Google is barely any better, using different methods to maintain Google Play at more than 95% market share for Android apps.
But how does an Android phone get you an Apple CPU? Or to put it another way, if your app customers want the Apple CPU, and they want your app, how do they get them both together without the troll bridge between you?
> An Apple CPU is another version of the ARM chip. How do I buy a Whopper at McDonalds?
It's not that you want to buy a Whopper at McDonalds. It's that you have a Ford and if you try to drive it to Burger King to buy a Whopper they disable your car because Ford owns McDonalds and Chevy owns Burger King.
Which in turn keeps anyone from producing a new make of car or a new brand of food, because no existing source of food will serve you if you're not in the parent company's vehicle and no one can scale a new restaurant or grocery chain enough to make some other brand of vehicles viable when people in existing vehicles can't patronize it.
This kind of tying is meant to be prohibited.
> Pepsi chooses to not serve customers who go to McDonald’s and Costco chooses not to serve Amex customers.
People who want Pepsi can go into McDonalds, come out with a Big Mac, pick up a Pepsi at any vending machine or convenience store and go sit down and have them together. People who buy a washing machine at CostCo on their Visa can go buy detergent for it from Walmart with their Amex.
> You either choose to work with customers where they are or you don’t. Just like video game makers
The same antitrust action should be applied to video game consoles.
> It's not that you want to buy a Whopper at McDonalds. It's that you have a Ford and if you try to drive it to Burger King to buy a Whopper they disable your car because Ford owns McDonalds and Chevy owns Burger King.
We are talking about ARM chips, anyone with the money can design their own ARM chips and contract TSMC to manufacturer them. There are at least a dozen companies that do so. No one forces you to buy phones made by Apple just like no one forces you to buy burgers from McDonalds.
If people are willing gk pay more for a gourmet burger at an upscale restaurant (Apple) than McDonalds (Android$ because they feel like the burgers are better, that’s people making an informed choice.
> The same antitrust action should be applied to video game consoles.
Are you saying that video game makers should also be forced to license their IP so other manufacturers can clone their consoles?
> We are talking about ARM chips, anyone with the money can design their own ARM chips and contract TSMC to manufacturer them.
So the first step is to have enough capital to design a state of the art microprocessor that can compete with the world's largest corporation. If this is feasible, why hasn't anyone done it? Every other phone chip is slower.
Then they have to make their own phone, and their own app store, and somehow get a critical mass of third party developers to make apps for a platform that has no existing user base or a get a critical mass of users to buy a phone without existing third party apps, and then drive Apple out of the market because even if they achieved 50% market share in phones they still could not distribute their app to half of their app's customer base.
If you want to write a piece of software that Apple doesn't approve, the barrier to entry has gone from "you post it on your website and people install it on their Apple computers" to "you must be a trillion dollar multinational conglomerate who can not only produce your own vertically integrated hardware and software platform but operate at a loss long enough to cause all of your app customers who currently have an iPhone to switch to it so they can install your app."
And that would only work for one entity -- then they're the vertically integrated conglomerate standing between third party developers and users.
This is clearly not a realistic option.
> If people are willing gk pay more for a gourmet burger at an upscale restaurant (Apple) than McDonalds (Android$ because they feel like the burgers are better, that’s people making an informed choice.
The whole point of tying is to take away your choice. Instead of choosing which phone you want and which OS you want and which app store you want, all of these are forced into a single decision that can no longer accurately represent the customer's true preferences. Having the information doesn't let you choose differently because the decision is still coerced to binary.
But if you want to talk about informed, why is the 30% cut hidden from the end user? Shouldn't it be on the statement when they buy something from the store?
It isn't because it would make Apple look bad to be taking such a large percentage from third parties you thought you were supporting, after you've already paid them hundreds of dollars for a piece of hardware you ought to own.
> Are you saying that video game makers should also be forced to license their IP so other manufacturers can clone their consoles?
Nobody wants to clone a console. They're sold at a loss in a dumping scheme to achieve a network effect so they can shake down video game producers.
What they should not is be able to shake down video game producers. Xbox and PlayStation should have Steam and the Epic Games Store. Which would render the dumping scheme non-viable, as intended.
