[HN Gopher] Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust co...
___________________________________________________________________
Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint
Author : mikesabbagh
Score : 439 points
Date : 2021-02-17 13:19 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| newbie578 wrote:
| 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..
| api wrote:
| 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.
| ehvatum wrote:
| 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.
| fartcannon wrote:
| And Sweeney will take it, claiming a victory for the 'little
| guy'. Shameless.
| Spivak wrote:
| 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.
| yladiz wrote:
| 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.
| syberspace wrote:
| 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.
| Spivak wrote:
| 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.
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| 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.
| Qahlel wrote:
| > 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?
| Spivak wrote:
| > 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.
| [deleted]
| gwd wrote:
| > There is room for 3rd party app stores.
|
| 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.
| chii wrote:
| > 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.
| gwd wrote:
| > 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.
| ginko wrote:
| > 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.
|
| See my previous point.
| kempbellt wrote:
| "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.
| ginko wrote:
| 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.
| kempbellt wrote:
| 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.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| > 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.
| eptcyka wrote:
| 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.
| gwd wrote:
| > 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"?)
| Qahlel wrote:
| > 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.
| zepto wrote:
| > 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.
| diffeomorphism wrote:
| 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.
| zepto wrote:
| > It would be perfectly possible to have just one store
| offering multiple repos/curations etc.
|
| That isn't true.
|
| In order for it to be true you would need to explain how
| this would be possible if stores buy exclusive rights to
| apps.
| darknessmonk wrote:
| > 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
| adamdusty wrote:
| 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.
| darknessmonk wrote:
| > 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).
|
| That is a very different use case
| Terretta wrote:
| 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.
| zepto wrote:
| > Nobody is going to not put their app on the apple app
| store.
|
| Certainly false - just like with streaming video,
| platforms will pay for exclusives from popular developers
| to force users to visit their stores.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| 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.
| fbelzile wrote:
| 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.
| efraim wrote:
| 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.
| kevingadd wrote:
| 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)
| marticode wrote:
| > 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.
| mhh__ wrote:
| What ecosystem - i.e. what ecosystem is there that isn't
| already paid for by the billions and billions Apple make
| every year?
|
| Apple have hundreds of billions _in cash_ do you actually
| believe they 're going to put ads in their services?
| dpkonofa wrote:
| >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?
| mhh__ wrote:
| > if Apple suddenly lost all of it's money
|
| 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.
| dpkonofa wrote:
| So then your argument is just anti-Apple and not actually
| based on any principles...
| mhh__ wrote:
| No I'm pointing out that your hypothetical is so far into
| the tails that it's pointless to consider specifically.
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| 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.
| gnopgnip wrote:
| Antitrust regulation isn't just about monopolies, it is about
| the cost to entry and the harm to consumers
| ksec wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| NorwegianDude wrote:
| 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.
|
| I hope Apple have to open iOS up so this can end.
| shmerl wrote:
| 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.
| williesleg wrote:
| Shhaaakeeeedooooowwwwnnnn time! Just levy the fine already, quit
| the charade!
| mucholove wrote:
| Why is everyone talking about allowing third-party app stores and
| not side-loaded apps?
| ihuman wrote:
| Because Epic Games is in the title, and they already have a
| store on Mac+Windows.
| orliesaurus wrote:
| the LotR quote "One ring to rule them all" has never been more
| appropriate!
| my_usernam3 wrote:
| If epic were to win, any estimate on how long that would take?
| uncledave wrote:
| I assume this doesn't affect the UK any more?
| chromanoid wrote:
| > Epic Games has also complained to the UK Competition Appeal
| Tribunal and to the Australian watchdog.
| uncledave wrote:
| I read the entire article and missed that entirely. More
| coffee! Thanks for quoting it.
| 40four wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| maratc wrote:
| 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.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| I also think people should be allowed to install whatever
| software they want on a gaming console that they own.
|
| Or a car, or a tractor, or...
| casouniquo wrote:
| I would like to have an option to install steam on PS5. But
| if sony were forced to do that, I don't think they can sell
| it for $499.
|
| Also, like samsung, apple will only be providing like 18
| months of updates
| techpression wrote:
| 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.
| olivierduval wrote:
| 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).
| desmap wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| tremon wrote:
| 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.
| dleslie wrote:
| 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.
|
| 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26153331
| somehnrdr14726 wrote:
| Marketing anxiety via social proofing has a long history, much
| older than computers. Beauty products, cleaning supplies, child
| safety gear, etc.
|
| Why limit the condemnation to virtual goods?
| dleslie wrote:
| Beauty products, cleaning supplies and child safety gear are
| all examples of heavily regulated industries.
| prpl wrote:
| 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.
| klmadfejno wrote:
| 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.
| zajio1am wrote:
| > 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;
|
| That does not sound worse than any fashion store.
| mhh__ wrote:
| 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?
| cryptonym wrote:
| > 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?
| zepto wrote:
| > then constraints on purchase might be something decided by
| society/people/governments more than a single private
| company?
|
| This is the worst possible (and likely) outcome.
|
| Stores lose the right to determine what goes in them, but an
| expensive government scheme replaces that.
| cryptonym wrote:
| 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).
| zepto wrote:
| > This is literally how it's implemented in the rest of
| the world
|
| Clearly not.
|
| Which department stores are forced to carry products they
| don't want to deal with?
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| 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.
| dleslie wrote:
| Very good points. We can't trust Apple to curtail
| exploitative software.
|
| The EU has a proven track record of exploring innovative
| regulation; perhaps they will find a solution.
| mbreese wrote:
| 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.
| tomxor wrote:
| 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.
| dubcanada wrote:
| 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.
| lux wrote:
| 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.
| martimarkov wrote:
| 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.
| iknowstuff wrote:
| 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.
| martimarkov wrote:
| 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.
| amelius wrote:
| "App Stores" are just synonymous with "content filter".
|
| Perhaps we should just name it such.
|
| So "App Store" becomes "Content Filter".
|
| And you can install any app you want from any URL, unless you
| have some content filters installed, which will limit what you
| can install.
|
| No more App Stores.
| onion2k wrote:
| 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.
| Terretta wrote:
| 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.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| 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.
| calciphus wrote:
| I'm confused by your statement. Why should those companies
| give 30% to Apple? Also, many already do.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| Maybe they're being sarcastic? I can't tell.
| ChrisLTD wrote:
| It'd be nice if these companies could come to an agreement,
| but 30% seems to be too high a cut.
| valparaiso wrote:
| Do you have any research why 30% is high and 20% is OK?
| enragedcacti wrote:
| 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.
| gpanders wrote:
| 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).
| adtac wrote:
| 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?
| fhood wrote:
| Sure, but I the consumer could give a rats ass about how
| _they_ perceive the value of the app store.
| BrianGragg wrote:
| 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?
| kgwxd wrote:
| 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.
| rvba wrote:
| > 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.
| swiley wrote:
| 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.
| kdmytro wrote:
| Yes, freedom is such an encumbrance. Life is so much easier
| when someone makes all the decisions for me.</sarcasm>
| rebuilder wrote:
| 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.
| kaibee wrote:
| This exists actually. There's quite a few of them.
