doesn't care about Siri, it's just that Apple is working under the unbreakable rule that Siri can't send private info to Apple in order to function and so all processing needs to be done on the device. Amazon hasn't given itself this limitation so it sends data and recordings to itself every time Alexa is invoked.
Apple knows it's in a worse position now but they're betting that it's the better position to be in for the long term.
While your sentiment that Apple operates under far stricter privacy protections is totally correct (in my estimation) in fact until the latest version of iOS Siri absolutely did rely on sending audio data over the network for dictation and processing.
Case in point, it has always been possible to use Siri to turn on Airplane Mode, but until iOS 15 it was not possible to use it to turn it off (which they included in a demo at WWDC this year to somewhat humorous effect if you were paying attention)
That's not entirely accurate. You have the option of sending that audio data to Apple for processing (which is set during the setup for new iPhones and was a preference set when the update was released). It's completely optional and does affect what options are available through Siri and which ones aren't. Additionally, you have the option to change this setting after the fact and changing it deletes all the voice data stored on Apple's servers. You do have to trust that Apple is doing what they say when you choose to do that but it's not a requirement.
I think the option you're thinking of refers to whether or not to allow Apple access to your data for training purposes, not the normal use of the feature.
I just grabbed my partner's iPhone (ios 14), turned on airplane mode. Trigger Siri and it says not available without an internet connection. Try it for yourself, prior to iOS 15 Siri simply does not work without a network connection.
Good point. But Jobs "predicting" the future of his own company is fundamentally entangled to predicting the future of the industry. It's hard to predict markets 20 years out.
I'm going to disagree that Jobs killed Flash. It's more like Adobe neglected and abused the Flash platform, and as part of that, they failed to actually get it working on mobile.
Remember, Apple actually begged Adobe to get build a version of Flash Player that wouldn't burn iPhone users' batteries. They did the same thing when the iPad came out. They knew not having Flash was a weakness. Adobe utterly failed to "get" mobile and shipped plugin builds that were about as buggy as the desktop version was.
Getting Flash to work on iPhone would have taken a huge commitment of resources on Adobe's part, similar to how Apple spent lots of time and money getting Safari/WebKit to render mobile sites correctly. It's not impossible, it's just something that you need executive-level buy in on. Google thought Jobs was bluffing and decided to allow Flash on Android; and it was so terrible that Adobe dropped it a year later.
As an example of what Adobe's real priorities were; two years after "Thoughts on Flash" Adobe decided to gate off certain Flash APIs behind a revenue sharing agreement so they could charge Unity developers to cross-compile to SWF. No, really, that happened. Adobe conjured up a whole licensing scheme and everything for it, because they wanted to make sure someone was there to pay for AS4 development. The thing about platforms is that their value is in the money that the platform owner leaves on the table. The more that you claim for yourself, either by charging more fees or neglecting maintenance, the less reason there is to use the platform.
I genuinely feel Apple may be unlearning this lesson.
>The thing about platforms is that their value is in the money that the platform owner leaves on the table. The more that you claim for yourself, either by charging more fees or neglecting maintenance, the less reason there is to use the platform.
In other venues, I've seen this described as "becoming 50 percent richer by being 10 percent less greedy."
90s Microsoft realized this, which is how Windows became Windows (making developers and partners lots and lots of money).
And how 90s Apple decomposed, and only really turned it around by creating enough demand via consumer device market share that developers had to come back.
Adobe had it working on mobile... arguably badly. See Flash on Android. Apple said 'no, you're not going to run that on our platform'. With Flash no longer being ubiquitous, it effectively died rather quickly after that.
It can be argued that this probably would have happened anyway with Javascipt engine performance improving rapidly and web standards beginning to provide media functionality that had been missing etc. However, it was Apple who stopped them cold and greatly accelerated its demise rather than hanging in there for another decade or more.
Poor performance on Mac was also an issue. Web browsers on the Mac were held back by the fact that Adobes plugin was extremely slow on the Mac, and Adobe didn't care. Apple could write the fastest web browser in the world, but it wouldn't matter if Flash on the Mac had only a fraction of the performance of the Windows version.
It was a very smart move to not enable that dependency on the iPhone.
I think his hands were somewhat tied on the iPhone honestly - flash apps were borderline unusable on the flagship Android headsets of the day. You had to install an alternate browser, the apps were designed for mouse-keyboard input rather than touchscreens, they were non-responsive, they lagged with the Qualcomm chips, and they absolutely ravaged your battery.
It's no wonder Steve Jobs just decided not to straight up
not the tech. The security concerns were just a convenient scapegoat.
Ironically, that fastest web browser engine now determines the fates of apps on Apple's platform. At least, it prevents the building of alternative browsers like an iOS Firefox Gecko browser.
Jobs deserves credit for a lot of the way things went in the computing world but I don't think "killing flash" is one of them. Apple and Flash only (publicly) crossed paths when the iPhone was released in 2007. Even then, Flash was widely disliked by users for a bunch of very good reasons:
* It was yet another thing to install. (Most non-tech-savvy users didn't know how to install a web browser, let alone a browser-specific plugin.) I was an "expert" computer user and I still had trouble getting it to work quite often.
* Flash apps were very resource-hungry on the slow machines at the time. Not quite as bad as Java, but still pretty bad. You had to wait for them to load, and when they consumed an outsize amount of CPU and memory compared to the value delivered.
* A lot of enterprise software started getting written in Flash (vSphere 6, anyone?). I feel bad for every IT department that had to put up with this. Of course, before and alongside that it was Java.
* The Flash runtime was a huge source of computer-pwning exploits. "Click to play" flash was a good idea but about a decade too late to make any difference.
No, Flash was never particularly well-liked by ANYONE except animators, web video game companies, and web ad companies. It was going to die eventually. Even if we were to accept "Jobs killed Flash" as true, that would make it one of his _least_ successful endeavors since Flash only went EOL this year, 14 years later!
But Jobs didn't kill it because of "security." He didn't like it because it allowed another way for people to write "applications" that could run on his phone, and a related issue of it being bad for battery life.
That's not true. The original iPhone didn't have an App Store. Jobs was all in on Progressive Web Apps and thought the future was going to web applications that ran natively in Safari. That's why he initially wanted things like Flash to work on iPhone. He didn't give up on that until Adobe called his bluff and major developers refused to move to mobile. He very begrudgingly introduced the App Store in the next iOS version after he realized that they needed it.
A contrarian might ask "How many bugs were there in the HTML5 APIs that replaced it?" Probably fewer considering HTML5 is an open/modern code base? Some high profile ones in Audio though...
> Flash just could not run well on power-constrained environments. Folks were allowed to run it on Android, but it sucked.
It was running pretty well 10 years on my LG Optimus One at the time, which was a cheap 200$ phone (not subsidized, I got it for 50$ because of a promotion that gave 100$ while it was 50$ off).
Still remember a few years ago, a bunch of friends started to play on our group conversation on the cheap HTML5 games of Facebook... theses games were so simple, yet most were complaining of performance issue. That was on phones that was now few generations better, and not the entry-level ones either...
