It feels a bit hypocritical when Apple laughs at FB for complaining about their new tracking pop-up yet when the shoe's on the other foot and Apple may actually have to compete on its own platform they double down and defend their right to be judge, jury and executioner.
Apple competing with third party app stores on iOS is going to be amazing. No computer platform should be allowed to prevent sideloading or other stores from competing.
This isn't the case on Windows.
This isn't the case on Android.
Or Linux for that matter.
It's more disappointing it takes 10 years for regulators to step-in and say "that's bad, no more, open up your platform".
The fact that you called it sideloading just shows how successful Apple has been in warping people's perception of it over the years.
Installing the software you want on your compute device isn't sideloading. Its just installing software. Apple is aberration here not all of the users who just expect to actually own the products they buy.
It's depressing that even on hackernews where you expect people want to tinker and have control over their machines there's a probably a majority who are happy with the situation and use the think of my grandma (aka children) using iPhone situation. There could be numerous ways for Apple to let people run their own software or other stores without giving your grandma malware.
Except as soon as it becomes a remotely feasible action (with simple instructions) for the general consumer, a bunch of businesses will start requiring their users to disable "default Grandma mode". Imagine onboarding for Netflix including a pleasantly designed screen saying "Before you can use Netflix, you must Enable Third-party Stores. Go to Settings > Privacy..."
If that comes to pass, there will be no highly-guarded, highly-moderated mobile OS to choose from. Apple has tremendous resources and expends tremendous resources, under pressure of tremendous incentives, to moderate it well. Do you think Third-party app stores will be moderated better or worse on average? Not just with respect to content decisions, but privacy, security and the works.
There is a very reasonable case that having a solidly-guarded and moderated mobile OS as an option in the market is good for consumers. It may boggle the tech-savvy mind, but another way of reading the incredibly successful 10 year history of this horribly locked-down, oppressive OS is that the market has spoken. And it's happy.
I've noticed that if something is possible, your children or grandmother with do it, somehow. I hand out Chromebooks to relatives because of the low support requirements, and yet STILL every time I get one of those things back there are dozens of outright dangerous extensions installed. These are folks who know how to click on the icon for their email and that's it, and yet the garbage finds a way in. It's like trying to seal your basement against water in the everglades.
I agree, and I believe this is in part because it is these kind of people that malware is targeted at. We, the tech savvy, will be smart enough to not do something because we pay attention at permissions or what extensions, programs, tools, etc are doing or want to do. The tech illiterate still do know how to use Google, search for what they want to do, click on the first thing that looks like it will do what they want, download and use it. If it doesn't do what they want, it remains there and they go and repeat these steps until they find exactly what program, etc does what they want, all while the bad ones remain installed, doing bad things.
My wife fell into this category when we first met, after I began teaching her even just some basics and she learned to question things and be more careful, I haven't needed to "diagnose" her computer in a long time (I still do regular maintenance, but irregular issues never come up anymore). So I would say that education is the biggest key in this regard, teach them to start with a zero trust model.
Tech savvyness and paying attention will not save you when you're bombarded with dark patterns all the time. Even then, I prefer not to be one click away from losing my privacy, money or being bombarded with ads.
If I am understanding you correctly, dark patterns are meant to be a psychological hit to you, it's not tech savvyness but clarity of mind and knowing that most every big business out there wants to make money off you and will do anything to get that money. This is a huge reason I am not on Facebook (among others, including the standard ones), and other social media platforms. I investigate claims myself, and do not trust what is thrown at me. Perhaps this is the biggest reason dark patterns have never worked on me. Also keeping a strong privacy/security setup that you don't compromise on helps too.
It's totally possible to have both: on first init, have the user choose whether they want to prevent installing apps from 3rd party stores. Changing this setting requires performing a factory reset.
Problem solved. If you want the walled garden, opt in at the beginning, and now your children/grandmother are safe as long as they don't literally reset their phone, wiping all their pictures/apps/whatever.
I would trust Netflix. Other companies? Not so much.
The App Store (and reduced API surface) was a true revolution for the customer. Remember every app installer requiring admin privilege on Windows and creating it's service that runs at startup checking for updates, littering the registry and sometimes installing drivers?
All gone from the App Store. If the app maker doesn't like it he can go target another platform.
Even on Android, the amount of useless software side loaded by the manufacturer is mind boggling.
> I would trust Netflix. Other companies? Not so much.
Missing the point. Sure, many users will trust the Netflix app, but we only need one trustworthy app (like Netflix) to open the gate for all other kinds of untrustworthy apps to also skip the check.
How so? Android is still asking every single time you install a non market app, spooky enough that nether my mum nor my gf consider clicking proceed without asking someone if they should.
Because it's a continuum. Say you trust Netflix "absolutely". So you go ahead and click through the "spooky warnings". This sets a precedent.
Now you're in the situation "I've already done this, nothing happened. But of course, I shouldn't do it all the time. There's a reason the warning is there."
Now you want to try out this other app. The company doesn't seem shady, but they're new, they don't yet have the reputation Netflix has. So you don't trust it "absolutely", but "pretty much". OK, you go ahead, just for this one app.
Now you're even more used to clicking through the warning. Repeat a few times. Now you're installing totally_not_malware.apk. What could go wrong? You've already installed a bunch of apps this way with no issue. Plus this one app clearly isn't malware, it says so in the title! Also, all your friends are using it and you don't want to be left out.
> How so? Android is still asking every single time you install a non market app, spooky enough that nether my mum nor my gf consider clicking proceed without asking someone if they should.
Android has only been asking once per source, not per app, for a while. Also, the messages aren't that scary. Folks haphazardly click OK in Windows without reading messages; you can be sure they do the same on a phone.
> a bunch of businesses will start requiring their users to disable "default Grandma mode". Imagine onboarding for Netflix including a pleasantly designed screen saying "Before you can use Netflix, you must Enable Third-party Stores. Go to Settings > Privacy..."
In Android, Epic (and probably tens of ISP and carriers) actually tried that strategy and miserably failed.
Exactly, Epic tried to get people to install their Fortnite app on Android via their apk from their website but they ended up just putting it on the appstore because not enough people were doing it. Likely because of the extra work and "scary" warnings Android gives you when you try and do this.
So yeah this method does work to keep people using the more "safe" options while also letting others have more freedom with their device if they desire.
> as soon as it becomes a remotely feasible action (with simple instructions) for the general consumer, a bunch of businesses will start requiring their users to disable "default Grandma mode"
Zero chance Facebook doesn't do this with Instagram. Zero chance large employers don't do this with their surveillance software.
App Stores have been the only way to get software on iPhones since they were first released. I can't even install an alternative OS on my iPhone, and jailbreaking seems to have become less accessible now too. How do we know what experience is more competitive if competition isn't allowed to blossom? Maybe the market would value an alternative App Store that is able to compete on moderation and/or the 30% developer tax status quo?
> If that comes to pass, there will be no highly-guarded, highly-moderated mobile OS to choose from.
If the market wants this kind of experience, then surely it will continue to exist no?
> If the market wants this kind of experience, then surely it will continue to exist no?
That is the battle Epic is currently fighting, to remove the ability for anyone on the market to offer this option.
By requiring everyone to allow third-party app stores, you effectively remove the option for a fully curated experience. Because as mentioned, once a few popular apps start demanding usage of the third-party app store, consumers will no longer be able to choose a fully-curated experience without foregoing those services. And that will lead down an inevitable loss of privacy, increased demanding of permissions for marketing, etc - all of which Apple has fairly successfully fought back solely through their centrally-moderated experience. We all lived through the early days of Android before the built-in flashlight when you had flashlight apps demanding full permissions to monitor everything you do.
It is, in a sense, another "paradox of tolerance" - you have to restrict user freedoms in one area (what users are allowed to install) to protect them in another area (predatory developers). Apple's walled garden is the only thing keeping those marketing departments at bay, their restrictions on app-developer (and ultimately end-user) freedom are what protects your privacy. Similar perhaps to how GNU and BSD regard "freedoms" differently - BSD regards developer freedom as paramount, while GNU regards user freedom as paramount, and these are not quite the same things. While BSD protects developer freedom to release proprietary code on top of BSD code, GNU restricts developer freedom and forces that to be released under GNU license as well. And ultimately that translates into a loss of user freedom in some sense - surely users would like the ability to have ZFS distributed alongside the Linux kernel, but GNU restricts that freedom in furtherance of the big-picture.
Ironic as it is, the Apple Store is the GNU of this situation. They are willing to burn some specific cases of application developers who are not willing to accept the licensing terms, in order to protect the big-picture of user freedoms (privacy). Android is the "BSD", where they are more concerned about developer freedom than user freedom. And the loss of specific apps is analogous to the friction between mixing source under copyleft license with other open-source licenses.
If you want third-party app stores, Android exists. This is about Epic fighting to take away the option to have a moderated, quality-controlled experience and eroding the ability of users to maintain their privacy.
Seeing as this is HN, perhaps you would care to explicate a reason why.
Does GNU not (at times) restrict the distribution of software that end-users might find desirable, in order to protect their rights as a whole? Why do you think that is bad?
Has that restriction not resulted in the creation of a high-quality, user-freedom-regarding codebase despite (and in fact because of) those restrictions? Why can Apple’s policy of mandatory curation not have a similar effect on the market as well?
It seems self-evident that a lot of the privacy improvements in recent androids (like filesystem isolation in Android Q) probably would not have occurred without the impetus provided by Apple’s competitive pressure in this area, so you benefit from this even if you choose Android and “the BSD model”.
Like, I completely get that this is a developer-centric community and you see it as Apple gating access to the user base that makes you money. And as a user I see it as Apple blocking nefarious practices that developers clearly race to use as soon as they're allowed, in order to make a couple more pennies off my privacy and worsen my user experience. I don't think it's intellectually honest to pretend there's some huge Apple userbase who's champing at the bit to have Facebook have root access on their phones, they already have Facebook now, and Apple's curation forces Facebook to tone down the worst of their excess. Just like it wouldn't be honest to hear Microsoft whining about how it's not fair that GNU is restricting user freedoms because Microsoft isn't allowed to distribute code that links against GNU source. No user would want Microsoft to link against GNU code, Microsoft might want to do it because it would make them more profit, but you shouldn't put words into my mouth as an Apple customer.
And if you really did want to "sideload" onto your iphone, the only real barrier is having fifty bucks to get an apple developer account. Then you can sideload whatever you want. Similarly, a Microsoft developer account will let you sideload any UWP apps you want onto your Xbox, I've seen tons of people using it as an emulator console recently and that's certainly quite a thing for a walled garden.
Discuss, if you have points to make. Don’t just grump that “Apple bad”, that’s low quality posting.
GNU, or more properly the FSF, is a non-profit foundation, based on ethical/political ideals. Apple is a private company that maximises revenue and shareholder value. It is true that Apple's stance on privacy is currently better than Facebook, Google et al.,(#) but that has nothing to do with high-minded ideals and everything with it being a marketing benefit for a company that, unlike Google and FB, doesn't maintain power through harvesting user data but by maintaining a tight grip on their ecosystem. The moment that privacy won't sell anymore, Apple will stop caring about it. By contrast, Richard Stallman will probably advocate for user rights until the day he dies, even if nobody should listen to him.
I didn't feel I needed to point this out, but I don't even have to like Richard Stallman to find it almost insulting to compare his passion for fighting in what he truly believes in with the highest-valued company in the world trying to protect their market share at all costs.
> Don’t just grump that “Apple bad”, that’s low quality posting.
It's not "Apple bad", it's "unregulated big tech bad", that includes Apple just as much as Facebook, Amazon, Google, and possibly Epic, although I really don't care about them.
(#) But still nowhere near the level of privacy you can have on e.g. a Linux system running only free software. Apple's privacy track record is good compared to other predatory companies, not necessarily on its own.
> Does GNU not (at times) restrict the distribution of software
No, the GPL does not restrict the distribution of software. The GPL requires that source code be made available. That's not remotely the same thing. The GPL also doesn't have anything to do with manual curation. The GPL is also, while we're on the subject, not a platform. The GPL does not prevent you from running GPL-licensed code on another system, or building your own system that interacts with GNU code. Apple does prevent all of those things.
So ignoring that the GPL does not restrict the distribution of software[0] there's still this huge jump in logic you're making that starts with "here is a thing that resulted in good outcomes" and jumps to a completely separate concept and says "maybe this will also have good outcomes." But it's an Apples and Oranges comparison.
It's like saying, "the GPL has resulted in good software. Maybe an increased federal minimum wage will also be good." Those two things aren't related to each other.
> It seems self-evident that a lot of the privacy improvements in recent androids (like filesystem isolation in Android Q) probably would not have occurred without the impetus provided by Apple’s competitive pressure in this area
It is also self evident that concepts like filesystem isolation do not require gatekeepers to work. The web has better security than your iPhone. It just does. And it doesn't require mandatory curation to get those benefits. It is possible to build systems that have good sandboxing controls without closing down platforms and installing gatekeepers that decide who is and isn't allowed to make software. Filesystem isolation is a good example of that. We can do things like retire persistent device advertising IDs without an app store.
> it's not fair that GNU is restricting user freedoms because Microsoft isn't allowed to distribute code that links against GNU source
No, Microsoft can distribute code that links against a GPL library, in fact if they link against a GPL-licensed source they are required to do so with the code they link. The lack of restrictions in the GPL is the reason why the GNU and the OSCI don't recognize "source-available" licenses like SSPL, which do actually restrict user freedom. The GPL is a different thing. We actually do want Microsoft to link to GPL code, and sometimes Microsoft does release code under the GPL, and we're all usually happy about it.
[0]: In fact, if anything it's the opposite, it requires the distribution of software code (in some instances). The GPL is never going to tell you that you can't release something.
> No, the GNU does not restrict the distribution of software. The GNU requires that source code be made available. That's not remotely the same thing.
GNU says you can't distribute their source unless their license terms are met. That's a restriction on distribution, yes. For example, it's not legal to distribute kernel source alongside CDDL licensed code like ZFS.
If we were to apply your standard to Apple - Apple doesn't restrict what apps can get into the app store, they restrict what apps in the app store are allowed to do. You cannot request permissions you don't use, for example, but they don't say that "Facebook is allowed and Instagram is not". Any other application that does what Epic does would have been blocked too, that is the licensing requirement of Apple's software environment.
> It is also self evident that concepts like filesystem isolation do not require gatekeepers to work
I in fact never said they did, this is putting words into my mouth.
I said there would have been no market impetus on Android to offer them without Apple doing them first. Which is self-evidently true as well - why are those features only being offered in Android Q? Why did it take 15 years?
> So ignoring that the GNU does not restrict the distribution of software[0] there's still this huge jump in logic
It's not a jump in logic, I'm asking you a very simple question: are there situations in which restrictions in certain "user freedoms" (such as the ability to receive CDDL code distributed alongside GPL code) produce an overall better outcome despite small-scale negative outcomes from players who do not comply with the overall licensing requirements?
Just saying that is apples and oranges doesn't mean anything. Tell me why that's not true.
Ultimately it is a microcosm of the paradox of tolerance. "The only thing that cannot be tolerated is intolerance itself". And similarly "The only freedom that cannot be tolerated is the freedom to violate user freedom" is the basis of both GPL and the Apple store license.
If you want the app store where you can do anything, there is Android. Apple is attempting to provide a curated user experience. They aren't preventing you from buying Android, just doing a model they think is better for their users. And that's the freedom of contract in action. Their users have alternatives and are free to go elsewhere. Why don't you think they should be allowed to prefer that?
Would it be OK to sue the GNU Foundation and force them to dual-license all existing code as BSD because copyleft is "anti-competitive"? Why or why not? If not, why should Apple be forced to alter their license agreement to allow third-party stores?
> GNU says you can't distribute their source unless their license terms are met
Where? GNU says that you can't link against a GPL-licensed[0] source without meeting those license requirements. There are zero restrictions on distributing GPL code, and there are zero restrictions on distributing your own code. There are also zero restrictions on allowing users to link code themselves. You could distribute your source and separately allow users to link that code to other libraries, and you would not be in violation of the GPL.
> it's not legal to distribute kernel source alongside CDDL licensed code like ZFS
I can run ZFS on Linux. This doesn't seem to be a real problem. There are multiple tutorials online about how to build the kernel with ZFS support, and with FUSE many distros do offer out-of-the-box ZFS support.
What is a piece of software that I am not allowed to run on Linux because of the GPL? I can run completely proprietary NVidia graphics drivers on Linux. How is my freedom as a user being taken away? This is not a comparable situation.
In fact, the only ecosystem where this is actually a problem is the Apple App Store, which disallows developers from distributing their software in a GPL-compatible way.
> Apple doesn't restrict what apps can get into the app store, they restrict what apps in the app store are allowed to do.
So Apple will never ban my developer account? They'll only ban an app? They certainly would never threaten to remove a separate app like Unreal Engine from a separate platform like Mac over a legal dispute?
Come on, Apple doesn't have restrictions on what apps can do. They have restrictions on what developers can do. And Apple reserves the right to remove apps from their store for any reason.
> are there situations in which restrictions in certain "user freedoms" [...] produce an overall better outcome
Sure. And at the risk of being a little too sarcastic or petty, that's why I think we should have higher federal minimum wages. The GPL works, so it's obvious that sometimes some restrictions in some areas can produce good outcomes. So therefore, having a higher minimum wage, or requiring software engineers to be licensed, or putting a cap on how much money Apple can charge in its store will also work. It's the same principle. /s
Leaving the snark/sarcasm behind, the comparison you're drawing is inaccurate because:
A) the GPL doesn't restrict people the way you think it does
B) even the restrictions you think the GPL is imposing are wildly different than the restrictions that Apple is imposing
C) the motivations behind the GPL's restrictions are different than Apple's motivations
D) every major architect and proponent of the GNU system has treated Apple's approach to moderation as a restriction of user rights that should be opposed, and they're probably in a good position to understand whether or not Apple is on the same side as them in regards to user freedom
E) the GPL is not a platform or an app runtime, and it doesn't restrict anyone's ability to run other code on top of it
F) the restrictions Apple is imposing are not required to produce secure/private outcomes (which you seem to be acknowledging, you yourself say that you're not claiming gatekeepers are required to build secure features like filesystem isolation)
G) it's not clear even ignoring everything above that the upsides of Apple's moderation are larger than its downsides. In contrast, the effects of the GPL are honestly a lot clearer
H) the majority of the privacy outcomes that Apple is touting were invented on the web long before they came to the iPhone. We might as well ask if Apple is so great at moderation why their entire platform has lagged behind the web by almost a decade in terms of adblocking and app isolation.
> Ultimately it is a microcosm of the paradox of tolerance.
Only if you think the paradox of tolerance means that anybody should be able to restrict any freedom and attack any person as long as they can kinda justify one potential area where they might have a good outcome. Looking at the entirety of Apple's restrictions, it is absurd to argue that they are advocating for user freedom in general.
> Would it be OK to sue the GNU Foundation and force them to dual-license all existing code as BSD because copyleft is "anti-competitive"?
Do they control >50% of the entire commercial market, and do they impose barriers of entry into that market, and do they engage in anti-consumer lock-in behavior that makes it impossible to switch devices for many consumers without giving up access to credit cards, subscriptions, and hundreds of dollars worth of software? Is there strong evidence that being able to exempt themselves from their own requirements allows them to undercut competitor prices?
The GNU is not in the same position as Apple.
----
[0]: Quick note, it is GPL, not GNU. GPL is the license, GNU is the overarching organization and software collection.
The choice now is between Apple and Android ecosystems. The best Android phones have comparable hardware to the iPhone, so people are choosing based on software, price, and status.
Why not force Apple to behave ethically, on top of it? Give the people even more choice! Clearly there are strong arguments for the iphone if people are willing to give up software freedom to own one. As an Android user I'd love to hop over and find out what the buzz is about. But of course, I can't justify buying a computer that I can't even install software of my choice on.
This is a great place for regulatory intervention to act for the good of the people. I don't really care about the good of Apple. It is the world's most highly valued company, right? It'll be fine.
Lol, I guess I was wrong to assume this was obvious? Like, I could be the most baseline "all I want to do is stay at home and eat ice cream and watch TV and not hurt anyone" and my ethics are already better than Apple, who contributes negatively to climate change and participates in industry practices that lead to people throwing themselves off the roof of factories in China. That's before we get to their opposition to Right to Repair or their fights against the Free Software movement.
If you're gonna downvote me, I mean... I really feel like the burden is on someone to demonstrate how Apple is somehow more ethical, rather than on me to demonstrate how I'm more ethical than apple lmao
It may boggle the tech-savvy mind, but another way of reading the incredibly successful 10 year history of this horribly locked-down, oppressive OS is that the market has spoken. And it's happy.
Don't forget that the market was pushed that way by Apple's highly influential marketing. People didn't really choose to give up their freedom of their own free will --- they were persuaded to, and only found out about the downsides afterwards.
Users are completely free to not use an Apple product. They have lost no freedom of their own will. Users choose this ecosystem over many other options.
People in North Korea have not lost their freedom. They can choose from the many options available to them, including going to South Korea. It’s been observed that most do not choose so.
Marketing isn't magic. You can't just take anything and sell it uphill.
If you could, why would anyone try to innovate on any level? Why are software engineers and product people paid more than marketing people at the same company?
Is Apple > Blackberry just because Apple had better marketing? Or Nokia?
On the other hand, if you have something genuinely desirable, then yeah marketing help people find that thing.
>Except as soon as it becomes a remotely feasible action (with simple instructions) for the general consumer, a bunch of businesses will start requiring their users to disable "default Grandma mode".
Android already allows side-loading and i don't think any popular app out there is asking users to enable side-loading to install their app. Why do you think the situation would be any different with iOS app store?
My grandfather had 4 different sms services when I tried to debug his phone.
He was tech illiterate. Yet without any effort or choice, people had engineered multiple ways to compromise the basic functionality of sending a message.
If I could have burned his phone in a fire and given him an iPhone, I would have.
No idea. My grandfather would not have been able to go to an App Store unless someone did it for him though.
He struggled with the tech until someone showed him how something worked, at which point he diligently studied that one app for all it’s worth - but this was limited to YouTube and audio recording apps.
For him to have multiple messaging apps? Can’t see him do it intentionally - most likely he got hit by a pop up which then merrily used it to install a new messaging service.
It was a nightmare because he kept losing track and therefore control of what was going on with his phone. I’m sure the data security and privacy settings on those messaging apps would have been more upsetting.
For his use case a simple big standard iPhone would have made him happier, instead of having to wait for someone else to help him out.
I have been using an iPhone for two years, and I have seen my share of "your iPhone is infected, click here to scan" ads, which pointed to a dubious app in the app store. An app that I had no way to report as fraudulent, by the way. I'm not sure your grandfather wouldn't have installed that app. Or other similar apps, for the matter.
To be fair, Fortnite did try to get their players to use sideloading to get around the 30% cut Google took. With Apple's more aggresive consumer protection stance, it wouldn't be surprising for more companies to take that step.
Aggressive Protection? Sounds like the Mafia. Protection, paid for by you whether you want it or not. Pay the 30% or the mafia's going to break your kneecaps.
Don’t be ridiculous, it’s not like Apple’s forcing anyone to publish software on the App Store. Or buy any of their hardware products, for that matter...
People and organisations do it because it’s highly profitable, and it’s highly profitable because it’s a trusted and curated platform (unlike the competition).
Pretending this is anything like the mafia is childish.
The problem is a lack of detailed choice. I use a lot of Apple’s products because I think they’re generally decent, but it seems like right now I can only make one choice with my phone - Apple or Google. But buying an iPhone not an android phone doesn’t mean I want Apple to control my life.
Some examples: I hate it how there’s no adult content allowed in the App Store. Or how if I build my own version of Signal, I have to disable push notifications and things because I haven’t paid apple enough money or something. I hate that last I checked, I can’t buy books in the audible app. If my camera breaks, I apparently can’t get it fixed by anyone except Apple. I hate how Apple charges my bank for the privilege of using the NFC chip in my phone, which I paid for.
It’s ridiculous to demand that Epic games makes their own phone if they want to sell me their game. Ideologically, this is capitalism. But capitalism works best for everyone when there’s healthy competition. Wielding their superior phones to enforce a monopoly in other parts of the ecosystem is anticompetitive and anti consumer. And I’m glad someone is finally standing up to them.
The hell are you even on about? Epic making their own phone? Epic can create an alternative store on Android TODAY.
If you don’t like your phone, get another one. This is the most ridiculous first world problem, and associated whining, I’ve ever seen.
You have alternatives, but you’ve willingly chosen the iPhone. Then you whine that it’s not sufficiently like the competition, despite this being the headline feature of this product and company. It’s completely
childish and ridiculous.
Let me make this very clear for you: I, as an end user, want Apple to have complete control over its platform. That’s precisely why I bought into this, and not another ecosystem. I do not want sideloading, I do not want alternative stores, I do not want the so-called “healthy competition”. And I should be able to make that choice, as a consumer.
Epic can't create an alternate store on iOS. At all.
The headline feature of apple devices for me is that unlike Google, Apple cares about my privacy and security. Apple doesn't offer a devil's bargain with every first party feature. "We can turn this great new thing on - but in exchange, we're going to track your physical movements everywhere. We can turn this other thing on, but we'll record, save and send audio recordings of your life."
Right now I have to decide between having control of my device but no control of my data (google). Or having control over my data but no control over my device (apple). That decision is crap.
> I, as an end user, want Apple to have complete control over its platform
Good for you. In comparison, I want to have more control over the devices I paid good money for. I don't want to live in a digital serfdom, where my only freedoms are those granted to me by the local lord of the cloud.
I don't want accidentally offending an algorithm to result in banishment (google). Or, in Apple's case, for the local lord to tax and morally judge every trade that takes place under their watch.
If you want to spend your life in Apple's walled garden, great! But I don't want owning the best phone to mean I'm trapped there with you. I demand to be able to enter into a voluntary financial agreement with Epic games if I like. I don't want my own phone to have the power to stop me or levy a tax, just so some Apple VP gets a bigger bonus.
> Epic can't create an alternate store on iOS. At all
And I pray it stays that way.
I’m sorry mate, but the reality of the situation is that your wishes mean nothing and Apple owes you zilch. You don’t like that, feel free to go somewhere else.
You imposing your views on all of us is not freedom. It’s the opposite of that.
You want open software? Linux is a thing, I should know, I use it every day.
You want a walled garden? Well you should be able to have that choice, too. You want to take that away from me while pretending to do it for the greater good, when in reality it’s just a selfish desire to impose your will on others.
> You want to take that away from me while pretending to do it for the greater good, when in reality it’s just a selfish desire to impose your will on others.
Let's call a spade, a spade. Your position appears to be "I don't want to choose, and I don't want anyone else to be able to choose either".
That is certainly not the paragon of virtue. Letting people choose -- which doesn't affect you at all - is.
People already can and do choose Apple knowing that they are entering a walled garden.
Apple has made a strategic decision to maintain this walled garden. This decision is one of the company’s key differentiators.
Your position appears to be “I want to force Apple to abandon a key market differentiator in service of a marginal gain in personal freedom for a marginal segment of customers who would actually care about such change.”
Apple customers are lacking choice in software just as much as Trader Joe’s customers are lacking choice in food brands.
Is the walled garden a key differentiator? When most people buy a phone, I think they're usually thinking about the camera and screen, or the security and privacy features. (And note the sandboxing features are part of the phone, not part of the app store.) I'd love to see data on this if you can find any.
I certainly didn't buy an iphone because I want to pay an extra tax whenever I buy apps.
>> Epic can't create an alternate store on iOS. At all
> And I pray it stays that way.
If Epic had an alternate app store, you know you wouldn't have to use it right? You could still use Apple's walled garden. Granting me the ability to run more software on my device doesn't restrict your ability to control what runs on your device.
> it’s just a selfish desire to impose your will on others.
You're the one arguing for restrictions about what I can do on my phone. I don't care what you do with yours. Nothing Epic is proposing would stop Apple from reviewing apps and selling them in the app store.
And if opening the door to free and open marketplaces, with the user in the driver's seat is selfish, guilty as charged! Sign me up! The engine of capitalism works best with healthy competition. (And no, the phone megacorp duopoly is not healthy competition.)
Reigning in monopolies is what healthy regulation is made for.
I don’t see how willingly deciding to use a closed platform and criticizing it for not being open and then asking the platform to open up affecting everyone else who also decided to use a close platform is logical.
The situation is that there's healthy competition between phone makers (Apple and Google/samsung/etc). If there was only one company making phones, that would be a monopoly and monopolies tend toward rent seeking extraction - which may require regulation, or consumers would have a bad time.
Apple has a clear, technologically enforced, complete monopoly on apps distributed on their phones. And google has a weak monopoly on their phones - you can distribute your app on other app stores, but its difficult for everyone. The situation on Android is slightly worse than Microsoft distributing IE with windows. And when that happened, the feds initiated a huge antitrust case against microsoft and nearly broke up the company.
Does the fact that there's competition in the phone market mean we should forgive monopolistic behaviour in the app markets on those phones? Thats a tricky question. Its too simple to just fall back on heuristics.
Is there monopolistic behaviour in the app market?
- Does the monopolistic provider use their position to block competition? Yes. Apple doesn't allow any competitors to their own software in the app store.
- Does the monopolistic provider rent seek, and extract far more money from the market than they would if there was healthy competition? Uncertain - I'm not sure if 15% is a reasonable or unreasonable cut. 30% almost certainly wasn't reasonable for the services apple provided.
- Do people buy phones mostly because of their app stores? If they do, then phone competition == app store competition. If they primarily choose a phone on other factors (cameras, etc) then these are separate markets and should be considered separately. Answer: ???
Is there a precedent? Its not exactly the same, but Australia didn't like telstra (an ISP who owned most of the cable at the time) renting their cables at unreasonable prices to other ISPs. They stopped anyone else from reasonably competing with them. You could make the same argument - "You willingly bought a house there so you can't complain. If you don't like it, move". But we regulated them anyway. Notably the US hasn't regulated comcast / etc from doing the same thing over there.
Longer answer than you were expecting. tldr; its complicated. Heuristics aren't enough. Personally I don't think competition in phones means its acceptable that we have monopolies in app stores. I find the justifications for letting apple have a monopoly in the app store unconvincing and I favor regulation.
FYI, Apple isn't a monopoly. Worldwide, Android has almost six times the market share that iOS does (https://www.idc.com/promo/smartphone-market-share/os). If you want to keep slinging dorm-room libertarian "free market" bullshit, please at least get your facts straight.
Epic is free to publish there game on AltStore. All AltStore requires is that the user runs a local copy of the application on their network and from there they can install anything they want.
Epic likely doesn’t want an ‘alternative’ App Store they want one that they completely control.
The entire point is that it does. Opening up the walled garden isn’t “a feature”, it’s something that will completely, and irreversibly change the incentives on the platform.
Why the hell should Facebook comply with Apple’s every whim and wish, if they could just publish on a different store with less stringent privacy rules, and force you to download it that way? “You want Facebook? Go to Settings -> Privacy, then uncheck the bla bla bla box, and install Fb Store. Then...”. Yeah, no, that’s my worst nightmare.
Privacy should be built into the OS, not rely on fallible human review. Not to mention a 3rd party app store could be even MORE privacy focused than Apple's App Store, if the market was there for it.
There's no reason Apple can't enforce the same privacy options OS wide, even for sideloaded apps.
Of course they don't want to, they would lose their 30% cut. But if they are forced to allow 3rd party app stores they would have to, if they wanted to continue their privacy focused marketing.
"It's not like the mafia is forcing you to open a business in Chicago. you don't like it? You can move elsewhere. People move to Chicago because it's highly profitable."
Pretending this doesn't have deep parallels to the mafia is childish. Keep pretending and we'll have Tony break your kneecaps.
There are plenty of parallels between Apple and the Mafia. Just ask Epic, who's kneecaps were busted for not paying the Don his share.
Their kneecaps were busted for voluntarily entering a contract, and then breaking it as a show of force. A contract absolutely nobody obligated them to sign. A contract they didn’t even have to sign, because they had alternatives.
So what alternatives are there to the Apple Store on Apple Devices? Can you point me to an alternative store that I can create, upload, sell and purchase games from that isn't the Apple store?
I'll gladly buy some games from the alternative store... because I love competition - unlike the Mafia.
If this was a Microsoft phone and Microsoft controlled the market share Apple does? people would be stampeding to force Microsoft to allow competing stores (or browsers, default email applications, etc) on them because anti-competitive behavior.
Yet Apple is "magical" and gets a pass for not allowing competition on "their" devices.
I hope to God there will never be an alternative App Store on iOS. You want that? Android’s your answer, and you have dozens if not hundreds of vendors to choose from.
Why does everything need to be like Android, which has way higher market share anyway? How exactly will that give us more choice, if everything has to be identical?
I buy Apple products precisely because Apple has complete control over its devices, not in spite of it. Get it through your thick head.
Your "hope" is tactic admission that there is no alternative and admission that Apple is willing to limit choice on their platform. "But Android" doesn't challenge the idea... it simply proves you can't defend Apple.
"I Buy apple" and others buy Apple while still wanting choice within that ecosystem of hardware. Why don't YOU get that through YOUR thick skull? You aren't the only customer and other people deserve the choice - which is why regulations exist to break up monopolies.
Thanks for, basically, admitting that I'm right and that the Don is willing to break kneecaps to keep control of their fiefdom.
and people were free to choose other operating systems when MS was found to be abusing their "monopoly".
Just because there are some other options... doesn't negate the fact that Apple is using monopolistic and anti-competitive tactics to limit consumer choice and business options.
There's zero reason why Epic should be force to pay Apple a 30% cut of all income when Epic has the resources and talent to do so.
The Mafia could have used the same argument... “You don’t have to have your store on this street, plenty of room for your store over in another town if you don’t like paying for our protection”
If that comes to pass, there will be no highly-guarded, highly-moderated mobile OS to choose from.
But we're not talking about changing the operating system, are we? We're talking about opening up the marketplace.
If you're relying on perfect/near-perfect moderation of every application in your marketplace to protect your users from abuse by developers, that already seems like asking the impossible.
The operating system should have a robust security and privacy model that protects users, regardless of what software they run on it. But if you have that, the source of the software matters a lot less, and any argument based on restricting distribution to authorised channels will be weakened.
Conflating these two fundamentally different issues might be convenient for Apple's PR or legal departments, but it's still obscuring how a customer's device is being restricted in ways not necessarily in that customer's favour.
> Imagine onboarding for Netflix including a pleasantly designed screen saying "Before you can use Netflix, you must Enable Third-party Stores. Go to Settings > Privacy..."
From Netflix' perspective that still adds considerable UX friction, and some percentage of potential customers will drop off.
At what percentage cut is it better for them to just stay in the Apple store? 10%? 5%? 2%? At any of those rates Apple still makes boatloads of money.
There should not be a single switch to bulk-enable all third-party stores. It should be per store, with a bunch of authentication info from the store, likely coming from its TLS certificate.
It's the same situation as with "third-party" package stores in your favorite Linux distro. Say, on Ubuntu you add a particular PPA, you got to see its PGP signature, etc.
So in the Netflix case, it will be a Netflix store, secured by a DNS + TLS lookup, and limited to what Netflix has to offer.
But consider differently curated stores, some maybe even requiring a subscription fee to support the operation, discovering, checking, and maybe suggesting apps in different areas: from as wide as art apps or music creation apps, to as narrow as high-quality puzzle game apps. (Of course, an app might be available through more than one store.)
>Imagine onboarding for Netflix including a pleasantly designed screen saying "Before you can use Netflix, you must Enable Third-party Stores. Go to Settings > Privacy..."
It's pretty simple. Apple users don't want to spell it, so I will.
They want Apple to have a strong market position, so Apple can dictate their conditions to everyone else. They like the fact that Apple can bend every developer out there including Facebook and Google, because access to Apple users is a luxury. They like the fact that Apple uses its position to benefit Apple users.
Of course Apple uses its position to benefit Apple itself as well, but users don't care as long as they got their personal benefits like improved privacy or security. If that comes at a price to other developers, price that those developers would not pay with more open approach, users still don't care.
If Apple would allow installing of any applications to their phones, plenty of apps would run from Apple, because developers hate Apple. Installing some kind of OpenStore would be the first thing you're doing with your iPhone. AppStore would be empty just like Mac AppStore is empty. Very few developers would willingly pay 15% of their revenue to Apple just to have non-existent AppStore marketing (unless you're in lucky 0.001% who got top ranks). So those developers would not bend to Apple and Apple users would get reduced experience, less privacy, etc.
> Of course Apple uses its position to benefit Apple itself as well, but users don't care as long as they got their personal benefits like improved privacy or security. If that comes at a price to other developers, price that those developers would not pay with more open approach, users still don't care.
If this is true, then you need to ask the question "should big companies be forced to be more competitive, even if doing so means a good amount of customers will lose privacy and security", and your answer will be entirely one of preference, what you say can't be correct or incorrect.
In a way, the Apple fans don't matter. The DOJ can fix this single-handedly and force Apple to open up.
We need to speak up now more than ever. The heat against Apple is turning up, and with all this pressure and focus we can frame our argument with crystal clarity and make it LOUD.
Tim Sweeny, DHH, and plenty of other luminaries are carrying this argument forward. We need to join them in unison.
Why does everything need to become like Android? Why can’t Apple and its users do their own thing? What’s with this Borg mentality HN has when it comes to Apple?
Assimilate or perish. I genuinely think it’s deep seated envy, frankly.
> Because if I want my startup to succeed, I have to have an iPhone app.
The only person responsible for your success is you. There are plenty of other things successful startups need besides an iOS app but you’re targeting your anger at Apple instead?
> Apple makes this hostile to everyone that isn't them.
Apple isn’t hostile to its users. Sure, Apple is hostile to developers and it’s understandable to be upset about that.
As an Apple user I appreciate and trust their protection over the OS for this very personal device that goes in my pocket.
I appreciate Apple ID gives me a layer of privacy between me and the developer.
> Would you still have this opinion if history had been different and Microsoft's Windows Phone had taken the place of the iPhone
I have no idea. I’ve never used a Windows phone. If my choice was between Google’s Android and a Windows phone with the same consumer protections that Apple gives me now, yes, I would have a Windows phone.
That said, Apple is successful because they did things that Microsoft wasn’t doing and I find this premise silly.
Yes, Apple's control increases user privacy (cf permissions on the Google app store, and how flashlight apps used to demand call log access, contact lists, and of course network access to exfiltrate it all back to the mothership).
It's difficult for the HN userset to understand, but a more private, more secure experience is more of a benefit than the ability to install arbitrary unsigned apps.
Most normal users don't care about installing the handful of apps that can't pass Apple certification, and it is in fact probably better that they not be on the platform because there are reasons they're being excluded.
Epic's fight here is to block that user experience from being allowed in the marketplace. There exist "open platforms", people choose Apple because they want curation.
Moreover, Epic is mad because that user experience is winning, there are a significant number of users who prefer curation over the ability to sideload whatever garbage.
Umm, I tinker on the raspberry pi 4 my son and I share. We tinker on our gaming PCs. We also tinker on our retro electronics (game consoles, computers and receivers).
I don’t have any urge to tinker with my phone, iPad or MacBook’s hardware- and that’s why I have them. We do build software via Xcode & Unity, which is an amazing experience, but I’m ok with the hardware being mostly static.
This whole “modern computers should be hackable like DOS machines of the late 80s” is absurd. By that logic we should never have accepted systems on a chip. The only criticism is that I strongly think these devices should have replaceable batteries, even at the cost of thinness.
You're not the only person in the world, though. But even more importantly, you shouldn't just think of Apple owners, but the entire economic landscape. The businesses that have to raise prices, the startups that have to fight for app store approval, the people wanting to get out immediate fixes, the experimenters wanting to push the platform further than they're allowed...
Nevermind the "famers should own their equipment" argument that states that all general purpose computing devices should allow their owners to run whatever programs they want. The fact that Apple controls banking, dating, email, and a million other economic and social functions should be even more reason. That's an unhealthy amount of power.
Apple shouldn't be able to force literally every company in America to dance to their beat to reach 50% of American consumers.
Really think about it.
Apple controls access to 50% of Americans.
That's monopoly. Only the US Government is more successful in its taxing and regulation regime, and this is theoretically used for the betterment of all citizens rather than just shareholders.
Apple subtracts from our whole industry to add to itself. They're acting like a republic of their own. They're downright impossible to avoid if you want to build a successful business.
Give up your Apple fandom for a moment and think about this.
Is this healthy?
Would you still be happy with it if it were Windows Phone instead of iPhone? Would you still defend it?
You're one person. I think you're missing that Apple controls 50% of the market, and I can't just give that up. There's no way to do business without dealing with Apple. Network effects. Bad network effects.
Is there a desktop computer that takes your wishes into account? None of those behave like iPhone. What about a laptop?
Yes. That is why I chosen Apple to be my gatekeeper - they have appropriate leverage. As long as they understand that my privacy is more important than business need of some developer they will stay in this position.
> Is there a desktop computer that takes your wishes into account? None of those behave like iPhone. What about a laptop?
Expectations are different from smartphone, laptop, desktop tablet, mini PC, gaming PC, console, microwave, car etc.
Those devices need not to be the same, behave the same even if there is CPU that can run arbitrary code under the hood.
That is why we have different markets to cater for different needs.
This is where you fail to accept that others might have different views.
Because Apple protects us somewhat from bad behavior. WeChat will not force use of your contacts on iOS but will on Android last I checked.
It’s up to consumer choice people say, but the reality is, bad behavior, like NYT giving you a hard time to stop a subscription, is more profitable. Spamming your notifications with deals are more profitable. I really wish it wasn’t. And the worst thing is when it’s profitable they have the ad money to drown out all the marketing “the good guys” do.