|
| ie: Razer Cortex
| dubcanada wrote:
| 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.
| rebuilder wrote:
| Edit for funniness:
|
| It's like the wheel that took a self-help course on how to
| reinvent oneself.
| jayd16 wrote:
| You could use Apple sign in! Oh the irony.
| mbreese wrote:
| 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.
| chromanoid wrote:
| 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.
| mbreese wrote:
| 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.
|
| This isn't about Apple. It's about all of them.
| lsh123 wrote:
| 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?
| LegitShady wrote:
| 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.
| pennaMan wrote:
| 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.
| curiouser2 wrote:
| Yeah what the hell is this person talking about? How do they
| think software was installed prior to Steam?
| n42 wrote:
| 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.
| spacebear wrote:
| I would argue that removing the App Store as a single
| point of failure for free speech [1][2] would be a pretty
| big benefit.
|
| [1] https://torrentfreak.com/apple-bans-vpns-from-app-
| store-in-c... [2]
| https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/pakistan-
| forced...
| lkschubert8 wrote:
| You have to realize that saying the app store is a single
| point of failure for free speech is hyperbolic.
| sheepdestroyer wrote:
| Softwares can auto update and hide the process to the
| user without the need for a store.
| dubcanada wrote:
| 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.
|
| There is and always has been a middleman.
| BrianGragg wrote:
| 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.
| LegitShady wrote:
| that has nothing to do with their abusive store policies,
| and abusive store policies aren't required for the above.
| NationalPark wrote:
| 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.
| the_other wrote:
| 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.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| You may have but the rest of the world did so with a lot of
| hand-wringing and a boatload of viruses, toolbars, malware,
| and everything else.
|
| As someone who has worked in IT and in tech support, I get
| and agree with what Apple has done.
| ubersync wrote:
| 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?
| tester756 wrote:
| You might like it or not, but his argument here actually
| stands.
| sheepdestroyer wrote:
| App store are good, not argument. The inability of side
| loading beside the store is what is being critisized.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| 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.
| conradfr wrote:
| And yet the guy making bogus app clones with
| subscriptions makes millions from the App Store (and
| Apple takes its cut).
| dkonofalski wrote:
| What does that have to do with anything? That's still not
| malware.
| t-writescode wrote:
| 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.
| stale2002 wrote:
| > If you can't sideload things
|
| Ok, and if you simply had a setting that you could turn
| on, that make it so your phone couldn't side load, then
| you still get what you want.
|
| Everyone wins, by simply giving you the option to turn
| off side loading, but letting others choose to do so if
| they want to.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| 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.
| matwood wrote:
| Not sure why you're downvoted b/c FB was already caught
| doing something similar with enterprise certs.
|
| https://www.theregister.com/2019/01/30/facebook_apple_ent
| erp...
| pombrand wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Android allows is and there's nearly no malware
| https://duo.com/decipher/google-data-shows-tiny-fraction-
| of-...
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Thats like claiming Isaak newton was a great scientist
| because he stayed a virgin.
|
| People buy iPhones and tolerate lack of sideloading.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| 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.
| nxc18 wrote:
| 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.
| gerash wrote:
| 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?
| dkonofalski wrote:
| 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.
| ubersync wrote:
| 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.
| geocar wrote:
| > 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?
| [deleted]
| iknowstuff wrote:
| 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.
| nodamage wrote:
| 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:
|
| - The CryCryptor ransomware abuses file access APIs to
| encrypt photos and videos on external storage and hold
| them hostage. (https://threatpost.com/emerging-
| ransomware-photos-videos-and...)
|
| - The DEFENSOR ID banking trojan abuses accessibility
| APIs to steal login credentials, text messages, and 2FA
| codes.
| (https://www.welivesecurity.com/2020/05/22/insidious-
| android-...)
| threeseed wrote:
| Objective-C based dynamic dispatch allows you to call
| private, internal APIs from your code effectively
| bypassing the iOS sandbox.
|
| App Store review process specifically checks for this.
| LexGray wrote:
| 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.
| echelon wrote:
| > 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.
| CodeArtisan wrote:
| Was the same with instant messaging software years ago; Aol,
| MSN, ICQ, Mirc, Gamespy, Paltalk, ...
| loceng wrote:
| 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].
| jrockway wrote:
| 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.
| Zash wrote:
| Aside: Epic Games already uses XMPP according to
| https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/news/postmortem-
| of-...
| Moru wrote:
| 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.
| MaxBarraclough wrote:
| 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.
| simion314 wrote:
| 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.
| valparaiso wrote:
| 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.
| simion314 wrote:
| 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
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| munificent wrote:
| Say you had the choice between:
|
| 1. Buy game X from Apple's app store for $39.00.
|
| 2. Buy game X from X's own app store for $30.00.
|
| Would you install X's app store then? Would you at least want
| the _option_ of choosing that path?
| rodgerd wrote:
| It won't be an option.
|
| It will be install Epic store if you want Epic games.
|
| Install uPlay if you want Ubisoft games.
|
| And so on. Oh, and none of those will provide information
| about tracking and privacy breaches, because that's part of
| the business model.
| Elegia wrote:
| I think that having to make that choice in the first place is
| exactly what most iOS users want to avoid.
| drstewart wrote:
| 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.
| hajile wrote:
| 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.
| jayd16 wrote:
| 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.
| cma wrote:
| One solution is Apple could add a feature where you voluntarily
| pay $50 to not be able to use other stores, and you could
| purchase it.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| I would like to see that experiment play out.
|
| Somehow the locked down 'S' version of windows is not very
| popular.
| valparaiso wrote:
| > Somehow the locked down 'S' version of windows is not
| very popular.
|
| It doesn't have any benefits.
| cycomanic wrote:
| I wonder what we used to do before we had appstores? That must
| have been a horrible time. And we didn't have amazon either how
| did we even shop?
|
| Sorry for the sarcasm, but why do we even need appstores, apart
| from it being a website to download stuff?
| parasubvert wrote:
| 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.
| rodgerd wrote:
| 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.
| croes wrote:
| 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.
| unanswered wrote:
| While we're at it, why does there need to be 18 brands of
| deodorant? I think regulations should be in place so there's
| only one brand!
| 015a wrote:
| 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.
| malka wrote:
| It sucks way more to have a new app store per company.
|
| as a user, I WANT a single app store, that is heavily
| curated.
|
| As a surprise, who do NOT want that ? Companies already
| pushing garbage on my desktop computer so I can play their
| games.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| 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.
| fbelzile wrote:
| 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.
| keepper wrote:
| ...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.
| LexGray wrote:
| 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.
| stewx wrote:
| 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.
|
| https://playnite.link/
| dubcanada wrote:
| huh, this is super interesting. Thanks for that
| random5634 wrote:
| 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.
| CivBase wrote:
| > 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.
| Terretta wrote:
| > _everything has to come from Apple's app store_?
|
| See SetApp for MacOS _and_ for iOS:
|
| - https://setapp.com/
|
| - https://setapp.com/how-it-works
| judge2020 wrote:
| 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].
|
| 0: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-
| hardware/drivers/da...
