Unfortunately for Apple, I do think the App Store being an exclusive and default way to purchase and load apps on iOS is in fact causing prices of Apps, in many cases, to be higher than they should be.
The perfect example of this is the subscription services, right now you can get a cheaper subscription to a service such as Spotify if you buy it off the App Store. That is a prime example of how much the 30% payment to Apple is hurting developers and ultimately consumers... Apple is so upset about this they won’t let developers like Spotify link to buying the subscription on their own website anywhere on the app that is sold through their App Store, if that’s not Monopoly abuse I don’t know what is.
As much as I love Apples products I do feel that they have gotten away with a lot here, especially since there is zero other ways to load apps into iOS devices, in the very least consumers are paying 30% more for apps if there was a competing App Store on iOS that charged less to load apps.
Edit: whether the Supreme Court will see it this way or not is a whole other issue.
How long have you been using the iOS app store for? IMO App prices now are lower than they were when the app store first opened in iPhoneOS 2, and way lower than they were before the iPhone. I remember simple games for Palm OS costing at about $20 [0] . Nowadays that game would either be <=$5, or free to play.
> IMO App prices now are lower than they were when the app store first opened in iPhoneOS 2
This provides no basis for comparison because the App Store has been the only way to install apps on iOS that whole time, so that changing can't have been the difference.
Moreover, the market they're monopolizing isn't the market for apps, it's the market for app distribution. So the relevant price isn't the price of apps, it's Apple's 30%. Which is obviously higher than in markets where there isn't a single-party distribution monopoly, e.g. payment processing is typically ~3%, various packaging systems like apt are free (or user can download binary from website as on Windows), and the binary hosting cost per user is negligible.
There is also a tying argument. App Store ties payment processing, distribution and curation together when the buyer might want different providers for each.
> This provides no basis for comparison because the App Store has been the only way to install apps on iOS
This has never been the case. You’ve always been able to side load apps that are either signed by an Enterprise code signing cert (used to be $300/yr), or your own developer code signing certificate ($99/yr). The former allowed for redistribution outside of the App Store.
Okay, I used to be an iOS user, I'm not rich, and blowing $99 per year to sign apps is a lot of money for something that should be free. What if I'm just a normal techie who wants to use software that Apple doesn't like? Sure, bury sideloading in the settings or make it only able to be activated from a computer, but charging that much money for the privilege of loading software is ridiculous.
I agree. Unfortunately the complaint is mostly about hating a market dominated by people who increasingly won't pay anything for goods that aren't actually welded in place but will grudgingly fork over money in the form of eyeballs (i.e. ads) and "tricks" (in-app purchases, hidden fees, etc.). Personally, I'd mostly prefer honest up-front pricing (though subscriptions make sense for some things) but the market mostly doesn't want that.
Even if it is an increase in price (debatable), that doesn't mean that Apple's distribution monopoly is responsible. I expect that prices on Android have done the same thing, and Google doesn't even monopolize the distribution there.
The exact same thing has happened in the AAA games market (see EA, Activision, or Jim Sterling's many videos on the topic) which is provably nothing to do with "Apple's distribution monopoly".
I have had an iPhone since the first one and access to the App Store since they introduced it in the 3G.
I completely agree that prices on Apps have come down but that is just what happens when a new market is created. Supply and demand has to set in. Developers are guessing what people will pay at first and if they find they can sell millions more if they just drop the price to 99c then they might just do that. In my opinion the Apple App Store has had very little to do with those prices coming down.
While I do admit the App Store was incredibly innovative and has ushered in an era of new ways for developers to create/distribute/monetize this stuff it is hard to deny that if there was any competing way to load Apps that the 30% fee Apple collects would stand... not to mention the many practices that developers (and consumers) disagree with that Apple regularly does such banning apps that may compete with their products or somehow upset them.
Edit: I don’t want to come off as overly negative here, I love Apple and their products. I am simply arguing that a little competition here would do consumers good.
Apple provides a service for that 30% though. They handle the payment processing, they build, moderate and curate the App Store apps and they provide a lucrative channel to market for app developers. So allowing Spotify et al to get all the benefits of the channel without paying for it is actually unfair to Apple.
