[HN Gopher] Tim Cook's Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly...
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Tim Cook's Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing
Author : rjzzleep
Score : 304 points
Date : 2021-05-23 09:02 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| sroussey wrote:
| Apple should line item the 30% charge on the bill, not have it
| hidden.
| tyingq wrote:
| _" While Rogers' questions don't necessarily indicate how she'll
| rule"_
|
| Really? Here's some quotes from her:
|
| _"The gaming industry seems to be generating a disproportionate
| amount of money to the IP you're giving them and everyone else"_
|
| _"You don't have competition in those in-app purchases,
| though,"_
|
| _"It doesn't seem to me that you feel any pressure or
| competition to actually change the manner in which you act to
| address the concerns of developers"_
|
| I suppose that doesn't say exactly how she'll rule, but it seems
| like there's at least some indication of how she feels about it.
| websites420 wrote:
| >but it seems like there's at least some indication of how she
| feels about it.
|
| This is not true. The judge's job is to follow pertinent line
| of inquiries to the case and get responses from the plaintiff
| and defense. Not pursuing a line of questioning might indicate
| that the questions were already resolved in briefs, and are
| therefore not needed in open court. Open court is a very, very
| small part of these trials, so trying to get a read on what a
| judge thinks based on questions in open court is spurious at
| best.
| tyingq wrote:
| What I posted weren't questions though. They are statements
| from the judge that don't sound like "devil's advocate" type
| set ups.
| websites420 wrote:
| It applies to anything said by the judge in open court. It
| is intended to elicit a response from the parties. Judges
| don't make comments on their thoughts out loud for the
| benefit of participants.
| newbie578 wrote:
| I do not understand why they didn't touch the point on Tim Cook
| lying before Congress, when he said that Apple doesn't make
| special deals with company, and then it later surfaced that
| Netflix and Amazon get a special deal...
| ilovwindows wrote:
| 30% of a revenue is extortion. Why should an app developer pay
| that fee? It's like owning almost half of a business.
|
| Apple is the most developer hostile company.It charges $100 every
| year to devs for developing apps to it's platform. And
| additionally charge another 30% of their business. The worst
| thing is apps cannot use third party payments, why? Some people
| argue it's for security. I disagree. It's greed.
|
| Tim Cook said it does not charge companies for services apps
| serves to end users e.g Uber, e-commerce, etc. Are your serious?
| It's like postal service saying hey we need 30% of every IPhone
| we deliver. Or the workers at china demanding cuts on every
| financial transactions that happens through the iPhone.
|
| Some even argue devs need apple more than Apple needs devs. Do
| you guys know why Windows phone failed? Cos they didn't have
| enough devs developing enough apps. Take aways all the apps from
| IPhone, and what is it? A Brick.
| CPLNTN wrote:
| > Take away all the apps from iPhone and what is it? A brick
| Saying that Apple needs devs more than devs need Apple is as
| stupid as saying the opposite. Is the same chicken/egg game.
| They both coexist and no one can exist without the other. Do
| you really think that dev can just trash iPhone apps and send a
| middle finger to Apple? I'll tell you why it's BS: 1 - iPhone
| users are more willing to pay for an app than android users.
| Given that Google take the same cut, you are just going to
| shoot yourself in the foot having less users. 2 - The iOS
| market share even if not as big as the android one, it's still
| huge compared to what WS Phone was at its peak. Do you really
| think your app is that important that the average user is gonna
| buy and entire new phone (with an OS that he potentially never
| used) just to use your app? 3 - If you think ALL the devs can
| leave Apple, to invalidate pt 2, you are delusional. The moment
| you leave the store, another dev is just gonna eat your user
| base and profit from it.
|
| The success of the platform always goes around the user base,
| not the developers. Developers make money from users, so the
| developers follow the user, not the other way around.
| ilovwindows wrote:
| A simple experiment will open your eyes wide.
|
| Lets ship iPhones which cannot install any third party apps
| and see who goes bankrupt. Apple or the app developers?
|
| No one with sane mind will by the iPhones. Where as devs can
| always make money from other platform like web.
|
| Apple needs devs more than devs need apple. Proved !!!
| paul_f wrote:
| If a developer's net profit margin, after dev and marketing
| costs, is less than 60%, then Apple makes more money on the app
| than the developer. 30% is outrageous.
| simondotau wrote:
| You're saying that 60% of 70% is less than 30%?
| kbelder wrote:
| He's saying that <60% minus 30% is <30%.
|
| Assuming Apples takes their cut from gross revenue and not
| margin, which I believe is true.
| paul_f wrote:
| Sales price: $100
|
| Apple's cut: $30
|
| Costs (including dev and mktg): $40 (60% net profit)
|
| Profit: $30
| [deleted]
| DangitBobby wrote:
| Doesn't seem quite right.
|
| Users Will Pay: $100
|
| Dev Profit per $100: $60
|
| Apples Cut/Profit: $30/$29.99
|
| Dev Cut/Profit: $70/$42
| kbelder wrote:
| You're holding their margin % equal, but cutting 30% off
| revenue probably won't cut 30% off their margin costs.
|
| In reality it's too complicated to figure with a simple
| formula. But, he was right if margin is a fixed cost
| (like, all initial development). If margin is purely an
| incremental cost (like network costs that increase with
| each sale), then he would be wrong.
| gondo wrote:
| Dev pays $99 each year for apple subscription. So until
| you make certain numbers, you are loosing money.
| cnlwsu wrote:
| Xbox, steam, google play store, Nintendo and sony are
| comparable. Same percentages and everything, 30% is kinda game
| industry standard. Game engines starting to take bigger cut
| too.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Tim Cook's line of argument seemed a bit weird to me. On one hand
| he's saying that he doesn't know if Apple's customers would be
| able to distinguish between Apple's good and holy curated store
| and Epic's filthy shitheap of porn and blackjack, but he's also
| saying that Apple's customers definitely want Apple's App Store
| as-is.
|
| > _Lawyer says, "if people really value Apple's curation and
| Apple's App Store, even if there are multiple stores, people
| could still go shop at Apple," right?_
|
| > _"It seems like a decision that they shouldn't have to make,"
| Cook says._
|
| https://twitter.com/thedextriarchy/status/139579670438178406...
|
| > _Will people not be able to distinguish between an official and
| unofficial store?_
|
| > _"They've never had to do it before. They've bought into
| something that's an ecosystem that just works."_
|
| > _So you don't know if people can tell the difference?_
|
| > _"I'm saying I don't know," Cook says._
|
| https://twitter.com/thedextriarchy/status/139579711859036569...
|
| > _Apple can't really know that it runs a better app store than
| anyone else, when it's never let anyone try, right?_
|
| > _"It's an experiment I didn't want to run," Cook says.
| Customers "uniformly" want it to "stay like it is. "_
|
| https://twitter.com/thedextriarchy/status/139579741076549632...
| tomp wrote:
| You're making Tim Cook sound stupid and/or evil, but he does
| have a point.
|
| _> If customers really value real, safe drugs, even if there
| 's multiple drug suppliers (some offering fake, unsafe drugs),
| people should still go to a pharmacy?
|
| > It seems like a decision that they shouldn't have to make.
|
| > Will people not be able to distinguish between safe drugs and
| fake unsafe drugs?
|
| > They've never had to do it before._
| yosito wrote:
| This is a good illustration of the point. But at the same
| time, customers have multiple pharmacies to choose from. And
| I'm pretty sure that it's still more the government
| regulators' job (FDA, etc) to decide what's safe to sell or
| not, than it is the for-profit corporations'.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Customers have multiple smartphone choices too, and most
| people choose non-Apple smartphones. If people want a
| smartphone where they can easily install any software from
| any source, there are plenty of very good options.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Most people aren't buying Android because "they can
| easily install software from any source", they buy it
| because they've already bought (locked) into it because
| of experience/apps and because you can get cheaper
| phones.
| wgjordan wrote:
| Analogy to drug safety makes no sense - FDA regulates drug
| safety and 'fake' generic drugs are very much allowed, so
| customers may choose generic drugs without needing to
| distinguish safe/unsafe themselves.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Counter to your point, pretend Apple is the FDA and the
| drugs are apps. Now pretend the government wants to get rid
| of Apple/FDA.
| zajd wrote:
| "Pretend a massive multinational is the government"
|
| Exactly the problem
| idle_zealot wrote:
| Right. And to add to the scenario: in this world the FDA
| is a for-profit corporation that owns the only drug store
| and uses its regulatory power to prevent any others from
| existing.
| ohgodplsno wrote:
| Equating alternative app stores to literal drug dealers.
|
| I don't think I even need to say anything to point out how
| bad of an argument it is.
| bryan0 wrote:
| You're right. The counter examples here are comparing the
| availability of non-Apple approved apps to matters of life
| and death. It's disingenuous.
| tomp wrote:
| I'm attacking the argument in general, not a specific
| instance of it.
| giobox wrote:
| I think that's a little unfair - this example implies there
| are good _and_ bad actors in an unregulated app
| distribution system, which we already have some evidence
| for.
|
| Given we have seen real malware like Xcodeghost that has
| successfully breached apples own App Store review process,
| he clearly has a point. Removing all binaries compiled with
| Xcodeghost to protect consumers would have been harder with
| multiple stores hosting binaries for sale vs one, and is
| indeed an example of one benefit of the single storefront.
| Incidentally, the internal emails from Apple regarding
| handling the Xcodeghost problem have arguably been some of
| the most interesting documents we've seen in this trial.
|
| There are trade offs here, and while one option may appear
| to be fairer it is not going to be a free lunch. There's
| always issues with software analogies if you dig too deeply
| too!
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| This is my take on what Tim Cook should have answered
|
| > If customers really value real, safe drugs, even if there's
| multiple drug suppliers (some offering fake, unsafe drugs),
| people should still go to a pharmacy?
|
| That shouldn't be Apple problem, we have governments for
| that.
|
| > Will people not be able to distinguish between safe drugs
| and fake unsafe drugs
|
| That shouldn't be our concern, we as the supplier of the
| market place should only worry about abiding to the law and
| report those that don't when they use our system
|
| If they don't use our system, it shouldn't be our
| responsibility.
|
| But Tim Cook is not on trial for selling illegal drugs, he's
| trying to make Apple look like the only possible guardian of
| user's safety. Because it's in Apple interests, not because
| it's best for users (I mean that Tim Cook can't possibly know
| if Epic store would be less safe than theirs, he - admittedly
| - never made that experiment)
| fartcannon wrote:
| Pretending to be ignorant of what is obvious to hold onto
| your power/money is pretty close to evil. If he believes
| customers genuinely value his curated app store, let him show
| us.
| mcphage wrote:
| > If he believes customers genuinely value his curated app
| store, let him show us.
|
| I think they consider the massive success of the iPhone and
| App Store proof of that.
| s3r3nity wrote:
| >If he believes customers genuinely value his curated app
| store, let him show us.
|
| They already did - they choose iOS over Android / other
| possibilities.
| bsaul wrote:
| I value iOS hardware and operating system. I couldn't
| care less about other apple software, and especially the
| app store which i only use as a package repository, and
| never as a recommandation or browsing tool (which is
| ideally what a store should be)
| aero-glide2 wrote:
| Why not give customers the choice to run other app stores?
| Imagine if all the software on your laptop must be downloaded
| from the windows store..
| jrsj wrote:
| Because my grandma is clueless and I give her an iPhone so
| she doesn't install malware like she managed to on her
| Android phone
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| So your Grandma installed apks? I find that hard to
| believe. The google store has a slightly worse history for
| malware than the Apple Store but not that much worse,
| especially relative to PC malware. Also anecdotes generally
| don't prove much in the greater scheme of "Android is a
| malware platform and your grandmother is going to get a
| virus"
| simion314 wrote:
| Fuck, Time said that 2 years old are using iOS so , "Great
| news, the lowest common denominator will be lowered from
| grandma to toddlers"
| johnchristopher wrote:
| Could the guest mode on android or enterprise/fleet thingy
| be used to achieve that (preventing user from installing
| malware) ?
| celsoazevedo wrote:
| It's weird that a clueless person was able to download and
| install a malware apk when by default Android forces you to
| go to your settings and allow apps to install other apps
| (the behaviour has changed over the years, but you always
| need to do something). Not to mention that Google Play
| Protect scans your apps and warns you if it finds something
| sketchy.
|
| In any case and as much as I like my own clueless grandma,
| I don't think my Android phone should only allow me to use
| the play store or that windows/macos/linux should stop me
| from installing Steam just because she's clueless about
| tech.
| sircastor wrote:
| Never underestimate a malware makers ability to instruct
| a user to do something. Out for that matter a users
| ability to get themselves into trouble.
| grishka wrote:
| IMO the right question to ask here is how do we, as a
| society, make people not be this trustful?
| celsoazevedo wrote:
| True, but we probably don't want to remove the ability to
| receive calls just because users might receive a scam
| call or the browser just because it can be used to trick
| someone to give their information. It's the same with
| apps, especially when Apple bans more than just apps with
| malware.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Actually I definitely do want to A) make it more
| difficult for spam callers to exist and B) make it more
| difficult for people to be fooled by them.
| celsoazevedo wrote:
| The problem with an App Store-like approach to that
| problem is that Apple would control who could call you
| and not give you the option to receive calls from someone
| they don't like.
|
| I'm not against security or privacy. My problem is not
| having a way to bypass the App Store and what they allow
| (they ban more than just malware) when I want to install
| something.
|
| I use Android for this reason. As soon macOS becomes like
| iOS, I'm out too.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Why is that weird? Facebook has to put warnings in the
| browser console to prevent people from pasting malicious
| code that some viral post said would give them super
| powers on Facebook. Obviously these warnings aren't for
| people who understand developer tools and internet
| security. They're there because malicious people trick
| other people into running malicious code.
| mdoms wrote:
| It's not weird because it didn't happen.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| It's actually happened more than once. Perhaps the person
| you were replying to was lying; doesn't make their point
| valid, because it has actually happened.
|
| People can follow the most complicated step by step
| instructions if they're explained clearly enough, by
| someone they feel they _don 't need to trust_, and
| there's an incentive to follow them.
| toast0 wrote:
| Current behavior on downloading an apk makes it pretty
| easy, IIRC it says you need to set a setting, has a
| (working) deeplink to the setting, and when you set the
| setting it prompts you to finish installing.
|
| It's really not that hard anymore. Google Play Protect
| then yells at you about the app you just installed (but
| maybe that was because I was installing rooting apps).
| The best solution to someone installing garbage apps
| would be a system with an app whitelist managed by a
| trusted person off the phone. And no browser or incoming
| phone calls.
| kec wrote:
| It's not really weird at all. When a dialog pops up while
| a user is trying to do something like install an app 90%
| of users will blindly click "ok" in order to get on with
| it.
| celsoazevedo wrote:
| Neither the user or a website/app can install an apk file
| on Android by just clicking "OK".
| kec wrote:
| This extends to any number of dialogs standing between
| the user and their goal. If a user wants to install an
| application they will not be deterred by warnings because
| they fundamentally don't care - they've already decided
| they want this app.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| What's your argument here, that the GP is lying or that
| their grandmother wanted the malware or something else?
|
| I find it very easy to believe that some malware vendor
| managed to trick someone into enabling things in
| settings. I would also believe that malware was just
| sitting in the play store[1] and available to install the
| normal way.
|
| [1] same goes for the App Store.
| celsoazevedo wrote:
| His grandmother already has an iPhone, so it's unlikely
| that she was using Android 10 or 11 (which made it fairly
| easy to install an apk file). Until Android 9 you had to
| go through some menus and allow sideloading, something
| that "clueless" people usually don't do. It's more likely
| that the "malware" came from an app installed via the
| Play Store.
|
| Three or so years ago I was asked by someone to see if
| there was a virus on their phone. The "virus" was in fact
| a religious app, installed via the official store, which
| was opening a popup with ads every few hours.
|
| Now, I could be wrong and it's possible that his grandma
| actually sideloaded an apk. If she did, I still think
| that you should be able to install an app that isn't
| allowed by Apple on their store, after all they block
| more than just malware: apps with free licenses, some VPN
| apps in some countries, torrent apps without any illegal
| content in it, etc.
|
| If Apple wants to continue on this path, hopefully
| they'll go a step further and also remove the web browser
| and the ability to receive calls. Scam calls are a
| problem after all and we don't want people to send all
| their savings to "Microsoft" or "Amazon".
| BigJono wrote:
| Not only that but I don't see how this problem isn't just
| trivially solved by putting an optional "parental"
| control on the setting. God forbid someone has to take 5
| seconds to set a phone up for their mum.
| wayneftw wrote:
| And Apple protecting her from that is the only solution? I
| don't think so...
|
| With just a tiny bit of imagination I'm sure we can come up
| with something which will work. Here's an idea: Let Apple
| sell Apple-locked and unlocked iPhones. It can work just
| like carrier locking. Buy one unlocked, maybe pay a little
| extra, and you can have 3rd party app stores.
|
| That took me a minute to come up with. I am absolutely
| positive that there are many other degrees of options
| between full-control by Apple and full-control by End-user.
|
| I get it though... people who like Apple aren't very
| appreciative of having options.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| There's a thing called "choice paralysis" that Apple
| minimizes as a value-add.
|
| My technically-savvy associates, I suggest an Android to
| (especially if they want to dabble in mobile development
| themselves). For my family that just wants a phone that
| works, I suggest iPhone. The ecosystem tends to have a
| single right way to do any given task, which is a boon
| when they just want it to work without having to think
| about details.
| tshaddox wrote:
| If that was the law then sure, Apple could just sell a
| Samsung Android phone on their store so they don't get
| fined. This approach obviously doesn't actually change
| anything for smartphone users or developers.
| d3nj4l wrote:
| > Let Apple sell Apple-locked and unlocked iPhones. It
| can work just like carrier locking. Buy one unlocked,
| maybe pay a little extra
|
| But that won't work for Epic, or for any competitor. Epic
| wants access to _every_ iPhone customer, not just the
| ones who paid extra to add third party app stores. Heck,
| you don 't even have to pay extra to sideload apps on
| Android, but they still lost a ton of people when Google
| kicked them out of the Play Store.
| hboon wrote:
| I know you mean well. But it's ironic that with the first
| iPhones, Apple was combating the tight gripe of carriers,
| especially in the US on consumer control.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Apple's corporate charter is pretty simple: keep the girl
| with the hammer from getting too close to the screen.
|
| Yes, they won important victories against the cellular
| carriers -- victories that we all continue to benefit
| from -- but let's not kid ourselves regarding why they
| fought those battles in the first place. They didn't just
| set out to defeat the incumbent gatekeepers, they set out
| to _become_ them.
| akudha wrote:
| So the solution is to force majority of the population to
| use Apple store, to protect minority of the population who
| aren't tech savvy?
|
| If Apple allowed other stores, before a user can install an
| app from non-Apple store, iOS can show a message saying the
| app is not from Apple's holy store and that it is users
| responsibility to make sure the app is trustworthy? This
| won't be pretty, but at least it is a compromise.
|
| They want their 30% cut and they want to tightly control
| everything. That is the only true, logical reason.
| Everything else is a flimsy excuse
| 5560675260 wrote:
| One possible solution is to start giving our money to
| companies that are not Apple or Google. Otherwise we'll
| be forever stuck with this duopoly and various
| alternative OS will keep being niche at best.
| fastaguy88 wrote:
| Pretty hard to know who the minority is in this case.
| Based on other HN opinions about Apple products, there
| seems to be a consensus that Apple customers are mostly
| not tech savvy. If they were, they wouldn't buy Apple
| stuff.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Even though this is a stereotype not grounded in reality
| and there are plenty of techie people who buy Apple
| products.
| lanstin wrote:
| Lots of tech folks buy apple and at the same time vast
| majority of Apple customers should not be trusted to do
| valid security assessment or maintain good operational
| security.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Why is it hard to know? Apple has at most like a 20%
| market share globally, and around 50% in the United
| States. The overwhelming majority of smartphone owners
| have a non-Apple smartphone.
| moksly wrote:
| > So the solution is to force majority of the population
| to use Apple store, to protect minority of the population
| who aren't tech savvy?
|
| You could always get an android.
|
| I realise that this can come off as silly, but what, id
| not the walled garden differentiate the two systems? If
| you tear those walls down, you're basically using a
| really expensive android device with all the tracking and
| malware that includes.
|
| I do think the courts should force Apple to open up.
| Closed systems are evil, even though they are very nice
| to use. I just hope they do it in such a way that it's
| optional and has no effect on the rest of us.
| sciprojguy wrote:
| Why, exactly, are they evil? It's not as if people who
| buy Apple (like me, and I develop for iPhone/iPad too)
| don't know what they're getting. I like the walled garden
| Apple has because:
|
| * It makes my life as a developer much easier. I only
| have _one_ App Store to aim at, and with a few hiccups
| here and there from inexperienced or overzealous
| reviewers the guidelines are pretty clear. If I had to
| design for half a dozen or more apps I 'd have that many
| more versions of guidelines to worry about.
|
| * I don't need to worry nearly as much about scam or
| knock-off apps siphoning off users, since Apple is
| proactive about that. Not perfect, but very proactive.
|
| Those are just two off the top of my head. There are
| more, but I'm getting hungry.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| But then Epic will have detailed instructions on how to
| sideload apps, and if enough apps do this it will be
| common practice for users to do so. If users are trained
| to do this by safe apps, they won't be on the lookout for
| the malware that does the same thing.
| Seattle3503 wrote:
| Maybe a wacky idea, but what if Apple required you to go
| to an Apple store to sideload a new app or app store.
| That way the person at the store can stop really stupid
| mistakes.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| They already basically do; they require you to go to the
| digital equivalent and ask Apple pretty please for a
| signature.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Customers have that choice today.
|
| On the Android platform.
| nr2x wrote:
| Which is partially why Apple makes it very hard to move to
| Android. No iMessage, Calendars, Contacts, iTunes
| Purchases, etc.
| d3nj4l wrote:
| You can very easily link your iCal with Google Calendar,
| and likewise sync your contacts with your Google account.
| I know because I've done both.
| nr2x wrote:
| You can't access iCloud calendars on an Android phone,
| they even block it over the browser.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| It's a bit convoluted, but you can get the CalDAV URLs
| for your calendars which then work just fine with any
| CalDAV client (including those on Android). When googling
| "iCloud caldav" detailed instructions are the first
| result.
| nr2x wrote:
| Key point here is "very hard to move to Android". Seeing
| as this is not at all easy (and I have gotten to work via
| this method at some point), it presents a barrier to
| changing platforms. Likewise ,not allowing access to
| calendar on a mobile browser is pretty blatant.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| Also on HN today, endless comments about how Amazon is a
| shitheap full of fake products and fake reviews and wishing
| Amazon would tighten up:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27253047
|
| > " _Why not give customers the choice to run other app
| stores?_ "
|
| Why can't people who don't want Apple's curation and want to
| install other app stores buy Android phones, instead of
| trying to ruin nice things for everyone else?
| exporectomy wrote:
| Sometimes less freedom is a good thing. It frees the
| customer's mind to let an organization they trust make the
| tedious product evaluations for you. We do it all the time
| with retail shopping where we enjoy the curated decisions of
| the shop's owner instead of a giant bazaar.
| aero-glide2 wrote:
| I own the hardware (the floor space of the store). Should I
| not be able to decide who sets up shop in my phone?
| Jailbird wrote:
| I think the zoning laws in your area prevent you from
| operating a nuclear plant or a meat processing facility.
| (Sorry, it's just Hello Kitty shops for you! :) )
| celsoazevedo wrote:
| On the other hand, when Apple decides to block some app
| (eg: certain VPN apps in China) for reasons that aren't in
| your interest, you're screwed.
|
| Being able to use a different app store (which may or may
| not be as "curated" as Apple's own store) or to simply
| download the app from the devs website and install it
| doesn't seem to be a problem for Android users. Or for
| Windows, Linux and even macOS (eg: is it that bad being
| able to install Steam?)
|
| The thing is, most people will use the store that comes
| with the phone. I have F-Droid installed for some open
| source apps, but my parents have no idea of what that is.
| They use Google's Play Store, like most users... if
| Facebook wants them to use their apps, that's where their
| app needs to be.
| notriddle wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27221083
|
| Apparently, yes, it is a problem.
| celsoazevedo wrote:
| They're trying to defend their own store and business
| model... of course having a more open system is a
| problem.
|
| After years of "there are no viruses for mac", I find it
| funny to see an Apple exec saying that his own family
| members have been infected by malware on macOS.
| pjc50 wrote:
| But we do allow more than one or two shops to exist.
| cs2733 wrote:
| I'm with you on this... and then remember the many useful
| tools that are only available outside the app store.
|
| BTW, Have you seen the app store catalog for macOS on apple
| silicon? Still very sparse.
|
| Trusting one company to provide the whole stack is not
| necessarily practical, even for the average user.
| calsy wrote:
| They curate their stores to draw in customers, placing
| popular items up front and usually having SALE signs up.
| Why? because it is an extremely competitive environment.
|
| The store owners pay rent, they are not obliged to give a
| 30% commission on purchases to the company who owns the
| shopping centre and they are not forced to use the shopping
| centres chosen payment service to make sure they collect on
| commissions.
|
| Less freedom is not a good thing. Nothing is being taken
| away from you when you provide other options, quite the
| opposite.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| > Why not give customers the choice to run other app stores?
|
| Why would Apple want to do so? That would obviously reduce
| their earnings.
|
| > Imagine if all the software on your laptop must be
| downloaded from the windows store..
|
| I bet that is Microsoft's dream. They can't just do that
| because of disruption would be too big. But they did
| something similar with Windows RT, so they definitely looking
| into it.
| Hamuko wrote:
| > _They can 't just do that because of disruption would be
| too big._
|
| Microsoft became rather antitrust shy at some point. Not
| sure if that's the case anymore but I think it affected
| many of the decisions.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| They became shy exactly when they lost a massive
| antitrust suit in the late 90's.
| FredPret wrote:
| But you do! Buy an Android. Or jailbreak the iPhone.
|
| As a consumer, his comments were spot on about me at least.
| lucasyvas wrote:
| This exchange appears to be open admission of unapolegtic,
| monopolistic behaviour.
|
| Also, the suggestion that customers want it to stay like it is
| is a flat out lie given his preceding statement where he admits
| they've never offered the choice, so can't possibly know.
| bnj wrote:
| It's really interesting to observe the way that we can all
| read that exchange with different interpretations. I don't
| see the conflict you're pointing to at all-- to me, it makes
| sense that Cook can say users don't want to navigate multiple
| stores if they had done, for example, focus groups.
|
| Meanwhile the experiment that he didn't want to run is
| whether users could distinguish between good quality app
| stores and bad quality ones, which he doesn't know because
| they've never had to do it before.
|
| That all seems sensible enough to me.
| lucasyvas wrote:
| I think you have a good point, but is there any proof they
| have focus tested it?
|
| My second question would be, are focus groups equipped to
| make a decision for potentially billions of users (given
| the sheer volume, and that focus groups are cherry-picked)?