|
| (thankfully MSFT is indeed working on their own first-party
| code signing solution https://youtu.be/Wi-4WdpKm5E)
| BillinghamJ wrote:
| Absolutely yes. As a user, I really wish Microsoft required
| the use of their store. Having a single place to go is a lot
| easier
| wazanator wrote:
| What you want is Windows 10 S mode.
|
| https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/s-mode
| BillinghamJ wrote:
| 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
| dannyw wrote:
| What you are wishing for though is the death of computing.
| CivBase wrote:
| Maybe you'd be interested in joining the dozens of other
| Windows 10 S users.
| ryandrake wrote:
| 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.
| SomeHacker44 wrote:
| 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.
| BillinghamJ wrote:
| 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"
| danShumway wrote:
| 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.
| kgwxd wrote:
| 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.
| SamuelAdams wrote:
| 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.
| agentdrtran wrote:
| Choice is better than not having it.
| valparaiso wrote:
| 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?
| xxs wrote:
| 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.
| jacquesm wrote:
| 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.
| curryst wrote:
| 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.
| katbyte wrote:
| If its not on steam/ps4 i don't play it. if its not on the mac
| store or in homebrew i am very unlikely to install it and will
| seek an alternitive.
|
| If it won't be on the ios apple store i won't install it.
| marmaduke wrote:
| You can buy pasta at a few different stores, a caulk gun at a
| few different stores, clothes etc etc. Why would software be
| different?
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| 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.
| SCHiM wrote:
| 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.
| jpttsn wrote:
| Wouldn't Apple just ban you from installing the Porn Store?
| Or do you think Epic will make them allow any and all
| alternative app stores?
| CivBase wrote:
| 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.
| jpttsn wrote:
| So they would be unable to ban the Pirate Bay Store, the
| Scamcoin Drug Store, the Cracked Epic Games Store, the
| Tiananmen 1989 Store?
| CivBase wrote:
| 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.
| LexGray wrote:
| 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.
| BrianGragg wrote:
| 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.
| 015a wrote:
| 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.
| parasubvert wrote:
| 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.
| rodgerd wrote:
| Apple make their devices for their customers. I don't
| really give a fuck about what toxic crap developers want
| to be able to get away with.
| threeseed wrote:
| The best developers are selfless and put the interests of
| users first.
|
| Those "insane rules" are an example of that.
| 015a wrote:
| 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.
| ballenf wrote:
| 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.
| mitchdaily wrote:
| 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
| wayoutthere wrote:
| 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.
| MR4D wrote:
| > Actually, there is one near-perfect solution...
|
| 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.
| la_oveja wrote:
| 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"?
| Jonanin wrote:
| 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.
| reader_mode wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| ntsplnkv2 wrote:
| This is short-sighted.
|
| 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.
| AttakBanana wrote:
| Um, the harm is 30% more expensive apps. If devs can't
| avoid the cut, its only going to get passed down to the
| user.
| ntsplnkv2 wrote:
| Ahh so harm now is spending any money. I was harmed by my
| grocery store for charging me 1.50 for milk!
|
| 30% is more than fair. People spend more money on the App
| Store than competitors. Developers want access to that.
| it shouldn't be free.
| nodamage wrote:
| 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.
|
| In other words, any savings from the developer cut is
| simply kept by the developer, _not_ passed onto the
| consumer.
| katbyte wrote:
| how is it 30% more expensive apps when the play store,
| ps4 store, xbox store all take the same amount?
| AttakBanana wrote:
| Because all of them take a 30% cut (*some exceptions to
| certain apps apply)
|
| https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/10/07/report-
| steams-30-cut...
|
| What I mean is, if Apple's cut was lesser / we had
| different app stores, prices could potentially be up to
| 30% lesser.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| 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.
| ntsplnkv2 wrote:
| The policies are more than fair.
|
| 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%.
| solveit wrote:
| We used to download almost every program on their own
| website until just a couple of years ago. It'll be fine.
| judge2020 wrote:
| It'll be fine:
|
| https://patrickspokemonpalace.files.wordpress.com/2010/06
| /ie...
|
| https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/antivirus-
| software-...
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| 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.
| babypuncher wrote:
| 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.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| 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.
| dwaite wrote:
| > Companies like Google and Apple end up employing cheap,
| low quality labor to review apps and extensions instead
| of high quality technical personnel.
|
| I will need to see evidence Google employs people to
| review third-party software.
| [deleted]
| jaegerpicker wrote:
| 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.
| wvenable wrote:
| Isn't more a question of sandboxing than the app store
| itself? Installed apps on iOS just can't do every much.
|
| What is considered Android/iOS malware these days is much
| more tame than what malware used to be. A cryptolocker on
| iOS is basically impossible.
| SCHiM wrote:
| 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.
| CodeMage wrote:
| > _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.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| jwagenet wrote:
| 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.
| croes wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| deftnerd wrote:
| 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.
| enos_feedler wrote:
| 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.
| StavrosK wrote:
| 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"?
|
| I know which one gives me more choice.
| llbeansandrice wrote:
| 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.
| Retric wrote:
| 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.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| > 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?
| yellowapple wrote:
| > 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".
| Retric wrote:
| Yea, you need a login page that's:
|
| _Trying to join _? You can 't sign up for _ in the app.
| We know it's a hassle._
|
| Not:
|
| _Trying to join _? click here_
|
| But, actually following the acceptable approach and you
| don't run into issues.
| issamehh wrote:
| 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
| mmastrac wrote:
| 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.
| judge2020 wrote:
| > 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.
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/31/netflix-stops-paying-
| the-a...
| threeseed wrote:
| > constantly at odds
|
| Provides an article from 3 years ago during which time
| the sign-up flow has not changed and Netflix has exploded
| in growth.
| judge2020 wrote:
| 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.
| judge2020 wrote:
| 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].
|
| 0: https://www.wired.com/2010/07/feds-ok-iphone-
| jailbreaking/
|
| 1: https://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2010/07
| /dmcae...
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| 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 SS1201(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)
|
| [0]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201
| efdee wrote:
| 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.
| ryandrake wrote:
| In both cases, I as the user, have no choice:
|
| 1. Apple wins = I have no choice but to use the app
| store.
|
| 2. Epic wins = I have no choice but to install multiple
| different app stores to run many different apps.
| ntsplnkv2 wrote:
| You make that choice when you buy the phone.
|
| You are not buying an iPhone and the software separately.
| It is one product. The App Store is the product.
| fbelzile wrote:
| 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.
| ntsplnkv2 wrote:
| 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"
| simias wrote:
| 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.
| jaegerpicker wrote:
| 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.
| Arainach wrote:
| > 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.
|
| * It has no way to get support (their "troubleshoot"
| guide amounts to 'clear your cache, run as Admin, then
| try reinstalling: https://www.epicgames.com/help/en-
| US/epic-games-store-c73/la...)
|
| * 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.
| cycloptic wrote:
| 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.
| Arainach wrote:
| 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.
| cycloptic wrote:
| The answer to that isn't putting all stores but one out
| of business, it's having a single-sign-on provider.
| vinger wrote:
| 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.