> So the first step is to have enough capital to design a state of the art microprocessor that can compete with the world's largest corporation.
> and I can’t create my own car either to compete with a Tesla that doesn’t mean Tesla is being anti competitive.
> If this is feasible, why hasn't anyone done it? Every other phone chip is slower.
Ask Microsoft, Google, Qualcomm etc. Microsoft in particular had a years limb head start on Apple in the phone market. And Apple was still basically coming out of near death at the time. The other companies incompetence doesn’t mean Apple is being anti competitive.
> The whole point of tying is to take away your choice. Instead of choosing which phone you want and which OS you want and which app store you want, all of these are forced into a single decision that can no longer accurately represent the customer's true preferences.
I can’t choose to get a Tesla battery and the Tesla infotainment system on a Ford Mustang. Is Ford being anticompetitive?
The entire point of leverage is that Apple has an integrated experience and people pay a premium for that. If you want a non integrated experience - you can buy an x86 computer or an Android phone - as most of the workd does.
> But if you want to talk about informed, why is the 30% cut hidden from the end user? Shouldn't it be on the statement when they buy something from the store?
Does any retailer show the customer the difference between wholesale price and retail price?
> Nobody wants to clone a console. They're sold at a loss in a dumping scheme to achieve a network effect so they can shake down video game producers.
There were at one point reference designs for consoles and the hardware was manufactured by others
> What they should not is be able to shake down video game producers. Xbox and PlayStation should have Steam and the Epic Games Store. Which would render the dumping scheme non-viable, as intended.
Instead of whining, Steam actually did come out with their console. That’s the same thing any large enough company can do and their are literally hundreds of companies selling their own phone
They all have less money -- and that's saying something.
> The other companies incompetence doesn’t mean Apple is being anti competitive.
The problem is not that they made a faster CPU -- that's great. The problem is that they won't sell you the faster CPU unless you buy their phone and their OS and bind yourself to be locked into their app store.
> I can’t choose to get a Tesla battery and the Tesla infotainment system on a Ford Mustang. Is Ford being anticompetitive?
Ford will sell you every separate part of the Mustang. You can buy the frame and put Tesla batteries in it if that's what you want to do.
> The entire point of leverage is that Apple has an integrated experience and people pay a premium for that. If you want a non integrated experience - you can buy an x86 computer or an Android phone - as most of the workd does.
There is nothing wrong with selling an iPhone to customers who want an iPhone. The issue is the tying. Anyone who wants it should be able to get the hardware and the OS without the app store.
I honestly don't understand why you defend them. You would still be able to get the thing that you want, but then other people would too. The availability of more options would make the market more competitive and force even Apple to provide more value for less money -- which you would benefit from even if you continue to use exclusively their products.
Would you not benefit if the 30% they take was less than 10%, and then you paid 10% less and the app developer got 10% more which they could use to make more and better apps?
> Does any retailer show the customer the difference between wholesale price and retail price?
Normal retailers show the customer the price, which they can then compare with other retailers. If they were charging 30% when five other competitors were charging 5%, their prices would be higher. When there are no competing retailers because Apple prohibits them, the only information for the customer to use to evaluate the cost of using Apple's store is the amount they charge to the developer.
> There were at one point reference designs for consoles and the hardware was manufactured by others
Which is fine. But then they still don't need to shake down the game developers because they can charge a license fee to manufacture the hardware in the same way that ARM does.
> Instead of whining, Steam actually did come out with their console. That’s the same thing any large enough company can do and their are literally hundreds of companies selling their own phone
I'm more concerned with what small companies can do.
But even Valve is deploying a mitigation rather than a solution -- if they captured half the market with their console (which they have yet to do), they'd still be paying the monopoly rent on the other half of their sales.
> The problem is not that they made a faster CPU -- that's great. The problem is that they won't sell you the faster CPU unless you buy their phone and their OS and bind yourself to be locked into their app store.
You think this is something which only Apple does?
Go try to buy a Snapdragon CPU from Qualcomm. Or an Exynos from Samsung. Or (going a little further afield) a Graviton CPU from Amazon.