While I really would prefer the ability to install anything on my iOS device, I don't really want to do that. Not any more.
I like that TrueCaller on my iOS device works for most features without getting any permission from me, while on Android it refuses to buzz from the splash screen unless you give it every permission - including full contact access and phone.
I like that on iOS a famous payment app from India (PhonePe) works flawlessly with zero permissions but on Android? It needs both location and contacts to even function - neither of these are mandatory for their functioning but still they do and can get away with that.
You know WhatsApp doesn't let you use "Status" feature unless you provide Storage permission to it on Android (I doubt they need it just to shows those images, videos, and texts).
I tried Pixel 4a for sometime. The experience was nauseating. Everything from every corner was trying to jump into my face and distract me with this option, that option, that feature, that dark pattern. I found the right swipe quite nifty that shows you news and your daily calendar etc. So I first tried to find a way to only find the news source or types of news I could see - nope, no go! Then I disabled "Discover" and then it was just an empty white screen! I could literally not use that space for anything else. There was a button in the corner that I could tap once, and then it would show me daily calendar events. After one click! I couldn't set it to use the space which "discover" used to take. And mind it discover was just rage news stories.
And that calendar feature had a mind of its own - sometimes it would show the next 1 event, sometimes two I couldn't find a way to show day or week. I had the option to disable the entire right swipe feature.
I didn't want that clock on my home screen - no way to do that. Could I install another Launcher for all this? Yes, I could even though I didn't want to, but they came with other problems and limitations. I couldn't configure the keyboards to be more simple and remove all the settings from it.
Not to mention feature after feature getting disabled as I disable invasive permissions for features and apps.
It feels depressing to literally stare into a phone and see live and read - "you are the product, deal with it!"
And I was back to my iPhone with its pathetic battery life. So you see, Apple really has no competition and that's why they get away with things.
You can run your own software already, just create an app in xcode and install it on your phone and possibly pay for a developer license I think :-( Being able to distribute it and have others use it is another matter.
Maybe it makes sense? HN readers on average probably have a better idea of what they are getting into. And probably make more money than average so they can buy multiple devices and try them out.
I have iOS and Android devices. Nothing of worth is stuck on iOS (or MacOS). But iOS is my daily driver. Though I've switched back to Linux for daily work.
I'm happy to mess around with something, but it's definitely great to have a platform that is not so easy to mess up and has great support for the rest of the family. And I'm happy to stay compatible with them.
It's less depressing if you think of it as that everything is tradeoffs. There is a cost to everything: a cost to vendor lock-in, and a cost to using a system not properly designed to fit your needs. People are making rational decisions, they are just choosing the path that fits their needs. Note however they are choosing among the available paths. There are always opportunities for new paths (OSes) to come along.
> It's depressing that even on hackernews where you expect people want to tinker and have control over their machines there's a probably a majority who are happy with the situation
I am happy with the situation for one simple reason: it just works. I hve to many things to deal with and tinker with elsewhere. I honestly don't want to tinker with my phone.
So don't? People seem to have the idea that in order to use Android effectively you have to rebuild the kernel every week. If you treat a Pixel like an iPhone, it works like an iPhone.
Apple is imposing its will on thousands of American companies and robbing them. We put up with it because we have to, but we've had enough. This is painful.
Did... did you even read what I was replying to? I was replying to this, emphasis mine:
--- start quote ---
It's depressing that even on hackernews where you expect people want to tinker and have control over their machines there's a probably a majority who are happy with the situation and use the think of my grandma (aka children) using iPhone situation.
--- end quote ---
No, I don't want to tinker with my phone. So I don't, and as a user I'm quite happy with the situation on the iPhone.
The defense I saw here was that Apple protects its value by offering a curated platform and that letting in the riff-raff would be detrimental for the users. Quite mind-boggling to be honest.
There is a device that lets you install your own apps (more or less), and it is an Android device. No-one is forcing you to buy an Apple device nor does Apple even have a monopoly in marketshare of mobile devices.
Some of the security and excellent user experience in fact comes from the enforcing and prevention of arbitrary third party apps. You can't have your cake and eat it too. If you don't want that experience go get an Android (many do, and are happy with it, but forcing Apple to become Android is nonsensical).
Has 'sideloading' taken on some other connotation that I'm not aware of? (It wouldn't be the first time.) I thought it was just a neutral term meaning you didn't download it, you didn't upload it, you sideloaded it - you transferred the binaries from some other device nearby and connected by (probably) USB cable. Perhaps after using said device to do the downloading part. I think that concept came from Android though, so if anybody succeeded in warping our perceptions, it was Google this time!
> sins of taking a different path to the rest of the industry
s/taking a different path.*/creating a serfdom.
s/taking a different path.*/behaving like John Deere.
s/taking a different path.*/making Richard Stallman cry.
s/taking a different path.*/taxation without representation.
s/taking a different path.*/handicapping every platform (web, flash, etc) but theirs, capturing 50% of Americans, making iPhone their only computer, then forcing every single other company to wear a chicken suit.
How you can argue for less software freedoms, while paying a 30% tax for any app you distribute, is honestly mind boggling to me.
>On the one hand, Apple is acting as a store curator and demanding that its customers be made aware of tracking software.
This sounds like marketing. Apple is limiting what apps their customers have access to. I wonder if you would make the same argument if Apple starts blocking websites?
>How you can argue for less software freedoms, while paying a 30% tax for any app you distribute, is honestly mind boggling to me.
Why do you care what my preferences are? If you don't care for the iOS model, you should go buy an Android. Apple doesn't have a monopoly.
I prefer the Apple model because I want these restrictions. I want apps to be blocked from cross-app tracking. I want apps to have to explicitly spell out the type of data they collect from me, and how they use it. I don't care that I can't side load apps.
Back when Android had very strict permission controls I think this argument was quite valid since there was a market competitor without a locked down store but with a similar level of control. Control of the phone can't only be achieved by curating a store - it can also be achieved by allowing clear user controls and a phone without the locked down store but with the controls doesn't exist... So I can't go anywhere.
"I like that TrueCaller on my iOS device works for most features without getting any permission from me, while on Android it refuses to buzz from the splash screen unless you give it every permission - including full contact access and phone.
I like that on iOS a famous payment app from India (PhonePe) works flawlessly with zero permissions but on Android? It needs both location and contacts to even function - neither of these are mandatory for their functioning but still they do and can get away with that.
You know WhatsApp doesn't let you use "Status" feature unless you provide Storage permission to it on Android (I doubt they need it just to shows those images, videos, and texts)."
I think it's important to note that the mere existence of controls, i.e buttons that do a thing, don't actually end up achieving their goal of improving user privacy unless there's also enforcement of usage patterns. You can't get away with stuff like this on iOS, and it's clear by these accounts that the same companies would do the same on iOS if they could.
Apple doesn't have to change it's policies when (not if) it is forced to allow people to install alternative stores. Those companies will still have to play nice with apples terms if they want to remain on Apple's app store.
>Apple and android DO have a duopoly, and it is bad for every phone owner.
Google owns over 85% of the worldwide smartphone market. I agree that we need more competition. This competition should come from breaking Google/Android into 4 pieces, and then we'll have 5 companies with 15-25% market.
That would be great, but it will not happen. There is an optimal number for phone platforms that can exist at the same time and for which companies will develop apps for. And that number seems to be 2. I really hope linux phones can provide an alternative but their only chance for even a most minimal success is perfect interop with existing Android applications.
Wait, why would having a non-Apple store being allowed in iOS affect you? If people want to install non-Apple approved apps from their own devices, it doesn't imply you have to do the same.
I would be completely happy if IOS by default did not allow all the things it doesn't allow, but you could add a setting to allow 3rd party app stores with a list that apple curated themselves (similar to search engine preferences in a browser).
Apple can make it all scary about how the apps on the 3rd party applications could be doing more nefarious things. I would even be ok with apple having the ability to simply refuse to install specific apps from these 3rd party app stores for things that are egregious violations of ethics.
but I've just read too many stories about Apple rejecting apps over very innocuous things, and apple rejecting smaller apps but allowing the same thing in larger apps (anti-competitive).
It’s not about the outcome, it’s about reasoning from first principles and going where ever that leads you, regardless of how much you dislike the outcome. Nobody has to buy an iPhone, iPad, or MacBook. Apple has the right to create the software ecosystem they want to create. Their success in mobile computing is arguably a direct result of their closed ecosystem.
It's true that nobody has to buy an iPhone, in that they can choose any of the one competing platform. "There's literally a single competitor" isn't a very strong argument against regulation, though.
I don't know that it's entirely fair to say there is literally a single competitor. While Android is a single platform, you're free to get it from a range of vendors that all add their own flavor to Android. Some are really locked down, some are root by default. So you actually have a range of competing platforms even if they are powered by only 2 OSes.
And in the case of both devices (Apple and Android) you can still flash your own "competing" OS on the hardware. It's far easier to do this on an Android device than an Apple one, but the hardware is separate from the software you're running. But there are multiple mobile OSes not named Android or iOS.
What qualifies as a competitor, and what responsibility does Apple or Android have at creating new competitors? What actions are Google or Apple taking to actively stomp out mobile based OSes? Didn't Mozilla give it a shot? Didn't Ubunutu put out a mobile version of their OS? The lack of competitor for OSes seems like an odd argument to make. They exist even if they don't have marketshare, and there is no requisite business structure behind an OS in order for it to be a competing software. There are options. They may not be the single most accessible, and they may not meet your needs, but they exist.
This argument doesn't pass the "Would it work just as well as a defense of late-'90s Microsoft?" test. I would be willing to concede most of the facts you brought up, but none of that in any way mitigates the amount of control Apple holds. Nobody's saying it's Apple's fault that they're in a duopoly position in the phone space, but that doesn't absolve them of the responsibility that position holds either. What is Apple's fault is that they're using their position in one market to force out potential competitors in other markets (e.g. in-app payments, and app distribution in general).
> This argument doesn't pass the "Would it work just as well as a defense of late-'90s Microsoft?" test.
What does this mean? Late 90’s Microsoft had more than 85% of the desktop PC market.
Early 2020’s Microsoft still has more than 85% of the Desktop PC market.
There is simply no comparison.
Apple doesn’t control the market. They don’t have anything like a monopoly.
They do have products that a lot of people think are category leading, but that isn’t the same thing as having ‘control’.
They also make a lot of profit, because people are willing to pay more for those products. But this is true of companies who focus on quality, regardless of scale.
It's not about percentages, it's about anti-competitive behavior. Microsoft leveraged their monopoly in the PC operating systems market to prevent competition in the web browser market.
Similarly, Apple and Google have leveraged their duopoly in the mobile operating systems market to prevent competition in the mobile application distribution market
Apple (52.4%) and Google (47%) control 99.4% of the mobile operating system market[1]. That's certainly much more than the 85% of the market that Microsoft had.
> They don’t have anything like a monopoly.
Colloquial definitions of monopoly do not matter when it comes to antitrust laws[2]:
> Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors. That is how that term is used here: a "monopolist" is a firm with significant and durable market power.
Why are you excluding the feature phone market? Obviously the smartphone market cannot support an infinite number of incompatible options, but you always have the option to have a feature phone with Java ME applets. Significant portions of the world rely on those, and believe it or not they do their banking and so on with apps on those devices too.
What does the Android vs Apple vs Featurephone marketshare look like?
I think you're saying that no competitors in the mobile platform market are being excluded. But the point is that Apple (and Google to a slightly lesser degree) are using their dominance in the mobile platform market to exclude competitors in other markets. For example, Epic have tried to make competing services in both stores and payments, and Apple prevented one and banned them from its platform for doing the other. That's what provoked their lawsuit.
Sure - but what we’re really talking about is Epic wanting to take part of the profit without doing the work to build the platform.
There are reasons why people trust Apple’s platform, and integrated payments are one of them.
My point is that Epic actually is a company that has the resources to compete directly if they wanted to.
Apple just isn’t the leader in games, and it would be great if Epic leveraged its position to build a real alternative platform, rather than just attempting to force its way into being a middleman in Apple’s platform.
That isn’t actually going to result in more platform competition.
> Sure - but what we’re really talking about is Epic wanting to take part of the profit without doing the work to build the platform.
Apple did nothing to create Fortnite, but they want about a third of the revenue from Fortnite. Epic did not create the iOS platform, and they are not asking for any of Apple's profits from the iOS platform. So your characterization of who's wanting profit without doing the work seems completely backwards to me. Apple's demands here are essentially rent-seeking.
> There are reasons why people trust Apple’s platform, and integrated payments are one of them.
As far as I know, Epic did not prevent people from paying through Apple's integrated payment platform. They simply offered an alternative.
> My point is that Epic actually is a company that has the resources to compete directly if they wanted to.
> Apple just isn’t the leader in games, and it would be great if Epic leveraged its position to build a real alternative platform, rather than just attempting to force its way into being a middleman in Apple’s platform.
Your suggestion is that if somebody wants to sell things to users who happen to be on smartphones without paying into the duopoly's protection racket, they should simply develop their own hardware supply chain and manufacturing capabilities, phone operating system, mapping and GPS software, email software, ditto for every other piece of software that is table stakes for a phone — and do all of this to a level of quality sufficient to compete with companies whose primary businesses are doing these things — and then finally develop whatever it was they wanted to sell in the first place.
This is not a reasonable position, and even if Epic is in a position to do it (which I'm not sure if they are), most companies aren't, and it is not reasonable to demand every company develop its own phone.
It's also bad for users, because then they'd have to buy a phone for every app.
It is much more reasonable to just not allow smartphones to be the 21st century equivalent of a company town where employees are paid in scrip.
> Your suggestion is that if somebody wants to sell things to users who happen to be on smartphones without paying into the duopoly's protection racket
Obviously not. It’s not a protection racket.
I’m suggesting that it would be better for consumers if we had more competition at the platform level - then we wouldn’t have a duopoly, and we would have more pressure for the platforms to compete an innovate.
You list a bunch of technologies that have already been developed and can be integrated. I said it would take a billion dollars, so we’re on the same page.
> because then they'd have to buy a phone for every app.
Don’t be silly. Popular apps are available on more than one platform.
Yes, there would be exclusives - games especially, but that is no different to how it is now.
For all your complaining, you seem to be arguing very hard that we should be stuck with the duopoly you claim to dislike.
We deserve better than forcing both users and developers alike to deal with a bunch of additional middlemen within the duopoly.
I'm not saying we should be stuck with the duopoly. I'm saying that we factually are stuck with the duopoly, and we're more likely to get results from regulating the duopoly than we would from pointing at random video game companies and demanding they make a better phone to break up the duopoly.
We are only stuck if nobody thinks it’s worth creating an alternative. The ‘duopoly’ has only existed for around 5 years so far. It’s bizarre to consider regulating such a short lived phenomenon instead of encouraging new entrants, particularly when there are so many deep pocketed companies that want a piece of the market.
We’re not talking about a random video game company. We’re talking about Epic, a multi-billion dollar transnational enterprise that could easily afford to invest the time and money Apple and Google did to build their platforms.
Epic is vastly more profitable now than Apple was when they developed the iPhone. Let’s not deceive anyone that they are some small games company.
If you want to guarantee that we continue with the duopoly, the best way to do that is to take away the incentive for companies that could compete, to actually do so, by giving them a piece of the duopoly’s revenue stream.
Microsoft was a supplier accused of abusing its market share to disadvantage other suppliers. They did not get prosecuted for being popular.
Apple is not a supplier. They only sell directly to consumers. They don’t even try to make their app store available on competing phones, even if it is technically possible.
Apple sells the computer. There is a reason Microsoft got prosecuted for those 90s contracts and not Gateway. OEMs have the right to decide what software they install at the factory.
Apple Music is available in the Google Play Store but I don’t know of any credible accusation that Apple has tried to get Google to kick Spotify out.
Me: Nobody's saying it's Apple's fault that they're in a duopoly position in the phone space, but that doesn't absolve them of the responsibility that position holds either. What is Apple's fault is that they're using their position in one market to force out potential competitors in other markets.
You: Microsoft did not get prosecuted for being popular.
It’s not illegal or wrong to use your position in one market to enter and compete in other markets. If it was, Disney Plus would be illegal, and so would fresh groceries in Target. That’s not what Microsoft got in trouble for.
Its not exactly a good thing that they leveraged itunes library vendor lock-in to drive market share early on. The anti-consumer aspects of their closed ecosystem directly resulted in their success. There's no doubt about it.
iTunes library (at least for Books and Music) is DRM-free and has been from an early stage (though _did_ launch with DRM).
I've had great success in migrating my purchased items back and forth from linux with absolutely no issue. However now they're using streaming and I'm unable to easily "own" any music anymore... or at the very least it takes you off of the easy path.
Apple wanted to launch iTunes as DRM-free but wasn't able to negotiate the licensing for it. The content providers were the ones that made the DRM a requirement.
Yes, I know that. I was just pointing out to the person claiming that Apple was the one that initiated DRM in iTunes that Apple never wanted it to begin with.
Right. At launch, leveraging ipod marketshare was key. After those same users got locked in to the app-store, the music library lock in became less important. So they started out by letting you pay extra money to break out of their walled garden. I'm pretty sure purchases made in the ipod era are still drm encumbered today.
"it’s about reasoning from first principles and going where ever that leads you, regardless of how much you dislike the outcome"
This sounds an awfull lot like the though process of religious zealots and extremists. Ignore the real world, consequences be damned, ideology comes first. There is no way we could make an error of judgement. Thats how you get a famine and 50 million dead in China.
"Apple has the right to create the software ecosystem they want to create."
There is absolutely no such right, neither morally nor legally
The right to one's own work, to one's own mind outcome is arguably the only real right we can even pretend to have.
What there is none is the "right" for governments to claim ownership to other's work and dictate you must do what your own free will tells you is not on your best interest, that is why they use force.
That is a clearly a semantic simplification. All rights are conditional, the "right to one's own work" is conditional on the "right of others work not to impede on one's own work". From this alone you can see the contradiction and realise that rights are a compromise of different interests. From there we're just arguing about who can wield what force to enforce what rights. Perhaps it's not in my best interest not to be the sole source of force in the world but it's certainly in others.
> "right of others work not to impede on one's own work"
That is not a right. As I said there is only one right, or only one that matters: the right to your own thoughts, to your mind's work, that is the work I was talking about.
Everything else is not a right, at least not if we are gonna be true to the word. If it's dependent on others is not a right. If it's conditional to other people's whims is not a right. If it needs the entire legal establishment and an army to enforce it is not a right. Rights in the constitution are not "rights" per se but obligations from the government to its citizens, as in you have the right* to procure it from the government, whatever it might be.
What there is none is the "right" for governments to claim ownership to other's work and dictate you must do what your own free will tells you is not on your best interest
which is the post I replied to;
The law absolutely dictates the rules, which may or may not contradict your own free-will e.g. paying taxes, abiding by copyright etc.
Your work data is not something within your own rights to do as you please with it, it is that of your employer.
Your private data is something within your own rights to do as you please with it, which gives you a choice of whether you want to store it on apple's systems or on someone else's systems or on the local systems that you personally own.
'My work' is a collective term for all products of my efforts, from official employment to sex tapes. Apple is not privy to the various rights and claims on it.
Now, what are you even arguing? Once i out data on an apple computer they can do whatever they want? If I but an iPhone is it still not a 'local system I personally own'? Do they have to respect my data, or do they not have to follow the law?
>'My work' is a collective term for all products of my efforts, from official employment to sex tapes
If your sex tapes are included as a part of your "work data", what would you count as your "private data" then?
Not trying to argue anything in particular, I am just genuinely curious at this point.
>Once i out data on an apple computer they can do whatever they want?
Nope, only things you agreed to in Terms of Usage that do not go against the law. Added that detail at the end because yes, I am aware that ToU do not override laws, and just because you put something in there doesn't necessarily mean that it is legal.
>Now, what are you even arguing?
Your earlier comment said "I store my data in apple's systems, is it my right to do with it as I please or theirs?", and that's what I was addressing. You have the right to do as you please with it, which manifests in your ability to NOT use Apple's systems for your data storage, unless you are satisfied with their Terms of Usage. If you decide to use their systems for that, you are agreeing on the ground rules with them which are outlined in ToU.
Anti-competitive behavior does not require a Monopoly. A monopoly is just a specific type of situation which makes anti-competitive behavior easy and incentivized.
Anti-competitive behavior that harms consumers is the problem (and question). Whether Apple is a monopoly or not is really besides the point.
In isolation, maybe. When you consider that they control the whole stack, and you can't run other operating system software on their phones and nor can you run their software on other hardware, and that the operating system is what's ensuring that only their store is allowed, that given them full control of hardware, operating system, store, (and because of store) third party software that runs on it.
There is no competition in hardware for their operating system because of them locking it down.
There is no competition in operating systems for their hardware because of them locking it down.
There is no competition in application delivery for their systems because of locking it down.
There is no competition in some applications and/or functionality (webview/safari) for their systems because of them locking it down.
Each of these rely on and in turn reinforce the others. Taken together they all Apple to control absolutely all competition to do with their devices. Some aspects of this are fairly normalized and we're used to, but others less so (the complete hardware/OS lockdown, which in turn feeds into problems with repair). Whether some aspects seem normal or not, they all deserve a look with fresh eyes, as the world and how we use devices like this is changing, and old models of thinking may or may not work best for us. The bottom line is whether consumers are harmed by their actions or not, and that's what we should use to measure this, not whether it seems okay, or matches our way of thinking about what a company should be able to control.
At the base level, I think a useful question to ask is "why is the store cut for managing and distributing apps 30%, and why hasn't it changed with the emergence of other stores?" One answer might be that it really takes about 30% of revenues to provide store functionality. Common public sources seem to indicate this is not the case. Another answer might be that for some reason, the market is resistant to change. I think this is because one large market member, Apple, is insulated from competition to a large degree, and didn't feel any pressure to change. Other market members match this number because the market is distorted by Apple's resistance to change. I think the fact that as soon as congress started making noises about investigating app market pricing Apple was able to immediately drop their cut for certain store items significantly points towards them knowing this, and wanting to get ahead of the problem so the status quo isn't changed too much to their detriment.
All of this also applies to BMW or, say, Tesla cars, but nobody is claiming that they have absolutely no competition.
The only claim one could make is “hey, 30% seems a bit high to do business there”. Yet Apple can claim that you pay a premium to get access to millions of consumers which they’ve cultivated a strong relationship with. Running an App Store isn’t hard. Running a successful App Store is very hard. This is why Epic doesn’t want to do it themselves, but rather sue it out of Apple.
> All of this also applies to BMW or, say, Tesla cars, but nobody is claiming that they have absolutely no competition.
What? You can put a BMW engine in another car, you can put another engine in a BMW. BMW does not make it so that you can't use other engines or parts. This is nothing like BMW. I don't know about Tesla, but I suspect it's more a matter of others not making engines that fit the spec than it being explicitly designed to not allow other engines, but I really don't know enough about them to so.
> Running an App Store isn’t hard. Running a successful App Store is very hard.
The running of it is always easy. Getting to the point it's successful is hard, because it requires many other things to go right.
> This is why Epic doesn’t want to do it themselves, but rather sue it out of Apple.
What are you talking about? Epic is specifically bringing suit so they can run their own app store. Not only that, but they already run their own app store. Epic already has the infrastructure and inventory to be a credible alternative for games, because they have hundreds of games they already deliver on Windows, at a smaller cut than Apple charges in their app store.
This isn't about Epic wanting to cash in on Apple's app store it's about them outgrowing it and wanting to open their own store when Apple won't let them (they might also be fine with a lower cut from Apple, but they would rather run their own store. They're keen to spend those Fortnite billions to expand as quickly as possible. They already opened their alternative to Steam on Windows, they would be happy to be the alternative to the App Store on iPhones for games).
Can you install a Mercedes OS on BMW board computers? No. Can you install a BMW engine into a Mercedes? As much as you can install macOS on a Lenovo laptop. Car manufacturers have their own part standards and their own tools specifically designed to be incompatible with each other and needing special tools that are only available to the manufacturers and certified service partners.
This is nothing about Epic “outgrowing” Apple App Store. They had quite a bit of growth, but compared to Apple or even more directly to Steam they are still small.
This is mostly about trying to get Apple to give them access to their platform for free or close to free. Nothing prevents them to build their market with Apple’s cut in place.
> Can you install a Mercedes OS on BMW board computers? No.
You can't install Mercedes OS (I don't expect the iPhone to run windows it Microsoft doesn't want to port it), but you can customize the OS, as outlines here.[1] They call it a jailbreak, but given that it looks to just be replacing data files, I'm not sure someone couldn't opt to write their own portion of the system software entirely.
> Car manufacturers have their own part standards and their own tools specifically designed to be incompatible with each other and needing special tools that are only available to the manufacturers and certified service partners.
I see a clear difference between not making it easy (using your own standards to make it hard for others) and making it impossible or as close as they can through cryptopgraphy and signed software and not allowing the consumer to get access to those keys for their own devices. In some cases, it may be illegal because of DMCA encryption bypass laws.
There's a difference between custom screw heads, which you can buy parts for but are not commonly available and using a combination of technology and law to make it impossible.
> This is nothing about Epic “outgrowing” Apple App Store. They had quite a bit of growth, but compared to Apple or even more directly to Steam they are still small.
No, not small. Smaller than Apple, but possibly bigger than Steam. On a similar level at least. Epic reported revenues of $4.2 billionin 2019, and was projected to reach revenue of 5 billion in 2020.[2] There's not a lot of good data I can find about Valve's actual revenue, other than estimates from some data that it was ~4.3 billion in 2017 (explained in the Wikipedia article for them), which is then repeated as fact in a few other places.
Keep in mind, they created and control Fortnite, which is still extremely popular.
> This is mostly about trying to get Apple to give them access to their platform for free or close to free. Nothing prevents them to build their market with Apple’s cut in place.
Well, Apple is preventing them, if they want to offer it to iPhone customers. These are people that bought hardware, own that hardware, and then are told they are not allowed to control what runs on that hardware. I am opposed to this on a consumer rights level, because I don't believe I should be locked out of hardware I purchased. I am also opposed to this on a economic level, where it's adding arbitrary barriers to competition, distorting the market. For multiple reasons, I think allowing practices like this to continue are bad for our society and economy, and I think it needs to change.
Even if I thought Apple had stumbled into this and didn't intend to prevent competition, I think it's problematic enough that it should be specifically legislated to require some third party access, if certain criteria are met. The alternative is to move farther along the path we already have. A decade ago open APIs and cross platform access was the norm. You could us a single application to access almost every single chat platform. Them Apple made iMessage and it was platform specific. Then Google shut down the XMPP gateway for their chat protocol, and made it private. We've somehow gone from a situation where everyone knew you had to interoperate with other companies and protocols to survive, to everyone shutting all the others out and trying to grab as much of the market for themselves, make it too costly and hard to move away, and trap their customers. Are we really better off?
The biggest, most structurally resilient and important products we all use were developed in an age where interoperability was important and needed. HTTP, SMTP, POP and IMAP, IRC. Large companies have been trying to tear those down ever since, because it's less profitable. Now you have to log into Facebook or Instagram to see what most people would post to a blog previously. It's easier, and there's a lot of searchability enhancements, but would it really have been impossible for us to get close to that without the lock-in?
To me, this is all very clear. We're in a new age of large companies using their resources to limit competition and hurt consumers. That they are able to do so without being a monopoly is beside the point. That they are hurting consumers by doing so is. My only hope is that some changes are made before it's too late to turn back, if it isn't already. If it doesn't change, what's debatable as problematic now like this will look downright appetizing in comparison.
If I want to use FaceTime to talk to my mother, the only way I can do that is by purchasing an iPhone. What's the difference? Do I have to buy my mom a new Android phone and repurchase all her apps and digital content to exercise my Consumer Freedom?
Your consumer freedom entitles you to a choice, not to demand companies sink money to accommodate your specific use case. Just like you can't demand for Pepsi to ship Coke product on their trucks, you can't demand Apple spend millions of dollars to port Facetime or iMessage to Android. Apple has a right to decide what sort of features and platforms they support for their apps, so if they decide to not support Android, that's just a reason for you to exercise your consumer freedom of choice and use a different product. Meanwhile, anyone else that you want to Facetime with has chosen a product (Facetime) that only allows calling other users on the same iOS software as them, and that's them exercising their consumer freedom of choice. If they want to call people that are on Android, they can choose other apps which do support calling Android phones.
But that's talking about Facetime as if it's a product. It's not - it's a feature of iOS, iPadOS and MacOS. Effectively, Facetime isn't free - it's a unlimited use service that is paid for with your initial purchase of your Mac or iOS device and includes a perpetual, transferable license.
Enacting regulation to force open access is well-trod the world over. Apple may not need to port FaceTime, but there is strong cause to demand that all social networks and communication providers either adopt open standards or open their protocols and adhere to them.
You'll find many required open standards in civic engineering and aerospace engineering, and really, any engineering where engineers carry liability. They adapt and change in response to deficiencies discovered.
You can use any number of other chat or video communications apps available on both iOS and Android to chat with your mother (I recommend Signal, but FlownScepter's list is good as well).
Your desire to specifically use FaceTime does not make it a monopoly.
This brings up an interesting question: should companies be held accountable for the network effects generated by their products on users (not competitors)?
I’d argue not, as long as users can still achieve the same goal in a different way, and it doesn’t worsen their quality of life.
For instance, in this context, the OP’s mother can still do a phone call, or agree to use a different software - which, by the way, is probably free.
But I literally can email somebody from email-provider a to email-provider b. But, lets be realistic, if the email would be discovered/invented today, that would not be the case ;-)
You can, though. Email is interoperable, which is why you don't see a bunch of people calling for gmail to be "broken up" (though there have been complaints about the weird anticompetitive stuff they've done to try and build a moat around gmail, I haven't seen anything come out of it)
Companies have exclusive control of their own products basically by definition. Claiming that there's some sort of monopolistic behavior inherent in a company deciding where and how you can buy their product is absolute shark-jumping.
Sure they are; look outside the USA and you'll find many the world over. For instance, Canadian telecoms must provide access to their networks at minimal wholesale prices for competitors to enjoy.
The USA simply isn't a leading innovator in this regard.
This is an incredible jump. By this logic, literally any format or given protocol can be called into question if it isn't 100% transferable between all platforms. That basically renders everything newer than line telephones, email and SMS as monopolistic.
Hell, even the different cellular carriers fail this definition because you can't use a Verizon sim card to access AT&T.
I don't understand this position at all. Google is by far and away the market leader. Their ecosystem is free and you can do just about anything in it. Their Play store's standards are utterly bare bones. The devices are cheaper. If what you want is an open source (ish) platform that you can hack on, modify, install software yourself, whatever, all of that is available to you, at a lower price, over there. This feels to be the ultimate first world problem, to pay a handsome premium for a top-tier device, then to complain about it's shortcomings. So take it back! Nobody made you buy one.
It's not like there aren't Android handsets that do all the stuff iOS ones do, occasionally even better, for similar prices. The main reason I stick to iOS is precisely for the locked down OS, and the curated App Store, so to see so many people complaining that they purchased the device when those things are like, the most obvious part of what comprises an iOS device, then complain about those things, is utter madness to me.
Why the fuck must Apple also do that, with a higher priced device, that everyone claims is inferior to Android handsets with their quad core processors and is "just a fashion item?" Android users seem unhealthily obsessed with turning iOS into Android. Just let us do our own thing over here for fuck's sake.
Yet again and again on here and elsewhere, iOS is constantly positioned as this MONOLITH of anti-consumer anti-developer DOOM, absolutely RUINING the mobile market. Again, FOUR. TEEN. PERCENT.
THIS! Say it a little louder for those in the back. I work in IT. I do not want to have a mini IT project in my pocket that I have to fiddle with. I want a device that is dependable above all else that I don't have to work on for my everyday driver. This is the same answer I provide every time someone at work ask my why I carry an Apple phone. To me the curation is part of the draw. I know that this phone will require the least amount of my attention to keep it working day in, day out. That is the feature I wanted most.
But every iOS post I read is along the lines of make it like android, and I have the same prevailing thought. Why?? I would not own a MacOS machine, I wouldn't like it. But I don't feel the need to get on every Mac discussion complaining it should be more like Linux. The fact the differences exist is a good thing.
Exactly. It's the same reason rich people hire people to do their accounting and cleaning and all the other stuff they don't want to do. I want to pick up my phone and use it not mess with it every 3 days because there's something slightly off or there's a bug with the latest mod I installed.
Allowing competition doesn't mean you need to use that competition. Don't install any other stores and don't toggle the flag to allow alternate stores, and you would have and iPhone exactly as it is now.
There's no reason to expect it will be exactly like a PC, which is coming from a completely open past to a future which allows more locking down. The iPhone is locked down now, it's a bit ridiculous to assume they would immediately go straight to allowing anything and everything to be installed without any hoops jumped through.
Even Android requires you to allow unsafe sources to isntall third party packages. Why would anyone expect the iPhone to go farther than this when they're fighting tooth and nail to not even do this much?
Honestly my fear isn't rogue developers. That's always a concern but not one that is going to show up with any consistency. My real fear is what carriers will do with this ruling, as they have the institutional power and collusion ability to force Apple's hand if they really wanted. I'm thinking shovelware and apps that can't be deleted becoming part and parcel with providing a phone service through a carrier.
I'm also considering the transition in the Steam marketplace as a recent example. Their opening from curation started with Greenlight, a fast track program with some but minimal curation. There were a few turds but by and large the games that came through were of some general quality. Enter phase 2, Early Access. The minimal barriers were removed except "will it run", adult content allowed, and a smaller hosting fee used. And in came the parade of low effort hot garbage. Recommendations in their platform are hard to come by now. Random impulse buy while scrolling rarely happens for me now as discovery of actual good games for me is much lower and I feel like the platform as a whole has suffered for it. I could see a similar trajectory for the app store albeit with my value of the services being placed in different categories.
> I'm thinking shovelware and apps that can't be deleted becoming part and parcel with providing a phone service through a carrier.
I would think anything that required Apple to open up the OS would apply equally as well to carriers. Who cares if the carriers put crap on your phone if you can easily wipe what they provide with a clean copy? It's slightly more complicated than Windows in that the carrier is also providing drivers, but not entirely without precedent (much of Dell system innards are their own design, and they re-brand or develop their own drivers for chipsets to better suit their systems). That would be another differentiator to open the market though. IF X provider is hostile to replacing their OS and makes the experience suck, the market can deal with that. At least it's a small chunk of the stack, and not everything from the base hardware to web services all locking you in to one choice.
As for Early Access and opening up Steam, i've actually not found it to be a problem. Some of my favorite games and experiences started out as (and in some cases still are) Early Access. And even the ones that started strong and went to shit, I count 6-12 months of a fun game as well worth the $20-$30 an Early Access game generally costs.
I've also found the Steam ratings, and the reviews people put in that generate it to be extremely useful and accurate. You just have to zero in on the reviews that relate it to existing experiences that you're familiar with so you get a good idea of what it is like. Worst case you find some streamer on Twitch or YouTube to watch for a bit to get a feel for it.
But the existence of competition or lack thereof can have its own effects, some of which are actually desirable and make the iPhone have the draw that it does.
If Facebook had a worthy competitor for example, surely you'll agree Facebook would be a considerably different product now.
You might say that doesn't help my case, because it would actually be a better product, but it's not an inevitable outcome in every comparable scenario.
> If Facebook had a worthy competitor for example, surely you'll agree Facebook would be a considerably different product now.
No, I don't think I would. The vast majority of people are not going to leave facebook as long as they can't take their social contacts with them, and Facebook knows this. They'll let you have your pictures and videos, but the graph? No way, and they know most people won't leave entirely because recreating all those links is a large undertaking for most people. Even young people that originally shun Facebook as their parent's social network eventually join because the network effect is too large to ignore.
The fact that Facebook very quickly buys anything that looks like it might have a draw that could possibly affect this in any way doesn't help it. Neither does that they blatantly lied to congress about things they would/wouldn't do with some of these acquisitions when asked about it.
>I do not want to have a mini IT project in my pocket that I have to fiddle with.
Having the ability to install apps not available on the app store does not make your entire phone something you 'have to fiddle with'. If you want to live in the walled garden, you of course can do so, just as many people do on Android.
>But I don't feel the need to get on every Mac discussion complaining it should be more like Linux.
This is an interesting take, seeing how a big reason Macs are so popular amongst developers is the similarity to Linux (which the vast majority of us are going to be deploying to).
>If you want to live in the walled garden, you of course can do so, just as many people do on Android.
I've had both device types through the years. I've had to support both device types in different form factors. As a developer I love Android. I've learned to code some Java and lightweight game development for Android due to that openness of the platform. But the pros of the walled garden concept do not shine through on Android as they do with Apple due to the lack of how tightly integrated and compatible the hardware & software are from being developed together and approved by a sole source.
As a purchaser of an Apple product, I feel fairly confident that I am Apple's customer. With Android, the customer is the manufacturer\carrier combo that runs my phone, and I am their customer. That distinction carries an important difference and it shows through the development tracts of both companies and how they deal with issues.
Let's be honest here. If this goes through to force Apple to allow competitors to their app store, that decision will go further than developer sideloading (which is already possible). It will not happen in a vacuum and as soon as the courts hand down such a decision the carriers will be next in line to shovel as much horse manure down the line as possible.
I've never purchased an Apple phone with pre-loaded software as part of a deal with a carrier, aka Bloatware. I have from Android manufacturers on several occasions. Lower standards of entry from 3rd party sources often mean lower standards for bugs, resource usage, and privacy concerns. Higher risk of malware. Lower chance of software to OS compatibility. Apple phones with whole disk encryption made the news when the feds couldn't break it as easily as Android devices.
>Macs are so popular amongst developers is the similarity to Linux
Then I rescind the poor choice of analogy and go straight to fundamentals. These two different tools are purpose built for different things from different principles and that is ok. Homogenizing the mobile space in a way that would detract from those differences would be a net negative in my opinion.
> I've never purchased an Apple phone with pre-loaded software as part of a deal with a carrier, aka Bloatware. I have from Android manufacturers on several occasions.
I am fully in agreement with your position, but it is really funny that you mention this specific detail, as it hits much closer to reality than most people realize.
Mostly because as a part of the anti-trust settlement that MSFT had to enter back in the day, they were forced to allow laptop manufacturers to preload bloatware on windows laptops. And I would definitely hate to see that on iPhones, as that was one of the major reasons I ended up switching from Androids (yes, I know, you can root your Android device, install custom Android distro, and get rid of the carrier bloatware, but not having to deal with all of that is precisely why I switched).
The big difference between MSFT and AAPL is that MSFT licensed their software to integrators. MSFT didn't have the option to simply stop selling to those integrators and go it alone.
AAPL can relatively (compared to MSFT back in the day) easily decide to be the sole retailer of their own hardware and software stack, and cease to sell their phones through carriers.
AAPL already offers direct financing solutions, and trade in solutions, through their own retail channels. SIM-only plans tend to be cheaper as the carriers can no longer hide behind hardware costs to obfuscate their plans.
Who loses in this equation? AAPL might, through reduced sales. The carriers might, through reduced margins. Is either of those things bad to the consumer?
Doesn't AAPL already sell carrier plans as part of their iPhone retail experience?
When did MSFT sell hardware as part of their software licensing retail experience in the 90s?
Also a good point and not something I had considered. Thanks for that. I agree this wouldn't hurt my feeling either and would make the most sense. Problem being when it goes before the court as it appears it will soon, there is no telling where regulation might fall especially with this kind of money involved. Hopefully a rational outcome like you've stated will prevail.
This is a very good and poignant point and probably my biggest overarching fear of the fallout from this decision. My post was already thick and didn't want to get into setting context for this but you are exactly right. I am surprised more folks here don't realize that about the MS antitrust stuff. Except the carriers in this case have the ability to remain as gatekeepers of these requirements where the laptop manufacturers were much more limited in scope once the device left their buildings.
Do you also support cars only being allowed to be repaired at specific dealers, only using tires sold through the manufacturer with a 30 % cut? Luckily this is illegal in most of the world. In the EU I can change the battery, tires and oil and the manufacturer can't deny it or remove the warranty. With an iPhone i can't even have a pro technician work on my phone without Apple taking away warranty from me and calling the cops on the technician's shop for importing refurbished Apple parts. They will be either forced to open up or they will be split up in tiny unrecognisable pieces.
You are stretching equivalencies here pretty hard with regards to capital investment of a product vs. expectations but I'll play along.
If I was told this plainly and openly up front then I wouldn't buy the car to begin with -IF- that is what I value in that specific vehicle. My car? Not a chance, I like my sports car and working on it is part of the fun I get from it. My wife's people carrier? If those repairs are close in line with other repair shops even after the 30% AND they'll come pick it up or tow it so I don't even have to mess with it? Absolutely, where do I sign up? Different tools have different uses and value propositions.
A better analogy is a resort. It's got beautiful beaches, gets the top acts to perform at the club, and the food is Michelin 3 star. The resort has armed security, so no one needs to worry about being mugged, or having their rooms robbed while they're out clubbing. The resort decides who can sell food, who can perform at the clubs, and who can teach you how to surf at the beach.
I would be interested to know what would happen if Apple said “sure — install whatever you want, but your warranty is now void.” How many people (especially the EU) would have a problem with that?
I mean, that’s effectively where this whole argument leads. You could imagine a scenario where using external software could damage things like your battery, so now the user is on their own.
I don’t think that’s a tenable option either.
This is effectively what Google does with Chromebooks and developer mode. But if you’ve enabled developer mode, can’t you go back? But when you get into trouble, you can revert back to the base install (and lose all other data). Again, that’s not a good option either as people would complain about that too.
There is absolutely no reason behind it. Running arbitrary code in user space has absolutely no bearing on the actual hardware, if it can cause harm than it is a hardware bug (eg, a javascript engine vuln. than could brick the phone)
Why is it a bad thing for you that other’s get to use their phones have they see it fit after paying for it quite a bit, while the whole thing won’t case any difference to you?