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| 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.
| vinger wrote:
| 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.
| Negitivefrags wrote:
| I actually think it is you who doesn't understand the
| market.
|
| Nobody cares about centralised achievements any more, and
| most people don't particularly like having different
| friends lists for each service.
|
| People would rather organise a game through something
| like Discord that is entirely seperate to the store
| ecosystem.
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| 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.
| lapetitejort wrote:
| > Achievements and friends are table stakes these days.
|
| Nintendo must have missed this.
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| In fairness, Nintendo consoles were always designed
| around couch co-op, and that is a big failing of the
| biggest PC platforms.
| Arainach wrote:
| Nintendo's online services are, and always have been, a
| disaster.
| gknoy wrote:
| 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.
| simion314 wrote:
| 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.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| 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.
| simion314 wrote:
| 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.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| >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?
| simion314 wrote:
| 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).
| dkonofalski wrote:
| 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.
| stale2002 wrote:
| A literal monopoly is not required for something to be
| illegally anti competitive.
|
| All that has to happen is that a company has significant
| market power.
|
| And courts have held that 50% of a given geographic area
| can fall under anti trust laws.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| 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.
| simion314 wrote:
| 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)
| _jal wrote:
| > It is ridiculous right to have a radio or TV device put
| artificial limits,
|
| I take it you then also demand that Sirius and Comcast
| broadcast anyone who brings them any old content, then?
| Everything should public access?
|
| For that matter, terrestrial radio stations also must
| broadcast the End is Nigh clapboard kooks, too, right?
| simion314 wrote:
| 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).
| dkonofalski wrote:
| Both of your analogies are flawed.
|
| 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.
| simion314 wrote:
| 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"
| Notorious_BLT wrote:
| 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.
| simion314 wrote:
| 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.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Valve is not parasitic because its pimint out it's
| customers? That a stange argument if I ever heard one.
|
| I could accept this if valve store didn't take 20 seconds
| to load on an 8-core machine.
| notthemessiah wrote:
| 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.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| 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.
|
| Everything else you said is irrelevant.
| simion314 wrote:
| 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
| dkonofalski wrote:
| >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_.
| simion314 wrote:
| 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"
| LegitShady wrote:
| Apple does provide services but.yoj cannot opt out. It is
| by definition rent seeking.
| zwily wrote:
| s/Valve/Apple/g
| PeterisP wrote:
| 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.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| 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.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| Yes. Exactly.
| mcfedr wrote:
| I guess here is less about your choice as a consumer, but
| the choice of the publisher
| georgeecollins wrote:
| 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.
| AmericanChopper wrote:
| Well, everything is a monopoly if you define the market
| specifically enough.
| Daho0n wrote:
| You can abuse your market position without being a
| monopoly.
| AmericanChopper wrote:
| 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.
| babypuncher wrote:
| 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.
| joshuaissac wrote:
| 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.
| ntsplnkv2 wrote:
| 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.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _That 's because Apple's app store has better quality
| apps due to curation._
|
| Is that why I found a dozen Chinese knockoff
| BonziBuddy[1] clones on Apple's App Store?
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BonziBuddy
| ntsplnkv2 wrote:
| If you want to create anecdotes to prove a point I won't
| waste my time. The problem is far, far worse on Play and
| Android.
| joshuaissac wrote:
| 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).
| ntsplnkv2 wrote:
| 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.
| dwaite wrote:
| 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).
| spacedcowboy wrote:
| 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).
| flohofwoe wrote:
| If it makes EA more money, they will absolutely sell
| their games on other app stores, see Origin vs Steam.
| spacedcowboy wrote:
| But it won't, will it. That's the entire reason they want
| to do it in the first place - to make more money for
| themselves.
|
| They want in on the platform, without paying the fees
| that being on the platform requires.
| stale2002 wrote:
| Sure they will. If apple reduced their fee to something
| like 5%, I am sure that even most large game developers
| would use it.
| pwinnski wrote:
| Right, it's a monopoly for app developers, much more than
| for users.
| Daho0n wrote:
| Users have even less choice then developers.
| katbyte wrote:
| You could always just not play Game A?
| sigzero wrote:
| You never had a choice with Apple. That is their business
| model. You choose or don't choose to work in that model.
| Epic Games is pathetic.
| criley2 wrote:
| >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.
| katbyte wrote:
| how is the app store any different them the play/ps4/xbox
| store which also take 30% cut?
| ethbr0 wrote:
| > (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.
| flohofwoe wrote:
| 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.
| the_af wrote:
| 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.
| bombela wrote:
| 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.
| yellowapple wrote:
| > 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.
| jamesgeck0 wrote:
| Practically every game from EA or Ubisoft on Steam
| published within the last eight years or so does this.
| Daho0n wrote:
| And they do so because people support it.
| afterburner wrote:
| 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.
| tomc1985 wrote:
| When things work that way, then great!
|
| 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_.
| bombela wrote:
| 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.
| threeseed wrote:
| Exactly why people buy consoles.
|
| For the same experience as you get with an iPhone.
| cgriswald wrote:
| 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.
| tomc1985 wrote:
| Agreed. I have definitely been favoring platforms that
| let me run the binary directly, which is really just GOG,
| Patreon projects, and open-source.
| cafed00d wrote:
| > 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!
| judge2020 wrote:
| 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).
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| I know this is a joke comment, but isn't JavaScript
| supposed to be the joke language here on HN, not
| Objective-C/Swift?
| jquery wrote:
| >I'd rather have a choice than not.
|
| Then get an Android if you like that experience?
| ricardobayes wrote:
| Freedom of choice is an illusion, with the advance of
| megacorporations, even so. They will choose for you.
| pedroma wrote:
| Have you looked into PWAs? Sounds like they'd fit your use
| case.
| babypuncher wrote:
| You won't have a choice when some critical service you use
| moves to a third party app store in order to avoid Apple's
| new privacy policy.
| malka wrote:
| I'd rather Amazon, EA, Blizzard & cie have no choice.
| outworlder wrote:
| > I'd rather have a choice than not.
|
| 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').
| ucm_edge wrote:
| 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.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > 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.
| afavour wrote:
| > 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.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > Then don't! You don't need that game
|
| 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.
| rbtprograms wrote:
| 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.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > 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.
| meowkit wrote:
| > 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.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > 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.
| ricardobayes wrote:
| 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.
| DixieDev wrote:
| 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.
| Polycryptus wrote:
| > It's not like there were Wallmart exclusive games, right?
|
| It doesn't matter too much, but there actually have been...
| Nintendo's Chibi-Robo Park Patrol was a WalMart exclusive
| game in the US. (in 2007)
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| 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.
| mdoms wrote:
| > 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?
| blibble wrote:
| most of them you can configure to exit after starting a game
| too
| parasubvert wrote:
| Most iPhone users do not want to open multiple stores. We
| like and want Apple's curation.
|
| This is why Epic's position is a very difficult anti-trust
| argument: Apple is aligned with what many customers actually
| want.
| hajile wrote:
| 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?
| dubcanada wrote:
| 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).
| jvzr wrote:
| > 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.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Imagine hating something so trivial that provides real
| tangible benefits so much.