This argument will easily hold if there were any way to have a competing store on iOS devices. Apple banning any competition in that field makes ‘buy they provide value for the money’ look like forcing consumers hand.
Not sure if I want to have a second AppStore (APNS, etc, etc.)
Let’s use the Kindle app as an example then. The app cannot link to their site when I search for a book I don’t have. If it did, the app would be banned. So Apple is trying to extract a 30% premium from Amazon and the only way for them to avoid that is to give me a shitty experience that quantifiable harms me (I waste time to search for and then hop through the download behavior, adding friction to what should be a seamless flow). In return for their 30% they are adding very little value. Amazon does it’s own payment processing, curation is surely not worth almost a third of every book I buy, storage is paid for by Amazon, and the transmission costs are paid for by me.
Apple has a store. Amazon has a store. Who is to say that Amazon's portion of operational costs and profit isn't the premium?
Amazon could choose to have a Kindle experience which doesn't go through the App store, such as a HTML 5 app. They distribute in the store because of the discoverability (and likely because they prefer to have a native app that can enforce their store's content DRM.)
Amazon could choose to expose more functionality through their app, such as title search, being able to look at reviews, download sample chapters, and even be able to fetch new books through the kindle unlimited and other prime features. They prefer to drive everyone to their own store instead.
You can do title search, look at details of books, see reviews, download sample chapters, and download Kindle Unlimited books directly to your library with one click.
I presume what you _can_ and _can't_ do is directly dictated by Apple's policies, not what the Kindle team has been able to implement. As others have pointed out, native apps are a far superior user experience to HTML "apps".
HTML apps are never even close to working as well as a native app, they're generally a shitty compromise. If $COMPANY makes an app that would be crippled by Apple's policies, they should be free to distribute it through another channel to iOS users.
One of the most powerful things the internet has done for us: cut out the middlemen. Even Amazon is not safe, I foresee a future where people will order directly from the factory.
Money is universally reviled, and rightfully so: it is a dark, vile, evil thing. It brings out the very worst in the very best of us. It brings entire countries to their knees. Money corrupts. Money is awful.
But there is one thing that money does better than anything else, bar nothing. No contest. No competitor on the horizon. Many have tried, all have failed. Money quanitifies value.
It is not up to you to defend how much money Apple should get. It is not up to us to contradict it. It is up to the market. This is the one and only thing it does well, so let's at least give it that.
Because allowing Apple to get all the benefits of determining the value of their app store, without letting the market give it a go, is actually unfair to Money.
Money quantifies value... in our money based economy. Which is basically a tautology. Money in many cases fails to quantify utility and the same quantity of money has wildly varying utility from market to market.
This was true a few years ago but in 2018, it's not a curated place to get software. It's the only marketplace to get software for your device. 30% is disproportionate to what's being offered today.
- Payment processing, yes (though no other payment processor charges anywhere near 30% -- Stripe is 2.9%, I think?).
- Build, not exactly -- only in the sense that they can handle minor upgrades via bitcode for new ARM variants, if you choose to enable that.
- Moderate/curate, sure.
- Provide a lucrative channel? Yes, but only because they've made it the only channel by fiat.
I'm not sure I see 30% worth of mandatory value here. Is Apple's moderation so good it's worth 27% the cost of my app? Do developers think they're paying for bitcode upgrades, and do they think that justifies the fee? Recompiling for new minor architectures isn't difficult.
For that matter, is there more value provided in moderation for a more expensive app? If they approve my app at $5, and then I up the price to $25, did their moderation process retroactively become more valuable to anyone?
Storage/hosting, support and distribution (bandwidth) are missing frim the list. Arguably, it may not cover 30%, but it does provide for more than 2.9%
No, but the apps are. Spotify comes in at 98MB, and Kindle at 113MB. That is a lot of bandwidth. Since Amazon don't offer IAP, they get that for free, Spotify do offer IAP, so contribute that way.