User-space code can definitely have effects on the hardware.
A program that phones home often with tracking data, thus keeping a data connection open and the processor from sleeping would absolutely have an impact on battery life and longevity. This would be code that Apple would normally block at the AppStore level.
And we saw how mad people were when Apple slowed down processing speeds to extend battery life. Can you imagine the outrage if Apple suddenly said that your battery is no longer under warranty because you installed the Facebook app directly from Facebook?
Ios has a great API and sandbox for apps, and will kill apps in the background unless they explicitly ask for permission to do additional work. It has nothing to do with sideloading apps, this security is the bare minimum for even trusted code.
The ability to run arbitrary software on a computer is not required to call it bug-free. You can't safely run whatever software you want on the computers in your car, for example.
I replied by the logic that forfeiting guarantee is unreasonable since sideloaded apps can only break as much as existing apps can.
There are good reasons to disallow any third party applications on some platforms like cars, but apple allows it and they only have a quick look at applications. The real security is in their sandbox/API.
Why is it hard to understand that a goddamn hidden “enable side loading apps” button for those who want it will not cause any sort of regression in your use of the phone.
But it will, which is the exact problem: Let's pretend for a second that I want the Facebook app, as a lot of people apparently do. At the moment, if Facebook wants to be able to run on iOS devices (which they do), they're forced to go through the app store and all that entails. They're forced by Apple to play ball and do things they most assuredly do not want to do. Tracking notifications, permissions notifications, no using 'private APIs' to get around those restrictions, etc.
If there's a viable third party app store without these restrictions, Facebook will immediately jump on it, and immediately start tracking users with no notifications in probably the most invasive way they can get away with.
The upshot is that thanks to this hidden "enable side loading apps" button if I wanted to use the Facebook app, I would have to use the scummy privacy invading version, and that's most definitely a regression.
Ios has a pretty good security API and it should be done at that layer.
Also, “pay” with your wallet and don’t download facebook.fileExtension from their own site (and frankly, if facebook wants to be afloat they should put it on the main App Store, because most people will not bother)
Apple is really great at UX, they will find a way to make it hard for the general audience, so that my mother won’t install random malware because for it she would have to go through 3 pages in settings she knows nothing about, and I can run whatever I want on my phone.
> Apple is really great at UX, they will find a way to make it hard for the general audience, so that my mother won’t install random malware because for it she would have to go through 3 pages in settings she knows nothing about, and I can run whatever I want on my phone.
Many of us believe they will not find such a way and that in fact no one will and it is impossible. That's the crux of the disagreement here. You believe this is a possible UX to build. I believe it is not possible to build such a UX.
As many folks have noted, Android does have a number of steps required to sideload. They also have a much more serious and active malware problem despite all the extra steps:
I have no goddamn problem with that. Please do. But that isn't what the article in question is discussing. It's about Epic suing Apple under anti trust and the implications of that decision. For more reading just check out what happened to MS after their anti trust with regards to laptop manufacture bloatware. Except understand that the carriers will hold much more power.
Except that the carriers hold no power in this relationship anymore. They need the iPhone more than the iPhone needs them. And if every carrier in the service area says "we want bloatware on the phone or we won't sell it", then Apple can just start selling the phones via their retail network (which they already have set up to do everything including interest-free loans).
What makes you think Android is a 'mini-IT' project? I have an iPhone now, but I used Android for years. It was always great. It always just worked, no 'fiddling' required. The idea that you have to do work to keep a Android running daily is odd to me.
Now that I've had an iPhone for a couple years, I can't think of single time where the app store 'curation' has benefited me. I'm not even sure what that means. I've released apps on both Google Play and iOS, and sure, it's a little more difficult to get an iOS app passed by Apple. But what does that really get us in the end? Maybe a little more protection from malicious actors, but not much more in my opinion.
I really think the idea that the iOS app store 'curation' is a feature that we benefit from as users is a myth Apple has made us all believe. It's mostly marketing speak & a 'placebo' effect for the end user, and a huge headache for the app developers. As a developer, app reviews take no less than a day or two to clear. And you have to sit there and hope they don't send it back rejected for some vague reason, or some random contractor in China doesn't reject it because they typed in the demo account password wrong (Yes, we had this happen at my job multiple times, and it wasted many days of our time).
I think app store 'curation' and the 'walled garden' get conflated sometimes. In the walled garden, where they have full control over the hardware & the OS, they have chosen to not allow any other method of distributing apps except through them. The idea that this is somehow making my life better I will never get. Either way, that in and of itself doesn't really bother me. What does bother me is that they think they are entitled to 3/10ths of every apps business in the walled garden. There is no way that makes sense.
They charge a yearly fee for developer accounts. I think this yearly fee system is how it should be handled. If their argument is that they are providing the servers and infrastructure and manpower to provide the app store service, then they could make more tiers. For bigger customers like Epic who use more of those resources they could charge more to cover the cost. But there is no way I'll ever be convinced that a 30% fee on every transaction across the board is fair or equitable.
> What makes you think Android is a 'mini-IT' project?
My first one. HTC when 4G first got hot. It was a horrible shitshow and soured my taste ever since. I can see that was a combo of manufacturer, Sprint as my carrier, and early Android OS but that spoke a lot to my understanding of the ecosystem and how incentives were set up. My follow up experience with phones for my kids or staff has been better but I've never gave them the chance for daily driver again. It's a system I tinker with but not depend on. I understand that's anecdotal and YMMV, but then again I'm not looking for validation of my opinion. Is what it is, just stating what colored my purchasing decision.
30% is crazy. I've said the same about Steam for years and you'll get no arguments from me there. Does it makes sense from the standpoint of the developer? Not at all but my opinion there doesn't matter as I don't develop for iOS nor am I very concerned with 3rd party apps. As a customer, I don't care. The idea of curation may be placebo but even the placebo effect is measurable. It may dissuade malware developers from the platform at first principles. That 30% may serve as a soft barrier to entry from race to the bottom competitors even if that isn't its intended purpose. I can admit Play Store has cleaned up its act a good bit since its inception but first impressions are hard to get around.
End of day the reason for me buying an Apple phone as my daily was for reliability. I can't remember the last time I had to restart or tinker with my iPhone to get it to work, but I can't say the same for my kids various Android phones. It wasn't for the robustness of the platform or marketplace cause I would've just bought an Android. Also see my other argument in this thread about being the actual customer and a few other points. Fair payment doesn't really factor in for me, that is a business decision for someone else to make. For me and the choices that I have in front of me, this seems like the best one for my goals even if those differences are limited in scope. The fact that we can choose between them on these differences is a good thing. To get back to GPs point, if this doesn't work for you then don't buy it and let the free market do its thing.
That’s fair. Maybe I tend forget a lot of the issues older Android versions had.
I always had Samsungs, never remember any issues with them getting hot, maybe that was an HTC problem? I think my first android was a Samsung Galaxy S3. Now that I think about it, I do remember a lot of weird bugs and restarts to fix some issue.
After that I had a Note 4 & 5, and I really have high opinions of those. I kept the 5 for over 3 years I think it roped out at Android v8.x and it was pretty good, but still not as reliable a iOS at the time I’m sure. I recently got one of those cheap Samsung tablets & I must say I’m impressed with Android v10.
I switched to iPhone a couple years ago out of curiosity mostly. It’s fine. Doesn’t blow me away, but you’re right. Super reliable. There are things I miss about my Note, and things it did better, but also things about the iPhone I would miss if I went back. Mostly the seamless and sync between my MacBook Pro/ iMac, and effortless wireless file sharing with airdrop are amazing.
As a dev, I do like to use a Linux box for daily use so I’m with you there :)
No worries friend. Point of debate for me is learning about and refining a viewpoint through rigorous defense. Doesn't all have to be topic at hand so long as we're working toward this goal in good faith.
I actually have a Mac too, but I also have Bootcamp configured because Mac doesn't do everything I need. I'm just like, what do I need to do right now, and what's the most reliable tool for that job?
My phone, ultimately, is communications and quick research. I need it to make calls, send messages, send emails, and use the browser. And off-duty, I use the camera to capture memories. I got the big one because I wanted the bigger screen (though ultimately I miss the smaller size one I had before, so that will likely change whenever I get around to replacing it.)
And I also do projects. I build 3D printers, I play with Pi's, I build PC's. I do all kinds of tinkering shit. I just don't feel the need to do it on my phone, and therefore what are cited as "limitations" of it are just irrelevant to me. It does everything I need it to do, and more.
Android and iOS in my mind aren't really even in competition. They're two very similar products that should appeal to two entirely different userbases. They're pickups and sportscars, both great for what they do, but utlimately trying to have a pickup that's also a sportscar just means it's probably going to be lousy at both.
Anti-trust law is entirely irrelevant despite how often it gets brought up in this discussion. Entering into the restrictions of an iPhone is 100% voluntary. You do not currently have the right to run whatever code you want on anything you own.
This fails every commonly held definition of a monopoly. We're not even talking like, cable company monopoly here that's entered into by virtue of buying or renting property in a given space, which at least you have a lot of friction there to claim "I can't reasonably be expected to go elsewhere just to buy from a different cable provider." You literally just buy an Android phone, and you're free of the restrictions imposed by Apple, immediately.
Here is the government released statement on these types of topics. "Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power"
That is from the US government. For any other further comments you have on the topic of anti-trust law, or market power, please read this government statement first and see how it applies to your statement.
> Entering into the restrictions of an iPhone is 100% voluntary.
If a company has significant market power, then anti-trust law can apply.
> This fails every commonly held definition of a monopoly
Anti trust law does not require a literal monopoly. So I am not sure why you are bringing that up. Anti-trust law only requires significant market power. And Apple has 50% of the US smartphone market, which is within the realm of what courts have considered to be significant market power.
> You literally just buy an Android phone, and you're free of the restrictions imposed by Apple, immediately.
Apple still has 50% of the US market. That can be significant market power, as the courts have ruled in the past.
In the late 90s Microsoft was IMO, pretty clearly a monopoly while Apple survived as a beacon of "See guys - we're not technically a monopoly" - having a competitor isn't enough to not be participating in an anti-competitive market, the manner in which Android and Apple have a complete dominance of the market is pretty insane and it makes both of their business decisions fair game for anti-trust arguments.
I have apps I want to publish, but why would I even begin to work on them knowing that Apple could pull the plug on me at any time?
And yes, the Cydia store is for jailbroken phones because that's the only way to load your own software onto your phone, but there are plenty of useful apps on there that aren't security issues and are only there to get around app store restrictions.
Apple doesn't have to restrict which apps I run to keep it secure. They do just fine securing MacOS, which allows one to install whatever they want.
The billions of dollars paid out does not disprove that at all. There are many articles, often posted right here on HN, of apps getting pulled from the app store for random reasons. Lots of articles about apps that push an update and then get removed from the store because they found something else objectionable that was previously approved.
I made an app to show the books you have lend at a public library
And to make sure it can be used with all existing libraries web sites and all opacs, you can enter any url and an xpath expressions, and then it runs the xpath expressions each day and shows the result as list of books.
And since I wrote it 15 years ago, there were no tech libraries for headless browsers available. So I wrote half of my own browser, and an XPath interpreter. (Modern XPath is actually Turing-complete, and with the EXPath file module, it can read and write to any file)
So, if the store does not allow custom browsers or Python interpreters, those are two reasons it would not allow my app.
Rendering engine is not the issue. It's the JIT - firefox could publish a browser, it would just need to have interpreted javascript and it'd be useless.
Well, then it is good, I did not make a JIT (only XPath AST, not even bytecode)
Although I have been thinking about making a JIT. Building on for x86 is easy enough, but then it is useless for ARM. I would not want to build two JITs. Or four with 32/64-bits.
This is just wrong. Apple disallows apps that duplicate existing functionality, i.e. browsers. You can write whatever wack headless browser you want, and there are tons of frameworks for this exact purpose, too: All manner of methods to do network things without invoking Safari.
This is a jawbreaker of hyperbole around a chewy gum center of truth.
Why do you repeat market share? It is completely irrelevant and unless you understand this it is no wonder you are confused. Abuse of market position has nothing to do with monopoly. You can abuse your position without having a monopoly. Even if Apple had 1% they could still abuse their position. You can disagree that it is a problem but talking about market share is missing the point.
>Just let us do our own thing over here for fuck's sake.
No one is forcing you to do anything. There can be 10 app stores and you could still use one the one. Just like many PC gamers have done for decades. I own hundreds of games and I only use GOG and Steam. Pretending you are forced to do anything is disingenuous. People have more right to use their bought hardware than you and Apple have to deny it. It's not a matter of if but when Apple will be forced to allow people to own their owned hardware.
> Apple has the right to create the software ecosystem they want to create.
So say you. I say that consumers have the right to run whatever software they want on the hardware that they have purchased.
Apple can create whatever software platform they want, but it seems pretty bad that they don't allow you to use whatever software platform you want on the hardware that you paid them for.
I am strongly in favor of that. The whole App Store thing is just about some middlemen wanting a cut and has nothing to do with software freedom.
On the other hand bootcamp for iOS - so you could install android, or better yet, a genuinely free OS, would solve the software freedom problem and allow old iOS devices to be repurposed after Apple stops supporting them.
As a user, I'm free to buy Android if I want to. I buy iPhones specifically because software developers are forced to go through Apple's more strict guidelines (see the Apple/Facebook fight for a recent example of why I personally like it). I can trust the software I use much more on Apple's platform.
I want to have the freedom to buy and use such a platform, and Apple wants the freedom to sell and maintain such a platform. The entire process falls apart if Apple is forced to allow other App Stores. Why should the court restrict those freedoms and break this consumer benefit?
By that logic, you would want MacOS to be the same, apps only available via the store? It would give you all the same benefits, why is MacOS still 'open'? Why is there a terminal?
I'm sure many preferred internet provider and railway cartels too because they didn't want other people to fiddle with the system. When sideloading will be enabled you're more than welcome to stay in the walled garden, but you can't dictate how other people want to use their devices.
But it does affect me. Apple's "walled garden" approach only works if they are able to actually have walls and force companies to abide by their rules. Removing those restrictions removes any leverage Apple (and by extension consumers like me) have over other large companies. For example, Netflix could say "you have to use this other App Store" and many people would convert. It's essentially a tragedy of the commons.
Sure, it may not be fair to these large corporations, but it's currently a great situation for consumers. Everybody is free to either go more laissez-faire (Android) or more walled garden (iOS). I don't think the courts should ruin that.
Epic demands Apple do thing = bad for Apple (good for Epic) no way
Apple demand Facebook do thing = Good for Apple (bad for FB) yes way
So Apple is allowed to get its own way, 100% of the time, no questions asked, what they want is what they get end of (by virtue of holding all the cards and owning the platform they dictate the rules on)
How about no? You can play by your rules in your sandbox, but Epic has a right to demand it's allowed a sandbox in the same park, maybe Apple will be forced to change its business if everyone starts playing in Epic's sandbox and consumers decide Apple's policies are rubbish?
That's the very definition of "competition" something Apple has avoided for over a decade at this point (as far as iOS inter-competition goes)
How is Epic fighting to reduce Apple's cut of app store proceeds (30%!) bad for customers? At worst it's customer-neutral, at best it could reduce prices.
Most people seem to be on board with Steam being their preferred distributor. Any alternatives are met with harsh vitriol- especially ones that are for distributing a a single companies property specifically. Such as EAs origin and Ubisoft’s uPlay (now called Ubisoft Connect).
This is common in the gaming community. Full disclosure: I used to work in the studio that developed and maintained uplay.
One of the games I worked on was an epic store exclusive (or, wouldn’t launch on steam) and it was met with harsh criticism for that. Many players outright said that they wouldn’t buy the game if it wasn’t on steam.
Judging by PC sales, they held true to their word.
I have steam and I absolutely do not need a single provider/distributor (in fact I also have GOG and uPlay, and in no shape steam would be held in any higher esteem). I don't quite see any reason to dislike/resent any other company's way of releasing their products.
Back, years ago the distribution way were tons of 3.5" diskettes, or better yet - transportable hard disk with a jumper switch to slave mode. A lot has changed since, however subscribing to the model that one company has to govern my entertainment model is beyond silly.
I dislike uPlay and Origin and that's why I'm avoiding them (I still have some games on them but something has to be veeery interesting for me to buy it there - I'm even willing to pay more to get same thing on Steam).
Why are we all talking about creating more stores? Shouldn't we opt into creating systems API for stores? That way you could choose store application and have products from all repositories (stores) available in there.
On most Linuxes you add repository and it doesn't matter if you use official package manager, graphical one, or some unofficial bash script. You are able to install same software.
>Epic demands Apple do a thing = bad for Apple, bad for customers (good for Epic)
not bad for all customers. I would like to side-load third party apps on my Iphone. Remember when app store banned a hn reader app because it showed Covid-related submissions[1]
> Epic demands Apple do a thing = bad for Apple, bad for customers (good for Epic)
How is allowing developers to use alternate payment platforms "bad for customers"? Or, if not on the phone, at least to allow them to add funds to their account from the browser/another platform and use it in their iOS app?
So Apple allows Epic to put their store on iOS, but of course has to allow anyone to put their Store on iOS since otherwise it wouldn't be competitive. What about when Facebook makes Facebook its own marketplace, and the apps it distributes bypass the IDFA and track users without the popup, and of course don't have a privacy nutrition label? What about the hundreds of other $adtech companies bootstrapping their privacy-invasive, scam, and malicious apps (think 'your phone has a virus, call apple support' scams), is that not bad for the consumer?
Surely we can just apply the Windows argument of "well they should get antivirus software and stop browsing shady sites" and go about our day having improved the landscape for the tech-literate, while having increased the risk other people take on by using their phone if they don't know the first thing about ensuring the apps they download are safe or privacy-preserving. That's why people buy iPhone - you literally do not have to worry about malicious App Store apps.
> How is allowing developers to use alternate payment platforms "bad for customers"?
Because those "alternate payment platforms" don't prioritise consumer protection.
Deliveroo did an update their software that wiped out my login settings. They didn't support apple login, so I lost access to my account. They won't recover my email because of a special character in it, and so they continued to charge me for their "plus" service every month, and avoided any emails I tried to send asking to stop (asking me to "log in" to change my payment settings!).
Requiring apps use Apple's channel would have protected me from that experience.
What I am very afraid of is a situation in which every developer pushes its own App Store with dodgy security and privacy.
“Oh, you want Photoshop? Just add the Adobe store (don’t look at permissions, also please give us your debit card number, we promise it’ll be safe)”.
“Oh, you want that nifty game? Just install our store. And also give us your bank account.”
“Yes, Apple is draconian. So to get the Facebook app, you must give us complete access to your phone and all data you send. Sign with your blood here.”
From an opsec perspective, Apple’s store associated with a prepaid debit card is great. They are far from ideal, but they have amongst the best privacy practices in the industry, have great customer support, and their interests align with mine better than those of their competitors.
We know that the second third party stores are allowed, some developer will force them on us.
Android having one or two external app stores of any note with the vast majority of users hanging out on the Play store tells me that this doomsday scenario is unlikely.
I believe consumer choice is essential to making markets efficient. I think more of it is better. For example I also think we should have a right to repair, so companies are forced to give me a choice to repair instead of throwing away and buying anew. Sure, you could say I could just vote with my wallet and not do business with any company that does not prioritize repairability. But in reality that doesn't work because the vast majority of companies don't do that because it's in their interest that I need to buy a new thing every couple of years. So I need a right to repair law to give me, as a consumer, some reasonable choices that it's not in the companies' own interest to give me.
Exactly the same thing goes for what I do with the devices I buy, and what software I install on them. It's not in Apple's interest that I have a choice of what source of apps I use - but giving me as a consumer that choice would expand the market (e.g. by making it possible to sell an app-based service with a 20% profit margin - currently if you tried to make one, you'd lose 10% on every sale). So yes, consumers currently have a choice of which side of the duopoly they want to live on. I believe more choice would be better, both for consumers and for the ecosystem as a whole.
You only have that right in advance, though. If I get an iPhone and buy a bunch of software on it and then 3 years later Apple Changes The Terms Of Our Relationship, I don't have any ability to migrate my data (let alone my purchases) to another platform. Not only do I have to buy a new smartphone, I have to re-buy my apps even if those apps are available on Android. Even if the app's developer wants to give me the app for free on other platforms, they can't, because Apple refuses to give developers any information on their customers. This came up previously when some OS X software had to leave the Mac App Store. Likewise any music or videos I bought on iTunes won't migrate over to my Android phone - in the era of physical media this wasn't a problem, you could pop your CD or DVD into any player you want so you had true freedom.
Windows and Mac and Linux environments are not sandboxed like this either. All my data is files in folders, and I can export it as I like to another machine.
Freedom of choice implies that you do have to make choices though. If I buy a Ford, and later decide that a Chevy is what I want, I don't complain...I sell the Ford.
If I have a windows computer, and I buy a mac, I can't run all my windows software. The developers of that software may not even make mac equivalents.
The idea that choices need to be ultimately convenient and consequence free is just not realistic. Depreciation, transaction costs, and functional differences between products are a consumer's problem to manage.
I agree with you on media files, but, I also know that there are plenty of workarounds to exporting iTunes specific media formats if you would rather leave iTunes behind.
This is a problem with any store, though, except for some very specific situations. You won’t solve that problem by having more isolated islands. I agree that this should be improved, I have no illusion that Facebook and Epic have any intention of doing that.
At the point where your device has work software on it all bets are off to begin with. Your employer might straight up require you to use an Android phone. What you're describing is your employer using their free choice to decide where to distribute apps.
Incidentally, employers already have the ability to distribute custom iOS software for their employees, so your scenario wouldn't happen.
Work-necessary software probably involved an enterprise provisioning profile, which for all intents and purposes, gives the holder of the profile full rights to your phone.
As for social, why isn't this happening on Android if it's so inevitable?
I agree that there's no hypocrisy, but I think Apple is acting consistently as a platform owner in both cases. Yes, iOS users should being made aware of tracking software but it doesn't mean that they should continue being the sole store curator for their platform.
We know from past experience that it's commercially viable for platform owners to successfully develop secure operating systems that allow third party developers to develop and distribute apps without an additional tax. We don't have to look very far either. macOS is a great example of where the App Store and third party developers can coexist.
People should be able to choose to buy the app (for 30% more) using the App Store so that it's easy to ask for a refund, receive updates and for Apple to market apps they believe you'd like to use. But at the same time, Apple has no right to force people to overpay for services like Spotify on the App Store. Customers already pay to use a licensed copy of iOS on supported hardware.
Governments have every right to protect the customer from perpetually getting screwed by Apple. At the very least, we shouldn't allow Apple to limit free speech so that developers can't mention a way for their users to save money.
You're missing the point. Nobody is arguing that Apple has a monopoly on the smartphone market.
The problem is that Apple built an artificial monopoly in the distribution of apps by making the App Store the only curator of the platform. People who decided to purchase an iPhone with an iOS license should have the right to use the device to it's full extent (along with being able to fix it themselves if something breaks). If you don't feel safe running apps outside of the App Store, you don't need to!
That's like saying Nintendo has an artificial monopoly by allowing only allowing Nintendo approved games to be distributed for sales on their consoles. Or TV channels have an artificial monopoly for shows they buy the syndication/distribution rights for. At some point, someone decided to commit to a certain path. Calling the choice "anti-competitive" cheapens the word.
>>People who decided to purchase an iPhone with an iOS license should have the right to use the device to it's full extent
The US Copyright Office has already made it clear that jailbreaking is legal. That does not imply upon Apple an affirmative obligation to fix a jailbroken phone or create a open/fixable hardware and software platform, or make either of the two easy to accomplish. Only a negative obligation to not interfere with those who take such risks at their own expense.
You're right that I'd classify those as artificial monopolies. Wouldn't you agree that the world would be a better place if we had less of them?
Especially for general computing devices like a phone (unlike gaming consoles and media like your examples). We already know that Apple doesn't need the App Store for iDevices to be a commercial success, just look at the Mac and macOS.
My house is an artificial monopoly. Only I get to decide who comes in. People come in only by choice. My guests and I having freely chosen to be together, in my place, abiding by my rules.
It's like that, except my house is very big and I'm Apple. Everyone, by their choice in accepting my invitation, have chosen to abide by my rules.
All guests are free to leave any time!
Now, what right does a 3rd party (the gov't) have to come in and crash my party and force me to change some of my rules? Consenting adults chose to be here!
>>Wouldn't you agree that the world would be a better place if we had less of them?
There would first need to be consensus as to what constitutes an artificial monopoly. So far the term has been used so nebulously as to encompass any choice or decision made with a tradeoff or constraint that somehow paid off for at least one but few, if any, others. In other words, "They cheated by holding onto a winning strategy / lottery ticket."
>>General computing devices like a phone (unlike gaming consoles and media like your examples).
I fail to see the distinction. The Nintendo Switch is powered by the same SoC that runs on the Android-powered Nvidia Shield. Just recently, the Switch has been jailbroken to run full Android 10. The PS4, PS5, XB1, XBSX all run on x86-64 AMD chips (the former two on an in-house OpenBSD distro and the latter two on a full Windows 10 kernel). Even older consoles like the PS2 and N64 can run Linux (the former as an official feature and the latter as a recent homebrew development). In short, anything in console space has been a general computer for the last 20 years if not earlier. Constraints are imposed onto the hardware and software of these products as a natural consequence of certain physical limitations or by intentional design of their respective companies. Apple's products are, in general, no different.
>> We already know Apple doesn't need the App Store for iDevices to be a commercial success.
What Apple needs to be a commercial success or not is a choice for Apple to make for itself. Apple chose a particular domain to succeed in and succeeded beyond almost every expectation. Absent fraud, it shouldn't be stopped from monetizing it's winnings any way it chooses just because you think the company has "over-succeeded". That on it's own doesn't make the App Store an "artificial monopoly" any more than it makes Usain Bolt "too good" to be allowed to compete in any more races. All of which leads me to question how exactly you are defining "artificial monopoly". What counts and what doesn't?
> The problem is that Apple built an artificial monopoly in the distribution of apps by making the App Store the only curator of the platform.
You need to watch Epic Games vs. Apple hearing from September 2020. This argument was already rejected by judge. She stated closed platforms (walled gardens) were before Apple's fore decades and are legal types of business. She also told about Nintendo/PlayStation/Xbox same closed stores.
Yes, alternate stores are possible, but they are severely handicapped. First, manual APK install has to be enabled in obscure settings that come with a "scary" warning. Then they can't provide auto-updates but require a manual confirmation for each version update.
Epic gave up on running their own store on Android due to the difficulties.
I do think that regulators need to force Apples hand - not being in control of your own device is not acceptable.
But even then most business would remain on the official stores. We also need legislation to curb the excessive fees charged by both Google and Apple.
A few years ago the EU limited credit card transaction fees to 0.3% or a fixed maximum, whichever is lower.
> First, manual APK install has to be enabled in obscure settings that come with a "scary" warning.
Don't see how this is necessarily a bad thing. It's a general security notification.
> Then they can't provide auto-updates but require a manual confirmation for each version update.
Again, how is this a deterrent? How many times a day do you have to accept the new changes?
We've already established that the official store will always be designed to provide the best experience ootb compared to the 'installed' one.
This is true for all the other platforms where you need manual intervention to install/maintain apps "unofficially".
> Epic gave up on running their own store on Android due to the difficulties.
This is a hard stretch
> I do think that regulators need to force Apples hand - not being in control of your own device is not acceptable.
?? You'd be a fool to think Apple would give an equal footing to other competing stores in their own garden
> But even then most business would remain on the official stores.
Simple. Open it up and let the market decide this one out.
> We also need legislation to curb the excessive fees charged by both Google and Apple.
On this one I agree. Though it's a different for Apple which does not allow any other payment solutions other than themselves, unlike Google's store. This is not an apples to apples comparison.
The Apple store monopoly should be broken up. It's time.
Arguably the market has already decided the behavior they want by buying iPhones in the first place. Apple didn't suddenly change their behavior. This is how the app store has always behaved. Everyone had that information available to them prior to making the purchase. How can you be sure that Apple customers don't actually want a walled garden with a single app store that is tightly controlled by Apple? After all if they didn't want this they could have purchased one of the numerous other Android offerings.
And if you didn't like railway cartel back at the time you could have used a horse instead.
Wonderful thing about laws is that we can make the companies behave the way we want.
>> Then they can't provide auto-updates but require a manual confirmation for each version update.
> Again, how is this a deterrent? How many times a day do you have to accept the new changes?
That would be about 10 times a day on average (sometimes 3, sometimes 30) for me. I have 125 apps installed from F-Droid (no google services, two external apps: Signal and the local contact tracing app), it would be a chore to update them without privileged extension, especially as some of these are nightly and get updated everyday.
> We've already established that the official store will always be designed to provide the best experience ootb compared to the 'installed' one.
F-Droid gives me a better experience, except for the bugs. Now, it's intentionally crippled by Google, so you can call Google Play "designed for a better experience" if you want.
I picked the platform due to the features, not due to the store "expericence". I would like to pick that one separately, my best experience is different from yours.
> This is true for all the other platforms where you need manual intervention to install/maintain apps "unofficially".
Not true. On windows, most auto-updaters do not need user confirmation to perform updates. Most platforms have package managers that can auto-update their packages (steam, npm, pip, texlive, nix, aptitude, pacman, apk, flatpak, whatever). Their access to the system isn't artificially restricted.
Granted, a number of these package managers could work on Android today (like a chroot), but that would be a subpar experience.
We're unfortunalely way past the point where this is an option. Neither Android nor Apple leaves you with nothing truely usable at the moment, unless you're ready to live in the year 2000 again.
I don't think fees are as large a problem as competing against first party apps in the same marketplace that don't pay the fees or have the same restrictions. iMessage for example doesn't require granular permissions for photo access like Messenger does, Apple Music doesn't have an additional 30% overhead as Spotify, etc.
If you run a store your apps should play by the same rules as the apps you compete against.
There are two different layers: The app has to have OS permission to install APKs, and then the app has to have user permission to install each individual APK. Android will prompt you each time. The only apps exempt from this are "system" apps (baked into the root-only partition) which are allowed to install/upgrade software without asking the user. It makes sense from an anti-malware perspective, but then again most malware finds ways around this anyway so you could argue that it serves no purpose and is only user hostile.
As an example, it would benefit Spotify iOS users if the app could say "FYI, we charge $13/mo on iOS to offset Apple's cut, but you can subscribe for $10/mo on our website if you prefer."
Same reason the FDA doesn't want growers to list optional tests on the packaging: it implies the producer cares more about food safety than the FDA. The consumer should know better, but they don't.
I don’t know if this is a defense per se, but the reason they do this is to prevent app makers from using that to try and steer customers to out of band ways of subscribing.
I guess the analogy would be if a brand forbade a retailers from revealing their margins, so customers don’t go to secondary markets and potentially/almost-certainly have a worse experience. Like counterfeit products or just in general to be subjected to dark patterns.
As far as my personal opinion regarding this I am completely fine with it. I think they’ve created something remarkable in the sense that everyday people are starting to pay for software, because they’ve created a valuable ecosystem. Sometimes I think we forget that in the past everyday people wouldn’t really pay for digital products in the same way they’d pay for physical ones. The one thing I’d say though is that maybe the 30% is high, but given they have the small business program that argument is mostly gone.
Any way now I’m rambling but that’s my best attempt to honestly explain why they do that.
30% is not just for apps but all digital content like Spotify. Now if we see a future where Apple wins and dominates: everyone creating digital content for a living will pay a 30% tax to Apple. Forever including your grandchildren. Now lets take it a step further and think a world where all services like cleaning are bought with Apple products. Everyone will pay a 30% tax to Apple, forever.
The thing is, that we cant allow an exception, as we would be allowing the rest of it.
Then there's the other side that they make the rules. So for an example if an apple employee makes a mistake and bans your business from the store, you have no way to appeal. Unless you are big enough like Epic.
If Apple wins in court and then in markets, we truly have Orwellian reality.
Netflix has shown that they can make bank[0] even after pulling their subscription from Apple's platform[1]. Your entire comment doesn't really add anything since it's all plain-as-day information - Apple's 30% cut is effectively revenue they get for creating the iOS devices, so yes, as long as they continue to sell product, they're going to continue to require 30% of digital content revenue is pocketed as profit.
The point is, that it's not a static situation, but can get worse. I don't know what you are doing, but we are a normal SaaS company. The current situation is that we can pretty much avoid problems with Apple and Google like Netflix is doing.
But if FAANG are allowed to go rampant, eventually they will grapple us like they have done for the game industry. And it will not end with us, they will continue to expand their umbrella until there is regulation.
OR - our kids will live in a world where FAANG gets 30% of all transactions and it will look like CP2077. If we don't get regulation, we can all just sell our current businesses and buy FAANG stock.
And I'm not happy with the current situation. I think game industry too deserves to be free of the tax and FAANG administered regulation.
Think about the regulation in the shoes of a business owner. Apple decides if you can make business - they can make a fair sounding rule, but your business is affected by weird chance or by Apple employee mistake. The business you built, the one with all the good intentions and the users in the center, disappears.
Apple isn’t users friend, or defender of the people.
It’s biggest company in the word, that tries to make most amount of money by monopolizing markets. And privacy sells nowadays, so they exploit that to grow even more. Of course users get something in return, but that’s not the reason why do that.
It’s one of the greatest PR campaigns of modern world, to have people believe that biggest company in the world cares about them and has their backs and interests. It’s almost Orwellian.
This is a pointless statement, does Epic have consumers back? LOL hardly. This lawsuit is about Epic cashing in on Apple's work. No one believes Apple the corp is the defender of the people. Apple is great on privacy compared to all the other options, not because they are good people (they may not be or they may be who knows?) but because it's in their best interest to be. This is about two corp's fighting over their right tomato more money off of you and I. People are casting Epic as for the consumer and it's ridiculous!
Epic of course doesn’t have customers back - it’s most likely more scummy than Apple.
Only thing that markets discovered so far, that has somehow customers back is free market and competition (and it’s far from being perfect of course), and they happen to push for it.
It’s just a case where customer interested happened to be aligned, even tho companies fight it for profit reasons (as with privacy and Apple - good for customers, but not being done because of it).
I totally understand that but from my POV, I don't see Apple losing the App Store's position as a positive for consumers. Let's compare Android's eco-system to iOS's. Android's app ecosystem is terrible IMO, piracy - viruses - cloned apps - and general very low quality apps. I'm a mobile developer (both iOS and Android) and I use both in my daily live. I know some people prefer Android but MANY don't. To me it's VERY far from obvious that Apple's walled garden is worse for consumers. In fact I'd say that Apple's App Store is the best example of a platform eco-system we have had in the history of computing. I could see the argument if iOS was the only real choice but it's not even the most popular by sheer numbers.
If Apple would open up to other apps stores I’d most likely stay with theirs, because I also like value they provide.
But that doesn’t mean I agree with them not allowing other people to make a choice. For me 30% for purchases and having heavily curated store is ok, but others it’s not, and they should be allowed to choose.
If Apple store is truly superior, they won’t have problems staying ahead of competition.
They do have a choice, use Android if they don't like it. All the major apps are available on Android. Good hardware is available. There is nothing besides time and money to stop them. I don't understand how anyone can ask for choice when it already exists.
There is no choice for good hardware, non-walled garden and no tracking. Choose two. If there is, please show me and I will be the first in line.
Android forks would be great but unfortunately phones come with plenty of firmware that gets wiped on flashing a new OS. And if the question is a possibly non-working camera than I personally will remain in the walled garden, but not happily.
No tracking is a security/sandbox feature (or at least the part that can be enforced. Like apple can’t tell facebook to stop analyzing your messages, but it can deny location readings/cross-app tracking, et,)
But as other’s said, a disabled by default way to sideload apps on the very hardware I paid for should be a given freedom of mine. They should not be able to sell a “way of life”, but only a hardware software platform layer on top of which I as a user should be able to decide for myself what I want.
(Also, I find the App Store’s recommendation engine pretty terrible unfortunately, discovery is pretty much impossible)
It doesn't matter what Epic's intentions are. Allowing creation of 3rd party stores is great and consumers and developers. I'll continue to support the organization whose incentives are aligned with mine.
I get why it's great for developers, but why for consumers? You'll almost have a situation exactly like the one that exists on Windows for gaming, where you have to install any number of stores to get the games that _only_ exist in those stores. You may think that it will give you or other consumers more choice, but it's a choice only for developers and it's at the expense of consumers.
Exactly, I'm a developer (mobile apps and games hopefully - if I can ever actually finish it) and I get why I might want multiple options but as a consumer? The REASON I choice Apple is the superior App Store. No where else can I find the average quality of software that is on the App Store, the freedom form viruses, and general quality of app.
Because I'm not limited by what the store decides they want to sell me. For example, there's no PornHub application on the Apple App Store. Similarly, Apple has been under fire recently for blocking streaming games, such as Microsoft's Xbox Cloud Streaming or Google Stadia even though it's functionally not different than Netflix's movie streaming, just with input. Or even blocking Steam's remote control Steam Link app from accessing the store: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/05/apple-reversal-allows...
Does them blocking those help me in any way? No, it is just to protect Apple's profits because they want to take a cut. You can't even pay for Netflix through the app, because Apple want their cut.
Well, as a consumer, if I could install Kindle through a third party app store, I'd be able to buy books directly in the app rather than having to go through a dance to get to a browser to buy a book.
This is because Apple would charge Amazon 15/30% to clear the transaction while Apple Books can be both more convenient and doesn't have to give up a large chunk of change to someone else.
Choice is a good thing. Games are far cheaper on windows than any other platform because choice has forced stores to compete on fee and provide sales to entice customers.
In principal, in a capitalist society, no firm is on the consumers side—all are trying to extract maximum value from the consumer and give back as little as possible in return. But, ideally, this is constrained by robust competition between firms.
To the extent Apple exercises a practical monopoly, Epic fighting against their ability to leverage that monopoly to dictate terms is fighting in the interest of consumers even if it does not come from a pro-consumer motivation, because it means that competition which benefits consumers will continue for other services dependent on the space monopolized by Apple.
Why is that in consumer's interest? This isn't Windows and IE, there are choices available to every consumer. If you compare Android's eco-system vs Apple's, it's clear that Apple is better for consumer's to me. Better quality apps, far less piracy, far less viruses, and safer better payment options. If iOS was the only game in town, I'd 100 percent agree but it's not. There is very little proof that proof that it's going to make the situation better for consumers and quite a bit of evidence that it will make it worse for users that prefer iOS.
This completely misses the point of capitalism and successful business.
The whole purpose of a business is to create (and keep) a customer. The two ways it does that are innovation and marketing. Yes, there can be cases where customers are cheated, but they won't be customers for long.
It's not about "extracting maximum value and giving as little back in return". That's an extremely simplistic argument that bares no relationship to how companies are actually managed, or how products/services are designed and built.
Yes, in a business, there must be profit, as it covers today's risks and tomorrow's costs. "Profit maximization" is nonsense, it's like saying a sports team does "scoring maximization".
Finally, what is a 'practical monopoly', besides "it's not actually a monopoly but I want a cut of it and therefore I feel it is"? This seems to be the argument Epic is making.
> The whole purpose of a business is to create (and keep) a customer
No, the whole point of a capitalist business is to produce returns for the business’s owners.
Acquiring and retaining customers is valuable insofar as there is more value to be profitably extracted from the customer; it is instrumental, not an independent goal.
> The two ways it does that are innovation and marketing.
Well, no, monopolization is itself neither innovation nor marketing (though either or both may be involved in getting to the position where it is possible), but it is definitely a way or acquire and retain customers.
> Yes, there can be cases where customers are cheated, but they won't be customers for long.
That depends what you mean by cheated. If you mean losing net utility through trade, that's true in a simplistic rational-choice analysis, but given the known deviations from rationality in real-world decisionmaking, not always in practice. If you mean “receive less net value than they would in a competitive marketplace through monopoly rents, but still net positive value”, then it's not even true from a simplistic rational-choice analysis.
> It's not about "extracting maximum value and giving as little back in return".
Yes, it absolutely is.
> That's an extremely simplistic argument that bares no relationship to how companies are actually managed, or how products/services are designed and built.
It really isn't. The entire concept of establishing a “moat” is a euphemism for (legal) monopolization so as to enable extraction of monopoly rents, and avoid the reduction of price to marginal cost economics says is the fate of freely competitive markets.
Extracting maximum value at minimum cost (maximizing return on investment) is what business is about. Everything else is about techniques to achieve that goal.
You've apparently been distracted by the techniques to acheive the goal and missed the actual goal.
> "Profit maximization" is nonsense, it's like saying a sports team does "scoring maximization".
Sports teams usually strategically aim for win maximization, which isn't the same thing as score maximization, but, no, the error that exists with describing sports team as doing score maximization instead does not exist when describing business as being about profit maximization.
> Finally, what is a 'practical monopoly'
One whose existence is evidenced empirically through behavior in 5he market and absence of competitive substitution rather than by arbitrary, non-empirically grounded description of market categories.
> No, the whole point of a capitalist business is to produce returns for the business’s owners.
Acquiring and retaining customers is valuable insofar as there is more value to be profitably extracted from the customer; it is instrumental, not an independent goal.
This is completely wrong. You can’t have returns without customers.
> Extracting maximum value at minimum cost (maximizing return on investment) is what business is about. Everything else is about techniques to achieve that goal.
You've apparently been distracted by the techniques to acheive the goal and missed the actual goal.
Creating customers is not a “technique”. It is the essential act. You can have a business that’s not profitable. You can have a business that doesn’t attract much investment. You can have a business that doesn’t maximize profit.
But you can’t have a business if you have no customers.