| katbyte wrote:
| 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.
| neogodless wrote:
| > just Steam and regulate Valve
|
| Welcome to the world where you can only use government
| approved software!
| parasubvert wrote:
| Worked for the telephone system for 75 years....
| matwood wrote:
| > This is how life is as a PC gamer and it's.... actually
| good.
|
| You just reminded me one of the many reasons I stopped PC
| gaming and either casual game on mobile or use a console.
| ArkanExplorer wrote:
| If Apple charged a reasonable commission level - say 5-15% -
| these problems would not occur.
|
| 30% is completely uneconomic and drives all of the profit to
| the platform owner. That's why were seeing so many
| acquisitions.
|
| The problem here is with the 30%.
| valparaiso wrote:
| 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.)
| hajile wrote:
| They went to the platform because the iPhone was rapidly
| gaining popularity and they gained access to a captive
| market.
|
| Economies of scale alone indicates that if they could do
| the store at 30%, they could do it for far less when scaled
| up.
|
| Finally, they are rather near brick-and-mortar markups for
| a lot of things despite not having all the extra overhead.
| readams wrote:
| 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.
| arduinomancer wrote:
| I don't get how you can be against having more options/freedom
| with your device
| QuixoticQuibit wrote:
| Because I don't use my iPhone like I use my computer (as in
| desktop experience). Many people like the simple, wall/garden
| approach to iOS.
| xenihn wrote:
| 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.
| withinboredom wrote:
| 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.
| darknessmonk wrote:
| > 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.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Today you don't care. You might never do.
|
| 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.
| zepto wrote:
| Forcing people to use stores they don't want to is the exact
| opposite of 'protection'.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| pentae wrote:
| How about don't tell me what device I can or can't use? I
| _want_ to sideload on my iPhone.
| zepto wrote:
| Nobody is telling you what device you can use.
|
| Why would you buy a device that doesn't do what you want?
| infinityplus1 wrote:
| 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.
| zepto wrote:
| This is a false analogy.
|
| All countries have crime, and the switching cost is
| immense. However some countries are much worse than
| others which makes it worth it.
|
| Phones are at parity in terms of features, and the
| switching cost is trivial.
| mywittyname wrote:
| If you don't care about sideloading? Don't sideload, just use
| the Apple Store.
|
| Users like you have zero skin in the game. Nothing in your
| workflow will change, other than you might get cheaper
| applications.
| darknessmonk wrote:
| 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.
| chungus_khan wrote:
| 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.
| zepto wrote:
| This keeps getting repeated but is false.
|
| New stores will pay for exclusives rights to popular apps
| just as video streaming platforms do for video.
|
| Users will have no choice but to use a jumble of
| different stores.
| chungus_khan wrote:
| Then why hasn't it happened? Android has always had
| sideloading and this is not the case. Just asserting it
| to be false isn't convincing.
| zepto wrote:
| Why doesn't Epic have an Android App Store?
|
| If they want an independent store, there is no reason for
| them not to create one for Android.
|
| If Android was a model for what Epic wants, they would
| have built a store there.
|
| It's pretty obvious that this is just about them going
| where the money is.
| chungus_khan wrote:
| 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.
| zepto wrote:
| The post is about Epic.
|
| Do you think anyone would install alternative stores on
| iOS?
|
| If so, Android is obviously an irrelevant comparison.
|
| Epic clearly believes iOS is different from Android.
| chungus_khan wrote:
| 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.
| zepto wrote:
| > I don't think most people would.
|
| Why wouldn't Facebook just integrate a store into their
| App?
|
| Why wouldn't Google advertise their store in the search
| engine just as they did with Chrome? Why wouldn't their
| store ship with an Android runtime?
|
| Epic doesn't just believe it would be different. They are
| prepared to invest _millions of dollars._
|
| All there of these are obvious and coherent reasons why
| it would be different.
| chungus_khan wrote:
| 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?
| zepto wrote:
| Obviously _you must not be aware_ that _Android is not
| the leading platform in terms of app sales_.
|
| You say:
|
| > Most users are not technically capable enough to even
| go about installing an alternative store.
|
| This is obviously false. We know for sure that average
| users can install apps.
|
| A store is just an app. Why would installing an alternate
| store be harder than installing any other app?
|
| Why wouldn't Facebook just integrate their store into
| their app?
| dieortin wrote:
| Until you're forced to download the FB App Store for Facebook
| apps, the Epic Games store for theirs, the Google App Store
| for Google applications...
|
| It's not true users who don't want to side load have zero
| skin in the game. The entire ecosystem would suffer.
| chungus_khan wrote:
| Why hasn't it on Android then?
| bezout wrote:
| Maybe the majority of users doesn't care and uses the
| Play Store. They probably don't know about F-droid and
| co.
| doublejay1999 wrote:
| Epic know they can't win this using the Law. Apple will argue
| they built a market of nBillion customers, which anyone can
| access for a fee.
|
| What Epic hope to do, is win commercial support and build
| pressure on apple to lower their fees. Might work too.
| mullingitover wrote:
| It already worked, Apple lowered fees for smaller
| developers.[1]
|
| [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-app-store/apple-
| low...
| gscott wrote:
| Apple tried to wear Samsung down by suing them in different
| jurisdictions at the same time. Might work for Epic.
| flenserboy wrote:
| 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.
| chungus_khan wrote:
| The contents of the Play Store have nothing to do with
| Android's ability to sideload.
| zepto wrote:
| Look into who owns Epic .
| enragedcacti wrote:
| 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.
| zepto wrote:
| > there is literally nothing TenCent could do to stop him
| outside of a lawsuit
|
| Obviously false. TenCent controls Epic's access to the
| Chinese market, which _is much larger than the iOS market
| has ever been for Epic._
| enragedcacti wrote:
| 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.
| zepto wrote:
| I'm not insinuating a falsehood.
|
| TenCent owns 40% of Epic's stock, has a seat in the
| board, and controls access to much more of epic's revenue
| than Apple does.
|
| TenCent can absolutely dictate a policy in relation to
| Apple to Epic if they so choose.
|
| China absolutely has interests in seeing a less powerful
| Apple, for numerous reasons.
| fhood wrote:
| 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.
| Qahlel wrote:
| > Apple does not actually have a monopoly
|
| This is like saying water is not an essential liquid, there is
| coca cola and pepsi.
| darkwizard42 wrote:
| 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.
| toiletfuneral wrote:
| I don't understand this analogy at all, can you explain?
| buzzerbetrayed wrote:
| So you're saying that somehow Google uses Apple as it's main
| ingredient for Android.. or something?
|
| More likely, I think you thought the comparison sounded
| catchy, despite the fact that it has nothing to do with the
| situation.
| a254613e wrote:
| >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?
| m_eiman wrote:
| 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.
|
| Do I sound bitter? It's because I am.
| josefx wrote:
| Turing of auto start tends to be an option and steam at least
| forgets my login so rarely that I have problems remembering
| my password.
|
| You might want to torch your computer with thermite before
| whatever it has can escape into the wild.
| arendtio wrote:
| 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.
| rgbrenner wrote:
| 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.