There are a lot of components which are only sold to select manufacturing partners, or which are entirely exclusive to a manufacturer. Apple is not doing anything outlandish here.
The people who would be buying the chips from Apple are the same one who are buying them from Samsung or Qualcomm.
Those companies will basically sell them to anyone willing to place a volume order, and if there was any demand for it they'd be selling them retail on Newegg. (There isn't because they don't use sockets and there aren't enough individual customers with the equipment to solder it to a logic board, but an individual can get one of their CPUs on a single board computer.)
Amazon doesn't sell Gravitron separately but they also don't sell it whatsoever. I don't know what to call that but it's not what's happening with Apple.
> Those companies will basically sell them to anyone willing to place a volume order
If that were all, you'd see these parts resold through distributors, just like you do for other components like transistors or DRAM or audio codecs. But you don't -- the manufacturers place restrictions on how these parts can be used, and those restrictions typically forbid their resale.
(As an aside, the same is also true of many Intel and AMD CPUs. Some parts are sold to consumers, but many others -- including non-socketed CPUs and motherboard chipsets -- are only sold directly to manufacturers, typically under restrictive terms.)
> an individual can get one of their CPUs on a single board computer
I've never seen one. There's plenty of SBCs built around ARM SoCs which are available on the open market, like Allwinnner or Rockchip, but, as far as I'm aware, Samsung and Qualcomm only sell parts to manufacturers intending to use them in end-user products.
I can’t use Tesla’s infotainment system in a Ford Mustang. Tesla ties their hardware together to make a complete product.
> They all have less money -- and that's saying something.
Do you really think that those companies couldn’t afford to design a chip? Apple doesn’t have its own factory. TSMC is available to any company.
Microsoft and Google definitely had more money when Apple first started building their own chips.
> The problem is not that they made a faster CPU -- that's great. The problem is that they won't sell you the faster CPU unless you buy their phone and their OS and bind yourself to be locked into their app store.
Should all companies be required to sell their components separately?
> Would you not benefit if the 30% they take was less than 10%, and then you paid 10% less and the app developer got 10% more which they could use to make more and better apps?
Most of the popular services are either already available as subscriptions inside and outside of the App Store or there is not even an option to subscribe through in app purchases.
> Normal retailers show the customer the price, which they can then compare with other retailers. If they were charging 30% when five other competitors were charging 5%, their prices would be higher. When there are no competing retailers because Apple prohibits them, the only information for the customer to use to evaluate the cost of using Apple's store is the amount they charge to the developer.
Before Spotify completely removed in app subscriptions, they in fact did have a cheaper price if you described directly than if you went through the App Store. For awhile CBS All Access (now Paramount+) does the same thing.
> Which is fine. But then they still don't need to shake down the game developers because they can charge a license fee to manufacture the hardware in the same way that ARM does.
Or they can choose to not be in that market and just sell on PCs.
> I'm more concerned with what small companies can do
Small companies also can’t build cars. Does that mean it’s anti competitive? Microsoft wasn’t a small company when it failed and neither was Nokia. Why blame on anti competitiveness when it’s clearly incompetence.
> I can’t use Tesla’s infotainment system in a Ford Mustang. Tesla ties their hardware together to make a complete product.
We keep having the same debate. You point out something that isn't anti-competitively tying to products together, like McDonalds having a trademark on Quarter Pounder, but that isn't the same thing, so it isn't a problem. You point out something that is anti-competitively tying products together, like game consoles requiring customers to use their store for games, which is the same thing, and is therefore also bad.
This is finally something which is at least ambiguous, but it's still not that interesting.
If the reason you can't use the infotainment system is that the software expects you to have an electric car and the Mustang isn't one and retrofitting it in there is a lot of work, you can still use it, it's just a lot of work.
By contrast, if they purposely lock the thing with DRM or contractual terms that prohibit you from transplanting it then it's clearly an anti-competitive practice that should be prohibited.
> Do you really think that those companies couldn’t afford to design a chip? Apple doesn’t have its own factory. TSMC is available to any company.