Jobs knew how to control markets, we are on a thread about this. Flash was killed because he needed it to be killed to control the market.
IMO Flash was as big a mess as Steve said it was at the time and it was already time to move on from it. It was mess even on the desktop (if my browser crashed, it was almost always flash). Adobe let it get that way and there it was.
It wouldn’t be so bad if they were better described. OK so there’s the “iPad” and “iPad Pro”, I guess I can figure that out, the Pro probably has better specs.
Then there’s the “mini”, which implies smaller, but is it a mini iPad or a mini iPad Pro? It turns out that it used to be a mini iPad, but today it is a mini iPad Pro. That’s confusing.
And also there’s an “iPad Air” - what the hell is that? The name implies it is thinner? Lighter? But it’s not either of those things. I have no idea.
The iPhones are just as bad, today you can buy an iPhone 13, 12, and 11. And there’s also an “SE” which doesn’t have a number and I have absolutely no idea why it’s different.
Jobs originated the multiple model strategy at Apple by filling out a wide variety of iPod SKUs. He also originated the idea to keep older iPhones in production to fill out lower price points.
It’s funny how often “Jobs would never allow this” comments refer to things he actually did. And of course Apple’s market performance in the phone and tablet space is obvious.
For most people, just buy the cheapest one with the form factor you like the best. Unless there’s something the other models have that you need/really want. I moved from a iPhone 8 to iPhone 12 earlier this year. 12 has faceId instead of touchID and a better camera, but that’s really the only difference I notice. I’m not even sure I like faceId better than touchID.
Not sure what's so hard to figure out about the iPhone. Bigger number means newer. SE means budget. If you visited the homepage even for just 1 second, you'd already know as it says so in the very beginning of the page (https://www.apple.com/iphone-se/).
But, if Apple is so bad at naming things, show me one android phone maker that does it better (and has as many products, it's easy to name things if you only have 1 product).
Everyone else being worse is not an excuse for you not to be better.
Edit: For some reason I can’t reply to the following comment so I will reply here:
I didn’t realize that constantly striving for improvement would be controversial? Yes, I do believe that everyone should always be striving for improvement. For me that might even be the closest possible thing to “the meaning of life”.
Without wanting to sound too much like a Star Trek episode, if we are not constantly trying to better ourselves, what is the point of anything?
And so we should complain about everything and everyone then? Surely we can think of SOMETHING to always improve, right? Therefore everyone and everything must always be better!
That's a pretty toxic approach to things. That's like saying I as a person should always strive to be better, and it's not okay being who or what I am right now.
Edit update regarding above edit: My point was merely that always complaining is imo why so much negativity exists in the world. Nobody is happy with anything. Always something wrong / X Y Z doesn't satisfy me / Apple has a new HR person whose face I don't like so I will leave the whole ecosystem now / Touch ID sucks / Face ID sucks / Apple sucks.
I realize HN folk LOOOOVE complaining, and not being happy with anything, and perhaps that is an inherent feature of start-up founders, but would it kill you once think "You know what, this is alright!"?
They really need to unify the design language across all mobile devices. You need to have one iThing that is available the following sizes:
XS — 6.1" (iPhone)
S — 6.8" (iPhone Max)
M — 8.3" (iPad Mini)
L — 11" (iPad)
XL — 12.9" (Big iPad)
That's it. Same design language, same thing. Pick your screen size, storage amount, whether you want cellular or just Wi-Fi, and color, and you're good.
This completely unifies everything—iPads, iPod Touches, and iPhones. You could even do a second Pro line alongside this.
I'm sure there are manufacturing difficulties involved here, in addition to having a single chipset that conforms to each size, but this should be getting a bit easier as they move into the M-series architecture. Or you just keep the A-series in the XS and S models and put an M-series chip in the iPad mini eventually.
I have hardly seen an android tablet in the last five years, except in POS systems or some other industrial equipment.
I've seen iPads even in "android homes". But I think most tablets are used in the home and I don't go into a lot of peoples' houses, much less see tablet when I'm visiting, so there may be a vast dark pool of personally-owned android tablets.
Things like Amazon's Fire being so cheap are probably propping up the Android (or non-Apple, whatever) side of the ledger.
I have a Fire because it was very cheap and it's a reasonable "small thing that plays videos" device. I don't really have a use for a tablet to do anything else.
Your link it's about tablet market share. It's based on the number of shipments from each company. Does a Kindle count as a "tablet" in that? Does an Echo Touch count as a "tablet"? I don't know that I'd agree that Apple dominates the market either but I think you need to use a better metric to justify your opposition than the one you posted.
This is just browser use and the Safari version of iPad is only available on iPads and yet makes up 48% of use. My primary browser on my iPad is Firefox and I know others use Chrome so that does put them squarely in the "leader" category based on that.
I follow Apple news a lot and still get confused with the differences between each iPads nowadays.
iPad Pro.. iPad Air.. iPad "normal". iPad mini is the only one easy to understand.
Some models support Apple Pencil 1st gen... some models support Apple Pencil 2nd gen. WHYYYYYY? It should all be the same.
Which iPad support the smart keyboard? What about the "magic" keyboard?
You just need to update your hardware from time to time, not because the software needs it really, just because Apple needs to keep cash flowing in. I use the same apps on my iPhone 12 that I did on my iPhone 6, the only reason I upgrade is because Apple won't let me update the software without buying their new uneccessary hardware
They are now doing the same thing with iPhones. 12 and 12 Pro were identical phones. 13 and 13 Pro are identical phones. Yes, there are differences in cameras, but that's really about as far as the difference goes.
Could argue they sell more by fashion and desire to have the newest thing than people caring at all about specs, more ram or cpu or x% better resolution etc.
That's irrelevant. People are buying iPhones every year instead of switching to a different phone, repairing their existing phone, or buying the same phone (Apple offers the same models for at least 3 years after initial release). There are enough differences to matter to most people.
Steve was famous for brutally streamlining Apple's product offerings, and making it stupidly easy to understand the differences between product tiers.
I don't necessarily think four iPad offerings is too many, but I don't think Steve would've ever found it acceptable. He loved debuting with a single product, then adding a cheaper "mini," then eventually creating a holy trinity (mini/regular/pro), and leaving it that way forever.
The complexity of Apple's product offerings is not that new. iPod consisted of a bunch of random variants over the years (Shuffle, Mini, Nano, Color, etc.) and people were complaining about conflicting product features back in the day (Now it's USB-C vs. Lightning, back then it was Firewire vs. USB).
One of the interesting things to come out of the Fortnight trial was that Nintendo and Sony did not allow you to spend V-Bucks bought off of their platform (where they didn't take a cut), while Apple allowed it.
Console manufacturers are way more ruthless than even that. Sony locked your entire Fortnite account if you logged into it on PS4; and wouldn't let you even play with Xbox players. Even now, if you sell a cross-play game on PS4, and too many people buy microtransactions on Xbox, you owe Sony money.
We should stop personifying them and idolizing the products they make. Look at the chess moves. They're a monster.