| pojntfx wrote:
| 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".
| acomjean wrote:
| Its not that off topic.
|
| 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.
| aboringusername wrote:
| 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".
| pier25 wrote:
| > Or Linux for that matter.
|
| Or even macOS.
| null_object wrote:
| You can load apps on macOS from anywhere you like.
| pier25 wrote:
| Yes, that's what I'm saying.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Aren't apple increasing not liking you doing that? e.g.
| MacOS phoning home to Apple on program startup.
|
| I doubt Apple would ever truly stop you but there is a
| subtle level of friction that can't necessarily be assumed
| of the user.
| zepto wrote:
| > 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_.
| rvba wrote:
| > 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).
| zepto wrote:
| > 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.
| stale2002 wrote:
| But it would be easier for a customer to get cheaper
| prices, for the games that voluntarily choose to be on
| other apps stores.
|
| That is one extra option for the consumer to choose, if
| they want it.
| zepto wrote:
| > 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.
| rvba wrote:
| Ah poor companies. They would have to care about
| consumers.
|
| People like you could still overpay in the official
| store.
| rvba wrote:
| Id speculate that there is a group of people who buy
| iPhone as a fashion statement and then probably dont have
| money for apps.
| justapassenger wrote:
| 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.
| jaegerpicker wrote:
| 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!
| throw_away892 wrote:
| How you don't see Epic's move as a win for Apple users is
| ironic given how pro-consumer you seem to perceive Apple to
| be.
| jaegerpicker wrote:
| Epic's move has 0 to do with consumer's. It's only about
| Epic benefiting from Apple's platform.
| throw_away892 wrote:
| 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.
| jaegerpicker wrote:
| 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.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| 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.
| yladiz wrote:
| 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.
| kosievdmerwe wrote:
| 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.
| jaegerpicker wrote:
| 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.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > does Epic have consumers back?
|
| Of course not.
|
| 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.
| parasubvert wrote:
| 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.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > 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.
| parasubvert wrote:
| > 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.
|
| In other words, "I know it when I see it".
| jaegerpicker wrote:
| 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.
| justapassenger wrote:
| 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).
| jaegerpicker wrote:
| 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.
| justapassenger wrote:
| 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.
| jaegerpicker wrote:
| 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.
| kergonath wrote:
| 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.
| Shivetya wrote:
| 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
| dd36 wrote:
| Why does there need to be multiple app stores? That sounds
| terrible. Apple just needs to stop demanding huge chunks from
| app revenue.
| ksec wrote:
| 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.
| Humdeee wrote:
| 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).
| kevingadd wrote:
| 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.
| munificent wrote:
| 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.
| alexashka wrote:
| > It feels a bit hypocritical when...
|
| 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).
| toyg wrote:
| _> 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.
| visarga wrote:
| 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.
| the_duke wrote:
| > This isn't the case on Android.
|
| I'd argue that it is till the case on Android.
|
| 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.
|
| A similar cap is needed for app stores.
| mfontani wrote:
| IIRC the (proposed? is it in place yet?) EU cap is 0.2% for
| debit cards and 0.3% for credit cards.
| the_duke wrote:
| I checked and you are right, it's 0.3% for CC, 0.2 for
| debit.
|
| But yes, the regulation came into effect partially in 2015
| and fully in 2016.
|
| https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-
| content/EN/TXT/?uri=uriserv:...
|
| It's quite noticeable: all the CC related reward programs
| have disappeared.
| ecf wrote:
| > not being in control of your own device is not acceptable.
|
| I'm not trying to be snarky here but...don't buy it?
| bsaul wrote:
| 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.
| throw_away892 wrote:
| > 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.
| minhazm wrote:
| 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.
| hctaw wrote:
| 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.
| jayd16 wrote:
| >Then they can't provide auto-updates but require a manual
| confirmation for each version update.
|
| Is this true? Did they change the install permission to one
| time use or something?
| Fwirt wrote:
| 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.
| zpeti wrote:
| One of the absolutely obvious hypocritical things for me is
| that they don't allow anyone to say in their app that "Apple
| gets 30% of this fee"
|
| That's the equivalent of the IDFA message for Facebook. Which
| everyone will see, its worded in a very negative way, and it's
| a must.
| newbie578 wrote:
| Good point. Would love to hear the Apple fanatics on HN
| defend this. So much for respecting privacy...
| asimpletune wrote:
| 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.
| tommilukkarinen wrote:
| 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.
| dleslie wrote:
| On the one hand, Apple is acting as a store curator and
| demanding that its customers be made aware of tracking
| software.
|
| On the other hand, Apple is acting as a platform owner and
| demanding that they continue to act as the sole store curator
| on their platform.
|
| I do not see the hypocrisy.
| fbelzile wrote:
| 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.
| EveYoung wrote:
| But users already can by an Android or Linux phone instead.
| It's not like Apple has the monopoly on smartphones.
| fbelzile wrote:
| 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!
| valparaiso wrote:
| > 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.
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| 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.
| fbelzile wrote:
| 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 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.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| 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?
| cmdli wrote:
| 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?
| [deleted]
| nickysielicki wrote:
| 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.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| "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
| jevgeni wrote:
| What are these platitudes? Of course they have a legal
| and moral right to do so, otherwise it wouldn't be put
| into law.
| insert_coin wrote:
| 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.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| My work and private data is stored on apples's systems,
| so either it's my rights to do as I please or their's.
| greycol wrote:
| 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.
| leothecool wrote:
| 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.
| dijit wrote:
| Sorry, I don't buy this at all.
|
| 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.
| leothecool wrote:
| 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.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| 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.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Are iBooks DRM-Free now? That's exciting, do you know
| when that happened?
| aardvarkr wrote:
| Yeah, apple was one of the first to go DRM free for
| music. That was a big deal and a bold move by apple.
| fouric wrote:
| > 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_.
| kevingadd wrote:
| In the past US regulators have not agreed with your
| reasoning here. They broke up the original big telephone
| companies, for example.
| zepto wrote:
| Those had an actual monopoly - literally no alternative
| service provider.
| kbenson wrote:
| 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.
| jevgeni wrote:
| It's still difficult to argue that Apple refusing to
| subsidize Epic store is anti competitive
| kbenson wrote:
| 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.
| leothecool wrote:
| Not true. MCI predates the break-up of ma bell.
| zepto wrote:
| It wasn't available to everyone.
| kevingadd wrote:
| 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?
| _jal wrote:
| My mother uses a Cryptophone[1]. The only way I can talk
| to her is to buy her a replacement.
|
| What's the difference?
|
| [1] https://www.cryptophone.de . And no, of course not.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| 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.
| FlownScepter wrote:
| A nonexhaustive list of FaceTime alternatives: Skype,
| Facebook Messenger, Discord, Zoom, GoToMeeting, Google
| Hangouts, Cisco Webex, Microsoft Teams, Spike, ICQ, Tox,
| Viber, WhatsApp, Line, WeChat, Wire.
| cgrealy wrote:
| Oh come on, who hates their mother enough to make her use
| Webex?
|
| /shudder
| FlownScepter wrote:
| You don't know my mother. :P
| dleslie wrote:
| None of those are FaceTime, which is what OP's mother
| uses.