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| I don't get the whole Apple thing though. I can see the
| prices as inflated, but there are literally dozens of other
| options to iphones if you don't like iphone. Do you just want
| government to step in and run Apple as it sees fit like corps
| in China?
| abecedarius wrote:
| > Customers "uniformly" want it to "stay like it is."
|
| I'm a customer and I don't.
| _nalply wrote:
| You comment on Hacker News. Therefore you are not an
| "uniform" customer.
| akg_67 wrote:
| I hope multiple App Stores don't become a thing on iOS. The
| reason I like iPhone is that I am assured that apps I download
| from App Store are not shit and curated by Apple. Apple has
| vested interest to keep apps made available to be clean and not
| going to compromise iPhone. Android play store, in comparison,
| is full of crap and free for all, basically buyer (or
| downloader) beware.
|
| Phone is used by too broad of user groups, from very young to
| very old, for apps to be left unchecked unlike laptops and
| desktops.
| rdedev wrote:
| I don't get this argument. How can an alternative app Store
| affect the quality of the Apple app Store ? The alternate app
| Store is not gonna come installed by default. No one is gonna
| mistake the alternative app Store for the apple one. Apple is
| gonna make sure of that. Apple can even put up loads of
| warnings and dark UI stuff when installing an alternate app
| Store to dissuade the "noob" users.
| czzr wrote:
| If a major app moves to a different App Store, people will
| install the second (and third, and fourth, etc.) No one
| will say "oh, well, I want Instagram because all my friends
| have it but I'm not going to install Facebook's store to
| get it because I want to keep my phone secure."
|
| The problem is that security and privacy benefits are
| somewhat intangible and hidden, so they are not enough to
| convince people to weight them heavily - this is the same
| reason why people download random software off the net and
| why the web is such a mess of trackers.
|
| Apple's approach tries to remove the need for users to
| think about the issue at all. Of course, it has downsides
| as well, but don't underestimate what the ecosystem would
| be giving up once the door is opened to multiple stores.
| mthoms wrote:
| Developers won't leave the App Store if Apple are
| offering good value to them and their customers.
|
| If Apple stops offering good value (fair policies,
| commissions), then Apple _should_ be "punished" by
| losing business.
|
| Offering competing stores provides a strong incentive for
| Apple to make theirs even better. Developers would win
| and consumers would win. The only "loser" would be Apple
| (at least as far as short term financials are concerned).
| paulmd wrote:
| OP did not say that it would affect the quality of the
| Apple app store. The specific quote was: "Apple has vested
| interest to keep apps made available to be clean and not
| going to compromise iPhone".
|
| Allowing third-party app stores effectively means providing
| a vector to bypass the official app-review process, which
| is the cornerstone on which the permissioning system rests.
| If you allow third-party app stores, then any sufficiently-
| popular app can create their own "app store" and demand
| that you give it full permissions, which they will turn
| around and use to scrape data. It will become a race to the
| bottom, permissioning systems cannot stand if the app-
| review process does not exist, and the app-review cannot
| exist if third-party stores exist as a mechanism to let
| anyone publish anything.
|
| Facebook has already gotten their hands slapped for doing
| exactly this, and if they could spread it to the general
| user-base then they will do so immediately.
|
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/facebook-and-
| google-...
|
| So your question about "how can an alternative app store
| affect the Apple app store" is a red herring, and not at
| all what OP said - what OP said was "allowing third-party
| app stores will degrade the experience _of iOS users_ " and
| that is absolutely true, Facebook has already tried to do
| this before and this will allow them to take another turn
| at the ring.
| merrywhether wrote:
| Hypothetical progression: Epic sets up alternative App
| Store which becomes the only source of Fortnite 2.0, which
| is popular enough to drive installs of new alt store. Some
| other newly-popular viral app comes along (probably a
| social app that causes its users to exert pressure on their
| social group to join) and gambles on going with the Epic
| store only, piggybacking on Fortnite's beachhead. Repeat.
| This process normalizes an alt store, forcing iOS customers
| to have to choose between trusting a new source vs missing
| out on apps. They can currently miss out on Android-only
| apps, but at least currently 99.9% of apps that run on iOS
| come from the single "trusted" store.
|
| Another maybe-more-realistic version of this would be if
| some business software used their power over line workers
| to install things (since end-users are not really the
| customers in corporate software sales). Microsoft sets up
| their own store as the only source of Office Redux, and
| millions of iOS users are forced into this store via their
| employers. Same process as above: beachhead, gamble,
| dilution of Apple's store.
|
| It's not hard to see how the process could snowball, though
| it's certainly not guaranteed as there must be the right
| combination of events.
| bluesign wrote:
| Already like this scene in PC gaming, launchers
| everywhere.
|
| For the apps I am using now, there will be probably:
|
| Netflix Store, Amazon Store, Google Store, Epic Store, EA
| Store ... and list goes on
| karakot wrote:
| Adobe store :shrug:
| rdedev wrote:
| Another comment mentioned this. The fragmentation issue
| that comes up with multiple app stores. I agree that it
| is an issue that can come up. Pretty sure epic is trying
| for something like this in android.
|
| But it dosent take away from my point that an alternative
| store does not affect the quality of apps in the main
| store.
|
| As for an alt store becoming normalized I feel that users
| will only install the necessary app from the alt store
| and not anything else. A lot of alt stores tried to set
| themselves up in android but didn't succeed. I think it
| mostly comes down to incentives. Apple can easily change
| them to make sure no other store gets the upper hand
| sciprojguy wrote:
| "I feel that users will only install the necessary app
| from the alt store and not anything else."
|
| Have you ever had to wipe a relative's computer to get
| rid of the malware-infested browser toolbars they
| installed, not knowing any better? Or worse, pay a ransom
| in bitcoins to unlock the billing systems that help
| control a gasoline distribution pipeline? You may be
| somewhat overestimating the sophistication of users when
| it comes to technology.
| api wrote:
| I've heard it put this way: if you give the user root on
| the device, you are giving the malware the user is
| tricked into installing root.
|
| iOS is an OS for people who are non-technical or for
| applications where people don't want to worry about that
| stuff. If you want full control run Linux. MacOS and
| Windows also offer a balance that is skewed a lot more
| toward user control because they're for "pro" use cases.
| yyyk wrote:
| None of this happens on Android despite allowing multiple
| app stores. And companies can already install software
| for their employers via MDM.
| 0xEFF wrote:
| Suppose you install a messaging app to talk to your friend.
| How do you know they installed their copy from the good App
| Store and not the bad one?
| yosito wrote:
| Your friend's messaging app is not installing apps on
| your phone, so it doesn't matter (to you).
| rdedev wrote:
| Most messaging apps are centralized. Some form of server
| side checking can be easily added to make sure the client
| is legit and not tampered with. Same form of checking
| thing if it's P2P but it would be very cumbersome.
|
| Now it is possible that someones has cracked the
| encrypted messaged payload and figured out how to fool
| the client authenticity checking part but at that point
| you are probably dealing with a state actor and even
| apple with their secure app Store cannot save you.
| w7 wrote:
| That's not state actor level of effort. Kids do that
| stuff for video games.
| Sargos wrote:
| Why do you care what software your friend runs? Why do
| you feel the need to dictate what software someone else
| runs?
|
| This is especially weird because your username is 0xEFF
| which initially made me think Electronic Frontier
| Foundation but it's definitely not that.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| > " _No one is gonna mistake the alternative app Store for
| the apple one_ "
|
| You've never heard any stories like "I put FireFox/Chrome
| on my parent's desktop and next time I went back they were
| using IE and said they didn't notice"? Or same with apps
| installed from an App store between real and imitation?
|
| > " _Apple can even put up loads of warnings and dark UI
| stuff when installing an alternate app Store to dissuade
| the "noob" users._"
|
| Why would they need to do that if "no one" is gonna mistake
| them?
| rdedev wrote:
| As I said in the next sentence, apple is going to make
| sure that no app Store looks like theirs. It's pretty
| easy to do it too. Make sure app stores are only
| available to install from the Apple app Store. That way
| apple can look for any possible imitations.
|
| The dissuading stuff was not needed. I was just
| frustrated with the line that some users are not tech
| savvy so all users must be equally restricted. It just
| seems unnecessarily black and white
| lanstin wrote:
| It is tricky. Most people are pretty trusting of things
| they don't understand. But a world where you walk into a
| cafe and 80% of the devices around you are malevolent is
| worse than one where only 5% are malevolent. I would like
| root on all my devices and also I would like to be able
| to run apps that want more permissions than I want them
| to have and they just get fake data when they call get
| location or whatever. But I don't want to have to
| security assess all the apps I might like. To be sure
| mostly my apps are like the browser, the like doe reader,
| and find my iPhone. But I do have a weakness for
| solitaire and free flow and similar games. It seems very
| hard to get the open source versions of these and the
| other ones seem to display questionable ethics and to be
| ad revenue driven (where as I would happily pay a bit for
| new levels etc).
| tolbish wrote:
| > Most people are pretty trusting of things they don't
| understand.
|
| [citation needed]
| jodrellblank wrote:
| _Gestures around at almost everything_.
|
| Cleaning products, anaesthesia, electrical goods,
| microwaves, internal combustion engines, skyscrapers,
| hydrogenated vegetable oil and other such ingredients,
| fire retardant in furniture, blockchains, cryptography,
| smoke detectors, x-rays, coronary bypass surgery,
| bridges, hydraulics, reservoirs, water treatment plants,
| refridgerators. Would you say the people who understand
| them in some meaningful way is >50% of the people who
| use/benefit from them them?
|
| If people see others doing something, we assume it must
| be okay to do. If we see others selling something, we
| assume it must be okay to buy and use. We default to yes
| (pretty trusting), unless it's proven otherwise strongly
| enough to be banned.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| What I fear is that as a reaction to Apple's recent moves on
| privacy (tracking transparency, requiring user consent prior
| to tracking, etc), Facebook is going to spin up its own App
| Store _without_ such rules where user data is a free for all.
|
| This wouldn't be a threat in itself, but having control of
| heavy hitters like the Facebook app, Instagram, and WhatsApp
| among others, they could drive traffic levels that no third-
| party App Store has ever seen overnight. They can also afford
| to buy other heavy-hitting exclusives, and some data hungry
| devs would likely come on board with no incentive at all.
|
| This would be a terrible outcome. If iOS is to support third
| party app stores, I'd rather it be _after_ legislation is
| passed that effectively enforces Apple 's App Store privacy
| policies at a federal level.
| simion314 wrote:
| >I hope multiple App Stores don't become a thing on iOS.
|
| I hope Apple will also force only 1 browser, 1 text editor, 1
| video player, 1 search engine, 1 bank/payment system. I hate
| PayPal so everyone should use Apple Pay because I want so,
| please Apple force them all to use what I like! /sarcasm
| Sargos wrote:
| I wish this was actually sarcasm for most people. I
| legitimately don't understand why this group of people
| believe this is a good thing.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| How do you explain that the majority of apps are contaminated
| by spyware like the Facebook SDK and dozens of other
| equivalents? (which for the record is in breach of the GDPR
| and Apple _could_ be considered complicit if they allow this
| while at the same time requiring all apps to comply with
| local laws and has removed apps who break or could be used to
| break the law before)
|
| How do you explain scam apps that deliberately mislead users
| into signing up to a "free trial" subscription that renews at
| a ridiculous price 3 days later?
| akg_67 wrote:
| Have you looked at Google play store, in comparison? Apple
| is still doing 100x better job. 100% cleanliness is utopia
| but I will take an App Store that weeds out lot of
| contaminated apps than every other app being contaminated
| in some sort of way.
| rjzzleep wrote:
| I do think that the apple app store has better quality
| apps. But to be frank, those 3 day trial autorenew apps
| are definitely more common on iOS.
|
| There are so many highly rated iOS apps that look great
| and where you can't even get past the initial stage
| without having to sign up to a subscription without even
| know what it is.
| detaro wrote:
| Nobody is proposing that the Apple app store should go
| away, or that other stores shouldn't be curated. (E.g.
| exactly because the play store is as it is, on Android I
| go look at F-Droid first, because if it has something I
| trust it more)
| calsy wrote:
| Is someone taking the App Store from you? Does adding
| alternative options somehow corrupt the original App
| Store?
| Nextgrid wrote:
| There could be an argument that allowing alternative
| stores would just mean every app would switch to those
| and be able to work around Apple's rules and act against
| consumers' best interests.
|
| However, the fact that Apple only enforces the rules when
| it benefits _them_ as opposed to consumers (so they are
| happy to turn a blind eye to spyware, but will crack down
| immediately on alternative payment options) means that in
| practice I don 't see it making the situation any worse.
| Sargos wrote:
| >There could be an argument that allowing alternative
| stores would just mean every app would switch to those
|
| Which is a ridiculous argument as the network effects and
| default preference status of the App Store mean it'll
| still be pretty much a requirement to publish there if
| you want any users.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Not really.
|
| Apple currently has the market power to keep Facebook and
| other similar scum at bay if they chose to
| (unfortunately, they're not doing anywhere near enough on
| this front).
|
| Opening the floodgates to alternate stores would simply
| mean every mainstream service out there would require you
| to use that alternate store (isolated from Apple's
| enforcement) where all kinds of nastiness is permitted.
| hmate9 wrote:
| I would match rather sign up for a subscription through the
| iOS ecosystem, where I can easily and realisably cancel
| that subscription through Apple themselves as opposed to
| entering my credit card info and figuring out how to cancel
| for each and every application differently.
| saurik wrote:
| FWIW, people usually like to support lots of payment
| options, particularly ones that already have the
| customer's payment details on file and that the customer
| likes using, so as long as you are OK with the
| realization that people who pay not through Apple are
| going to pay like 10-25% less (depending on any number of
| factors, as Apple is honestly offering non-0 value) than
| you (which I honestly doubt, but you need to remember
| that a key part of this isn't the functionality but the
| cost: a ton of the money you are paying is just going to
| Apple right now) I would be shocked if companies didn't
| throw in Apple's IAP as a (more expensive) option. Like:
| for my store (Cydia), I never required developers to use
| my payment options (as that would be a horrible and anit-
| competitive thing to do) _but they did anyway_ because
| users liked them so much and they were easy for the
| developer and I actually solved problems they had
| (license transfer, some of the customer support, etc.).
| kalleboo wrote:
| Personally I would prefer to sign up to a subscription
| via PayPal, where I can easily manage the subscription
| though a web site instead opening the "Music" app (!?!)
| and navigating through that nightmare
| moenzuel wrote:
| I am confused, are you saying that the only way to manage
| your subscriptions in iOS is via the music app and not
| the App Store?
| hmate9 wrote:
| Im not sure why you got downvoted. Its a legit opinion.
|
| I can see the argument for why this is better for iOS users,
| but it is also painfully obvious how it benefits Apple's
| monopoly and works against app developers.
| akg_67 wrote:
| I agree that it disproportionately benefits Apple but
| alternative is free for all like Android and all
| responsibilities fall on end user (not possible when you
| have from very young users to very old users, both
| unsophisticated and sophisticated users).
| emsy wrote:
| I just don't buy the argument that end customers will
| lose out. The Apple AppStore will still be the default
| and available. People that want alternatives can get them
| at their own peril (like responsible adults, can you
| imagine?). And what percentage of people actually use alt
| app stores on Android?
| foolmeonce wrote:
| Further, the Play store is evidence against supporting
| the company store concept at all and not an explanation
| for why an exclusive one should be allowed if it doesn't
| immediately induce vomiting.
| codyb wrote:
| I'm surprised fragmentation isn't mentioned.
|
| With multiple app stores, developers may not release to
| the Apple app store any more. Causing users to either use
| other app stores or miss out on apps that would
| previously been in the Apple store.
|
| Causing them to be forced to evaluate the trustworthiness
| of each new app store they have to use.
|
| Which will inevitably lead to some less tech savvy users
| having their information phished out from their phones.
|
| Personally, it sounds like a hassle to me. I'm a big fan
| of the walled garden approach because I have zero desire
| to evaluate app store's credibility and don't feel I'm
| missing out on anything that could be side loaded, but
| then again, I only use my phone for communication,
| dating, photos, craigslist, and hackernews lately.
| hpaavola wrote:
| "I hope multiple App Stores don't become a thing on iOS. The
| reason I like iPhone is that I am assured that apps I
| download from App Store are not shit and curated by Apple."
|
| Then dont install those other app stores and only rely on
| apples curated list, if other app stores ever become a thing
| on ios.
| maccard wrote:
| The reality of what ends up happening is you end up with an
| app store per publisher, and needing to manage your payment
| details with each one individually, and deal with each
| stores handling of your data. I don't want to install the
| NYT store to download the nyt cooking app so they can take
| a bigger cut on their subscription. The reason this hasn't
| happened on Android is because you get a scary warning when
| you install apps from other sources.
| hpaavola wrote:
| Exactly what's blocking apple from using same kinda
| warning? So no, it wont happen.
| maccard wrote:
| Good thing epic aren't suing google at the same time for
| the exact reason we're discussing right here then isn't
| it?
| hpaavola wrote:
| Epic is free to sue who ever they whish. That means
| nothing. The argument was that 3rd party app stores would
| somehow affect apples appstore quality. That's false. If
| apple would allow installing apps from unknown sources
| and just give ugly warnings then, thus letting 3rd party
| appstores on ios, it would have no effect on qpple
| appstore content.
| maccard wrote:
| Do you think the existence of the epic store on wjncows
| has had an effect on the content of steam?
|
| A really good example right now is riot. They distribute
| through their own launcher on PC rather than on steam.
| They have two sizeable games on mobile right now (wild
| rift and TFT). In a world where these are downloadable
| from the riot launcher on iOS rather than the app store,
| it seems likely riot (and other major publishers who do
| the same on PC) would follow suit? I don't see how having
| an app store without hearthstone, TFT, fortnite is the
| same quality as one with.
| hpaavola wrote:
| Instead of trying to compare to other totally different
| products, do the comparison to Android. Has any 3rd party
| appstore affected play store in any way? No. Start your
| argument from that fact.
| maccard wrote:
| Yes. Fortnite isn't on the play store.
| hpaavola wrote:
| And it's not in apple appstore neither, so clearly the
| reason is not the fact that non-playstore apps can be
| installed.
| paulmd wrote:
| fortnite was in the app store until epic game's account
| was terminated for terms-of-service violations, so
| whatever point you're trying to make here isn't correct.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53955183
| cygx wrote:
| _> The argument was that 3rd party app stores would
| somehow affect apples appstore quality. That 's false._
|
| With Apple in control, the developer faces the choice to
| play by Apple's rules, or lose out on the money to be
| made in their walled garden.
|
| With Apple no longer in control, the user now faces the
| choice to play by the developer's rules, or lose out on
| the app.
|
| That said, I'm actually not a fan of the walled garden
| approach, and won't be buying an iPhone in the forseeable
| future. It's just that I do understand the appeal.
| Sargos wrote:
| >With Apple in control, the developer faces the choice to
| play by Apple's rules, or lose out on the money to be
| made in their walled garden.
|
| >With Apple no longer in control, the user now faces the
| choice to play by the developer's rules, or lose out on
| the app.
|
| Android has proven this is not true. Google has the same
| policies as Apple and does allow alternative app stores.
| Turns out the world works in a common sense way and
| everything turned out fine.
| ssaturn wrote:
| Except android has multiple app stores and most people
| just end up using the main one. There is no good reason
| to restrict user choice
| cygx wrote:
| The counter-argument runs like this:
|
| Third party developers want to get their apps onto the
| iPhone, because the platform has a lot of users, and
| there's a lot of money to be made. However, they will be
| forced to play by Apple's rules, which (according to the
| argument) is good for the customer, as the custodian of the
| platform has a vested interest in keeping them happy.
|
| Now, if 3rd party stores were allowed, Apple's bargaining
| power which allowed them to force 3rd parties to respect
| the user's interest would go away, allowing developers to
| deliver a worse (eg privacy-violating) product.
|
| Users who do not like this deal are free to go with an
| Android device instead of an iPhone. The popularity of the
| latter might suggest that quite a few people are reasonably
| happy with the status quo.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| The question is does Apple's bargaining power come from
| monopoly power? That's exactly what makes it anti-
| competitive.
| hpaavola wrote:
| Counter-argument to what? As Android shows, allowing 3rd
| party appstores has 0 effect on the main appstore
| offering.
| merrywhether wrote:
| But if the iOS store is so much worse for devs than the
| Play store, wouldn't there be more incentive for devs to
| push for a legitimate alt store to succeed on iOS?
| d3nj4l wrote:
| Android's third-party app stores have been majorly gimped
| for a long time _unless_ they were installed by the
| manufacturer. Further, they don 't even have great reach
| even if they're installed as such, as evidenced by Epic
| wanting Fortnite back on the Play Store despite it being
| available on the Galaxy store.