You’re so distracted by profit and investment that you’ve convinced yourself it’s possible to have a successful or profitable business with no customers.
> “practical monopoly” is One whose existence is evidenced empirically through behavior in 5he market and absence of competitive substitution rather than by arbitrary, non-empirically grounded description of market categories.
Epic's move (if it succeeds) would have a direct positive effect on the consumer. Across the board. It's not a gamer issue anymore. It is now bigger than them.
I keep seeing people say this but where is the evidence this is true? Because from my POV this isn't the case AT ALL. Pc gaming and Android both are "open" platforms and both are far worse for consumers that the App Store. This is another case of "common" knowledge that doesn't seem to be supported by evidence.
Nothing is either purely good or purely evil, can we go beyond school yard arguments?
The fact is as a consumer my interests (essentially privacy and safety) are better aligned with Apple’s than with Google, Facebook, or Epic. Their transactions with me is how they get their money, and they have strong incentives to keep that relationship. This is not the case with Google or Facebook, because their bottom line does not depend on me being happy with them in any way. Similarly, Epic has no incentive to be nice to me because I’m not the one funding them.
Hypothetical: if you modify the software in a Tesla, and your modification allows a hacker to remote control it, and this power is used to commit vehicular homicide, how much of the burden of responsibility do you have?
I’m not a lawyer, so while I can throw out phrases like “endangering others through negligence”, I don’t know what the threshold is or even if that’s the right concept in this case.
With regards to game consoles, I tend to agree with you — no good reason for them to be allowed to prevent side-loading.
With regards to phones however, I explicitly want the devices heavily locked down by law, to the extent that other people should not be allowed to put random software on them. This is because they are powerful sensor packages that almost everyone carries almost all the time, so the mere possibility of malware turning them into blackmail spy boxes is a problem for all of society — everyone, given what I’ve heard about “three felonies per day” [0] — and not just the person who installs the dodgy app.
I say this despite not liking that the action of American cultural hegemony in the App Store means those stores have a bigger problem with nipples than with violence.
And likewise, I have a problem with the law that requires me (a British citizen working in Germany) to keep the U.S. government informed about my app’s use of encryption in case I “export” something they can’t break, which is insane in my opinion.
Security is important and app stores help, but trust can be chained and delegated, and it is possible to have alternative App Stores which Apple/Google audit for security.
> Hypothetical: if you modify the software in a Tesla, and your modification allows a hacker to remote control it, and this power is used to commit vehicular homicide, how much of the burden of responsibility do you have?
If you were negligent, I'd say you were responsible, just like if you hit someone because you took off the breaks and couldn't stop.
Although... response question: Let's say in ten years, Tesla stops providing security updates for their old cars. If you continue driving the car anyway, and it gets hacked and kills someone, who is responsible? Which is to say, I'm not super into this whole internet-connected-car thing. ;)
> With regards to phones however, I explicitly want the devices heavily locked down by law, to the extent that other people should not be allowed to put random software on them. This is because they are powerful sensor packages that almost everyone carries almost all the time.
What if I decide to carry around a Raspberry Pi, or wear a wire? I understand the concern, but I don't think controlling what everyone else uses is a reasonable solution in a free society.
> Which is to say, I'm not super into this whole internet-connected-car thing. ;)
Likewise, similar reasons.
> What if I decide to carry around a Raspberry Pi, or wear a wire?
Smartphone-software-based attacks target a wide net of unknowing victims, wearing a wire (or knowingly running a sousveilence app, which I’m all in favour of) targets just those you choose to target.
For the same reason, I regard state-mandated encryption backdoors as a much bigger privacy risk than the state giving the police authority to target specific suspects with wiretaps or even authority to replace all the target’s lightbulbs with ones that have built-in webcams — dragnet or spearfishing.
> Hypothetical: if you modify the software in a Tesla, and your modification allows a hacker to remote control it, and this power is used to commit vehicular homicide, how much of the burden of responsibility do you have?
Hypothetically: a friend borrows your car, but you didn't fix the break fluid leak, and he runs over someone.
Who's at fault?
> With regards to phones however, I explicitly want the devices heavily locked down by law, to the extent that other people should not be allowed to put random software on them
that's the definition of a phone.
IMO Apple is to blame for creating the "smart" phones that can run arbitrary software.
They have created the problem that they are allegedly fixing by imposing walled garden on their users.
It is like handing guns to kids and then locking them up in their rooms so they are safe.
> Hypothetical: if you modify the software in a Tesla, and your modification allows a hacker to remote control it, and this power is used to commit vehicular homicide, how much of the burden of responsibility do you have?
If you modified your keyless-start car to not need a nearby key, and left it unlocked in parking lot and someone got into it, started it, and ran over several pedestrians would you be at fault?
Interesting, I had to think about this for a moment! It's not entirely intuitive, but I think the answer is "because there's no one else to make liable."
What if the unlocked car was in your driveway, and the person who got in was your seven-year-old daughter? Now who's responsible, and why? The child is a minor, so legally she can't be at fault, but the parents should have taken appropriate precautions, like locking the door.
Likewise, if a bunch of people are killed by a remote driver in North Korea, you can't arrest the hacker. And if there's no one to arrest, our society has no way to discourage the crime. So responsibility moves up the chain.
There's a long history of people loading custom firmware ("tunes") on vehicle ECUs to modify how the engine runs. Tesla's ECU shouldn't be any different.
Pragmatically, I don't care, because no one who owns a Tesla is using it as their sole access to a computer (similarly with playstation). Many people now only use an iPad or iPhone these days.
In an ideal world I would force them (I probably wouldn't for a Tesla because diy software on a car...) to have some basic ability to load programs.
Ah, the software Robin Hood, here to help the little guy understand how to best use their own computer... This is such a HN comment it hurts. Many people use iPhone and iPads as their primary devices because everything is easy and it all works. side loading apps is just not a concern that people outside of HN even have.
This lawsuit is about Epic trying to not pay the same fees as everyone else not some giant ethical debate over the rights that people should have on their devices. Epic wants rights for themselves, they don't want them for their customers.
This is exactly the point I've been making to my friends who think like the commenter you replied to. "Forcing people to have some ability to load programs" is exactly why so many people use Apple products; because it's extremely intuitive for non-technology inclined people to use.
Why don't they just do the same with Apple, then? Force them to have some basic ability to load programs. You can even make it easy for users and put an icon on the home screen. To make it obvious that you can load apps and programs for it, they would just need to label it as "App Store" or something like that. Problem solved!
What does that have to do with anything? You never said anything about paying money. I don't have to pay anything to run Mint or Mario Run on my phone so what's your point?
You have to pay Apple a minimum of $100 a year to install apps on an iPhone, unless you're okay with the apps being automatically disabled every seven days and never need to install more than three custom apps at a time.
You didn't realize this when you bought Mario Run, because Nintendo paid Apple for you.
And if Nintendo tries to sell you something to recuperate that cost, they have to give Apple 30%.
Because you can't distribute apps, or even install them on your own phone, without going through the app store. (At least sans the ridiculous restrictions I described above.)
FWIW I don’t consider those particular requirements to be ridiculous.
I do consider to be ridiculous the requirement for me, a British national living in Germany, to keep the US Federal government informed about my use of encryption in all the apps I distribute on the App Store. That’s clearly nonsensical.
If the iPhone was an open platform, you could develop a mod that makes your Fortnite character look like whatever you want, for free. (It wouldn't show up that way for other people by default, but that's someone else's phone, not yours.)
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I'd expect that iOS being an open platform is neither necessary nor sufficient for that. As I understand it, Epic could allow users to load free custom skins today, even though it operates on a closed platform. And conversely, even if iOS were an open platform, Fortnite could remain closed-source, and I'd expect Epic could take measures (hash-validating assets on launch?) to prevent side-loading of cosmetic items.
On a traditional PC, or on a Mac with System Integrity Protection disabled, there isn't a lot Epic could do to prevent installing mods. The user can inject whatever code they like into the Fortnite process. They can rewrite data in memory, and even control the kernel if it comes to that.
Epic could try to make life difficult for modders, but a lot of PC games have tried that over the years, and it generally doesn't work when players are dedicated.
The content creator selects which currencies they are willing to sell their product for. This shouldn't be difficult to understand. Do I have the right to demand that my local furniture store accept Bitcoin?
Should it be different for similar games that aren’t free (gratis) then? Should I be required by law to be able to load third-party items in Call of Duty?
There needs to be different rules for products that are essential to modern life, like smartphones.
We have more rules and regulations for things like food services, airlines, banking and farming than we do for a store like GameStop or a jewelry products.
"everyone who bought an iPhone knew that's what they were getting and did it anyway" is an incredibly strong assertion you're not making an effort to support here. Are you seriously claiming that every owner of an iPhone understood the nuances of Apple's app store policies before they bought the phone?
Everyone in the world? No, clearly, but I doubt very many of them care about being able to use other stores on their phone anyway. The people here making the argument for forcing Apple's hand? Yes.
Companies change over time, it’s unrealistic to have the same service for ever (typically the product might be discontinued and not supported after some time, sometimes also the attitude when it comes to service changes). At the same time the platform was bought not rented and producing it and getting rid of it has its own cost.
I would argue it’s fair to demand open access to it.
I have an old iPad (3rd gen), since it can’t access iCloud properly or sync bookmarks with safari (a function that it originally had) or install Firefox, it’s essentially useless and I’m very unhappy with that, a whole car would be much worse though. I’ve learned to think about that before buying, but many don’t and often there’s no choice.
TBH I wouldn't be at all surprised if Microsoft is gearing up for this fight with Sony, given that every Xbox Series does in fact allow sideloading once placed into the included-and-supported developer mode.
Sure you could! I used XNA Game Studio to produce games and apps that would run on my 360. They couldn't take full advantage of the hardware. But if you paid a fee, you could sell your game on XBL much like the App Store or Steam.
It was called XBox Live Indie Games, you could sideload anything you wanted once you paid the initial fee, and then you could put it on the store and accept purchases if it got through a peer review system.
As someone who's released multiple retail games on the PS4 store:
Sony should allow sideloading. Microsoft does for the XBox (and has since the 360 era), and at one point Sony allowed it in the 'other OS' environment for the PS3 until they decided to take out that feature after using it to advertise their console.
I think burden to the platform is relevant. Part of the security model on the console platforms is that no user code can be run. To support side loading, many assumptions would change overnight. This is a significant burden to Sony and the game devs.
Apple and iOS, on the other hand, support side loaded code. It's just a matter of who pays for what.
General purpose computing. A game console or Tesla computer is not made for general programs, they have specific purposes.
It's also a case of "you know it when you see it", iPhone wasn't a big platform when it launched but now it's the primary platform for many peoples computer needs, it should not be exclusively run by a private company.
> it should not be exclusively run by a private company.
Why? If you don't like the iPhone there are other general purpose computers that you can use, ranging from a laptop to a Pixel smart phone...
> General purpose computing.
If you want to call it a general purpose computer, then you also have to include tablets, laptops, desktop computers, and Android phones. All of a sudden there is quite a bit of choice for customers here. To name a few:
Google
Microsoft
Samsung
LG
Dell
HP
Huawei
Amazon
...
The fact that Apple may very well make the best one, doesn't mean there isn't competition or that it isn't a competitive market.
It's dishonest to pretend that smart phones are not a very large and important portion of the digital market today and very hard to be without. They are used for payment, identification, messaging etc that a laptop or desktop can not replace. Having the choice between apple or google is not much of a choice. And a company that wan't to reach the public must have a smart phone app and therefore must have a ios app.
Your list of manufacturers does not take the platforms into consideration. None of those are allowed to use apples platform unless they follow their strict rules.
There isnt't a competitive market unless ther's free movement and perfect information and the two smart phone platforms have large lock-in effects today so it hardly qualifies. The portion of the market that is android or windows are competitive markets, it's easy to switch from a samsung phone to a lg phone.
I'm not sure what I'm being dishonest about? If you're to say that the iPhone is a general purpose computing device then you have to also compare it to other general purpose computing devices and take into consideration the general purpose computing market. Maybe it's simply the best one with the best features? I mean, I know that if I had to choose to only have one (a laptop or iPhone) I'd choose the laptop because it has features that the iPhone doesn't.
But they also have overlapping features, complementary features, and sometimes mutually exclusive features. You mention payments - I can pay for things using my laptop, or if I have a credit or debit card (ya know, the thing you're using for payments) I can just use that at the store normally. Messaging - yep you can send messages from your laptop. I could go on. The killer feature of the iPhone is that it's in your pocket, but it's also a limiting factor. You can live without one, easily, however. Doom scrolling Facebook (sorry, keeping in touch with friends and family - totally not addiction) is not important and living without that is very easy.
> Your list of manufacturers does not take the platforms into consideration. None of those are allowed to use apples platform unless they follow their strict rules.
I can't use any of those manufacturer's platforms without following their rules. I'm not sure what you're trying to explain.
> There isnt't a competitive market unless ther's free movement and perfect information and the two smart phone platforms have large lock-in effects today so it hardly qualifies.
You can debate whether it's a competitive market, but I'm not sure what you're explaining here is part of the considerations, or at least these may map to larger overall considerations. But you have to be careful to be specific about what you are talking about. Are we talking about the iOS App Store, or the general purpose computer market? It matters.
> The portion of the market that is android or windows are competitive markets, it's easy to switch from a samsung phone to a lg phone.
You can easily switch from iPhone to Android as well. One of my friends does it at least once a year because he wants to be "all-in" on either Google or Apple but finds flaws in each.
Explain the difference in functional ability between the iPad vs the Switch? Xbox series x? PS5? Web Browser, email, streaming media? All possible on any of the devices. The only difference is that Apple is better at building devices that people like. Apple built the platform, built the hardware, designed the OS, and built the sdk/API's but now they aren't allowed to control their own platform? How does that make any sense?
If there's a computer in it, there is no clear technical difference. The difference is how people use it. You don't use a switch as your only computer device, banks and stores don't need to create apps for all those platforms to be competitive.
A game console and most peoples' primary computer is definitely an apple and oranges comparison. I don't know where the line is exactly but it's pretty clear where each of your examples lie.
Apple's iPhone is now systemically important to commerce, business and consumers unlike Playstation and Tesla. Given their size and scale they should be subject to higher standards.
The thing is if I wanted or cared about that I would get one of those phones. The consumer gets to decide which phone they use and one of the reasons I like the iPhone is actually the difficulty in adding 3rd party crapware. If I needed a phone that I can install stuff on from unverified markets I would get an android and do it completely separately from my iPhone. I like that Apple is an appliance that is what it’s sold to be. Not everything needs to be the same
Would you care if they took the same approach for your laptop?
I find it hard to ignore that the future of Apple is iOS and MacOS is eventually going to be deprecated. Imagine if you were an Apple exec living and breathing Apple for the past 10 years, surely the OS that you don't get a cut of all app sales on and makes up a fraction of the more profitable OS will feel like the odd one out and the wrong way to do things.
Us, being HN posters obviously find such a statement absurd but imagine you're that Apple exec looking at the charts of how many users are fine with the iOS model, how much more money you make from the iOS model. How could you look at that day in and day out and justify the existence of a legacy OS with legacy ideas like being able to install outside a store like MacOS. Improved privacy/security for users within the store model is the icing on the cake to justify it.
> Would you care if they took the same approach for your laptop?
I don't ask for my laptop to be an appliance. The laptop is one type of product that can run arbitrary code if I want it to. The iPhone is not, and that's the type of product I am specifically looking for.
> Us, being HN posters obviously find such a statement absurd
HN is probably just as representative on the authoritative/libertarian scale as society as a whole - this is just a forum for anyone remotely associated with technology after all. Just because you're on a forum doesn't mean everyone will view it from the same viewpoint as you, even if it does dictate how much people downvote/upvote your posts.
That’s the thing, there is no such phone. And frankly, there will not be more mobile platforms because even the current two is already much for companies to develop for. Free market doesn’t work that way. Linux phones might rise, but only if they gain a good android compat layer.
You can buy a PinePhone now (well, when they are back in stock). It's a decent phone with a completely open Linux stack. The UI might be a bit sluggish, but it is a fully functioning smartphone.
If you want to see more apps targeting a third platform, then you should buy one of these phones.
But there is a network effect in play here, that pretty much disallows a new platform to emerge without compatibility. If I were to create the very best hardware with top notch OS on top, that is superior in every way to every android and ios phone out there, noone would buy it because phones are integral part of our lives with many areas of it requiring applications that are only available on these two platforms. Windows phone pretty much lost due to it — it was not worth the effort of companies to create a third port (even with the big funding Microsoft tried), and without a critical mass, it died off.
The progress it’s made is remarkable, but unfortunately it is not ready for daily use.
I’m not sure what you want it for, if s hobby device to develop/check out the state of it, go for it. For more frequent use, maybe wait for the pinephone 2, as I think the hardware is a big bottleneck.. I think it has trouble scheduling processes due to the not too strong GPU and few RAM. The GPU unit is also not particularly strong, and I’m not as optimistic thar everything can be solved in software.
But if you can allow supporting the project do buy one! (Though I believe they work basically without a profit margin)
Usually whenever I hear someone in business complaining about the free market economy being harsh on startups in a niche it’s because they absolutely suck at marketing and they blame the system for not praising them for existing
You honestly believe someone can just pop up, get some deal with a hardware manufacturer/create their own hardware, create their own OS, and stay afloat as long as people start developing for it? Aaand even after a minimum feature set is achieved it will still be nowhere usable as a mobile phone, because bank N will not make an app for it, you can use facebook on it in the web browser, etc.
Goddamn Microsoft failed at it. And as I said there is a reason behind it, the more platform there is, the more every company on Earth has to pay for development of their apps. And that magic number seems to be stuck at 2.
Unless there is a newcomer with crazy good compatibility, nothing will change.
> And frankly, there will not be more mobile platforms because even the current two is already much for companies to develop for. Free market doesn’t work that way.
How do you imagine free market works? No companies magically capture the midshare of most users? No companies have anough money/resources to corner the market?
Literally nothing prevents any of the current players in the "non-free market" to develop their own phone. Heck, Microsoft even tried to do it.
How do you imagine the real world works? Even in the very text written by Adam Smith he says that free market only works in a regulated environment. Because once a few gets big enough, they can control the whole market.
Why do you think Microsoft failed even with the tremendous amount of money they poured into and even with having an arguibly great UX?
Anyone can launch a new phone with its own hardware and OS and a marketplace. It just takes a lot of money that most people don’t have. I think what you are really complaining about is not enough people have the money to launch a new phone
> thus it is incorrect to say that the free market will solve the issue.
Are you arguing with yourself now?
This is your text (emphasis mine): "And frankly, there will not be more mobile platforms because even the current two is already much for companies to develop for. Free market doesn’t work that way."
I’m just not sure why they should be forced to open a platform they made and own so other people who don’t own it can get what they want. If I sell property I don’t have to give mineral rights and the purchaser accepts that up front. Why should phones be any different. Should we force all software companies to give us the source code of their proprietary software that we buy? They sell us compiled versions of it which are not hack friendly. If we can get upset at Apple for controlling it’s platform why not lash out at all the software markets?
The problem is it's not completely closed. It's open, but they control the only gate into the system. That's a monopolistic practice, very akin to owning all the railroads. Actually it's probably worse than that, because the railroads were only about the transport of goods and people. Most people do more on their phones than anything else. People literally have sex on their phones now, and control their important peripherals (sometimes medical devices) with them.
I'd be a lot more amenable to allowing Apple to make as much money as they want on controlling the only gate into my phone if their only incentives were monetary, but the moment they started making political decisions (banning all vaporizer apps, removing the Hong Kong flag emoji, banning Parler, etc) I was no longer on their side. You can agree or disagree with their decisions on each individual case, but as a liberal I'm not comfortable with a private organization having that much power over public policy. On some level I want to give Apple a way out. My best hope for the company is that they'd prefer not to be making political decisions, but have to bow to external political pressure. I'd like us to help them out and take the decision out of their hands.
As to being able to leave Apple. The amount of work it would take for me, a professional Software Engineer, to decouple all of my contacts, data, personal photos, text history, etc from their ecosystem effectively locks me in. They created a marketplace, and when you create a market in a free market society we'll take you up on it and enforce anti-trust laws. The idea that they don't have monopolistic power is demonstrably false. In fact, I think Apple's monopoly is the most clear cut in the tech community.
I understand it sucks being so reliant on a 3rd party and entrenched in their system but I’m sure you understand that they can legally “sunset” the App Store as a project like Google loves doing and not allow any new software on the device at all. We can’t enter into a contract with a company and expect to get something other than what was in the agreement. Just because a large part of the population starts relying on a privately provided resource does not make it a public utility. Relying on 3rd parties always involves a risk that they will eventually decide to change whatever you are relying on. We all hopefully know and understand that before deciding to make it a mission critical part of a pipeline
I don't disagree with you on some level, but I also think that society should have the right to say, "Okay, you've become a public utility now. Your market power is becoming a black-hole. Consider your market monopoly revoked". We have the right to do and say that as a society. We should do it sparingly and very carefully, but there's no reason we can't do it.
Unfortunately, unless they told you that you would be receiving something they did not give you before you made the purchase, you are entirely responsible for the fact you have a piece of restricted hardware. Why buy something you know you aren’t going to like?
I don't accept that - it's leaning into having too much faith in the free market that alternative options must emerge to suit the actual consumer desire. The issue is that we're dealing with an oligopoly where consumers have very little freedom of choice and refusing to use the iStore leaves you with precisely one option.
There is a common argument that having such a locked down store is what allowed the device to thrive but I don't believe that is usually made in good faith due to the easy counter example of Android being able to unseat the initial monopoly without using the same tactic and the fact that very little marketing or praise for the device has been specifically focused on the iStore being so locked down.
Consumer choice only really counts when there is an open field with healthy competition.
The open your platform line looks so good but we just went through a number of stories about how people are being suckered into high cost apps only after initial download and such.
so if platforms are going to be forced open, we should go after game consoles too, then there needs to be some means to protect consumers from predatory apps because we are just opening the door to that and more.
finally, it also means that apps you don't like will now be easily available so best be good with that and not asking government to judge every app.
finally this means apps can do what they will unless we are willing to let platforms still restrict how they use your data.. which to be honest blocking 3rd party apps is at times beneficial
as in, you can have it all but everyone gets to as well.
So what will you give up for the freedom? Do you want the platform owner to still police for privacy issues? I don't see how it can be done if they cannot control access.
Frankly let all apps stores be forced open and it will be fun to watch how fast many demand them locked up or heavily regulated or worse
Hypocrisy doesn't really exist at the corporate or political level today. Imagine you're playing chess with a friend. Would you call it "hypocritical" if they took you queen but didn't want to let you take theirs? Is it "lying" if you try to appear to be making an attack when really it's a feint? No, it's simply playing the game according to its rules against an enemy adversary.
Of course, that behavior makes sense in chess because the entire point of a game is to be an artificial world where only the letter of the rules are what matters and the only tangible outcome is winning or losing.
In the real world of business and politics, things like human decency and fairness should come into play. But increasingly, at least in American politics and corporations, the game is played only according to the letter of the law. Anything they can get away with, they will.
Facebook isn't the good guy. Apple isn't the good guy. Epic isn't the good guy.
Every now and then their interests align with those of the users, but ultimately they all serve their own interests and will happily stand opposed to the users whenever it suits them best.
Using term hypocritical for corporate law seems error just like it does for using it for animals. Apple is engaging in legal battles and hypocritical is not a legal consideration. Apple is not a an entity you can judge using moral psychology.
Apple uses "corporate messaging" toward consumers that has ethical content. It may be mistaken as morality, but it's just how a company's management talks to people. It is a marketing message strategy.
Everyone I know who uses an iPhone or iPad is generally using medium to high quality apps, and not suffering from crapware, slowdowns or weird issues.
Everyone I know who uses an Android phone is always complains about weird app behavior, ranging from crummy software quality to flashlight apps that request access to your contact list. And my guess is these people use Googles Play Store.
Somehow, Apple is doing something that is beneficial to the average Joe buyer of smartphones.
I really don’t get it. On what basis should a regulator step in? If you don’t like to be part of a closed system, feel free to use Android. Many people actually like the way things are, including me. And, I do even have 2 apps in the App Store and don’t mind paying for what I get a good value for.
In the end, apple is a private company serving its customers. They can’t please everyone. And that’s what I like about them.
I feel it's this very nature that made it impossible for Web apps to become mainstream on mobile. Steve jobs made so many bullshit arguments against Flash because he knew if flash was allowed on mobile nobody would purchase games from app store.
Now the same shit is happening for web apis / pwa. This is really sad and really makes me hate Apple as a company.
We are talking about games though. And it is the case for games on Nintendo. For Playstation. Xbox. I don't see a category difference here. A producer should decide what kind of product they want to make and the market will decide if it is bought.
Plus: Apple mandated better privacy for users. How could they do that with sideloading app stores? They couldn't.
> No computer platform should be allowed to prevent sideloading or other stores from competing.
The iPhone is not a computer platform, it's an integrated experience. Raspberry Pi or the PC you assemble is a platform (which you can still choose to do, if you want).
That’s one way of looking at it, but I think the reason the issue keeps coming up on HN is that it feels like a serious regression that we’ve ended up in a world where one of the most ubiquitous platforms is a walled garden. Even in the days of Windows dominance, that wasn’t a problem.
The transition happened so gradually that we ended up here without a lot of discussion, which is why the discussion is happening now.
Is it a regression, though? In the days of Windows, malware was rampant. There was no sense of sandboxing so installs could get deeply embedded and hard to purge. There was certainly the uncertainty of the validity of software when downloaded.
This is not to suggest we should remove this capability from macOS/Windows but I wouldn’t call it a regression.
That’s a good point, but I feel like modern Mac desktop computing hits the right balance: users can opt to install only from the App store with a high degree of confidence, but power-users can use Homebrew without restriction.
But customers who like to have more freedom can still buy Android phones instead. Nobody is forcing them to buy Apple devices. I think it's a positive thing that we have diverse options for different needs.
No, Apple has been pestered to make the iPhone an open platform from day one. They’ve consistently said no.
I bet you’re right about the motivation for this silly outrage: People claim the iPhone is a PC because they wish it to be, because the cognitive dissonance was so great when “Open didn’t always win”
Sure, from and individual perspective. What if I want to build software for people who use the iPhone and I want to add some web3 functionality and Apple says no? Apple basically does stifle innovation on their device by acting as a regulatory agency for their users. Even MSFT didn't do that. Basically every iPhone user is on a closed system that one company controls from end-to-end. That's a type of market power that we haven't seen since maybe the railroads were controlled by 3 people.
That’s a pretty strange thing to say when basically more computing is done on mobile phones now than on computers.
Using it as a general computer should be a freedom without question.
I would LOVE to see Steam on mobile so I could play/sync my game library. The also take a hefty cut, but at least they've taken some of that cash to increase Linux compatibility.
Apple recently introduced the App Store Small Business Program, slashing their app revenue taken by 50% to accommodate the 'small players' (<1 million annual revenue).
The terms of that program are particularly nasty, though. You can't really rely on it unless your revenue is going to be way below a million, because it locks in for the following year. If you have a spike in revenue (hooray, good year!) your cut is suddenly 30% in the next financial year even if your revenue drops way below a million.
They didn't have to do it this way, which really makes me wonder what their intent was. They could have gone with a simple system like 'we look at how much you made this year, and everything over 1 million is taxed at 30%', but instead we got a weird complex system.
There are multiple argument in this case and it seems everyone are mixing things up. Like Multiple App Store, and 30% cut are different issues. There are people who simply want to access to iPhone without going through Apple. Which is currently the Jury, Judge and executioner. Cutting the 30% you would still have to go through Apple.
Even worse Apple doesn't seem to apply the same rules to themselves. Will News, App Store have the same semi-optin warning screen before use? They both have app install advertising somewhat similar to FB.
You are treating corporate entities as if they are people with emotions.
This is a mistake.
They are not people. They are legal entities, created to enable their owners and beneficiaries to have special rights regular citizens do not have, such as killing people and never going to prison (Boeing).
>No computer platform should be allowed to prevent sideloading or other stores from competing.
How does this differ from "any programmable electronics should allow sideloading"? I don't see that as a very workable solution, legally, practically, or even in a pro-consumer sense.
It would certainly drive the cost of most electronics up incredibly as all devices would need to produce APIs and upgradeability.
Pretty much all CPUs are general-purpose. The vast majority don't run anything third party. Phones having general purpose computers isn't any kind of argument for who has what access.
And if the alternative for a vendor is being forced to lose enough revenue by letting any third party do whatever they want, then Apple will make an app for your bank, by contracting the bank to pay for the development.
The reason the third party platform is currently huge is because Apple created a platform for devs to publish on. If the rules were the ones prescribed above Apple would have likely taken a different route. Changing the rules because people are unhappy is simply bad precedent.
What is the vast majority here? Because servers, desktop pcs, laptops, mobile phones and tablets I think constitutes quite a big share of CPUs.
Will apple make app for every sort of app currently available in the App Store? That’s an unrealistic claim.
Changing the rules because people are unhappy is a bad precedent?? We should only change it when they are happy or what? It’s not about unhappiness, it is about disallowing them for controlling something that is an emergent property of the system they created, but is bigger then themselves. It directly effects most people on Earth, so it should not be decided by a private corporation, but by democratically elected governments.
It is no longer only Apple’s freedom to do however they want
It's hilarious to believe Apple would sacrifice their entire platform to avoid having to compete. This is nonsense. Apple will, like any profitable business, try to glean as much profit as possible and fight against any change that would lower that profit (including doom and gloom scare tactics about what it would mean), until the law goes into effect...
...And then they'll comply with it, because it's still plenty profitable to do so.
> It's more disappointing it takes 10 years for regulators to step-in
To be fair, until it was limited to a small section of the population, it wasn't a big deal. So rich people want to live in walled gardens, so what? But when you start talking about 20% or 30% of the whole population, then it's a significant problem. It took a bit for Apple to reach that level but they are definitely there now, and since they don't seem to be willing to change, they have to be forced to accept that it has to happen.
Big corporations should be treated more like infrastructure and free markets than private companies. The more impact they have on society the bigger the opportunity to externalize costs and privatize profits.
They can strangle creativity and keep us prisoners in their walled gardens for decades, subjecting us to high prices and tarrifs, lack of choice, missed technological opportunities, biased filtering and ranking, whimsical deplatforming of users and blocking of apps, stifling the development of competing and innovative businesses, or buying them outright to keep the risk away.
> Apple competing with third party app stores on iOS is going to be amazing.
No - it’s not going to add anything at all for users except being forced to deal with a bunch of shady app stores, some of which will be deeply hostile to privacy.
Developers will also be forced to support multiple stores and sets of rules. Dealing with this will eliminate any possible cost advantage.
Everyone loses except for the new group of middlemen who get to take a cut.
> This isn't the case on Windows. This isn't the case on Android.
Or Linux for that matter.
It sounds like you are saying there is plenty of choice for people who don’t want a walled garden.
> It's more disappointing it takes 10 years for regulators to step-in and say "that's bad, no more, open up your platform".
It sounds like you are saying this should never have been allowed, despite there being no legal reason against it.
> No - it’s not going to add anything at all for users except being forced to deal with a bunch of shady app stores, some of which will be deeply hostile to privacy.
It means lower prices for those who are smart enough to use the cheaper store and those who cannot will stay on the official store that takes its 30% cut.
In fact even the bare existence of other stores would mean that the cut probably goes down, since Apple probably will prefer to stop the outflow of users.
If someone is inept to use other store than the official apple store, then I guess they have to pay the higher price. Your post sounds comical on a forum called "hacker news". You sound as if using a second app store is some secret knowledge...
You also seem to ignore the fact that even computer inept people try to reduce the amount of money they pay for stuff and money is a big incentive (app costs 1 dollar less on other store is a great motivator to learn how to use it).
> It means lower prices for those who are smart enough to use the cheaper store
This is guaranteed false.
Unless the ‘cheaper store’ has almost all of the customers, you will need to support most of the stores, otherwise you’ll simply lose access to customers.
Just to break even, developers will be forced to support multiple stores.
If consumers want a cheaper option, there is nothing stopping them from buying a cheap android phone today.
> the games that voluntarily choose to be on other apps stores.
It wouldn’t be voluntary. They would be forced to support the other stores or lose revenue.
Claiming it’s just a matter of choice for developers is simply not correct.
The extra options would also come at a cost for consumers who would need to deal with multiple stores, many of them with undesirable features such as weaker privacy
protections.
A bit OT, but I still fail to grasp why Apple is allowed to restrict all browsers on iOS to the Safari rendering engine. Microsoft had to pay big because they didn't asked their users properly for alternative browsers, yet Apple doesn't even give other browsers a fair chance to compete on iOS.
Consumers suffer because Apple controls about 50% of the mobile market and if Apple decides a certain feature will not be available in Safari (e.g. Push API), no other browser vendor can even offer a solution.
Sounds to me like totally abusing their market position to uphold their anti-competitive behavior.
50% in the US market (27% globally) is very far from the 98% global marketshare that Windows had in 2000. MacOS had the other 2% (thanks to being propped up by MS 2 years earlier). That was the entire competitive landscape. Linux existed, but if you used it back then (I did), it was difficult to get a desktop going, and virtually no one used it on the desktop.
And while the DOJ might only care about the US market... the fact that Microsoft's domination extended worldwide means not only were there no US competitors, but there weren't foreign competitors to challenge them either.
The fact that Android--with 50% US and 72% global marketshare--is so competitive with Apple makes it clear these two situations are not equivalent. Apple is more abusive/controlling in some ways, but they dont have the market power that Microsoft had.
No matter how many times it gets repeated it doesn't make it true: Market share is irrelevant. You can abuse your market position at both 15 and 50% market share. A few tiny companies working together to fix prices is still illegal and punished no matter if they together are only a tiny fraction of the market. Apple is abusing it's position, no doubt about it. If you doubt install another app store or avoid the 30% tax.
Market share is relevant if they're going to be prosecuted for the same thing Microsoft was prosecuted for: abusing their monopoly power.
Anchor v Rule:
although market share does not alone determine monopoly power, market share is perhaps the most important factor to consider in determining the presence or absence of monopoly power
Weiss v York Hospital:
A primary criterion used to assess the existence of monopoly power is the defendant's market share.
Maybe Apple can be prosecuted under some other legal theory, but that's a separate question.. and if we have to get into that, that's just more evidence of my point that Apple and Microsoft are different situations and aren't comparable.
You can't really compare the US to the EU though and this isn't going to the US supreme court.
You don't need to be successful in stifling competition to be anticompetitive so market share enough to be a "real" monopoly is likely irrelevant. Trying to abuse your position is enough as Google felt with Google shopping and Android. "Capable of having, or likely to have, anticompetitive effects". In Android, "it is sufficient that the conduct tends to restrict competition or is capable of having that effect".
In my opinion Apple is going to be hit hard in the EU. Fans of Apple always roll out the old "but the app store is much more profitable" which is a truth that will IMO come back to bite Apple when refusing others fair access and thereby "restrict competition".
>that's just more evidence of my point that Apple and Microsoft are different situations and aren't comparable.
I agree they are very different and not comparable.
The web is a platform. But Apple controls the browser like it controls the web store so it can selectively exclude functionality that pushes people to use its monopoly app store.
Absolutely. There should be an EU regulation forcing companies to 1) allow sideloading apps, without any certificate restrictions for things like feature approval (such as having to ask Apple nicely to be able to create a VPN) and 2) allow the user to run any code they want to on their device, including any browser engine. With the EU becoming basically an American software colony since COVID (Zoom, O365) it is about time for a "GDPR of software freedom".
I can hardly wait to use Amazon App Store to install Amazon and then open up the Epic Game Store to install random game and then open up EA Game Store to install random game and then open up Facebook App Store to install Facebook and then open up the Apple App Store to install the Blizzard App Store to install Hearthstone and then go back to the Apple App Store and update the Blizzard App Store so I can get the latest Hearthstone updates.
Going to be super fun!
My gaming computer is already filled with like 8 different app stores each completely different then the other and a variety of privacy/security issues on each. All of them need their App Store running in order to play their games, so half the time my computer has 4-5 App Stores running in the background so I can play a single game. And they are all electron/qt webkit apps cause nobody builds apps anymore so each one consumes about 500mb of ram.
And each App Store also has their own chat system along with the others like discord.
I don't agree that Apple should have a complete monopoly, but the alternative is not better. And while Android does have the main Google Play Store, and there isn't to many "alternative" App Stores at the moment. Just give it time, the same thing that is happening to TV Streaming/Game App Stores will happen on Android.
You install those yourself you know. I'd rather have a choice than not.
I feel your pain in the sense that that I think user UX will take a hit, but I think that's less important than breaking the monopoly of the current app store.
For example, I can't find apps with pornography or other types of things the high overlords at apple or Google have deemed inappropriate for me to have. That's bad. Apparently apps like Matrix fall under that category. It'd be nice if I can choose what I want to see.
The problem is the choice is taken away from you though. Just like he said with the game market. If you want to play Game A, you go and download/install Game A's publishing app store. If you want to then play Game B, rinse and repeat. You will be forced to use so many different app stores and won't have a choice to NOT use their app store "IF" it progresses like it has on the desktop. No proof it will/won't either.
As opposed to Developers not having the choice to distribute their own app stores?
There is no solution to this problem that benefits everyone perfectly. There are only solutions which are better than the solution we have today.
Actually, there is one near-perfect solution; Apple reduces their cut to ~5% and stops enforcing their insane rules. But that's not happening.
You, and many others in this thread, are blaming Epic, Steam, Blizzard, etc. That's fundamentally flawed thinking. All of this is Apple's fault. 100%. If the government forces Apple to destroy the UX of iOS, its because of actions Apple took which forced their hand. There are actions Apple could take which would abate this. They aren't taking them. You should not be mad at developers; you should be mad at Apple.
You can’t have both a secure platform and a platform where anyone can arbitrarily run code without a gatekeeper.
Apple is that gatekeeper because I, the user, want them to be. Apple has shown me, as a user, that the trade off they make between giving developers open access and protecting users from malware to be a sane one.
Does it make it harder to monetize an app? Totally, but for many iPhone users, that’s a feature, not a bug. The developers are not apple’s customer, so they’re not building a product around their needs — which we honestly need more of in tech. If I felt more strongly about Apple being a gatekeeper on its own platform, I might use Android in some flavor. But I just want a phone that works and has the apps I want to use without a bunch of garbage cluttering it up.
As a developer I just don’t like the precedent that if I’m too successful at creating a great product that I therefore lose control over the very qualities of my product that made it successful.
This applies to everything though. If I drill of oil and am 'too successful' and abuse my position the Gov cracks down on me. Same if a telco is 'too successful'
And you are forgetting that 'too successful' in these cases is:
literally has billions in profit
uses market position in an anti competitive way
In return for the benefits of living in a modern society, you pay many prices; one of them is a cap on how much influence you are permitted to hold over others.
Remember when you had to rent a telephone from Ma Bell in order to use the phone service that you paid for? Yeah neither do I because the government broke that shit up like they were supposed to.
I bought this iPhone and I can't even run my own programs on it without asking for Apple's permission. This needs to be outlawed yesterday.
All of WHAT is Apple’s fault? Providing a service that consumers want to use and preventing other companies from ruining it?
Telling consumers they should be mad at Apple is absurd. I am not mad at Apple, I am mad at Epic for wasting everyone’s time with this case that they know they will lose, purely to shape public opinion. The judge so far seems to be projecting this is what will happen. I also don’t like relying on regulators to force changes in a market they know little about. Interfering with a successful model that consumers LIKE and WANT into something else does not benefit consumers.
Benefiting other developers is completely irrelevant to the point of antitrust. That’s just corporate welfare.
Apple would be best to lower their rate a bit, clarify certain inconsistent rules, and not abuse the review process, but otherwise I do not want multiple App stores and prefer Apple to regulate their store over the government. I guarantee you there are far more consumers that share this opinion than not. We really could care less what developers are whining about Apple’s policies or retail cut. If you can’t build for iOS at a profit, find something else to do.
The government isn’t going to force a change of the iOS UX, that’s a pipe dream localized to Hacker News and Epic’s board room. Apple isn’t a monopoly by any definition of the term. You could declare them a utility, but that won’t have the effect you expect.
To believe that iOS, a platform with 15% market share, somehow represents the end of platform history that needs government intervention, is the height of lazy thinking. Build a better ecosystem. Apple did it barely 14 years ago when they were a fraction of Microsoft’s size, and everyone said it was impossible.
So your perfect solution is to recreate the mess that's on the PC???
I don't think you understand - we don't want that. That's why people like me, my wife, my kids, my parents, my relatives, and most of my friends buy an iPhone - so we don't have to go through that hell.
The number of people who buy a iphone for sheer simplicity is enormous. My friend's Android has a better camera, a different friend's Android has some cool games that I can't get. But that's OK, and it's my trade-off to make.
If Blizzard really doesn't like Apple, when why don't they fork Android and make their own phone and have a cool backend like Unreal engine running it? They have the resources and the fans to do it. And frankly, it'd probably be really freakin cool.
You think blizzard has the resources, know-how, marketing, and brand recognition to build and successfully launch a phone that competes with the iPhone? That is just short of delusional. You really have no idea what you're talking about. But I'm glad you like the iPhone.
Buying a phone just for a game is the solution instead of actually being able to install whatever you want. Are you even thinking before hitting "reply"?
Which developers are those, exactly? I'd like examples.
Is Apple one of them? The company which disobeys its own App Store rules in the usage of push messages for marking AppleCare, Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Fitness, and Apple Arcade? The company which goes beyond this and into marketing these services within the literal Settings app of iOS, an avenue that no other developer has access to?
Is Apple putting the interests of their users "first" by restricting the distribution of cloud game streaming applications without being able to review the individual games within the service? How so? It doesn't put my interests first, and I'm an Apple user!