| uberduper wrote:
| This is like complaining you can't gmail someone from
| your hotmail account.
| dleslie wrote:
| If I couldn't send an email to a gmail account from a
| hotmail account then something is wrong.
| maaanu wrote:
| 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 ;-)
| dleslie wrote:
| This is true; every non-ephemeral messaging system on
| social networks is a replacement for email. A poor
| replacement.
| FlownScepter wrote:
| That would be the meaning of "alternatives," yes.
| dleslie wrote:
| It's not an alternative if it does not meet the necessary
| conditions for use.
| insert_coin wrote:
| Yes, the condition of being named _facetime_ is not met.
| That 's the point of ALTERNATIVES.
| dodobirdlord wrote:
| 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.
| dleslie wrote:
| That's a poor definition. Many companies are regulated in
| a manner where their services must be open to competition
| to access and use.
| FlownScepter wrote:
| 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.
| bezout wrote:
| 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.
| judge2020 wrote:
| 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.
| dleslie wrote:
| 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.
| FlownScepter wrote:
| A quick Google says iOS' market share is 14%.
|
| 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.
| KillahBhyte wrote:
| 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.
| kbenson wrote:
| 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?
| dkonofalski wrote:
| 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.
| FlownScepter wrote:
| 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.
| 40four wrote:
| 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.
| KillahBhyte wrote:
| > 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.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| >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).
| mbreese wrote:
| 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.
| KillahBhyte wrote:
| >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.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| 14% is worldwide, in the US it's roughly 50%
| FlownScepter wrote:
| That's still nothing close to a monopoly.
| stale2002 wrote:
| Anti trust law does not require a monopoly.
| FlownScepter wrote:
| 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.
| Daho0n wrote:
| 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.
| chc wrote:
| 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.
| JakeTheAndroid wrote:
| 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.
| chc wrote:
| 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).
| aboringusername wrote:
| 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)
| ericmay wrote:
| > Epic demands Apple do thing = bad for Apple (good for
| Epic) no way
|
| Epic demands Apple do a thing = bad for Apple, bad for
| customers (good for Epic)
|
| > Apple demand Facebook do thing = Good for Apple (bad for
| FB) yes way
|
| Apple demands Facebook do a thing = Good for Apple, good
| for customers (bad for Facebook)
|
| As a customer in these equations, I'm siding with Apple.
|
| > That's the very definition of "competition" something
| Apple has avoided for over a decade at this point
|
| Why do I have to use Epic's game store for Fortnite? Why
| can't I create my own skins with paint and sell them for
| whatever I want?
| ahiknsr wrote:
| >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]
|
| [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24410652
| aardvarkr wrote:
| Idk about you but I've been sideloading apps for years on
| my iPhone. There's an entire subreddit for it if you're
| really that interested.
| toinetoine wrote:
| > 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?
| judge2020 wrote:
| 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.
| dralley wrote:
| 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.
| dijit wrote:
| if you dislike uPlay and Origin, you should probably side
| with Apple on this.
| Tom4hawk wrote:
| 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.
| AYBABTME wrote:
| What if consumers like it like that: one sandbox curated by
| Apple?
| dariusj18 wrote:
| Then they continue to use the Apple App store.
| dleslie wrote:
| That may not be an option if work-necessary or social-
| connection-necessary software moves to an alternate store
| to enjoy less restrictions.
| kevingadd wrote:
| 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.
| m12k wrote:
| Those consumers should have every right to stay in that
| sandbox. And the rest of us should have the right to use
| a different one.
| covercash wrote:
| You do have that right, it's called Android.
| kevingadd wrote:
| 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.
| hashingroll wrote:
| Do you think it would be unfair to the users who bought
| an iPhone 3 years back considering sandboxed appstore as
| one of the main reason to buy it?
| kergonath wrote:
| 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.
| abakker wrote:
| 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.
| sunahe wrote:
| Cool, how do I install it on my iPhone? The one I bought
| with my money?
| pjmlp wrote:
| The same way I install iOS on my Android phone I bought
| with my money.
| robin_reala wrote:
| Visit https://projectsandcastle.org/ and follow the
| instructions, assuming your hardware meets the current
| requirements.
| kyriakos wrote:
| There are alternative stores on android but no one forces
| you to use them. The same will apply to iPhone
| kergonath wrote:
| 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.
| africanboy wrote:
| > What if consumers like it like that: one sandbox
| curated by Apple?
|
| if they like it, they can keep using it.
|
| EDIT: apparently suggesting people to keep using
| something they like deserves downvotes :)
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| > _On the one hand, Apple is acting as a store curator and
| demanding that its customers be made aware of tracking
| software._
|
| Can't this still be true for the App Store though?
| ChrisLomont wrote:
| >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.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| The bar is simple: If they allow third party apps at all,
| they're already providing those APIs, and must allow
| competitive use of them.
| nabla9 wrote:
| It seems you are making category mistake.
|
| 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.
| isodev wrote:
| > 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).
| paulgb wrote:
| 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.
| EveYoung wrote:
| 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.
| jpttsn wrote:
| 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"
| vlozko wrote:
| 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.
| paulgb wrote:
| 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.
| jonwinstanley wrote:
| > No computer platform should be allowed to prevent sideloading
| or other stores from competing
|
| What about platforms like Playstation or the computers built
| into Teslas etc, should we allow sideloading on those? How do
| you define a platform?
| harha wrote:
| Unless they buy back the hardware, why not?
|
| 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.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| 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.
| throwaway48201 wrote:
| Maybe not gearing up for a fight with, but rather making
| sure they don't get lumped in with
|
| Google have made it very clear that you have options other
| than the Play Store in recent dev docs
| mywittyname wrote:
| MS is ahead of the curve here. Rather than trying to combat
| homebrew, they are embracing it within some predefined
| boundaries.
|
| The 360 allowed for homebrew as well. I think they learned
| a lot from XBMC.
| IntelMiner wrote:
| What? The 360 never had any homebrew enabled
| kevingadd wrote:
| 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.
| mywittyname wrote:
| 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.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_XNA_Game_Studio
| efraim wrote:
| 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.
| jaegerpicker wrote:
| 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?
| efraim wrote:
| 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.
| ericmay wrote:
| > 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.
| efraim wrote:
| 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.
| ericmay wrote:
| 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.
| jaegerpicker wrote:
| It is competitive, it's just as easy to switch between
| Android and iOS, it's not cheap but just as easy.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| > What about platforms like Playstation or the computers
| built into Teslas etc, should we allow sideloading on those?
|
| I think we should, yes. Not necessarily by default, but there
| should be a switch advanced users can flip.
|
| Re: Tesla, there is in fact a long history of people fixing
| and modifying their cars. Why not the computers in those
| cars?
| ben_w wrote:
| Hm.
|
| 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.
|
| [0] https://kottke.org/13/06/you-commit-three-felonies-a-
| day
| africanboy wrote:
| > 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.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| > 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.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| 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.
| tfehring wrote:
| Or Fortnite, for that matter? Why should I be forced to buy
| skins with Epic's in-game currency instead of loading my own?