It should terrify you that some of the best products on the market are owned by a company that wants to extract as much as it can from the rest of us. They're no different from Oracle, just with good products. It's a winning strategy, and they're now positioned to sink their claws deeper.
They've decimated the competition leaving you with a device that costs too much, isn't repairable, doesn't run untaxed software, and spies on you. The next moves will lock you down even harder.
Like seriously people. We're empowering "I have no mouth and want to scream". We're making it come true.
An Orwellian, Stallman-killing nightmare. The anti-web. In a posh, glossy finish.
Brilliantly said. In the early days of MP3s I ripped all my CDs and refused to get that content locked into Microsoft's platform as I wanted control. Today I find myself so deeply tied to Apple's platform that I don't think I can get out.
I think we need the government to step in and require open APIs when a company is vertically integrated to allow competition in. E.g. you built the phone and the cloud service. Fine every cloud service app on the phone has to support an API that allows me to use the phone with a different vendor's cloud service. And we have precedent for this too, e.g. at one point I could only buy a landline phone from Bell, the gov. came along and told ATT they had to allow other companies to provide landline phones that would run on Bell's network.
My photos library is larger than disk space, so if I wanted to export photos out of the cloud I'd probably have to do it manually in stages. And I've lost my original MP3s somewhere along the line. Yikes.
I recently dug out my CDs and ripped them to my PC. Even bought some new ones, of music I can listen to anytime online with my subscription service.
Aside from the nostalgia, I have appreciated the ability to listen with any program I wish, and listening while offline has happened a few times. I don't know how long I'll continue buying physical media but I'm liking it for now
Re: Photos - if you have a Mac you can run your Photos library off an external drive. I have a 1TB NVME SSD attached via USB and it runs perfectly fine. The Photos Library is just a big folder so it is always possible to get at the raw files if you need them.
Re: Music - I still have my original MP3s and AAC files from ancient versions of iTunes (originally imported via LAME) and have travelled across many Macs and even across to Windows and back. If you've lost the originals I'm not sure what Apple can do about that
Outside the USA , apple is not that much of a big deal. But it s interesting how disproportionately influential They became, because of their appeal to developers and technologists and their bubble
In the European country I live, anecdotally apple were in third place pre-pandemic to Samsung and Huawei for new phones. I haven't been out enough since then to confirm if it's changed, but I imagine the news about Huawei's USA struggles has dented confidence for carriers, if not consumers, as they don't seem to pushed as much anymore in marketing.
The thing Apple does have, and lets them remain in first place (but not the majority like the US), is the long tail of the iPhone 6 or whatever that someone has passed down to their kid or sold second hand that's still working. You don't see the same amount of Galaxy S4s hanging around, even though when both phones were new market share was a lot more equivalent for the two.
I think part of this may be a market difference here. The majority of non-tech people are on prepaid and buying a phone that's <€300 unsubsidised every 3-4 years. So they could get a second hand iPhone that's already 3-4 years old for that price, or they could get some Android mid range model new for like €200 and more people opt for the latter.
Unlike Google and Facebook, say, Apple doesn’t have a strong network effect lock-in. If they stop making the best products they’re much easier to switch away from.
They have some weak network effects with iMessage (in some markets) and convenience around iPhotos, but nothing serious.
Socially it’s limited to iMessage and FaceTime, but I’d say the lock-in if you own a watch, MacBook, AirPods, and /or iPad is very strong. There’s no other company that offers that level of integration across your devices.
Google is no more morally good than Apple, but at least pixels run android and are cheaper than iphones. That's basically why I have a pixel: I have no interest in an iphone (though I admit their cameras are outstanding)
> Google is no more morally good than Apple, but at least pixels run android and are cheaper than iphones. That's basically why I have a pixel: I have no interest in an iphone (though I admit their cameras are outstanding)
Honestly, the main reason I chose and prefer Android is that it's possible to side-load apps. Originally that was because I planned to develop some dumb apps for personal use and didn't want to deal with any corporate bureaucracy. I never did that, but I have no interest in losing the capability.
Nothing stops you from developing and installing your own apps on your own iPhone with Xcode. AFAIK you don’t even need to pay for a developer license. You only have to pay if you want to distribute the app to others.
The apps become invalid after about 7 days after compiling them. So for development its fine but if you are building utilities for yourself to use, it could be an issue.
> The apps become invalid after about 7 days after compiling them. So for development its fine but if you are building utilities for yourself to use, it could be an issue.
Exactly, they deliberately crippled the feature to make it too painful to bypass their corporate bureaucracy. It's only useful for the narrow uses that suit Apple. In no way is that ability comparable to side-loading on Android.
Sadly Google doesn’t need to be that much better for a bunch of us. I need Gsuite apps daily. Google Maps is still the better alternative, and we all probably watch Youtube.
Getting rid of Google is not an option. The choice comes down to how much Apple I want in my phone.
> An email chain from 2010 has an impact on what phone you want to buy?
Why shouldn't it? It could reveal their true colors in starker terms than one has seen before. It's one thing to know, abstractly, that they're an amoral self-serving entity. It's quite another to see it demonstrated so openly.
This seems kind of silly. Every CEO of every major company has probably sent a similar if not far, far worse email. You really think Sundar Pichai's emails are all sunshine and flowers? Capitalism rewards ruthlessness.
The difference is that this is "evidence". Legions of Apple lovers in HN kept clamouring that Apple does these things for the "right" reasons only and never to deliberately harm competitors. Straight buy-in into Apple's propaganda.
Now we have utterly clear and factual evidence showing that position is rubbish.
There is a clear and desperate need for anti-trust regulation.
> This seems kind of silly. Every CEO of every major company has probably sent a similar if not far, far worse email. You really think Sundar Pichai's emails are all sunshine and flowers? Capitalism rewards ruthlessness.
You're missing my point. I'm sure Sundar Pichai has sent similar emails, but that fact is abstract and therefore remote. Jobs/Schiller sent these emails, but that fact isn't abstract, it's right here in our faces.
I had fascination for Apple products until I tried to use Xcode for some development. That was back in 2010. I never tried again or bought an Apple product since. The idea of tying users down into a walled garden and control their behaviors through not only software but also hardware that they pay for doesn't sit well with me and this is not how technology should progress.
I haven't really ever used XCode in a serious way nor do I use MacOS currently, but I have to give props to LLDB. It's commands are sometimes a bit clunky, but it is a lot easier to do stuff like setting breakpoints on C++ methods, searching across all loaded symbols, etc. than GDB on Linux. GDB is great so long as your code is C, but debugging C++ or other languages is kind of a mess.
They should have gone the other direction. There is zero good arguments for why Apple deserves 30% of gross transactions for ebooks, music, movies, etc that are merely purchased on their customer's phones.
I looked into this some time ago, and 30% is roughly the same retail margin you pay when buying essentials like groceries (at least in Australia).
So I honestly don’t understand the angst around this. It seems like there is this idea that the only cost associated with hosting apps on the App Store is the transaction fee, but that’s only part of it. Apple is a for-profit company, and their margin is in line with other industries.