They not only have to design a chip, they have to outbid anyone else for use of TSMC's latest process, for which the company with the most money wins.
> Microsoft and Google definitely had more money when Apple first started building their own chips.
Apple started building their own chips in 2010, by which time they were already somewhat bigger than Google and the same size as Microsoft. And their chips from then were nothing special.
> Should all companies be required to sell their components separately?
They should if it's not a fungible component otherwise available in the market from someone else.
But also, why wouldn't they want to do this, if not for some kind of anti-competitive practice? Someone wants to give you money. Shut up and take their money.
The fact that they don't do it voluntarily is the argument for actually breaking them up, because just forcing them to sell the CPU is going to encourage compliance trolling like putting the same margin on the CPU by itself as they do on the entire iPhone.
> Most of the popular services are either already available as subscriptions inside and outside of the App Store or there is not even an option to subscribe through in app purchases.
How does that apply to apps?
> Before Spotify completely removed in app subscriptions, they in fact did have a cheaper price if you described directly than if you went through the App Store. For awhile CBS All Access (now Paramount+) does the same thing.
Originally that wasn't allowed. Then they allowed it, but you couldn't actually reference the lower price external option from the app. Then, as part of an antitrust settlement in Japan, they allowed it:
Amazing the benefits of a little antitrust enforcement.
Now if only it applied to apps and not just subscriptions.
> Or they can choose to not be in that market and just sell on PCs.
So the problem is that the console maker is shaking them down for 30%. What a given developer's net margin is depends on the developer, but let's say it was 40%. Going from 40% to 10% is bad. Your proposed to solution is for them to go from 10% to zero. That doesn't solve the problem?
> Small companies also can’t build cars.
Well sure they can. They just can't design one from the ground up.
Being able to buy the individual components separately is what enables them to build cars. Your compatriot brought up the Chelsea Truck Company, which the internet says has two employees.
But that's how it starts. The original Tesla Roadster was based on a Lotus Elise. The ability to do that is critical for new competitors to enter the market, so you don't have to be a gorilla from the first day.
> Microsoft wasn’t a small company when it failed and neither was Nokia. Why blame on anti competitiveness when it’s clearly incompetence.
Microsoft's failure (irony be damned) was strongly attributable to anti-competitive practices. People actually liked their phones and their OS. But it had no apps, so it has no users, so it had no apps.
And Apple prohibits the sort of things one might use to overcome that, like cross-platform frameworks or languages.
Otherwise why has no one succeeded in establishing a third platform here? Not just Microsoft; Plasma, postmarketOS, Mobian, PureOS, Ubuntu Touch, LuneOS, Tizen, /e/, CalyxOS, KaiOS, SailfishOS, FirefoxOS, Facebook Home etc. -- none of them has ever had more than trivial market share. It's not for lack of attempts. Several of these are from major corporations like Samsung and Facebook, or large communities like Mozilla and Debian/Ubuntu. Are they all incompetent, or is something else going on here?
> If the reason you can't use the infotainment system is that the software expects you to have an electric car and the Mustang isn't one and retrofitting it in there is a lot of work, you can still use it, it's just a lot of work.
So you think you can use the Tesla infotainment system that is tightly integrated with other electronics in its car if you are “willing to do a lot of work”?
> So the problem is that the console maker is shaking them down for 30%. What a given developer's net margin is depends on the developer, but let's say it was 40%. Going from 40% to 10% is bad. Your proposed to solution is for them to go from 10% to zero. That doesn't solve the problem?
Or you know you just raise your price so the wholesale price is enough to be profitable - just like goods sellers have been doing since the beginning of time. You realize that the markup from wholesale to retail is usually a lot higher than 30% don’t you?
> Originally that wasn't allowed. Then they allowed it, but you couldn't actually reference the lower price external option from the app. Then, as part of an antitrust settlement in Japan, they allowed it:
> Being able to buy the individual components separately is what enables them to build cars. Your compatriot brought up the Chelsea Truck Company, which the internet says has two employees.
And cell phone manufacturers can also design phones and get all the parts they need.
And car manufacturers can buy the components they need for their infotainment system that supports both Android Auto and CarPlay. But they can’t use Tesla’s software.