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| 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.)
| tfehring wrote:
| 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.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| 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.
| kevingadd wrote:
| 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?
| parthdesai wrote:
| Fortnite is a free game, I pay to own my iPhone.
| tfehring wrote:
| 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?
| wayneftw wrote:
| 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.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Then if you care so much about running whatever software
| you want on it, perhaps you should have bought a phone
| that lets you do that instead?
|
| I'm not personally in favor of walled gardens myself, but
| everyone who bought an iPhone knew that's what they were
| getting and did it anyway.
| kevingadd wrote:
| "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?
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| 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.
| cordite wrote:
| People pay to own their tractors, but yet they can't
| repair them.
| mhh__ wrote:
| 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.
| abakker wrote:
| 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.
| rbtprograms wrote:
| 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.
| mhh__ wrote:
| And? They don't know any different or better, we don't
| make policy on anything based on people like that.
|
| As I've said elsewhere, this is about tail risk not
| tomorrow.
| dpkonofa wrote:
| 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!
| mhh__ wrote:
| Because you don't have to pay Linus Torvalds money to run
| a program on a Linux installation - that should be the
| standard.
| dpkonofa wrote:
| 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?
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| 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%.
| ITPaw wrote:
| and? the developer whats to put his apps on the app
| store, why shouldn't they demand a fee. But that has
| nothing to do with the customer.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| 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.)
| kqvamxurcagg wrote:
| 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.
| kevingadd wrote:
| 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.
| jayd16 wrote:
| 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.
| CivBase wrote:
| 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.
| isodev wrote:
| 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?
| enragedcacti wrote:
| > 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.
| isodev wrote:
| 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).
| no_wizard wrote:
| 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
| kevingadd wrote:
| 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)
| matsemann wrote:
| 3. Not having Apple make a competing product where they get
| 100% of the revenue _and_ 30% of your revenue. (Which is the
| case Spotify is arguing over)
| pier25 wrote:
| 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.
| kevingadd wrote:
| 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.
| pier25 wrote:
| > It'd be one thing if it was up-front rejections
|
| Well no because Apple needs to test the finished thing
| before it can decide whether it wants it or not.
| 4eor0 wrote:
| 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.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| > 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.
| dpkonofa wrote:
| What do you mean by that? The rules apply to Amazon just the
| same as to anyone else.
| adamdusty wrote:
| 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.
| csunbird wrote:
| Delivery of physical goods and services are allowed to have
| other means of payment, I think.
| drawkbox wrote:
| 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]
|
| [1] https://www.apple.com/app-store/
|
| [2] https://developer.apple.com/app-
| store/review/guidelines/
|
| [3] https://developer.apple.com/app-store/features/
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| 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'"?
| drawkbox wrote:
| 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.
| adamdusty wrote:
| I wouldn't consider amazon prime a physical good or
| service.
| dpkonofa wrote:
| 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.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| 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.
| dpkonofa wrote:
| 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?
| adamdusty wrote:
| 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.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| I'm pretty sure on the Play Store, only games are
| required to use Google's payment method. (Others can
| optionally choose to of course.)
|
| On iOS though, apps need to use Apple's payment system
| for _any_ digital good. _Unless_ you 're an Amazon Prime
| member renting a video.
| kevingadd wrote:
| Amazon got a special carve-out after a long dispute with
| Apple.
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/3/21206400/apple-tax-
| amazon-...
|
| 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.
| dpkonofa wrote:
| 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.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| 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.
| dpkonofa wrote:
| 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.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| > 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?
| pjmlp wrote:
| Good luck, iDevices are a very tiny portion of European mobile
| market.
|
| Looking forward to the EpicOS Phone, running yet another SDL/Qt
| variant.
| drinkcocacola wrote:
| If I were a mobile phone manufacturing company, I won't call
| 30% of European market a "tiny portion".
| pjmlp wrote:
| True, but it makes it irrelevant for Epic baby cries from law
| point of view.
| oaiey wrote:
| Especially considering that the iPhone is an enabler for all
| other Apple devices.
| wwtrv wrote:
| According to StatCounter it's ~30% while it's two times smaller
| than in the US (~60%) I wouldn't say it's "tiny".
| pjmlp wrote:
| Not enough for "monopolies".
| detaro wrote:
| Neither the article nor any of the comments you reply to
| use the word you quote.
| pjmlp wrote:
| I know, Epic is trying to dodge its use in an vain
| attempt to actually have a case.
| detaro wrote:
| 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)
| enragedcacti wrote:
| You seem to really know a lot about EU laws and
| regulations, where did you get your law degree?
| pjmlp wrote:
| The same place as everyone else thinking that Epic has a
| case.
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| 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.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| > _Even so, Apple has gotten far more whacks for violating EU
| law than anyone else in this space._
|
| What are you referring to here? Antitrust? If so, please
| provide some pointers. There're a lot of cases, not aware of
| many wins.
| metiscus wrote:
| 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 fined 1.23 Billion for Price-Fixing in France
| https://venturebeat.com/2020/03/16/apple-fined-
| record-1-23-b...
|
| 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):
|
| https://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/case_details.
| c...
|
| https://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/case_details.
| c...
|
| https://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/case_details.
| c...
|
| https://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/case_details.
| c...
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| 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 EUR4.34bn fine for Google
| for market abuses relating to bundling of Google services
| in Android, as well as a EUR2.4bn fine for favoring
| Google Shopping in its search product, and a EUR1.4bn
| fine for abusive practices in Google AdSense.
| halostatue wrote:
| > Apple has gotten far more whacks...
|
| [citation required]
| T-A wrote:
| 31% in Europe, much more in some markets (54% in Sweden):
|
| https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/europe
|
| https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/sweden
| pjmlp wrote:
| Which doesn't matter when talking about monopolies and such.
| holstvoogd wrote:
| Epic needs to sit this one out honestly. They are only doing this
| because "we didn't get a special deeeeeaaalll :'("
|
| Apple needs to get their head out of their asses and fix this
| before governments do. I will probably own apple devices for the
| rest of my life, but this kind of behaviour is damaging in the
| long run. Look at MSFT.
|
| At least iPhones dont come with a non-removable fortnite
| installer on the homescreen and 5k google spyware apps..
| ralmidani wrote:
| 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.
| cesarvarela wrote:
| I think if you open up what you want you lose the security and
| convenience that would make you stick with Apple too.
| zionic wrote:
| I doubt any significant volume of people who sell their
| iPhones and go android if Apple allowed other app stores.
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| 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.
| nxc18 wrote:
| 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.
| joshuaissac wrote:
| How exactly would opening up app purchases on the iPhone
| to competition bring about the scenario that you
| describe?
|
| You gave an example with reckless driving and homicides
| but it is not clear how that applies to app store
| competition.
| malka wrote:
| Should we force Nintendo as well to allow people to side load
| apps ? Because I don't see the difference with Apple.
| wazanator wrote:
| 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.
| 7786655 wrote:
| Yes.
| billysielu wrote:
| Does Apple pay tax on that 30% to the EU for sales in the EU?
| kmlx wrote:
| 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.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-02-17 21:00 UTC)