So, oof, ok, they're putting the interests of the nebulous, general, undefinable "prototypical user" first; not me, naturally, not millions of other users, but some unknown user out there. Though, by serving the interests of this unknown prototypical user, they're actively hurting my interests!
Is Apple putting the interests of users "first" by forcing a 30% tax onto any transaction made in the store? I mean, if one analyzes it with all the critical thinking of a seventh grader, sure. They're protecting their users! From the evil, icky "other" credit card processors like, uh, Visa! and Stripe! Those guys will steal your data... or, uh, I guess they wouldn't, actually they're fine, but then apps could use whatever processors they wanted, including ones which steal your data! I mean, lets ignore that Apple could require developers to use one of a set number of approved safe processors, because jeeze, that would destroy the whole argument, wouldn't want that.
Oh, right, I forgot, Apple is being Fair! They don't want to give special treatment to other payment networks, because then they'd have to pick which ones are safe and show favoritism. There we go, an Unassailable stance. Wait, but... Apple only enforces the IAP Framework requirement for Digital purchases... plenty of apps use whatever payment processor they want, including bad ones, as long as its for Physical goods. Weird... and didn't Apple give Amazon special treatment with Prime Video, for Digital goods, allowing them to bypass the IAP Framework? That's right, they did do that...
Jeeze, this is looking pretty bad for Apple. I mean, they're the ones making the rules, and they can't even operate in a position where the Nebulous and Undefinable Interests of Unknown and Uncountable Users is put "first". What hope does anyone else have?
Except, maybe, just maybe, their hope lies in not treating users like babies who need a nanny to make rules in the first place. I know, its crazy, but hear me out: there was that one time I was drinking from my bottle and the nipple fell off and I split milk everywhere, it was such a mess, my mommy was so mad! But, I'm still here. Growing. Learning. Making dumb, shitty comments on the internet. Capable of (most of the time) acting like an adult and making my own decisions. I'm capable of deciding for myself whether something is Safe, whether I want to take the risk, and hedging myself and my interests when those risks turn sour. Every human is. We can't operate in a nursery for our entire lives and expect to grow as people, or even as a species.
There is so much more that iPhones, and mobile computing in general, are capable of; so lets go do it, and lets not pay Apple 30% and deal with their App Review Team in the process. Because I already paid them fair and square for the phone. That should be enough.
You have the choice to not go play a game if it isn't on a platform that you want to install.
This is somewhat similar to "I don't want to buy an XBox just to play this one game". Of course the barrier there is often a monetary cost. The software platforms are free to download so there's no real barrier.
But for instance, I don't particularly like Epic Games attitude around buying exclusives so I don't use their store. I have missed out on some games I might have enjoyed as a result, but I still have lots to play elsewhere.
You have the choice to not use iOS and not use the Apple App Store. You might not like Apple’s attitude around their operation of the App Store so you don’t use their devices. You might have missed some great apps, but there are still many great alternatives on Android.
So it's either a choice between "not running some specific game/app whose publisher made their own app store" and "not running any iOS app because my only option is to not have an iPhone"?
No, your freedom of choice is only one level deep. You can either choose iOS, which includes 'runs only apple-approved software', or choose any other OS which runs other software.
This is basically the right to repair / right to do whatever you want with your device debate. You can't force Apple to program the functionality for running other people's code into iOS, but it's legal if you figure out how. This is exactly what went down in 2010 with Cydia [0] - it's fair use to modify your own device, but that doesn't compel apple to make it easy to do so[1].
Nitpick: that exemption is from 2010. The DMCA mandates an exemption be granted every three years for something. Meaning: in 2013, that exemption was gone unless it was exempted again. And again in 2016. And again in 2019. And so on. The DMCA does not include an “exempt once, exempt forever” clause, sadly.
Thankfully, we’ve had the EFF to campaign for exemptions, but it’s frustrating having to go through the whole ordeal every three years because Congress can’t be arsed to fix it.
17 U.S. Code §1201(a)(1)(C)[0]:
> (C) During the 2-year period described in subparagraph (A), and during each succeeding 3-year period, the Librarian of Congress, upon the recommendation of the Register of Copyrights, who shall consult with the Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information of the Department of Commerce and report and comment on his or her views in making such recommendation, shall make the determination in a rulemaking proceeding for purposes of subparagraph (B) of whether persons who are users of a copyrighted work are, or are likely to be in the succeeding 3-year period, adversely affected by the prohibition under subparagraph (A) in their ability to make noninfringing uses under this title of a particular class of copyrighted works. In conducting such rulemaking, the Librarian shall examine—
(followed by a list of things the Librarian will consider)
We have more choice today, because currently Android and iOS have different models. Break up the App Store and your left with a single model.
What nobody is talking about is Epic could completely avoid the premium their complaining about by using a website for all transactions. Just like the Kindle App or Netflix etc. The only thing they get from this lawsuit is in app micro transactions. As such it’s really a question of business models not consumer choice.
Reading Apple's policy makes it seem not so simple. Netflix, for example, avoids the cost because it is a subscription service which is specifically excluded from having a cut taken out. I can't speak for Kindle, but when I very recently read over this it was clear that just routing to a site to handle the purchase would not be sufficient to bypass this
> which is specifically excluded from having a cut taken out.
Netflix is constantly at odds with Apple. You can't subscribe via the iOS app store and they don't even link to the Netflix website due to Apple's rules and how they want their 30% cut for app store-driven traffic.
There doesn't need to be constant news about Netflix changing stuff, they still don't like Apple's rules about it and there are still no links to netflix.com in the app.
> Trying to join Netflix?
>
> You can't sign up for Netflix in the app. We know it's a hassle.
And likely Netflix et al were grandfathered in because Apple _couldn't_ strongarm them. If Netflix was invented post AppStore, I'd wager that Apple would have them paying Apple taxes regardless.
> What nobody is talking about is Epic could completely avoid the premium their complaining about by using a website for all transactions.
Epic would also need all paid transactions to originate entirely from said website - i.e. there would be no ability for their own apps to even send users to that website. There have been multiple horror stories about app developers trying this exact approach and Apple turning around with "nope, pay up your 30% cut".
> We have more choice today, because currently Android and iOS have different models. Break up the App Store and your left with a single model
What a goofy point of view.
If there are two restaurants in town, and only one grocery store, would you conclude that eating out is better than cooking your own meals because you have two restaurant options instead of just the one grocery store?
Why is more choice necessarily good, besides simplified theory about capitalism? Brands have built their entire success off of providing less choice to consumers and they, in general seem to be successful. See Apple and Trader Joe's.
Choice is good when there's direct competition. Companies will compete to have better app stores if I can choose which app store I want to use. I as a consumer will get to choose what games I want to play. It's bad for me as a consumer that I also have to choose which app store I'm using to download that game.
Also both things can be bad, but I personally feel that the model where people like Apple due to the "ecosystem" seems to have worked pretty well for a lot of consumers. I don't think "more choice" is a good metric here at all because it's false. I don't care about having more choice in app stores(and I'm not getting to chose which app store I use under either model anyway), I care about my choice of apps. Which isn't really changing, companies will get their product to consumers.
Imagine the same choice on a PC.
Microsoft doesn't allow a ceeatin software just switch to MacOS or Linux.
All the software you previously bought is useless and you have to buy it again.
So because multiple AppStores is too much of hassle you need to keep multiple smartphones or buy the same software twice.
Considering the tight integration of the OS and the hardware, I would offer the comparison that it's more like a CPU not allowing any code that's not signed by Intel to run. Or, more aptly, only allowing one specific OS to run on their CPU and that OS has a restrictive policy on application usage.
Sure, you could go with AMD but does having other choices excuse a company? It certainly violates the spirit of anti-trust laws. Apple makes and controls 46% of all the mobile devices in the US. The nearest competitor is Samsung, who makes 25%.
If Apple allowed other OS's to operate on their phone, then they could say "If you don't like our integrated app store policies and policy of not allowing other app stores, use a different OS". But until they do that, the OS and the hardware have to be seen as one thing.
Apple makes and controls 46% of all the mobile devices in the US because their methodology for designing, building, distributing and iterating on the product is successful. Consumer satisfaction, retention and growth are bi-products of this success. Apple doesn't play mean tricks to gain market share. They simply build great products, invest more in innovation (CPUs) to continue making great products. The m1 chip shows this. You can't pick apart what Apple does and give it some attribute/feature of an ecosystem model. Right now the market is Apple vs. ecosystem. Consumers have choice to buy from Apple, or buy from an ecosystem. We should focus less on trying to handicap Apple and start figuring out how a leader in the ecosystem can rise above it to compete with Apple head on.
It's not so simple. Because Apple hardware and software are closely interwoven it's hard to change to another brand.
Most of the software and accessories only works with Apple hardware and software so if you change you have to make rather large expenses to keep the previous status quo.
I.e. even if you are unhappy, for some it is simply too expensive to switch to another brand.
But this is true for the game console market in the comment I originally replied to. When you buy a game you are locked in, you can't put your Halo disk in a playstation or transfer your Nintendo store purchases to Xbox. If you have an Xbox and all your friends load up on Playstation, its going to be a significant cost to get the new console and library you want to play multiplayer with them. For some reason people care more now that its a phone than a game console.
There are alternative stores for the same game on the desktop. A trivial example is that some games can be installed directly by downloading a file from the developer, or via Humble Bundle, GOG or Steam.
So this business model is possible. And it's the friendliest to end users, too.
But a number of high-profile publishers (Rockstar, Ubisoft, EA) force you to use their app platform even if you purchased the game on Steam. I bought Far Cry 5 on Steam, and running it first launches Ubisoft's launcher, which usually needs to update (why????), then I can launch the game. GTA Online freebie in Epic Store, first has to start Rockstar Social Club (which also usually needs to update), then finally runs the game. FIFA on Steam forces Origin, and so on.
It's a lot easier to deal with if you use a game launcher like Playnite, or should I say a launcher launcher, but with the rigarmarole you have to go through just to start one game suddenly your launcher launcher is now a launcher launcher launcher.
At this point I barely play anymore. Because with all the intermediate updates and transient failures, it takes longer to start the game than the time you would spend casually playing during a week evening.
The problem referenced by the GP is worse on consoles in my experience. Did the system software get updated today? Well, no network features for you until you download it.
What about that video streaming app? Well, there's a new version, so you have to download that right now or you can't watch. Oh, and we logged you out. Get out your phone or computer and type in this link. Then log in there and type this code. Make sure you enable all javascript because otherwise this won't work. Also, there will be an awkward pause after the computer tells you you've activated where the console won't indicate the same and you'll wonder if it even worked.
Granted, some consoles handle this better than others.
The situation degraded so far that it actually gives me a benefit. Ubisoft and EA now offer cheap subscriptions, so I never actually have to buy a game from them again; I just pay a low price once a year for a month or two of access. Why wait for Assassins' Creed: Valhalla at 75% off when I can play it now for less (and it is still cheaper in the rare cases I want to play something a second time). EA even seem to be getting in bed with Microsoft, with the XBox for PC premium subscription thing gaining EA access, so I expect that platform may actually die sooner rather than later and get folded into XBox (which seems to use the built in Windows store distribution). I really can't fathom how the divisions at the big companies running these stores can justify their existence, where trying to maximize their share of the market appears to just be driving it into the ground.
I think its actually driven by marketing wanting to control messaging over their channel. Having little more than tiny little text and picture boxes to try and sell you stuff probably drives them nuts
Many standalone downloads in fact come with the publisher app store. Thay must runs in order to start the game. The end result is the same. And the store will update the game anyways, often re-downloading the equivalent of half the game (we are talking 50GB scale here).
Sometimes you can use another publisher app store. Which will in fact start another app store upon starting the game. In turn starting the game. And the game itself will also ask you for a game studio account. So you need 2 app store and 3 account to play the game. And I am talking about single player game here.
> Sometimes you can use another publisher app store. Which will in fact start another app store upon starting the game.
Not saying this doesn't ever happen, but I've used Steam for more than a decade now and not once have I seen that happen, ever.
Yes, some games have separate launchers, and yes, sometimes these have support for their own separate accounts and mod loaders and such, but not once have they actually been full-blown alternative app stores.
I don't buy very many modern AAA titles, though, so that might be part of it. Still, of the ones I do buy, none of them have installed some alternative store.
Like so much else in PC gaming, they do so because customers don't have a choice. If I want to play The Division with my friends, I have to put up with an extra launcher.
If it bothers you enough, then don't play the division?
I actively avoid and don't buy/play games that require Origin or Uplay. Even when friends tell me about free games in Origin I don't give a fuck. And I'm a very active gamer.
You do have a choice. There are tons of awesome games out there.
Many games are exclusive to the Epic launcher, or Origins, or Uplay. Many games are multiplayer are require logging into the above launchers even if theoretically you could somehow separate the game itself.
The entity that makes Game A has a choice where the app is sold. So, for Example, EA sells games on Origin but also Steam. There are lots of apps that are in many stores.
On an iOS device, the entity that makes the app has no choice of what store to be in, they must be in Apple's. That is a monopoly.
As many have pointed out, if you only want to get your apps from one store-- like Apple's-- you could chose that. But currently you can't choose to use another app vendor.
Of course you can. But the parent comment doesn’t put forward any argument for why they think that’s happening. They’re just saying Apple has a monopoly over Apple customers. Which is more of a truism rather than anything insightful.
I think it is safe to say that if Apple allowed another company to offer an app store, even using all the same screening and security protocols Apple does, they would take a lower cut of app revenue. I believe that is what bothers Epic. If they don't like the cut Valve demands they can make their own store on Windows, and they do.
Argument for why is that happening: So Apple can make more money.
Well I don’t think that’s supported by the data, because they can do that on android, and Epic is suing Google too.
You’re also framing the market in an arbitrary way to support your conclusions. Every company could be said to have a monopoly over their own customers. Any argument that Apple monopolizes Apple customer, or that Google monopolizes Play Store customers could also be used to say Valve monopolizes Valve customers, or Sony monopolizes PlayStation customers, or that Samsung monopolizes the market of Samsung smart fridge customers.
You need a lot more than just that to make a compelling argument that the behaviour is illegally anti-competitive.
You can side load an Epic on to a Android app, that is true, but that is not the same as being able to buy it from a store on an Android device.
Amazon and other vendors have forked Android so that they can put there own store on it. Google does not open up its API enough that you can have the same functionality as the Google Play Store. I think you understand what I am saying, but just in case, it's really different than what you can do on Windows, Linux, MacOS.
I agree you can't have a monopoly by "customers". That's why I don't think Valve has a monopoly. PC users can can and do install games other ways. On the other hand, by my logic, Nintendo does have a monopoly on Switch users and PlayStation does have a monopoly on PlayStation owners. I think it matters a lot less in those cases because they aren't as ubiquitous as phones. In the US, Apple is 60% of the market, which is way past what the US used to define as a monopoly.
I am guessing you don't agree and don't think that is a problem. But I think I understand your point and respect the different point of view.
> You can side load an Epic on to a Android app, that is true, but that is not the same as being able to buy it from a store on an Android device.
I think this reframes the issue even further. This changes the claim to being that they're anti-competitive by simply not distributing the competing software themselves. The typical workflow for downloading software on a PC is go to website > download software > install software. The typical workflow for "sideloading" an app is go to website > download software > install software.
I would suggest the reason consumers are inhibited from downloading alternative app stores is because they don't trust apps they've downloaded from alternative locations (you could say the security warnings are anti-competitive, but MacOS and Windows have similar warnings when installing software downloaded from the internet, and they don't seem to generate the same accusations). But in any case, the complaint "consumers trust Google, but they don't trust me, and that's not fair" is not a reasonable basis for a lawsuit.
If EA win their fight, I can't really see them offering their app on the Apple App Store.
So, really what this is about is choice for the big app-manufacturers, including games. It has nothing to do with user choice at all, and the cost is borne by the user (who has a far shittier user-experience than they do now).
If that choice of app store actually matters to you, then you have the option to choose an Android phone instead of an iPhone. You're not being relegated to some obscure platform with no app support like people who didn't want to use Wintel in the '00s.
Google Play Store's revenue is half of that of the Apple App Store, so choosing only Android instead of both platforms would cut the expected app revenue by about two-thirds. Google also has similar app tax policies to Apple (and there is an ongoing lawsuit by Epic against them), so they really are relegated to the more obscure app stores.
That's because Apple's app store has better quality apps due to curation. The minute iPhones are opened up, the value of the App Store will tank considerably, and many devs on here will be up in arms, complaining about all the flood of free apps that have destroyed their market.
The fact is the App Store helps everyone. It curates apps for most people, it helps developers make more money (as you said, double the revenue, well worth the 1/3 cut, that no longer applies to small apps), and it helps Apple innovate on their hardware product.
I do not agree that the revenue is necessarily because of higher-quality apps. Apple iPhones are regarded in many markets as luxury goods bought by people with more disposable income, so the increased revenue could well be attributable to having a wealthier customer base that is willing to spend more on app/in-app purchases. In this case, opening up the market to competition might be beneficial to existing App Store developers.
App Store does help developers make more money than if they were not on it, but being on it is the only practical way for them to gain access to iPhone users (they could ask users to jailbreak their phones instead but that is impractical for most). If the courts order Apple to allow competing app stores, users would still benefit from Apple's curation, and developers would still benefit from the distribution by using Apple App Store, but they would have a viable choice of picking another app store without having to change to another OS (for users) or abandoning the largest market (for developers).
Sure it is - because Apps are curated, you can charge more for them. If there are free alternatives available everywhere, people will be less likely to pay.
> In this case, opening up the market to competition might be beneficial to existing App Store developers.
Only true if the 50% revenue increase disappears (Which is likely with a flood of free apps). Not only that, but more free apps = more privacy violations.
> App Store does help.....
So the App Store is a net benefit - what, exactly, is the problem? There is no demonstrable harm. The small apps got a cut on the fee earlier this year. Now it's just megacorps trying to get as much of the pie as they can, in a way that hurts consumers.
Also allowing 3rd party applications to control critical features is a privacy/security issue I haven't seen addressed.
> Sure it is - because Apps are curated, you can charge more for them.
That is not a sure thing. Having a wealthier customer base could be as much or even bigger a reason for the higher revenue. And curated apps still have to compete with each other.
> If there are free alternatives available everywhere, people will be less likely to pay.
If this were really the case, it would actually be an argument for increased competition because it would be better for the consumers. However, I do not think that it is true because almost 93% of apps in the App Store are already free.[1] So the 100% revenue difference probably would not disappear. And free apps would have to follow Apple's privacy rules, as they do now.
> So the App Store is a net benefit - what, exactly, is the problem?
Of course it is a net benefit. Even if overall fees were 99%, it would still be a net benefit to both consumers and developers because retaining 1% is still better than nothing for developers, and having a software repository is very valuable for users. No-one is suggesting shutting down the App Store. What is being suggested is for Apple to allow other firms to compete against it, because they control almost two-thirds of the market by revenue and can dictate the terms to the participants.
> There is no demonstrable harm.
That is for Epic to prove. They would try to demonstrate that they suffered harm after violating App Store terms by offering a competing payment method, and that it is anti-competitive for Apple to eject Epic's app, given its market position. Regulators would also have their own methods of determining whether harm occurred.
A fair portion as well is that Apple takes paid/subscription apps on the store more seriously. Apple believes people should be willing to pay money for things (since Apple sells products) and Google believes people want advertising-supported free content (because that is _their_ business model).
> Apple takes paid/subscription apps on the store more seriously
I understand what you wrote about the two companies' motivations but what do you mean when you write that Apple takes paid apps more seriously? What app store policy differences are you thinking of, for example, between Apple and Google, that suggest a more serious attitude?
I think users would stop benefiting as soon as some critical service they use like Gmail or Instagram moves to one of these third party app stores to avoid Apple's increasingly aggressive privacy requirements.
I wasn't talking about developer choice, I was talking about end user choice. Given that statistic, I think it is pretty obvious that we as developers stand to make more money on iOS than Android regardless of Apple's 30% cut.
There are a few reasons for the discrepancy though. Someone else already mentioned the higher average quality of apps on the App Store.
One facet is the difficulty involved in pirating iOS apps compared to Android, likely because Apple makes sideloading so difficult. Pretty much any kid can spend 20 minutes searching around on Google and figure out how to get paid games for free on their phone.
Another variable is average user affluence. Apple is popular in developed countries with sizable middle class populations, and they position themselves as more of a luxury brand. Android devices run the gamut from ultra premium to ultra budget, catering to user in every socioeconomic class. Apple users on average probably have more spare cash to spend on apps.
> You will be forced to use so many different app stores and won't have a choice to NOT use their app store "IF" it progresses like it has on the desktop.
You're only forced to use stuff when you're in the small minority that cares about not using stuff. Moxie Marlinspike explained it perfectly in his DEF CON 18 keynote.
Thing is, I don't think there's any conclusive proof that the majority of customer would be okay with what you're describing.
Most of us on PC are getting along just fine with one or two game launchers. I'm using GOG and Steam. My kid uses Steam and Epic.
When Funcom tried adding their own launcher for Conan Exiles, the vast majority of players berated them so hard on their forums that they removed it.
There are plenty of cross-store games on PC. And even if some games end up being exclusive you might still benefit as a player thanks to the competition. If Epic started offering a very bad user experience game devs would hesitate to publish exclusively through them because they'd fear reduced revenue.
It's also a very good thing for game devs who aren't at the mercy of the whims of a single company. Steam no longer wants to work with you? Go to GOG, Epic or even self-publish.
> Epic started offering a very bad user experience game devs would hesitate to publish exclusively through them because they'd fear reduced revenue.
This is demonstrably not true. Epic's launcher has been a laughing stock since it was announced.
* It only recently got any form of Achievements (that are completely undiscoverable)
* It has no way to join a party with your friends. I think it has Friends support but am not sure because you can't do anything at all with your Friends so I never even look.
* Half the time their UI elements don't work (I just went into the "Troubleshoot" section and the back button doesn't work, so I had to close the whole window and start over)
* There are no user reviews of games
* Their store and library sorting is a mess that makes it difficult to find anything
* They launched without even having cloud save support
Epic's game store is underpowered, buggy, and miserable to use - and plenty of companies still do exclusive deals with them because Epic holds a bag of gold in front of their face. They even do it when it breaks their own promises, like when IOI decided to launch Hitman 3 after promising they'd import Hitman 2 purchases - and then apparently totally forgot that Hitman 1 and 2 were on Steam and Hitman 3 was on Epic, so while XBox and Playstation users got their levels migrated on day one PC users are still out of luck a month later.
I heard all about that but I really don't think it matters all that much for the vast majority of players. People who are really active in video game communities are indeed likely to be annoyed at this and loudly complain online, but I'm sure the vast majority of casual players won't care massively about any of this. In particular all the online features. I'm in my 30s, do you realize how hard it is to schedule anything with my friends?
Paying for exclusives is a bit of a bummer but game development is pretty damn competitive as it is, Epic injecting a lot of money to secure exclusives might actually do some good for indie devs.
In my experience most of these exclusivity deals are temporary anyway, so you just have to wait 6 months to a year to get it on your store of choice. That's a fair compromise IMO, especially since nobody bothers to release finished games anymore anyway, so you might as well get the finished version on Steam on sale a year later.
None of those sounds like a very bad user experience. A very bad experience is games disppearing different games appearing after purchasing something else, games not working, memory usage too high..etc
No user reviews, no easy help button for noobs, no cloud save, only recently got achievements, can't crush a friends party. all sound like little nice to haves that don't add much value. Does it allow me to find/play the game? Everything else takes time away from playing.
Then, no offense, but you might not understand the market very well. Achievements and friends are table stakes these days. Games are primarily a multiplayer experience with friends so platforms absolutely need those things before locking games as exclusives.
This would be like shipping an OS without internet access to end-users.
It likely depends on your friends or the games you play. I don't think my friends care to know that I am playing the Witcher, Cyberpunk, Battletech, Mechwarrior, or Jotun. Friends might care to know that I'm online, and be able to message me, but to be honest Discord or other social networks (Steam, Blizzard) already cover that. I've actually been quite happy with GOG's interface, for example.
Hmm, maybe achievements aren't as popular as I once believed, but I do think there's unnecessary friction to joining a friend's game with Epic's half baked model. It's one of those things that nobody notices until it's missing.
I'm not saying you need a full social network on every platform, either.
An OS doesn't ship with internet access. You may get internet as a separate service later and connect it to your computer which has an OS.
I'm not sure you understand the market. If saving to the cloud is a must have feature your game will provide it. Ditto for multiplayer. No one is refusing to play a game because the platform you purchased the game on doesn't have an easy help button.
Is all of that really a problem when the companies seem to have shown that none of that matters? The increased cut is apparently more valuable to them.
And I also should note, half of those items don't need to implemented in a store. People ask for them because they are implemented as extras in other stores, but strictly speaking the distribution and support are the only things the store needs to have to be called a store. Achievements, friend lists, user reviews, and cloud saves can be provided by separate services and work just as well, and could result in a higher cut for the vendors if the store doesn't have to shelter the cost for that.
That sounds like the same class of argument as "all an operating system needs to provide is process scheduling and hardware access". It doesn't match user expectations and it certainly isn't a good user experience. Having to sign into a different account for every game to get basic functionality is a nightmare. Users want to purchase a game from a store, install it, play it, and have everything work. That's it - no other configuration or connections required.
The answer to that isn't putting all stores but one out of business, it's having a single-sign-on provider.
Also, I doubt you would criticize an embedded OS for only having process scheduling and hardware access, because that's probably all it was designed to do. Similarly, a low-cost store may want to skip on providing all those extra features so they can keep prices down.
Epic DOES offer a terrible experience, especially on Mac. It crashes ALL the time. It's terribly slow. It regularly consumes over 50% of available Ram and CPU. It still has exclusives and it's the only place I can get Unreal Engine if I want it. The PC game market is a prime example of how this common knowledge not being true at all for consumers. A couple of years ago steam was really the App Store for games and the user experience was far better. Now it's the worst it's been ever. Gog, UPlay Connect, Origin, Steam, Epic Game store etc... All with exclusives, all with massive privacy issues, all worse for consumer's.
The only way to truly improve it for consumer is to require that all platform's be open source. That I could get behind but it will never happen.
App store monopolies have not meaningfully hindered this.
To your first example: Most malware infections on PCs today are distributed by the Chrome Web Store. (Preventing malicious extensions was Google's excuse for blocking third party install... but since they don't even attempt to control malware they distribute first party, it's hilarious.) If they tell you they have a virus, open their Chrome extensions tab, remove everything, and you're good.
If anything, centralized app stores magnify the problem: By making every single app submitted look like it's coming from a reputable source. If app stores did any realistic good job at policing malware, instead of focusing on policing their revenue tax, they might be a benefit.
But again, malicious apps can have millions of installs and nobody does anything about it. Epic decides to charge 18% less and circumvent Google and Apple's taxation, and they act in less than 12 hours.
App stores do hinder this when they are resonably well moderated. Google makes almost no effort to do this. The extension markets for Firefox and Safari are comparatively malware-free next to the Chrome extension store.
Indeed, the problem is scale. Companies like Google and Apple end up employing cheap, low quality labor to review apps and extensions instead of high quality technical personnel.
Bear in mind, if Google and Apple had to compete in this aspect, it's possible users would actually choose and prefer a third party store with better curation. So they'd have an incentive to improve their review processes.
Apple's own store proves this incorrect. Apple's App Store has VERY few instance's of Malware (at least in the sense of exploiting security issues). The App Store does have an ongoing issue with dark patterns and subscription fraud, no doubt but in general Apple's App Store is the by far the best and safest App Store for consumer. I'm an app developer and the App Store has more than it's share of issues like discovery and subscription fraud but ALL of those issues are worse on other more "open" platforms.
There are a lot of non-technical requirements for the Apple App Store, for instance on what an application can do with bluetooth, local networking, contacts, photos, and location data - even after the user gives access approval for them.
Another great example is the target of the Apple/Facebook spat currently - Apple has not just said that the developer needs to go through the OS-dialog approval to use the IDFA (identifier for advertising) to track users, but to do _any_ cross-organizational tracking, including using mechanisms that Apple does not have technical protections for.
Apple developer accounts involve real-world identity verification, so that (hopefully) abuse results in an actual ban of the company and people rather than just of a throwaway account.
> (from parent) need their App Store running in order to play their games
This is the real UX problem.
I have no problem buying from a variety of stores. I do that in real life. Most required (pre-Covid) me to walk in each of their doors.
What's a problem is requiring the installed & running presence of a particular App Store to run an app.
If I legally purchased something, why is a particular App Store even still required? If I want to re-install (new device) then I can download it again?
If we're talking updates... I'm happy to forgo update pushing. And renting software with subscriptions just needs to die.
Microsoft, EA and Ubisoft eventually caved in and offer their games also on Steam.
EGS "exclusives" are usually timed exclusives. You wait half a year or so, and get a more stable, better optimized and usually also cheaper version on Steam too. If you want to play an EGS exclusive game immediately, installing EGS isn't a big deal either.
So far, having multiple competing app stores on PC has been a win both for users and developers. Choice is always a good thing.
Meh - eventually things work out for the best of the consumers most of the time - for eg. epic game store just gave a bunch of titles free no strings attached a while ago, EA store used to have free stuff as well.
End of the day you have to have enough value to get people to inconvenience themselves - I'd rather that this value gets shelled out to users as enticement to install some app store than Apple capturing that money simply because their store is the only one allowed to exist on the platform.
The App Store is good because it is closed and curated. That's a main driver of the product experience. Removing the App Store irrecoverably damages the iPhone - a curated, non-malware infested, high quality phone with a consistent experience.
I have yet to see any argument how the App Store harms consumers. It helps developers make more money (Play Store revenue is half that of the App store's apps), it helps consumers stay protected from malware infested applications and is easy to use.
Where, exactly, is the harm? Now Epic with their gambling games will be able to rip off kids even more in their own store? Fantastic.
Lol the framing is ridiculous - Apple had nothing against ripping off gambling kids as long as they were getting their 30% cut so please cut the fanboy crap.
Apple is using it's market position and it's leading to inefficient pricing. I guarantee you if Apple was forced to allow other payment methods on their store that their % cut would go down because the convenience they offer is not worth 30%.
And App Store can be as curated as they want if they provide the hooks to allow third party stores and app deployments.
I generally agree that you have the device choice - but considering the size of this market and Apple market position this is a right place for regulators to step in and fix the market inefficiency - just like the Windows/IE thing. And while they are at it they should probably look at digital store policies in general to prevent this kind of thing, Google isn't much better than Apple and they keep bundling stuff with the phone as well.
Not an apple fanboy, please argue on merit, else I won't continue.
Apple isn't ripping off anyone. They're taking their cut of sales based off the value of providing access to a high paying market that has a non-negligible cost. The point is - Epic is not doing this "for the market." They're doing it because they want more money for themselves - which is fair, but they are using a service which provides them revenue. That should not be free. For that matter, they have a monopoly over their store as well - should they have to allow third party "VBucks" stores? It's absurd.
> Apple is using it's market position.....
It clearly is worth that, in fact, probably much more - others on this thread that support your POV have said the App Store generates twice the revenue of Android. It's not just the convenience - it simply makes devs more money. Cutting the app store will tank developer value instantly. Developers will lose big time in this event. There will be many on here that will begin to complain as their salary dips. Also apple already cut the fee for smaller apps. So what's the real problem? I have yet to see any tangible evidence of consumer harm.
> And App Store can be as curated.....
That opens the door for malware and a poor customer experience. I can see my mom now being tricked into downloading a privacy invading app. my dad's android is a nightmare. It destroys the product.
> I generally agree that you have the device choice....
There isn't market inefficiency. It's hard to argue monopoly of a company that has 20% of the market. The IE/Windows debate is far different. Both DOMINATED the market. This simply isn't true in this case.
The fact is every time this comes up on HN people just hate Apple, but never look at the actual merit of the arguments. It isn't a monopoly (less than 20% global marketshare), its fees aren't exorbitant based on the value it provides developers, and end consumers get a clean, relatively safe experience. No one is losing, except megacorps like Epic who want to make a little more money.
> Except in the real world when we see games offered in multiple places (e.g. Steam and the Epic Game Store) they are usually the same price.
Is that really true? Legitimate Steam keys are sold by stores other than Valve's Steam store, such as Humble Bundle, Green Man Gaming and Fanatical.
I shop at multiple stores that sell Steam keys, and I would say that I only buy less than 1/3rd of my games from Steam directly, due to heavy discounts via bundling and other sales at various online game stores. I find that the alternate "Steam" stores have sales more often than the official Steam store does.
As someone mentioned in another comment, this is the result of yet another monopolistic practice, this time by Steam who requires your game to be priced the same in all stores else it will be removed from Steam.
They'd be cutting themselves out of other stores if they did that. Stores like Steam require that your game is sold at the same price across all stores otherwise it will be removed from Steam.
Even assuming the only reason App Store revenue is that high is because of the store itself, we shouldn't treat the policies as one indivisible work set in stone.
You can have a properly curated store with 10% fees, for example. And you can block malware without blocking alternative web browsers or game streaming apps.
People on HN get mad when others make money, but they never get mad when they want to make money too.
> You can have a properly curated store with 10% fees, for example. And you can block malware without blocking alternative web browsers or game streaming apps.
It becomes much more difficult and time consuming, and why 10%? The service is unbelievable - it provides great access to a platform and its high spending users. That is worth more than 10%.
More than fair? Okay then, tell me what percent is fair.
> People on HN get mad when others make money, but they never get mad when they want to make money too.
The problem is not that they make money, it's that they are engineering a lack of competition in order to keep their prices arbitrarily high.
> It becomes much more difficult and time consuming, and why 10%? The service is unbelievable - it provides great access to a platform and its high spending users. That is worth more than 10%.
Charging a significant percentage for "providing access to users" is rent-seeking. That's not a good thing.
There is no choice being taken away - you don't have a choice at this point - you must use "the" App Store whether you like it or not.
Maybe the Apple App Store can get it's shit together and present a less hostile environment so these companies are able/willing to distribute on the Apple App Store again, and then you'll actually have a choice.
No, you buy the phone hardware and a license to use iOS. The App Store is a service provided by Apple that you should have a choice to use or not. The Apple Tax is what you're 'buying' from Apple when using the App Store service.
This is not accurate. I never "buy" a license explicitly. I buy the phone explicitly.
I can't "buy" iOS and put it on any phone. The phone and software are inextricably linked. It is one product.
> The App Store is a service provided by Apple that you should have a choice to use or not. The Apple Tax is what you're 'buying' from Apple when using the App Store service.
You can extend this to any level. This is like complaining "I don't want to use Amazon to buy things on Amazon.com"
My understanding and usage of a "walled garden" is to mean a closed ecosystem. By definition it no longer exists if Epic wins.
Continuing the analogy: Some people want a walled garden to keep their kids safe, but your suggesting to remove the walls and just advice kids to stay on the lawn instead.
I recognize the fact that the argument is exactly the same as for not opening up the appstore in the first place. But the importance and scope of it is less if the store is open.
Now you can chose to buy en expensive device (or you did in the past and can't de-apple due to lock-in) or not. In the future you could chose not to buy photoshop because of their insistence on their app store dependency.
I think having a more granular choice is good. Like I said, that UX hit, imo, is less important than the monopolistic behavior displayed now:
The apple "tax" (including the rules around links to donation pages and similar nonsense). Curation that cannot be overridden by end-users. Unpredictable policy changes for developers. 1st party appropriation of successful independent applications. Unfair competing (think browser javascript engines).
I think bad UX is less important than those things listed above, that's the argument.
I think EA created a game store because it feels parasitic that Valve could take 30% of your sells, why not make your own store and keep the 30% .
What I would do is force EA to put their games on all stores, then on their own store they can give you a 25% discount because they don't have to pay the tax. Then people could decide if they want store A, B or C version.
If the store tax would be low enough there would not be such a pressure from the giant publishers to avoid the store, as a person that don't like giants I hope that this giants fighting each other will benefit us by breaking the monopolies and ensuring that all stores will play by fair rules and respect all consumer rights.
It's not parasitic of Valve, though. Valve created the storefront and platform that has all of those customers baked into it. EA is not just paying 30% for the privilege of selling their game, they're paying for the customer base that they haven't had to work to establish on that platform.
I will disagree, you can see the entitlement of users that demand the game,movie or payment system must be exactly his preferred one. Though for Valve you can compete with them (but people hate it but I think they don't hate the actual competition but the shitty implementation of the stores and the fact this game launcher most of the time must be run in background ) BUT with Apple you can't compete, they have up to 50% market share in some countries and if you are a business half of your existing customers(that you earned fairly and were not gifted by Apple to you) will ask for an iOS app and now you either give a bad experience to your customer or you pay the tax.
About the argument that Apple,Valve gives you access to many users, sure that should be price correctly, developers could pay for getting promoted on the first page of the store, but Apple,Google should not get a cut for promoting my app if the user installed it starting from my own website.
It isn't entitlement for consumers to look at a company saying "you can buy this game, but only on our own launcher/storefront" and say "okay, then I won't buy it". Users don't like juggling Steam, Origin, Uplay, Epic, and whatever other launchers/storefronts. If publishers feel the additional sales are important, they can make it available through Steam.
I don't think there is any sane user that will say something as stupid like "I wish Cool Game 3 would be only on Origin(or only on Steam). So we should try to get most games on all stores not try to get them only on our facorite store.
The issue with the launchers is indeed a problem, the solution is to have the games run without the shitty launcher. So if you want to buy and play a game you can open your browser, find the best deal, buy the game and if you want do a direct download and play, or use a launcher, install the game then kill the launcher and play the game. This is the GOG model, you don't need the launcher.
So IMO the launcher issue should be addressed by fixing it, not by praying that there will be no competition in future so only my favorite launcher will exist.
I'm not sure what you're arguing because it sounds like you agree with the parent. The games should be available on Origin and Steam and people should be able to choose the one they want. That's the whole issue, though.
Case in point, I bought DooM Eternal's Collector's Edition. I could not use Steam and had to activate the game through the Bethesda launcher. I can add the game to my Steam library as an "external" game but I can't play with my list of Steam friends or use the matchmaking tools built into Steam. I had to use Bethesda's platform and we, essentially, had to re-do all the connections and friends lists to duplicate them in Bethesda. I would have preferred not to do that. You may even be able to do that now but it was not an option at launch.
Sorry If I was not clear, I see some people commenting that they like Steam so Epic, Origin and others are evil and should not exists. My point is that we should wish they exist and compete and that games would be available on all of them so you can chose and would also be great if the launchers would also be optional like GOG.
Also today there are many examples of PC players playing together with console players so there is no technical reason why someone that uses Steam should not be able to play multiplayer game with someone that bought on GOG or PlayStation Store.
>there is no technical reason why someone that uses Steam should not be able to play multiplayer game with someone that bought on GOG or PlayStation Store.
Exactly. Yet these limitations exist. That's why people should vote with their wallets and not support games that artificially limit this and why, if people want phones that don't have walled gardens, they shouldn't buy an Apple product.
But still countries or EU are in their right to demands Apple to do stuff even if free market fanboys don't like it, there are many examples where banks,telecom, fuel or tech giants were forced to do stuff they did not like.
I agree people should vote with their money but also not ignore the actual voting, and demand that we pass laws in favor of the people. Americans could keep their locked iPhones and EU could have a law where a user would have the freedom to get his device rooted.
>BUT with Apple you can't compete, they have up to 50% market share in some countries
That statement isn't true no matter how you slice it. Apple's largest competitor is Google so the idea that you can't compete with Apple is nonsense. And what countries does Apple have a 50% market share in?
US, mobile market , ask Apple fanbous about app sales and they will proudly tell you how Apple stores has more sales.
Ask same guys about monopoly and they will then count the entire world, count all computers and dumb-phones and pretend Apple is the little guy.
I fucking can't compete with Apple, say I am a bank/store/club and my customers(not Apple ones) want a mobile app, how can I give the 50% of my customer my app without having to pay Apple , if I try to sell something or put a link to a page of mine for buying subscriptions or stuff Apple will demand a cut(I know they were forced to be less greedy lately).
1. Sales != market share but that's not relevant. Even a >50% share isn't a monopoly if there are multiple other competitors in the remaining 50%. And I don't think anyone is misrepresenting Apple's position. The word "Monopoly" has a meaning. Apple does not fit that meaning.
2. You can't give your customers an app without paying Apple if your customers are demanding it work for Apple products. That doesn't mean you can't compete. You can still only sell to Android users and other phone users but you have to do so with the understanding of what that means. You're still competing. That's like saying you can't compete with Windows when you only release your app for Linux. That's your choice. You're still competing against Windows.
I know Apple is very dear for many people but let's think different , say 49% of the radios in people homes and cars are made by Huawei and if I want my radio station to work on this radios I need to pay Huawei 30% of my profits and I can only have content approved by Huawei just in case is not respecting the correct values. It is ridiculous right to have a radio or TV device put artificial limits,
Your second point is again invalid, say Apple is blocking my website because I said that they are greedy, this is fine in your opinion because I can still show my site to PC and Android users and you can't even see yet the abuse that is happening, Apple should not decide that they don't like the politics on an app or book and not allow the user the freedom to install it, they can block it from the store sure but the user should have the freedom to use his brain and install what he wants, The same for say a group of developers or musicians that want to compete with Apple products , like the Apple Store, or Apple Music or whatever games they have, it is actually ilegal for Apple to abuse their market share in smartphones to give it's own products an advantage. (yeah actually the law does not say you must have 50% +1 market share)
1. Huawei, in your example, didn't create the radio station platform. We're not talking about publicly accessible platforms, we're talking about a app platform that Apple created, cultivated, and maintains 100%.