I’m not defending the shitty things they’ve done, I just don’t understand why people think 30% is excessive.
App store: > 70% profit margin, zero inventory risk.
Put another way: If grocery stores cut gross margin by a couple points they'd be out of business. They are basically charging the absolute bare minimum they need to make a profit. The reason? Competition.
Apple could drop their App Store gross margin by 50% and still have one of the most lucrative operations in the world.
The difference is that retail is split over many companies and there is good competition. You also have the option to open your own store to sell your products.
You don't realistically have that option for phones. It's insane to require a company to build their own phone hardware, OS, app store, and get the majority of people to switch over to it before you can sell books without paying a 3rd party for it.
>There is zero good arguments for why Apple deserves 30% of gross transactions for ebooks, music, movies, etc that are merely purchased on their customer's phones.
If you're starting with that premise, then you've already made up your mind.
The fact is that the 30% covers more than just the purchase and you have to ignore that completely to maintain your "zero good arguments" position.
I could rephrase that to “I’ve seen zero good arguments”, but since I’ve read more arguments/comments/articles about this stuff than I can count over the last few years, I’m assuming that if there was actually a good argument I would have seen it by now.
I’m not saying Apple should get nothing, but they need to justify why they are entitled to that much. Sure they created the phone, operating system, etc, but without those third party apps the iPhone would be a stupid toy not a bajillion dollar a year business.
If you want to justify the 30% because it funds development of the developer resources and frameworks and such, I would say that Apple would be doing all that stuff regardless of money from the App Store since without it they aren’t going to keep selling phones at massive premiums.
>Sure they created the phone, operating system, etc, but without those third party apps the iPhone would be a stupid toy not a bajillion dollar a year business.
But then it's a chicken or egg scenario. The iPhone was one of the best-selling smartphones of all time even before the App Store existed. If those third-party apps didn't exist without the ecosystem Apple set up and maintains to this day, the whole progression stops cold. Apple uses the 30% to justify the entire App Store ecosystem (payments, reviews, localization, distribution, updates, etc.) because it guarantees that it's scalable and sustainable. If the App Store and apps become more popular, they're still covering the costs. Console manufacturers and other platform manufacturers (hardware/software) have agreed and set their prices at nearly the same levels independently of Apple. That's not a coincidence.
I don't understand this series of emails. Schiller is saying he noticed that Amazon ran an ad where someone bought books on iOS and then read them on an Android. Jobs' response is "let's force Amazon to use our payment system". But weren't they already using it in this case? How does Jobs' point follow from Schiller's example?
Schiller then brings up how there's a complementary ad in which an Android user buys books, then reads them on iOS. Jobs' point would make sense if that was the original example, but it wasn't brought up until after he'd responded. Weird. Maybe he was psychic? (j/k)
Another thing that doesn't make sense is Schiller's recommendation to ask Amazon to "get in compliance with the rules". It sounds like they were in compliance with the rules, because an exception had been made for them. It seems (from those emails only) like the issue was that Apple made an exception for Amazon they no longer wanted to abide by.
Phil made it sound like he didn't like the ad, but the reason for the removal of the exception was that Amazon was advertising that people could buy books from their phones, clearly promoting the phone-first use case.
If you have any business understanding that you should understand that no business is a charity: neither Amazon nor Apple. Any money left on the table is just free money for the shareholders of another company.
They made the point that Apple devices were more popular than Kindle, implying that Amazon was basically using Apple devices for lead-gen for book sales without paying Apple their cut. Their original deal was that Kindle was supposed to be a device where you bought the books, and you could just read them through the phone app as a convenience. Since the primary use case shifted they began enforcing that fee.
This seems to be a consistent app store policy, however it's been spun over the years.
So I assume that you’re an investor in $AAPL, and not a user of Apple products?
Nobody is arguing that these lock-in moves won’t make them money, but that their greed does harm the user experience - the result being that you can’t buy Kindle books on iPhone now (and countless other such examples).
Your assumptions are wrong about me, so you may want to revise your position because it’s based on a misguided characterization of my motivations.
It’s up to Apple to improve their own user experience, or suffer the lack of sales otherwise. It’s nonsensical that the government should step in to improve the user experience for private products… especially to the benefit of a third party private company.
Framing “you can’t buy Kindle books on iOS” as Apple’s fault is spinning it because you can also say it’s Amazon’s fault for reducing their user experience by refusing to pay Apple’s platform fees.
Sure, making Apple products all free would be great for user experience, but is not only non-sustainable but non-sensical business practice.
I wish more people understood nuance the way you do.
Apple's deal was made only because Amazon claimed that their books were purchased on Kindle and that they wouldn't advertise other platforms. As soon as they broke that part of the agreement, Apple was not going to continue to appease them.
Thank you, but my question was more about the connection between email 1 and email 2 in that chain. Unless you're saying that Apple had already revoked the exception by the time these emails were sent?
When the Apple App Store first came out there was no in app purchases. Amazon already had a payment infrastructure so when they released the free Kindle app on iOS it used the Amazon payment system. Apple later added in app purchases and changed the contract terms (as the were allowed to do) to require all apps to only use the App Store for IAP, they allowed Kindle to remain unchanged. The exception as just not forcing Amazon to change their app.
It was allowed under the old rules, then the rules changed, then the Amazon ad these emails were referencing game out. So at the point of these email the Kindle app was out of compliance with the App Store rules, but Apple was allowing it as an exception because they viewed it as a promotion of Apple products. This ad changed their view and now though that the Kindle app on iOS was a promotion of how easy it was to move to Android.
> This ad changed their view and now though that the Kindle app on iOS was a promotion of how easy it was to move to Android.
I don't read it that way (most of your post I agree with though). I think the point was that before this email, Kindle devices had their own customers, and Apple wanted Kindle as a feature on their products to increase the appeal of iphone/ipad. But eventually those customers started doing all their "kindling" on their apple devices, so now from apple's perspective they think "we are providing you customers/making you a market, pay us". This is what the whole second paragraph is about.
You're missing the intent behind 'the rules': Apple gets a cut of everything on the platform. It's never really been a case of 'if you do X we get a cut and if you do Y and we don't'.... they've continually been trying to eliminate the possibility of Y at any real scale.[1] That's been a source of consternation for developers/media companies as Apple has shown time and time again a willingness to alter the rules to eliminate ways in which people could bypass paying Apple. The emails illustrate how they went about it in the early days. (i.e. we're not getting a cut? They're not playing by the rules... it has a very mafia vibe)
[1] The exception has been certain large companies that they viewed as strategic on the platform (at least for a time.) As soon as they weren't viewed as strategic, the rules tended to change.
"The defendants are Adobe, Apple Inc., Google, Intel, Intuit, Pixar, Lucasfilm and eBay, all high-technology companies with a principal place of business in the San Francisco–Silicon Valley area of California."
Apple is turning computing and ownership into renting and serfdom. Why don't you see that?