| wayneftw wrote:
| > The popularity of the latter might suggest that quite a
| few people are reasonably happy with the status quo.
|
| People haven't thought it through at all. If they've even
| considered this aspect of it, I'd be surprised.
|
| iPhone popularity is due to a mix of very good
| engineering, presentation, marketing and network effects.
|
| Smartphones are also very, very new for people. Give them
| time and they'll rebel against a single point of control
| sooner or later.
| cygx wrote:
| _> Give them time and they 'll rebel against a single
| point of control sooner or later._
|
| Who knows. Gaming consoles have had a decent run, but of
| course that may not be that good a precedent as they've
| not evolved into general-purpose computing devices to the
| same degree that phones have...
| pseudo0 wrote:
| The customers who don't like the console system can game
| on a PC. It's not a perfect substitute, but it's pretty
| close. Is there any real equivalent that offers more user
| control for smartphones though? Stock Android is a bit
| less restrictive, but still pretty bad, and custom ROMs
| are extremely niche.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| Android already has the majority of the market. Apple is,
| perhaps deliberately, pricing themselves out of the
| emerging markets in Africa and Asia.
|
| It's the reason why I don't even really give a toss:
| there's nothing on iOS that you can't get on Android.
| lanstin wrote:
| Except a lower chance of trouble if you down load an app
| without some security assessment of it.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| It'll end up similarly to macOS AppStore. Developers will
| avoid it, so user will be forced to use other stores to
| make his phone useful.
| hpaavola wrote:
| vbezhenar, for some reason there is no reply link visible
| in your commenr, so have to reply like this.
|
| "It'll end up similarly to macOS AppStore. Developers will
| avoid it, so user will be forced to use other stores to
| make his phone useful."
|
| So, kinda like on Androi... No, wait. It wont. Other stores
| will be in the margins likd on Android.
| maccard wrote:
| Have you seen the prompt you get when you install an app
| outside the play store, (and even worse give it
| permission to install other apps)?
|
| Epic have made instructions on how to do it [0], it's a
| four step process to be able to install the game that
| involves changing two system default settings that both
| warn you not to do what you're about to do.
|
| [0] https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-
| US/mobile/android/new-...
| hpaavola wrote:
| I'm happy F-Droid user, so yes, i know the process.
| ssaturn wrote:
| Then don't download apps that aren't from the app store, no
| one is forcing you to. But dont restrict choices of users who
| want to.
| galuggus wrote:
| China has had multiple app storeson both ios (through
| widespread jailbreaking- the shop you buy your iphine from
| will install it for you)and android. The experience is very
| poor. They are full of scammy, pirated apps(although they do
| have emulators)
|
| The majority of users just want their phone to work.
| crazygringo wrote:
| There's nothing weird about it.
|
| If there were no food regulations, _I_ don 't know if I'd be
| able to pick restaurants and grocery store brands that were
| safe to eat.
|
| But I definitely know I want safe food to eat.
|
| Most people want safe food but they want the _government_ to
| figure out what that means.
|
| Same thing here -- most people just want a safe app store. They
| don't want the work of having to figure out which app stores
| are how safe. They just want _Apple_ to figure that out for
| them.
| fors wrote:
| Your comparison lags. There are food regulations yet there
| are a lot of stores where I can buy food.
|
| I trust the government to impose regulation on food
| manufacturers but I trust vendors with their selection of
| manufacturers. Why should the store landscape on iOS be any
| different where I put my trust in the store?
|
| This would actually mirror my food shopping as well. I trust
| my vendor, why would this not translate to store operators on
| the OS? Aside from the fact that Google and Apple have done a
| piss poor job with this... I'm fairly certain I would trust
| Epic, Valve or MS (or even EA and Ubi).
| Thorentis wrote:
| This argument lends itself to constantly shifting goal
| posts. The moment Apple (the food safety authority) closes
| down a store for a breach of standards it has enforced,
| people will simply say that Apple is engaging in
| censorship, or not being open enough with its platform, or
| engaging in anti competitive behaviour.
|
| The issue is compounded by imagining that the food safety
| board ran its own restaurant. It then closes down the cafe
| next door for unhygenic practices. Looks pretty bad right?
| That's the situation Apple will be in _every time_ it has
| to make a call on something like this.
| bsaul wrote:
| That's an interesting point. Note however that there are
| countless stories of app removed by apple because they
| supposedly duplicated apple apps or os features. So, in
| some way they're _already_ in that boat.
| InvertedRhodium wrote:
| Sounds like a terrible position to be in, perhaps we
| should require the vendors and the manufacturers to be
| separate entities in order to avoid forcing anyone into
| it.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Apple isn't the govt
| kmonsen wrote:
| It would more be like if food safety inspections were
| optional, but only restaurants that opt in would be allowed
| to show a sign they were inspected either physically or on
| their web page. It would be trivial to be able to check for
| this. Door dash would show a sign saying which restaurant is
| safe to avoid being sued after an incident.
|
| If you think restaurants and food safety is a good analogy
| it's not a good argument for Apple in my opinion.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Except now there isn't just 1 inspector, but many. And you
| have to figure out which you trust.
|
| Now imagine there's a very popular restaurant, but it uses
| an inspector you don't know if you trust. But you want to
| eat the food because all your friends are already there...
| so you'll go.
|
| This is exactly what would happen-- various companies once
| they reach a certain size will just want to have their own
| store because either it makes them more money or they have
| less restrictions. Just look at Facebook and the new 14.5
| privacy features that are cutting into their ability to
| collect data. If you let FB the chance to pull out, they'd
| do it in a heartbeat knowing they could easily force
| everyone to install their App Store... which would have 0
| privacy restrictions and far less oversight (just look at
| the Cambridge Analytica scandal for how FB might run an App
| Store).
|
| Given Apple mostly makes money selling hardware, they're
| the best incentivized to protect its user base.
|
| Disclaimer: I work for Apple but all views my own.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| Apple could still limit the APIs that are available to
| developers.
| azinman2 wrote:
| But if there's no Apple App Store, you not only can't
| prevent private APIs from being used (or abused), but you
| certainly can't prevent cross--app tracking and a whole
| host of other issues.
| judge2020 wrote:
| Apple is still the food inspector in this situation, and
| epic wants an App Store without any apple oversight - I
| doubt they allow a notarization-type system to be the
| outcome of this court case.
| remolacha wrote:
| If there were two, or ten, food safety inspection groups, we
| could figure out which ones had trustworthy ratings. No need
| for end consumers to inspect every restaurant (every app)
| individually. That's what Epic is asking for - to have its
| own app store on iOS.
| permo-w wrote:
| First of all, I don't want to have to download a different
| store every time a big app decides that they're too big for
| the App Store, a la that EA piece Origin, the Epic Store,
| the Curse Launcher - or whatever it's called this month -
| and the Ubisoft Store, all competing with Steam. I just
| want 1 and no more. That's the best user experience.
|
| Second, I shouldn't have to remind you how well competing
| regulators worked for the financial sector
|
| Basically, I think something needs doing, but this ain't
| it. Maybe Apple need their cut cut. They make enough damn
| money. You could take their cut down to 5% and they'd still
| be raking it in by the truckload
| bsaul wrote:
| Funny reading this. it's as if people installing games
| from steam on their laptop, and mac apps from the apple
| app store, then install adobe softwares from adobe
| installers are living an insufferable life.
|
| They're not. There are very easy ways to recognize a
| trustworthy store. We're doing that every single day for
| things we actually _ingest_.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Which is _exactly_ what everyone wants to avoid.
|
| Imagine if there were 10 inspection groups, but sometimes
| they get bought by corrupt investors who let standards
| slide while pocketing the extra profit, and consumers
| constantly have to stay on top of which food inspection
| groups are the current OK ones and which aren't, and
| restaurants can't afford to get inspected by all 10 so they
| only do 2 but then people who only trust another 2 won't go
| there at all even though the food's fine, meanwhile the
| most trustworthy group jacks up prices for restaurants like
| crazy because restaurants know they have no choice...
|
| It would be a nightmare. There's a reason that literally no
| country does this, that food safety is virtually
| universally considered to be a basic function of modern
| government.
| bsaul wrote:
| Apple would definitely need to make guidelines for
| stores. They would obviously be different than for apps,
| and deal with more meta aspects of the regulation (such
| as, fair examination of app submission, possibility for
| rejected apps to appeal, obligation for app owner to be
| identified, etc).
|
| Much like a government can create quality standards and
| then outsource parts of its missions to private sector.
| [deleted]
| Zak wrote:
| There's an important distinction here in that Apple is a for-
| profit company, not a government. It responds to market
| forces, not democratic ones. Its motivation is profit and
| shareholder value, not some semblance of fairness or a good
| society.
|
| > _most people just want a safe app store_
|
| We already have an example of how users behave when there's a
| platform that has a default app store and the ability to
| install others: only a tiny fraction of Android users
| sideload apps at all, much less install other stores. Users
| who don't want to think about which app stores are safe
| simply won't; they'll use the default one.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| I would argue that the US government is also a for-profit
| government, don't give up your rights so quickly to them.
| At least with Apple you know what they want: money. With
| government it could be money, a power play, government
| official looking to get on the map (ambition), a policy
| lobbied for by a bought off politician, etc
| jedberg wrote:
| The difference is that the government is in theory
| accountable to the people through elections and don't have a
| profit motive. They have no reason to fail a restaurant on
| their health inspection because they own a competing
| restaurant.
|
| Apple has broken incentives here. Otherwise they would
| approve third party apps that compete with their own.
| tolmasky wrote:
| I'm a customer (and I have no apps on the AppStore), and I
| constantly feel that the customer perspective is the best
| reason to want multiple AppStores: the Apple AppStore _sucks_.
|
| 1. Search is worthless. It's basically only useful for exact
| string matches on app names. And even then, you get the
| competitor app's ad that takes up 80% of the screen. They took
| every bad aspect of Google's search (the confusing take-up too
| much space ads), with none of the good parts (you know, the
| actual searching smarts).
|
| 2. The review section sucks. Instead of providing a streamlined
| system to get help from the developer, they just give you a
| place to rant. Reading the reviews isn't exactly ergonomic on a
| phone screen either, so it's just a waste bin to throw
| complaints at. Imagine if Apple actually lived up to their lip
| service of app quality and integrated a support mechanism that
| would reward apps that promptly replied (they would be marked
| with the "helpful developer" badge and get more prominent
| search placement for example).
|
| 3. Discovery is non-existent. At some point in the last 5 years
| I kind of just stopped "window shopping" the AppStore. I used
| to think that the Top Charts were a lazy way to encourage
| trying new things out -- but wow, it was way better than what
| we have now. The first thing the AppStore shoves in my face is
| these absurdly long profiles on developers or whatever as if
| the AppStore is a magazine I want to read. I don't. I don't
| care about some editorial article about the makers of some
| game. And it takes up the entirety of the start screen instead
| of trying to customize a variety of app suggestions _just for
| me_. This is such a missed opportunity. I would spend so much
| more money on the AppStore if it helped me at all to see new
| things. The experience instead requires you to be proactive to
| find things. Hence why it 's really just a glorified database
| that's only really useful if you already know exactly what you
| want ahead of time.
|
| 4. It isn't safe at all. There are so many scams on the store.
| Subscription scams, etc. Apple does this weird thing where they
| simultaneously pretend they don't exist, _and uses them as
| proof that their arcane review system is needed_. If the store
| had no scams, they 'd say "see, our filters work!". If it does
| have scams, they say "see, this is why the filters are so
| necessary, imagine how much worse it would be without them!".
| Anyways, as a customer, being "on the AppStore" no longer
| _means_ anything to me from a quality or security perspective.
|
| 5. The UI feels generally like it was designed by a government
| bureaucracy or something. The tabs are: "Today", "Games",
| "Apps", "Arcade", "Search". The only tab that makes sense on
| first glance is Search (but then you find out how much the
| Search sucks). Why is there an "Apps" section in the
| "AppStore"? Aren't they all apps? It's like how there's Apple
| TV+ in the TV app of Apple TV. And what the hell is the
| difference between Games and Arcade? 40% of the UI is dedicated
| to games, but split into two opaque categories, with "Apps" in-
| between them. And "Today" is of course this stupid magazine
| interface I've already complained about. It seems like it's an
| infinite scroll interface of random bullshit, but eventually
| you do reach the end of "Today," where you find how to redeem a
| gift card and read the Terms & Conditions. All very "Today"
| items.
|
| Anyways, the AppStore Tim describes only makes sense in the
| abstract. I wish they would just open the stupid store on
| someone's phone in the trial and just try to use it. They've
| managed to perfectly capture the combination of boredom and
| cheapness of the free samples section of a grocery store,
| complete with the employee not knowing what aisle you can
| actually find the product at if you end up actually liking it
| and wanting to buy it.
| an_opabinia wrote:
| The average iPhone user would not be able to tell the
| difference between an official App Store and a sophisticated
| copy.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Even though one of them is preloaded on the device and the
| other one has to be separately added?
| spideymans wrote:
| Yes. Users have always been willing to disable security
| measures to get shady software. Think of all the free
| screensaver malware out there. To a pretty big chunk of
| users basic computer security is inscrutable technobabble.
| nr2x wrote:
| Depends a) on who is doing the adding and b) if they know
| what they are adding.
| lanstin wrote:
| Therefor the average user will not be able to keep
| themselves safe. QED. Om the other hand, I do want root
| on my devices. It can see both sides and it is not clear
| to me what the solution is. I have already left Android
| because I don't have time or interest to security assess
| all the evil apps that look real similar to the free flow
| games I like or the solitaire games. But thirty percent
| is steep. And arguably Epic can curate games as well or
| better than Apple. Debian for phones would be good but so
| far the open source things are pricy and underpowered.
| And the it is true the Apple store has a lot of bad apps
| already and fake reviews. Lot of evil people clustering
| around so many chances to become rich without delighting
| customers.
| d3nj4l wrote:
| Given that tons of people blindly mash through any vaguely
| worded permission box, you either have to have so many
| strongly worded permission boxes that genuine competitors
| cry foul (like what Epic alleged Google was doing) or you
| have to make it easy for people to install alternatives,
| making it ripe for abuse.
| LexGray wrote:
| A fairly obvious situation where the top google result is "Kid
| friendly happy fun town App Store" set up by dark web Corp
| where you can get pre hacked versions of all major commercial
| apps for free with built in cheats at the cost of porn pop ups
| and just trust me levels of scamware.
|
| Most would go straight to Apple with their issues and how do
| you fix "I don't know. My cousin installed it for me"?
| musicale wrote:
| > Most would go straight to Apple with their issues and how
| do you fix "I don't know. My cousin installed it for me"?
|
| Presumably Apple has run into the "my cousin installed it for
| me" issue with Macs and they don't want to deal with it (or
| pay for it) at iPhone scale.
| eplanit wrote:
| Hmmm.. Apple makes the phones that run only Apple's OS. Apple's
| OS runs apps that others create, but only Apple controls (they
| can dis-approve of you at any time, and can change the rules at
| any time). Despite paying fees and sharing revenue with Apple,
| that developer cannot create any other revenue for themself
| without also paying-off Apple.
|
| If this isn't a monopoly, then what the hell are antitrust laws
| for?
| freediver wrote:
| It is not, because Apple is not the only supplier of the said
| commodity (apps). And apps are not only not a basic human
| right, but you can easilly get them elsewhere - Google,
| Microsoft.. or just from the web.
|
| What Apple is, is a private corporation with certain standards
| and rules for their products (which is one of the things that
| makes them desireable in the first place IMO). You have to obey
| these rules to get the benefit of their distribution platform.
| Millions of people end enterprises do because they believe
| those benefits outweight the cost and risk, us included.
|
| Imagine I want to sell my goods at a local farmer's market. I
| have to get their approval, obey their rules and pay their
| fees. It is up to me to wage in pros and cons. We accept that
| as perfectly normal. If it was the only farmer's market in the
| country then it would become problematic.
|
| What should happen is that this regulates through market
| forces. If indeed enough people are in protest of those rules
| so much that they start voting with their wallets elsewhere,
| thus hurting Apple's bottomline in a meaningful way, then the
| market just created pressures for Apple to change those rules.
| dublidu wrote:
| People are too fixated on the definition of monopoly. We should
| just focus on anti-competitive practices.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| That would solve a lot of _"well at worse it's a duopoly so
| you still have a choice!"_. But I've given up on purchasable
| politicians to enforce antitrust on big tech a long time ago.
| So I don't know how it will happen. I'd sooner expect
| congressional term limits which might help.
| plandis wrote:
| Apple doesn't even have 30% of the smart phone market globally
| how can they have a monopoly on apps? Developers can just stop
| developing for Apple based systems if they chose.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Compare it with this
|
| > Microsoft makes gaming consoles that run only Xbox OS. Xbox
| OS runs apps that others create, but only Microsoft controls
| (they can dis-approve of you at any time, and can change the
| rules at any time). Despite paying fees and sharing revenue
| with Microsoft, that developer cannot create any other revenue
| for themself without also paying-off Microsoft.
|
| Now do the same with Sony and Playstation, Nintendo and their
| consoles etc.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| > If Apple let developers tell users about other payment methods,
| Cook said later, "we would in essence give up our total return on
| our IP
|
| Well you could charge developers per download. I find these
| arguments very audacious and entitled. Saying that developers are
| not entitled to profits, only apple is, with a straight face,
| is... remarkable
| gondo wrote:
| With some limited amount of downloads for free bundled in apple
| developer subscription.
| framecowbird wrote:
| I just don't buy this argument that Apple maintaining control
| over iOS is necessary for privacy. I think it's a false
| dichotomy. If you build a good OS, with good strong APIs, you can
| achieve both privacy and a more open ecosystem.
| amelius wrote:
| Also, Apple is conflating AppStore with ContentFilter. They are
| separate things which can be installed separately depending on
| the user's wishes.
| simonh wrote:
| Lets say Apple allowed side-loading. They would have no way to
| examine side-loaded apps to see what they do. iOS would have to
| provide access to various basic services like networking and
| connectivity, but not e.g. your address book without checking
| with the user. All well and good.
|
| So I could write an app that interrogates the cellular network
| and other sources to implement location tracking (cruder than
| GPS but good enough for many purposes), snoops local wifi
| networks for information about connected devices. Even if it
| couldn't run in the background, it could snoop network traffic
| from iOS built in background services while it was running. If
| it had a built-in browser function it could track whatever
| browsing activity it liked. I'm sure there are plenty of other
| snooping activities that could be implemented that I can't
| think of in 5 minutes.
|
| So there are plenty of ways such an app could violate your
| privacy, and you would never know. Right now, such apps have to
| pass App Store Review and such activity can be detected and the
| App kicked out. So side-loading potentially bypasses a lot of
| controls that can't really be implemented directly in the OS.
|
| Users like yourself might assume that Apple could prevent these
| things in the OS, might think that even with side loading this
| is Apple's responsibility to protect you from it, as you seem
| to do. That a "good OS" as you put it would not allow these
| things to happen even in side loaded apps, therefore iOS can't
| be a "good OS" if side loaded apps break your privacy in ways
| you hadn't anticipated. But it's not all about the OS. This is
| the sort of reputational damage Apple is trying to avoid.
| StavrosK wrote:
| Android allows sideloading today and none of the things you
| claim are possible. If you want to interrogate the cellular
| network for tower locations, you need location permission.
| Same for WiFi and BT.
| abecedarius wrote:
| Your argument presumes apps get capabilities by default. OSes
| have been invented where apps get _nothing_ implicitly (the
| object-capability model); it 's a design problem to install
| mass-market apps with usable security in that paradigm, and
| it might be a difficult one. But there's been a _little_ work
| on it and it 's worth pursuing.
| simonh wrote:
| Sure, but when you grant capabilities you can't be sure
| what is being done with them. That's why you need static
| analysis, behavioural analysis and the whole test regime of
| App Store review to catch these sorts of activities. That's
| why Apple has an app store review process, otherwise they
| could bake all the restrictions into the OS itself. With
| permissioning for side loaded apps you can't know or
| enforce activities with the granted services. Yet people
| like framecowbird will still blame Apple for not producing
| a "good OS" that protects them anyway.
| abecedarius wrote:
| The capability you give an app for X doesn't have to be
| the raw system X. It can interpose some policy or
| tracking-of-use, or let you revoke just the X, or fake
| the whole X to begin with, etc. This is one of the things
| distinguishing the object capability model from basic
| sandboxing. Another is that the set of kinds of X's is
| open-ended -- anyone can make up higher-level
| abstractions like an advertising server with a defined
| protocol, so that users who've gotta have a free ad-
| supported app can use one without giving it unlimited and
| unaudited network access.
|
| I'd expect the store to come with standardized packages
| of capabilities for common kinds of apps.
| simonh wrote:
| Do you really think that companies lobbying for side-
| loading of their apps, and getting legislation through to
| force it on Apple, would be satisfied with heavily locked
| down access to subsets of functionality? To more
| restricted access than App Store apps? Somehow I don't
| see that being acceptable to the side-loading lobby.
|
| An App Store App can be granted low level network access
| etc because it can be vetted and censured if found in
| violation of policies. Side loaded app developers will
| demand the same access.
| abecedarius wrote:
| Every hardware capability is potentially available in
| this kind of framework. It's ultimately up to the user
| whether an app can get at it, or with what limits. This
| is an inevitable source of problems for sufficiently
| reckless users, but it should be possible for reasonable
| users to keep reasonable control -- not just hacker
| types.
|
| A "side-loading lobby" wouldn't have grounds to demand
| more. (The overenthusiastic copyright lobby would
| probably have better luck in getting their demands wired
| in, going by history, but that's another issue.)
| paulmd wrote:
| If there is no app-store review process then all apps will
| demand full permissions, which means apps effectively get
| everything by default.
|
| If it's a choice between permissions and not using the app
| then users will give them the permissions, and that is the
| choice app developers will give users.
| wccrawford wrote:
| Other news on this has quotes from Tim Cook saying that they'd
| have to find a way to track purchases on IOS and bill developers
| so that Apple still gets their cut when using other payment
| processors.
|
| For me, this is way over the line. If they want to charge
| developers to be on their store, fine. I don't have a problem
| with that. And charging for using them as a payment processor
| makes sense. Charging for using Apple services makes sense.
|
| But charging them simply because they make money while on a
| device that an end-user owns? No. Apple doesn't own that device
| any more. They sold it to someone. Apple owns the store, and the
| infrastructure. If a developer isn't using that infrastructure,
| they don't owe anything.
|
| I'd be fine with however they want to charge, if there was
| another way to be on IOS.
|
| I'd be less happy with developers being able to use their own
| payment processors and be on the app store for free. There's a
| chilling anti-free-speech type of thing going on there.
|
| But I'm dead set against _both_ of those happening at once, as it
| currently is.
| m463 wrote:
| I just like to remember - the cut gets passed onto the
| customers.
|
| There are times this is appropriate - there are times this is
| not.
| adflux wrote:
| Charging people to make use of their IP is fair IMO. Its
| similar to paying taxes, even if you don't use the services the
| taxes are for. The user benefits from Apple maintaining their
| OS, so has to pay. A citizen paying taxes benefits from all the
| services the country offers, so he pays taxes.
| MattRix wrote:
| As the judge mentions during the trial, many large
| corporations such as banks have apps with millions of users,
| yet they don't pay Apple a cent. Meanwhile Epic has to give
| Apple 30% of everything they make. Video games are
| subsidizing banks, it's absurd.
| belltaco wrote:
| Imagine Microsoft doing this on Windows.
| matwood wrote:
| MS and Windows is simply not related to the Apple
| situation, unless MS decided to only allow Windows on its
| own hardware thus creating a closed ecosystem.
|
| The closest analogy to Apple is the game console industry.
| Even then it's a different scale.
|
| IMO, the App Store situation is an entirely new class of
| problem unlikely to be solved in this case. It doesn't
| easily fall under existing monopoly regulation, and does
| have some advantages for consumers along with
| disadvantages. Unfortunately, I think Apple is being short
| sighted here. By not addressing the most egregious issues
| (30% for example), they are setting themselves up to be
| regulated which will probably end up being worse for
| everyone. A sledgehammer will end being used where a
| scalpel was needed.
| jhgb wrote:
| > unless MS decided to only allow Windows on its own
| hardware thus creating a closed ecosystem.
|
| I presume this was what the word "imagine" meant?
| fnord123 wrote:
| They planned to (or started putting the frog in the port
| with some lukewarm water) and got heavy push back from
| their partners. This is what precipitated Valve to make the
| Steam Machine.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18996377
| pjmlp wrote:
| Which was a failure, because other than Valve and a
| couple of gamers, no one cares.
| fnord123 wrote:
| What was a failure?
| pjmlp wrote:
| Steam Machines.
| MattRix wrote:
| Worth noting that one of the people complaining loudest
| was Tim Sweeney, ex.
| https://venturebeat.com/2016/03/04/epics-tim-sweeney-
| questio...
| cat199 wrote:
| or any web browser doing this for e-commerce..
| deergomoo wrote:
| The problem with this view is it assumes developers need the
| iPhone more than the iPhone needs developers, which is
| absolutely not the case. It's symbiotic certainly--for better
| or worse far more money is spent on iOS than Android--but
| without apps the iPhone would be basically useless.
|
| In my opinion, Apple needs to acknowledge that, rather than
| acting like developers owe them the shirt off their backs.
| spectre3d wrote:
| > without [third party] apps the iPhone would be basically
| useless.
|
| It was good enough for the first year before the App Store
| existed, and it sold well enough to prove it.
|
| Even now, it's plenty capable right out of the box without
| installing anything.
|
| A device in 2007 that had first-party apps for email, web
| browsing, YouTube, weather, calendar, clock, address book,
| phone, calculator and music player, that also synced with
| your main personal computer was perfectly fine for many
| people.
| deergomoo wrote:
| It was fine for the time (just about)--it would very much
| not have been fine over the last 10 years or so.
|
| Just look at Windows Phone, the biggest sticking point of
| every single device was that the app support just wasn't
| there. While it's hard to say with certainty, it seems
| that's what ultimately stopped the platform gaining any
| traction.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| _without apps the iPhone would be basically useless._
|
| An IPhone is pretty useful right out of the box. Not to
| mention that most of the apps that people actually use
| could be web pages. And if they really wanted to, apple
| could always dip into their cash reserves and start making
| more of their own apps.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Each developer needs apple more than Apple needs each
| developer.
|
| Developers need to ally with each other, then they can
| force Apple's hands.
|
| What's funny is that developers are practically in the best
| job to do that. Their jobs allow them tons of time to
| communicate with each other, they're highly educated and
| able to communicate, and they have the know how to operate
| the mechanisms allowing them to communicate (forums, email,
| chat groups).
|
| So what is stopping developers? I can only assume they're
| not yet being taken advantage of by Apple sufficiently to
| warrant the efforts of banding together.
| calsy wrote:
| Developers have no leverage because there are no
| alternatives. What can they do, take their apps and leave
| the store?