Apple do offer iTunes Credit and often does discount of up to 15% from Retailers. ( I am betting those iTunes Credit are wholesale at anywhere between 13% to 10% discount, and Retailers takes in ~10 - 8% after deducting processing fees )
Still, not many buy iTunes Credit. Most just use Credit Card direct from Apple Pay. But even if we have included all these, the 30% is still excessive.
The problem Apple is having is similar to their phone, it is not about the price tag or the 30% charges, it is people paying for it fail to see or justify its value. Apple will need to offer more "values". From Developers to its Users.
So if Ann's a developer and doesn't want their payment processing, and Bruce is a consumer and doesn't want their curation, then the buyer and seller should be able to dispense with the surcharge if they dispense with the "service." But they can't (without jumping through hoops.) And what's more, if Trusty App Corp. were to come along and set up a 20% cut Trusty App store that could be conveniently installed via an exploit, they would be undoubtedly sued for IP violations, due to the state protecting Apple's exclusive right to Apple IP. This is pure rent-seeking on the part of Apple, and ultimately antitrust laws exist to discourage rent-seeking even more than discouraging monopolies per se.
Is piracy really an issue on Android? I've never pirated an Android app in the 10 years or so I've been using Android, and I don't know anyone who was.
Well providing numbers for something that is illegal and happens on shady websites is difficult, just as nobody can tell you exactly how much cocaine enters the port of Rotterdam each year. But I found this to be an interesting read.
I think part of the problem is that whales use Apple.
Despite having 80+% of the market mobile market share, most of these customers are low spending people looking for vfm phones and good enough free apps. Apple is the one that captures the top 5% of customers who spend on subscription services and expensive apps.
This gives the false appearance of Android being piracy heaven. Because, why else would a 4 times bigger consumer base generate a smaller revenue.
"...an exclusive and default way to purchase and load apps on iOS"
If the court allows the definition of 'trust' to include "a company gatekeeping developer access to their own operating system" when that operating system represents a much smaller share of the market than the next biggest competitor.
It's true that iOS has a smaller share of the market globally, including many parts of Europe, but this overshadows the fact that iOS is almost on par with Android in the United States (44.3% to Android's 54.5% as of May 2018), probably higher among affluent users, and the leading mobile operating system in other countries such as Britain: https://www.statista.com/statistics/266572/market-share-held...
I feel this is often overlooked in discussions where users from certain areas where iOS is less prevalent don't understand the perspective of users from other regions where iOS is more popular.
A minority/majority distinction is unnecessary. If the market share is significant and can be shown to harm enough consumers (and especially if the behavior can be shown to harm even users of competitors' systems), then there still could be a decision in favor of consumers.
And Nintendo, Somy, and MS have monopoles on their stores. Just like if you don’t like what one console offers you are free to buy another one, if you don’t like what’s available for iOS, you are free to buy an Android.
And now we are redefining “monopoly”. This has been going on for 30 years. The console manufacturers have had lock out chips on their cartridges, specially made disk, etc forever.
Not forever. This all started with the death of Atari, which was commonly blamed on poor-quality 3rd-party games ruining their reputation with consumers.
I haven't looked into the history enough to judge whether this perception is accurate in hindsight. Like most things, I expect it's a lot messier than the popular narrative.
The definition of a monopoly is when there is only one seller of something. That exclusivity can be achieved in a number of ways such as patents, trade secrets, or some other monopoly moat.
You don't need to purchase games directly from Nintendo, nor music or games or video directly from Sony, nor are Sony Videos only playable on Sony devices, nor do you have to only install Microsoft "blessed" executable for Windows.
You realize that Nintendo controls the title signing keys, their own App Store, and the physical manufacturing of cartridges right? They also require merchants to sign contracts saying they will not have a posted price below the retail sale price without approval.
I fail to see how saying you don't have to purchase "directly" from Nintendo matters.
FWIW, a similar setup to Playstation (you seem to have conflated Sony, which makes your point confusing considering that Sony has other subsidiaries that publish music and video). Playstation has a music and video store which will give you media DRM locked to your console.