The only reason I'd work for Apple is to send the horrific things they do to my representatives and the Department of Justice. Emails. Meeting notes. Admissions of anticompetitive behavior.
Not a bad idea, but I think I'll have more impact elsewhere.
"Just as guilty" is the opposite of a defense. You're literally in a thread condemning Apple for conspiring with Google right now. Who are are you attempting to convince of what by saying that Google is "just as guilty?"
The meat of it:
"As Apple prepared to launch the iPad, it offered a deal to the six biggest publishers in the U.S. The publishers could set the retail prices of e-books sold by Apple, up to a cap of $14.99, and they would get seventy per cent of the sale price. But if any other retailer was selling a given e-book at a lower price than the one a publisher had set, Apple could match it."
Contrast that with Amazon which could set the retail price freely "often at or even below the original wholesale price. Amazon didn’t mind losing money on each sale, as long as the strategy helped sell Kindles and expand the e-book market."
That definitely worked out best for us. We all win when Amazon is the only significant ebook seller. The justice department cementing Amazon’s business position was a good thing that happened.
This twitter account is awesome! I thought this email between Steve Jobs and Adobe CEO was hilarious, the CEO of Adobe refers to his employee as 'population'.
It's amazing how 'crude' Jobs was. Perfect for chopping through the early 2000's technology frontier, but one has to wonder if he'd flounder in the modern environment.
That's interesting. But I don't understand exactly why it would violate their TOS by accessing a library of books.
Is it because they could be bought through the Kindle app on Android and then accessed on an iPhone? Thus bypassing the apple payment option? If that is the case it seems like a bit of a stretch.
> Is it because they could be bought through the Kindle app on Android and then accessed on an iPhone?
It's the other way round. Back then one could purchase books on Kindle iOS app going through Amazon's payment processor bypassing Apple's payment option. There was quite a big furore around this. After a few back and forth they reached a compromise of sorts where Amazon removed the book purchase flow from Kindle iOS app and Apple was OK with letting customers download and read books purchased outside of Apple ecosystem (through Android for example).
At one point, Apple took an extreme position of only allowing books purchased through their payment option to be read on Kindle iOS app. This was obvious not acceptable to Amazon.
>Is it because they could be bought through the Kindle app on Android and then accessed on an iPhone?
No, you got that backwards. According the email screenshots, the above scenario you wrote was actually "ok" with Apple and they allowed an exception for not using Apple payments: mostly buy a bunch of books on a non-Apple device and then later read them on the iPhone.
But Phil and Steve are complaining because Amazon commercials are showing how to do the opposite: buy books first on the iPhone to read elsewhere. Apple wants a cut of that because that bypasses the Apple Payments exception they had in mind.
Per the emails, that exception was originally granted because Amazon wanted users to be able to purchase books (into their Kindle account) on Kindles, but still be able to read them in Kindle-on-iOS.
At the time, this apparently seemed reasonable to Apple.
In the time between that and the email, Apple sold a ton of iPhones and iPads. Amazon did not sell an equal ton of Kindles.
Consequently, Apple looked at the deal as "You're getting value, based on a device count parity that no longer exists. So when you spit in our eye in an advertisement, we're going to alter the terms of our deal."
As far as I understand it, it was possible to buy ebooks in the Kindle app around 2010 and they decided that it was no longer going to fly.
I don't actually understand what their intention was beyond a show of strength. If you pull the Kindle app, iPhones and iPads are now a worse platform for ebooks, and if you remove the ability to buy ebooks in the app, it just gives iPhone and iPad users a worse user experience. And obviously, as they stated themselves, Amazon was never going to actually adopt the 30% cut payment system.
Pure conjecture on my part, but iBooks was probably thought to be competitive with the kindle and they thought that ebook customers could be served by their own platforms just as well, no large loss and lots of potential upside for apple.
The violation was being able to buy books from the Kindle iPhone app without using IAP.
From what I can gather from that exchange, Apple originally approved the IAP exception for Kindle under the assumption that buying eBooks on iPhone would be a very rare use case. After that Apple launched the iPad and their own books app, making Kindle a much more direct competitor. So they made Amazon follow the standard rules, which led to them removing the ability to buy books from the Kindle app altogether.
Just curiosity: it seems SJ was including himself in cc to his own emails. Why was that?
I can only guess another email address, or some productivity technique to make sure he also had is own emails sorted in specific folders (i.e., not the "sent items")..
The previous messages don't list recipients. Someone likely emailed SJ at both his personal and professional email at the same time and it just remained due to reply-all.
Rich and powerful people deliberately separate personal and work emails (e.g. Hillary Clinton). It helps create privacy, control, and legal protection.
That's exactly what they were debating. The entire point of this exchange was that the initial agreement was about Kindle customers using iOS devices. Once it changed to iPhone customers buying Kindle books, it absolutely was a relationship they established.
What role did Apple have in establishing it? It's not like people are installing the Kindle app thanks to the app store alone. It's thanks to Amazon's own marketing. Apple made the hardware and the OS, and developers are only publishing their apps on the app store because they have to in order to get them onto iOS devices, not because the app store offers such a great service. I'm pretty sure that given the technical capability, many would bypass the app store with its ridiculous policies and serve the app package straight from their websites. Which, by the way, is exactly what's happening on macOS. Apple is going out of its way trying to make mac app store happen, but developers are clearly having none of it.
If the customer's first point of contact is through an iOS app, then Apple established that relationship. Apple is serving their iPhone customers to Amazon. That's the entire crux of the change. Amazon initially presented their Kindle app as a way for existing customers to read their books on iOS. Once it changed to the point where customers were entering Amazon's ecosystem with iPhone as the first point of contact, Amazon was benefiting from both Apple's customer base and their relaxed terms.
It doesn't matter who made the device and its OS, it matters who made the user aware of the existence of the app. And I'm pretty sure that was Amazon's own marketing. Your conclusions would only hold if the user discovered the Kindle app entirely through the influence of the app store itself.
By your logic, my ISP owns my relationship to HackerNews because I used my internet connection to post this comment. Oh and Apple does too, because I'm posting this from a Mac.
It matters who made the App Store and facilitated the app in question. If more iPhone users are downloading the Kindle app than Android users by a wide margin, then that means that Apple offers a higher value to Amazon. You're oversimplifying the relationship but the fact is that Amazon's contract with Apple was based on Amazon's assertion that it would only be existing Kindle users that would want to download the Kindle app and that provided value to Apple. When that was no longer the case, the agreement ceased.
The second screenshot shows Steve saying "force them to use our far superior payment system" and the fourth one is him ordering his subordinate to make it so.
>The App Store does not allow for multiple instances of the same subscription, leading other platforms such as YouTube and Twitch to get around this by effectively allowing users to buy a sub-token that can be directed toward a specific creator.
I really don't understand why it's such a big deal Apple wants to restrict people to use their payment system. It's their platform and they're a private company. Can't they just do whatever they want?
Just out of curiosity, would you also say it’s within Apple’s rights to tax a portion of all transactions on the phone, including:
1. purchases of physical goods on the Amazon app
2. food deliveries on Doordash
3. money transfers initiated through the Chase banking app?
