[HN Gopher] Developers revolt over Apple's new app store rules
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Developers revolt over Apple's new app store rules
Author : thesuperbigfrog
Score : 122 points
Date : 2024-02-12 16:11 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wired.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wired.com)
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| "Apple holds app providers ransom like the Mafia," claims
| Matthias Pfau, CEO and cofounder of Tuta, an encrypted email
| provider. The tech giant treats iPhones as its territory, Pfau
| complains, tightly controlling developers' access before taking a
| chunk of their profits. "Anyone wanting to provide an iOS app
| must pay a ransom to Apple; there's no way around it."
|
| What can developers do other than agree to Apple's demands if
| they want to publish iOS apps?
| beacon294 wrote:
| It would be nice to develop an open iPhone compatible.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Complain to regulatory industries until they force apple to act
| differently?
| cdme wrote:
| Apple's seeking to comply with the letter, rather than the
| spirit, of the law in order to maintain their ability to extract
| rents from the App Store. It's user-hostile (particularly given
| that they've now hobbled PWAs) but not surprising. Their behavior
| won't change without additional regulatory action.
| orev wrote:
| In the US, laws are taken as very literal, and any technicality
| that can be exploited usually will be. In Europe, they're far
| more focused on the spirit of the law and don't put up with
| games.
|
| On one hand it seems like Apple is trying to take a US style
| approach, but on the other they must have European lawyers on
| staff explaining how that won't work.
|
| One might conclude that it's a calculated risk, or a stalling
| tactic to extract a few more years of revenue from the current
| model while waiting for things to play out in the courts.
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| Fair view vs. strict constructionism.
| malermeister wrote:
| I think they're just too confident that their US approach
| will work. Same thing happened with Facebook, they got a huge
| fine for it.
| musictubes wrote:
| I find it far fetched that Apple would either hire terrible
| lawyers that lead them astray or competent lawyers that they
| then ignore. I agree that they are probably hoping to go to
| court.
|
| Maybe I'm just too American to understand but the idea of
| "the spirit" of the law seems ridiculous. If you want the law
| to force Apple to allow slide loading then pass a law that
| says that. If you want a law that forces Apple to allow any
| developer to make and distribute software on their platform
| then pass a law that says that. It certainly seems that they
| were able to achieve that level of clarity with the USB-C
| rule. Why isn't this law like that one? Relying on, "C'mon,
| we all know what the law _really_ means," is at best sloppy
| legislating.
| Jensson wrote:
| Trying to cover every case explicitly and rigorously just
| results in the legal mess the US has where you need way
| more lawyers than other countries to get stuff done, and
| still results in more abuse from companies since there will
| always be abusable holes in laws but there wont typically
| be holes in the spirit of the law.
|
| So the main end result with the US system is that companies
| employs armies of lawyers so that they can legally break
| the laws. The main ones who benefits from that are lawyers
| and the massive companies who can afford them.
| happyopossum wrote:
| > Trying to cover every case explicitly and rigorously
|
| Removing a gate but still charging and entrance fee isn't
| even close to a far-fetched corner case. I have to
| believe that the regulators understood they were only
| regulating the technical side of things, and not the
| financial side.
|
| If the lobbyists for Spotify and Epic dropped the ball
| there, that's on them.
| TillE wrote:
| Notably, the DMA includes words like "fair" and
| "reasonable" for which there _is_ no strict robot-like
| interpretation.
|
| Apple's plans will be evaluated as such by regulators, and
| there are several provisions which are just plainly anti-
| competitive, especially the 50 cent per user per year fee
| just to run an app store. It's really hard to see that
| holding up.
| happyopossum wrote:
| > 50 cent per user per year fee just to run an app store.
| It's really hard to see that holding up.
|
| Hard to see a set of circumstances where the regulators
| succeed in forcing a company to _develop and maintain_ a
| complex set of APIs for free in perpetuity...
| IshKebab wrote:
| They won't do that though. Apple will be free to stop
| selling iPhones if it wants.
|
| In any case iPhones aren't free.
| lucianbr wrote:
| Writing a law without loopholes has the same chances of
| happening as writing a program without bugs. And continuing
| with the analogy, a "well-written" law just means the
| loopholes require more resources to find, thus being
| available in general only to very rich entities.
|
| However, regardless of fairness or sloppyness, if a large
| part of society feels the law should be interpreted in a
| certain way, the fact that it does not literally say that
| may be irrelevant. Who is going to reprimand the judges if
| the legislative, the government, the people, the local
| corporations all feel Apple should be kneecapped?
|
| Did the constitution of the USA not literally say "all men
| are created equal" while you still had slavery?
| happyopossum wrote:
| >Did the constitution of the USA not literally say "all
| men are created equal" while you still had slavery?
|
| No, that was the declaration of Independence, some of the
| authors of which adamantly opposed slavery.
| bitcurious wrote:
| > In the US, laws are taken as very literal, and any
| technicality that can be exploited usually will be. In
| Europe, they're far more focused on the spirit of the law and
| don't put up with games.
|
| I was looking to confirm or deny that statement and came
| across a fun detour in the form of an article entitled
| "What's So Special About American Law?". It doesn't address
| the point about spirit vs. detail at all, but is an amusing
| and informative read.
|
| > As I said, this fact seems to me a deep and fundamental
| point of difference. The American legal system, to a greater
| extent than any other Western legal system, encourages the
| direct injection of democratic values into the legal process.
| Our legal system, like our society, places great emphasis on
| the value of equality. We do not fully trust professional
| elites.
|
| https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl.
| ..
| lucianbr wrote:
| > Our legal system, like our society, places great emphasis
| on the value of equality.
|
| Is this satire? Must be satire, right?
| Someone wrote:
| I don't think the text of the law says anything _remotely_
| about Apple's margins for access to their users being too high.
| How then can that be in the spirit of the law?
|
| If you disagree, educate me.
| darklion wrote:
| > Apple's seeking to comply with the letter, rather than the
| spirit, of the law in order to maintain their ability to
| extract rents from the App Store.
|
| Yes, because we can have a functional, productive society based
| on a legal system where the foundational principal is, "We'll
| write laws so vague that we can just say they mean whatever we
| want them to mean _after_ people and companies try to follow
| them".
| the_duke wrote:
| This particular legislation gives relatively broad enforcement
| power to the EU commission. IANAL, but it's possible, and in my
| primitive understanding quite likely, that they can take action
| without additional legislation because it's a stark violation
| of the obligations.
| threeseed wrote:
| > rather than the spirit
|
| Tim Cook met personally with EU regulators before their changes
| were introduced.
|
| I doubt they would knowingly introduce something that would
| result in a punitive fine.
| Vespasian wrote:
| It won't lead to a fine directly but it might result in
| enforcement action to bring them closer to what the law
| intended.
|
| I seriously doubt that their ultimate approach was "cleared"
| with regulators because it's quite blatantly against the
| intention of the DMA. The fact that he met with EU people
| says precisely nothing.
| IshKebab wrote:
| They wouldn't introduce anything that would _definitely_ lead
| to a fine, but I don 't see why they wouldn't introduce
| something that really pushes the boundaries and will result
| in a court case that they have some chance of winning.
| judiisis wrote:
| They remove pwas in latest ios beta(only in the EU) they are evil
| bnt wrote:
| Wait, is this confirmed that it's removed only in the EU? I've
| seen "reports" on Twitter (never gonna call it X) but nothing
| official.
| judiisis wrote:
| Officially they haven't confirmed anything(employees deny to
| comment) but it seems intentional in all aspects and bug
| report is silent
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| It certainly seems that way:
|
| https://appleinsider.com/articles/24/02/09/something-is-
| happ...
|
| Without clear communication from Apple, people will assume
| that the change is a strategic move by Apple to not cede
| ground being lost due to the Digital Markets Act.
| danpalmer wrote:
| I'm as disappointed in the new rules as anyone, but I'm going
| to call this one as most likely just a missing implementation
| rather than malicious.
|
| The new Browser Engine Kit that allows alternative browsers to
| be installed is really a very deep integration. It's not just
| swapping out the browser and engine that users open as an app,
| it's swapping out all system integrations - webviews embedded
| in apps (in certain types of use), and importantly, PWAs pinned
| to the home screen. The APIs have a fairly sizeable surface
| area, and PWAs themselves have many features that require
| system support to implement.
|
| My assumption would be that full PWA support will return, but
| that it was a significant amount of extra work that Apple
| decided to skip for the first implementation. I'm not sure if
| that was the right call, but they were under quite a deadline
| with the DMA coming in.
| awestroke wrote:
| Yeah it was too much work to support PWAs in the EU for this
| beta. But they managed to have time to implement it for the
| rest of the world
| ripply wrote:
| I think that's a little disingenuous, it already works for
| the rest of the world so of course they had time to
| implement it, grabbing where you live via an internal API
| and disabling functionality is easier to do than
| implementing a browser selection prompt and exposing
| possibly new APIs to new browsers.
| awestroke wrote:
| That's my point
| adamtaylor_13 wrote:
| I hadn't heard about this, but it is indeed concerning. After
| my latest round of trying to publish apps on the iOS App Store,
| I concluded that PWAs were the best bet to getting a nice,
| polished user-experience without the soul-crushing process that
| is app store publishing.
|
| I suppose a small bit of light (for me, not the community at-
| large) is that all of my targeted market is in the US. But I
| also acknowledge is they get away with that in the EU, the US
| will be next. Le sigh. This is why the Web is the best
| platform.
| s_dev wrote:
| All companies by simply reaching a certain scale and size -- are
| just by default becoming a monopoly. Since Apple is the biggest
| company in the world it's inescapable they will face these
| accusations even if they fairly earned their way in to this
| position the right thing is to still stop them because a monopoly
| is always a bad thing for consumers.
| ddtaylor wrote:
| How does that excuse any of their anticompetitive CHOICES they
| continue to make? I don't understand how your comment affords
| Apple anything.
| stavros wrote:
| > All companies by simply reaching a certain scale and size --
| are just by default becoming a monopoly.
|
| This statement can be reworded as "the companies that are big
| enough to be monopolies are monopolies".
|
| Not all companies are monopolies just by their size. Microsoft
| is the biggest company in the world (not Apple), and it's not a
| monopoly in everything it sells. It may be a monopoly in some
| areas, because of its tactics, but the same goes for Apple: if
| they open up the app store, like the EU wants them to, they'll
| no longer be a monopoly, even though they'll be exactly the
| same size.