> Microsoft's failure (irony be damned) was strongly attributable to anti-competitive practices. People actually liked their phones and their OS. But it had no apps, so it has no users, so it had no apps.
Microsoft had Windows Mobile and Windows CE phones years before the iPhone existed.
Heck they couldn’t even release a good version of their own Office products for their own phones and they just gave up.
> And Apple prohibits the sort of things one might use to overcome that, like cross-platform frameworks or languages
This is also not true. There are plenty of cross platform frameworks that work with iOS and Android devices. Are you really admitting that you never heard of Flutter by a little company named Google? Microsoft also has a C# based framework that supports iOS and Android. There is also React Native.
> Otherwise why has no one succeeded in establishing a third platform here?
So you’re blaming Apple for this with only 20% worldwide market share?
Do you also blame Apple for the “year of the desktop Linux” not happening and Firefox being crushed by Chrome?
A company who wants to make entirely their own car can do so and its customers can still drive it on the same roads and buy fuel from the same gas stations.
A company who wants to make mostly their own car and use some parts from another manufacturer can do that too:
This is the normal operation of a competitive market. Chelsea Truck Company wants their vehicles to be mostly Land Rover so they start with a Land Rover.
But Apple interferes with even that. If you wanted to buy iPhones to mod and resell, they stop you from putting your own operating system on it, and their operating system doesn't have drivers for your custom components.
> A company who wants to make entirely their own car can do so and its customers can still drive it on the same roads and buy fuel from the same gas stations.
A company that wants to make their own phone can do that and still use the same wireless providers.
> A company who wants to make mostly their own car and use some parts from another manufacturer can do that too:
A company that wants to make mostly their own phone can get ARM chips and cellular chips and all of the parts from plenty of places all the way up to getting contract manufacturers
> This is the normal operation of a competitive market. Chelsea Truck Company wants their vehicles to be mostly Land Rover so they start with a Land Rover.
So are you saying there is no competition in the phone market and people must buy iPhones even though 80% of the world buy Android phones?
> But Apple interferes with even that. If you wanted to buy iPhones to mod and resell, they stop you from putting your own operating system on it, and their operating system doesn't have drivers for your custom components.
Then fork your own version of AOSP and work with a contract phone manufacturer and sell your own product. Just like 100s of Android resellers do
> A company that wants to make their own phone can do that and still use the same wireless providers.
Apple is not currently a vertically integrated wireless provider. Would you say that it's a problem if they were, so the only wireless carriers with widespread coverage are Apple and Google?
> A company that wants to make mostly their own phone can get ARM chips and cellular chips and all of the parts from plenty of places all the way up to getting contract manufacturers
Anybody can make a device that terminates phone calls. The issue is that you want to benefit the consumer by making something which is better than what already exists. And you have an improvement to contribute -- a better display or battery or form factor or app or a way to lower costs or whatever.
So what you want is to take the best available device, change it by only your own contribution, and get lots of customers because what you're selling is the same as what people already want, but better.
Which you can't do, because you can't get the rest of the phone people want. So instead of starting with an iPhone and making it 10% better, you have to start with a phone which is 25% worse, and then even when you make it 10% better it's still 15% worse and it's not competitive.
So then you don't even try, which is terrible for the consumer.
> So are you saying there is no competition in the phone market and people must buy iPhones even though 80% of the world buy Android phones?
There is very little competition for phone SoCs. It's basically Apple and Qualcomm, and Qualcomm sucks. OEMs buy from them because they can't buy from Apple. (Samsung keeps making an attempt but they're not that impressive even relative to Qualcomm and go predominantly into Samsung's own devices.)
Android phones have 70% of the world market because they cost less. They're only ~40% of the US market. That doesn't help you if you're trying to make a premium phone.
> Apple is not currently a vertically integrated wireless provider. Would you say that it's a problem if they were, so the only wireless carriers with widespread coverage are Apple and Google?
But they aren’t. The cell phone network is the infrastructure just like with your analogy, the road was the infrastructure that given enough capital, anyone can build a car on.