If in future years all commerce moves to devices, Apple and Google have a duopoly, and they decide to tax the entire economy, is there any limiting principle? Or do they just get to take some % of GDP as profits? Is that a fair price for the contribution to society of getting to market first with smartphones and building a moat?
If there is a limit, then we should figure out what it is.
Out of curiosity, do you think it’s fair that I have to pay a share of the the item price when selling items on Amazon? What right does Doordash have to tax my restaurant just because I want to accept order using their app?
If, not at what point should we start regulating their prices? When they control 20%, 30%, 50% of their respective markets?
This is an important question. Vaguely, I think the answer is that companies should be able to earn profit proportional to the value they provide, and not for their market power. If companies are investing to improve their products and operational efficiency, it makes sense to for that to be rewarded by profits. If they’ve found some way to establish a moat and own the market so that new competitors can’t get rewarded for their own improvements, there’s a problem. Capitalism is the best system around to drive people to build and invent and we shouldn’t let it get twisted into stagnant feudalism.
The opposite question is also important. Should the mobile network my phone is on get a share of all transactions made from my phone? Should my home ISP get a share from purchases made on my home computer? Or the hardware vendor? Or the OS vendor?
The reason Apple gets to ask for a cut of all transactions made on my phone is because they are in a position to control those transactions, not because it's right for them to ask for that cut. They can remove any app that tries to bypass their cut, as was recently ruled in their case against Epic Games.
Like wise Doordash has control, if you want them to pay a driver to carry your food from the restaurant to your home, then they get a cut.
The difference between Doordash and Apple is that Apple forbade anyone with an app in the app store from even telling people that they could pay for a purchase outside the app. For a time the Kindle app would send you to a checkout page in Safari, but Apple forced them to remove that. The comparison would be that any restaurant that worked with Doordash being forced to remove mention that they do pickup orders, if you don't want dine in then you must order with Doordash, even if that technically isnt't true.
To me there is no magic percent where these behaviors should or should not be allowed or regulated. To me it's more about the pattern of 'soft' extortion. "You get value from our platform so we deserve a cut of what you make", sounds a bit too much like "You sure do have a nice app there with some dedicated users, it sure would be bad if something happened to it..."
I don't know that I would pay for and read a tenth as many books as I do if I didn't always have the Kindle app in my pocket. On the other hand if Apple ever removed the Kindle app I'd have a strong reason to switch to Android. Both gain value from the other. Apple insentience to always get the better of that trade seems counter productive.
You started off well but then veered off into the wrong lane. The difference between DoorDash and Apple is that Apple built, runs, and owns the platform that's providing the value for the service whereas DoorDash only owns the service. Your example would only be analagous if DoorDash told restaurant owners that they couldn't advertise Uber Eats or Postmates services on their restaurant listings within the DoorDash app.
Apple didn't forbid people from telling people they could pay for a purchase outside the app. They just didn't let people do that from within the app itself.
One of the rules in Apples App Store policy is that developers are not allowed to communicate with customers out side the app, even if they asked for permission in the app. (They were enjoined against doing this in the recent Epic Games v. Apple ruling [1])
Apple also forbit apps from directly telling people about other purchasing options in the app.
If a customer did download an app, and set up an account, and that app's creator wanted to say hey you have other options to pay us how would they do that? Yes they could do a generic advertising campaign and reach mostly non-customers, but they could not by Apple's rules directedly talk to their own customer base. To use the Doordash analogy this is like saying you can't include a menu with direct ordering phone number with a delivery. I do think this qualifies as "forbid people from telling people they could pay for a purchase outside the app."
The difference is between Apples actual rules and the hypothetical Doordash behaving badly is more about degrees of control and likely hood of working that actual intent. Your own examples don't fit to Apple's behavior any better, DoorDash saying you can't advertise Uber Eats on your menu is nothing like Apple saying Amazon can't advertise Amazon in Amazons own Amazon app. Your using the example of a competitor advertising in the competitions app, that is an apples to oranges comparison, Apple owns the platform, you could argue that Apple can say that Amazon can't advertise their Android tablets in the Kindle app, maybe that would be like your example, but that was never what the issue was.
No, it's not. Amazon's App Store application doesn't exist without the Apple ecosystem and Apple's customers. Amazon is allowed to advertise anything they want outside of the Apple App Store, including on Android and any other platforms not run by Apple. The rule is only about advertising for other services within the platform that Apple runs. They absolutely can communicate with their customers but that can't advertise to Apple's customers to promote circumventing the App Store's systems.
My example isn't at all like what you're describing unless Amazon's app is outside of the Apple ecosystem. There is literally no business that allows companies using their property to advertise their competitors. Your example about a direct ordering phone number is not analogous at all. A better example would be a restaurant allowing DoorDash to post advertisements but specifying that they can only advertise for their own services, not promote other companies who pay DoorDash more for priority.
Your whole argument is based on an incorrect understanding of the agreements made to use the App Store and an inaccurate understanding of the limits imposed by apps. I am not using the example of a competitor advertising in the competitions app. I'm using the example of someone advertising on a business's property or platform to advertise a different platform.
> No, it's not. Amazon's App Store application doesn't exist without the Apple ecosystem and Apple's customers.
When did I talk about Amazon's App Store? This is about Amazon's Apps on Apple's App store and on iOS.
> Amazon is allowed to advertise anything they want outside of the Apple App Store
True, I mentioned that and rebutted it in my last post.
> The rule is only about advertising for other services within the platform that Apple runs
False, at least in the respect that the Kindle Store is not a platform Apple runs, Apple runs the installations system on iOS, they use that to extend their reach into what other companies run.
> They absolutely can communicate with their customers ...
Amazon can, to use the Kindle app you must have an Amazon account created outside the app, they have the right to communicate outside the app because that point of contact originated outside the app.
Any one not already the size of Amazon that starts as an app on iOS is not allowed to try to extend that relationship outside of iOS. That is why a federal judge felt it necessary to rule that Apple's behavior was against California law.
> There is literally no business that allows companies using their property to advertise their competitors.
Except news papers, TV stations, movie studios, ISPs, phone companies, etc. All of these allow competitors to buy add space on their platforms, or use their platforms to communicate competing offers.
Did you know movie studios once refused to let theaters run their movies if the previews/trailers were for any movies not from the same studio? Courts put a stop to that, now at most a studio can require that some but not all of the previews/trailers be for their films.
Back when long distance phone companies were a thing people cared about in the US, AT&T tried to block their competitors from cold calling companies to get them to switch, they also lost that case.
Yes, none of these companies want to allow their competitors to use their platform, but none of them are allowed by law to stop it.
> Your example about a direct ordering phone number is not analogous at all.
It's not analogous to Apple preventing Amazon from providing links in the app to Amazon's own web site? How?
This is the point of the similarity, you use the Doordash app or website (you use the Apple App Store), you order food (you download an app), when you get your food there is a menu inside that suggests you order direct, maybe even including coupons that give a discount on pickup orders (you open the app and when you pick something to buy you are provided a link to their site instead of an App Store button).