| racl101 wrote:
| Apple used to see IBM as the bad guy but somehow they've become a
| thousand times worse than IBM ever was.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| > Apple used to see IBM as the bad guy but somehow they've
| become a thousand times worse than IBM ever was.
|
| I think you would have a hard time establishing that 202x Apple
| is worse for independent developers than "Big Blue" IBM, let
| alone three orders of magnitude worse.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Tim Apple is paid to love money.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| I'm not saying Apple is good, I'm saying IBM was also
| utterly terrible for independent developers and might have
| been worse.
| sjwhevvvvvsj wrote:
| This is a great way to encourage developers to build the app that
| will show an essential use case for the Vision Pro.
|
| It's not like Vision Pro is a solution in need of a problem,
| desperately waiting for a killer app, or that apps built the
| iPhone ecosystem into the juggernaut it is now.
|
| Apple doesn't need developers, right? Right?
| smoldesu wrote:
| Relax, we have Fruit Ninja VR. The rest is just a matter of
| waiting for more software to materialize.
| snapcaster wrote:
| I can't even understand your point here. People aren't
| developing for apple hardware to be nice to apple or help out
| the ecosystem, they're doing it for money. As long as Apple is
| creating a platform that people love, adopt and trust people
| will develop for it (while complaining the whole time no doubt)
|
| By the amount of bitching on this issue, it really sounds like
| developers need Apple not the other way around. If this was
| really about user freedom and shit like that developers would
| just boycott the platform and move to android. This is just
| about money and developers wanting to have their cake
| (distribute their app in a high trust environment) and eat it
| too (put whatever stupid shit they want in their app with no
| checks or controls)
| skeaker wrote:
| People are developing for money, yes, money that Apple
| intends to take a large cut of for no good reason, hence why
| they would avoid developing for it because they would not
| make enough money.
|
| Developers do not need Apple because there are other viable
| platforms. Users that are locked to an iPhone for whatever
| reason (iCloud being impossible to export, costs are
| prohibitive, family uses it, etc) would like to be able to
| sideload or generally run whatever they want on their own
| device. People aren't complaining just to complain and
| they're definitely not being entitled, that's just the
| expectation when you buy a computing device and Apple is
| failing to uphold their end of it. I do not touch the Apple
| ecosystem but would like to see their behavior squashed
| before it can spread to any devices that I do use.
| snapcaster wrote:
| I think something missed when these issues are discussed on sites
| like this is just how ignorant of computing the average user is.
| What would be obvious for us "oh it's not from official app
| store, so I know to apply extra scrutiny" isn't even describable
| in most people's mental model of computers/smartphones.
|
| I don't want my loved ones getting scammed or hacked by people
| utilizing these new "freedoms". Why can't all of you
| sideloader/sdk/open source people just stick to android? why do
| you have to open the enshittification gates to every single
| platform?
| _visgean wrote:
| Imagine if you said the same thing about computers: why do you
| need to install sw from anything but Microsoft store? Why can't
| you sideloader people need a different browser than Internet
| Explorer?
| snapcaster wrote:
| Exactly! I would tell those people to use Linux, not sue
| Microsoft to change their operating system
| smoldesu wrote:
| "Exactly! I would tell those people to use another
| telephone, not sue Bell Systems to change their phone
| network"
|
| "Exactly! I would tell those people to find another
| supplier, not sue Standard Oil to change their business
| tactics"
|
| "Exactly! I would tell those people to ride a different
| rail, not sue Pacific Railway Co. to change their train
| routes"
|
| _- Monopoly apologism, through the centuries_
| iakov wrote:
| With only difference being that you can buy non-apple
| device with different features, while Bell was pretty
| much the only option people had.
| smoldesu wrote:
| You could buy non-Bell phones and even connect them to a
| functioning telephone network. The problem (and incentive
| for antitrust action) was Bell's business of charging
| users to connect to their proprietary and all-
| encompassing network. They created a situation where the
| only way to compete was to acquiesce with Bell's
| exploitative terms.
|
| It's not illegal to be a monopoly, it's illegal to abuse
| monopoly power.
| burnerthrow008 wrote:
| > You could buy non-Bell phones and even connect them to
| a functioning telephone network.
|
| First, that is simply a lie. Until the Carterfone
| decision it was, in fact, illegal to attach a non-Bell
| phone to the network.
|
| Second, Apple has a smaller market share (especially in
| Europe!) than Android, so it is very hard to see how
| someone could, in good faith, argue that Apple is a
| monopoly.
|
| Third, Apple is doing nothing to prevent you from buying
| an Android phone. If you don't like the walled garden,
| the gate is not locked. You can simply leave.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > Until the Carterfone decision it was, in fact, illegal
| to attach a non-Bell phone to the network.
|
| ...and the Carterfone decision was long overdue. The
| entire antitrust legislation against Ma Bell was
| protracted a half century because, much like Apple, they
| had armies of lobbyists stationed around the nation.
| Suffice to say we made the right call on Carterfone, and
| Bell made the wrong decision by resenting it.
|
| > so it is very hard to see how someone could, in good
| faith, argue that Apple is a monopoly.
|
| A natural monopoly, maybe. But the Wabash Case
| demonstrates that a privately-owned common carrier
| platform can be subject to antitrust law without owning
| the majority of the rail. The European DMA explicitly
| goes the extra mile to implicate Apple not as a monopoly,
| but as a "gatekeeper" with specific fair-play
| obligations. To them, it wouldn't even matter anyways.
|
| > Apple is doing nothing to prevent you from buying an
| Android phone.
|
| Ah, the "innovation" clause. This isn't about Android,
| because Android phones don't run Apple software. Apple
| has deliberately designed their ecosystem to funnel back
| into one exploitative internal market that they are
| solely responsible for. Android phones _are_ an
| alternative, but irrelevant in a conversation about App
| Store alternatives.
| lozenge wrote:
| And Apple is the only option businesses have. Without an
| iPhone app most online businesses are dead in the water.
| snapcaster wrote:
| Also curious, why can't you just stick to android? why do you
| need iOS to also change to support your ideas on computing?
| LtWorf wrote:
| I'm curious. Why can't apple obey the law? Why does super-
| rich foreign company think they can just ignore laws?
| JimDabell wrote:
| In fact, side loading leading to scams is that much of a real-
| world security problem that Android is also trialling
| restrictions on side loading. Android users constantly get
| scammed out of tens of thousands of dollars via side loading,
| while iOS users don't. Apple are being honest when they say
| it's a serious security risk. From Google:
|
| > Based on our analysis of major fraud malware families that
| exploit these sensitive runtime permissions, we found that over
| 95 per cent of installations came from internet-sideloading
| sources
|
| https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/google-android-dev...
| snapcaster wrote:
| Of course it is, it's honestly insane how echo-chamber sites
| like this are where people only have the view of whats good
| for developers and/or nerds like us who want to sideload
| weird shit.
|
| As much as developers complain about the apple app store it's
| really completely fine for users and customers. Wanting a
| better revenue share with a supplier/partner/distributer is
| just normal business shit. The whole user freedom thing seems
| like distraction to me
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| So the solution that you propose to this "security problem" is
| to make sure all software is downloaded through the app store.
|
| ...the app store that requires AP devs to pay Apple 30%.
| That's... convenient.
|
| There is nothing wrong with using a package manager to
| guarantee the source of your software. That's what every major
| Linux distro has been doing since forever!
|
| The problem is that Apple gets to play dictator with their
| package manager, and vainly call any alternative (that doesn't
| pay them and cater to their politics) "a virus".
| mrguyorama wrote:
| This argument is null and void when "LassPass" passed app store
| review and was live for more than a day.
| menacingly wrote:
| This is a complicated issue. On the one hand, I tend to have a
| generally unfavorable view of apple. I don't like closed systems,
| oversimplified to the point of missing critical settings UX, etc.
|
| That said, I really don't understand the issue with their cut, or
| insisting on handling payments. In the vast majority of cases,
| these are not your customers. These are apple's customers they
| have given you access to.
|
| If the arguments were "these restrictions are so burdensome I
| can't be in the app store!", that's a different conversation. But
| they tend to be "I can access such an irresistible amount of
| customers via apple, I just wish I could take those benefits a la
| carte.
|
| It sucks, but you're living in an ecosystem they made appear out
| of thin air, clearly benefiting enough to experience what you're
| complaining about, and wishing the deal were more beneficial to
| you _after the work has been done_.
|
| Also, I do wonder if EU flies a little close to the sun with this
| stuff. You can't legislate that someone lose more money than they
| gain with access to your market. I'm not sure we're there on this
| one, but the patience can't be infinite.
| j-j-j-j wrote:
| Agreed. Apple has a full right to collect as much money as it
| can from users of the platform they've built and maintain.
|
| I wish the cut was more like 50%, to benefit my stocks, while
| I'm using exclusively FOSS and pay nothing.
|
| These devices are so shiny and great status symbol. I recommend
| everyone should be in Apple ecosystem and develop applications
| for it.
| agos wrote:
| I legit can't tell if this is satire - hats off if this was
| your intent
| e63f67dd-065b wrote:
| > That said, I really don't understand the issue with their
| cut, or insisting on handling payments. In the vast majority of
| cases, these are not your customers. These are apple's
| customers they have given you access to.
|
| This is not true at all. Netflix customers are _Netflix_
| customers, not Apple; the same goes for Amazon Kindle, Spotify,
| etc. Netflix literally cannot include a link to netflix.com in
| their app, otherwise Apple would pull the app from the store.
|
| The smaller the app, the more those users are Apple's
| customers. But obviously we don't want a world where we
| penalise small developers more than large ones, so that's not a
| solution either.
| graeme wrote:
| If you're a Netflix customer you just log into the app.
| There's no issue.
|
| The debate is around people who are Apple customers but not
| Netflix customers, and who download the Netflix app through
| the App Store.
| callalex wrote:
| I don't understand why I become the exclusive property of a
| specific corporation through the simple act of using a
| phone (which is something I am required to do in the modern
| day).
| CharlieDigital wrote:
| > through the simple act of using a phone
|
| Not just using it, but having paid for it.
| homarp wrote:
| and decided of paying Apple (for whatever reasons) and
| not any of the Android phones.
| threeseed wrote:
| Because you aren't their property. You just invented that
| straw man.