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Release on Android only.
| sciprojguy wrote:
| https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/01/05/app-store-
| earns-7...
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Yes, and if that does not work, then the situation is
| that not only does each developer need Apple more than
| Apple needs each developer, but that developers in
| general need Apple more than Apple needs developers.
|
| Which would contradict the claim that developers are
| having to pay outsize fees compared to their relevance to
| Apple's business.
| adflux wrote:
| Do you think the same about paying taxes?
| toss1 wrote:
| Yes, exactly that - go on strike.
|
| And the position is just like employees - one leaves, and
| mgt says "so what"? Many leave and mgt is screwed.
|
| Maybe developers could even create a fund to help
| themselves survive a 'strike', and/or to help fund
| alternatives such as versions on Android.
|
| Enough leave en masse, and Apple will have no choice but
| to listen.
|
| Until then, Apple divides & conquers.
| simonh wrote:
| Cook didn't say anything about tracking purchases, or even
| getting a cut as such. He said they would need to find another
| way to invoice developers, which just means another revenue
| model, that's all.
| simondotau wrote:
| Invoice developers for using their intellectual property? How
| dare Apple expect a revenue share from developers who use
| their tools and libraries.
|
| Companies that make tools and libraries should be forced to
| give them away for free. Like Unreal Engine. Completely free,
| no exceptions.
| rahkiin wrote:
| They charge royalty on revenue
| simondotau wrote:
| Correct, that's what both companies do.
| captainredbeard wrote:
| ...why?
| Despegar wrote:
| >For me, this is way over the line. If they want to charge
| developers to be on their store, fine. I don't have a problem
| with that. And charging for using them as a payment processor
| makes sense. Charging for using Apple services makes sense.
|
| Developers have been so steeped in propaganda about "payment
| processing" that they have no idea what the 30% commission is
| for.
|
| A court or regulator could force Apple to allow third-party
| payment processing, side-loading, and third-party app stores,
| and Apple could change their business model to directly charge
| for the tools and the SDKs that every developer uses to make
| native apps. The only way to avoid those costs is the way that
| already exists today: make a web app.
|
| Right now the payment processing costs have been integrated
| into the commission, but they could charge whatever the market
| could bear to license their IP for a royalty, so in effect
| developers could end up paying more.
|
| There's nothing in law that says Apple can't charge money for
| their software. That the use of developer tools and SDKs were
| free on other platforms like the Mac doesn't mean that it's
| legally required that it be given away for free.
| clusterfish wrote:
| They make billions from that 30% cut, and the only reason
| they can do that is because they disallow all other payments,
| or even a mention in your app that you can pay elsewhere.
| They would never be able to charge that much if they allowed
| any competition, which is exactly why they need to be
| regulated to allow it.
|
| They can't charge a cut of revenue unless they monopolize
| payment processing, so if as you say they start charging for
| developer tools, if they charge too much of a flat rate for
| those, many developers will rightfully walk away, so no, they
| can't make obscene profits like they're doing now without
| controlling all payments in iOS apps.
| Despegar wrote:
| No they get the billions from their intellectual property.
| There's a bunch of pro-user, pro-Apple, and pro-developer
| reasons why they are the single source for apps and payment
| processing, but that's not the source of the billions, as I
| just explained.
|
| There's a bunch of reasons why it'd be a PITA for everyone
| involved if they were forced to do this, but no matter what
| happens the revenue sharing is never going to go away as
| long as Apple wants to keep that business model. All the
| frictional costs (more lawyers and accountants) to verify
| they collect the right royalties is exactly why courts are
| ultimately going to side with Apple, because the current
| system is the ideal one for all parties.
| derefr wrote:
| > But charging them simply because they make money while on a
| device that an end-user owns?
|
| What Apple are _trying_ to do is to make back the CapEx of
| developing the OS frameworks developers are relying upon. Those
| frameworks often make up a non-negligible fraction of an app 's
| USP, i.e. they're partly why the developer is making money.
|
| Apple see whatever slice of _market value_ their OS frameworks
| added to the developer 's product, as _morally_ being _their_
| money. Whether there 's a legal/contractual framework in place
| to grab that money or not, they feel like they _should_ be
| pursuing it.
|
| Compare and contrast: music producers sampling some other IP-
| holder's work. You'd _expect_ , as a producer, that if half of
| your song was just sampled from another particular song, then
| 50% of the revenue of your song would be _morally_ owed to the
| IP-holder of the other song.
|
| And also, if you had a contract with the IP-holder that paid
| less than 50% out to them, that'd certainly be _legal_ , but
| you'd also likely feel that it'd be you getting one up on them
| -- you'd be coming away with more margin than you "deserve",
| and them with less than they "deserve", given the amount of
| work each of you put into the final product.
|
| Apple thinks that they "deserve" 10-30% of the value App Store
| apps capture, because they do 10-30% of the work in making
| every App Store app (in advance, by building frameworks.) It's
| not about _how_ the app wants to capture that value, any more
| than income taxes are about _how_ you make money. They 're both
| about the fact that you _did_ make the money, and the
| 'infrastructural substrate' that 'invested' in you to help you
| make that money, wants what it sees as its implicit preferred-
| shareholder-dividend for that 'investment'.
| clusterfish wrote:
| Who the hell needs an OS or a device that can't run third
| party apps? Their devices are nothing without those. Those
| frameworks aren't optional frills for the sake for
| developers' benefit, they're basic functionality that end
| users already paid hundreds or thousands of dollars for. End
| users paying is how it always worked on desktop too before
| they spread this monopolistic poison there too.
|
| It's amazing how far people will go to justify a monopoly
| squeezing everyone it deals with just because they have a
| good brand and make nice products.
| derefr wrote:
| > Who the hell needs an OS or a device that can't run third
| party apps?
|
| The first iPhone didn't run third-party apps. Also, the
| average number of apps _paid for_ per smart-device is < 1.
| Most people just use free apps.
|
| Those free apps -- and their users -- are essentially free
| riders on the CapEx of OS framework development, since
| Apple can't put a tax on income an app doesn't have. So the
| remaining apps need to be taxed at a higher rate to
| compensate.
|
| > Those frameworks aren't optional frills for the sake for
| developers' benefit, they're basic functionality that end
| users already paid hundreds or thousands of dollars for.
|
| There are basic OS frameworks that are just table-stakes
| for having a mobile OS, yes. But there are also some
| incredibly-specialized frameworks -- things that
| differentiate iOS development from Android development.
| Reasons devs choose to build an iOS-exclusive app.
|
| Apple has, for example, a 3D AR framework, with specialized
| (neural-network; depth-sensing) hardware in every device
| put there just to _enable_ the 3D AR framework. No first-
| party apps really use it for anything. It 's just there for
| third-party devs.
|
| That's not "basic functionality." That's an extremely-
| specialized tool that only a few apps will take advantage
| of, and for those apps, it's a large part of what makes the
| app a distinctive experience that can't be had on Android.
|
| If not for the fact of requiring special hardware that only
| Apple can add to the phone, it wouldn't be an OS feature;
| it'd be a fancy standalone SDK that Apple recoups costs on
| by selling to developers. Same as they sold e.g.
| WebObjects, back when.
|
| Think of it like this: a city will build most roads "for
| free", with no increase to your taxes. Those roads are
| table-stakes to running city infrastructure. They take them
| out of the budget by reallocating funding away from other
| things, because citizens would riot if their taxes went up
| with every road built.
|
| But some very-capital-intensive roads that not everybody in
| the city needs equal access to -- e.g. bridges -- are built
| by the city to be _toll roads_. The business model for
| these roads is different: rather than the costs of building
| them coming from the treasury, they 're passed on directly
| to the people who are most advantaged by the road being
| built: exactly those who will still use the road even with
| a toll, meaning exactly those who are economically gaining
| from travelling the road.
|
| More often than not, that's businesses (e.g.
| freight/logistics services.) The 18-wheeler delivering your
| groceries is paying to use the more-efficient route over
| the bridge, because that route saves it money, and so
| increases its profits; and the trade still makes sense even
| when a part of those increased profits go to the city.
|
| > It's amazing how far people will go to justify a monopoly
| squeezing everyone it deals with just because they have a
| good brand and make nice products.
|
| I'm just trying to explain here _why Apple think_ they 're
| owed 10% of devs' money. I'm not saying they're _right_ in
| that perception. Just that it 's clearly a tempting chain
| of logic _from their perspective_.
|
| Also, it's a chain of logic that I believe is correct when
| applied to small businesses (like the aforementioned small
| music artist getting deeply sampled by a song that makes a
| lot of money.) I don't see any difference in applying it to
| a monopoly.
|
| Apple's App Store monopoly _enables the extraction_ of
| "what they think they're owed" on a scale not possible with
| regular market players, and I'd say that _that 's_
| definitely bad -- but the answer isn't to reject the whole
| chain of logic of "your profitable thing is 90% my
| copyrighted IP, so I want royalties" being a valid business
| model. It just means that Apple should have the power that
| enables that extraction taken away.
| 0xEFF wrote:
| > If a developer isn't using that infrastructure, they don't
| owe anything.
|
| How would a developer build an iOS app without using any system
| calls or OS frameworks? Xcode?
|
| "Infrastructure" is a blurry concept in such a deeply
| integrated system.
| Clewza313 wrote:
| Apple already charges developers for the privilege of
| developing on/for its platform.
|
| And notably, Android seems to do fine both a) letting devs
| use the Android ecosystem for free, and b) allowing
| sideloading apps outside the Play Store.
| iosjunkie wrote:
| The argument goes that then the consumer pays with their
| privacy. Ie Google foots the R&D bill to get the end user
| data and to keep users in the Google ecosystem.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| IMO it's not that blurry.
|
| The real point is if Apple wants (or should have the right)
| to collect taxes on their infrastructure and act like a
| Government - think about VAT - or they are only selling
| consumer devices instead.
|
| If I buy a tractor from John Deere and make money out of the
| products I can grow using that tractor I don't have to pay a
| fee to John Deere, even thought without the JD my fields
| would probably be much less profitable or plainly
| unprofitable.
|
| So the question is: has Apple built a digital Nation? And in
| that case, should they be the only monopolistic option?
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| However, what makes it even blurrier is that, in the US,
| being a monopoly (despite what you may have heard) is
| actually NOT illegal. What is illegal is the monopoly using
| its monopoly power to perpetuate its monopoly power.
|
| However, historically, this was almost always because the
| monopoly did something like change the rules to benefit
| themselves after they became a monopoly. From the law's
| perspective, Apple didn't do anything like that. Apple
| didn't raise the commission to, say, 50%. Apple hasn't
| changed the rules since, like, 2009 before they had the
| theoretical "monopoly" status. This makes proving an
| illegal monopoly case against Apple (because monopolies are
| not intrinsically illegal) more difficult.
| rebelos wrote:
| > Apple hasn't changed the rules since, like, 2009 before
| they had the theoretical "monopoly" status.
|
| This couldn't be further from the truth. They have carved
| out many exceptions to the 30% commission over the years
| - often as part of sweetheart deals to attract larger
| entities that have negotiating leverage, such as Netflix
| and Amazon.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Yes, but in monopoly law, the rules haven't changed from
| the perspective that Apple hasn't raised prices. Apple
| can lower them all they want, but if they raise them when
| they got their monopoly status so as to take advantage of
| their market, that would be illegal.
|
| However, that relies on the idea that Apple is even a
| monopoly to begin with, and that really depends on what
| you define "the market" as. Is the product an iPhone and
| the whole cohesive experience with it (IAP and App Store
| included) in which case it's a duopoly at best, or are
| these separate markets that it is possible to have a
| monopoly in?
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| As a non American this is very interesting knowledge.
|
| I have a question: in USA could Tesla force Tesla
| Powerwall owners to only buy electricity from Tesla
| approved suppliers and when they sell their product
| through Tesla store, Tesla gets a 30% cut?
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| In theory, if they sold you the product with that
| restriction out of the box and didn't change it later to
| do this, so you bought the product knowing with basic
| research that it would be restricted in this way, yes
| they could.
| rebelos wrote:
| > Yes, but in monopoly law, the rules haven't changed
| from the perspective that Apple hasn't raised prices.
| Apple can lower them all they want, but if they raise
| them when they got their monopoly status so as to take
| advantage of their market, that would be illegal.
|
| Once again you're wrong and you should really stop
| commenting on business law. There are a wide range of
| legal precedents that have bearing here and these
| specific dealings could absolutely be ruled as
| anticompetitive in court.
| jcranmer wrote:
| One of the illegal things under US monopoly law is tying
| --using your monopoly power in one market to enter
| another market by bundling the two products together and
| undercutting the competition.
|
| Apple's push into payment processing here smacks very
| heavily of illegal tying to me, especially given how
| broadly Apple interprets competitor payment processing
| methods. In effect, the specific sin that got Fortnite
| kicked off was charging a lower price for using a
| company-specific gift card instead of using Apple's
| payment method. I don't see how that's not abusive tying.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Tying is actually not illegal and is common business
| practice if you don't have a monopoly. Apple started
| doing this all the way back in 2009, before they had a
| monopoly even from Epic's perspective. Therefore, the
| argument is that they aren't tying monopolistically
| because they were tying before they were even close to
| monopoly status. In which case, they haven't changed the
| rules, and also in which case the current antitrust law
| doesn't really address.
|
| If you are following Apple vs Epic, even Epic admits this
| and says they can't pinpoint when Apple became a supposed
| monopoly, and argues that the tying is illegal because
| Apple is so large, not that it was illegal to begin with
| (because Epic admits that it would not have been illegal
| when Apple started). This is also why many legal experts
| say Epic has an uphill battle, because antitrust really
| only addresses abuses in monopoly power, not so much on
| what got you to that monopoly power.
| jhgb wrote:
| How is infrastructure "a blurry concept"? If it doesn't touch
| Apple's servers, it's none of Apple's business.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Sure. But who owns the software? You bought a license for that.
|
| This is no different from a lot of other platforms. And quite
| frankly, I'm happy about that, if you compare with
| incompatible, unupdated, and malicious software on android
|
| Google will and is already following Apple with this
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| "When questioned by Epic Games lawyers, Cook declined to answer
| a question about whether Apple's iPhone competes with Google's
| Android in the operating system market."
|
| Let us rephrase the question. Does iOS compete with Android in
| the operating system market.
|
| "Customers don't buy operating systems. They buy devices," Cook
| said."
|
| True. Operating systems can be had for free. Customers
| generally do not buy them (as a separate item), but they do
| choose them, when they are allowed to do so.
|
| What if customers had the option to buy Apple devices without
| Apple's choice of operating system pre-installed. Apple would
| never let customers have that choice. A million excuses.
|
| "Tech" companies, as well as Microsoft and Apple, remove
| choice. Users pay nothing for the OS. Someone else pays (OEMs
| in the case of Microsoft). The OS is pre-installed. Choice is
| removed. No different than a "default setting" (e.g., "default
| search engine" for which Google paid $1B to Apple in 2014). The
| friction to change a pre-installed OS or default setting is too
| great for most customers. The companies know this and exploit
| it.
|
| Cook suggests that if the customer wants another OS, one that
| allows a wider variety of apps to be installed, then she can
| buy a different device. How is that for interoperability.
|
| The OS, when controlled by an intermediary such as Apple, is a
| means of control over users (as well as developers). Any
| argument that _theroretically_ the most safe, secure and
| private OS by design is one that the user cannot fully control
| is unconvincing. If a customer wants privacy against Apple or
| its business partners, for example, iOS is not designed to
| offer that.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Unfortunately, Apple has to maintain this rule because
| otherwise developers will implement workarounds to avoid
| charging in the App Store altogether.
|
| Remember when eBay charged a commission on the sale price but
| not shipping? Suddenly $50 items became $1 with $49 shipping --
| so eBay had to charge the commission on the shipping too even
| though it didn't seem "fair".
|
| Same here -- every app would turn free, and charge to unlock
| features within using their own payment mechanism. Apple's App
| Store revenue would drop to zero. No developer in their right
| mind would let Apple take a cut of _anything_.
|
| As a general rule, app stores simply don't allow third-party
| payment in apps that don't go through the store, for this exact
| reason. It's not just Apple with this policy.
| mapgrep wrote:
| Not true, the eBay analogy is pretty flawed. Unlike with eBay
| this isn't a matter of simply shifting classification of
| revenue - the app store is guaranteed to be the most
| convenient and obvious way to charge for any given app or
| service related to that app due to Apple's other rules. They
| prevent developers from mentioning or linking other payments
| avenues. And if you want to charge in app of course it's only
| via Apple. From what I've seen only big existing and strong
| brand services like Netflix are able to overcome these
| barriers and even some of those still pay Apples feee
| (Spotify).
|
| The playing field remains tilted heavily in Apples favor. But
| they (apparently) wanted even more - extensive compensation
| for economic activity that happens far from the App Store
| even when the link to the App Store is secondary.
|
| The economic history of this sort of activity is well
| documented, and the extent to which it distorts markets well
| established. It's plainly an antitrust violation, and both
| society and the software market would be free-er and more
| prosperous if our laws were enforced here.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| It is literally just Apple because you can install apps
| outside the company store on other platforms.
|
| The inability to install outside the store is what makes
| disallowing outside payment an issue.
|
| The combination means that you can't sell to a customer
| without going through apple because they have used their
| control of the hardware to take the decision of whom to do
| business with from you in order to stand there with their
| hand out.
| paulmd wrote:
| allowing sideloading instantly shreds user privacy because
| any sufficiently-large customer (f.ex facebook) will
| immediately demand their app be sideloaded to bypass app
| review, and given full permissions so they can scrape
| everything. Facebook for example has already gotten their
| hand slapped for doing exactly this using their developer
| credentials, and if it suddenly becomes viable to do this
| for the full user-base then it will happen immediately and
| without any recourse by users.
|
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/facebook-and-
| google-...
|
| that is the true red-line from a user perspective. go on
| and have your spat about whether 30% is fair or not, but
| the app-review process is the keystone on which the
| permissions system rests, allowing sideloading is
| tantamount to allowing all major apps full-permissions
| overnight and essentially making the permissions system
| meaningless.
|
| the only viable solution I can see that allows third-party
| app stores would be to require that Apple still review all
| apps on third-party app stores to enforce the requirements
| surrounding permissioning (i.e. having a valid reason to
| request the permissions you're requesting) and they would
| still need to charge for that.
|
| "third party app stores without any review, but Apple still
| gets a cut" would be the worst of all possible outcomes.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > any sufficiently-large customer (f.ex facebook) will
| immediately demand their app be sideloaded to bypass app
| review, and given full permissions so they can scrape
| everything.
|
| If Facebook is chomping at the bit to do this on iOS as
| soon as they can, then why haven't they done it on
| Android where they already can?
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Its the users phone let them decide. Apple can strongly
| encourage users to stick to first party stores and
| require developers to agree to terms and conditions to
| access the sdk. Warn users who side load in as scary
| terms as you please.
|
| Nobody who doesn't opt in for privacy shredding will have
| their privacy shredded.
| paulmd wrote:
| > Its the users phone let them decide. ... Nobody who
| doesn't opt in for privacy shredding will have their
| privacy shredded.
|
| If you don't opt-in to privacy shredding then you will be
| locked out of being able to use facebook, whatsapp, and
| other "network effect" things that you more or less don't
| have a choice about without cutting out communication
| with large parts of your social network, so this is not
| really a "free choice" at all.
|
| Right now those companies don't have the leverage to lock
| out Apple users. This immediately gives them that
| leverage and they will use it, just like they already
| have tried (and gotten their hands slapped for).
|
| App store review is the only thing standing between you
| and Facebook demanding full permissions for everything,
| and allowing third-party app stores or sideloading is a
| mortal blow to app store review.
|
| I understand that you don't personally care but the Apple
| customer base does, a large number of them _specifically
| choose that_ because Apple is using their leverage in
| favor of the customer here. You can get the experience
| you desire on the dominant smartphone platform (with 85%
| of the global smartphone marketshare), just leave us the
| freedom to choose this experience as well. You 're
| arguing that we should be explicitly denied this because
| it's not convenient for Facebook.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| >otherwise developers will implement workarounds to avoid
| charging in the App Store altogether.
|
| The Windows store has plenty of applications despite having
| fees (5%).
|
| As an aside- to me that seems like an important
| differentiating factor. Apps must pay a fee to be on these
| platforms. Who do they pay the fee to? Whoever they pay a fee
| to shouldn't be allowed to also have apps on there since this
| is unfair and anti competitive. Fees do not negatively affect
| Apple but they negatively affect competition.