Can you explain where I'm going wrong on that analogy? I know it's not 100% the same, it's an analogy, they are never exactly the same.
> Your whole argument is based on an incorrect understanding of the agreements made to use the App Store and an inaccurate understanding of the limits imposed by apps.
Right back at you. It's curious to me that you seem so adamant to defend a behavior was just ruled illegal. Was the judge wrong? How?
Thought experiment, if Microsoft tomorrow said they own the Windows platform, and they have the right to a cut of all transactions done inside apps on the Windows platform, would you be ok with applications like say Steam or Epic Games Store being required to use the Windows Store to process payments and give some percent to Microsoft? If this is not ok how is it different from Apple's policy for iOS?
I'm not talking about Amazon's App Store. I'm talking about Amazon's applications on the Apple App Store. I will try to be more explicit in the future.
>False, at least in the respect that the Kindle Store
It is not false. Amazon can advertise whatever they want within the Kindle Store. They cannot, however, advertise for buying something on iOS from outside the IAP system. You're conflating two different things and I feel like you're doing so intentionally.
>Did you know movie studios once refused to let theaters run their movies if the previews/trailers were for any movies not from the same studio?
That is not the same thing. The movie studios don't own the theatre. They can't prevent someone from running movies from other studios and that would be anti-competitive because they don't own the theatre. If they owned their own theatres, they could play whatever movies they want and there's nothing that would force them to play movies from other studios.
>It's not analogous to Apple preventing Amazon from providing links in the app to Amazon's own web site?
No, it's not because Apple isn't preventing links to Amazon's site. They're preventing links to purchases within the app from an external source. These are not the same thing and you're intentionally confusing them and misusing these statements.
>Can you explain where I'm going wrong on that analogy?
Yes. I already have. DoorDash does not own the restaurant. They only own the app. Therefore, they can have a rule that says that restaurants who use DoorDash for delivery cannot advertise that they deliver through other services or have discounts on pickup orders that are not made through DoorDash within the DoorDash app or the listings inside of that app. They cannot stipulate that this extends outside of a system that they do not own.
>Right back at you. It's curious to me that you seem so adamant to defend a behavior was just ruled illegal. Was the judge wrong? How?
No, the judge wasn't wrong but you're misframing the decision to make it fit a situation it doesn't. The judge did not rule that Apple's position on App Store payments was illegal. They ruled that Apple was being anti-competitive for "digital mobile gaming transactions" because the transactions happen within the game and not simply within the App Store. That means that the decision would not apply to other in-app purchases that occur within iOS specific apps.
>if Microsoft tomorrow said they own the Windows platform, and they have the right to a cut of all transactions done inside apps on the Windows platform, would you be ok with applications like say Steam or Epic Games Store being required to use the Windows Store to process payments and give some percent to Microsoft?
There's no "if" here. They do own the Windows platform and do have a right to all transactions processed through the Windows Store. If everyone who developed for Windows agreed to those terms, then Microsoft would 100% be within their right to do so as long as they aren't monopolizing that industry or breaking anti-trust laws. They don't do that because they don't currently do that and changing their policy would harm future sales irreparably but they have every right to do that and require it and shoot themselves in the foot if they choose.
The rules aren't in place to protect shitty business decisions. They're there to prevent monopolization and Apple doesn't have a monopoly.
> That is not the same thing. The movie studios don't own the theatre.
They did at one time, courts end it, but isn't even relevant to my point. You said "There is literally no business that allows companies using their property to advertise their competitors." My point is that that is exactly not true.
I am rebutting your incorrect assertion.
It seems like your playing at moving goal posts, make one argument, then when it's shown to be wrong demand that the it has to meet some unrelated criteria to be valid. You never said "There is literally no monopoly that allows companies using their property to advertise their competitors." You said no *business*. You didn't say they had to own all the property, just that it is there property, and to a movie studio, the movie, even as it's being shown in a theater, is there's. They own it and can dictate how it's shown. Except that courts have limited how far those contracts can go. The theater may be the platform to show movies, but the movies are the platform for previews/trailers, no one goes to a theater for the previews. (I mean some of them are cool, but I'm not paying $20 to watch 10 minutes of trailers)
I provided multiple examples, but for some reason you tried to find some wiggle room in one example to try and ignore the rest.
> No, the judge wasn't wrong but you're misframing the decision to make it fit a situation it doesn't. The judge did not rule that Apple's position on App Store payments was illegal. They ruled that Apple was being anti-competitive for "digital mobile gaming transactions"
Have you read the injunction? The one I linked before? It's really really short, it won't take long to read honest.
Ok read it now? How often does it mention games? Once? Exactly one use of the word games? What is the word before games? "Epic"? The word after? "Inc"? So the only mention of games is in the name of one of the parties to the litigation "Epic Games, Inc." There aren't even any phrases that could be considered synonyms. No "entertainment software" no "interactive media", nothing of the sort.
I'm sorry to be so condescending, but as you accuse me of "misframing" this, you yourself are not understanding what the judge ruled. His injunction has no limitations for what kind of applications this applies to. The injection says "Apple Inc. ... are hereby permanently restrained and enjoined from
prohibiting developers from ...". Not "digital mobile gaming" developers, not "mobile gaming" developers not even just "gaming" developers, all developers, all of them, for all types of apps.
But what if I just conceded that point, the judge did only rule on games. Ok, then what is the difference between Epic Games' Fortnight and Amazon's Kindle?
You said:
> because the transactions happen within the game and not simply within the App Store.
How is Kindle different?
- Fortnight existed as a standalone game before it was an iOS app. Kindle existed as a standalone app before it was an iOS app.
- Fortnight had a way to purchase content in game before it was an iOS app. Kindle had a way to purchase content in app before it was an iOS app.
- Fortnight users when logged in see purchased items across devices. Kindle user when logged in see purchased items across devices.
What is it that makes games different? How is Kindle only inside iOS, despite being a service for about 8 months before the Apple App Store can into existence, but Fortnight is not only inside iOS? Are the Fortnight games servers run by Epic Games the magic difference? But Kindle books are delivered by Amazon not Apple, why are Amazon's servers not as magic as Epic's?
> The rules aren't in place to protect shitty business decisions. They're there to prevent monopolization and Apple doesn't have a monopoly.
This is a common misconception, but antitrust is not anti-monopoly, monopoly is not a requirement to violate anti-trust laws. One portion of antitrust is about regulating existing monopolies, another is about preventing new monopolies, but other parts cover other practices like price fixing, collusion, one of these is called vertical restraints. Apply requiring that all apps on their OS use their payment system could be viewed as a vertical restraints.
You're not arguing in good faith. A movie theatre would not allow anyone to advertise for another movie theatre within their building. That's the point. Everything else you said is irrelevant. I'm not moving any goalposts. You're twisting what I'm saying to argue something that I'm not. It doesn't have to be a monopoly. I never said it had to be a monopoly for the movie theatre example. And I'm not even sure where you're going with the trailers. A movie theatre's competitor would be another theatre or theatre chain, not a movie studio.