|
| And the simple act of using a phone is you making a
| conscious decision to agree to accept the terms and
| conditions that come with buying any product. You are in
| no way forced to and by supporting alternatives you help
| to change the market for everyone.
| withinboredom wrote:
| Where can I read the terms and conditions for my shoes?
| My pants? What about my vase I bought? Objects don't come
| with terms and conditions.
| hebrox wrote:
| I think an analogy could be made that you're walking into
| a market hall because they promoted it. The stall owners
| will be paying to be part of that. It's not that you're
| property of the market hall, but you're on their property
| and they will want to be paid.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| But you're not required to go on the App Store and
| discover apps like Netflix. Presumably you do that
| because the corporation built a nice App Store ecosystem
| where you want to do such a thing.
| turtlebits wrote:
| You buy a device knowing it's ecosystem is controlled by
| the manufacturer.
|
| When I buy a PS5, I understand that Sony 100% controls
| what games are offered on it.
| withinboredom wrote:
| My phone. Is uh, my phone. I'm not my phone's property.
| What crack are you smoking?
|
| For a PS5, it's quite a bit different. We all can agree
| that piracy got out of control back in the 90's/00's.
| This is the price we pay to have games. Our phones never
| had this problem.
| haswell wrote:
| > _This is not true at all_
|
| I think the trouble is that all of the above are true, but
| not _universally_ true. The issue can be framed from multiple
| perspectives depending on which aspect of market dynamics are
| most impactful to a given app /service/situation.
|
| Some developers build for the Apple ecosystem because the
| ecosystem is large and enticing and provides better
| opportunities than the alternatives.
|
| Some developers are big enough that they don't need the App
| Store to gain customers.
|
| If a new app gains popularity primarily _because_ of Apple,
| and eventually gets big enough that its origins are now
| immaterial to the ongoing success of the company, whose
| customers are they? There isn't a clear answer to this
| question. Arguably both Apple's and the app maker's, and
| there's an intrinsic codependency that can't be easily
| separated.
|
| I agree with your point about small devs. The question is: at
| what point does it become penalizing? Once the app reaches
| some threshold?
|
| The hard thing about this conversation is that I can see the
| merits of Apple's position while also agreeing that at times,
| the outcome feels "wrong", i.e. an existing product with an
| existing customer base seems like it shouldn't be so limited.
|
| But is it possible to provide a platform that enables this
| kind of developer ecosystem and app diversity combined with a
| consistent user experience without the at-face-value "wrong"
| outcomes? I don't know.
|
| This gets even murkier when apps rely heavily on Apple
| services for data storage, syncing, security, etc. It seems
| very fair to charge for "we've solved a lot of hard problems
| for you".
|
| It's an interesting situation that is often painted in terms
| that are far too simplistic.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| > If a new app gains popularity primarily because of Apple,
| and eventually gets big enough that its origins are now
| immaterial to the ongoing success of the company, whose
| customers are they? There isn't a clear answer to this
| question. Arguably both Apple's and the app maker's, and
| there's an intrinsic codependency that can't be easily
| separated.
|
| There _is_ a clear answer, as you yourself just said: they
| 're customers of both Apple (by virtue of having bought
| their hardware) and the app developer (by virtue of having
| bought their software). Those are distinct, separate
| relationships the customer has with two different
| companies. Apple doesn't _own_ those customers now and for
| all time just because they originally found the service
| through Apple 's app store! That's ridiculous.
| haswell wrote:
| I phrased that poorly. My point was that it isn't clear
| if there's a point at which the balance of the
| relationship shifts such that what was once reasonable
| (paying fees to Apple for access to their customers,
| among other things) is no longer reasonable.
|
| In the Netflix scenario, it's clear that Apple wasn't the
| primary source of customer acquisition. The scenario
| where an unknown app grows and gets big based on Apple's
| network effect highlights the complexity of the
| situation.
|
| > _Apple doesn 't own those customers now and for all
| time just because they originally found the service
| through Apple's app store!_
|
| I'm not saying that Apple _owns_ those customers. The
| pertinent question is what is or is not reasonable for
| them to charge and /or what restrictions are reasonable.
| The benefits of publishing in the App Store extend beyond
| just customer reach, and also involve Apple making good
| on the promises they've made to _their_ customers (With
| few exceptions, I personally won 't spend money on apps
| that use their own subscription mechanism, because I have
| no interest in cancellation hell). In addition to this,
| the vig covers access to platform capabilities and
| services that are arguably just as important as access to
| customers.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| I don't think we need to decide precisely what dollar
| amount is reasonable for Apple to charge for the use of
| their app store; that's something Apple and the app
| developers can negotiate between themselves. The problem
| is that Apple is currently allowed to use their software
| in a way that effectively _does_ give them ownership of
| your customers, and they 're able to use that ownership
| as leverage in any negotiations. Apple can say "pay up,
| otherwise _our_ customers won 't be allowed to access
| your service anymore, even if they want to, and
| regardless of what app store they use to purchase your
| services". If Apple couldn't do that then the
| negotiations would be more fair.
| haswell wrote:
| To be clear, I'm not a fan of Apple's vice grip here. But
| I also don't think I agree with this:
|
| > _in a way that effectively does give them ownership of
| your customers_
|
| Netflix and its users may find it annoying that anything
| related to subscriptions has to be danced around (I
| certainly do), but I don't think it's quite right to
| classify Apple's rules around directing users to
| subscription management features on the Netflix side as
| "ownership" of those customers.
|
| The restriction feels onerous, yes, but is something
| other than ownership. They are wielding the value of
| their marketplace as leverage, and it's this power that
| is (rightfully) under scrutiny.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| They're not _just_ wielding the value of their
| marketplace though. If that was all it was, then Netflix
| could threaten to distribute their application to Apple
| customers through a different marketplace as part of
| their negotiations. But users _aren 't allowed_ to
| install applications without going through Apple's
| marketplace. Apple does, in some limited sense, "own"
| those customers. That's the issue.
|
| The DMA tried to fix this, but failed because Apple just
| shifted to charging per install even for applications
| that _don 't_ use Apple's marketplace. And if you don't
| want to play by those rules, Apple won't sign your app
| and iPhones will refuse to allow your customers to
| install it. There's no alternative, other than to abandon
| your iPhone-using customers entirely.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| It is absolutely true. Apple doesn't take a cut from any of
| your examples EXCEPT if they make that payment through the
| app on their phone. If they redirect you to a website to
| subscribe, apple sees nothing. If your customers use the
| rails that apple has greased up FOR YOU then they take a cut.
| e63f67dd-065b wrote:
| I would agree with you if the app _could_ redirect you to a
| website to subscribe, but that 's explicitly against the
| rules and not currently possible. This wouldn't be an issue
| at all if a redirect is allowed, or even a sentence saying
| "please subscribe on our website". Both are currently
| banned and this banned is strictly enforced.
| Justsignedup wrote:
| The cut is too universal and not neuanced. If it was a 30% cut
| on profits, that would make sense, and everyone would grin but
| deal with it.
|
| But if you sell something for a 10% markup, having to give that
| + 20% to apple is bad. And now people ask "why do I have to pay
| more for your service on apple vs android". And now you're in a
| fun PR battle.
|
| In cases of say fortnight, there are real server costs
| involved. Not to mention dev costs. In cases of say music,
| there's licensing you pay. If you order food, you are already
| working in the margins.
|
| This makes competition vs big boys even harder. How can I
| compete vs netflix if any streaming service I make who doesn't
| have netflix's negotiation power has to pay 30% of every
| payment. I can't get close to netflix's price.
|
| The list goes on.
|
| The point is, it isn't just a grin and move on problem :(
| maratc wrote:
| > In cases of say fortnight, there are real server costs
| involved. Not to mention dev costs.
|
| In Fortnite, anyone can develop their own maps ("islands")
| and sell them, while Epic will pay them 40% of the revenue.
| Now could you please explain how the platform charging 60%
| platform fee are the good guys in their fight against the
| greedy platform charging 30% platform fee?
| joshstrange wrote:
| I agree with some of what you are saying but:
|
| > In cases of say fortnight, there are real server costs
| involved.
|
| They are selling digital coins, there is zero cost to
| "minting" these. It's not up to Apple to make your margins
| work. F2P works because some people pay and others don't, the
| ones who pay cover server costs for those who don't. I can
| promise you Fortnight was bringing in a ton of _profit_ even
| with Apple's 30% cut. Also "think of the people running
| digital casinos for kids" (re: lootboxes and the like) isn't
| a winning argument. In fact I think hosting all that crap is
| a blacker stain on Apple than taking 30%.
|
| > In cases of say music, there's licensing you pay.
|
| Totally fair, see also: ebooks/audiobooks/tv/movies.
|
| > If you order food, you are already working in the margins.
|
| Apple doesn't take a 30% cut here.
|
| > How can I compete vs netflix if any streaming service I
| make who doesn't have netflix's negotiation power has to pay
| 30% of every payment. I can't get close to netflix's price.
|
| Valid when it comes to Google who seem to have struck a
| number of deals with places like Spotify (see EPIC vs Google
| suit, and why Google lost) and while there were some backroom
| deals with Apple I believe it was only for the 15% which
| Apple eventually rolled out for all subscriptions in the
| second year.
| Someone wrote:
| > And now people ask "why do I have to pay more for your
| service on apple vs android". And now you're in a fun PR
| battle.
|
| Why do you pay more for coffee on a square in Paris than in
| an alleyway a few hundred meters from there? Because it's a
| place people want to be.
|
| > This makes competition vs big boys even harder. How can I
| compete vs netflix if any streaming service I make who
| doesn't have netflix's negotiation power has to pay 30% of
| every payment. I can't get close to netflix's price.
|
| It would be of little help because you need scale to compete
| with Netflix, but if anything, I would think the DMA helps
| with that. https://digital-markets-
| act.ec.europa.eu/legislation_en, article 6.12:
|
| _"12. The gatekeeper shall apply fair, reasonable, and non-
| discriminatory general conditions of access for business
| users to its software application stores, online search
| engines and online social networking services listed in the
| designation decision pursuant to Article 3(9)."_
|
| I think that means they could still give quantity discounts,
| but at least, you'd know you would get the same discounts
| Netflix gets, _if_ you manage to grow to their size. That's
| not a promise you had before.
| bradgessler wrote:
| "The Cut" is analogous to a cable package with 500 channels
| when all you want to do is watch 3 or 4 channels.