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| > No developer in their right mind would let Apple take a cut
| of anything.
|
| No developer in their right mind would let Apple take a 30%
| cut of anything.
|
| Most developers would pay Apple a 3% cut in order to use
| Apple's built in-payment mechanism, and not force their users
| to leave the app and type their credit card information into
| a browser.
|
| 30% is exploitive, and not at all proportional to the value
| provided. People pay it because they have to, not because
| it's fair.
| dijit wrote:
| I'm going to repeat the same thing I always repeat in these
| threads because it feels like people are out of touch with
| closed platforms.
|
| To "play" on Xbox or PlayStation, they take a 30% cut.
|
| Steam also takes a 30% cut.
|
| It's pretty standard, certainly not "exploitative" (at
| least not on apples part, if not others), though obviously
| as a game developer I'd prefer it be much less.
| treesprite82 wrote:
| Microsoft store on PC is a 12% cut. Documents revealed
| during this case show that the same is (or was) planned
| for Xbox store: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/g
| ov.uscourts.cand.36...
|
| For Steam there are many viable alternatives, which
| allows for user/developer choice and fair competition in
| the long run. Epic Store is about half as popular now
| (31.3m vs 62.6m daily active users), but it's growing
| fast. I don't think what Steam is offering is worth the
| 30% cut, and I imagine we'll either see them reduce that
| cut or get overtaken by Epic in another few years.
|
| I don't like what the other stores are doing, but to me
| it's a smaller concern on game consoles/stores than on
| every application for general purpose computers and
| smartphones. I'd fight the fight on the latter first.
|
| I also disagree with the implication that something is
| "certainly not exploitative" because of it being an
| industry standard - in fact I'd say that can be a
| contributing factor to it being exploitative in many
| cases (price fixing/oligopolies). To me it's exploitative
| if the only reason they're getting away with charging so
| much is because they're hindering competition in that
| particular area (e.g: can't change app store without
| buying a whole new phone).
| notafraudster wrote:
| I mostly think that your points here, while correct, miss
| the forest for the trees.
|
| 1. Steam's cut isn't 30%; it's 30% on keys sold through
| Steam and 0% on keys generated to be sold elsewhere. Most
| games sell about 1/3rd of their Steam copies via external
| keys on sites like Humble, GreenManGaming, Nuuvem,
| WinGameStore, directly on their websites, etc. Valve's
| implied cut would be from 15-20% for most of these games.
| Of course, publishers and developers voluntarily give up
| some of the cut Valve doesn't take to those
| intermediaries, which is another knock against the claim
| that Valve is an exploiter. It seems hard to argue that
| in a world where a game is sold for $60 and
| GreenManGaming takes $6, passes on a $12 discount to the
| consumer, Valve takes $0, and the publisher takes $42,
| that Valve is the one exploiting the publisher, despite
| giving the publisher free keys.
|
| Why does Valve do this? To maximize lock-in in their
| ecosystem and make money on in-app purchases. They have
| selfish interests at mind, but those manifest through
| giving away some of their cut on purchases.
|
| 2. Valve also has a fee reduction program that's the
| exact opposite of Apple/Google. Apple/Google charges 15%
| up to $1 million revenue and then charge you the full
| amount. Valve charges progressively less after $1 million
| revenue (down as low as 20%). I think this reflects
| closed/open systems;
|
| Valve is worried about publishers like EA (who left Steam
| and then came back hat in hand because their own service
| was an expensive and technically poor failure), Ubisoft
| (who left Steam and are currently bilking Epic for
| upfront cash while pushing their own UPlay service),
| Bethesda/MS (who flirt with Beth.net/Microsoft Games
| Store but both ultimately returned to Steam in the end),
| Activision (have abandoned Steam for Battle.net). So they
| want to make it easier for big publishers to come back to
| them. Whereas Apple wants to maximize revenue off big
| clients and maximize the PR benefits of helping small
| businesses. But the point is that Apple, Google, and
| Valve alike actually do have flexibility in the % they
| take.
|
| 3. Finally, I think the Epic active user numbers are
| really not super useful. The vast majority of those Epic
| users are simply Fortnite players (and it's actually a
| little unclear whether Epic is counting non-PC Fortnite
| players who sign it under Epic accounts). Having acquired
| Rocket League, they now can use Rocket League players in
| the same way. Having acquired Fall Guys, they will likely
| do the same there in the coming years.
|
| The actual number of users of the Epic Games Store are
| not trivial, it'd definitely be a strong second having
| overtaken GOG and Itch and other competitors. But they're
| likely in the single digit millions.
|
| This in part reflects that the Epic Games Store is not
| very good. The client does not support basic features,
| nor does the store interface. Their onboarding process is
| entirely manual, which they characterize as giving them a
| "curated" game library but actually it means there's just
| not that much variety on the store and almost nothing at
| the low end. They have sales where they eat huge losses
| to give users discounts, but these are not appreciably
| better than the kinds of sales that occur on Steam and in
| the broader ecosystem.
|
| Crucially, to your point that Steam might be over
| "overtaken" by Epic is that it's not clear there's any
| competition at all. Every game that released on Epic and
| not Steam did so because Epic signed exclusivity
| contracts with the game (typically 12 month exclusivity
| contracts). It's predictable that all of these
| exclusives, bar one -- World War Z, have released on
| Steam within a month or so of their exclusivity expiring.
| Most seem to report doing better on Steam. Most
| developers that release on Epic and Steam, without a
| formal exclusivity deal, are developers who signed "free
| game" deals with Epic where Epic bulk-pays developers
| upfront in exchange for allowing every Epic user to
| redeem the game for free. Epic reports a relatively low
| conversion rate from free game redeemers to buyers.
|
| All of this suggests that the Epic Game Store, while
| putting up impressive numbers, isn't really peeling off
| developers or users because of its lowers cut. I could
| imagine a world where Valve/Steam are materially hurt if
| Epic greatly extends their exclusivity contracts, losing
| billions of dollars specifically to destroy Steam. But I
| don't see Epic organically overtaking Steam.
|
| My main point here is that the complexities of what's
| being offered and what's being charged here are obscured
| when we just say "You ate one third of my pizza! But I
| wanted that pizza!"
| dijit wrote:
| I just mean that if we're penalising one platform it
| seems fair to penalise the others.
|
| Microsoft store on PC is not a closed platform like Xbox
| is, ergo it is not what I was claiming.
|
| It's cool that Epic is taking on Steam. But they're doing
| so at a large loss right now, we'll see how it goes.
| treesprite82 wrote:
| > Microsoft store on PC is not a closed platform like
| Xbox is, ergo it is not what I was claiming.
|
| I mostly mentioned that to make the point about Xbox 12%
| cut. But you also mentioned Steam, so it doesn't look
| like you're solely talking about closed platforms.
|
| > I just mean that if we're penalising one platform it
| seems fair to penalise the others.
|
| If that's your point then I'd agree. Though it matters
| less for game consoles, and by "penalize" I'd mostly just
| want them to stop the active suppression of alternate app
| stores. It looked more like you were defending the
| practice as non-exploitative.
| tarsinge wrote:
| What was the cut when software was published physically and
| sold in a store? 30% is not a lot for being in a store.
| jedberg wrote:
| Depends on how you look at it. I used to work in a store
| that sold software in the 90s. The publisher would sell
| us the game wholesale and we'd charge retail.
|
| So they would sell it to us for $22.50 and set the retail
| price at $29. So in that sense it was a 22% cut, because
| we only kept 22% of the sale price.
|
| But in most cases the publisher didn't make the game.
| They were a middleman who took a game from a studio and
| sold it to us. I have no idea what their cut was between
| them and the actual maker of the game, but I'll bet it
| was more than 8%.
|
| So in that regard, the app store is a really good deal
| because it lets developers publish directly to consumers
| without a middleman.
| grishka wrote:
| Except physical distribution is expensive by its nature.
| It involves producing and moving around physical objects
| -- that's material and labor _per copy_.
|
| App store, on the other hand, is a digital distributor.
| Making a digital copy is so cheap it could as well be
| free. And even then, not all app developers publish on
| the app store because they want or need its distribution
| services. There are many developers who would happily
| arrange the distribution of their apps themselves, with
| their own infrastructure they already have anyway, but
| they have to publish on the app store because that's the
| only way onto millions of iOS devices.
|
| I'll say it again: it should not be legal for a hardware
| manufacturer to retain any kind of control over hardware
| after it's been sold.
| pessimizer wrote:
| This is what they're talking about when they say that
| productivity gains have gone only to the wealthiest.
| Buying an album digitally, when every single step in the
| production and distribution of that album have become an
| order of magnitude cheaper (outside of labor costs, which
| somehow remain flat no matter what), costs the same as it
| did 50 years ago.
|
| Every part of application distribution has become
| cheaper, so you lock down every platform and charge the
| same percentage.
| grishka wrote:
| So what? Why does the price have to remain the same
| despite technological advancements that are totally
| capable of reducing it to almost zero? It's as if we
| suddenly discovered a way to produce unlimited amounts of
| food, for free, anywhere in the world, but food
| manufacturers would start raising a stink about how
| important it is that people would still starve.
| jedberg wrote:
| I agree with you completely. I think Apple should, at the
| very least, allow side loading.
|
| I was just answering the question about what the cut used
| to be in the packaged software world.
| MR4D wrote:
| Visa charges you 3% but doesn't have an online store that I
| can find your app on, and don't run security checks against
| your app to check for malicious apps, etc.
|
| So I think we can agree that a realistic number for Apple
| is definitely above 3% for the service they provide.
|
| We can argue about 30%, and that's a good discussion, but
| 3% is no way comparable.
| thekyle wrote:
| I think most credit card processors charge something like
| 30 cents + 2.9%. On large purchases that's about 3%, but
| on smaller transactions (like those usually used in
| mobile apps) that 30 cents dominates and could end up
| being about 30%. So from that perspective Apple's 30% cut
| could be a good deal in some cases.
| [deleted]
| GeneralTspoon wrote:
| It's not a "good deal" in any case....
|
| The minimum purchase price on iOS is $0.99, so at worst
| you'd be paying basically the same rate (~30%).
|
| But most payment processors offer separate pricing for
| micro-transactions (e.g. Paypal is 5% + $0.05 IIRC).
| Which works out at around 10% for a $0.99 transaction.
|
| And actually - Adyen offer much better pricing than the
| "Stripe rate" of $0.30 + 2.9% in the first place.
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| A few years ago when making a micro transaction app,
| PayPal only allowed one type of fee structure -- either
| the 5% or the 2.9%.
|
| Meaning you couldn't segregate low tickets from high
| tickets and get the most optimal fee - your whole
| merchant account was one fee or the other.
|
| 'Twas quite a PITA
| GeneralTspoon wrote:
| Yeah this is still the case AFAIK - very annoying. I
| believe their recommended workaround was to have 2
| separate merchant accounts with different fee structures
| and group your products accordingly.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| They also don't curate a language and IDE for you to make
| your stuff with as well, nor offer logins or ways to find
| past transactions.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > curate a language and IDE for you to make your stuff
| with as well
|
| That's an odd way to put it. Approximately 0.001% of
| developers would complain if instead they were allowed to
| use the language and IDE they prefer.
| deergomoo wrote:
| The 12% that Epic and now Microsoft charge seems about
| right IMO
| Someone wrote:
| Based on what arguments?
|
| If Apple's cut were 12% and Epic and Microsoft now
| charged 6%, would you claim _"The 12% that Apple charges
| seems about right IMO"_?
| reader_mode wrote:
| Yep, if someone is able to maintain above market level
| profits for so long it's usually a sign of monopolistic
| pricing. That's not necessarily bad, but in Apples case
| it's just double dipping on their monopolistic position
| and is clearly a drain on the market with no benefit.
| They have the same incentives to invest in R&D and
| support the ecosystem on the insane HW margins alone, I'd
| be willing to bet their dev budget doesn't change at all
| if this change in rate was made.
| lossolo wrote:
| Apple had 72.3 billion revenue from App Store in 2020. I
| can assure you that I can provide you with _online store
| that I can find your app on, and run security checks
| against your app to check for malicious apps, etc._ for
| 2.1 billion $ per year (3%).
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| Ah yes, and I'll have that feature done in 2 weeks, max!
| How hard could it be?
| pessimizer wrote:
| The excuse is hardship? Are you saying that Apple's app
| store profit margin is low, or comparing $2.1 billion to
| 2 weeks?
| vishnugupta wrote:
| For some even 3% could be too high let alone 30%. For
| instance, Kindle iOS app doesn't let you purchase books.
| It's a read-only version, so to speak.
| dehrmann wrote:
| Most credit card processors charge around 3%, so it's
| rarely an issue. The number I usually throw out that
| Apple could charge and no one would be mad over is 5%.
| It's more than a credit card processor, but not _that_
| much, and it would likely help conversion rates enough
| that app developers would be happy.
| abecedarius wrote:
| 'has to'?
|
| App store policies were not handed down on stone tablets on
| Mount Sinai. Charges that better track the incremental costs
| are not a logical contradiction.
| huhtenberg wrote:
| > _to avoid charging in the App Store altogether._
|
| Not if the AppStore is to offer competitive processing fees.
| truth_ wrote:
| This is bull. Apple deserves a "rent", and not a "cut". They
| are providing infrastructure and services, and they deserve a
| minimum rent for these, which they already take.
|
| But Apple should not take cut on every purchases made through
| the app. It makes no sense.
|
| AWS does not take a "cut" on every Netflix subscription
| bought. They just charge for the storage and traffic. This is
| how App Store should function.
| spiderice wrote:
| I find it telling that you use AWS as an example because
| they are different than the apple model, while ignoring all
| the companies using the exact same model as apple,
| including how Epic charges developers to host content on
| the Epic store.
| bendmorris wrote:
| Epic is a great example. Their own store lists
| alternative stores on the Epic store, like itch.io. But
| they don't take a cut of games bought from those stores.
| Once you launch itch, you're in itch.
| dijit wrote:
| Steam is a better example as Epic is operating at a loss
| position to disrupt the incumbent.
| verall wrote:
| My friends and I play Apex through Steam, which I
| downloaded for free. When you click to purchase "Apex
| coins", it takes you straight to EA's website. Apple
| wants to enforce a cut on every purchase of in-game
| currency. Steam does not do this.
|
| And Valve allows you to sell steam keys on your own
| website also without paying the cut, so long as you don't
| undercut the steam store.
| ninjinxo wrote:
| Steam does take a cut for microtransactions, very likely
| force price parity, and put the developers under NDAs:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/1ogbo7/will
| _mo...
| verall wrote:
| They take a cut for microtransactions that they process,
| but you are free to use your own service. They do require
| price parity. That link doesn't seem related at all.
| ninjinxo wrote:
| >you are free to use your own service
|
| Do you have any sources on how restrictive valve are or
| have been with that, or is that just speculation? Can
| developers default to their own payment systems and
| bypass valve's, or is theirs required to take a
| secondary, less-accessible option (when it's even
| allowed)?
|
| From the same thread, the mtx cut taken was a dealbreaker
| for redfall studios, so it certainly sounds like they
| didnt get the option for their own mtx transaction
| service: https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/1o
| gbo7/will_mo...
|
| If the direct links to comments aren't working, try
| logging into your reddit account.
| notafraudster wrote:
| This would be true if they listed "alternative store_s_",
| but what they actually did is add itch.io to their store
| in a token way once they started the lawsuit in order to
| say "Look, we have no problem working with other stores".
| It's a stunt for the lawsuit. Even the Itch founder who
| signed the deal said they basically found it bemusing and
| an effort to gain legal leverage without really doing
| anything else.
|
| It'd be like if Apple took all of the developers who
| testified against Apple, reduced their commission to 0%
| in perpetuity, and then asked the judge to throw out
| their testimony because the complaints were moot.
|
| (That being said, I do think there are conditions where
| stores would/should allow other stores, and I think those
| conditions could be more permissive than the Roblox
| example. Apple should, medium term, resolve the GeForce
| Now/XCloud objections.)
| orisho wrote:
| I bought The Division 2 after seeing a promotion on the
| Epic store. To install it, you have to install the
| Ubisoft store Uplay, which is launched through an
| integration with the Epic store.
|
| After playing that game, I saw promotions for Assassin's
| Creed Odyssey on Uplay, and purchased it. I later went on
| to purchase many other games on Uplay.
|
| In short, Epic allows Ubisoft to sell games on its store,
| for which they presumably pay a cut - for those sales.
| But Epic has no problems letting Ubisoft require their
| store be installed for those games, and if you buy
| something there - even though the Epic Launcher installed
| it - they don't get a cut.
|
| This is more akin to the App Store installing Fortnite -
| which Apple could get a cut out of, but not getting a cut
| for purchases in the app.
| josephcsible wrote:
| There's no device or platform for which the Epic Store is
| the only way to get apps, so it shouldn't be held to the
| same standard as Apple's App Store.
| tmp231 wrote:
| I'm not sure what standard you are appealing to? Who
| cares if Apple only lets whatever they want on their own
| store? It's their store. I hope Microsoft or Amazon would
| get back in the phone game and allow alternate stores.
| orisho wrote:
| He's saying the App Store should be held to a different
| standard because it is the ONLY store for iPhones. That
| isn't true for the Epic store - you can just install one
| of the other stores, or purchase from a different method.
| tmp231 wrote:
| Everyone should be held to the same standard of
| respecting private property. You know what you are
| getting into when going onto apples store; if you don't
| like it then encourage all your clients to use Android.
| josephcsible wrote:
| Respecting private property? Whose property is an iPhone?
| Apple's or the end user's? Whose (intellectual) property
| is the Epic Store? Apple's or Epic's? Apple wants to use
| the only thing that's theirs in the equation (the App
| Store) to restrict an interaction between both of the
| other things that aren't theirs.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > It's their store.
|
| But once you buy a phone from them, it's your phone, not
| theirs. You shouldn't have to use their store exclusively
| on your phone, but since you do, it should be subject to
| way stricter rules regarding anticompetitiveness and
| unfairness than non-exclusive stores that other platforms
| have.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| Bull. Without apple the iOS ecosystem wouldn't exist.
| ivalm wrote:
| Without Microsoft, the windows eco system wouldnt exist.
| Should MS get a cut of all windows applications?
| musicale wrote:
| Should MS get a cut of all Xbox applications?
| tmp231 wrote:
| If they want? I'm not sure why you think you have a right
| to dictate private policy on a private platform.
| josephcsible wrote:
| If you buy a Camry and then become an Uber driver, should
| you have to give Toyota a cut of your earnings?
| matz1 wrote:
| They should if they could get a way with it.
| thayne wrote:
| Without app developers iOS device sales would be a lot
| lower. it's a symbiotic relationship.
|
| The problem is Apple has greater negotiating power,
| because they don't need any one developer and it is
| difficult for all the app developers to organize to
| negotiate together. But imagine if they did organize, and
| threatened to remove their apps from the app store unless
| Apple gave them more favorable terms.
| geodel wrote:
| Do Netflix customer have to keep AWS components updated on
| their client device to keep Netflix working fine? Because
| app customers have to depend on App store vendors for OS
| and other components.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| AWS pricing is extremely thorough and not at all comparable
| with Apple's App Store:
|
| - AWS charge you on bandwidth used, Apple don't charge
| developers for the number of downloads
|
| - AWS charge you on compute time, Apple don't charge you
| for ongoing use of their services beyond one initial charge
| for app submission
|
| - AWS charge you for storage, Apple don't charge you for
| storing your app
|
| I'm not a fan of Apple's App Store terms any more than the
| next person, but the GP's comparison to eBay is a hell of a
| lot more apt than your comparison with AWS.
| lukeramsden wrote:
| > - AWS charge you on compute time, Apple don't charge
| you for ongoing use of their services beyond one initial
| charge for app submission
|
| Yes they do, the fee is yearly, and they make _billions_
| in revenue from this. Google charge one-time.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Billions in revenue on $99/year? Is 1% of the planet a
| paid up iOS developer?
| gigel82 wrote:
| Math much? 20 million (that's 3-year old numbers [1])
| apple developers. Probably a lot of them on the $299
| enterprise plan, but let's assume they're all using the
| $99 one. 20mil * $100 = $2 billions. QED
|
| [1] https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/04/app-store-
| hits-20m-registe...
| altncatchfire wrote:
| To be fair, the 1% isn't off either.
|
| The figure available was "billions". For ease of
| calculation, say it was 7b. That means if each developer
| pays $100 and total revenue was 7b, 1% of the world must
| be a developer. (1% of 7b * $100 = $7b)
|
| Also, by your own figure, 20 million is already ~0.25% of
| the world population.
| thayne wrote:
| Not to mention that you have to purchase expensive apple
| hardware to develop for iOS.
| wincy wrote:
| I saw the new Mac Mini on sale at Costco for $600
| yesterday, I don't see how Apple hardware can be called
| "expensive" anymore.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| $600 is a lot for a small dev who already has a computer.
| What if they're a windows gamer and they're happy with
| their old desktop? $600 is a lot to many people if it's
| not strictly necessary.
| Xevi wrote:
| I don't know why you're getting downvoted, you're right.
| Besides, the cheapest Mac Mini M1 is $1000 in my country.
| Not everyone can afford that.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| GSimon wrote:
| The new M1 Mac Mini might literally be the first
| 'affordable' Apple machine that isn't underpowered. Will
| need to cough up some $ for display adaptors if you want
| more than one monitor for development though.
| slenk wrote:
| Don't you still need to buy a monitor and all
| peripherals?