>Have you read the injunction?
Yes. I literally quoted the judge's decision. That's why I put that phrase in quotes. That's what quotes are for - to denote that you're repeating something someone else said. It's even bolded in the injunction.
>Ok, then what is the difference between Epic Games' Fortnight and Amazon's Kindle?
The difference is the market for which the competition is being evaluated. The judge's injunction specifically states that the only reason this injunction qualifies is because "most App Store revenue is generated by mobile gaming apps, not all apps". The judge did not rule that Apple was breaking anti-trust laws around vertical restraints but on anti-steering - that they were forcing Epic to hide information that would enable a choice. The judge ruled that, because Epic can make money off the game in other ways besides In-App purchases, that the only fault in Apple's processes was in forcing Epic to hide information about those other ways of monetization and that they were free to not allow In-App Purchases that can be made outside the platform. Again, to quote, "for the reasons set forth herein, the Court finds in favor of Apple on all counts except with respect to violation of California's Unfair Competition law (Count Ten) and only partially with respect to its claim for Declaratory Relief".
Additionally, "Apple's termination of the DPLA and the related agreements between Epic Games and Apple was valid, lawful, and enforceable".
Credit cards are also not actually that expensive for merchants. I think the average transaction fees for MasterCard and Visa are in the 1.3% to 2.6% range, which is quite far from 30% in my mind.
Obviously, one would cry out how cash has no baked-in transaction fee, but cash is definitely not free. While a credit card payment will transfer cleanly into a bank account with a clear trail, cash must be handled, stored, counted, kept safe, transferred and so on. All that time counting change at the counter isn't free either.
It's far from the 30% because there's nothing else for them to do other than keep that clear trail and it applies to every usage. Companies like Apple that charge 30% charge that because they host the files, the updates, the payment systems, and review systems. Credit card companies don't do those things.
How far down this rabbit hole are you willing to go?
Can the electric company ask for a 30% cut on anything you buy using their electrons? People would just build their own distribution lines to the electric company down the road if they didn't like it.
How about your landlord charging a 30% cut if you want to take your amazon package inside his house? Don't like it, go build your own home.
Don't forget the company that made your car, the company that supplied gas for that car, the company that built the refrigerator that keeps your food cold, etc when you go get groceries. I think that comes to 90+% going to other companies.
For the landlord example - sure, if for some bizarre reason a tenant would agree to that. Presumably no one would, and so the landlord would lose out and stop.
Simple as long as there is more than one power company for you to choose from and they are not colluding to fix their prices, the power company is free to ask for whatever they want. This is not a problem that can occur in a competitive market, though.
Would not buying an Apple device put you in a similar position as having no access to electricity? Can you not buy a different and phone that allows you to freely install any software you want too without having to pay 30% to any third party?
Thinking that consumers and developers will collectively torpedo both android and Apple by supporting some unheard of 3rd mobile OS made by a benevolent company is a fantasy at this point. Just like saying, if consumers and towns don’t like Bell telephone they can just run their own phone lines all over the country couldn’t they?
And it's the user's phone, which they should be free to use however they see fit. Even if that means installing software from places other than Apple's store.
Because it's bad for consumers. We will end up paying more for these services if we allow these kinds of practices to continue. We will lose the ability to keep content we have bought if we move between services or don't want to keep up paying subscriptions.
Being a private company doesn't mean you just get to do whatever you want.
They are not a "private company" in that sense. With their user segment, they form a market and the app store establishes a "legal" system. Basically their users are citizen of a Apple nation and whoever wants to make business with them, has to follow the "legal system".
Consider the free market system (as the economic system of the western world), where you have choice between offerings, then the Apple ecosystem is the exact opposite.
"It's their X and they're a private company. Can't they just do whatever they want?" sounds like a really shitty world to live in.
Imagine if your ISP could tax your data at different rates depending on where it originated from because "it's their copper and they're a private company", or if Nokia could charge Apple $1000 per device sold because "it's their patents and they're a private company". The latter example of course would have made it completely impossible for the iPhone to ever exist since Nokia could've just priced them beyond all reason.
Nokia can charge $1000, but then no one would license their patents - so they charge a price the market will bear, that maximises their profit.
Obviously the market can bear 30% for Apple. And this is actually unsurprising because the number used to be more like 50% when software was sold in physical stores.
You’re free to think that’s too much, of course, and refuse to pay it.
>Nokia can charge $1000, but then no one would license their patents
You have fun making a phone without any Nokia patents. Just as a reminder, Nokia has patents in 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G, H.264, H.265, H.266 and WLAN.
There's a reason why Nokia is not allowed to charge whatever they want. But hey, if you have an idea on how to make a phone without licensing any of Nokia's patents, go ahead.
Apple operates within a country ("platform") and most follow the laws of the country ("platform rules"). Country laws are protecting consumers. So Apple can't do with their platform whatever they want... They could do so on a ship in the middle of the ocean - where no country laws apply - but then they wouldn't have so many customers there...
The problem is that developers and companies are obliged to accept these practices because they control 50% of peoples' devices. It's not just a "private company" any longer, it has become a public infrastructure.
I totally agree with you personally, but unfortunately the antitrust law doesn't work that way. It's your company and you've put years and millions (if not billions) hours of human work and created a system, and others start having rights on something that you've created privately. But unfortunately this is the case and telling this simple fact gets you downvoted to otherside of Earth on HN.
The same arguments is true for apps. You put years in effort and then someone steals a significant part of your revenue.
Apps follow the AppStore law. Apple follows US law. And the later includes some social aspects like Anti-Trust laws, consumer rights, etc.
Companies exist in a nation. A nation serves its citizens. So when a company is treating the citizens bad, a nation has all the rights to enforce whatever is needed. Hence antitrust laws.
> You put years in effort and then someone steals a significant part of your revenue
This seems a bit disingenuous. A more accurate take might be that you sign up for the Apple developer program, and in doing so agree to the terms of service including the cut that Apple will take from each sale. Then you begin working on the app, then you release the app, then Apple keeps the cut that was contractually agreed upon. There is no stealing, and anyone that puts in years of effort into an app is surely aware of the cut Apple takes before making that effort.
So if you knowingly open a store in a neighborhood "protected" by the mafia, it would be unfair to characterize a protection payment as stealing?
Sure, they're providing a service but that service is only necessary because of the mafia's market capture and threat of punishment in the first place.
Apple didn't treat anyone bad. They had the rules set up day 1, and there is always the option to switch to Android (both from a user or dev perspective). It's a private company, their store, their rules, which has roughly been always the same. And I'm saying this as an iOS developer. When I develop something I'm fully aware of what can be copied, what is allowed, what payment methods can be used etc upfront, and I accept the rules and don't try to change a private company's own platform's rules.
I believe they can.. but there's a fair use issue, I'm not sure if you can create a market and then just corner it.
There was a recent supreme Court ruling I believe that suggested Apple have to allow other payment options. But they are free to kick off whoever they want..