|
| I'd like to see Apple unbundle their take such that the maximum
| cut is 30% for devs who use all of the iCloud, dev, payment,
| and store for their apps. It's debatable, but I think this is
| reasonable for this type of dev.
|
| The problem is when I have an existing SaaS business with all
| that infrastructure already built--I don't need all of Apple's
| infra, so why should I have to pay for it? I'd have no problem
| paying Apple a % for listing and distributing through their App
| Store and processing payments.
|
| Unfortunately Apple is being very short sighted about this and
| consequently are being forced to unbundle by the EU and it's
| likely other countries will follow. That puts us in a situation
| where regulators are making these decisions instead of Apple,
| which is why I think we're going to be in for some very janky
| user experiences that Apple will try to pin on regulators.
| danielvaughn wrote:
| I see more symmetry in the relationship between Apple and
| developers. It's true the platform was created out of thin air,
| but without the apps in the app store, it's fair to say the
| iPhone would not have been nearly as successful. All the
| dedication and work that developers put into their platform has
| resulted in millions of applications available on their store -
| that's what gives it it's value. Obviously there's no "right"
| number, but I think 30% is way too steep.
| graeme wrote:
| If this is true, why does Android not set their pricing at
| 5-10% or less, get more developers and outcompete apple?
|
| Google would then pay apple less in search default fees to
| boot.
|
| Android has been losing market share to apple globally for
| nearly a decade, in particular amongst the richest, most
| valuable customers.
|
| Developers are very valuable to apple but the field isn't
| obviously unbalanced. The apple App Store is an incredibly
| profitable distribution system for developers.
| danShumway wrote:
| > If this is true, why does Android not set their pricing
| at 5-10% or less, get more developers and outcompete apple?
|
| You have discovered duopolies. It's not like Google isn't
| being sued for anti-competitive smartphone behavior right
| now.
|
| Okay to be fair, that's a somewhat dismissive answer, it is
| slightly more complicated. Google uses Android more as an
| advertising platform than as a product on its own. Their
| goals are slightly orthogonal to Apple's and taking full
| market share or capturing high-paying users (especially
| users who are advertising-adverse and prefer to pay for
| apps) is not necessarily the most important thing in the
| world to Google.
|
| As a point of reference, we're all fighting over the app
| store, but Google pays Apple more per-year to be the
| default search provider in Safari than Apple makes from the
| entire iOS app store in a year. All of the noise Apple has
| made... over less profit than they make with a single
| transaction from Google. This should tell you something
| about where Google's priorities lie and about whether or
| not the company really cares about seriously competing with
| iOS. Google is willing to expend enormous resources and to
| spend enormous amounts of money... about things they care
| about.
|
| Google gets enough developers to compete with iOS in
| general, they don't really need to do more. And because of
| that they'll charge what they can. Sure, maybe Google could
| do something radical and transform the market, but why
| would they? It's not what Google is here for, they're here
| to get your data and then advertise to you and Android is
| just one mechanism out of many that Google has to do that.
| oatmeal1 wrote:
| > These are apple's customers they have given you access to.
|
| What would happen if this had been the standard applied to
| Windows?
|
| > If the arguments were "these restrictions are so burdensome I
| can't be in the app store!", that's a different conversation.
| But they tend to be "I can access such an irresistible amount
| of customers via apple, I just wish I could take those benefits
| a la carte.
|
| For some developers, they are. The ones that are complaining
| about it are the ones still trying to be in the app store
| despite the burden.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> What would happen if this had been the standard applied to
| Windows?_
|
| Microsoft had no problem taking features from popular third
| party Windows applications and building them into their own
| products, basically stealing the third party developers'
| markets. That looks _worse_ to me than what Apple is doing.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Plese stop repeating this FUD in every reply on this
| thread, you already posted the exact same comment here[1]
| and here[2] as well, and I already explained you why it's
| false.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39348035
|
| [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39348077
| pdonis wrote:
| It's not FUD, it's historical fact. MS did exactly what I
| described, repeatedly. PG even commented about it in one
| of his essays years ago (his comment was that you could
| invest a lot in developing a third party Windows
| application and then find out you were just doing market
| research for Microsoft).
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Then please post some source for your historical facts.
|
| Plus, Apple did the exact same things.
| pdonis wrote:
| Here's the pg article I referred to:
|
| https://paulgraham.com/road.html
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Who went bankrupt in that article?
| __loam wrote:
| This dude was so offended by your comment he replied
| twice lol.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> I explained you why it 's false._
|
| No, you explained that Apple has done the same thing.
| That doesn't mean MS didn't do what I said or that it
| didn't have a huge impact on third party Windows devs.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> or that it didn 't have a huge impact on third party
| Windows devs._
|
| Was the impact on Windows devs worse than Apple's impact
| over iOS devs?
| agos wrote:
| as an EU developer, I'll offer you two points to help you see
| why developers are not happy (euphemism).
|
| - I was working on an app for both healthcare professionals
| (paying customers) and their patients (the app was free for
| them). At the same time we could not have sign up for the
| doctors - Apple would like 30% of the subscription fee for the
| honor of hosting the client and its updates on their servers,
| but also Apple insisted vehemently that everybody should be
| able to sign up for the service, even if we insisted that we
| needed to check on their credentials (i.e. if they had a degree
| in medicine). We had to explain this multiple times to app
| review people as they kept on coming back to the same points.
| On the patient side, we were able to add payments to the
| doctors as luckily an exception had just been granted for use
| cases like that - up until then, Apple would have required 30%
| of the doctor's payment as well. We were still VERY on our
| toes, because the whole process felt like Apple at any time
| could change the rules and put us in the situation of paying a
| lot of money, drastically change our business model, or just
| shut down/lose tons of customer. While this might be
| technically legal, is not exactly a great business partnership.
|
| - These rules have giant exceptions for big companies who pay a
| lot less or are not subject to the same level of scrutiny as
| smaller app makers. This feels incredibly unfair.
| rossjudson wrote:
| Very interesting example, and solid motivation for a
| regulatory framework. It _makes sense_ for doctors and
| patients to be able to communicate through apps, and it makes
| sense for some aspects (even payments) to be conducted
| through them.
|
| I really don't know what the right solution is overall, but I
| _am_ sure that having large numbers of one-off negotiations
| is not the right way to solve it.
| bjornsing wrote:
| I very much agree, especially about the last part. These terms
| may seem like a "slap in the face", but when you think a bit
| more about it: The EU themselves are 100% about "protecting
| consumers". For example, the EU has made it illegal for my
| broker to let me buy US ETFs, because the prospectus is not
| available in Swedish(!). From that standpoint, how can you
| argue that it's wrong for Apple to show a warning before
| letting a consumer send off their credit card details to a
| third party? And apparently that warning sign will cost most
| app developers more than the Apple tax (as they lose 50% of
| potential customers). Seems like a fair tax then.
|
| But I think it's also fair to note that there are app
| developers to whom these arguments do not apply. For example I
| was a Spotify customer long before I installed the Spotify app
| on my phone, and I don't mind them having my credit card
| details.
|
| EDIT: For clarity.
| beacon294 wrote:
| An open iPhone compatible is probably the answer here.
| standardUser wrote:
| Why would anyone downvote this? Would love an explanation.
| Why not let Apple keep building their wall higher and higher
| but also let other's emulate and create interoperable
| alternatives. The best of all worlds.
| nprateem wrote:
| Because it's divorced from reality. In no world will
| volunteers maintain parity with a trillion dollar hardware
| and software company covered by a multitude of patents.
| beacon294 wrote:
| Is this a joke? I was obviously calling back both to PC
| compatibles and UNIX compatibles. Both open systems have
| completely dominated the closed systems. It is obvious
| that Apple is doing everything to prevent this.
| gradschool wrote:
| Another explanation is that it's too radical of an idea
| even for HN. I see no reason a judge in a hypothetical
| anti-trust case against Apple couldn't give it a choice
| between ceasing operations and open sourcing its whole
| technology stack.
| standardUser wrote:
| > These are apple's customers they have given you access to.
|
| More like Apple's hostages if Apple gets to dictate who does
| and does not have access to them.
| doublepg23 wrote:
| These users can't buy an Android phone?
| standardUser wrote:
| Why can't other companies emulate iOS?
| menacingly wrote:
| Why can't they build it?
| threeseed wrote:
| They can: https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/IO
| S_emulators
|
| The issue is trying to make a business out of it.
| smoldesu wrote:
| The issue is violating Apple trademarks. Apple vs
| Corellium ended with Corellium successfully arguing Fair
| Use on a novel iOS emulator that they sold to
| researchers. Apple's only protected trademarks were for
| the wallpaper and icon art.
|
| Conditionally, you are allowed to make a business out of
| selling iOS emulators.
|
| > As to count one, we agree that Corellium is shielded by
| the fair use doctrine. First, Corellium's virtualization
| software is trans-formative--it furthers scientific
| progress by allowing security re-search into important
| operating systems. Second, iOS is functional operating
| software that falls outside copyright's core. Third, Co-
| rellium didn't overhelp itself to Apple's software. And
| fourth, Co-rellium's product does not substantially harm
| the market for iOS or iOS derivatives--so Apple's own
| incentive to innovate remains strong.
|
| https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-
| courts/ca11/2...
| the_solenoid wrote:
| I like your takes on this.
|
| To me, theres two issues:
|
| 1) this push is all driven by big businesses looking to just
| get free money for nothing, which is why I worry that the EU is
| so taken up with it.
|
| 2) taxes, is you want to line apples 30% up with those, are
| just part of business. No, you cant write off the 30%, but if
| you want to keep adding 250million new phones to your potential
| customer base every year.... wtf, pay up and be happy? To be
| fair, taxes arent the same - taxes take money out of an
| economic system usually based on economic activity to make
| currency actually worth something. But they kind of are the
| same in that they keep the infrastructure that lets you reach
| customers going.
|
| I guess we can move to the windows model and place the burden
| on the customers, pay your $99/yr for updates or whatever, but
| then youd have ... like no one buy the phone.
|
| Apples stance is - if you generate economic activity on the
| phone, you should have to pay to upkeep the roads that keep the
| phone working. I am sure Apple and MS would love to do this
| with desktop, but the ship sailed on that ages ago, and
| probably wouldnt have ever worked.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> I am sure Apple and MS would love to do this with desktop,
| but the ship sailed on that ages ago, and probably wouldnt
| have ever worked._
|
| Charging third party app developers never worked on the
| desktop, but Microsoft had a lot of success with building the
| key features of popular third party Windows applications into
| their own products, thus taking away the third party
| developers' markets. Which is worse for the third party
| developer than just having to pay a fee or a percentage.