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| Those don't need to be apple products - the mini has
| standard ports.
| wincy wrote:
| I mean you also need to buy a monitor and peripherals for
| a PC. Since they're not built in you could find a 1080p
| monitor on Facebook marketplace locally for almost
| nothing. If you're just doing iOS development the Mac
| mini should be fine.
| tmp231 wrote:
| Who cares how much they make? If you're unhappy, go to
| Google or petition Microsoft or Amazon to get back in the
| game. I'd also like a provider that allows other app
| stores and has high quality like Apple -- one of those
| companies should do it. But it's ridiculous to force
| apple to do it when you could go elsewhere.
| [deleted]
| kriops wrote:
| So they are making billions -while- creating an effective
| incentive against spam on their platform? That must the
| most obvious case of profits well deserved in the history
| of modern LTDs, good for Apple and their shareholders!
| mschild wrote:
| Apple's App Store has plenty of scummy apps. A yearly 100
| fee isn't going to stop that from happening.
|
| https://9to5mac.com/2021/02/11/app-store-scam-apps-how-
| to-sp...
| amaBasics wrote:
| The point is that while Apple doesn't charge like that,
| they _could_.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| "Could" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. My point
| is AWS and Apple's App Store are very different business
| models. Once is about providing compute resource while
| the other is about providing a single pane of glass for
| software purchases.
|
| Sure, the App Store "could" follow AWS's pricing model,
| but it makes more sense for it not to given the App Store
| is more analogous to a shop like eBay or even a physical
| store like Argos than it is a cloud computing data
| centre.
|
| This is why I said the AWS/App Store comparison isn't
| apt.
| Closi wrote:
| > - AWS charge you on bandwidth used, Apple don't charge
| developers for the number of downloads
|
| Their point is that Apple _could_ charge based on
| bandwidth used, and that this could be more fair for some
| developers.
|
| > AWS charge you for storage, Apple don't charge you for
| storing your app
|
| I would be pretty happy with Apple charging for app
| storage if it was at S3 rates - it would amount to almost
| nothing.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| > _Their point is that Apple could charge based on
| bandwidth used, and that this could be more fair for some
| developers._
|
| That is what the 30% cut is meant to cover (amongst other
| things too). Like with a high street retail store, the
| mark up is intended to cover the running costs of the
| store. Which brings us full circle to why Apple deduct it
| from transactions.
|
| Sure you "could" have an App Store that calculates the
| operational costs and then charges it to the developer,
| but you then potentially destroy the free app market (and
| contrary to what people often say about the App Store,
| there are a lot of decent free apps on there).
|
| Having a split payment and billing system also adds
| complexity to invoicing. Did you know that AWS and other
| cloud providers don't provide credits and refunds as
| payments into the customers bank accounts? No, what they
| do is they offset your costs against your credits and
| invoice the difference if owed to AWS. If Apple were to
| adopt that then we'd basically be back at deducting _$n_
| from transactions again. And once again we 've come full
| circle.
|
| There is so many arguments about what Apple "could" do
| but when you start to distil the requirements down to a
| workable operation you almost always end up right back at
| the status quo.
|
| Now I'm not saying that Apple aren't taking advantage of
| developers either. The cost of development on a Apples
| ecosystem is ridiculously high and Apple are notoriously
| hostile towards their developers too. But charging a
| percentage of transactions is a reasonable approach to
| the problems outlined above and limiting transactions
| outside of Apple's payment channel does at least solve
| the problem of developers cheating by funnelling funds in
| via a side channel (as exampled in an earlier comment
| which discussed people selling items on eBay for $1 but
| with a $49 shipping fee before eBay clamped down on
| exaggerated shipping fees).
| azinman2 wrote:
| S3 is actually quite pricey. Not as much on the monthly
| storage (tho it can be depending on size), but network
| egress is really where they get you. On the scale of the
| App Store where the app might be 100mb but it gets
| downloaded potentially millions of times it gets
| expensive fast.
|
| Now imagine your app is free. Yet you have to pay for all
| these downloads. There wouldn't be any free apps anymore.
| Closi wrote:
| At $0.05 per gb transfer, it would be half a penny per
| 100mb app download. Someone has to pay for that - at the
| moment Apple subsidises the free apps, presumably because
| they think they are good for the ecosystem.
|
| Although lets be honest here, free apps could easily
| continue to be subsidised by Apple in any future model.
| We are talking about far less than a dollar per iPhone in
| terms of hosting/bandwidth costs for all the apps, so
| this really is something that Apple could easily just
| swallow.
|
| Let's not forget that the availability, quality and
| abundance of apps, made by developers, is a key driver of
| success of the iPhone, and Apple makes plenty money from
| hardware sales. I won't lose sleep over the thought that
| they might have to pay for some hosting.
| majewsky wrote:
| > $0.05 per gb transfer
|
| That's including AWS's insane profit margin, though. I
| have my cloud deployments with Hetzner, where extra
| traffic costs EUR 1.19 per TiB, so that 100 MiB app
| download would not be half cent, it would be 1/100th of a
| cent. (And that's before we consider that Hetzner gives
| 20 TiB per month free traffic with every VM.)
| notafraudster wrote:
| It's clear that any change to the equilibrium would have
| winners and losers.
|
| We can scope out who those are likely to be: free
| applications which provide some useful educational
| service would lose; currently they provide no revenue
| (beyond the token developer fee). Banking, rewards,
| credit, etc. applications (applications which interface
| consumers with their pre-existing accounts for CRUD-style
| management purposes) would lose. They provide no revenue.
| Subscription products with very low conversion rates
| would lose if their free:pay user ratio exceeds, say,
| 10:1 -- or some other breakeven point with respect to
| money saved by ditching Apple's payment stuff.
|
| It would also hurt applications like Facebook, Twitter,
| and Instagram where the product is completely free and
| monetized by advertising Apple currently doesn't take a
| cut of.
|
| It's clear the winners are mostly extremely popular
| multi-billion dollar applications where the app portion
| is a pretty thin layer and they charge all or most users
| to subscribe on an ongoing basis. Fortnite doesn't
| exactly have a subscription, but it relies on fairly
| frequent impulse purchases and monetization of free
| users.
|
| I don't think it's straightforward to imagine the world
| would be better or worse if the basis for billing changed
| to something like cost basis.
|
| My overwhelming reaction to this trial is that it seems
| like both sides have fairly good reasons to prefer things
| the way they prefer things, but it's not clear to me why
| a court should essentially vacate a particular business
| model or contract. When courts intervene to strike broad
| classes of contract provisions (for example, to allow or
| disallow mandatory arbitration provisions), typically
| it's because there's an obvious public interest. Here the
| interests seem private on both sides, and it doesn't seem
| obvious to me that end consumers will either be harmed or
| helped by what's being asked for. Which seems like the
| kind of territory courts traditionally run away from.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > It's clear that any change to the equilibrium would
| have winners and losers.
|
| Thank god our object isn't to design rules that would
| pick the winners and losers we want, but to design rules
| that prevent Apple from using their platform leverage in
| an anti-competitive way. It's fine if Facebook, Twitter,
| and Instagram lose, and "extremely popular multi-billion
| dollar" applications win. Being extremely popular and
| successful while using few Apple resources should give
| you some degree of control over your own application.
| atq2119 wrote:
| > It's clear that any change to the equilibrium would
| have winners and losers.
|
| What equilibrium?
|
| Equilibrium implies multiple forces balancing each other
| out. This doesn't seem to be the case here, because Apple
| are effectively dictating terms.
|
| A better term would be "status quo".
| spion wrote:
| By that logic, should Apple charge something like
| $1/user/month to allow companies to publish apps and run
| software on iPhones?
| afavour wrote:
| How is that the same logic? Amazon does not charge end
| users for allowing services they use to run on AWS.
| vultour wrote:
| AWS charges for bandwidth. Should Apple start charging
| the developer $1 for every download?
| shkkmo wrote:
| That seems a bit price gougey given how much bandwidth
| costs...but sure, as long as other AppStores are allowed
| on the platform, that's fine.
| supergirl wrote:
| they could charge $0.09/GB like S3. that would be
| interesting actually, because it's not exactly free so
| developers need to optimize for it
| ericlewis wrote:
| Rent would go up and there would be basically 0 actually
| free apps anymore. It's already hard to pay 99$ a year for
| many people. Now you have to pay some larger number and
| your app may never make money. It's always an achievement
| just to get your 99$ back anyway.
| fsloth wrote:
| With the risk of sounding overly harsh - If 99$ per annum
| is a concrete financial risk maybe being a solo developer
| is not such a good lifepath financially. I imagine anyone
| capable of deploying an app store app has pretty good
| skills and is quite hireable.
|
| Of course individual situations can be different, but
| this is discussion about the "generic situation".
| thayne wrote:
| If you make an app as a hobby $99/year is quite a lot to
| distribute something you probably won't make much if any
| money off of.
| fsloth wrote:
| There is no reason hobbies should be cheap.
| atomicnumber3 wrote:
| One thing I don't like about the iOS model is that 100/yr
| is a significant barrier to hosting "open source" type
| apps out of the goodness of your heart. Concrete example:
| best ssh app on android is ConnectBot which is gratis and
| free. Best ssh app on iOS is Termius which is crippled by
| default, nonfree, and requires a $10/mo *subscription* to
| unlock. I don't mind paying for software I use, but
| 120/yr for a phone ssh app is too much.
|
| And this is the best app on the store, a less costly and
| freer competitor hasn't emerged.
|
| And I can't even sideload my own apps.
| vmladenov wrote:
| What does Termius offer that Panic's Prompt doesn't? One-
| time fee and Panic make some of the best software I've
| used on Apple devices.
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| > I don't mind paying for software I use, but 120/yr for
| a phone ssh app is too much.
|
| This is because it's much easier to earn money on the
| long-tail dedicated fans than the masses. Especially when
| those masses are likely to hate advertising based models
| with a passion.
| fsloth wrote:
| Buy an Android phone? A Raspberry PI? A Linux box? I
| don't get it, if a person can't afford to be on a
| prestige platform like Apple, then that's not a problem,
| choose another platform.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Logically apple makes most of their money selling IPhones
| based on them being desirable phones in large part
| because of useful apps.
|
| The cost of sending your app through automated processing
| and serving it to 99 people needed to make back your fee
| is probably on net less than a penny.
|
| Offering this service to small time developers would
| still be 99.99% profit so there would be no reason to
| make up for lost profits.
| stadium wrote:
| Android has mostly free apps, ad supported.
|
| iOS has more paid apps, for one because people that can
| afford a high end phone are more willing to pay for $99
| for an app.
|
| Look at the pricing for the same app on Android vs iOS.
| golemotron wrote:
| > Rent would go up and there would be basically 0
| actually free apps anymore.
|
| I don't think there's nothing getting in the way of Apple
| charging a very high rent for Amazon's app and a very low
| one for a random vegan recipe app.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| AWS captures you by being the custodian of your data and
| charging you to move it.
|
| That's the real magic of AWS and is the reason S3 was the
| mother service. Pre-AWS, colo at scale meant circuits and
| high friction networking. With the modern cloud providers,
| there's less friction, but a tollbooth.
| giantrobot wrote:
| Netflix pays AWS (and their other services) based on their
| use. AWS "takes a cut" in that Netflix pays for their
| service.
| MereInterest wrote:
| That argument might hold water if Apple allowed for other
| methods of software installation. Since they don't, that
| argument is pretty hollow.
| yyyk wrote:
| >Same here -- every app would turn free, and charge to unlock
| features within using their own payment mechanism.
|
| This is trivial to deal with. Apple already has rules on
| apps, they could go from banning fremium apps, to disallowing
| apps without a substantial free version to enforcing a
| reporting API on payments.
|
| What they can't do is use their position in one market to
| force marketshare in another market (payment processors).
| That's classic anticompetitive behaviour.
|
| (Aside, freemium apps have a low reputation, and that's why
| other stores without that rule aren't overrun with such apps)
| secondcoming wrote:
| Couldn't Apple recoup any losses by charging app publishers
| 'rent' to be listed on the app store?
| natch wrote:
| No.
|
| Think it through: free apps would not be able to afford the
| rent, so they would need a discount.
|
| Then in the limit all apps would become free, so as to get
| the discount.
|
| But some apps would be making a killing with external
| payment methods, while other apps would be making nothing.
|
| Meantime Apple would also be making nothing.
|
| I would think Apple has thought about this.
| joshuaissac wrote:
| They already charge this: 99 USD annually.
|
| https://developer.apple.com/programs/how-it-works/
| mthoms wrote:
| Apple requires developers to offer sign-in with Apple if they
| use other sign-in systems (like FB). They could have the same
| requirement with payments.
|
| Users should be given the option of using Apple's system _if
| they want to_.
|
| After all, It's Apples' argument that their payment system is
| light-years better for consumers. If true, then users will
| naturally gravitate towards Apples' payment system. Right?
| This would result in a cycle where Apple (and other payment
| systems) are incentivised to continuously improve. What's
| wrong with that? Why not let the consumers decide what is
| best?
|
| Let Apple's payment system compete on its _actual_ merits.
| Apple says it 's a much better system after all. I say - let
| them _prove_ it. They should "put up or shut up", so to
| speak.
| pkulak wrote:
| But then if you force every option to be priced the same,
| despite how much it costs the developer, then you're
| distorting everything again.
|
| For example, I can pay $0.99 to buy a game using Square or
| Apple, but Apple takes a 30% cut and will give me a full
| refund if I don't like the game. I chose Apple every time,
| but not because it's "better", it's just better for me and
| I'm not the one paying for it.
| mthoms wrote:
| Being able to get a refund is quantifiably better. What
| do you mean?
|
| Are you suggesting other vendors would be unable to
| compete with that for some reason?
|
| As an aside: I don't think the same pricing among
| different vendors is necessarily a requirement. If one
| entity offers more security or other benefits, then their
| pricing should reflect that.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| Would you still choose Apple's payment processor of it
| meant paying 30% more than third-party payment processors
| that don't charge a fee?
| commoner wrote:
| It's actually 42.9% more. 1 / (1 - 0.3) = about 1.429.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| Yeah, I was thinking it was something like that, just
| couldn't be bothered to figure it out.
| mcny wrote:
| How is this different from credit cards that have
| "rewards"? If you think of the independent software
| vendors as the corner store where you buy groceries and
| Apple as Visa or some payment processor...
|
| Actually now that I think about it the difference is the
| walled garden. I think pretty much the only compromise I
| can accept is something like Apple and Google must be
| required to add something like F-Droid that is run at
| arms length from Apple and Google and accepts third party
| software repositories.
|
| This way users can download and use any software they
| like from any repository anywhere. The benefit for Apple
| and Google is we won't shut them down and really they
| have inertia behind them so many if not most people will
| stick to the default stores, and Google can forbid OEMs
| from adding applications or repositories. A user must do
| so deliberately and manually.
|
| The benefit for users is applications installed from
| F-Droid will be able to auto update.
|
| The benefit for independent software vendors is they can
| publish their stuff outside of app store and play store
| and not have to adhere to any policy by the app store or
| play store and not have to pay any money to the default
| stores.
|
| Anything less and we are basically at status quo.
| commoner wrote:
| In the US, rewards are usually 1-2% on most credit cards,
| and up to 5% for certain purchase categories on a few
| credit cards. These rewards are funded by interest
| income, annual fees, penalty fees, and interchange fees.
| Interchange fees are typically between 1.3% and 3.5%:
| https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/research/average-credit-
| card...
|
| The Durbin amendment allows merchants to offer lower
| prices to customers who choose a payment option that
| incurs lower fees (such as cash or debit card) at the
| point of sale:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durbin_amendment
|
| Compare this to Apple, which takes a 30% cut. Developers
| must raise their prices by 42.9% to compensate for that
| 30% cut. Apple does not allow developers to offer
| alternative payment options for most categories of in-app
| purchases.
|
| For a long time, the standard rate for payment processing
| for small businesses has been 2.9% + $0.30 for credit
| cards. Larger businesses with higher transaction volumes
| are able to negotiate lower rates. If Apple allows
| developers to offer payment processing options that take
| smaller cuts, and allows developers to offer lower prices
| when customers choose those options, I'm certain that
| most developers and customers would prefer the third-
| party payment processors.
| enos_feedler wrote:
| The point of Apple's payment system isn't to compete on
| merits with other systems. Sure they want it to be the
| best. The purpose, however, is to collect fees from app
| developers.
|
| Apple "puts up or shuts up" with the phone itself. Thats
| the product and the consumer choice they focus on.
| rorykoehler wrote:
| What happens if I buy it on Google Play on my android device
| and then use it on my iPhone? This is a preposterous idea.
| nsajko wrote:
| Is your argument that Apple shouldn't themselves bear the
| responsibility of choosing an unsustainable/immoral/illegal
| business model?
| svaha1728 wrote:
| And free + ads is a moral business model?
| tmp231 wrote:
| No ones forcing you to buy an iPhone; if this is really
| bothering you, go to Android or petition Microsoft or
| Amazon to start up their phone efforts again.
| josephcsible wrote:
| The problem with that is that this isn't just about end-
| users. Apple is being unfair to developers too, and just
| leaving iOS isn't a viable choice for them. Apple has a
| 50% market share in the US, so any American company who
| cut ties with them would instantly lose half of their
| customer base, since most people won't buy a new phone
| over a single app.
| matz1 wrote:
| unsustainable ? It sustained alright for many years and has
| brought lots of profit for apple
|
| immoral? Its subjective. I disagree and apple likely don't
| think its immoral
|
| illegal? isn't that what the trial is for ? to decide
| whether this is illegal.
| golemotron wrote:
| > Unfortunately, Apple has to maintain this rule because
| otherwise developers will implement workarounds to avoid
| charging in the App Store altogether
|
| If the decision goes against Apple, I'd be surprised if they
| didn't just 'charge rent' to be on the App Store, just like a
| retail mall charges stores. Apple would have to take on the
| additional work of negotiating with each App, which would
| likely be "take it or leave it" pricing for all except the
| big ones, but I can't imagine it being illegal.
|
| That doesn't cut to the core claim of lack of competition,
| though, and that's why the choice of remedy here will be
| interesting.
| sosborn wrote:
| > just like a retail mall charges stores
|
| Of course, as we all know, rent in a retail mall often
| includes a percentage cut of monthly revenue, so we would
| be right back where we started.
| karmakaze wrote:
| There are other ways if you're honestly trying to be fair.
| eBay for instance could have made 10% of (price+shipping)
| exempt assuming 10% was the nominal fraction before abuses.
| tyingq wrote:
| I never understood why eBay didn't resell shipping to their
| sellers. They could have gotten very favorable rates from
| the carriers with that kind of leverage.
| lemoncucumber wrote:
| > When you print a shipping label on eBay, our negotiated
| rates let you save money relative to what you would pay
| at the post office or to a carrier for most services, and
| you'll save time by not having to stand in line. The cost
| of the label is then charged to your invoice, PayPal
| account, or Processing funds if you're a managed payments
| seller.
|
| Source: https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/shipping-
| items/labels-pack...
| tyingq wrote:
| Ah, well then that would have been the easy path. No
| commission if you pass-through charge eBay rates.
| dawnerd wrote:
| You're also not really lying commission on the shipping
| when you factor in the discounts they provide and what
| they charge the customer. There's some cases where you
| get screwed a little but it's not as bad as a lot of
| people think. I still make money on shipping if it's
| beaver and goes out priority.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| > Same here -- every app would turn free, and charge to
| unlock features within using their own payment mechanism.
|
| Not necessarily. Apple would likely be unable to extract the
| rents it currently does, but if a dev has the choice of
| paying a 5% fee using an rarely-used payment system, or
| paying a 15% fee using a payment system that most users
| already have set up and that has very little friction, the
| latter is likely more profitable.
| mdoms wrote:
| No they don't "have to". Every other platform gets by just
| fine without this rule. Windows Store, Play Store, Samsung
| Store, Steam, Origin, Epic Game Store, even Apple's own MacOS
| store.
| mdoms wrote:
| > As a general rule, app stores simply don't allow third-
| party payment in apps that don't go through the store, for
| this exact reason. It's not just Apple with this policy.
|
| This is not a "general rule". I can't think of any examples
| other than Apple's app store.
| api wrote:
| > Apple doesn't own that device any more. They sold it to
| someone.
|
| Ownership is so pre-cloud. Now everything is cloud tethered so
| nothing belongs to anyone except whoever runs it's cloud.
| smnrchrds wrote:
| I have seen this time after time, that when the question of
| Apple store comes up, a top-rated comment always makes a
| comparison with game consoles to argue it is all fair. I don't
| personally believe the comparison makes sense, but many on HN
| do. So I am going to ask, how is this different from
| PS/Xbox/etc? If the game consoles still 'own' the device after
| you have bought it, e.g. when PS disabled Linux installation
| feature via update on consoles they had already sold, why
| shouldn't Apple be entitled to do the same, to do as it pleases
| with the devices in perpetuity?
| xyzzy_plugh wrote:
| I can buy a game from a store as well. Or a friend. And sell
| my games as well. I can choose which console I buy to consume
| these games on. It's a game-centric system.
|
| Sure, the path consoles are heading down will look like the
| current Apple situation very soon. And I think the same
| criticisms apply then, too.
| d3nj4l wrote:
| > I can buy a game from a store as well.
|
| Console games sold in stores pay a licensing fee to the
| console maker, so the maker still gets their 30%.
|
| > I can choose which console I buy to consume these games
| on.
|
| Not really? You can't play the new Demons' Souls on an
| Xbox, no matter how much you want to. You also can't get
| Gamepass on a PS. Console sales are driven by exclusives.
| pjmlp wrote:
| It is the other way around, consoles are like this since
| they were introduced.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| >how is this different from PS/Xbox/etc?
|
| They aren't that different but I'm not sure this has been
| challenged yet. So perhaps that's the difference- nobody has
| yet challenged Microsoft's monopoly on the Xbox or Sony's
| monopoly on the Playstation.
|
| I would love these platforms to be opened up as well. The
| fact consoles are closed walled gardens too doesn't excuse
| Apple's App Store monopoly.
|
| Edit: From what I can gather there isn't anywhere near a
| billion total consoles in use worldwide however there is over
| a billion active iPhones in use right now:
|
| > Apple says there are now over 1 billion active iPhones,
| with 1.65 billion Apple devices in use overall.
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/27/22253162/iphone-users-
| tot...
| mthoms wrote:
| One holds your saved games. The other connects you to local
| emergency services, the global economy, your financial
| assets, your government, your family, your education, and
| increasingly - your health care provider.
|
| To suggest they should be treated the same is _downright
| laughable_.
|
| Yes, the underlying technology is similar, but their
| importance and impact on society is orders of magnitude
| different.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| From a legal perspective though, where this matters most,
| the law makes zero distinction between single purpose and
| general purpose computing devices whatsoever. Furthermore,
| they are all computers capable of running code from
| anywhere and the law views them as such. The distinction
| you are drawing that consoles are "specific" and iPhones
| are "general purpose" has no bearing in the law, nor in my
| opinion should it.
|
| From the law's perspective, the iPhone is on the same legal
| grounds as a PlayStation or Nintendo Switch. Frankly, I
| don't think the law should try to separate devices. Either
| this lock-in is legally permitted, for any manufacturer, or
| it's not permitted and all manufacturers must be open.
| mthoms wrote:
| Strong disagree. We should regulate based on what's best
| for consumers and the free market.
|
| Consider that different classes of vehicles are regulated
| differently, even though they all rely on the same
| underlying technology.
|
| The law should serve the people, not some rigid doctrine.
| ericmay wrote:
| > We should regulate based on what's best for consumers
| and the free market.
|
| I agree completely, which is why hopefully Apple
| prevails. Their ecosystem is the best for Apple customers
| and the free market.
| oblio wrote:
| Are consoles sold as general computing devices?
| ryandrake wrote:
| Can you define a "general computing device" in a way that
| includes PCs and phones, but not game consoles?
| oblio wrote:
| That's easy. Can you run spreadsheet programs, image
| editors, IDES, etc by default on consoles? Just approved
| software, no jailbreaks, hacks, etc.
| wincy wrote:
| I can't run Xcode on my iPhone either even though that's
| what I need to develop apps for my iPhone. Even more
| strangely I can't run Xcode on the iPad Pro despite it
| literally running the same chip that runs Xcode on a
| cheaper device (the Mac Mini).
| 5560675260 wrote:
| Yes, all of this is available via web browser.
| oblio wrote:
| Ah, nice, can I do any of that offline?
| BeefWellington wrote:
| Given you can't run most games on current-gen consoles
| offline I'm not sure that's the point you think it is.
| 5560675260 wrote:
| Well, you've asked if it's possible, not if it's
| practical and convenient under any circumstances.
| oblio wrote:
| I can't edit my comment. Console vendors don't envision
| consoles as general computing devices, which kind of
| tends to end any sparky comments one might make on the
| topic.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| This is irrelevant - the law makes zero distinction between
| "general purpose" and "specific" computing devices. They're
| all computers.
| izacus wrote:
| Can you cite this "law" you're talking about?
| deergomoo wrote:
| > when PS disabled Linux installation feature via update on
| consoles they had already sold, why shouldn't Apple be
| entitled to do the same
|
| Didn't Sony lose a class-action for doing that?
| paulmd wrote:
| No, they settled.
| josephcsible wrote:
| I don't think it's different. I think game console makers are
| also being unfair and should open up their consoles.
| paulmd wrote:
| Microsoft is a signatory to this suit and yet is explicitly
| arguing that they shouldn't have to open up their devices.
|
| It's a suit of convenience for everyone involved, nobody is
| making a principled stand for user freedoms here, they just
| want to pry open Apple's bank vault, and they don't care if
| user privacy (permissioning/app review, etc) gets shredded
| in the process.
|
| That the software freedom argument just happens to resonate
| with a lot of people who will sympathetically argue along
| with Microsoft and others as they continue to deny user
| freedoms is merely a bonus.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > Microsoft is a signatory to this suit and yet is
| explicitly arguing that they shouldn't have to open up
| their devices.
|
| Can't I agree with Microsoft on some things but disagree
| on other things?
|
| > they don't care if user privacy (permissioning/app
| review, etc) gets shredded in the process.
|
| I don't think there actually has to be a tradeoff between
| privacy and freedom, but if there were, I'd pick freedom
| every time.
| paulmd wrote:
| Well, the dominant market player supports the approach
| you want. iOS controls about 15% of the global market,
| why should the force of law be used to extinguish an
| alternate user experience that some users want?
|
| Like, literally, you're trying to use the force of law to
| blot out an alternate user experience that you don't
| like, so that you can make a point about "user freedom".
| It's a pretty awful thing you're trying to do.
| josephcsible wrote:
| I'm not proposing that any user experience be
| extinguished. I'm fine with the Apple App Store being the
| default app store, and users being able to continue
| getting apps only through them and making all payments
| through them if they want to. I just don't think it
| should be forced even on people who don't want it.