2. Again, this analogy has the same issue. Apple doesn't own the entire internet. If Apple started blocking websites, that would be wrong because those websites existed and continue to exist without Apple. The App Store does not have that same providence and was 100% created by Apple.
No one ever said that you have to have 50% + 1 market share so I don't know where you're getting that from. Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Amazon, Google... all these companies own the marketplaces for their devices. This is not illegal and there is precedent protecting it.
No, you are trying to make it appear that it is physically impossible to run an application on Apple devices without using the store, This is FALSE, see the laptops , you can run applications without using the Apple store or their dev tools. So users should be allowed same fucking freedom on the phones as on the laptops, the only excuses I see are "most iOS users are retards and they will get scammed" or "Apple should have the right to be assholes and abuse their customers if the market allows it and don't dare try to question Apple, even when they make mistakes they are perfect"
>If users want the freedom to install whatever they want on their devices, they can go with Android.
Why should be this true? Why a law that forbids radio and TV makers to lock their device is good for society but a similar law for phones is less good? What is the benefit? The only benefit is more money for Apple so maybe you love Apple more then people but it makes no sense, sorry.
Again, radio and TV are public utilities. The public paid to create that infrastructure and the technology and resources necessary to support it. It should have a law that forbids people from any kind of limitation since citizens paid for all of that.
Apple is a private company whose shareholders decide what's best based on the fact that they created the infrastructure and technology of their platform and they are the ones spending money and resources to ensure its quality and reliability.
If you want to pass laws to solve this problem, create a National App Store platform and then require companies to allow access to it. Forcing Apple to change their own App Store, though, is wrong. How much I love Apple or how much I love people has nothing to do with it.
And not to put to fine a point on it but you can do whatever you want with your iPhone after you've bought it. You can take it apart, swap out components, repair it yourself, jailbreak it, or whatever you want and Apple can't do anything about it (and won't). You're talking about forcing a company to change its own operations for their platform just because you don't like it or agree with the restrictions they've chosen to place on it. I would be really curious to see if you'd be willing to have a private company force you to do something you don't want to do with your own property or self.
This is frankly a stupid comparison, I did not ask that Apple put my game, music or books in their store and promote it. I ask that the device can be used without limitations. There were laws that forbid radio devices to be "locked" and there were also laws for phones to also not allow locking them to a specific carrier (the exception was that if you were getting the phone with a discount with a 2 year contract after the 2 years you had the right to unlock your phone for free).
I would appreciate if you try a bit more to make the distinction between Apple Store market and just he hardware(the laptop or phone).
You're the one muddying the waters, here. You keep comparing device restrictions between iPhones and radios when they're completely different. One accesses a public good and the other a private platform.
Let me give you a different examples, bank ATM machines, guess what it is a private object, connected to a private bank, on private property and still that laws (in EU) forced this banks to make the ATMs interoperable and to stop the giant extra taxes when you used a card from bank A on an ATM from bank B.
So probably in your view this is evil, the people forced a private entity to not be a jerk and apply a big tax. Evil or not this is possible, a law can be made to limit the Google/Apple tax and the same law can be made to force side loading or block loot-boxes.
That's completely fine. The current situation already has precedent in courts considering that Sony, Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon, and many others have exclusive control of their App Stores. Claiming Apple is anti-competitive because of its platform would upend all of these platforms.
Well, the difference is that with Steam EA gets the choice whether they like the "extra marketing" for that price or not. If a customer wants to buy something from EA outside of Steam, EA is permitted to sell it to them without ripping up their Steam distribution channel - which is not the case for Epic/Apple.
Yes it is. Epic is allowed to sell to every other person that's not an iOS user without ripping up their iOS distribution channel too. They chose not to do that, though, and then shot themselves in the foot on top of it to try and stick it to Apple.
Epic could sell to accounts in every other channel without having to pay a cut. In-app purchasing is just too convenient - and as a result, too lucrative.
It is parasitic, but I think in the bigger scheme of things, Valve is a lesser evil than Epic, which is in itself a lesser evil than Apple. Valve is investing in its own capital as well as the infrastructure for the PC gaming industry at large (Vulkan and driver improvements), whereas Epic has no endgame but to gain market share using bottomless VC pockets. Apple, while a company with some merits, utilizes vertical integration that is overall harmful for user freedom, especially when it comes to the right-to-repair, and is only using its revenue to further remove themselves from the large tech ecosystem and build up the walls of its gated community with their own unique hardware/software.
You and I must have different definitions of parasitic. Apple is providing services to developers and, in exchange is receiving payment for that. Developers shouldn't be able to take advantage of the benefits of the platform without paying for it.
Apple provides a hardware thing, users pay for the objects,
Developers should pay for the IDEs or compilers if they want to use Apple tools and the user should have the freedom to decide what to put on his piece of hardware,
But sure, if I put my app on the store I should pay for hosting it, for the updates and reviews, I should pay if I want it to be promoted on the store but I should not be forced to say pay Apple a tax for shit like soem subscriptions or books I sell from my app, I should pay Apple for the store services they offer.
Also Sony and Microsoft should not be immune either IMO
>I should not be forced to say pay Apple a tax for shit like soem subscriptions or books I sell from my app
If you're selling them from within the app, you're making use of Apple's payment and subscription infrastructure and the customer base of iOS. Those things are not free.
That is the issue, Apple is abusing it's power but not letting you even put a shitty link to your website if on that website you were selling stuff.
I agree if you as a customer pay with Apple payment system Apple should charge you a fee, but you as a user should have the freedom to see a link to a product page.
Check all the rule changes Apple were forced to do, they reducing the tax and reducing the scope when to apply it, the Apple fans were sure that Apple was perfect before this changes and for some reason Apple changed it's perfection now and can it be more perfect??? Was the last change the last one, can't Apple be even more perfect then more perfect and offer the user the freedom that they do not deserve??
The changes in policy show that Apple was not in the right and it is not perfect and there is a large chance that the last changes were not enough and they need to slowly give up their control , but squeze as much money as possible because "this is the way"
>Apple is abusing it's power but not letting you even put a shitty link to your website if on that website you were selling stuff.
That's a load of horseshit. You can't walk in to a Target and post an advertisement saying that the Walmart down the street or "Mom and Pop's General Store" sell the same items for cheaper or that they have x, y, z. Apple owns their App Store. It functions just like a regular store and they're allowed to decide what they want to allow on their store and what they don't.
Your position on this is wrong because it's based on assumptions you're making that are inaccurate. This a private platform. They're not abusing their power simply by operating their store and not allowing others to advertise their own outside goods inside of it.
There is an infinite difference with a physical Store, Apple and Google combined control the market where your local store might control a small area (in my little village there are at least 3 stores so there is more competition then in mobile market)
>The problem is the choice is taken away from you though
All Apple has to do is compromise on the 30% number. They've taken it to the extreme and demanded 30% of everything, 30% of subscriptions, 30% of every dollar.
It's outrageous and developers who are perfectly capable of either self-hosting or finding a solution for cheaper than 30% OF ALL REVENUE deserve to keep the 25% of that revenue that is pure profit to Apple.
Apple created this situation for themselves and they will have to give up sooner or later.
Steam makes plenty of concessions for the 30% number and now allows basically pass-through games so that a much more wide variety of titles can appear there even if they aren't paying a full tax to the storefront for appearing.
I mean, could you imagine a world where Wal-Mart was the only store your Toyota car was allowed to drive to, and Wal-Mart charged their suppliers 30% of all revenue to appear on the shelves?
What is happening with the App Store monopoly is truly outrageous, it's an unimaginable amount. 30% is why Apple is going to lose here. If they were willing to be reasonable, it wouldn't get to this point.
> You install those yourself you know. I'd rather have a choice than not.
yes and No. When some games are "exclusives" to a certain store, if you want to play such games you end up having to install every store in existence which is not very consumer friendly. It would be better for stores to have every game possible, just like at the time of good old physical retail. It's not like there were Wallmart exclusive games, right?
But to be fair, devs are almost as much to blame as store owners for this situation.
> It's not like there were Wallmart exclusive games, right?
Either you’re younger than me or you’ve forgotten about the pre-order content exclusives from different stores.
If physical retailers had the marketshare that online distribution now has I’m sure they would have done exclusive games. If you have smaller game devs and no cost of disc manufacturing (ie download only) its easier to make exclusivity deals.
> Either you’re younger than me or you’ve forgotten about the pre-order content exclusives from different stores.
This has basically no bearing to the actual game access. While now, buying in a certain store means a very limited selection of titles, which is unlike anything ever experienced in physical retail. So, bad analogy.
Yes, makes my blood boil that Stadia is hogging the rights to stream Rockstar games, but you can't import them. So even though I have purchased them, I need to buy them again.
I highly doubt that devs are the ones who make the decision to put everything behind the walled garden of an entirely separate app store. Although I would agree that devs do shoulder some of the blame for relying on electron and other such technologies for building these things.
> who make the decision to put everything behind the walled garden of an entirely separate app store
Devs or Publishers, but devs can also self-publish when they are indies anyway. Epic Store is famously buying timed exclusives - we have seen ShenMue 3 for example exclusive for one year on EGS depiste a kickstarter campaign where they promised a release on Steam on Day 1. Devs/Publishers were clearly to blame there: they decided to ignore their supporters and go for the big bag of Epic money instead.
A big problem with the comparison between big box stores and app stores regarding exclusives is: I can go to Walmart, buy my “Walmart Exclusive(tm)”, and then not go back. Chibi-Robo! doesn’t require I play in Walmart, and, in fact, will run just fine on my DS everywhere. OTOH, for an Epic exclusive, I can’t buy (read: license) the game and then never use the Epic launcher. Because every time I want to play “Epic Exclusive(tm) #9001”, I need to have the Epic Store running.
> When some games are "exclusives" to a certain store, if you want to play such games you end up having to install every store in existence
Then don't! You don't need that game. If you and other gamers want to make a stand against the crazy number of stores just refuse to install them. Unless you do that the store owners know your complaints aren't going to amount to a thing.
I think you fail to understand conflicting interests. Devs and Publishers do everything to hype up game releases, and Store Owners buy exclusivity to bring people to their platforms. Even if I restrict my own choice, my vote ultimately does not matter: these perverse incentives are at play, and make life suck for every end user involved.
I find the hassle of having multiple game launchers installed to be pretty insignificant. In exchange, developers have more freedom regarding where they're willing to publish, and have the opportunity of exclusive deals that bring in more money and could reasonably be put back into the content of a game.
Also, as players we occasionally get games at much lower costs than normal (sometimes even free), which seems to be a benefit we wouldn't get to the same extent if multiple storefronts weren't competing.
Just having that choice though includes a cost. When everyone is forced onto the app store, Apple can censor as you point out, it can demand high percentages on in app transactions, and plenty of other negative things. But it can also demand certain behavior standards, easily deplatform people who abuse (in Apple's eyes) things like tracking (like when they revoked Facebook's cert in 2019), etc.
The minute you open up to multiple stores, much of that control is gone or reduced. Or at least limited. After all Apple also nuked Zoom's webserver off all OS X boxes in 2019 so I'm sure they could kill things via iOS updates.
As a more mundane issue, if now content is segregated across N store fronts, that's now N passwords I need to track, N potential places that my credit card can be stolen from, N stores I need up install, log into, and download apps from when I get a new iOS device, etc. I as a user do lose a lot of quality of life tweaks the moment balkanization of store fronts can occur. I as a consumer do feel I benefit from Apple being able to tell app providers "We have about 40% of the market on our devices and if you want to interact with them, it's our way or the highway. So if you want to sell to them, you will meet or exceed these standards, there are no other options."
Ideally this standard setting would be set by a neutral entity like say a government and applied equally across all personal devices, but US privacy regulations are a joke so basically I'm stuck hoping that Apple continues to see value in branding themselves as the more secure and private phone (I'm suddenly nostalgic for Blackberry).
You always have the recourse of buying an Android and side loading if you want total freedom.
You don't have a choice with many of them. Some publishers force you to use a particular store.
It's not only about which app gets installed. It's also who is tracking what you own. If tomorrow EA decides that the store should be gone, what happens to all the money you spent on their store? Of course, a similar argument could be made for Apple's own store, but they have more incentives to keep that up.
If purchased assets would be treated like phone numbers that you can port to another carrier, then that would be great. Steam supports that (obviously just to 'import' games, not to 'export').
If Apple allows you to install alternative app stores, I assume that means they allow you to "side load" apps. If that's the case, Apple can't really ban you from installing anything.
They could, of course, ban third-party stores from their own app distribution platforms. Otherwise, I imagine not, in the same way that most other general purpose operating systems cannot "ban" things like that. I suppose they could require all apps to be signed and subject to remote signature verification before the OS lets you install them.
This sort of banning is the very thing Epic appears to be trying to prevent. I would guess their legal endgame is to forbid anyone but government agencies impending a store for any reason. Once this is in place there will be no legal way prevent Apple from securing devices from bad actors in the store space.
Edit: In this scenario I am guessing it will not be Apple, but the government who will need to step in and sell store licenses to prevent illegal content... so yay for bribed big government over authoritarian Apple.
> It'd be nice if I can choose what I want to see.
Have I got news for you?! You can choose exactly what you want to see.
There's a very cool "App Store" on your iPhone right now. Somebody in marketing named it "Safari" -- IKR! pfft; -- Safari is one of the best App Stores out there. It has this neat interface called "URLs" where you "search" for Apps and apparently they run on this HTML5 voodoo magic; which is a set of open standards, run by the open committees (W3C); and here's the best part -- JavaScript! Yes! No more pesky Xcode tooling and Objective C and Swift and C++. Bleh!
You can even hit the share button then 'add to home screen' if you want easy access to the site without the URL bar (at least for PWAs; regular sites will just open a safari tab).
> My gaming computer is already filled with like 8 different app stores each completely different then the other and a variety of privacy/security issues on each.
Do you honestly think this is a worse scenario than having to buy all of your apps/games through Microsoft's app store? Can you imagine using macOS without homebrew because everything has to come from Apple's app store? Can you imagine using Ubuntu without apt because everything has to come from the Canonical's software center? Even Android is made slightly more tolerable by the existence of F-Droid.
Being able to use your preferred software manager/store for everything would be nice, but I don't know of any platform that lets you do that. You either have to deal with multiple software managers and use your preferred one as much as possible, or you're stuck with whatever the platform forces on you. I definitely prefer the former.
Contrarily, MSFT being the one to approve all code would be good in that it would destroy the current Windows code signing racket that only six companies have access to[0].
> Can you imagine using macOS without homebrew because everything has to come from Apple's app store?
No, because I would have never used macOS if there were limitations that prevented me from being able to do my job. And imagining a world where Apple restricted macOS in such a way is a rather unlikely hypothetical.
The big difference is that iOS has _never_ had these capabilities. Many people have opted into the current model of iOS because they don't consider it a general purpose computing device - they consider it a phone, an iPod, an internet browser, or an angry birds player.
> Can you imagine using Ubuntu without apt because everything has to come from the Canonical's software center?
No, for the same reason. Their customer base would refuse to upgrade, servers would be migrated off, etc.
A closer equivalent there to the current game app stores would be always-on licensing servers which used physical dongles - the game stores are running basically as licensing servers. And professionals _hated_ these. Even software-based licensing servers over the LAN is much less common in professional software these days.
> A closer equivalent there to the current game app stores would be always-on licensing servers which used physical dongles - the game stores are running basically as licensing servers. And professionals _hated_ these. Even software-based licensing servers over the LAN is much less common in professional software these days.
While it's true that apps for PC game stores often double as DRM, I don't think that's relevant to a discussion of whether or not Apple should be compelled to allow for third-party app distribution platforms and the "side loading" of apps on iOS.
After all, there is little stopping you from implementing always-on DRM on an iOS app. You'd just have to implement it in the app directly, which is how PC games used to do it before modern platforms became popular. The rise of those platforms (Steam in particular) had a lot to do with the downfall of oft-maligned DRM solutions like SecuROM. Software-embedded DRM tech like Denuvo are still a blight on PC gaming, but they're at least less common than they once were.
Same here. As a user, I would rather have direct download/installation, aka sideloading. But absent that, I would much prefer to have all my applciations available on one store. Having to download multiple stores in order to get multiple applications is pretty much the worst outcome.
Quibble: I cannot stand the Microsoft store because I cannot simply delete the apps or even understand why they are there even after I told it to uninstall. I also cannot easily move apps between drives or even control which drive something is installed on sometimes. Steam is the best this way, IMO.
That's actually one thing I quite liked about it - there's some option to just switch an app from one drive to another, and it's one of the only things I've found in Windows which actually "just works"
Only works if it's enforced for all users though. Having all the Windows apps in the single official store is really the only possible way for it to function
Obviously never going to happen, but it'd be a much nicer ecosystem if it did work that way
Before Apple blessed us with it's ground breaking technology to restrict the software you are allowed to have on your own device we did just fine getting software on our devices using a file system and the internet.
FYI, the iOS sandboxing model is the innovation behind the security of iOS. It is separate from the notion of having an app store. Apps would be just as restricted from accessing your data and modifying the OS as they are through their own store.
So this argument is wrong but will be peddled by Apple for sure. PC operating systems had viruses because of the non-restrictive, unsandboxed access their APIs gave to every app.
1. Sandboxing might help prevent certain types of attacks but the App Store review process goes above and beyond simple API restrictions and imposes rules on how you're allowed to use those APIs to prevent abuse of privacy. For example: just because I grant an app access to my contacts/photos for a legitimate purpose doesn't mean I want that company to exfiltrate that data and sell it to a third party. Sandboxing won't help you there.
2. Sandboxing is no panacea as we've seen from multiple Android malware attacks that abuse system vulnerabilities to break out of the sandbox. You're also underestimating the amount of damage that can be done even within the sandbox:
It is one of the innovations behind the security. A big piece of the security posture is the App Store review process which specifically checks to make sure apps are following the sandbox model. That wouldn't exist outside of that and apps could definitely bypass the sandbox.
Part of the Apple sandboxing model is to run a check on binaries to make sure internal APIs are not being abused, or other shenanigans. I would not trust the Apple sandbox at all, especially with the privacy in place which prevents any sort of auditing of what people are doing to their devices.
That's literally a major reason why people buy Apple products, though. If you can't sideload things, there's literally no chance of your phone being compromised by those things.
Is part of your reasoning also the fact that devs can't even mention in their apps that they have a website that users can buy their subscription from?
No but that's a reasonable restriction considering that apps would still benefit from the App Store ecosystem but would be able to circumvent the requirements of it.
Wait, what? You argued that a single app store makes apple devices safer. How does not allowing devs to sell subscriptions on their website help with this arguable safety? Don't bullshit.
> How does not allowing devs to sell subscriptions on their website help with this arguable safety?
By making sure the user has a single channel for dealing with payments and complaints.
Deliveroo did an update their software that wiped out my login settings. They didn't support apple login, so I lost access to my account. They won't recover my email because of a special character in it, and so they continued to charge me for their "plus" service every month, and avoided any emails I tried to send asking to stop (asking me to "log in" to change my payment settings!).
Requiring apps use Apple's channel would have protected me from that experience.
> Don't bullshit.
If you're not trying to be persuaded, why are you arguing?
I'm not bullshitting and I'll use myself as an example. I love the fact that any payments on iOS go through Apple Pay. If anything ever happens to my payment or contact info, I know who to blame. If every developer is able to process transactions and collect my personal info, then every developer is a vector for my payment or account information getting out to the world. I don't know what they do with my info, I don't know who they sell my data to. With Apple, I know the answers to all those questions.
See that's the thing. Apple does NOT prevent developers from taking payment anywhere else, it just prevents developers from advertising it on their Apple app. How is that making the iOS any safer?
You can't make the purchase through the app. Therefore there's no way for fraudulent transactions to be processed through the app. Refunds are done by Apple, subscriptions are done via Apple, and no mention of any external payments are made within the app. That makes iOS safer.
> That's literally a major reason why people buy Apple products, though. If you can't sideload things, there's literally no chance of your phone being compromised by those things.
False. People who don't want to take risk simply don't sideload, most people don't know how to anyways even on android - having the /option/ to do so is not a negative.
It's not false. We already went through this when people first learned you could jailbreak an iPhone. People don't know the risks involved with sideloading. They just see that some jerk has "video wallpaper" and "custom icons" on their iOS and they want that so they find someone to jailbreak and install those apps without ever recognizing that they have compromised their device. That's literally the entire point here.
Also, that's a very naive position if you're just going to go by that article. That only covers "known" malware and only Android phones that they have been able to actually register has having these apps installed. Malware is not going to phone home to Google. It's going to do it's damndest to hide itself.
Side note: wtf kind of word is damndest? I always thought it was damnest.
No, everyone doesn't win because that exact situation has already been used before by Windows with UAC and Android with developer mode and malware/virus peddlers just started to include instructions on how to bypass those things.
Why are you advocating for the lowest common denominator among humans? Are you sure you really want to be doing that?
If that's the case, take away all the knives, require people to get a license to have kids, don't let them drive cars, take away all of the dangerous things in life so that everybody can be secure. It's just a ridiculous argument to say that we must have only this one particular app store to keep everybody safe. There are a lot of solutions to this. I don't care if I have to sign a written agreement to allow me to sideload things, just give me a way to do it.
People who trade liberty for security are absolutely one of the biggest problems in this world. You should be advocating for people to smarten up instead. Otherwise you're going to wake up one day and you're not going to be able to make a move without asking for big brothers permission.
And, if you say that people have a choice to go on Android well, then they have a choice already don't they? Did the existence of that choice automatically screw the entirety of society? No it did not. So there's no problem with also giving them a choice to sideload.
You're acting like everybody will immediately flip the switch to sideload things. They already made a good choice by going on an iPhone, why are you discounting that people won't also make other good choices? You want people to throw out the baby with the bathwater. If I want to sideload one damn thing that doesn't mean I want to give up the comfort and security of the rest of my iPhone ecosystem.
>Why are you advocating for the lowest common denominator among humans?
That's awfully reductionist of you and absolutely not what I'm doing. I'm simply arguing that people saying "no one wants this" are wrong because I am a person that wants this. I do not want my family or friends, who reach out to me for support with their computers and phones, to be able to install and sideload apps.
I've been through these situations already and, yes, while a lot of people will be fine and can sideload without issues, there are just as many who mess everything up and waste my time when I have to restore everything without losing their data. These are not tech savvy people and they don't understand the risks.
Additionally, yes... people have the choice to go Android where they can sideload. That's the choice. Apple or Android. There is no other choice and I'm fine with that and actively support it.
That's rich, considering that you're arguing that offering people an option will somehow ruin the entire ecosystem for you and make your support job more difficult.
> I do not want my family or friends, who reach out to me for support with their computers and phones, to be able to install and sideload apps.
So, tell them not to. Done. If they listen to you - no problem. If they don't and you continue to waste your time helping them, that's completely on you.
If a man fails to learn from you how to fish, it's not very wise to prevent everybody else from fishing.
> That's the choice. Apple or Android. There is no other choice...
There will be, so don't get too comfortable with the status quo. Apple's control is so tight right now that there's only one direction that things can go and I'm looking forward to that as an iPhone user and a developer who would like to simply put some custom programs onto a device that I own without a major hassle.
Currently, my best option is https://altstore.io/ and as you can see from that, people are working on this outside of Apple so even if Apple isn't forced to open up like I am betting, we'll get there eventually.
What are you gonna do if someone in your family installs AltStore? You'll tell them not to or you can't support them - same with sideloading. So, I'm sorry, but your argument really holds no weight with me.
It doesn't need to. I'm not trying to change your mind. I'm explaining to you why some people prefer the option to use an ecosystem that has a walled garden vs. one that doesn't. Unfortunately for you, the majority of people must agree and be ok with the walled gardens provided by Apple because they continue to buy the products.
If people wanted the freedom you're describing, they'd buy an Android phone. If they by an Apple phone, it's because they're ok with that not being an option and some, like me, not only don't mind but actively prefer that.
> Unfortunately for you, the majority of people must agree and be ok with the walled gardens
I am sure that many people would be fine with being given the voluntary option of turning the switch on, to side load if they choose to do so though.
And you have no significant evidence that if many people were given the option to buy a perfectly identical Iphone, that simply was easier to jailbreak, that people would automatically choose the locked down version.
You have evidence of people prefering iphones over android. But you have no evidence about if someone was offered two otherwise identical Iphone, that people would always choose to not even have the option of switching the jail break switch if it were easy.
The obvious solution would be to give people the option of getting access to the easy to jailbrake iphones and seeing what they would prefer.
> Apple doesn't offer that option so discussing something that doesn't exist right now makes no sense
It is relevant because I think that a lot of people would want this option, and this would solve the issue by allowing people to voluntarily choose this.
You entered a lot of comments in this thread when one comment could have sufficed to get your message across. So you'll have to excuse me if I remain unconvinced of your motivation.
> Unfortunately for you, the majority of people must agree and be ok with the walled gardens provided by Apple because they continue to buy the products.
That's patently false. As I mentioned earlier, I myself buy iPhones and iPads despite the fact that I'm not okay with the walled garden as the sole method of loading software. I've also seen many, many people in this thread and in threads past express my same views. Heck, you can see it everywhere even among non-programming hangouts like reddit, 9gag, etc. There's a difference between begrudgingly accepting some sad state of affairs and actively pursuing it.
> If people wanted the freedom you're describing, they'd buy an Android phone.
That's better stated as "If the only thing people wanted was freedom of software sources, they'd buy a particular Android model and brand of phone that allows them that freedom." In other words, you're grossly oversimplifying the problem. As with all things, there's usually a multitude of competing desires driving someones choices. For the masses, software freedom doesn't even enter their minds. Instead, they decide based on their susceptibility to marketing, their financial means (price), what their friends are using, what they're used to and so on.
Luckily for me, the masses don't decide on this. Just like in Banking, Finance, Health and other industries that widely affect the common man - the common man doesn't decide the rules for those industries either. The people working in it do - and I'm one of the people working in it. Do you think common people cared that Microsoft was bundling Internet Explorer with Windows? Not really, not outside of Slashdot in that day - Netscape, Oracle and other affected companies got the ball rolling on that one. Even a small group of Linux users were able to push for getting refunds from OEMs on Windows bundled with their PCs.
With iPhones approaching 50% general market share in the US and 80-90% of the youth market in the US gravitating towards iPhones (which will cause the general market share to keep rising) - the writing is on the wall. They're going to be forced to open up somehow. The only question is what form that is going to take and where (EU/US/Asia). Apple will follow the laws of the land and the law is a constantly changing battleground, especially for a new-ish field such as ours.
When the next Matrix or whatever service gets taken off the app store for hate speech on decentralized servers, I'll be grateful for a way to sideload if this goes through.
As it is, I have to trust Apple to "not be evil", something Google certainly failed at.
If you’re going to make that claim, you’ll need to back it up with literally any evidence or even anecdote.
I buy iPhone because it is basically the only reliable computer I own, and a single, reputable source of software is a big part of that. Not being extorted into installing Steam is a huge part of that.
No, I didn’t _really_ have a choice to install Steam and I fucking hate it, thank you very much.
What? That's a terrible analogy. I don't even understand what point you're trying to make. Those 2 things aren't related. A large percentage of iPhone users buy the device because there are less avenues for issues.
I went into your history and ALL of your comments are for defending Apple on Apple related stories or defending Apple on non-apple related stories. You are clearly an Apple shill. How much are you getting paid?
$0. I'm not an Apple employee and all my comments are not defending Apple. Most of them might be because I only go on HN to discuss programming and Apple.
Interesting, though, that instead of actually arguing any of my points, you want to claim, without any proof, that I'm a shill based on what I like to talk about. Instead of attacking me based on my history, how about actually addressing the points I'm making? Clearly you're unable or unwilling to do so.
Come on, we all remember what it was like going to Source Forge and trying to figure out which download button got you the malware you were actually trying to install. Don't pretend like that was a utopia.
My desktop is a device for making, exploring, working, tinkering, making mistakes, hoarding. My phone is a device that solves problems or unlocks doors (metaphorically) near-instantly.
I’m tolerant to friction (some) on my “exploratory” device. I’m intolerant to friction on my pocket-tool. The latter must always just work or it is pointless. I’m happy to trade freedom for stability for that use case, and deeply frustrated to make that same trade for the other.
Do you remember the hardware that existed at the time, the GUI, the usability or non usability. There are two systems, IOS or Android. I really respect Apples rules and appreciate them. They stood their ground and prevented Cell Carriers from loading their phone with CRAP ware that is non-removable. Unlike android and any other flavor of phone OS that has existed. IOS when it came out was a true game changer. Its a very dominant player in the cell phone industry because of it.
yeah! don’t they remember the glory days and freedom of choice to wait in a virtual line on GameSpy to download the bandwidth limited patch from version 1.4 to 1.5 only to realize they’re on 1.2 and there is no delta patch from 1.2 to 1.4 so they can either try again with the full upgrade for 1.x to 1.5 which is about 10x the download size or they can get each incremental patch from 1.2 to 1.3 to 1.4 to 1.5?
come on. there’s a distinct value these app stores add and there is a distinct value in having one for the platform.
the ONLY benefit to this future is Epic gets a larger slice. they will not “pass the benefit down” in some trickle down user freedom economy. they will shove more micro transactions and advertisements into every corner of their marketplace.
Going online to a download website and downloading what ever you want.
There has always been "app stores" if it's tucows download or filehippo or gamespy or what not.
Very few people google "simulation games" and scroll through the pages and pages of google results and go directly to a publishers website and download an exe that they run.
> I can hardly wait to use Amazon App Store to install Amazon and then open up the Epic Game Store to install random game and then open up EA Game Store to install random game and then open up Facebook App Store to install Facebook and then open up the Apple App Store to install the Blizzard App Store to install Hearthstone and then go back to the Apple App Store and update the Blizzard App Store so I can get the latest Hearthstone updates.
This is how life is as a PC gamer and it's.... actually good. Who cares if you need to open multiple stores? That is the smallest possible inconvenience, and in exchange we get an insanely competitive marketplace where consumers are regularly given free games and deep, deep discounts to lure them into competing stores.
Would you prefer every city had one car yard? Is it a major hardship for you to have to go to different car yards for Fords and Nissans?
> This is how life is as a PC gamer and it's.... actually good. Who cares if you need to open multiple stores?
I do. I hate it with passion. Launchers have to be updated, games have to be updated; they all have different UX, work better or worse than the other. Let me have just Steam and regulate Valve so that they don't abuse their position, and I'll be fine thank you.
it's not trivial? its multiple accounts and multiple things to install and juggle - not everyone has the latest and greatest computer. Not to mention are you 100% sure those stores and your purchases will continue to exist longer than steam ect?
regardless, I hate it too but i really don't care, companies like EA and epic can do whatever they want and i just don't install or play games not on steam or the ps4 stores and move on with my life.
> Not to mention are you 100% sure those stores and your purchases will continue to exist longer than steam ect
This is more of people complaining about DRM and acting like giving Steam a monopoly over the market is a solution. If you're worried about a company going under and you losing your purchases, the solution to that problem is to not tie game access to an account.
People are looking at a clearly inferior system and saying, "it's OK, Valve will do such a good job that I won't notice the flaws."
You don't have a problem with too much store diversity, you have a problem with DRM and the constant need for you to have a good-standing Steam account and a computer running their client in order for you to access any of your games. But Steam is only a solution to your problem if the company never goes out of business, never bans you, never starts doing shady stuff, never gets overshadowed by competitor... those are not safe bets for you to make.
well no, because let's say there is no DRM, and the store does go under, and then your computer explodes and you don't have the terrabyte of games you own backed up somewhere, your SOL at that point?
Like while i trust sony to a degree i don't trust nintendo so all my switch games are hardcopy. I trust steam more then i trust EA/epic and thats on top of the not wanting to deal with multiple stores/ect.
Yes, if the store goes under, and you've never thought to buy a $50 terabyte drive to back up hundreds of dollars worth of games, and you never signed up for an online service like Backblaze that just uploads your entire computer including its program files, then you would have a problem. Presumably, at the point when the store went under and told you that it was no longer going to let you download your games, at that point you might have gone and backed up your games because you had advanced notice, but let's pretend you didn't.
Yes, if you ignored all of that you would have a problem, albeit in this case it would be a problem that was mostly your fault and not the fault of archaic US copyright laws. The point is that without DRM you at least have the option to be responsible and prevent this problem. With DRM, you don't have that option.
> I trust steam more then i trust EA/epic
:shrug: People trusted Kodak and Gamestop too. I'm not worried Steam is going to go under tomorrow, but if something happens where you start to get worried about Steam, tough. You can't do anything about that now. I hope you trust Steam because you don't have an option not to -- no matter what happens in the future or who retires or dies or takes over the company or how the market changes. Your game library is reliant on Steam being perpetually trustworthy for the rest of your life.
> and thats on top of the not wanting to deal with multiple stores/ect.
It's also important to note here that you wouldn't have to deal with multiple stores if you didn't have DRM. You could buy a game from Epic and use a separate client that you preferred to download it. The only reason you can't do that today is because the games are DRM-encumbered and Valve can't legally connect to Epic's servers with your credentials on your behalf and download and run those games for you without breaking the law.
This kind of 'adversarial operability' was commonplace in the computing world before it became legally tenuous for companies to offer those services. There is no reason other than copyright law and a misplaced fervor around the CFAA that Valve couldn't manage your Epic library for you.
> so all my switch games are hardcopy
Partially just a PSA here: there are good reasons to buy hardcopy games but if you haven't rooted your Switch and dumped those cartridges, then they're not actually backed up. You can have an extensive collection of 3DS games right now, but Nintendo doesn't sell a 3DS at this point. The Switch is going to be in an even worse position when it gets retired, because it's DRM-encumbered to the point that emulators won't work unless you dump files from your Switch that you own. You can't set up Yuzu (legally) unless you have a working Switch to get those files from, and Nintendo is definitely going to discontinue selling the Switch at some point.
This is one of the problems of DRM, and people's solution to this problem seems to be "well, I'll just pretend that this can never happen." In a DRM-free world, you can at least try to be responsible. You can take initiative to dump your saves so you don't lose hundreds of hours of Animal Crossing progress and Splatoon data when someone steals your Switch. In the current world you have to either root your console or just shrug your shoulders and try to remind yourself that nothing lasts forever.
This is also a problem that giving one console-maker a monopoly over the entire market would not solve.
The creation of multiple stores doesn't mean you have to use them...
Just vote with your wallet and stick with that store. Android has a half-dozen stores available, but how many people are using stores outside of the official one?
>This is how life is as a PC gamer and it's.... actually good.
Are you kidding? Because it just takes a look at how bad the EA store is to realize it sucks.
Yeah, you don't use it, but you know who does? every single person playing Sims. You'd be amazed how many "Why does the Sims 4 doesn't work anymore on my mac?" calls I've got...
What's a car yard? I assume based on the context a dealer?
And yes I would love to go to a mall with all the different cars available. Would make it easier to see all available options and pick the best one for me (rather then pick the best one from Ford for me).
You mentioned it yourself, most third party developers still use the Google Play Store on Android. The same will be true if the App Store continues to provide a better user experience. You might need to pay a little more for a game from the App Store, but I'm willing to bet most people will pay for the peace of mind. Let people decide whether the Apple tax is worth it or not. Either way, you're going to end up with a more efficient system where end users are paying an Apple Tax that is closer to the cost of running the store.
This does mean that Apple will need to start upping their game by either lowering their fee (which means lower costs for you) or supporting other independent games that deserve attention in the App Store.
Furthermore, iOS is a well designed platform with very tight security restrictions. You don't need the App Store to do that, it's build into the platform.
I recently discovered Playnite, an open source PC game library manager. It connects to all the stores and aggregates them in one place. You can also configure your own emulators for older games, etc. I can now view my DOSBox games and Steam/Origin/Epic games in one place.
There's also Launchbox [https://www.launchbox-app.com/]. You can also get Steam's Big Picture to do something similar, although it might take a little bit of work.
Except we all know the real option will be to buy game X from X's own app store for $39.00, so the only thing the consumer has gained is extra friction in exchange for the developer pocketing a larger share.
> Except we all know the real option will be to buy game X from X's own app store for $39.00
Why? Epic Store is literally giving games and discount vouchers away so you'd get _on_ they're platform. You somehow imply that there wouldn't be competition between competing services?
Seems a little short-sighted. Epic are not a charity. Discounts are clearly a ploy to capture marketshare from Steam et al... Games/products will always be priced the most the market is willing to pay for it. If just before launch costs drop by half do you really think the price drops by half?
PC gaming has been the most competitive and consumer beneficial software platform by an absurd margin for a long time now. I'm sure we can attribute at least some of this to the freedom of the market?
For people like (excuse my bluntness) us hacker news types sure. I can make a case that for a large chunk of the population this is not true - consoles are popular because people don't want to have to deal with the added complexity that came from "freedom".
If Epic wins, any user who wanted a walled garden (e.g. iOS) rather than open (e.g. Android) will be deprived of that choice. Ultimately, having looked into this quite a bit, I think this boils down to a debate whether the walled garden business model should be legal.
But most people won't be bothered to use other stores (just like most Android users don't use other stores).
The real solution there is forcing digital sales to include a perpetual license to the software independent of the platform. The current digital monopoly culture is against the overwhelming majority of citizens.
Apple could allow you to add additional sources inside the existing store interface. We can already do this with apt and yum on Linux for example. They won't do it though because they want to increase friction to maximize their money. They don't actually care about users.
Optimistically, someone will make a metastore that provides search across all the different stores. Sure, you'll have to sign up for each separately, but that should be a one-time deal. I mean, we kind of had that already before "software" became "apps" - the WWW where any publisher could sell their software on their very own website, free of interference.
Then you end up at step 1, lol, same thing with TV.
Channels are bad and too restrictive -> added cable TV "stores" to buy movies/stuff -> Netflix -> Prime/Hulu/Disney Plus/etc -> App to allow you to search through "channels" -> welcome to TV from the 1990's with the added benefit of millions or channels vs 1000's.
One of the alternatives is better. No app stores! The world simply doesn't need them and we should be pushing for nothing less than their complete demise.
Takes me back to the days of Warcraft 3 and The Sims on Windows XP. Go to the website, or install from a disk. Launch the game with a desktop icon. No app store needed. Updates are installed when the game is launched. No need to announce to all your friends that you bought a game, no need to have an integrated chat client. Just nothing but the actual game.
why would each of these companies bother creating a new store that requires eng resources, server costs, maintenance, etc. if the total cost was less than Apple's unreasonable fee? doesn't it simply mean that these companies perceive the value of Apple's App Store to be less than the cost?
Why does Facebook want to know what you had for breakfast and mad that Apple is wanting to limit their access to data and share that they are collecting that information?
I'm sure every company already has infrastructure for distributing digital resources over the internet, nothing more is needed unless someone builds a toll road into their platform.
These app store requirements are ridiculous. An app store is something that should be 'up and running' when a user wants to buy an app, not to serve as the continuous anchor point on a users device to fleece them further. This has really gotten out of hand.
This. The reason app stores suck so much isn't their distribution of apps. They do fine at that, and it would be easy to switch binary distributors.
It's the value-added services that are inexplicably linked that bug me. Why can't I allow push notifications without Google's app store? And why can't I use Google's app store without getting bundled into dozens of other services?
Allowing other app stores isn't going to be very compelling so long as Google and Apple can force you to use their app store if you want access to their value add services like push notifications.
This is a false dichotomy. Something could be set up that allows the current convenience of the Apple app store in a more federated way. The hoops are put there purposefully.
It is annoying how every PC game company tries to be a social network and persistent advertising daemon. But a launcher is not necessary to keep an app updated. Look at Chrome -- you install it, and it stays up to date. Blizzard could do that for their games and Epic could do that for their games, but they want extra money from putting ads in a launcher. (Actually, they seem to always be "house ads", so they aren't really making money, they're saving money. But at a Fortune 500, saving money is basically the same as making money.)
In-game chat could be XMPP or a more modern alternative, too, and then you wouldn't need a separate IM client for each ecosystem.
Finally, I don't think anyone really dislikes the app stores themselves. They are annoyed that they have to pay a 30% tax. If it were 3%, I doubt anyone would be complaining. Apple took a big gamble by being as restrictive as they are -- if they win, they get free money for doing nothing; if they lose, they get $0. I think history will show that they lose; app developers have caught on. But, I could be wrong.
There is a very simple solution - no App Store at all! I can download and install anything I want on my computer. I can use Google or bing or DuckDuckGo or whatever to find it. Why do you need App Store in the first place?
I'd have zero care if I have to 'download' stuff from a website and run it. The entire idea of store/aggregator is ok but the lack of choice to do as I please with the thing I own doesn't sit right.
I hate the fact I have to use Apple TV to watch Servant, Disney+ to watch The Mandalorian, Netflix to watch Stranger Things, and Amazon Prime Video to watch The Boys, and HBO to watch Game of Thrones, and so on. I'd much rather all of those other companies gave Apple a 30% cut of their revenue.
While I 100% agree with the sentiment, I’m not fully following these examples. On my Apple TV device, when using the TV app, TV consolidates all those except Netflix into an overall Up Next. I can watch next episodes directly, from Disney+, Prime, Hulu, AMC+, Apple TV+, even AT&T, without leaving the “TV” app.
Additionally, not just up next, but based on my subscription patterns, content from CBS, Showtime, Starz, AMC+, Epix, HBO, Cinemax, Sundance, Acorn, BritBox, IFC Films, and MUBI, as well as Apple’s TV+ channel, are all browsable without leaving the consolidated TV UI, and do not need an app installed at all.
From your list, Hulu, Disney+, Netflix, and Prime all do need apps installed. I do have to go into these to discover their own algorithmically proposed (personalized) thumbnails. But for day to day watching, the only app needed for each brand you happened to mention (except Netflix) is the TV app, and when searching for a show, shows from all of these (except Netflix) are in the search results.