| dudeinhawaii wrote:
| You've posted this same strawman like 5 times in the
| comment threads. How about sticking to the thread you were
| on and debating the push-back others have made? Is this a
| new astroturfing strategy?
|
| If both Apple and other companies have engaged in taking
| away a 3P developer market by building their product
| features into their own, then what is the point of your
| whataboutism? You're trying to imply that paying a fee is
| better than having your product copied -- when in fact the
| comparison is 'pay a fee AND risk product copy/delisting'
| vs 'no fee, no delisting, risk product copying'. Stop
| trying to obfuscate.
| cedilla wrote:
| > 1) this push is all driven by big businesses looking to
| just get free money for nothing, which is why I worry that
| the EU is so taken up with it.
|
| Do you just assume that? Because in the article, two
| decidedly small businesses are mentioned as leading the
| charge: Tuta and Proton. Not exactly friends of big business
| either.
| lozenge wrote:
| The difference is taxes are set and disbursed democratically.
| Apple taxes are whatever they want them to be and are
| disbursed according to their board.
|
| Heck they could introduce a tax on Amazon deliveries when
| Amazon is installed through the Apple App Store and nobody
| would be able to do anything about it. Except the EU that is.
| gretch wrote:
| > nobody would be able to do anything about it
|
| Just don't use an iPhone. And Amazon - just don't put an
| app on the iOS store.
|
| I mean it really is that simple. If customers actually
| cared about any of this stuff they would just switch. If
| there was enough demand another competitor would emerge
| (windows phone, black berry, foss)
| danShumway wrote:
| > In the vast majority of cases, these are not your customers.
| These are apple's customers they have given you access to.
|
| This is just such a radically different way thinking about
| platforms than the way that I think about them. It's like
| saying that I owe Facebook for the privilege of talking to my
| college friends because "they're not my friends, they're
| Facebook's users and I've been given access to them."
|
| It's hard for me to debate something like this because it's
| just so fundamentally incompatible with my basic axioms about
| how interactions work online. The idea that platforms own their
| users is just not how I see the world.
|
| > It sucks, but you're living in an ecosystem they made appear
| out of thin air, clearly benefiting enough to experience what
| you're complaining about, and wishing the deal were more
| beneficial to you _after the work has been done_.
|
| If every single developer jumped ship off of iOS, iOS would
| stop existing. We only have to look at Windows Phone to
| understand what the difference is between a platform with
| developer support and a platform without developer support.
|
| The reality is that Apple and developers have a mutually
| beneficial relationship and they are more like partners than
| customers. If Netflix, Disney+, Facebook, etc all stopped
| working on iOS, iOS users would jump to Android. Heck, look at
| the most recent Vision Pro launch, in which I saw users
| complaining that Apple even gave iPad developers the choice at
| all of whether or not their apps would be supported on the new
| device. The users want the apps.
|
| So this is something that users care about, and users pay Apple
| handsomely for the privilege of accessing developers on iOS.
| That doesn't mean developers should pay literally nothing, but
| this is a _relationship_. The argument that developers are just
| customers always strikes me as vaguely Comcast-y -- saying that
| Net Neutrality is unfair and that websites are leeches if they
| don 't pay for network access. No, your customers are there
| because of us. Customers are paying for access to a service
| that allows them to access the stuff that they actually care
| about -- apps, movies, books, the ability to talk to their
| friends, the ability to transact online, the ability to browse
| websites. And this gets back to the disagreement on axioms
| above, but to treat those customers primarily as if they're
| just resources to be locked down and resold for even more
| profit -- I just don't think it's a healthy place for a
| platform to be in.
|
| > It sucks, but you're living in an ecosystem they made appear
| out of thin air
|
| Funnily enough, iOS launched without an app store entirely on
| the promise of using web apps for all of its functionality. We
| weren't using the term PWA back then, but it's notable how
| different iOS's approach to application development is today
| than what it was when iOS launched. And notable for Apple's
| continued direction as the company appears to be actively
| _reducing_ PWA functionality in Europe in response to increased
| browser access.
|
| What we have on the web is effectively what Apple hates -- a
| completely Open, device-agnostic ecosystem of apps that is much
| more difficult for any one company to lock down or extract rent
| from. But Apple didn't always hate that principle, when iOS
| originally launched they were all for it; and in fact Apple
| looked at the web as a key strategy in differentiating their
| devices -- by offering developers a way to target their devices
| without development kits, exhaustive agreements, or
| commissions.
|
| Over time that became less valuable to Apple, and it became
| increasingly important for Apple to distinguish between web
| capabilities and native capabilities.
|
| Is that change fair, are they entitled to do it? I don't know,
| but it's not the direction I want the computing industry to go.
| How we deal with Apple's increasingly hostile approach to Open
| Standards, user freedoms, and market competition is an open
| question, but it seems clear to me that we should be trying to
| deal with it at the point where Apple is threatening to go
| backwards on web standards in response to regulation that opens
| them up to browser and ecosystem competition.
| menacingly wrote:
| (I honestly wish I could so clearly order my thoughts in
| writing like you have done here)
|
| That it is mutually beneficial is sort of my point. If every
| developer jumped ship, iOS would be in trouble. But they
| won't. They absolutely will not. It's a humorous
| hypothetical. So I'm not the only one viewing the platform
| users as an asset. So is everyone clamoring to reach them.
|
| It's not being an evil monopoly merely to have built the most
| desirable thing. Android exists today. It doesn't have
| anywhere near the access to the people who spend money. Apple
| spent decades cultivating that access, and they're in an
| extremely strong position because of it.
|
| I hate the app store, it's a lazy mess. I hate Apple's
| deliberate crippling of the open web to stifle competition.
| That's probably far more fruitful ground for legislative
| action. But setting a price for what you can choose to either
| buy or not buy from them seems wildly within the bounds of
| what they're allowed to do.
| lozenge wrote:
| >It's not being an evil monopoly merely to have built the
| most desirable thing.
|
| Yes it is. Look at Visa and MasterCard. Even if there was
| no anti competitive practices (which I don't know), we
| wouldn't want them to take 6% of every retail transaction.
| So the EU set a limit, I think 0.5%.
|
| Otherwise, the rentier corporations would extract a lot of
| wealth from the economy, instead of the productive class
| (like manufacturing, services, farming, etc).
| curt15 wrote:
| >In the vast majority of cases, these are not your customers.
| These are apple's customers they have given you access to.
|
| Unless I am misreading somehow, this is an unusual position.
| Software developers don't sell their software to Apple. They
| sell to the end users. Unless an intermediary rebrands the
| software and takes ownership of customer acquisition and
| support, software users are the customers of the software
| developers.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> software users are the customers of the software
| developers_
|
| Yes, but the users are also customers of the owner of the
| software _platform_ that the developers are developing for.
| And the owner of the platform gets to set the platform 's
| rules. Microsoft's standard practice for many years was to
| watch for which third party Windows applications were
| becoming popular, and build those features into one of their
| own products, thus cutting the market out from under the
| third party developer. I'm actually surprised that Apple
| hasn't done more of that.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Except Apple did exactly what you just said Microsoft did
| to third party devs, and then also banned their apps off
| the appstore to boot because they do what their OS now does
| out of the box, like the famous keyboard for the Apple
| Watch.[1]
|
| At least Microsoft can't ever ban you from selling Windows
| apps since you're not forced to use their store to sell to
| Windows users. Apple's grip of the iOS AppStore can be a
| poison pill for many devs who's livelyhood depends on
| Apple's automatic ML ban hammer and arbitrary rules which
| can change as they see fit with no warning.
|
| https://www.verdict.co.uk/apple-watch-keyboard-app-
| store/?cf...
| pdonis wrote:
| _> At least Microsoft can 't ever ban you from selling
| Windows apps_
|
| True; but that also means third parties can lose even
| _more_ when MS pulls the rug out from under them. The
| developer of the third party keyboard app you refer to
| said, according to the article you referenced, that they
| lost a year of revenue. Some third party Windows devs
| were forced into bankruptcy.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| So according to you, Apple's copying an app then banning
| that developer's app off the Appstore is better than
| Microsoft's copying an app's features while still
| allowing it to be sold, because in Apple's documented
| case one developer lost "only" a year of revenue, while
| in your imaginary Microsoft example, a company we don't
| know of went bankrupt?
|
| You're just a gift that keeps on giving. How do you come
| up with this reasoning?
| pdonis wrote:
| _> copying an app then banning that developer 's app off
| the Appstore is better than copying an app's features
| while allowing it to be sold?_
|
| I said no such thing. I said, by implication, that losing
| a year's revenue, but still having a functioning company,
| is better than being forced into bankruptcy.
|
| Also, that in no way means that causing a third party app
| developer to lose a year's revenue is not a bad thing to
| do. Of course it is.
|
| However, in both cases, the root cause is that the owner
| of the platform wants to run their platform in a way that
| third party devs don't like. And ultimately, unless the
| _users_ of the platform care enough to _force_ the
| platform owner to change, third party devs are simply
| going to be out of luck. It sucks, but that 's the fact.
| Third party Windows apps today are for things that MS
| doesn't care enough about to implement themselves,
| because Windows users don't _care_ that third party devs
| get a raw deal. Third party iOS apps are going to end up
| the same way, unless iOS _users_ start to care about the
| sucky position third party devs are in. Which, as far as
| I can tell, they don 't.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Who was force into bankruptcy? You're just making stuff
| up at this point for a strawman argument.
|
| Apple's walled garden can more easily force you into
| bankruptcy though since you have no alternative way to
| distribute iOS apps to customers, therefore your revenue
| stream can be cut off without warning. Just because that
| one dev in that example didn't go bankrupt, doesn't prove
| your argument.
|
| Meanwhile, Microsoft can't stop you from distributing
| apps on Windows, even though you're clawing to some made
| up strawman that they can make you bankrupt. You can
| still sell your apps just fine on your own website and
| people can easily pay you, download it and install it
| without Microsoft's permission since you can do whatever
| you want with that os, just like on MacOS.
|
| I have no idea how you can argue the latter app
| distribution model is worse than the walled garden one,
| just through two anecdotal examples.