| paulmd wrote:
| Removing the requirement for app store review will
| extinguish the option for a curated user experience, as
| major apps will explicitly use sideloading/third party
| app stores to bypass the app review process and
| permissioning systems, _just as they have already
| attempted_. You literally are arguing for something with
| the immediately foreseeable consequence of removing the
| _choice_ for a curated experience with applications
| required to undergo app review.
|
| Again, you already have the choice for your user-freedom
| oriented experience on the dominant market platform with
| 85% global smartphone marketshare. Stop arguing to deny
| us the _choice_ for this user experience.
|
| But for you it's not enough to merely choose the
| experience you desire, you have to force it on me too.
| josephcsible wrote:
| The global split of 85% Android and 15% iOS is super
| misleading, since a lot of companies' primary customer
| base is Americans, and among Americans it's basically a
| 50/50 split.
|
| And there's no reason that fixing this problem would
| allow bypassing permissioning systems. On Android, apps
| installed from third-party sources still need to have a
| list of permissions and request them the same way apps
| from the Play Store do.
|
| > major apps will explicitly use sideloading/third party
| app stores to bypass the app review process and
| permissioning systems, just as they have already
| attempted.
|
| And if this were true, then why do so many apps still use
| the Play Store on Android? Why haven't they all switched
| exclusively to third-party stores?
| paulmd wrote:
| Is it misleading, or inconvenient to your argument?
|
| 50/50 still means you have a major choice that implements
| the user-freedom model that you desire, while you're
| arguing to extinguish the user-privacy model.
|
| > And if this were true, then why do so many apps still
| use the Play Store on Android? Why haven't they all
| switched exclusively to third-party stores?
|
| Play Store doesn't have an app review process, and yes,
| permissioning is a major problem there, the "flashlight
| app that wants network access and your contacts list" was
| a very real thing (until Android finally implemented a
| flashlight app) and continues to be a thing for other
| types of applications.
|
| https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/298363-why-do-android-
| fla...
|
| That's the thing app store review prevents on iOS, and
| the changes you're suggesting fundamentally undermine
| that process. When facebook removes themselves from the
| app store and creates their own so they can demand full
| permissions, the choice will become "give the permissions
| or stop using facebook" and that's a degradation of the
| iOS user experience, all for a nebulous argument that the
| app store cut is too much.
| josephcsible wrote:
| 50% of all customers is way too much for most developers
| to be able to give up. And your arguments that gaining
| freedom will require losing privacy still haven't been
| convincing.
| paulmd wrote:
| Whether or not you are personally convinced is
| irrelevant, the _facts_ are that Facebook literally
| already has tried to do this and gotten their hand
| slapped for it.
|
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/facebook-and-
| google-...
|
| The facts don't care about your feelings here - facebook
| and others have already attempted to exploit the limited
| mechanisms of sideloading available to violate user
| privacy, and they will do so again if given broader
| permissions.
|
| You are directly arguing for the removal of the mechanism
| that was used to slap their hand.
| josephcsible wrote:
| Did Facebook do the same thing with their Android app? If
| not, what's the difference between how Android is now and
| how I'm saying I want iOS to be?
| paulmd wrote:
| It's not my job to construct your argument for you, if
| you think there's a viable point to make there then say
| what you mean for yourself.
|
| As I've previously shown, Play Store is rife with apps
| requesting far too many permissions, I've no idea what
| Facebook specifically asks for.
| josephcsible wrote:
| I'm saying that what Facebook did has nothing to do with
| whether the device manufacturer has an app distribution
| monopoly.
| paulmd wrote:
| So you're saying that if we just allow them to request
| full permissions upfront then there's no need to go
| around the backdoor?
|
| ... not sure how that's supposed to be reassuring for
| user privacy concerns.
|
| Again, on Android, you've got even things like flashlight
| apps asking for far too many permissions, let alone
| Facebook.
| ajconway wrote:
| Not many companies are in the business of being fair or
| moral, usually it's about making money. Lawmakers have the
| power to force companies into being more fair (for whatever
| definition of "fair").
|
| On the comparison between Apple and Sony, -- objectively
| there is no difference except that they work in different
| markets and the devices they sell have slightly different
| purposes. If as a result of all of this Apple is forced to
| make their devices more general-purpose-like, it would be
| easier to insist that Sony should do the same.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| Since the console gaming have already gotten the worst
| parts of the pc gaming, I don't think that bringing the
| positives to consoles is as threatening as you think.
| konschubert wrote:
| Game consoles have negative margins, it's their business
| model.
|
| If apple started selling iphones at negative margins maybe
| they would have a better moral stand in charging a tax.
| spideymans wrote:
| Apple subsidizing the cost of iPhones with revenue from
| elsewhere in their walled-garden ecosystem would arguably
| be even _more_ anticompetitive. Apple 's competitors don't
| have the ecosystem advantage that would allow them to
| generate revenue from other parts of their business. Apple
| would be able to drive down their iPhone prices, while
| mainlining exceptional quality, which would be _very_
| difficult to compete against.
| mywittyname wrote:
| > So I am going to ask, how is this different from
| PS/Xbox/etc?
|
| Game consoles are specific-purpose computing devices: they
| play video games with a secondary use of running other
| entertainment apps (netflix).
|
| Phones are general purpose computing devices: they are use to
| do practically anything that a computer can do; check email,
| look up navigation, buy things online, check bank balance,
| create and edit photos/videos.
|
| There is an entire universe of apps that don't make sense on
| an Xbox. Why would your bank create an Xbox app, or why would
| Adobe port over a version of Photoshop for the Xbox? They
| wouldn't. And that's the difference between the two.
| zamadatix wrote:
| The latest Xbox and PlayStation are literally just AMD PCs
| that support connecting a keyboard and mouse if you have
| one (and the Xbox running a locked down version of Windows
| ripe with APIs explicitly made to have general purpose apps
| run without rewrite from standard Windows even!) - the only
| thing not making them a general purpose computing device is
| the restrictions on what you can run. That the restrictions
| don't let you run general purpose computing isn't reasoning
| on why the restrictions are okay to be there in the first
| place.
|
| Now one could argue the intent is they not be general
| purpose devices, but so could the intent of anyone not
| wanting competing stores. I'm not sure the intent of how
| manufacturers want users to use it factors in as such.
|
| One argument that comes up often related to this set is
| consoles are sold at a loss (and iPhones are not) on the
| assumption profitability (not increased profits) will be
| made through purchases on the platform. This is more of an
| bona fide difference between phones and consoles but has
| it's own debate as well (which I'm not going to get into
| here as this is already veering pretty far off the article
| topic).
| spideymans wrote:
| I'm not necessarily in favour of Apple here, but I do not
| find this to be a compelling argument.
|
| "General-purpose" is an artificial distinction. The idea of
| "general-purpose" devices do not exist in any legal sense.
|
| >Game consoles are specific-purpose computing devices: they
| play video games with a secondary use of running other
| entertainment apps (netflix).
|
| This is a circular argument. Game consoles are "specific-
| purpose" because they've been made to be "specific-
| purpose". The Xbox could be a perfectly adequate gaming PC
| had Microsoft not decided to artificially lock it down.
| There's no technical reasons why I shouldn't be able to
| plug an Xbox into a monitor and get real productivity done
| on the same machine I play games (like any gaming PC).
|
| An even better distinction: the Nintendo Switch. The Switch
| could easily function as a tablet PC had Nintendo not
| locked down the system.
|
| >There is an entire universe of apps that don't make sense
| on an Xbox. Why would your bank create an Xbox app, or why
| would Adobe port over a version of Photoshop for the Xbox?
| They wouldn't. And that's the difference between the two.
|
| And why is this where the line is drawn? I wouldn't put
| Xcode on my iPhone. Nor would I put Blender or Final Cut
| Pro. You certainly wouldn't run a web server on an iPhone.
| These are all things "general-purpose" computers are
| capable of. You've just drawn the line where it happens to
| be convenient for this argument.
|
| Edit: We should also consider the dangers of this argument
| too. If we codified what a "general-purpose" device is, the
| response from manufacturers would be to simply restrict the
| capabilities of their devices to not be "general-purpose".
| If banking apps and Photoshop are what makes a computer
| "general-purpose", then we'll see banking apps and
| Photoshop banned from platforms.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Exactly. I keep seeing people saying "but iPhones are
| general purpose and consoles aren't so what Apple's doing
| is illegal!" and I'm like, where did you get that idea
| from? Where did you learn that meant anything? But I see
| it all the time all over the place.
|
| The law, as you said, makes no distinction between these
| devices because they are all computers, and all computers
| are theoretically capable of running code from anywhere
| unless effort is taken to restrict that. Nor, in my
| opinion, should the law try to make a distinction because
| that would quickly become arbitrary or very messy as
| companies tried to qualify as non-general-purpose.
| matwood wrote:
| I agree. I'm sure Sony, Nintendo, and the MS Xbox
| division are paying close attention to all these App
| Store discussions. In some ways, the success of the
| Apple/Google app stores may lead to the general undoing
| of all app stores, consoles included.
|
| As I mentioned somewhere else in this thread, the App
| Store situation is unique. Existing anti-trust doesn't
| really fit, and it's also not completely good or bad for
| consumers. I think Apple is taking a big risk here
| continuing to push the more heavy handed aspects, and all
| but inviting government (usually heavy handed)
| regulation.
| taurath wrote:
| What if the platform strategy is inherently flawed from the
| perspective of a public good, and is inherently monopolistic
| and anticompetitive? How does this not reach the absolute
| definition of a de facto monopoly, especially if you've read
| about the powers that monopolies already broken up we're using
| to keep theirs? No monopoly ever will admit it is one.
|
| I would like to see a world where platforms are forcibly opened
| - it seems like any downside could be easily mitigated with
| competition or regulation. If Apple wants to be a privacy
| platform great. But they don't get to take an arbitrary cut out
| of every companies bottom line with no recourse because they
| own the hardware. I think anyone saying the potential bad
| effects don't have enough imagination as to how well things can
| work when everything isn't owned by one company. You could even
| argue it's anti capitalist if you wanted.
| grishka wrote:
| > they own the hardware
|
| They don't -- the users bought it, it's theirs now. It should
| be illegal to restrict hardware like this.
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| So when you buy a vehicle, you should be allowed to run any
| custom OSS on the hardware?
| grishka wrote:
| Why not? It's your property. Though it's your
| responsibility to not endanger other people with your
| actions.
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| rusEFI.com
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I believe that you are already allowed to do whatever you
| want on your property but if you want to drive it on
| public roads you need to comply with some minimal safety
| standards imposed by the state.
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| At what point do we look at the internet as public roads?
| With the recent ransomwares, the line appears to be
| shifting.
| taurath wrote:
| Meant to say they build the hardware. Quite agree.
| slver wrote:
| What you're saying is that you're OK with basically every
| single developer declaring their app as free, and then asking
| for your credit card, which will be processed in god knows what
| ways with most of them.
|
| So developers get in the shortterm to avoid the 30% cut. But
| what happens next?
|
| The payment process becomes much more cumbersome and much less
| safe for users. So they start avoiding any payments on iPhone.
|
| Apple loses basically all funding to maintain and curate the
| store.
|
| And in the long-term developers lose the entire platform,
| because it's based on the goodwill of the users.
|
| Who wins?
| ipaddr wrote:
| The user. If I like netflix and want to pay outside of iOS I
| should be able to manage that without apple taking a cut.
|
| Managing payment outside of a closed system makes so much
| more sense.
|
| Apple losing all funding to operate the app store is the
| least of all issues. They can shutdown the store and
| thirdparty stores would take over. If they can't afford the
| app they probably won't sell many phones. Perhaps taking some
| of the phone profits to fund the app store would make
| business sense.
| devit wrote:
| This will not happen as long as Apple's cut percentage is
| lower than the percentage of users that will give up or not
| download the app when asked for their credit card in-app.
|
| Obviously any reasonable Apple's cut will satisfy this
| requirement.
| Retric wrote:
| 4 users or 4 million the review process needs to be done
| and done well otherwise it's just as risky as installing
| random crap people download from the internet. So the issue
| is Apples 'cut' needs to cover all those apps with few
| buyers.
|
| It's a complex problem because applications like BonziBuddy
| mean you can't actually trust users to detect issues.
| That's not to say Apple ensures quality, just that minimum
| standards have actual value.
|
| On the other hand it's reasonable for large companies to
| disagree with subsidizing lone developers. _As such a
| substantial fee to submit apps would likely be required._
| [deleted]
| SheinhardtWigCo wrote:
| This is FUD. Where is the evidence that letting developers
| choose how to process payments leads to rampant fraud? The
| online payment landscape outside the App Store is actually
| very safe for users.
|
| Try to cancel an in-app subscription without Googling how to
| do it. Good luck.
|
| Also, if you try using the store, you'll see it's not curated
| in any meaningful way. It's full of garbage and fake reviews.
| Someone properly incentivized to improve it could do a much
| better job.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _This is FUD. Where is the evidence that letting
| developers choose how to process payments leads to rampant
| fraud?_
|
| Here, for one:
| https://www.pandasecurity.com/en/mediacenter/mobile-
| security....
|
| And in the general open web, for another, where online
| fraud is a multi-billion business...
| SheinhardtWigCo wrote:
| Not a single sentence in that article is relevant to this
| topic.
| coldtea wrote:
| The topic is opening up the app store, allowing
| developers to implement their own payments, and someone
| asked: "where is the evidence that letting developers
| choose how to process payments leads to rampant fraud?"
|
| Well, Android is open to sideloading and less "walled"
| and ends up with 50 times more malware than IOS. That's
| what "that article" is about.
|
| If someone connects the dots, they'll see that (a)
| opening up iOS similarly will lead to similar levels of
| malware, (b) letting developers have their own payment
| systems in such an environment would just lead to tons of
| that malware getting people's credit card details,
| charging for BS, and so on.
| oblio wrote:
| Yeah, online fraud is a multi-billion business. But how
| big is the open web? I'd imagine that it's transactions
| are on the order of hundreds of billions and most likely
| trillions, which would make that fraud an unavoidable
| drop in the bucket.
|
| And with Apple's system, are there any studies that shoes
| it makes a material difference in this fraud level? Even
| if it did, I'm not sure it's worth giving up all this
| freedom when we already have a system that works.
| LexGray wrote:
| I have worked a few places where customer credit card
| information was kept in spreadsheets or other open
| databases. At the scale of an app developer who has trouble
| affording a $99 developer account spending money on
| securing customer information is a virtual non starter.
| Also third party interfaces you may attempt to use are
| often purchased and repurposed.
|
| There are huge numbers of dark pattern companies who thrive
| on the ability to thwart subscription cancellation and the
| Apple method can at least be googled.
|
| I have not seen any platform which has resolved the fake
| review problem through incentives and many that are far
| worse.
| lifty wrote:
| It seems that Tim Cook considers the devices and the ecosystem
| that they create a *aaS. So they shouldn't be considered
| general purpose devices on which you can run anything. Think of
| them as cloud devices with local/edge cacheing for improved
| experience, very similarly to what Google offers.
| samhain wrote:
| Imagine Apple wanting their cut from Google, because I used the
| chrome app to buy something off of Amazon.
| tw04 wrote:
| So how do you feel about consoles? Because if they don't get a
| cut they don't survive. I can't see how you can set a legal
| precedent against Apple that doesn't apply to Sony/MS/Nintendo
| as well.
| Aeronwen wrote:
| Microsoft already made the claim that smartphones are general
| purpose computing devices, while a game console is single use
| one that justifies _their_ walled garden.
| colordrops wrote:
| > I'd be less happy with developers being able to use their own
| payment processors and be on the app store for free. There's a
| chilling anti-free-speech type of thing going on there.
|
| How would this have an effect on free speech?
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| >with developers being able to use
|
| I guess you mean not being able to? Normally I wouldn't bring
| it up but I spent a several read throughs trying to make sense
| of that sentence, and still not sure if I'm right?
| deergomoo wrote:
| > If a developer isn't using that infrastructure, they don't
| owe anything
|
| I've been following this case and the only thing I can conclude
| is that their executives genuinely believe that Apple is
| responsible for all commerce that happens on an iPhone. It's
| bordering on delusion.
|
| Without third party developers the iPhone would be nothing by
| now.
| an_opabinia wrote:
| > their executives genuinely believe that Apple is
| responsible for all commerce that happens on an iPhone
|
| iPhones concentrate rich users who buy stuff. There's nothing
| delusional about this. Likewise, Epic Game Store giving away
| games they paid huge advances for also makes those games more
| money than they ever would directly selling on Steam.
| newsclues wrote:
| Apple doesn't take a cut of transactions I make in my iPhones
| browser.
| Hamuko wrote:
| They do actually get a cut if you pay with Apple Pay.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204274
|
| >Are there additional fees to accept Apple Pay?
|
| >No. Apple doesn't charge any additional fees.
| maxsilver wrote:
| > Apple doesn't charge any additional fees.
|
| They do charge additional fees, just not to customers.
| Those fees get tacked onto the bank/merchant in the
| transaction. Apple charges between 0.15% to 0.30% of
| total transaction, according to Financial Times.
|
| https://www.macrumors.com/2014/09/12/more-apple-pay-
| details/
| lmz wrote:
| No additional fees is not incompatible with getting a
| cut. e.g. they could take some of the card issuer's
| portion.
| SheinhardtWigCo wrote:
| This is why Apple holds back important APIs from their
| browser, years after they are available in other browsers:
| fast 3D graphics, offline storage and compute, push
| notifications, to name a few.
| criddell wrote:
| I might buy into that theory if they didn't have Apple
| Pay in the browser.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| You mean the feature that lets them take a cut of every
| transaction that goes through it?
| sidlls wrote:
| Good. The "browser is a mini-OS" metaphor has proven to
| be an absolutely terrible experience for both developers
| and end-users. Time to find another way.
| mthoms wrote:
| Let the market decide? If it's so obviously terrible it
| will fail.
| sidlls wrote:
| Like with cigarettes.
| mthoms wrote:
| Please don't make unsubstantial comments on HN. You're
| not being as clever as you think you are.
|
| Edit: The _context_ of my pro-free-market comment is app
| stores. _Of course_ it 's not absolute. You very well
| know this. Please don't argue in bad faith.
| sidlls wrote:
| The comment was not unsubstantial, nor was it "clever" in
| the way you suggest was attempted. Cigarettes were quite
| a popular _market driven_ product for literally decades.
| The point being, obviously, that "the market decides"
| isn't necessarily a good way to determine or identify
| quality, or what consumers actually want or need.
| [deleted]
| mthoms wrote:
| The "what about cigarettes?" argument would be relevant
| if one of the market participants in this scenario was
| _literally killing people_ (or otherwise harming society
| in some way).
|
| An honest reader would not interpret my pro-free-market
| comment as being 100% absolute in any and all
| circumstances. An honest reader would consider the
| context. You're not arguing in good faith.
|
| Try again?
| Torwald wrote:
| Apple also holds this sort of features back on their
| browser on the open desktop platform (macOS). Judging
| from that I'd say there must be another reason.
| cglong wrote:
| Safari for macOS has push notifications, arguably the
| most important component of PWAs.
| coldtea wrote:
| Yes. To avoid the crappification of mobile, where
| everything it's a bunch of slow, memory and battery
| draining Electron apps, doing whatever they want, each
| with custom UI...
| mhh__ wrote:
| Definitely that and not to avoid the potential for
| circumventing their lock-in. If Apple were that obsessed
| with performance, their LLVM backends wouldn't be closed
| source.
| ubercow13 wrote:
| How is that not what exists? Aren't many apps based on
| web technologies, and/or have custom UIs? There's little
| standardisation even among 'real' native apps.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _How is that not what exists? Aren 't many apps based
| on web technologies, and/or have custom UIs?_
|
| Yes, but
|
| (a) some, as opposed to all which is the dream of the pro
| web-app camp.
|
| (b) forbidding custom JS and web engines helps keep this
| low
|
| (c) even the crappy mobile-webview apps at least have to
| be wrapped in an app container, be installable and
| uninstallable the same way, be notarized, use the same
| payment system with central control, and be tied to the
| same policies (e.g. regarding privacy, notifications, use
| of apis) as native mobile apps
| deergomoo wrote:
| Exactly, which is what makes their argument so flimsy.
|
| Sure sometimes apps get promotion and featured by the store
| but for the vast majority of apps, any downloads they get
| have about as much to do with Apple as the results of your
| web searches do.
| doikor wrote:
| And for how long would Safari on iOS keep up with new
| features or not get its performance nuked if for example
| games started to move into browser apps in major numbers on
| iOS. Apple itself said in the trial that games pretty much
| subsidize all other apps in terms of the money Apple makes
| out of the App Store.
|
| iOS Safari already lags behind in features. Apple would
| just make it even worse if it started to cost them
| significant amount of money to have a truly great web
| browser.
| moron4hire wrote:
| > Apple itself said in the trial that games pretty much
| subsidize all other apps in terms of the money Apple
| makes out of the App Store.
|
| How does that work? It's not like Apple spent money to
| develop the games _or_ the apps. And they are diverting
| money from the profitable games to the unprofitable apps.
| So how, exactly, are the games subsidizing the apps?
| Leherenn wrote:
| I assume it's that for most apps, the hosting/payment
| processing/... costs outweight the revenues they make
| from their cut, but not for games.
| tasogare wrote:
| I've haven't met any "feature" on desktop Chrome I wish
| existed on Safari on iOS but don't and I browse the web
| few hours a day from mobile. If anything, web browsers
| are bloated enough already and should remove features or
| fix the existing ones before adding news things.
| schmorptron wrote:
| Because it's Apple's incentive to offer a good web
| browser to sell very expensive devices? The same
| incentive Microsoft has to make Edge and Google has to
| make Chrome for Android. They do not have a god-given
| right to make money on every piece of software that
| happens to run on devices they sell.
|
| Besides, this wouldn't be an issue in the first place if
| other web rendering engines weren't forbidden on ios.
| Google / Mozilla could have their own browsers that
| aren't just safari reskins.
| slver wrote:
| Apple lags behind Chrome in some features which curiously
| directly benefit Google.
|
| It's not slow, it's not broken. It's a great mobile
| browser. So stick to reality and not bunch of made up
| "what ifs".
| candiddevmike wrote:
| PWAs and web based push notifications only benefit
| Google?
| woogley wrote:
| Well you can't send push notifications without a Firebase
| account ... https://stackoverflow.com/a/41829063
| slver wrote:
| Yes.
|
| Google's strategy is simple:
|
| 1. The web should be able to control everything (i.e. PWA
| features not normally found in a browser).
|
| 2. Google should control the web (they can index it,
| track, monetize it, but it has to be on the web).
|
| 3. Profit.
|
| Do you think Apple users are super excited at the
| prospect of most apps turning into battery-draining non-
| native shitty experiences, instead of using the iOS
| frameworks? No, they're not.
|
| And push notifications on iOS work as a service, to avoid
| battery drain, they all go through Apple on a single
| connection. This is free for all native apps. It can't be
| implemented for web apps both for technical reasons and
| because web apps can't be curated, so it'll just be
| abused like there's no tomorrow.
|
| Have you noticed on the desktop that EVERY SITE asks you
| for push notifications? This is super annoying and bless
| your soul if you ever clicked "YES" on any of those.
| They'll spam you until you die, or eventually ask your
| nephew to reset your permissions.
|
| EVERY single feature not in Safari, has a reason not to
| be there. And I'm sick of everyone eating up Google's
| propaganda and becoming their tools in this. I don't mind
| Google at all, they should fight for their PoV on all
| this, and they have a right to expand their business.
|
| But not at the expense of Apple or Apple's users. F that.
| SheinhardtWigCo wrote:
| Why can I play 3D games in every browser except Safari on
| iOS? What is the technical reason for that?
|
| Have you not noticed that EVERY APP asks for push
| notifications and uses them as a marketing funnel?
| sciprojguy wrote:
| Long-time iOS developer here who _does not_ want cross-
| platform dreck to become the standard. UIKit and SwiftUI
| are deep frameworks that let you build really great user
| experiences (if you 're willing to put in the work to
| learn them), and Apple spends a ton of time and money
| making sure they can work together and build an iOS app
| that looks and feels like an iOS app, not someone's
| crappy "web site in a native wrapper" or "several extra
| layers of abstraction to hide an API and god help you if
| you need to debug an API problem" approach.
| fauigerzigerk wrote:
| The web push notification restriction is exactly what
| makes people create quick and dirty websites in a native
| wrapper.
|
| Let websites be websites. If you cripple them without a
| good technical reason then they become exactly the sort
| of app you're complaining about.
| slver wrote:
| I'm honestly glad to see one dev who cares about their
| craft and not just "I wanna spit some HTML and boom, it's
| on all phones".
|
| HN is mostly frequented by developers, and it's so
| frustrating to see how many of them are outright lazy and
| don't think about UX but rather about how to get quickest
| from point A to point B.
|
| Rest assured most phone users are with you all the way.
| But again, we wouldn't know it reading developer forums.
| fauigerzigerk wrote:
| What you are ignoring (and in a pretty condescending way
| if I may say so) is that the best allocation of limited
| resources in the interest of users is not always to
| create scores of native client apps and device
| integrations. It's not all laziness.
| sciprojguy wrote:
| No, it isn't always laziness.
|
| Sometimes it's politics (I had a colleague leave a job
| because the new director of development mandated they
| rewrite their flagship enterprise apps in React Native
| because he got a song and dance from a React Native
| trainer/consultant and wouldn't listen to the people who
| knew what they were talking about).
|
| Sometimes it's different priorities (a meetup buddy of
| mine some years ago had to write apps in PhoneGap because
| "We're in the oil bidness, not the app badness").
|
| It isn't always "the best allocation of limited
| resources", either. Apart from having to do extra work to
| make the UX close to native (which isn't trivial), using
| a "cross platform" solution means you've just included a
| giant third party dependency that you don't control or
| maintain. Call it FUD if you want to, but in the forty-
| odd years I've done programming/development that's never
| been a good bet. If resources are really limited, the
| best bet is to have a decent design and very clear
| (reasonable) expectations and pay someone good to execute
| them.
| cglong wrote:
| I still mourn the loss of Windows Phone (aka one of three
| mobile OS choices) because of the "app gap". Small
| developers wouldn't invest the time or money into porting
| their app to the small marketshare. Even worse though,
| large companies would let their apps flounder, if they
| had one at all; the Bank of America app was simply
| disabled rather than being updated.
|
| If the PWA concept had caught on, users on all platforms
| would have an equally good UX, increasing user choice.
| mannerheim wrote:
| Do most phone users really want to install apps for
| Reddit, Imgur, etc.?