Unfortunately, there are apps that work on Apple TV that do not play nice with the consolidated view and watch-roll. Some that were well integrated, backed off, most likely having to do with the waterline on viewer measurement / analytics data.
Netflix is the prime offender here. It wasn’t integrated, then it was, then it wasn’t again. They seem to have landed on a (for them) happy medium, where if you have Netflix in your home (top) row of icons on Apple TV’s home screen, “mousing over” (aka selecting w/ remote) the Netflix icon does show you your Continue Watching and Trending Now options, so you can go directly to those without opening the Netflix app itself. But they no longer show up in even the search interface, which probably keeps me subscribing to and watching other sources more than I need to.
To help give a signal to media owners, and to Apple, I systematically un-subscribed through individual apps and subscribed through the fully integrated “Channels” as those channels appeared. This individual statement is lost in statistical noise, sure. But what you describe is clearly better for the home user, and if enough folks do it, they’ll catch on.
Funnily enough the new Chromecast with Google TV is a better experience for you than Apple TV. All of the services except Apple TV that you mentioned are searchable and playable from the home screen and Google doesn't have to take 30% of their revenue to make it happen.
I am not sure what the GP is referring to, but the Apple TV does exactly this.
On my Apple TV I can search for shows on HBO, Amazon, ESPN, etc. All of my recently watched shows, regardless of streaming service/channel, show up on the main "TV" page. I can use Siri to search across all services, e.g. if I ask Siri to play The Office it will find it on Peacock and play it directly from there.
The large exception here is Netflix, apparently they don't hook in to the Apple TV API like the rest of these apps do (I imagine it's the same on the Google TV).
I was arguing with someone earlier today about the "sweetheart" deal that Amazon supposedly got from Apple and it cracks me up that we have these situations live in the world and the only company working to make this easier for end users is Apple. The fact that Amazon (and other video services!) can rent out movies within their platform as long as they allow for integration with the Apple TV app is a net benefit to consumers, imo.
Where I want to also see this extending is for the platform that Epic Games has created with the Unreal Engine. Should we be able to load in any skins that we could sell on our own store [- the users could decide to not allow/block them], etc? This would help counter Epic's ability to simply make skins that copy higher detail versions or make them look enough like other mainstream-popular characters, e.g. the skin that by users is called the "John Wick" skin - but it's not called that by Epic, so instead that movie franchise could have created and sold the John Wick skin on all game platforms for users to integrate if they allow [e.g. moving towards the Ready Player One movie].
Simple answer: People didn't use computers or phones to do most things. They'd pick up the phone and talk to a human, or they'd go to the physical store, and talk to a human.
Nothing wrong with that, but app stores, among other things, made computers far more accessible for non technical people, to do things like shop from their couch without talking to anyone.
We had people install a thing from whichever site they found, often with a toxic payload because third-party sites gamed results to end up above a company, or via sites that started trusted but were taken over by scamware, and then never updated anything, falling prey to whatever virii were doing the rounds.
People really make it as if it’s a better solution. there are multiple reasons why apple still doesn’t like allowing third party to take control. One reason means that trusting the third party applications means trusting privacy on the sub applications and apple have been trying to be more transparent on every app in their store.
Another is how the payment system works. Yes, apple takes a big chunk of money and it may be absurd, but I wouldn’t want applications to end up being like google play apps, where i have to trust the company for not stealing my payments info or using their own payment method to track costumers without apple knowledge. not to mention if the company got cyber attacked and they store my payment information.
Opening things up for third party may make things better if you read privacy policies and trust companies that you know are trustworthy, but it takes the privacy and security out of apple hands. Add to that how certain companies will definitely exploit that system, Facebook would probably hide their app inside an appstore to avoid privacy policy being transparent.
Apple acting as a middleman for every app in the store isn’t that bad if you consider all that, and i am sure we would see many articles blaming apple if things go bad in a third party app.
If only Apple could, say, permit payments outside of the Apple store for apps installed from the store...
This was the real problem. Apple has to get a cut if you run the app on an Apple-made device and either sell the software or charge money for digital goods at all.
There is only upside for Apple with these restrictions, so I see them continuing to fight this fight with the excuse being "Customer experience, security concerns," etc, where the reality is maintaining the wall and gate in their garden.
Suggesting that iOS should not be more like literally the most vibrant, healthy, popular computing platform ever created (Windows) is borderline delusion.
The Mac is great, but the Mac App Store is garbage. And that's the iOS analogue there. That's because Mac has alternatives; centralized, forced big-tech App Stores don't work in the face of alternatives. The only platforms they have worked on (iOS, lesser degree Android) only work because of the Big Tech monopoly.
What sucks more for consumers: Having to install the Epic Games Store to play Fornite, or not being able to play Fortnite? Those are your two options. You want to believe there's a third option where Big Tech Opoly is allowed to run a centralized draconian app store for perfect user UX. This third option does not exist; its availability over the past decade was a blip destined for the footnotes of history.
Hell, go over to Linux and juggle the multiple package managers and package availability between them. That's the natural state of the world; developers hold the cards, and they'll do what is best for their business. The App Store is fighting against nature, and that fight is always a losing one. Always. There is no third option; its just a matter of time.
> My gaming computer is already filled with like 8 different app stores
I got around this by simply refusing to install any other stores. If its not on Steam, GoG or Playstation store, I'm simply not buying that game. There are so many games I've still not played and my time is limited, I can live without playing a game that forces me to install another "app store".
It's even worse, a lot of the app stores are going to want to leverage violation so privacy, security, auto-billing etc to generate at least short term margin at expense of trust in overall apple ecosystem.
Right now I'm PRETTY sure I can't get screwed by a random subscription. Having played with some of the others, definitely not true elsewhere.
I've been there too, always used Steam to install the majority of the games I played. Then EA decided to only release Battlefield on Origin, then Ubisoft decided you also needed to install their launcher, now we also have the Epic Games launcher and the Blizzard Launcher (warranted they always had this).
Between each of these launchers they have their own chat platforms, I need to duplicate my friends list between them all and they each have their pros and cons.
It's not great and its frustrating. Clearly Steam had a fantastic solution and was ahead of its time in terms of digital distribution of content.
Why can't we move to a solution like brick and mortar stores where every game is made available at every online store? Then I can choose where I want to download the game from.
I like the grocery store analogy. You can get Kellogs Corn Flakes at any grocery store. You can get General Mills Cheerios at any grocery store. You don't have to make separate trips to the Kellogs store and the General Mills store. There are exclusive store-brand items, for which you do need to go to a specific store, but there's minimal additional cost to do so. You don't need to buy a new car to get from Trader Joes to Wegman's, you can use the same car to go to both.
With app stores the situation is reversed. Exclusives are common, and many quite expensive devices only have one store available. And once you've got an expensive product from the Apple App store on your Apple device, you can't (usually) change to a Google device and the Google Play Store and still use the product without re-buying it.
I get that the fracturing of content delivery platforms had to happen for the sake of ~profits~, but I miss the days when having Netflix, Steam, and Spotify completely satisfied consumption needs. At least Spotify still has nearly everything I want, and still provides me with great recommendations.
Who's gonna pay for supporting that "choice" and new attack vectors like when we had tons of Fortnite malware after launching Epic Game Store outside Google Play Store?
flipside - I'm very excited for apple to be removed as the gatekeeper to running any software at all on the devices. I'd rather have too many stores than one gatekeeper who controls all ios devices and takes a huge financial cut for the privilege.
It's good that Steam has real competition now. For a long time it was the only game in town.
> All of them need their App Store running in order to play their games, so half the time my computer has 4-5 App Stores running in the background so I can play a single game
You can always close down the app-stores you don't need right now, but it's true they don't tend to give you the option to do this automatically.
> And they are all electron/qt webkit apps cause nobody builds apps anymore so each one consumes about 500mb of ram.
Agree, it would be nice if they were more lean. I'm seeing Origin taking up >200MB just sitting there.
How old are you? Have you ever asked yourself "why developers went to the new and empty Apple App Store in 2008 in mature market with Nokia and others"?
The answer is very simple - commissions before Apple's 30% were 50%-70%. That's why Jobs conducted that presentation with slide regarding with 30% fee - it was unprecedent for those times.
Also there is also another question - how did you calculate that 5-15% is reasonable?
You need to have solid arguments to defend your position. But no one provided - even Epic's lawyers such data. Also most of apps in Apple's App Store are free, so Apple is paying for the whole development/maintenance of infrastructure (delta updates etc.)
> They went to the platform because the iPhone was rapidly gaining popularity and they gained access to a captive market.
So as Apple stated in court docs - it's symbiosis between company, developers and users. If iPhone were bad people wouldn't buy them and developers wouldn't create apps with bad conditions in economic terms.
> if they could do the store at 30%, they could do it for far less when scaled u
Since they aren't monopoly (court conclusion after TRO hearing and on and after preliminary hearing on September 28th 2020) and we are on free market there is no reason to discuss their fee. Moreover they didn't upped it. And never did from App Store launch in 2008, only lowered for subscriptions after 1 year from 30% to 15%.
Developers can stop learning Objective-C/Swift and switch to Android-whatever on their career start if they feel bad about industry-standard 30% fee. But developers won't because Apple's user base is paying money and not sideloading pirated versions like on Android.
Also business and investors don't care about Android, like Clubhouse - for start-ups only iOS matters on first years.
So what we see? Developers who make tenths of millions (Epic Games with Tencent) want free access for Apple's user (install) base for free. There is a word for this - parasitism.
It's just natural that big game companies want to start their own gamestore, it's easy money without having to come up with original ideas again and again. And you can take a big cut of the profits of the ones that makes the actual work.
But we can vote with our wallet, it's a free market. I only buy things on GOG.
I don't see any reason why App Store the app won't be able to give you a unified interface to several app stores, including search through all of them.
For some reason, apt-get has been able to do that with different package repos for last 25 years or so.
Instead of making the split at the app store level, enabling other payment processors within the iOS app store would solve most of these issues without creating a UX nightmare. That said, I wouldn't mind competition at the app store level too.
As iOS user I completely disagree. I love the Apple platform for the simplicity. Every time there is a payment I choose Apple Pay as it's more secure than giving my card away. It uses biometrics, not some static digits stuck with card if you lose it. It's also more or less valid for Google Pay as well.
Having the option to use PayPal, Stripe, some other payment processor increases the stress on the UX and also the attack surface for fraud.
There's nothing preventing Apple Pay-level security features from being integrated with 3rd party vendors like Stripe, except Apple's desire to keep 30%. It's highway robbery compared to every other payment processor's fees and has nothing to do with security, cost of operation, or doing right by users. Apple has conned users into believing that rhetoric, but it's harming developers, which are also a type of user.
No platform should ever be allowed to be the sole gatekeeper for apps on your device; that it's done for security is dishonest. And it's doubly egregious that they've tied payment processing restrictions onto it too.
I don't make mobile apps so I have no skin directly in this game, but as a user who believes my devices are my own, and as a developer too, I have to stand with my fellow developers in demanding app stores do right by the people producing apps for them.
Apple Pay is separate from In App Purchases and the app store is not needed for its security features you seem to like. Ironically, a payment processor like Stripe is usually the thing facilitating Apple Pay support on the backend.
My bad I didn’t express myself completely. I enjoy the fact that I have one account and I know EXACTLY when I’m making a payment.
When I get presented with the price and checkout in an in-app purchase I’m sure that’s everything I’m paying, there are no hidden fees, it’s secure and there is no way for someone to steal my details. And it’s the same flow to make the payment: double tap the side button and scan my face. This is the parallel with Apple Pay. Plus I think the backend on in-app and in-store payments are the same so it would be ApplePay.
> I can hardly wait to use Amazon App Store to install Amazon ...
This doesn't happen on Android.
> My gaming computer is already filled with like 8 different app stores
This is because game companies want to be middlemen in games distribution. Games have communities, chat, matchmaking, patches, DLC, DRM, sales and pricing engines, analytics, online gaming, and a lot more complexity than your AirBNB or CashApp.
It's also happening with streaming. Once game steaming gains adoption, you'll see it there too.
You're not going to stop this by defending Apple's moat.
Forcing Apple to open up lets small developers get around the Apple tax and draconian and arbitrary review process that hinders their growth. It also lets people control the devices they purchased, and defends software freedoms broadly by discouraging the Apple behavior across the board.
If you don't like it then stop using crappy software.
Right now the only choice people have for a phone that doesn't force you to have an apple or google account is a pinephone and this could potentially fix that.
It’s almost like console gaming would be easier, where if you want to buy a digital game, there is only one marketplace to use [1].
Oh wait.
[1] yes, you can also buy physical games for most systems, but that’s in its way out too. If this plays out as expected, this complaint is going to have a lot of collateral damage.
There is a difference between a video game console and a portable multi purpose device with such a reach. Judges should take this into account. With great power comes great responsibility.
Modern game consoles can do a lot... and have their own app stores. Microsoft would love for me to use my Xbox to stream Netflix.
I don’t think they are as far apart as you think. They are both walled gardens that are heavily controlled by their developers.
Not to mention — this all started with a game developer that wasn’t happy with the distribution of their game. Nevermind that they abide by the same rules and fees for Xbox, Playstation, and Nintendo.
It sounds a little bit like you're arguing that we should get rid of DRM. The interesting thing is that all of those app stores allow you to import other games. You can already manage your entire computer's gaming library on Steam -- or you could, if the games weren't tied by DRM to a specific client. DRM is literally the entire reason why Epic and Origin have a download client in the first place. If it didn't exist, you could use one client to manage your games today.
I don't see people complaining about GoG or Itch.io on this point, because you can download your games for those systems using a web browser and import them into any game manager you want.
It also sounds a bit like you're arguing for federated standards, which is also a thing that we could do. Nobody complains about there being too many repository remotes in Linux, because you wire them up to whatever package manager you're using and that's it. Your setup doesn't become more complicated just because you're using extra software sources. It's still the same commands to search for software and update your system.
This is already how F-Droid works, and it's great. Anyone can set up an alternative repository to F-Droid and I can use them as a software source within F-Droid. It's also the way that your podcast app works. Nobody complains that there are too many platforms for hosting and distributing podcasts, because as long as you avoid bad actors like Stitcher, you just install one app and manage them in one place from every source.
You're looking at games on the desktop through the lens of the model that Valve popularized by being a dominant player that refused to play nicely with anyone else. There are plenty of ways to design an ecosystem for managing stores without turning your computer into a cesspool of DRM. And Apple could do that, it could build a framework that required 3rd-party stores to work like software repositories.
----
Look at all of the fragmented broken systems you're complaining about -- the vast majority of them from video, to music streaming, to game purchases, are fragmented because they are deliberately designed to not work well with each other because the companies want consumer lock-in and DRM. But that's also exactly what is Apple is doing, they're just in a position of power so they're the only people doing it.
People didn't notice that Steam's way of managing games was fundamentally broken until other people copied Steam's strategy and made the downsides obvious. You're noticing the same thing with Apple's app store. You're noticing what goes wrong when app stores are designed using Apple's template -- when they're designed to restrict consumer rights, lock them into platforms, and force competitors out of the market, rather than when they're designed to be standardized clients that serve the user.
> And each App Store also has their own chat system along with the others like discord.
Why does a games distribution platform have a chat system in the first place? Aren't all of those chat systems basically inferior to Discord in almost every way? The Unix way of handling this is that whatever chat system you're using should be able to talk to Steam and get events from that client -- it shouldn't be bundled into Steam itself.
I categorically disagree. It's your choice to use one store on PC. Epic and a lot of people are asking for the choice. You don't have to make that choice since no one will force you.
So you prefer the console situation?
A game is PS or Xbox exclusive so instead of just another store you need a completely other hardware for hundreds of dollars.
Food exclusives aren’t that much a thing. Sure, I can’t buy Good & Gather or Up & Up (Target brands) at Walmart, but Up & Up napkins work just as well as Great Value (Walmart) napkins. An Epic exclusive requires the Epic Store. Maybe for things like flashlight apps or Flappy Bird clones you’d be easily able to find a version on your favorite store, but AAA games are different. For example, if GTA VI (whenever it comes out) is an Epic exclusive, I’m not finding a GTA VI copy of the same caliber on Steam.
...or Apple could be a true platform and not compete unfairly?
You know, just a thought.
They want secure app distribution? Great! Build an equitable charge model. Charge for transactions, charge for usage, don’t charge flat rates that don’t scale. Certainly don’t prohibit other payment gateways.
And certain don’t punish your competitors in ways you don’t punish yourself. ( blanket certificate removals for a company and all its subsidiaries)
The ends do not justify the means. Apple can run a profitable and secure app distribution platform. It requires being open and fair. They are not doing that.
The threat model Apple is addressing by not allowing third party payment systems is user privacy, issues many systems having securing that data, and dark patterns vs subscription cancelation or outright scams.
It is not an unreasonable thing to offer a platform with that security built in.
Blanket punishments are about the only thing that works on large corporations. Everything else can be worked around. Facebook would not have budged an inch on their app unless half their company was shut down a day. I have no doubt part of the point of Epic trying to bypass the billing system is to get additional user data they can monetize.
While it is true Apple is neither open or fair, it is reasonable to assume the many of the apps on the store have no intention of being either open or fair either. Apple is trying to stand between the consumer and rampant corporate ethical lapses. That they are also doing so in the name of corporate greed makes them hard to defend, but then I hate how much of my income funds the police.
> My gaming computer is already filled with like 8 different app stores each completely different then the other and a variety of privacy/security issues on each
One could expect that someone on a forum called "hacker news" knows how to close apps after running + also disable their autorun at startup.
Multiple app-stores are not that great, but still better than a monopoly of one company that takes a 30% cut for every product sold and in return provides an app that barely works (lags, constant updates, constant questions about password if you dont use it much).
It's basically the same as having multiple icons provided by multiple games. They also had different installers and privacy policies.
Competition among app stores means lower prices and cheaper service.
This sucks, but who is guilt for this, the giant publishers, why? because AppStores have a big tax , so competition that would lower the tax would solve the problem,
Is same with video streaming, the giants don't want other giants to get a big cut without working hard.
IMO , AppStore competition should be like web hosting, competition is large enough so you have enough choice to buy exactly what you want. Imagine if you want your web page to be visible on Apple stuff you need to pay 30% of your profits to Apple and only if Apple likes your page content.
30% is one of the lowest fees in the market. Amazon's Twitch takes 50% fee.
Also Tencent, who is behind Epic Games lawsuit takes 50% fee in China with their Android App Store.
What? This is simply not true. If anything, 30% is the standard for app distribution. Steam, GOG, MS Store, Playstation, Xbox, Nintendo, Apple App Store & Google Play are all at 30%. If it's a lot or not is opinion.
>Amazon's Twitch takes 50% fee
Twitch is not an app store, it makes no difference to this discussion. It just happens to be higher than 30, so you mentioned it. For example patreon takes 8-12%, but that does not matter either.
So? on MacBooks you can download and install any applications, including GPL ones for free, no censorship or GPL aversion issues. Because inn your opinion Apple shit stinks less still you should have the freedom to not eat it. so you should have the choice not to use the store
It's not my opinion. It's fact that court doesn't compare open platforms (Windows, Linux Distros, macOS) with closed ones - iOS, Nintendo, Xbox, PlayStation.
Please see preliminary hearing video where judge rejected such arguments like yours. Epic lawyers failed very badly.
Sure we can, if people want it they can. Example with ATM machines in EU, before I had to find an ATM machine from my bank because using other bank one would cost a lot, guess what laws fix that and the people benefited and the big banks suffered a bit, some rich bastards has one less expensive car now... so in a society it is possible to make illegal shitty behavior. (in case you are wondering the banks did not left and no righ dude lost his home because of this)
So if the people would convince the politicians that loot boxes, game exclusives, wall gardens, tracking etc is bad they can force the big giants to stop it and no fanboy or judge in Texas could affect what EU m Australia or other countries would decide.
> Apple said its rules applied equally to all developers and that Epic had violated them.
All developers except Amazon, they mean.
Now that it has happened, I'm actually surprised it took Epic this long to file suit in the EU. Given Europe's stronger antitrust enforcement and general skepticism of tech giants, Epic likely has a stronger case there than in the US. If I were Epic, I'd have wanted to have both lawsuits ready to go simultaneously.
This provides additional weight to Epic's arguments. They have repeatedly said they don't want a special deal for Fortnite, they want every developer to have access to either alternate distribution methods or a smaller cut.
That's not a special deal, though. Just because a reporter didn't know about doesn't mean it was special for Amazon. Your own article even mentions other providers that were already using that and, most importantly, it only applies to renewals of existing subscriptions that were started outside the app. It can't be exclusive to Amazon if other platforms are also already taking advantage of that same process.
New purchases follow the same 30/15 rule as every other developer.
I'd say a video rental is a new purchase. The customer may already be subscribed to Amazon Prime, but they're paying additional money to watch that specific video.
Video rentals are already covered by an agreement that existed prior to the change in the Amazon app. The article you posted even mentions that Canal+ and other video services were already using this which is an option where you can allow purchases tied to an existing subscription payment method if you also allow for those purchases in the iTunes Store and integration into the Apple TV app.
> The article you posted even mentions that Canal+ and other video services were already using this
So why isn't Youtube allowed to use this for their video rentals, if the user has a credit card on file in their Google account? Why did Apple only offer it to a tiny number of companies, and only one major player?
Do they? All in app purchases have to be made through Apple's payment system. If you can buy amazon prime through the app then Apple should be taking a 30% cut. They might already do that, I have no idea, but it seems unlikely Amazon would agree to it.
You can't buy Amazon Prime through the app. What people are referring to is the fact that existing subscriptions are allowed to renew without the 30% cut. People are misframing that as an exception for Amazon even though there are several platforms in the same situation that already benefit from the same policy that Amazon now agrees to.
Actually, I'm referring to the fact that Amazon Prime members can rent digital videos without Apple getting a cut. See the Verge article kevingadd posted below.
You weren't the person that I responded to so, frankly, I don't care what you're referring to.
Additionally, movie rentals are already covered by a prior agreement. The article you mention even says that Canal+ and other video services were already using this which is an option where you can allow purchases tied to an existing subscription payment method if you also allow for those purchases in the iTunes Store and integration into the Apple TV app.
There was no special deal for Amazon and trying to present it that way, is, imo, disingenuous. How can it be a special deal for Amazon if it existed prior to Amazon's app changes and other platforms were already making use of it?
I figured you were right, so I just signed up for prime.. through the app, and it didn't use the play store payment system, so Google isn't taking a cut.
Again, I have no idea what is possible on the Apple version, but I have subscriptions on other apps that go through the play store payment system. I'm not an expert on app store policies for payments, but I don't use any other apps that have subscription payment that don't go through the play store. I have a LastPass subscription which I purchased through their website, specifically because you have to go through the play store if you get it through the app.
Exactly, there are "Reader" apps that Apple has at 15%, these are video platforms, books and more which Amazon falls under. Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Dropbox, Audible, Spotify and others also fall under this category.
All of this is described clearly in their information. [1]
"3.1.3(a) “Reader” Apps: Apps may allow a user to access previously purchased content or content subscriptions (specifically: magazines, newspapers, books, audio, music, and video). Reader apps may offer account creation for free tiers, and account management functionality for existing customers." [2]
Additionally, Apple also allow small business at 15%.
"Keep 70% of your sales proceeds (85% if you’re enrolled in the App Store Small Business Program) and 85% for qualifying subscriptions." [3]
And yet video rental platforms from Google and Disney (Renting Mulan on Disney Plus cost extra) aren't allowed to bypass Apple, whereas Amazon can.
Even if there was something very specific about Amazon's implementation that allowed them to bypass the rule—at what point is it fair to acknowledge the rule was specially crafted for Amazon? What if the policy had an exemption for "Companies that begin with 'A' and end with 'zon'"?
Google Movies and Disney+ can be watched on their app though. They are still "reader" apps.
Buying/renting you can go via their site and I bet they prefer that for at least Google. They get all that customer info and no cut needed.
Any previously purchased items are available on the apps it is just in-app purchasing is usually turned off to prevent the iOS 15% cut for "reader" apps. They could have it on and available to use Apple's Appstore to rent/purchase but the in-app purchasing fees apply 15%/30% depending on the content and app classification.
Pretty easy to just purchase online and then watch in the app.
Games will always be 30% most likely because iOS is a gaming platform as well and that matches other gaming store cuts.
Even Tencent was 55% at one point for MyApp, they came down to 30% inline with other markets in 2019. Tencent MyApp is a competitor to Appstore in China, both companies make about $16B on their stores in revenues. If anything Apple/Google/Steam/etc all forced Tencent MyApp to come down to 30% from 55%. So things could be worse. Cuts prior to app stores were in the 60-70% range for gaming which was absurd.
Epic Game store is 12% (was previously 30% but they lowered to compete on price) which Tim Sweeney has said profitability is around 7-8% but they only allow in games that you have a deal with them. They don't allow just any game to be sold which adds lots of additional cost. Apple, Google, Steam etc all allow in any game which is good as long as it meets their ToS. Mobile really opened up gaming markets and that is industry standard now. Apple/Google even forced Steam to open up about 5 years after the mobile stores appeared.
My guess is break even for stores is about 10-15% if you have a more open market for all, part of that is keeping the stores/games secure from malware and payment info protected. That is why Apple was willing to go to 15% for small business and does for "reader" apps. They aren't making a ton of profit on those.
I avoid being a persistent fanboy/hater toward any company, and try to consider each case on its merits. Some of the concerns regarding multiple app stores on the device (which raises issues of security, privacy, and even storage space) are valid. But they fail to address a huge problem: Apple's draconian policy on in-app purchases. If IAP were to be opened up and become more competitive, I might stick with Apple's just for security and convenience, but the alternatives would be there, and I personally wouldn't mind a lack of alternative app stores.
Edit: to clarify, I'm saying I wouldn't mind having one app store if Apple's stranglehold on IAP could be relaxed (whether by choice or by law).
Another edit: Apple could also allow one-off sideloading, but not allow an app to install other apps (i.e. become a separate app store). This would be a win-win for consumers. Assuming that's who everyone cares about, of course.
But the reverse is true. If there were only Android like phones, with shitty malware, and battery issues, and fifty different app stores for any given genre, and Apple launched the iPhone, millions would jump ship to Apple.
Of course not. Not immediately. Just like you wouldn’t move cities if the police announced they’d no longer enforce traffic laws or investigate/attempt to prevent gun violence.
Then after the homicide rate doubles, there’s shootings almost daily, and you can’t get from point A to point B without a reckless driver risking your life, you might get stressed.
At first you’d consider moving to the suburb, but you can’t, because Epic’s lawsuit applied internationally and nationally, so actually no community is allowed to police itself in any way (Epic also sued Google for Google Play and I really don’t get why no one on HN is capable of remembering or considering that). And then you’d think, “if I can get murdered here or I could get murdered there, might as well save on rent”. And so, Epic has succeeded in destroying a large part of what makes the iPhone unique.
Lets assume Apple is forced to allow alternate app stores:
I'm [insert big company e.g. Microsoft], why should I put [insert popular app e.g. Office] on the Apple App Store when I have to give 30% revenue and deal with Apple's privacy rules etc.? From now on if users want [insert popular app e.g. Office] on iOS they will have to download it from our store.
All of a sudden every big company/popular app will have their own store with (likely) worse privacy and security standards. If I'm in Apple's ecosystem but want to use [insert popular app e.g. Office] I'll have to accept these lower standards or not use the app.
Which is why it's good for competition: Now Apple App Store has to compete with other app's own stores for pricing. Otherwise what if Apple decided to start charging 50%? or 80%?
That's why this is an anti-trust suit, because Apple is stifling competition.
This is a concern but even big companies have a strong incentive to remain in the App Store because it is bundled with iOS. For example, Microsoft Office is still available in the Play Store despite the possibility for Android users to install alternative app stores. Some developers will leave the App Store for alternatives that do not offer the same level of user protection, but I do not think a huge exodus will happen, considering that it has not happened on Android.
We don’t know if that’s true because Google was also sued for Play’s unfair practices.
It’s not just that iOS will be like Android, it’s that Epic is trying to force Android to be even more of a Wild West than that. Epic wants to give Microsoft the power to force me to download Teams & Office exclusively via the Microsoft Store on Android and iOS.
If a locked down app store is necessary for say safety, perhaps a good analogue is a water utility company. A water company has a monopoly in an area, due to the impractical nature of duplicate infrastructure. However, in return it may be heavily regulated in terms of its safety and pricing.
If you have to have a single app store then their prices should be regulated, and crucially there should be proper recourse for developers denied access to the platform
A better analogue is cars. You can't install anything unapproved by Lexus on a Lexus system. But you can buy a different car, and get different software and apps.
I can't tell if you offering this as something that's sane to do or not. I think you should absolutely be able to install the software you want in your lexus; the built-in software is often terrible (yes, including tesla).
> You can't install anything unapproved by Lexus on a Lexus system
Only as of recently and still rarely. Most cars of the world hardly used original parts for repairs. The whole auto repair industry is based on a bunch of hacks and fixes that are not licensed by holy overlords. Most of car computer AFAIK can be sideloaded and hacked with exception of something like the infamous john deere.
Speaking of which, John Deere has been in the news for this for ages now and maybe it's time to seriously liberate car software as well.
The difference depends on if you are talking about what is legal (eg right to repair) or what is possible by the consumer without modification. Legally you can do whatever you want since you own the hardware - but in both Apple’s case and Lexus’ case, installing a non-OEM part will void the warranty on that part, or in Apple’s case, the entire kernel since you’re modifying that kernel (although it’s easy to factory reset an iOS device and remove the modification without a trace).
The difference between regulating the price of water and the price of an app is the innovation curve. You can regulate the price of water because the creation, distribution and consumption of H20 hasn't changed in a long time. Meanwhile, every June Apple shows up with new APIs that developers can use to tap into the billions of hardware R&D they've invested for that year. Regulating price here is stifling innovation.
Meh. Distribution of computer programs has been done since the beginning of computing. Also, there is innovation in the water supply (which most people are unaware of).
Can you send me your mailing address? I have a cool game for you to check out on a 3.5" floppy. It's also going to install a virus on your computer and you'll need to format your machine after. This was my life in the 6th grade and my dad literally beat me for messing up his computer. I don't want to go back there.
Send me your floppy to Janne Mareike Koschinski, Lortzingstr. 16, 40667 Meerbusch, Germany.
I'd love to look at the software on that floppy, including the virus (it's always fun discovering a novel virus, if there's also games on there even better)
Solving your small problem creates a big problem for Apple at scale. The wrong people use floppies and everything just gets messed up. Whats to stop some incentive from coming along that nudges people to use floppies when they shouldnt. This is what happened to me in the 6th grade. Free games. Plus virus. Tough pill to swallow but the best solution is the current one. Lock it all down. Want to hack around? Go play on some open stack
it's also stifling innovation to be restricted to one store front. Imagine if all you had was Walmart, Target and KMart (iPhone, Android and Windows). "you can't build a new store because of all the R&D Walmart has put into their stores".
You act like all the R&D isn't paid for with phone sales and development kits ($99/year).
If you want to restrict the market? The price of that restriction should be regulation.
Actually, imagine if you were Walmart and you've spent the past 25 years investing in your brand, real-estate, parking lots, buildings, advertising, signage, etc. Your goal is to build a thriving business for _your_ customers. A fertilizer company isn't happy with the placement they are getting in your stores, so they sue you and say you need to give them dedicated, premium space in the parking lot. They also think its annoying that customers coming to Walmart for fertilizer need to go into the store to pay for their product. They want these Walmart customers to pay cash in the parking lot, pocketing all the money for themselves. If this sounds ridiculous, it's because it is. Epic is the fertilizer company and this whole lawsuit is embarrassing.
The difference is plenty of companies can make storefronts - look at Steam vs GOG and all the other options for gaming on Windows.
You act like companies wouldn't produce viable alternatives given the opportunity... and you act like Steam isn't better because of the competition.
Apple is putting forced restrictions on their platform because they want to squeeze everyone who comes through their doors. Apple acts like they are the only ones who can create a "brand, real-estate, parking lots, etc" when in reality, it can be done a lot better by any number of other companies - the only reason they can charge 30% is because of artificial restrictions put in place so... they can charge 30%.
Walmart doesn't want Target next door... because then they'll have to actually innovate to keep their customers.
Plenty of companies can make phones too, but it takes extreme time, effort, and talent to do so. It all depends on where you put the fertilizer - is the fertilizer company saying they should be able to set up a stall in the walmart parking lot, or are they saying Walmart is preventing them from setting up a store on their own land a hundred feet away from Walmart?
I am saying Walmart is preventing the fertilizer stall on their own property. The iPhone hardware, OS and platform is the property of Apple, just like the parking lot is property of Walmart. But actually, I am not even saying Walmart is preventing this. I am just saying Walmart won't hand them this opportunity for free. The result is the fertilizer company suing Walmart.
"for free" and yet Apple will still make a profit due to physical phone sales, $99/year fees, etc. To imply that they aren't profitable outside of the 30% cut is laughable. Plenty of companies "research, develop, provide opportunities" that can't and don't resort to monopolistic and territorialistic practices to block competition.
There's no reason that EA can't accept payments outside of the Apple store other than monopolistic protectionism. "research and development" of something 100s of other companies can and do is a weak excuse - and one easily picked apart with relevant examples.
I don't care if Apple spends it on research and development or prostitutes. It isn't about how they manage their money. It's about their right to set their own B2B pricing. EA can accept the payments, but Apple still has the right to charge them to operate their business on top of the Apple ecosystem.
It sounds ridiculous because the analogy is really far-fetched. A slightly better one would be that the owner of Walmart is also the mayor of the town, and he won't approve the business permit for the fertilizer store unless they agree to also sell their stuff at Walmart.
In the analogy, Apple is Walmart. Could you explain what it means for Apple to be "mayor of the town"? Apple is not the mayor of any metaphorical town. They own a business.
Walmart is the App Store, Apple is the town, and Epic is the fertilizer company wanting to open a farming supplies store of their own because all the farmers already know them from farming fairs and word of mouth so they don't really need the exposure from being on display in Walmart.
I don’t think Apple is the town. A town is something that a user (resident) should feel comfortable staying with their whole life. However, it is perfectly reasonable for a person to pickup a new phone from a different vendor on their next upgrade cycle. Therefore Apple can’t be the town. Apple is Walmart and Samsung is Target and the 100s of other Android devices are other stores.
The town is a good analogy because switching towns – like switching phones – is a significant expense relative in either case, while switching stores is free.
Interesting. So is the goal of regulation to ensure it's easy for people to switch "towns"? What if Apple, Samsung and Google needed to make it simple and easy to switch between their respective platforms, to a best effort? For example, if they both had similar cloud photo storage they would automatically exchange those. In other words, if we can make switching mobile ecosystems as easy as switching stores then we shouldn't take issue with Apple or Samsung or any other mobile platform. Market forces alone can influence how each company runs their business.
I don't know about that. How is this different from Costco selling a membership for a year? You've just paid up front for access to Costco for a year and now you are "pretty much locked in". Why doesn't a cookie company sue Costco for better placement the ability to pay for those cookies with cash directly to the cookie company? Those poor customers are locked into Costco and have to live with Costco's choices on which products to stock, where they go in the store, and pay for them through Costco checkouts.
A lot of people here seems to think that what Apple is doing is fine and that people knew how iOS works when they bought the device.
Neither of those are true for most people. Just reading the comments on HN the last half year clearly shows that people are confused about what Apple demands. If the HN audience is confused then I feel I can safely state that very few people knows what they're getting themselves into when choosing iOS.
Just the fact that you're not allowed by Apple to inform users about the cut Apple takes should be proof enough that Apple don't want users to know how much money Apple is costing them.
And the fact that iOS doesn't have a decent browser also sucks. Also, users don't understand that Chrome isn't Chrome on iOS.
Users have no idea what they're paying for, or that what they're using is being controlled by Apple.
It’s all about money. I don’t think epic wants a new App Store. In fact I do t think the majority of developers with legitimate complaints with the App Store want competing app stores.
They all want, from what I can boil down to, the majority of the time, two things:
1. Control over payments (to cut out the 30%)
2. More control over releases and updates (particularly upgrade pricing)
I think if Apple caved in on these all this would go away.
Likely, that’s about all we will see from a successful lawsuit too.
It’s never been about the App Store being the only game in town. It’s all about reviews, fees, release schedules and pricing mechanics. I don’t think the consumer wins if there are multiple App Stores. I do think the consumer and smaller developers may win if there is some shift around the above issues, though
I think 30% is excessive but as a developer my biggest gripe with the AppStore is definitely the tight grip Apple has over what's published. You might work for years on an app and all that effort can vanish into thin air if Apple decides they don't want it.
Retroactively! It'd be one thing if it was up-front rejections, but the internet is full of horror stories from developers who suddenly found that Apple had decided their product was no longer okay and that their customers didn't matter, blocking future updates. Not even necessarily taking it off the store, just ensuring it can never get bug fixes.
Well you have the extremism bias. Only people that are really mad at apple will voice their opinion. You probably won't hear from the thousands or more of developers who have no problem with publishing on Apple platforms. Since it's nothing out of the ordinary they don't go out of the way to comment how awesome it is to publish on there.
And also what I've seen with these stories that there is always a human from Apple App Store review involved, the conlusion often are a phone call with an apple rep or something like that. That's one of the things that's often not true in cases like Google - no humans to reach.
So true sometimes Apple pulls an app, unrightfully, like Amphetamine or etc. but they usually reach out back and you can talk to them.
Thats where Case #1 comes in. This wouldn't be such an issue for them if it weren't for the 30%. I think you could make a separate argument about consumer transparency in this arena, but I don't know how much that'd hold water, much the same as Safari being the default browser isn't anyone's complaint in these antitrust hearings.
One argument in favor of multiple App Stores is that Apple has historically been very aggressive about globally banning entire product categories they dislike or apps that offend the governments of foreign countries. Apple can continue to exercise this discretion without harming consumer choice if they offer sideloading for end users (or at least make their browser more capable, with full support for PWAs and modern web APIs)
Anytime Epic/Apple thing comes up, a very relevant quote is what their judge (YGR) said on their case:
> “Well plaintiffs always want me to define relevant markets as narrowly as possible. It helps their case. And defendants always want me to define markets as broad as possible, because it helps their case.”
The big elephant in the room is gaming consoles.
If you see iPhone more or less in line with PC/Mac, you may already have made up your mind on how "relevant markets" are defined, and so naturally pre-inclined to side with Epic.
OTOH if you see it more or less in line with Xbox/Playstation/Switch (every one of them having a unique store that charges 30%), you may naturally be pre-inclined to side with Apple.
The judges will eventually get to define what the "relevant market" is, and no amount of HN arguments will change that.
If I were Apple, I would just make a version of an iPhone hardware-enabled to have alternative stores, and I would sell it for a surplus of $1000. This way both sides can have their cake, and the market can decide.
Just if you want the convince, security, ecosystem, support you can expect to also in the same price point start supporting all the possible malware you will be able to sideload to your car, tractor and iPhone.
I like this idea, much like Windows N (that the EU fought years for boasting how good it was for consumers and yet nobody bought it) Apple could release a iPhone - insecure edition, offering no security features, just like how Microsoft removed media playback features. Let the actual consumers decide instead of heavy handed government.
But I guess most commentators want to eat the cake, sell it and keep it at the same time.
“Included in clean installs of Windows 10 as well as upgrades to Windows 10 from Windows 8.1 or Windows 7.”
My Windows 10 also plays H.264 from a clean install (defaults to Movies and TV viewer) and the list of installed codecs (supplied from Microsoft) contains mp4, xvid and even divx, so no idea where you get the idea that Windows 10 only sells as a N edition. I bought my licenses in Sweden.
Your version doesn't include any H.265 or later codecs, and H.264 only the parts of the codec that are available freely, so not a single cent of your purchase goes towards the codec license.
If you try to play anything else, you'll have to buy the Microsoft H.265 Codec Pack in the Microsoft Store.
Which, depending on device, country, and time, varies between 0,99€ and 4,99$.
The point of Windows N was to avoid users (or governments) having to pay for bundled codecs they don't need.
That is a complete rewrite of your original comment, Windows N is about a lot more than a few codecs, it excludes Skype, Windows Media Player and other media playback applications.
Your claim was that Windows 10 only sells in N editions which is blatantly false.
Not really. The reason the EU wanted Windows N was to avoid users having to buy a bundle (the EU really dislikes bundle pricing). Skype is gone from all Windows 10 installs, and while WMP was able to access lots of special APIs, Groove (which is the only media player bundled on Windows 10) uses the same APIs as every other program, and relies on the same preinstalled codecs.
This provides the same situation as with Windows N: No Bundle pricing, no Microsoft programs having any special access.
Not at all, the N spring from the anti competitive ruling in EU courts (2004 with associated fines) saying that MS couldn’t bundle WMP with a near-monopoly on the market.
The condition was that MS was allowed to sell it with WMP as long as they offered a version without it (that’s Windows N). This has been the case since Windows XP N.
Windows 10 comes with Skype pre-installed.
I’m starting to think you’re merely guessing instead of actually having used Windows 10, because nothing you’ve said so far has checked out with actual installations.
You can just go to the Microsoft store and you’ll see “Windows 10” and “Windows 10 N”, which should be sufficient enough to prove that not all Windows 10 are N editions.
I've got Windows 10 here, german EDU edition, and no Skype or WMP is preinstalled. Groove is preinstalled, but can't play anything at all without installing separate codecs.
There is room for 3rd party app stores. Epic will argue that Apple does an absolutely ghastly terrible job of curating the Apple app store, as Apple really has little incentive not to suck completely. The EU court will agree. Apple will spend a year or two saying “it can’t be done”, then issue a signing certificate to Epic.
The "Apple Tax" pays for the maintenance of the Apple ecosystem. Epic wants access to this amazing ecosystem, but resents having to help pay to support it.