| riversflow wrote:
| > At least Microsoft can't ever ban you from selling
| Windows apps since you're not forced to use their store
| to sell to Windows users
|
| Ha. Oh no, virtually complete piracy protection, whatever
| will developers do.
| pflats wrote:
| Suppose an author uploads their book to ExamplePrint Inc, a
| one stop shop that prints made-to-order books for customers.
|
| The reader goes to ExamplePrint and buys the book.
|
| ExamplePrint prints a softcover copy of the book on the spot
| and ships it out to the reader.
|
| The user pays ExamplePrint, who pays the author some fraction
| of the user's money.
|
| The reader is a customer of ExamplePrint and reading the
| author's book.
|
| This is the analogy Apple would like to use for their app
| store. Apple's print time is almost instantaneous and the
| marginal costs are closer to zero.
| MilaM wrote:
| Nice analogy. The problem is, that ExamplePrint is the only
| shop the author can use to reach his customers. There is
| also PrintExample (Android), but it's customer base has
| zero overlap with ExamplePrint. Therefore the author has no
| choice but to use ExamplePrint's service.
| ametrau wrote:
| 30% is just too much and they don't give anything near enough
| value for devs or App Store consumers.
| menacingly wrote:
| Traditionally, when faced with something that isn't a good
| deal, you don't buy it.
| LtWorf wrote:
| But they kick developers that show the users how much apple
| is taking. How can people judge if it's a good deal or not
| if they don't even know what the deal is?
| Scarblac wrote:
| > You can't legislate that someone lose more money than they
| gain with access to your market.
|
| What? Of course they can. That someone will then just leave the
| market, or maybe change their product more. But there is
| absolutely no reason why they can't.
| menacingly wrote:
| Yeah, I meant that to be the implication of the sentence, at
| some point folks take their ball and go home, and we have to
| see weeks of trending hashtags about the injustice done to
| Europe
| brightball wrote:
| Jason Fried (Basecamp) really explained this in great detail
| recently.
|
| https://twitter.com/jasonfried/status/1743421673871929723
| burnerthrow008 wrote:
| The main thrust of his argument seems to be that developers
| should be able to engage in price discrimination. That's cool
| and all, but it seems anti-competitive to me as a customer. I
| don't want to pay more just because I don't have time to
| write each developer and beg for a discount. Remember, Amazon
| famously had to back down from advertising different prices
| to Americans in urban and rural areas due to customer
| backlash.
|
| While I partially sympathize with the ostensible desire to be
| able to offer great customer service under the guise of
| refunds for unexpected downtime in SaaS apps, it's hard to
| see how this won't be abused by developers: Won't every app
| just offer App Store refunds to convert customers to 3rd
| party payment?
|
| I suspect that's the actual reason these things are wanted. I
| completely understand that many people think 30% is too high
| (and maybe it is!), but it's hard to see how 0% isn't too
| low.
|
| What would be his reaction if Apple enabled all these
| customer service options he supposedly wants, but at a cost
| to the developer? For example, a code for first-responders to
| download the app for free, but the developer still pays 20%
| of the store price. Or a customer refund, where Apple keeps
| 20% instead of 30%. After all, it's not about the money, but
| actually about offering great customer service. So he'd go
| for that, right?
| brightball wrote:
| The thing is, why should you have to pay extra to offer
| better customer service?
|
| With a product like Hey, you're signing up for their email
| service. You might use that service on your desktop, web
| browser, Android phone or iPhone. It's more than a little
| nuts on Apple's part to try to force a product like that
| through the iPhone system, especially because if I start
| using an email account I'm going to continue using it
| whether I have an iPhone or not.
|
| Should Microsoft get a cut if I connect to my email account
| through a desktop app?
|
| The mobile app is merely 1 of many interfaces to the
| service. In Jason's case, he's arguing that they are setup
| to run a business to offer service to their customers...all
| of their customers. Apple forcing him to fracture his users
| into iPhone vs everybody else is just bad business before
| you factor in any cut at all.
| summerlight wrote:
| > That said, I really don't understand the issue with their
| cut, or insisting on handling payments. In the vast majority of
| cases, these are not your customers. These are apple's
| customers they have given you access to.
|
| This looks like a very interesting argument. When you retain
| full control on access to a specifically defined set of
| customers (or relevant market), we call it monopoly. You should
| never have such a single powerful entity in a properly
| regulated, successful free market.
| 015a wrote:
| I think there's a lot of nuance in this situation.
|
| First: the most vocal developers really do not care about
| Apple's "ecosystem invented out of thin air". They just need to
| be where their customers are, wherever their customers are. The
| Spotify's, the Google's, the Netflix's, etc. The users who
| leverage the iPhone to access their Spotify subscription _are
| Spotify customers_ , not only Apple customers. My relationship
| with Spotify pre-dates my relationship with Apple. I signed up
| for Paramount Plus due to a Superbowl Ad, not due to some
| contorted funnel which Apple, believing themselves to be the
| center of the universe, have inserted themselves into.
|
| If I could download these applications directly from the
| suppliers: I would. And, in fact, I do so, on Windows, on
| Linux, and even on Apple's own MacOS.
|
| The cognitive dissonance I can't reconcile among advocates for
| Apple's side is: simultaneously saying "Apple built this
| ecosystem, they deserve to tax it however they will" and "If
| you don't like it just go to Android". Ignoring the obvious
| problem that a duopoly is only marginally better than a
| monopoly: one of these has to be a weird argument, right?
| Either the ecosystems are not so-fungible as to be
| interchangeable for the purposes of marketplace competition;
| or, what Apple created isn't unique, it _is_ fungible, and they
| shouldn 't get as much credit as they have.
|
| I trend toward the latter; I don't believe what Apple has
| created is all that special. I think their App Review does
| vanishingly little to improve the functional security of their
| end-users. Their software technology is almost universally
| crappy, especially when speaking on anything developers have to
| interface with. The next few years will prove even their
| hardware to be un-special, if it isn't already. They've built
| what they've built on the shoulders of giants. AT&T built a
| nationwide fiber network "out of thin air". Verizon built a
| nationwide 5G UWB network "out of thin air". TSMC builds state-
| of-the-art chips "out of thin air". The open source community
| built FreeBSD "out of thin air". Slack and Spotify built their
| application experiences "out of thin air". If even _one_ of
| these entities didn 't exist, or made the decision to stop
| dealing with Apple's unique ecosystem, Apple would face an
| existential risk. If Slack wasn't on the iPhone: I wouldn't buy
| an iPhone. If iPhones did not work with Verizon: I would not
| buy an iPhone. The list goes on.
|
| Just think on that for a second: should AT&T have the right to
| say "our fiber backbone won't carry traffic generated by iPhone
| endpoint devices"? "Ultimately Apple is gaining unfairly access
| to _our_ customers ". "They represent a security threat to
| _our_ customers ". That would be insane! If its even possible,
| it would literally overnight destroy Apple as a company. So
| then it becomes, where do you draw the line? Why is it
| "obviously not ok" for AT&T to do that to Apple, but "eh its
| complicated" for Apple to do that to Epic Games?
|
| Your argument is that this is an Ayn Randian situation where
| Apple put in the work to win over these customers, and now devs
| want a free lunch. I get that. My argument is: Apple would not
| exist today without the giants shoulders they stand on, Spotify
| (as an example) is a _material reason_ why they 're so
| successful, to whatever degree, and their insolence in
| admitting this isn't just morally wrong; its psychotically
| egotistical. This is, generally, the argument against _all_ Ayn
| Randian philosophy; its not new ground, this is why Ayn Rand
| isn 't _really_ respected as an philosopher, and why her
| arguments also don 't work in Apple's case.
| jebronie wrote:
| It is actually the ISPs who give Apple access to their
| customers. ISPs should charge Apple a 30% fee on every
| transaction their customer makes on the app store.
| math_dandy wrote:
| > That said, I really don't understand the issue with their
| cut, or insisting on handling payments. In the vast majority of
| cases, these are not your customers. These are apple's
| customers they have given you access to.
|
| Windows users aren't viewed as Microsoft's customers from the
| point of view of third party software. Same with MacOS. Apple
| has pushed this paradigm in iOS because it's ludicrously
| profitable.
|
| Controlling the evolution of a ubiquitous computing platform
| gives a company a huge amount of power. Add to that the power
| to control any commercial transaction performed on that
| platform is simply too much concentration of power.
| sib wrote:
| "Windows" didn't sell them a computer. Microsoft sold an OS
| to - for example - Dell, who then sold a computer to the
| user. So they are Dell's customers. And Dell, for sure,
| earned a lot of money selling placement on the Home Screen
| (or pre-installation) to 3P app developers. (Of course, there
| are also computers such as the Microsoft Surface, but these
| represent a tiny fraction of the universe of Windows
| computers ever sold...)
|
| Whereas Apple sold the user a phone, so the users are clearly
| Apple's customers. There is an argument that they are also
| the 3P app developer's customers, but there should be no
| debate about the fact that they are Apple's customers, using
| a platform developed by Apple. If 3P app developers want to
| access Apple's customers on a platform developed by Apple,
| then they should expect to play by Apple's rules...
|
| (And no, I never worked for Apple. In fact, I have worked
| both for Google and for multiple 3P app developers who were
| subject to the so-called Apple Tax.)
| jimkoen wrote:
| > If 3P app developers want to access Apple's customers on
| a platform developed by Apple, then they should expect to
| play by Apple's rules...
|
| That whole argument is based on the implicit assumption
| that Apple's products would still be as attractive to
| consumers as they are right now, even if they didn't allow
| 3rd party developers access to their platform. Which is a
| completely insane take, like literally pathologically
| insane, you-should-get-professional-help take for me to
| swallow.
| 015a wrote:
| Absolutely true. I know of one younger guy who used to
| have an iPhone, but switched to Android after the
| Fortnite debacle. This happens. Having _fewer_
| experiences on your mobile platform will _never_ gain you
| more customers. Fortnite isn 't big enough to move
| significant numbers alone, but if you include other third
| party developers Apple loves egotistically slighting,
| Spotify, Netflix, Microsoft, etc: Apple would not exist
| if they collectively decided to abandon Apple's
| platforms. They have given FAR, FAR MORE to Apple than
| Apple has given to them; its so lopsided anyone who
| thinks otherwise isn't thinking straight.
|
| These devs aren't doing this, by and large, today,
| because its not in their business interest to do so. But:
| capitalism is an efficiency maximizer. Software has lower
| margins today than it ever has, and they're only getting
| lower. The market simply cannot support 30% taxes
| forever; it'll happen one-by-one, its _already_ happening
| one-by-one. Apple 's choice is: Get ahead of it, find a
| better more efficient path for developers to distribute
| on their platforms; or watch their platforms become
| boring places where no one can possibly leverage their
| extremely bad and proprietary technology to make money,
| and "apps" only make sense for gigacorporations to
| distribute as a value-add for their web apps.
| 015a wrote:
| 1. Microsoft _does_ sell users a computer. Sometimes.
| Surface devices represent about 10% of all desktop
| computers.
|
| 2. Apple also sells Macs, where developers can access
| "Apple's customers" unencumbered, without needing to play
| by Apple's rules (developers may also opt-in to a lower-
| form of "playing by Apple's rules" by submitting their apps
| to Apple for notarization, or naturally, they may also opt-
| in to the Full Rules by distributing through the App Store.
| This is a fantastic, multi-tiered system that _works_ ,
| obviously, well enough for everyone.)