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| I think this is a really great point. PWAs are not a
| threat to native apps - they are a great in-between that
| adapts to different use cases.
|
| Installation, push notifications, etc... are all optional
| and can be mixed and matched based on what users actually
| want.
|
| An example would be individual forums are a great use
| case for PWAs.
| slver wrote:
| If you visit a site a lot, you want to install an icon
| for it. If you're willing to install an icon for it, you
| prefer the quality and speed of a native experience.
| That's just common sense.
|
| Funny enough I couldn't find a decent native app for HN,
| so I just placed a link to the site in my folder with
| social apps. That site is the worst thing in that folder.
| mannerheim wrote:
| I know a couple people who dislike Reddit's degraded web
| experience to drive users to their app. I haven't
| installed the app myself. Maybe it's a minority opinion.
| But supposedly Reddit has 1.6 billion unique visitors per
| month, and about 120 million app installs.
| slver wrote:
| Judging by their non-degraded desktop site experience,
| thank god we have the app. Honestly, Reddit is one of
| those sites that make me think the world has collectively
| forgotten how to make a sane site. It takes seconds to
| load, and almost everything you go means looking at
| animated placeholders for a time, until something
| happens.
|
| I have a workstation that deals with 3D rendering and
| huge Photoshop files, or compiling sizable projects with
| no problem, and my CPU is still pegged to 100% when I
| browse Reddit.
|
| I _shudder_ at the thought of those same people being in
| charge of my mobile experience. I don 't feel like having
| to replace my phone battery every 3 months, thanks.
| mannerheim wrote:
| I would rather have the choice, myself.
| easton wrote:
| I don't know about "only Google", but Apple feels that
| web push in its current form doesn't benefit the user (at
| least, how most browsers currently implement it where
| every page can ask you for notification privileges). They
| could gate the functionality behind PWA install, but
| right now they don't.
| fauigerzigerk wrote:
| I don't see how this restriction benefits anyone but
| Apple. What this restriction does is replace an annoyance
| that doesn't benefit Apple with one that does.
|
| Instead of websites asking to send notifications, they
| are now nagging us to install useless apps that ask to
| send notifications and clutter our screens. An honest
| curator would never even allow these apps into their app
| store.
|
| This is purely a business decision on Apple's part,
| nothing to do with user interests at all.
| slver wrote:
| So you're annoyed by a few dozen apps you've installed
| sending notifications that "clutter your screen", and the
| solution is to allow the thousands of sites you visit do
| the same.
|
| Okay.
| fauigerzigerk wrote:
| No, you don't understand. What annoys me is that Apple
| has created an additional incentive for companies to
| clutter my screen with useless apps that wouldn't have
| any reason to be apps if it wasn't for push
| notifications.
|
| These "apps" should never be allowed in the app store.
| They should be websites that get to ask me exactly once
| whether I want to receive their notifications. Instead
| they keep pushing and nagging me to install their apps
| and Apple's policies are encouraging this behaviour.
|
| In some cases, the notifications are useful, but there is
| no other reason for them to be apps installed on my
| device.
| slver wrote:
| Apps do also ask you exactly once if you want
| notifications.
|
| And you don't have to install any apps. Use the sites if
| it's the same for you.
| fauigerzigerk wrote:
| I want some sites to send me notifications just like I
| want some apps to send me notifications. I don't want
| websites to turn themselves into otherwise useless apps
| just to be able to send me notifications.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| But they'll nag you forever to install their app if you
| use the website. Like Reddit's constant stream of dark
| pattern pop-ups and ads for their app.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| For now
| duped wrote:
| I don't think they believe that so much they believe they can
| skim off the top of certain areas of commerce on iOS. If they
| did it with bank transactions, Apple Pay, Venmo, Robinhood,
| etc then people would be up in arms.
| dannyw wrote:
| Divide and conquer. It's gaming and software apps now.
| It'll be bank transactions and commerce later on.
|
| A 1% "Apple Platform Safety Fee" on Robinhood wouldn't
| surprise me....
| [deleted]
| ben_w wrote:
| Sounds like you're complaining about a hypothetical
| future where they charge _less_ than Visa and MasterCard?
|
| https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/research/average-credit-
| card...
| ImprovedSilence wrote:
| What about funding your robinhood account from your bank
| and not a card, so neither you nor robinhood pay
| transaction fees?
| zrail wrote:
| Bank rails still cost money on a per transaction basis.
| theptip wrote:
| ACH costs a few cents per transaction. I've never seen a
| company pass this on to their customers.
| blendergeek wrote:
| No, in this world they will charge on top of Visa and
| Mastercard.
| maxsilver wrote:
| > If they did it with bank transactions, Apple Pay, Venmo,
| Robinhood, etc then people would be up in arms.
|
| Would they? Don't they literally already do this too?
|
| Isn't Apple Card https://www.apple.com/apple-card/ them
| literally skimming off the top of every financial
| transaction, despite them doing nothing but provide a
| branded whitelabeled Goldman Sachs Mastercard? (admittedly,
| a very pretty fancy card)
|
| I don't think the general population will ever be terribly
| up in arms with Apple's behaviour anymore, so long as Apple
| keeps forcing other businesses to hide Apple's
| taxes/fees/cuts for them.
| duped wrote:
| A credit card with standard transaction fees and interest
| is very different than taking 30% of every transaction on
| the platform while also having the power to forbid
| venders on the platform from increasing their prices to
| make up the difference.
| JadeNB wrote:
| > A credit card with standard transaction fees
|
| But they're only standard because the credit cards
| asserted these fees, we got used to them, and now they
| seem obvious, right? (I remember plenty of merchants who
| used not to accept credit cards to avoid the fees, but,
| whether by bank pressure or just the weight of
| expectation, there aren't many of those any more.)
|
| It surely won't be too long until these fees are
| 'standard' too, in the sense that they're totally usual
| and customary, whether or not they're reasonable.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > (I remember plenty of merchants who used not to accept
| credit cards to avoid the fees, but, whether by bank
| pressure or just the weight of expectation, there aren't
| many of those any more.)
|
| It's a difference between small merchants and large
| merchants. Small merchants still feel free to refuse
| cards or charge higher prices when you use them. Large
| merchants aren't free to refuse (too much of a customer
| loss) or to charge (against the credit company terms).
| maxsilver wrote:
| Absolutely agree, but it's not that much different than
| expecting a tax on every Venmo/PayPal/Robinhood
| transaction on the store (if I'm reading this correctly,
| this is a thing Cook just implied they might do in sworn
| testimony today)
| duped wrote:
| At the end of the day it's all about power, price and
| value. A small transaction fee to handle payment
| processing is reasonable, since everyone creates value
| for everyone somewhere.
|
| A tax for existence on a platform is just rent seeking
| and increases prices for everyone but Apple. That's not
| desirable and likely illegal.
|
| The worst case scenario is Spotify-cation of services
| where Apple used the App Store to identify popular
| services, counters with their own, and then charges
| extortionate fees such that they cannot compete with
| Apple's native services. I would be concerned if we start
| seeing an Apple Brokerage.
|
| Apple Pay doesn't have a direct competitor in Venmo since
| Venmo is about payment processing between people who
| don't normally deal with credit card processing, and
| cross platform functionality is the biggest value prop.
| Apple Pay isnt a threat unless it works on all platforms
| equally.
| [deleted]
| cblconfederate wrote:
| I m pretty sure their users think so too. It's Apple's store,
| they are IPhone's apps. Which is fine , effective marketing
| halo effect and all, but somebody has to think of the
| developers
| dia80 wrote:
| "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when
| his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
|
| - Upton Sinclair
| austincheney wrote:
| We need a WASM box for QT and Node running with full API access.
| This is the best way I can see to bypass the restrictions of the
| App Store.
| austincheney wrote:
| I suspect this was downvoted because.... money.
| GrayShade wrote:
| The best way to bypass their restrictions is to stop buying
| Apple devices.
| austincheney wrote:
| I somehow imagine that is a less realistic an expectation.
| cuu508 wrote:
| Why? Are you tied to Apple and unable to leave?
|
| I don't buy Apple devices, and so am not affected by their
| restrictions.
| dmitriid wrote:
| Yes, I'm tied to Apple and unable to leave.
|
| Even if for the simple reason that I find other OSes and
| devices that run them shit in comparison.
| layoutIfNeeded wrote:
| Has it occured to you that maybe those other OSes and
| devices are shit precisely because they give unfettered
| access to developers/scammers/adtech on their platform?
| jhgb wrote:
| No, they're shit because manufacturers cheap out on the
| hardware and furthermore install crapware themselves.
| dmitriid wrote:
| Well, MacOS gives that unfettered access, and I still
| find it better than Windows or Linux. :) Even after years
| of neglect by Apple
| austincheney wrote:
| Then your preexisting boycott makes no difference to the
| appstore.
| ls15 wrote:
| As a user, I actually like Apple devices and iOS much better
| than Android, but I also want them to be more open. I want to
| install browser extensions freely and I want that the app
| distribution (quasi) duopoly gets broken. I also want full
| control over my phone's network activity.
|
| Apple needs to be forced to enable alternative app stores,
| like Microsoft got forced to offer alternative browsers,
| because they will never do it on their own.
|
| Since these issues are increasingly covered in the media and
| people are waking up to these issues, I am optimistic that
| things will change for the better in the near future.
| no_wizard wrote:
| Just to iterate my take on this trial:
|
| If Apple either lowers fees or comes up with an API allowing
| alternative payment processing this all goes away I think. This
| is what developers care about. This isn't really about
| alternative app stores, I don't think Epic or any company cares
| about the distribution model ok the whole, and certainly it's not
| something the average consumer is thinking about. See the lack of
| success with alternative app stores en masses on Android for
| example. It's the payment model thers got the whole thing twisted
| up.
|
| The irony here is if they just charged more for a developer
| license Thera based in the size of your org I think everyone
| would be happy, and it would compensate Apple for the lowering of
| the processing fees.
|
| If it was 5% I don't think this trial would have ever happened.
|
| I am stilll really interested to see how this turns out
| AwaAwa wrote:
| The AOL walled garden approach that befits the company, and the
| users who can't deal with 'choice'. Decide for me what is best
| please!
|
| It won't last, but by golly has it been successful. No wonder,
| history is replete with examples of this. Only difference is that
| as money continues to devalue, the nominal financial heights seem
| ever higher.
| jmull wrote:
| I don't know the legalities, but I think Apple should be free to
| set their App Store policies but allow alternative app stores to
| be installed (with some hoops to jump through so that it isn't
| too easy for the tech-blind to do).
| fartcannon wrote:
| That's the same trash Google does with Android and it's
| effectively as anti-competitive. They shouldn't be permitted to
| limit competition at all. In any way.
| jmull wrote:
| How do you think malware should be controlled?
|
| An App Store has the ability to load executable code that
| might do anything onto your device. I don't think an OS can
| just opt to do nothing about this.
|
| Some basic guard rails, designed to dissuade the technically
| unsavvy seems like the least that could be done.
| Additionally, I think there would need to be a malware
| management system, similar to ones on other more open
| platforms like macOS or Windows.
| aaronax wrote:
| Require code to be signed by a certificate issued to
| verified individuals by the government. Prosecute
| individuals who produce the illegal code.
| jmull wrote:
| There are some problems with that approach...
|
| (1) Which government? Governments have limited
| jurisdictions, so, e.g., the U.S. federal government, or
| the State of Michigan, is going to have a hard time
| prosecuting a Russian citizen in Russia.
|
| (2) Under what laws? There are a lot of things that are
| malware that aren't strictly illegal, at least not yet.
| Laws like this aren't easy to write, either. They almost
| surely need to include the element of intent, which will
| make them hard to use.
|
| (3) What agency (in each country) is going to be given
| the responsibility *and budget* to enforce the anti-
| malware laws (once they exist)? You're proposing the
| creating of a fairly large new bureaucracy for most
| places.
|
| (4) For good reason, the justice system in most places
| moves slowly. Presumably, malware apps will need to be
| left up at least until the criminal investigation is
| complete and a court order can be obtained. Possibly
| until a guilty verdict.
|
| It seems so much more efficient to put in some up-front
| barriers to malware stores.
|
| I'll also just point out that we have had malware
| problems for some time and the threat of criminal
| prosecution does not seem to have proven to be a
| deterrent, so I don't think we can count on it now.
| mdoms wrote:
| Which government?
| donkarma wrote:
| tell that to an Iranian who wants to make a gay dating
| app please
| deergomoo wrote:
| > Cook used more privacy and safety claims to defend that system,
| saying it would be both insecure and inconvenient to let apps
| process payments separately
|
| This one is always funny to me, because sellers of physical goods
| are of course totally exempt from IAP rules, because it would be
| untenable otherwise.
|
| I can type my card number directly into the Amazon app and buy a
| paperback without any intervention from Apple.
|
| And yet it's apparently insecure for me to buy a Kindle book with
| the exact same mechanism in the exact same app? Get the fuck out
| of here.
| gondo wrote:
| Maybe it's time to start selling paperclips with an ebook (or
| any other digital goods) as a gift.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| I can imagine the listings now.
|
| > Paperclips for rent, will ship to any location within 2
| metres of my house, must be returned within five seconds.
| Complementary electronic copy of my latest book.
| ineedasername wrote:
| "Buyers may optionally choose to purchase paperclips for
| donation to a charity of my choice"
|
| Just imagine the confusion at Red Cross as they're
| inundated with hundreds of thousands of paperclips.
| bredren wrote:
| On the surface, ebooks as a category of content make sense to
| allow direct sale as you described.
|
| However, your use of Amazon also serves as an illustration of
| Apple's case.
|
| Among kindle enthusiasts, Amazon had notoriously neglected the
| Kindle product hardware and software platform.
|
| From neglecting Goodreads to stagnation, to not including USB-C
| on its very expensive Oasis product, the whole brand is a
| picture of "we don't improve it because we don't have to."
|
| Kindle ebooks do offer interactive behavior like showing
| commonly highlighted passages and other light features.
|
| But in most of the hardware, the interfaces are very laggy in
| comparison to iOS.
|
| As much as text selection on iOS still isn't great, it is
| certainly better than what you get on Oasis right now.
|
| If Amazon cared to create a stronger social experience around
| goodreads and kindle for iOS users any time soon, it will
| leverage a huge amount of investment Apple has made in their
| software and hardware.
|
| This is money Amazon had failed to invest themselves and it
| shows.
| ineedasername wrote:
| If you're making a usability case between an Apple product,
| you have to use the comparable Amazon product: Kindle Fire.
| Amazon's eink readers are a completely different product
| class than anything from Apple. And on a Kindle fire the
| experience isn't dramatically different than any other
| android based system, and the kindle reader apps between
| Apple and Fires are nearly identical.
|
| Comparing an eink interface to iOS is simply not at all
| appropriate. Eink technology does not optimize for interface
| speed. It is not part of its primary design goals.
| lucasyvas wrote:
| There appear to be a lot of comments effectively saying that
| Apple's "altruism" is what keeps the app store advocating for
| user privacy and security.
|
| Let's say that's both true and a good quality of the app store
| that could be lost on another curator's store.
|
| This is still not a problem, because Apple can instead improve
| the iOS permission API system to achieve a similar result. The
| store that delivers you the app is irrelevant - the permission
| model is what users should be expected to learn, not where they
| get it from.
|
| This is a computer literacy problem and is the user's
| responsibility, not the platform. Not to sound too harsh, but how
| long will users like Grandma - who don't know better - live?
| Should we cater the entire system to these (comparatively)
| incapable users when they are a disappearing demographic?
|
| Not to mention, Grandma won't even know how to enable a third
| party store, so Apple has absolutely no leg to stand on. Apple
| will continue to make a killing being the default store since
| they are posturing that their users are too dumb to do anything
| else.
| merrywhether wrote:
| Punting responsibility to users is well and good until (for
| example) their IoT devices start doing damage under the control
| of Mirai. I'm not saying that a patrician approach is the only
| solution, but we are not each our own perfectly isolated
| islands.
| jorams wrote:
| > "IAP helps Apple efficiently collect a commission" -- for
| payment processing, but also customer service and the use of
| Apple's intellectual property. Without in-app purchases, "we
| would have to come up with another system to invoice developers,
| which I think would be a mess." If Apple let developers tell
| users about other payment methods, Cook said later, "we would in
| essence give up our total return on our IP."
|
| Apple doesn't provide payment processing, customer service or
| anything on payments made using other payment methods, so there's
| nothing to invoice developers for. They also already charge
| developers a yearly fee for a developer account.
|
| Am I misunderstanding the argument, does the article misrepresent
| it, or does it just not make sense?
| Slartie wrote:
| It just does not make sense.
|
| They are measuring themselves with double standards. On one
| side they want to defend their App Store tax and its immense
| height by counting usage of APIs, the store's distribution
| bandwidth etc. as value the developer pays for via commissions.
| On the other side they advertise to the world how many millions
| of free apps they have in their store.
|
| Either those free apps are somehow not using any of their IP,
| not consuming any bandwidth and not using any support
| resources, or the entire argument is BS.
| saurik wrote:
| > If Apple let developers tell users about other payment
| methods, Cook said later, "we would in essence give up our
| total return on our IP."
|
| Apple believes ("insists"?) that they deserve a cut of your
| app's revenue--however you might collect the money--because
| your app is using their "IP" in the form of all the libraries
| and tooling they nigh unto force you to use to build apps that
| run on their phone; like, to them, UIKit (I presume), Metal
| (which many people are only using because Apple refused to
| implement OpenGL or Vulcan), and (this is rich) apparently even
| Xcode (wtf: that thing _sucks_ ;P) is so awesome that they
| deserve 30% of your revenue, and they spent a bunch of time
| during their testimony trying to show the various ways Epic
| used--and even liked--their software.
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| Everyone is gawking over the M1
|
| > because your app is using their "IP" in the form of all the
| libraries and tooling they nigh unto force you to use to
| build apps that run on their phone; like, to them, UIKit (I
| presume), Metal (which many people are only using because
| Apple refused to implement OpenGL or Vulcan), and (this is
| rich) apparently even Xcode
|
| And say what you will about Xcode, but I'm literally building
| in Vapor 4 (server side Swift) with all of its warts because
| I experience trauma leaving Xcode. JetBrains and VSCode are
| painful to get to function like Xcode - but if there are any
| pointers to make it a better experience I'm al ears...
| grey_earthling wrote:
| You're paying for access to their userbase.
| gbrown wrote:
| ... which is monopolistic rent-seeking, the like of which
| would have been shut down (and was) in the 90's
| pseingatl wrote:
| Apple's lawyers screwed up, big time. It is unimaginable that a
| party to a lawsuit would tell the judge, "You and I have a
| different view." OMG. Better go in the hall right there and then,
| Timmy, because the person holding the "different view" is
| deciding your case. There are dozens of other ways to get your
| point across without openly disagreeing with the judge. Apple is
| toast.
| nikanj wrote:
| I have an inkling that the Apple legal team might have more
| legal expertise than someone on HN
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| _There are dozens of other ways to get your point across
| without openly disagreeing with the judge. Apple is toast._
|
| That's only true if the judge is petty and unprofessional.
| Sure, judges are people, and people could always give into
| emotions. Though I think that's a pretty big leap to say they
| are "toast" for disagreeing.
| topkai22 wrote:
| My problem has always been that Apple is both the gatekeeper and
| a competitor in its app store. I'd have a lot more trust in Apple
| as a consumer if they didn't offer up first party products such
| as Apple TV and Apple Arcade. It makes the shutdown of game
| streaming services seem particularly disingenuous.
|
| The payments issue is more complex, but I can't get a metaphor to
| origins of monopoly law out of my head: If payments processing is
| like shipping around little bags of money, its like we have a
| railroad that controls half the market forcing exclusive
| transport contracts on manufacturers. It certainly FEELS wrong.
|
| I think, ideally, Apple should be barred from offering first
| party services without providing a mechanism for third parties to
| receive the same treatment via a certification process. That
| means that other game stores could get access to that apple
| arcade button in the app store and that other payment processors
| could be used, so long as they met Apple's declared standards for
| privacy and security.
| Abishek_Muthian wrote:
| My iOS game which was in arcade category for years before Apple
| launched Apple Arcade was changed to an irrelevant
| category(Casual) as soon as Apple launched its Arcade platform.
| Just information over email, No permission was asked.
| badkitty99 wrote:
| Lying through his greedy teeth
| tangy_fluid wrote:
| > Giving users control creates risk, and Cook argued that people
| choose iOS specifically so they won't have to make risky
| decisions with sensitive data. "We're trying to give the customer
| an integrated solution of hardware, software, and services," he
| said. "I just don't think you replicate that in a third party."
|
| A million times this.
|
| I own an Apple phone because I want a device that works like an
| appliance. I don't have to program my toaster. I don't have to
| worry about security risks in my washing machine. I want the same
| consistency and dependability in the device I communicate with.
| Android doesn't deliver this.
|
| If I want to tinker with something I'll get on a Linux computer.
| lmilcin wrote:
| Just imagine car manufacturers demanding you to provide listing
| of every trip, person traveling in the car, every product
| delivered, so that the manufacturer can get their percentage of
| the value of goods and services, on top of the value of the car
| itself.
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