> Anybody can make a device that terminates phone calls. The issue is that you want to benefit the consumer by making something which is better than what already exists. And you have an improvement to contribute -- a better display or battery or form factor or app or a way to lower costs or whatever.
And cell phone carriers do that today. They add their own spin - foldable phones, ruggedized phones, phones with better cameras and either they manufacturer the phone themselves or use someone like Foxconn to manufacture the phones for them - just like Apple. Apple doesn’t make or design its own cellphone chip (yet) or camera assembly (Sony).
> So then you don't even try, which is terrible for the consumer.
Yet literally hundreds of manufactures do try.
> It's basically Apple and Qualcomm, and Qualcomm sucks
Again whose fault is that? Samsung isn’t a small company and it’s been around for literally a century.
> Android phones have 70% of the world market because they cost less. They're only ~40% of the US market. That doesn't help you if you're trying to make a premium phone.
Everyone says that Google’s phones are premium and some of Samsungs phones. Again whose fault is it that two multi billion dollar companies can’t compete on the high end?
> The cell phone network is the infrastructure just like with your analogy, the road was the infrastructure that given enough capital, anyone can build a car on.
The infrastructure in this analogy is the platform.
You're trying to avoid the consequences by going another level up in the infrastructure. But you can always do that. Wireless networks run on electricity, power plants run on gas pipelines. The issue is that the layers of the infrastructure they do control (devices, operating systems) are being used to limit competition on the adjacent layers (app distribution, apps).
> They add their own spin - foldable phones, ruggedized phones, phones with better cameras and either they manufacturer the phone themselves or use someone like Foxconn to manufacture the phones for them - just like Apple.
Yes of course, they add them when they want to compete with other Android phones. The market for low cost Android handsets is quite competitive.
The issue is that if you want a ruggedized phone that runs iOS on Apple Silicon, or one that has a non-Apple app store, that isn't available. Even if there are both companies interested in making it and customers interested in buying it.
> Everyone says that Google’s phones are premium and some of Samsungs phones. Again whose fault is it that two multi billion dollar companies can’t compete on the high end?
Google is not really even making the attempt. Their interest in Android is to get it on as many phones as possible to promote the use of their services, and for that phones from other OEMs are satisfactory, so what do they care?
Samsung is only a fraction of the size of Apple and punches well above their weight, but there's only so much you can do in a bidding war against someone with more money.
> The infrastructure in this analogy is the platform.
The road carries all types of vehicles from place to place. The cellular network carries data from place to place and any phone can use that network. Different physical manufacturers make stuff to go on the “digital highway”. I didn’t make that term up.
> Yes of course, they add them when they want to compete with other Android phones. The market for low cost Android handsets is quite competitive.
Most of Samsung commercials go after Apple. Samsungs foldable phones costs more than the most expensive iPhone.
> The issue is that if you want a ruggedized phone that runs iOS on Apple Silicon, or one that has a non-Apple app store, that isn't available. Even if there are both companies interested in making it and customers interested in buying it
I also can’t buy a gas powered Tesla.
> Google is not really even making the attempt.
You mean they are spending money creating products and advertising them during the Super Bowl and they don’t care?
> Samsung is only a fraction of the size of Apple and punches well above their weight, but there's only so much you can do in a bidding war against someone with more money.
You realize that Samsung makes its own processors? How much do you really think it costs to design a processor? Just like Microsoft, Samsung was making cell phones before the iPhone even existed and when Apple was basically about to go bankrupt. Whose fault is it that they couldn’t compete with a decade headstart?
> and its customers can still drive it on the same roads and buy fuel from the same gas stations
Of course. And anyone can build a phone that is charged from a wall socket and communicates using standard mobile protocols.
> If you wanted to buy iPhones to mod and resell, they stop you from putting your own operating system on it, and their operating system doesn't have drivers for your custom components.
This industry is much younger. I wouldn't guarantee that Land Rover lets you even today mod its software system, but possibly it does, but then again, it also is in an industry that's been around 100+ years.
But how does an Android phone get you an Apple CPU? Or to put it another way, if your app customers want the Apple CPU, and they want your app, how do they get them both together without the troll bridge between you?