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> Surface devices represent about 10% of all desktop
| computers._
|
| Really, Surface has THAT MUCH?! I honestly doubt it. I
| think I've only seen 4-6 surface devices in the wild in
| my life(in Europe). Maybe in the US they have 10% market
| share.
| buildfocus wrote:
| > Dell, for sure, earned a lot of money selling placement
| on the Home Screen (or pre-installation) to 3P app
| developers.
|
| Selling default placement & promotion is a very different
| beast from "Dell only allows Dell-approved software on Dell
| computers". We can all agree the latter would have been
| terrible in many ways.
|
| > If 3P app developers want to access Apple's customers on
| a platform developed by Apple, then they should expect to
| play by Apple's rules...
|
| Strongly disagree. Customers and developers should be free
| to transact using their own devices as they please, without
| Apple involved. Apple is very welcome to offer services for
| money - access to the app store, support services, and
| promotion etc all make perfect sense.
|
| The end result of everybody on the path from the user to
| the developer adding rules & taking a cut is a world that
| blocks digital innovation entirely and completely
| hamstrings the software industry.
| Terretta wrote:
| Better comparison is Steam, on an ostensibly open Windows,
| and costing the same for a developer to access as Apple (in
| fact arguably costs more).
|
| This would suggest the "Apple tax" on devs is less than the
| Steam tax on devs, despite Gog or whatever existing.
| pimterry wrote:
| > In the vast majority of cases, these are not your customers.
| These are apple's customers they have given you access to.
|
| This is problematic argument, that imo we should not accept in
| _any_ commercial context.
|
| * Are people browsing the web on an iPhone Apple's customers,
| and therefore 30% of web sales should be collected too?
|
| * If you use Comcast to access the internet, are you Comcast's
| customer? They're giving the retailer access to your traffic,
| so they should take a cut of every online purchase?
|
| * Should your headphones take a cut of all music streaming
| revenue, and refuse to play non-compliant music?
|
| * Should your TV take a cut from every video stream provider
| they allow to show video to their customers?
|
| There is significant value to society in general-purpose
| devices & services, where the user pays for something concrete,
| and can then use it with any 3rd party provider in any way they
| like.
|
| That principle has been a key driver of digital innovation for
| decades, and allowing it to disappear would be a Very Bad
| Thing.
| c0balt wrote:
| > * Should your headphones take a cut of all music streaming
| revenue, and refuse to play non-compliant music?
|
| The RIIA Speakers, they only work with certified music
| software and automatically redirect a proportional a cut of
| your subscription payment to labels. /s
| jimkoen wrote:
| > These are apple's customers they have given you access to.
|
| Insane take imo. I'm baffled how people can write this out with
| a straight face.
|
| Just one counter example to the relationship you described: In
| Europe, if my app does not deliver as advertised, it is the
| customer that can sue me. Directly. They don't sue Apple
| because my app is in their app store, they obviously sue me,
| because I am the service provider.
|
| > Also, I do wonder if EU flies a little close to the sun with
| this stuff. You can't legislate that someone lose more money
| than they gain with access to your market.
|
| Watch us and learn.
|
| Apart from that, I think this is blowing things out of
| proportion: Apple hasn't offered any calculation at how they
| arrive at the 0.50c installation fee, but I'm sure were going
| to get some insight once the first lawsuits at the CJEU roll
| in.
| riversflow wrote:
| >I'm baffled how people can write this out with a straight
| face.
|
| I would 100% buy an iPhone with no appstore, it would still
| be better as a smartphone than my Samsung with F-Droid and
| Google Play Store.
| realusername wrote:
| > In the vast majority of cases, these are not your customers.
| These are apple's customers they have given you access to.
|
| I have the exact opposite point of view, they are my customers
| and Apple is simply a middleware which is blocking access to
| them.
|
| They only get their cut through very questionable and
| borderline illegal practices as seen in the EU.
|
| Maybe if they had to actually justify their cut in a real
| market, they would improve the sad state of their dev tools,
| that could start to somehow justify the cuts.
|
| Notice that they forbid any display of the Apple tax anywhere,
| that could be a marketing issue if Apple customers start to
| understand what's going on.
| __loam wrote:
| It's completely ridiculous that this is where the conversation
| surrounding who can install software on hardware you own is.
| LtWorf wrote:
| > Also, I do wonder if EU flies a little close to the sun with
| this stuff. You can't legislate that someone lose more money
| than they gain with access to your market.
|
| This makes no sense. If you were right there would be no
| android phones sold in europe because the conditions are so bad
| for the manufacturer. That, however, doesn't seem to match with
| reality at all.
| surgical_fire wrote:
| > These are apple's customers they have given you access to.
|
| Absolutely not.
|
| Let me give you a hypothetical example - I pay for Jetbrain
| Ultimate. I use it in the MacBook for work. If OSX was as
| closed as iOS, I would magically turn into Apple's customer?
|
| They are just the OS I am using (not even my own choice).
| dwallin wrote:
| > You can't legislate that someone lose more money than they
| gain with access to your market.
|
| Apple would offer an app store in some form even if they were
| statutorily prevented from making any revenue from it because
| if they turned off the ability to install apps people would
| abandon iPhones in droves.
| retskrad wrote:
| We can talk about the morality of Apple's App Store tax on
| developers all day but Apple is not a monopoly and they have all
| the right in the world to tax developers. We have to realize that
| Apple has most of the worlds middle class and rich people using
| iPhones. Apple can use this this advantage how ever they like as
| long it's not breaking any laws.
|
| If developers are mad about it then they need to band together
| like any other industry and lobby for changing the law or create
| unions. The changing the law part is incredibly difficult thing
| to do because Apple is not a monopoly. How can you write a law
| that punishes a business that isn't a monopoly? Apple is only
| saying, in order to access out wealthy customers, you need to pay
| a fee. I don't see how you can tell Apple that they're doing some
| nefarious here.
| downWidOutaFite wrote:
| So Android is the best thing that happened to the iPhone but
| the worst thing that happened to developers and users.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| > not a monopoly
|
| So what percentage of humanity do they have to gatekeep before
| you will be willing to consider them a problem?
|
| Apple is anticompetitive, and that's what matters. Arguing that
| it's technically not a "monopoly" and therefore A-OK is
| ridiculous.
| roamerz wrote:
| Just wow. Good for Apple! I DO want IOS to remain a walled garden
| as such. Look how many clicks those pesky do good gov regulators
| have a cost the world with those annoying "Yes I accept your damn
| cookies and privacy policy" on every website I visit.
|
| Writing apps for IOS is a completely voluntary job where you know
| the terms before you start. Don't like it? Don't write it -or-
| just pass on the cost to the consumers.
|
| Quit complaining about the noise when you bought a house next to
| an airport.
| snapcaster wrote:
| I agree, all these moves to open iOS are from some of the
| biggest pushers of enshittification. The walled garden is great
| for me, and all sideloading will do is open up new attack
| vectors for me (and more importantly, the tech ignorant people
| i care about).
|
| I understand the corporate actors pushing for this out of self
| interest, but all of the bystanders cheering this on annoy me.
| You already have android, linux phones, etc. etc. Can't you
| just leave us alone in our walled garden and stick with android
| or linux or whatever?
| boolemancer wrote:
| How does opening up the walled garden impact you if you never
| side load anything?
| LtWorf wrote:
| It's the same for people who want homosexuality to be
| forbidden. It's not enough for themselves to not be
| homosexual, they also have to force their faith onto
| others.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| This is a ridiculous analogy. Surely you can acknowledge
| that there may be _some_ kind of security concern -
| warranted or not - for opening up sideloading on iOS,
| without casting aspersions on the GP being some kind of
| closeted bigot.
| LtWorf wrote:
| "It might be dangerous to be gay. You can catch an STD.
| Hence it should be forbidden."
| LtWorf wrote:
| I like how you appropriate a word coined by someone with a
| completely opposed point of view to your own.
|
| Just kidding. I don't like it.
|
| Live and let live man. Nobody is forcing you to install
| anything you don't want. Don't impose your preferences on
| others. It does no damage to you.
| Drakim wrote:
| > Look how many clicks those pesky do good gov regulators have
| a cost the world with those annoying "Yes I accept your damn
| cookies and privacy policy" on every website I visit.
|
| That is a form of malicious compliance that the websites do in
| order to make you angry at the regulators rather than at them.
| roamerz wrote:
| Cause and effect. The why's matter not to me, the end user.
| doublepg23 wrote:
| If cookie pop-ups are not the intent of the law why does the
| EU website use them? https://european-
| union.europa.eu/index_en
| LtWorf wrote:
| You can't distinguish a popup from a banner on the bottom?
|
| I hope you aren't a designer :D
| IshKebab wrote:
| You're missing the point. The EU should have foreseen that
| obvious consequence and written the law so that it couldn't
| happen.
|
| (Obvious because it was already happening with their previous
| dumb cookie law.)
| talkingtab wrote:
| Apple's actions are anti-competitive. Spotify is a very good
| example. Instead of making a better product, Apple is acting to
| appropriate other businesses. Although the object of Apple's
| action is companies that try to make money that Apple wants, it
| is the users, the customers who pay. Apple is an anti-user
| platform. They are not alone in this of course.