Either "third party" app stores will also pay to support this ecosystem, in which case Epic will be paying the same amount either way; or they'll fail to support the ecosystem, in which case Apple will be forced to turn to other sources to make revenue (like selling personal information).
Right now I, as the consumer, can choose between an ecosystem whose business model is based on selling personal information (Android) or an ecosystem whose business model is based on the end user paying more (Apple). Don't take that choice away from me.
> Either "third party" app stores will also pay to support this ecosystem, in which case Epic will be paying the same amount either way
how did you work out that the amount apple gets paid (30%) is the "correct" amount? The only way to find out is via competition. But due to the monopolistic powers of apple, there cannot be competition on their platform. Thus, we do not know the true cost of maintaining this platform - only that apple is able to maintain it with at least 30%.
> Don't take that choice away from me.
nobody is forcing you to use the third party app store if it does exist. If you continued to use apple's curated store, you will continue to get the existing benefits. Adding an extra option can't possibly hurt you.
> nobody is forcing you to use the third party app store if it does exist. If you continued to use apple's curated store, you will continue to get the existing benefits. Adding an extra option can't possibly hurt you
People need to stop saying this - it’s obvious completely false.
As soon as other app stores are involved, there will be paid exclusives. Equivalent to Joe Rogan on Spotify, or any of the streaming video services who commission studios to make content just for their platform.
It will definitely be impossible to avoid using multiple stores if you want access to the popular apps.
Not really. It would be perfectly possible to have just one store offering multiple repos/curations etc. .
And in any case "but having like three stores" is an annoyance at worst. Having one grand holy arbiter of truth is a bigger problem.
> how did you work out that the amount apple gets paid (30%) is the "correct" amount? The only way to find out is via competition. But due to the monopolistic powers of apple, there cannot be competition on their platform. Thus, we do not know the true cost of maintaining this platform - only that apple is able to maintain it with at least 30%.
30% is industry standard.
> nobody is forcing you to use the third party app store if it does exist. If you continued to use apple's curated store, you will continue to get the existing benefits. Adding an extra option can't possibly hurt you.
It hurts the ecosystem - and all its users. Splitting the apps in multiple app stores is a nightmare
I don't get the point: the whole idea of Apple is to have everything under their control. Nobody is forcing anyone to use Apple devices
Nobody is going to not put their app on the apple app store. Look at steam for example. Almost every game on steam can be purchased somewhere else, like icth.io or the game's website. 30% is industry standard among monopolistic players (Google play store, Apple app store, Steam). There are many other storefronts that take less of a cut, and don't require IAP to go through a specific payment system that the platform also owns. FDroid, MS Store, Epic Store, Galaxy Store, GOG, the list goes on.
How is Steam a “monopolistic player” when you say “almost every game on steam can be purchased somewhere else” and go on to mention Gog, MS Store, Epic Store, and “the list goes on”?
That Steam, and others you mention, charge 30% categorically undermines the whinging about Apple’s 30% being out of line.
I’m also curious about people’s thoughts on Sony pulling CDPR’s Cyberpunk 2077 from their Playstation store.
> Nobody is going to not put their app on the apple app store.
Epic will, and this is what they want
> Almost every game on steam can be purchased somewhere else, like icth.io or the game's website. 30% is industry standard among monopolistic players (Google play store, Apple app store, Steam).
> how did you work out that the amount apple gets paid (30%) is the "correct" amount? The only way to find out is via competition.
The "correct" amount is the amount that everybody is happy to pay. If Epic doesn't want to pay 30%, then 30% is too high for them. That's OK -- nobody is forcing them to pay it.
The competition you're describing isn't the cost of running the app store; it's the cost of maintaining the entire Apple ecosystem, including iOS, new iPhone hardware, etc.
> Adding an extra option can't possibly hurt you.
Yes it can, and I just explained how. But let me try to spell it out.
1. New iOS "app store" starts up, but only charges 0.1%. This is possible because they don't write the OS or any of the infrastructure; they're a simple indexer
2. Everyone moves over to this app store because the fees are cheaper.
3. Apple's revenue drops precipitously
4. In order to maintain the OS, Apple either a) raises the prices of iPhones b) starts selling my information c) invests less in the iPhone and iOS.
All three of those possibilities hurt me; so yes, a new app store does hurt me.
What are you on about? App developers are not the ones who should be monetarily supporting the ecosystem, the end user has already paid for the device.
Not only that, without developers, there is no ecosystem. An iPhone without apps is less useful than an iPod touch with apps.
Boohoo, the most cash rich silicon company will have to compete. Brew or Cydia never ate into Apples profit margins, instead it allowed users to do things apple couldn't be bothered supporting (Like Bluetooth audio on the 3g iPhone on iOS 2.0). Having multiple app stores will allow users to circumvent government censorship in countries where Apple is forced to follow the governments demands.
> App developers are not the ones who should be monetarily supporting the ecosystem, the end user has already paid for the device.
Where does this "should" come from? Just because you don't think that's the best way to run an ecosystem doesn't mean nobody should be allowed to do it. If it's a bad model, that's Apple's problem, not yours. If you think you have a better model, start a new company with a different model.
> Not only that, without developers, there is no ecosystem. An iPhone without apps is less useful than an iPod touch with apps.
The fact that Apple has a rich and thriving ecosystem demonstrates that their business model works just fine.
> Having multiple app stores will allow users to circumvent government censorship in countries where Apple is forced to follow the governments demands.
Won't one of those government demands be, "No third party app stores"? (Or, "No third party app stores that we haven't approved"?)
> The fact that Apple has a rich and thriving ecosystem demonstrates that their business model works just fine.
It just shows it works for Apple. It doesn't show it works for everyone else. It's like slavery was a good system because it made the slave-owners rich and they thrived because of it.
> The "correct" amount is the amount that everybody is happy to pay.
This is only valid in a free market with lots of competition and information transparency. The crux of the argument is that this does not apply to the app store ecosystem.
> New iOS "app store" starts up, but only charges 0.1%. This is possible because they don't write the OS or any of the infrastructure; they're a simple indexer
Apple was already paid handsomely for OS development through the device's purchase price.
> Apple's revenue drops precipitously
Apple has some of the highest margins in the industry. They'll survive.
> In order to maintain the OS, Apple either a) raises the prices of iPhones b) starts selling my information c) invests less in the iPhone and iOS.
"Apple has lots of money so they can afford to give some of it away because we want them to" is not an argument that Epic can take to court, and it isn't a great argument to support adding app stores.
As an iPhone user I prefer the single app store approach. Multiple app stores fragments the user experience, ultimately harming the experience of owning an iPhone. Especially when apps become exclusives to different stores, because they will.
It's one of the main reasons that I moved away from Android. I completely understand the "open system" argument for Android, but a fragmented user experience is a byproduct of that openness. The last android phone I had came with a Samsung store, Google play, and I believe a Verizon app store. As well, going from my Android phone to borrowing a friends meant learning a completely new UX almost every time. "Oh, you don't have a Samsung Android, so you don't have that particular app store, so you can't get the app... Sorry"
It's been several years now, so maybe that's changed, but the biggest thing that makes me stick with Apple is the consistency of the user experience, in both its OS and app store ecosystems.
You're conflating having a single app store with having a consistent user experience. Mac OS didn't have an app store for most of its existence and it's doing fine.
Android is particularly bad in that regard, not just because of the ability to side-load alternative apps and app stores. The main issue is that OEMs heavily modify the OS for their devices, something that isn't an issue with Apple's business model.
I'm not so sure it's a conflation. Having a single app store makes for a more consistent user experience when moving from device to device.
You can tell people about apps and they know how and where to get them. See an app you like on another iPhone? You can probably install it on yours fairly easily. There's less confusion around the entire ecosystem because of its simplicity.
This is one hell of a peak capitalism comment - I already payed tons of money for the richest company in the world, no way I'm bothered them getting that another 30% cut.
Look through my comments and you'll find I'm not some "the free market will magically solve all our problems" ideologue. Monopolies / monopsonies are a thing, and both workers and consumers need to be protected from them. Your attitude would make sense if there were no other smartphones around, and it was "buy an iPhone or go without".
But there are plenty of good smartphones with alternate business models. If you don't like the fact that your apps are more expensive because Apple charges a 30% commission, then buy an Android and install a third-party app store.
What are you talking about? Both Microsoft and Apple have had great success developing macOS and Windows while allowing third party developers to develop and distribute apps without an additional tax. There's clearly room in the market for operating systems that don't sell personal data and aren't artificially restrictive to generate more revenue. The fact that Apple cut the tax in half for small companies just shows how disconnected the revenue from the App Store is from the cost of running it.
By all means, keep overpaying for Spotify on the App Store so Apple can collect their 30% each month, but don't force me to. Customers already pay to use a licensed copy of iOS on supported hardware and governments have every right to protect the customer from perpetually getting screwed by Apple. At the very least, we shouldn't allow Apple to limit free speech so that developers can't mention a way for their users to save money.
> The "Apple Tax" pays for the maintenance of the Apple ecosystem.
No - the ~50% margin Apple makes on the phone pays for the ecosystem. Apple could charge nothing for inclusion in the app store and still be by far the most profitable electronic device maker on the planet.
Apple is well compensated for their ecosystem with the price of their phones. Epic wants to create their own store or be allowed to use another payment processor than Apple for in app purchases. Apple would still have plenty of revenue from the app store and hardware.
If epic and others was allowed to use multiple payment processors in the apps, or to install different app stores such as epic games or steam, you wouldn't have fewer choices you would have more.
>Apple have hundreds of billions in cash do you actually believe they're going to put ads in their services?
That's irrelevant. The issue in question is one of principle, not whether or not someone is in a certain position at this moment in time and can or can't or will or won't do something. If Apple suddenly lost all of it's money, you'd then be ok with them putting ads into their services?
Well no-one would be using it so I wouldn't care all that much - Apple losing all their money would basically require giving away iPhones for free with 0 revenue given apples financials.
The Apple tax pays for outsized profits for Apple shareholders. The actual cost of supporting the ecosystem is dwarfed by the absolute firehose of money coming out of the app store.
Epic has asserted and proven that you don't need to take 30% to run an app store and approval pipeline. The incredible amount of profit generated by the iOS store is further evidence that the cut doesn't need to be 30%, as is Apple's sudden willingness to make exceptions for big companies like Amazon and temporarily offer 15% to small companies.
Neither the Epic Store or Steam on PC are built around selling your data. Epic's PC store charges 12% (and if you use Unreal, they waive the licensing fee for that engine too), and Steam has a special tiered tax for massive companies (something like 25% for 50m+ in revenue, 20% at some higher tier)
I still don't see a way to resolve the problem that software isn't fungible and so multiple app stores are only good for publisher choice but not user choice.
Without the requirement that all apps able to be purchased on all stores at similar prices and still under Apple's review process then apps will flock to the store that makes them the most money and fewest rules and users will have no choice but to acquire that app via that store. If I have to go to X store for an app I need I don't really have my choice of store.
Do gamers like the current culture of having to have Origin, Steam, UPlay, Epic, GOGs, Blizzard Store, for no other reason than large middlemen playing Civ with marketshare and exclusives?
I think if this issue was solved we would see less people desiring Apple to have such tight control over their ecosystem because it would mean that for users that like Apple's store opening up isn't a strict downgrade for them.
> Do gamers like the current culture of having to have Origin, Steam, UPlay, Epic, GOGs, Blizzard Store, for no other reason than large middlemen playing Civ with marketshare and exclusives?
I don't like my game library is fragmented. But what if Steam was the only store for PC and I wasn't able to buy/play any Epic or EA games because of that? That would be worse.
Or what if the game prices had to be higher than current prices since the only place I can buy a game was steam and there was no competition?
> But what if Steam was the only store for PC and I wasn't able to buy/play any Epic or EA games because of that? That would be worse.
I guess but if Steam was genuinely the only place where people bought games then Epic and EA games would have no choice but to list on Steam which makes you better off, no?
> Or what if the game prices had to be higher than current prices since the only place I can buy a game was steam and there was no competition?
This I think is the meat of the argument but I think it falls down because competition gets weird with software and copyrighted properties. There's no competition between Steam and Origin for games that are only on Origin. If Microsoft Word is only available on the Windows Store for iOS then there's nothing to compete over for a user that needs Word.
Yeah, this isn't really about "choice", it's about control. If there are exclusives on, for example, an iOS Epic store, your choice isn't really a choice, you have to install it from the Epic store.
I'm curious how this will play out in general. Android already allows side-loaded applications, and Epic allowed people to install Fortnite outside of the Play Store and it did poorly, so they begrudgingly added Fortnite back into the Play Store, so I imagine it would be the same thing on iOS. Arguably it could be even more challenging for others because Apple would likely not be forced to treat non-App Store stores the same as the App Store in some ways, which would very likely lead to a situation where users would get popups when when install the new app store and when they load an app, similar to how running a nonsigned program works on Mac now.
Who is forcing you to install apps from any store?
Are you being held hostage and compelled to install apps against your will? Blink twice for yes, three times for no.
Ohmygod I can't deal this reductionist stance on choice. Software isn't fungible. If you, for example, want to play a specific game, need a specific messenger to talk to your friends, or need a specific app for work like the Adobe suite or Procreate then you have no choice but to go to a store where those apps are available. If Photoshop is only in the Adobe store then you're gonna have to download and use that store if you want it. Having the choice to not use Photoshop isn't the same thing as having the choice about where to buy Photoshop.
GOG is an exception there, given that all their games are DRM-free, and I know many people find Steam/Valve to genuinely be a good steward of the industry. The rest of the stores - plenty of peer pressure if your friends want you to play a specific title with them on those platforms, leaving little choice.
Apple does not actually have a monopoly, Android exists, has more market share, more options and features, and a better ecosystem of compatible smart devices.
If Apple is forced to allow third party app marketplaces it is clear what will happen. Every major player will make their own marketplace and force you to use it to access their software and whatever other software they have paid to make exclusive. Epic is one of the absolute worst offenders for this sort of behavior. So to everyone claiming "you will still be able to use the curated app store", I guess that's true but only technically.
IOS will not be a better place should Apple be forced to go through with this. This is not being an "Apple apologist". I think we all agree that Apple will happily exploit the people forced to offer services through their platform. But if they are forced to take their hands off the wheel they will lose the power that allowed them to push through some fairly groundbreaking privacy protections, including sign-in with Apple, which I personally deeply appreciate.
>Every major player will make their own marketplace and force you to use it to access their software
A lot of comments keep saying this. So why haven't they done it on android? If they wanted to have huge amounts of users use their stores, wouldn't android give them even more of that than iOS?
Why are there all these doomsday scenarios being touted in this thread when what epic is asking already exists on another (larger) platforms, and none of the things that you and others mention happened?
I already have a taste of this on my gaming computer: GOG Galaxy, Steam, Epic Store, EA Store, … All of them wanting to auto-start and waste resources in the background. It's just a waste and a hassle.
And every one of them manages to lose my logged in state and force me to log in again every time I start them, apparently that "Keep me logged in" checkbox is just for show.
It depends on what you consider the market. Apple totally have a market on 'iOS App Distribution'. Which does not compete with Android because you can't get apps on each other. This is the same logic in the EU's ruling against Google's Android monopoly:
>Google's app store dominance is not constrained by Apple's App Store, which is only available on iOS devices.
Apple products are not at the level of necessity as water...
A smartphone might be (big stretch)... of which there are plenty of choices.
This is like saying Dasani (Apple) is the absolutely ONLY water brand out there, when you can get Aquafina (Android) and get nearly the same product. Yes, Dasani is only bottled at certain places (exclusive features like iMessage, FaceTime), but Aquafina has minerality (rooting your phone, deep integration with Google services) as well that make it unique.
Such vendors are free to create game catalogs for their games (Steam-like), taking the user to the App Store for downloads. They can also have IAPs, Subscriptions and alls kinds of payment options. Apple's own Arcade follows this same architecture so I don't see Epic's argument at all.
When I am using my iPhone/iPad, I expect all apps to work with services connected to my Apple account. No user should be required to provide payment information to a shady 3rd party like Epic, Microsoft or whatever.
It is clear that the "antitrust" action is designed to allow Epic (and similar) to push a solution which is fit for their business model.
As a developer, I don't support the idea of alt-stores at all, it would mean that only big corps will have the resources to create and maintain such distribution channels. Nobody will go through the trouble of installing an alt store for my FooBar pet-project game. Also who is going to review these apps?
> I expect all apps to work with services connected to my Apple account. No user should be required to provide payment information to a shady 3rd party like Epic, Microsoft or whatever.
Apple could make everyone happy tomorrow vis-a-vis IAPs by charging standard credit card processing fees (~2-3%)instead of 30% while still protecting your payment info from app developers.
The App Store is also a distribution channel. The 15% seems like a lot but I would have to pay, way, way more to achieve the same level of presence elsewhere (without nasty tracking ads).
There's already a lot of discussion about alternative App Stores, but I was wondering if we could talk about how Apple keeps spouting this line:
> the App Store guidelines that apply equally to every developer and protect customers
This is not only subjectively false, it is objectively false, provable with just a few minutes of reverse engineering. You don't have to be a fly on the wall at some secret meeting between corporate giants to know it, or listen to the plight of app developers. You can literally just go to Apple Configurator and download an IPA file for an app and inspect it to see that Apple does not in fact apply its rules equally to all developers. So why do they keep repeating this? Who will be the first party to hold them liable for perjury?
I know this isn't the first time this happens, but it's a curious thing when a large US company has to resort to using the EU court system to resolve their beef with another US company.
> We as legislators need to ensure that these platforms who act as gatekeepers in the digital market have to respect a predefined set of rules in order to guarantee fair competition and balanced market powers,” he said in a statement.
One of these rules is (hopefully), if i purchase a hardware gadget, all of its capabilities are my possession. Restricting the access on purpose is frault.
Epic's case is just a consequence of the missing regulations when providing software AND hardware.
What about them? They’ve made their choice, and you don’t get to impose your values on them.
Believe it or not, people generally buy Apple devices knowing full well they’re entering a walled garden ecosystem. And they’re doing it for that reason specifically, not in spite of it.
You might disagree, and you’re free to make a different choice, because it exists (and is more popular anyway). Everyone wins.
People are more often forced to enter a specific ecosystem due to networking effects. There is no real choice for these common folk.
They need to participate in their universe and outsiders cant join. Neither can they experience competition.
* Platforms MUST display the amount of the processing fee taken from the payment in a clearly visible format inside of the app and/or the IAP flow.
* Platforms MUST allow developers to implement alternative payment options (potentially cheaper due to lack of additional processing fee).
* Platforms MUST allow advertisement of alternative payment options inside of the app and/or the IAP flow.
* Platforms are allowed to reject apps if they think their alternative payment options are fraudulent but actionable feedback MUST be given within a reasonable time frame.
* Platforms MUST provide a list of trusted payment alternatives which will be unconditionally approved during the app review process. To prevent cartel, the list MUST be periodically audited by FTC.
If the convenience from the integrated IAP can justify the 30% fee, the users will keep using it. If not, the price will be brought down. Let the market decide.
There's a big difference between a personal cell phone that you use every day of your life and might be your only computer and is advertised as such and an entertainment console.
That said I agree and think Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft should have to open up their platforms for side loading.
This problem is not limited to Apple mobile devices, it is shared with every manufacturer curating all the software on their platforms. Apple, Nintendo, Sony, John Deere, and so on. Every manufacturer gatekeeping their platform for security, financial, community, repair, or quality standards. They should all instead bust the machines wide open, allow anyone's operating system software to be in control, and give up the notion that curation in exchange for restrictions is something anyone can willingly buy into. If you go after Apple, you go after all the other platform companies, because their justifications do not hold water either. If you go after just Apple, you have to convince the judge that there are good reasons Apple must conform while nobody else has to.
This. I think a lot of people miss the bigger picture. If Epic win this, do you really think games consoles are safe? What about car infotainment systems etc.? An Epic win could effectively make all walled gardens illegal
Let's start with the obvious issue: Apple does not sell the most phones. It does not have the most phones on offer. It is not a majority, let alone a monopoly.
Now the less obvious issue: I like what apple does and I am prepared to pay for it.
I agree with those arguing for consumer choice, but I come to the exact opposite conclusion, and find those others hypocritical. I want an option to have a locked down environment. I want to have the choice to buy an Apple product. Given the choice between the Android system or the Apple system, I choose Apple. More people choose Android.
The argument that we should use "consumer choice" to remove this choice from me, and instead to demand that every business must make the world look like Android users want, is not logical.
These conversations always rapidly devolve into the same old generic iOS versus Android nonsense. But I'd like to try to keep a super narrow scope here. The specific problem Epic and others are fighting here is "App Store payment system and control over app downloads"
Now to be fair, as far as 'App store payments' goes, both Google & Apple charge the 30% fee on all transactions. The reason Epic is battling Apple here mostly has to do with the 'walled garden', and the fact Apple's 'control over app downloads' is totally locked down. Epic avoids the Google play 30% fee by having users side-load the APK, so that's a fight for another day I suppose.
Now, for the 30% fee problem. Does anyone really think that is fair an equitable? Come again? They hover up 3/10ths of all business transactions? It just seems so obvious to me that the answer is absolutely not. There is no way I can twist my brain to believe there is any justification for that. If the issue is that it costs Apple (& Google) a lot of money to maintain servers and infrastructure to provide the app store services, then there are other ways to charge developers to cover this cost, and even make some profit.
Apple charges $100 a year for the 'Apple Developer Program'. This yearly fee model is the fair way to do this I think. You could add more tiers too this that scale with usage. $100 for the entry level package, and that covers 'X' amount of usage. There could be enterprise tiers for huge customers like Epic. They are using more of the resources of the app store, then they should pay more. I'm sure Epic would be happy to pay, IDK I'm just making up a number, something like $500K a year for their developer license instead of 30% of every transaction.
I'm just spitballing here, I've not fully formed all these ideas, and I don't know what fair pricing for tiers & usage would exactly look like. But I think most of us can agree a system like that would be much more fair and equitable. I have just never heard a convincing argument of why Apple & Google deserves to own 3/10ths of all the business on their platforms.
There is no such principle in our free society of what is and isn’t a fair and equitable business transaction. The only tool we have for that is what the market (supply and demand) will yield.
I can take a tiny piece of carbon, call it a diamond and sell it for 50,000. Is it fair and equitable? Should that be allowed?
I can take a white T shirt and print a red Supreme logo on it and sell it for 100x cost of production. Is that fair and equitable? Should it be allowed?
The development cost for a book is about $10 dollars of ink and paper. Each copy is printed and distributed for 1 dollar. It took the author 10 hours to write. But the knowledge and insights are extremely valuable. Is it fair and equitable for the author to charge $100 for a copy of this book?
If 30% isn’t allowed, is 29% okay? How about 28%? What exactly is this magic number where things become okay? Don’t businesses have the right to try and profit and not just break even? (If not why would anyone start a new business venture)
If you would argue that we shouldn’t have a free market and the govt should set all the prices in the economy, well that’s a different philosophy entirely. It’s not very popular for a host of reasons
I mean sure, you’re getting really deep and philosophical on economics here. I’m happy to have that conversation too, but I think it’s a different conversation, and one we should have over some beers :)
I’m not sure how you took it as far as me arguing against free markets, but I was just trying to speak of my perception of this very specific example.
I don’t think it’s fair for them to take 3/10ths of every business on their app stores. That simple. I don’t think the markets think it’s fair either, but they don’t have much choice. At least not on Apple’s platform.
I don’t think the government should ever set the prices by default, but if the market and the government decide it’s not fair then they can step in. That’s the whole point of anti-trust laws.
Of course businesses have the right to make a profit. I did mention the system I proposed could cover their costs and make some profit.
Sorry if I wasn’t clear on that. They should make profit on the app stores. But the current model is particularly offensive to me. I don’t think there is a magic number. I think the idea that all monetary transactions have to go through them and they get a percentage at all is dumb. At it’s heart app stores are just a means of distributing software. Why should they get a cut of the businesses?
Maybe we could compare it to credit card transactions. The card reader networks take a 3% cut and we’re all ok with that. They provide the infrastructure to allow the transactions to happen, sure I guess they earned it. If you forced me to pick a ‘magic’ number then I would say it should be similar to that.
If Google and Apple took 3-5% none of this would even be a discussion. We probably wouldn’t even care enough to fight it, and they’d still be making money hand over fist on their app stores.
Which to be fair aren’t even the main part of their business. It’s just a side huddle for them. But 30% is the kind of cut title loans and pawn brokers take. No way in hell that’s reasonable for a service to distribute software.
I’ve got a lot more thoughts on this, especially about the differences between Google and Apple in this regard, but I’ll stop there. I’ve ranted enough tonight:)
> The card reader networks take a 3% cut and we’re all ok with that.
EU busted that, so in EU it is illegal to take more than a 0.3% cut instead. Because after investigations that was roughly how much they need to be profitable. The 3% fee you see in USA is just 1000% markup.
Although I wouldn't be surprised if app store fees are found to be reasonable at about 3% level and EU enforcing that, just like they lowered credit card fees by a factor 10.
Just wondering if you've seen apple's pretty recent annoucement of the App Store Small Business Program which for the first $1 million reduces that "tax" to 15%.
I wonder if this isn’t going to have the opposite effect. If Apple doesn’t get to restrict application developers through the App Store, then will they follow the gaming console model of restricting access to the SDK? I mean, this isn’t a new issue. It’s been the bane of game distribution for as long as we’ve had independent game developers. But if you want to have some semblance of control over a software ecosystem, could there be a similar shift where users could install whatever software they’d like... but the developers would have to be better vetted by Apple first?
For the sake of argument, let’s just assume there are legitimate security/privacy concerns here and ignore competitive issues a la Spotify for now.
Is Epic's fight technical or business related? I can't figure it out. Sometimes it's about payment processor choice, other times it's about the revenue share. Which is it? Even though Apple collects the revenue share through its payment processor, these seem like completely separate issues. Apple could easily let Epic transact using it's own payments infrastructure yet also invoice them for the 30% of those transactions.
Anti trust case against Apple in the US made sense due to Apple's dominance in both the share of users and the share of the app store revenue. EU may not be as clearcut.
This news article does not mention anything about the basis for antitrust. Is it the marketshare of iOS phone users or it is the revenue. Seems like iOS marketshare as defined by the number of users is about 20%, revenue share should be higher.
At this point, if Apple is forced to allow third parties, I'll lose one of the best time savers I have in my life. Having switched all of my family and close relatives to Apple gives me the freedom of not having to provide almost any support. They are trained to use the platform (and its UI has been stable for years), and I can trust that they won't do anything too crazy just because [insert social network] or [crappy game in vogue] want to sideload a lot of bloatware and spyware on their phones.
When they had android phones, I would get regular phonecalls that went like this:
"My friend X has an app that does [irrelevant stupidity that requires full permissions], how can I do that?"
"You shouldn't, this will have access to all of your info"
"I don't care, just tell me how to do it"
Then 2 weeks later I'd get another call complaining of how full of ads everything is when they try to open a browser. I tried to disuade them by saying "Your phone can't do that", but that just meant that they ended up changing phones, because now they feel that their phone is inferior.
When they switched to iPhones, i can just tell them "Your phone doesn't do that", and they had no problem. They realized that bragging for 10 minutes was an idiotic thing to do anyway, and they felt great, because they still have a flagship phone, "it's an iPhone!".
I can't shake the feeling that Epic is a puppet, being used as a wedge to hash security on iOS devices. As much as it would be nice to have more control over one's iPhone, the horror of the Android marketplace is enough to give a body more than a little pause.
Tim Sweeney is the controlling shareholder of Epic. If Tim Sweeney decides to do something there is literally nothing TenCent could do to stop him outside of a lawsuit.
I'm not saying they have no influence, I just have a problem with you _insinuating_ falsehoods with a statement like "Look into who owns Epic" as if you've just dropped the truth bomb exposing evil China as the mastermind behind two corporations fighting for who gets to make more money.
40% ownership does not dictate anything. They can make a stern request and threaten with some leverage. Ultimately it still won't be TenCent's decision.
That's making a giant assumption that Tim Sweeney cares if he has 10 billion or 20 billion. I've followed his career for decades, and I doubt he would sell out his control for so cheap.
I know of several apps in my local app store that have their own payment system instead of the in-app purchases. I don't see why Apple doesn't enforce this policy for all apps.
Actually, Apple Store and Google Play (and Steam, yeah) are the same: they are monopolistic platform, either formally (Apple) or de facto (Google). A bit like IE browser in Windows in the 90's
I think that each editor can still provide an App Store, with specific price model for editor/users, and have to allow competition (with different features... for example, less curation) by providing THE SAME access for the user. For example, every app store must include other main app store.
Right now, if you want to use F-Droid, you cant do it as smoothly as using Google Play because it's not on Google Play (but Amazon apps are I think).
> Apple competing with third party app stores on iOS is going to be amazing. No computer platform should be allowed to prevent sideloading or other stores from competing.
The walled garden is a selling point, a feature - I don't care about sideloading at all. You want to sideload? Grab and Android.
Some people do at the moment, but that's not completely the point.
This legislation should be about tail risk - protecting the people who increasingly only have an iPhone or iPad as their main computer from either forced obsolescence or restrictions on their behaviours.
Nope. Hurts overall experience. Not only the App's won't be curated the same as the other ones, but now I would have to maybe reach to some webside to download a .ipa file or to download a secondary App store to get a apps that otherwise would be available on App Store.
Then keep using the curated store? It only hurts if Apple's store can't compete with alternative ones. There's no such problem on Android because developers and users are fine with the Play Store.
Epic even tried doing a sideloaded Fortnite for Android and people didn't download it, so they came back.
As I said, they tried and failed because nobody downloaded it. I'm not sure why you're suddenly bringing Epic's motives into a comment chain about the desirability of sideloading though? Epic is obviously looking to skirt store fees and doesn't actually prefer to run their own store, but that has nothing to do with anything above in the chain.
I don't think most people would. I think most sideloading would be by users making things that fall outside of what Apple allows on their store, like on Android. I see no coherent reason at all why things would be any different on iOS, and nobody has presented one here beyond just asserting the premise that it would be different, and I don't think "Epic believes it is" is a convincing argument.
These are not coherent reasons why it would be different, they are assertions that you think it would be. None of them even speak to any difference between the platforms.
Just saying that it will be isn't a reason. None of this has happened. Every attempt at doing this has failed horribly. Most users are not technically capable enough to even go about installing an alternative store.
Why, given that this has not happened in the case of the leading mobile platform, and in fact all attempts to even mildly break with the play store have been resounding failures, would iOS be any different?
> Obviously you must not be aware that Android is not the leading platform in terms of app sales.
Both are still in the range of tens of billions of dollars. If one is worthwhile the other is too. Android is also by far the leader in number of actual users, which is what matters most to companies like Facebook.
The sideloading process is harder than just installing an app. Most users do not know how to do it and have no interest in doing it.
Google does not allow third party app stores to be distributed via their app store, and I assume Apple would do the same.
Why do people move to America when there is crime happening there? Maybe there are good things in America as well. You appreciate the good things and then try to fix the bad things.
well apple cannot pay tax to a group of institutions that don’t have any business collecting taxes.
and this is because taxes are national matters. the EU can try some legal ways of forcing some countries to take more or less tax, but all of those tries are not only being litigated, but also pushed against by the national governments.
At this point I wish there was a way that both could lose.
It's the monopolist vs the predatory casino, both throwing out thinly veiled user centric arguments at the press while their true motives are greed and user exploitation.
There are still a lot of people, especially on the general web stuck in the Steve Job's era believing in bad developers, quote;
"What happens sometime though is that some people, uh, lie. Some people use unpublished APIs and their app gets rejected. Some people submit an app that they say does one thing, but really does something else. They try to hide it from us, they get very clever about that. They try to hide it from us and we find it and we reject it. And they run to the press and tell a story about oppression and it gets written up and they get their 15 minutes of fame because they hope it will convince us to change our minds which never does, but they keep trying to do that. And it’s unfortunate, but we take it in the chin. That part of what we do. We don’t run to the press and go, “This guys a son of a bitch liar.” "
That was in All Things Digital D8 Conference 2010. Nearly 11 years ago. The landscape has changed, the context has changed. iPhone has only sold 50M unit in total since launch in 2007. These days Apple has 1 billion active user and Apple sell about as much iPhone per quarter. Smartphone and Apps went from nice thing to have to near or already a necessity in modern society. Surely you cant apply the same rules in a modern era, not to mention those App Store rules has evolved since Steve Jobs passed away. Many Apps that Apple used to exempt from the 30% cut now has to comply.
I really wish HN folks read the great piece from Benedict Evans ( https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2020/8/18/app-stores) and Matthew Ball ( https://www.matthewball.vc/all/applemetaverse ). It is by far the best I have seen on this issue. I submitted both a few times but never got on HN Front page. Hopefully after reading both, people will stop using it is Apple Store they could do whatever they want as argument.
I think there are many things Apple could do as a compromise to satisfy vast majority of people and interest.
Break the App Store into Game Store and App Store.
Nearly 80% of App Store Revenue comes from Gaming. As long as all games are still going through Game Store, like console maker are doing which Apple should have a very strong case, they continue to keep the 80% of revenue ( or near raw profits ). Apple could also argue their continue investment into Metal API and the so called Apple's own GPU ( Which is still PowerVR ) as rational. Breaking this case would hurt lots of other interest including Microsoft's Xbox.
Lower the App Store to a flat rate of 10%. And the same apply across all Apps. Software, Services, Subscription or not with an annual Cap of Fixed amount ( minus CC processing fees ) , say $1M per App per year. So Apple isn't rent seeking per se on your revenue. If you sold $100M, instead of $10M to Apple, you now pay $1M max per App. Work load for Apple per App is fixed and doesn't scale with how much revenue an App Generate. And very few Apps ( not games ) make that much money. With Subscription which generate long term revenue benefits the most.
( EU / AUS has ruled both MasterCard and Visa to lower their price. Compare to the ridiculously 2-5% processing fees, they are closer to 1% in both EU and AUS, There are no reason why other countries wont start looking at App Store from Apple and Google in similar fashion. i.e Those 30% from Apps will be gone sooner or later. Better to make some good will than to have no option in court.)
Allow Side-loading of Apps in restricted mode. Where performance and Gaming Related APIs are limited. Access to Camera, Photos and Phonebook or any files requires consent everytime they try to access it with no option to disable or Dont ask again. The reality is 99% of user dont really need or want to side load Apps. And provides enough security and choice for its users. For a lot of Apps, this provide good enough for like News, Email, or other Subscription Apps which really is just a Web App accessing online information without needing the to go though Apple's permission for Apple Store.
And finally, a clear, open, transparent process and pages for developers to App Store rejection. Which makes it much more of a PR problem for Apple that has their interest tied to provide best service.
I really hope Apple do change. Tim Cook is far too focused on Apple's Services Revenue.
All this suggests to me is Epic has a limited path to growth without courts deciding they indeed are entitled to more profit without producing anything net new.
There are no good guys here. Apple wants to tax everyone in the world 30% for almost every software transaction while Epic wants to bring more loot box gambling to iOS and keep all the money.
Good, anti-trust action against Apple's policies is long overdue. Looking forward to competing browsers to become available for iOS users which should reduce Apple's ability to hinder Web standards.
Full support to Epic! Time to bring some balance. Would also love to have Apple allow api access to PWAs, they are hindering progress of PWAs just because of the App Store money.
Would love to hear Tim Apple's opinion on this stuff, on being in this position. I remember quite fondly how he berated Facebook and Zuck personally, by saying he as a CEO would never be in such a situation regarding media scrutiny and regulatory issues.
Oh how the tables turn..
As a dev, I do not like Apple an ounce more than Facebook.
So kudos to Tim Sweeney..
I'm not excited by the proposition of either party coming out on top. I hope the EU sees the forest for the trees and understands that the situation is a lot more complicated than either party would claim.
Apple is acting as a leader in reducing the footprint of general computing hardware; albeit their devices have among the longest service lives, they continue to be further restricted in their operation over time. There is a danger here with the population switching en masse from using PCs to using Phones as their primary computing devices. Forcing it to allow third party marketplaces might be a start in reversing that trend.
Epic is a leader in the development of anxiety-driven consumer software. Fortnite's primary capital isn't the player's competitive standing, it's the uniqueness of their cosmetic gear. They target the most vulnerable and maleable markets, tweens and children, and ply them with social anxiety; one of the most insidious and emotionally distressing devices for that age group. See also, yesterday's lengthy discussion. [0]
So I kind of hope that the EU allows third party stores, but allows Apple to place curation constraints on the sort of purchases that are available to users.
Candy Crush Saga is in the list of Top Free Games on the App Store. So was Fortnite, up until Epic decided they were tired of paying the Apple Tax.
Apple isn't defending users from games with manipulative business models, and in fact is actively profiting from them. This lawsuit is about Apple's ability to profit from them.
Why should I believe that Apple actually care in anyway about their users? Fortnite and co. are going to be regulated severely in the coming years - probably not by Apple.
Have they not hosted Fortnite right up until they wouldn't pay their rent?
F2P regulations have advanced rapidly in Asian countries and since the games have global audiences, everyone worldwide is now "benefitting" from the regulation. Boot up a gacha game and it will have guaranteed reward schedules, clearly explained drop rates, and caps on spend.
Retail games have had a ratings body and seller restrictions by age for decades now.
Considering video games have such stringent regulations on their design, in ways that make the design cost-prohibitive to tailor for different geographies; and content-based sales restrictions around the globe - it's safe to say that games are heavily regulated as well.
Fortnite sells skins directly without blind boxes, which is as tame as virtual goods come. As it happens, none of their virtual goods come anywhere close to F2P regulations. You could have an equivalent moral panic about Twitch chat emojis.
I guess my point is, how much regulation will it take before Fortnite isn't preying on children anymore? Is uncapped spend the problem? Should we limit the other kid hobbies as well? There's really nothing forcing them to stop buying pokemon cards, or comic books, or TV episodes, or toys they see in commercials.
I can’t tell my 12 year old stepson to stop playing fortnite because it’s a large part of his social life in connecting with family on another continent. At the same time, he has spent nearly every dollar that has come
his way in the last 8 months on the game, talks about it all the time, watches youtube videos when he can’t play Switch, etc...
I am happy he has a medium to socialize but the anxiety he gets from this machine is intense.
I generally advocate for users rights, but I am siding with Apple on this one. There is no monopoly - Epic has many (mobile) platforms to distribute their games/platform, including switch and android, that I can’t imagine the EU sides with them - especially in europe where iPhones don’t constitute the same market share.
However, what I would advocate for is a possibility for officially rooting your iPhone (with lots of big scary messages along the way) and mutual app store exclusion.
If Epic wants to run their own app store, great, but I don’t believe Apple should be obligated to make it comfortable.
I hate fortnite for what it is. I love unreal engine for what it is. Regardless of my stake in Apple/Epic is, I think this needs to be addressed. The economics of platforms as a monopsony are damaging. We see it in other areas too. Uber Eats and what is effectively extortion of small business restaurants. It's like the definition of economic rent, and it's a mess of bad incentives.
I would strongly support a system that forced operators to either run at cost or to charge any price but allow sideloading.
A maximum profit margin on services like could also be viable.
> So I kind of hope that the EU allows third party stores, but allows Apple to place curation constraints on the sort of purchases that are available to users.
If we follow the logic of Phones providing access to a market that must remain "free" and allow competition, then constraints on purchase might be something decided by society/people/governments more than a single private company?
This is literally how it's implemented in the rest of the world: store owner cannot list items that are restricted, by law.
Sotres can determine what goes in them, under constraints decided by society/people/governments (law).
Your proposition was allowing third party store, but in the end letting Apple choose what is good or not. I'm just saying it's risky and we already have tools to decide what is good or not. A private company in full control of rules & implementation doesn't sounds like an efficient way to open a market.
That was not about forcing stores to list everything - might be an idea when there is a monopoly. Don't know if this situation exists, that's a different topic.
> Fortnite's primary capital isn't the player's competitive standing, it's the uniqueness of their cosmetic gear. They target the most vulnerable and maleable markets, tweens and children, and ply them with social anxiety;
Antitrust is wider than monopolies, so it totally makes sense that they are not talking about that, and weird to insist on the term. (and no, I don't think they have a particularly high chance of actually getting anywhere useful with this)
Even so, Apple has gotten far more whacks for violating EU law than anyone else in this space.
Not only that, winning a case against a company in EU over antitrust often bolsters your defense in the US due to courts preferring to hear about established case law by other courts with similar laws.
Note that I am not asserting that Apple has more than anyone else, that would require more research than this. What I have found in recent history is one major case from France:
Apple also has 4 open Antitrust investigations (all opened on the same date and likely interrelated) going on in the EU (irrespective of actions that members may be taking):
So, to be clear, there's no successful antitrust prosecution of Apple under EU law, nor one that relates to iOS or the App Store.
On the other hand, there is a €4.34bn fine for Google for market abuses relating to bundling of Google services in Android, as well as a €2.4bn fine for favoring Google Shopping in its search product, and a €1.4bn fine for abusive practices in Google AdSense.
Epic has too much money and IDK if Tim Cooks plays in the same league with and once Jobs, Sweeney and Huateng. Plus Zuck who just got started. I wouldn't want to be in a war with them together.
Tim is not dumb, not at all but he just maintained one of the industry's strongest network effect/lock-in, not more. Beyond M1 there is not a lot that is not from Jobs' inheritance. Ah yes, broken keyboards for more than three years.
Apple competing with third party app stores on iOS is going to be amazing. No computer platform should be allowed to prevent sideloading or other stores from competing.
This isn't the case on Windows. This isn't the case on Android.
Or Linux for that matter.
It's more disappointing it takes 10 years for regulators to step-in and say "that's bad, no more, open up your platform".