|
| How do we change this? I, as a user, am aggrieved that Apple
| sells (not lends) me a product and then takes actions that make
| product less useful and more costly. Maybe Spotify and companies
| should simply set up a website so it is easy for me to take Apple
| to small claims court? The facts of Apple's anti-competitive
| practices are certainly clearly laid out in the EU's action, so
| that should not be hard.
|
| I would sign up.
| snapcaster wrote:
| I just don't agree that it's an anti-user platform. I have my
| own opinions on this, but really just talk to some apple users
| they're all happy with their platform
|
| Why do you have to change it? As a user if you don't like
| walled gardens or restrictions just buy another phone? why do
| you insist on shitting up my walled garden just go use android!
| threeseed wrote:
| The whole reason companies like Spotify are making a fuss about
| this is because Apple _is_ making better products. If it wasn
| 't the case Spotify would dominate the market all to itself.
|
| But Spotify has 30% market share, Apple Music 15%. And it's
| because for example Apple has lossless audio, Dolby Atmos etc.
| Not because of any unfair competition.
| IshKebab wrote:
| What do you think 99% of users care about more? Lossless
| audio, or a 30% markup?
| arthurofbabylon wrote:
| This is a rather misleading headline. The vast majority of
| developers are not in "open revolt" - just a handful of
| developers are making a lot of noise about it, while continuing
| to ship software (ie, not in revolt at all).
|
| Further, those developers making great noise are often close to
| "platform" designation themselves, making their appeal less
| righteous than a superficial reading might have you believe. It's
| a struggle over power - not a struggle over quality nor safety
| nor human liberty.
|
| Most developers are pleased with the current paradigm. I am.
| frizlab wrote:
| I am too. I'm tired of the virulent minority making like
| they're the majority (on this subject or others)
| LtWorf wrote:
| Ask the users: "Would you rather pay less or more?"... see
| where the majority stands :D
| snowpid wrote:
| You are pleased => Majority is pleased? Can you show data? your
| app? Is Apple in competition with you like Spotify and Apple
| Music?
| ex3ndr wrote:
| It is time to create project similar to Wine, but for iOS
| hermitcrab wrote:
| I've been selling softare on Mac (and Windows) for nearly 2
| decades. I've never bothered with the Mac App Store. I just
| couldn't be bothered to jump through the hoops and I didn't want
| Apple getting between me and my customer. I guess that isn't a
| realistic option for iOS apps though.
| franczesko wrote:
| Imagine if websites paid Apple just because they were visited
| with the Safari browser. That's pretty much how iPhones operate.
| dkuznetsov wrote:
| Let's say a subscription costs $10. Why not charge $14.29 through
| app store and $10 through online registration? With both logins
| acceptable in the login form... If Apple users want to pay more
| for the privilege of paying through Apple, why not let them?
| arthie wrote:
| Apple does not allow different pricing
| nemo8551 wrote:
| I think they do, my kids play Roblox and Minecraft and buying
| in app is more expensive (probably to the tune of the Apple
| fees) than buying it outwith the App Store.
|
| I don't think app developers were allowed to show that it was
| x price in the app via Apple and x-fees via the developers
| own site.
| anfilt wrote:
| A huge problem is the DMA falls short in addressing a significant
| violation of property rights concerning the hardware.
|
| At the core of property ownership lies the right of exclusion -
| the ability to exclude or include something on one's personal
| property. This right is quite important and can even be used to
| derive most other property rights; please see the linked paper at
| the bottom. However, Apple's policies with iDevices violate this
| fundamental right by controlling what software can run on the
| device, even before someones does anything with their device they
| bought. They do this not via legal means but by using
| cryptography to reserve the right of exclusion for themselves
| (they claim its for your security though...). Part of the problem
| is when someone sells something that in most cases that means a
| complete transfer of all property rights to the buyer, but Apple
| is preventing that via extralegal means.
|
| Consider this scenario: you purchase a new iPhone with the
| intention of not even using iOS and installing something like
| Linux. However, Apple's control over the boot-ROM prevents the
| hardware from booting any unsigned code without even opening the
| box. This gives Apple the ability to exclude or allow software to
| run on a device they no longer own. The thing is, Apple legally
| does not have the right of exclusion, but only reserves it via
| cryptography. This effectively restricts the exercise of your own
| property rights since you no longer can fully choose what to
| include or exclude from execution on that ARM processor you own.
| The fact that this control persists post-sale demonstrates a
| blatant infringement on individual property rights from Apple.
|
| In summary, Apple is intruding upon individuals' personal
| property rights, notably the right of exclusion. Through the use
| of cryptography after purchase, Apple retains the right of
| exclusion which lets them determine which software can and can
| not operate on a device they no longer own.
|
| For a more in-depth exploration of the right of exclusion, I
| highly recommend reading the paper titled "Property and the Right
| to Exclude" [https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/33139498.pdf].
| MilaM wrote:
| Also worth mentioning are the numerous intellectual property
| rights that companies like Apple enjoy and skillfully use to
| stave off competition. If Apple wants lawmakers to drop market
| regulations like the DMA, then maybe we should consider cutting
| IP protections. Only then can we have a conversation about free
| markets and government intervention.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| Yeah, this is the fundamental issue at play here. I don't care
| what fees or rules Apple puts in place for developer access to
| its app store. I care that I'm digitally restricted from
| running anything other than software approved by Apple on _my_
| device. If that problem was solved and Apple had to compete
| with other app stores on a level playing field, that would
| naturally resolve any issues with their rules or fee structure.
|
| The DMA (seemingly) didn't target root of the problem, so Apple
| was able to easily just sidestep the legislation by saying
| "okay, you can use alternative app stores now, but the app
| stores and all software on them still has to be reviewed and
| approved by us, and we're going to continue to impose
| conditions (including payment) on that approval". If they had
| been completely stripped of the ability to exclude software
| from _my_ device, then they wouldn 't have the leverage to
| impose these new rules in the first place.
| turtlebits wrote:
| It's just a different business model. See: game consoles.
| LamaOfRuin wrote:
| This is generally viewed as okay for game consoles because
| they are sold at cost or at loss for a large portion of
| their lifetime. This is very much not true of any Apple
| hardware.
| Nevermark wrote:
| They also are not as crucial as mobile internet devices
| for people's daily lives, or at the center of wide
| ranging critical ecosystems.
| withinboredom wrote:
| You can play games on an iPhone, but I hardly consider a
| gaming console.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| Hot take: I don't think this is okay for game consoles
| either. If I want to install a GameCube emulator on my PS5
| I should be able to and there's nothing Sony should be able
| to do to stop me. If that means they eventually end up
| having to charge more for their hardware to make up for
| reduced software sales, so be it. If they really insist on
| trying to force their customers to only install stuff
| through their app store, they can make them sign an
| explicit contract to that effect. Doing the same thing
| implicitly via extralegal means isn't an improvement.
| wilg wrote:
| Why does this matter when you can buy other computers
| that allow you to install whatever software you want? Why
| do all computers have to work the way you want instead of
| you just purchasing ones that have the features you want?
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| I don't think it is super complicated .
|
| You can enshrine a company's right to define its market or the
| price for its products, hold those rights sacrosact and still
| punish apple.
|
| The issue at the core is not a company's right to X. Instead,
| it is: Has this company thru dominance of their market have
| achieved a monopolistic power ? If so, that's the avenue you
| take to undo their abuse. If the abuse cannot be rectified by
| market actors or new entrants, they you slap the
| anticompetitive monopoly with restrictions of what they can or
| cannot do.
|
| EDIT: I personally think that there should be straightforward
| threshold criteria to be defined as a monopoly automatically,
| such as (numbers made up) exceeding:
|
| - 0.1% of revenue in aggregate political donations, or
|
| - 0.5% of profits in aggregate political donations, or
|
| - Annual Revenue > US per capita x 100,000, or
|
| - Annual profits > US per capita x 10,000
|
| - Etc.
| fooker wrote:
| The issue with straightforward thresholds is you can escape
| those with creative accounting.
|
| There's is a reason it's more subjective.
| realusername wrote:
| > If the abuse cannot be rectified by market actors or new
| entrants, they you slap the anticompetitive monopoly with
| restrictions of what they can or cannot do.
|
| That's pretty clear in the Google / Apple case, the only
| change of tariffs ever made was made as a reaction to an
| antitrust lawsuit and copied over.
| wilg wrote:
| Well a monopoly is famously not the same thing as a large
| company.
| rhelz wrote:
| Wouldn't the best way to look at this to be that the phone is
| Apple's property, and therefore they have the right to do
| anything with it? Including not selling to you all the property
| rights, and reserving some for themselves?
|
| For me, the central contradiction of this kind of rights-based
| argument is this--the stronger you make property rights, the
| more justified actions like Apples seems to be, because, after
| all, they are the ones who really own the phone.
|
| I really don't think a property rights argument has any suasion
| here at all.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| > Including not selling to you all the property rights, and
| reserving some for themselves?
|
| They _could_ do that, but they don 't. I don't recall having
| to sign a rental agreement stating that I don't actually own
| the phone and I'm only allowed to purchase Apple-approved
| applications in order to get an iPhone. If Apple was forced
| make their customers go through that process then the
| downsides and anti-trust problems associated with such
| restrictions would be far more explicit.
| zuhsetaqi wrote:
| They did own the phone until they sold it to a customer.
| After the customer bought it Apple no longer owns the phone
| but the customer does.
| Nevermark wrote:
| Apple does not have the legal right to rescind the "rental"
| and retrieve your phone.
|
| So it doesn't, in fact, own it.
| SirMaster wrote:
| How does this apply to any electronic device with a computer
| inside though?
|
| Can you run your own software on your television, car, smart
| fridge, etc?
|
| The default expectation seems to be no, you can't.
| 6510 wrote:
| Apple is confused, the EU is the lord and they are the serf.
| apapapa wrote:
| They will fall in line just like they do with every other crazy
| rule.
| withinboredom wrote:
| I would popcorn the hell out of a courtroom if someone pulled the
| ole windows license trick:
|
| 1. Buy an iPhone.
|
| 2. Don't agree to the conditions.
|
| 3. Sue Apple for not letting you install an alternative OS or at
| least the get a refund for the amount the OS is worth. Since it's
| just a hunk of metal and no value, that should be at least 100%
| of the cost, plus attorney fees.
|
| 4. Force Apple into allowing alternative ROMs.
|
| 5. Party.
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