Finally, Microsoft has an App Store which distributes "blessed" executables. There have been several editions of windows which only allow applications distributed through this store to run, such as the first iteration of the Microsoft Surface that ran ARM. There is speculation that this move is what prompted Valve to release their own Linux distribution, because Steam would be severely impacted if they no longer had an ability to run their own store.
Luckily for Valve, those limited distributions haven't made much headway.
Yes, I realize that for console gaming you need to be "approved" to write games.
However, my understanding is that this suite is about apple abusing the app-writing monopoly to also let only them sell apps, which is why I thought the console game analogy was sound.
As for merchants, I'm sure second hand stores and those at flea markets have signed all of these contracts. /S
Yes, I was sort-of referencing multiple arms of Sony. Sorry if that complicated things.
Yes, I know Microsoft has a blessed app storeb however, like Android, you can still install your own, unsigned executables or use another app store (there are some more recent package managers for Windows iirc? It's not really what I deal with.)
I remember the issues with the arm based surfaces. Iirc one of the current selling points of a surface ia that you can run any software on them.
I think this case will be interesting because there are platforms that come close to, but don't have quite, the control apple does over both who can generate applications as well as who can sell them. Where those platforms evolve 8s directly related to the outcome here I think.
However, my understanding is that this suite is about apple abusing the app-writing monopoly to also let only them sell apps, which is why I thought the console game analogy was sound.
Sure other game makers can sell games anywhere they want - as long as they do it in the console makers terms, get approved by the console maker,and pay the license.
Back in the cartridge days, only Nintendo could make the cartridges even for third parties.
Yes, I know Microsoft has a blessed app storeb however, like Android, you can still install your own, unsigned executables or use another app store
No, but every game that you buy that runs on any of the consoles have been preapproved by the console manufacturers and each game has been cryptographically signed by the manufacturer - even those sold on disc.
You don’t have to buy music from Apple. Music you buy hasn’t been wrapped with DRM for a decade. You can buy movies from Google, Amazon or Vudu, download the Movies Anywhere app, connect the app to your various accounts and they automatically show up as iTunes purchases (completely legally), there is an Amazon Video, Google Play, and Vudu app available for iOS. You can go to the Amazon store in your web browser and buy a digital video just like you can buy anything else from Amazon.
We are talking about consoles. Just like the other console manufacturers, you can not sell a video game on disc that has not been approved by MS and without paying MS a licensing fee to run on the XBox.
I would love game consoles to have third party stores. As it stands I almost never buy console games through the PSN store/xbox store/whatever because (at least with AAA titles) games remain at initial launch price way too long, and are usually more expensive than retail stores.
Although, it isn't only limited to online console stores, some publishers are pretty terrible on PC too. As an example - in my region (New Zealand) Call of Duty Black Ops is still $99 on Steam, and that released in 2010...
(Activision, you there? I still want to buy it but I can't justify that price for an 8 year old game, or even the half off sale price right now...)
> If the court allows the definition of 'trust' to include "a company gatekeeping developer access to their own operating system" when that operating system represents a much smaller share of the market than the next biggest competitor.
You're talking about two different markets, the devices themselves and the app distribution.
Suppose there are many truck manufacturers and none has majority share, but only one makes diesel trucks. Then that company gets into the market for diesel fuel and makes it so that customers can't use any other provider's fuel in their trucks. They've just leveraged their diesel truck monopoly into a diesel fuel monopoly.
Your argument is that they don't have a truck monopoly, because other people make lots of gasoline powered trucks and electric trucks etc., and truck buyers could reasonably choose them instead. Many of them do. But those aren't relevant when we're talking about the market for diesel fuel. You can't use gasoline in a diesel truck. You can't use an Android app on iOS or install iOS apps on an iPhone with Google Play.
Setting aside the question of the impact of prices completely, the fact that Apple controls the sites that apps can link to should be abhorrent to anyone. At one point, they even tried to control what programming languages were used to write apps for iOS.
Your Spotify example is a good argument FOR Apple's model. In that case, consumers have a choice to either a) purchase a Spotify subscription via the web app, or b) purchase the subscription in app -- at a higher cost.
Some consumers still choose to purchase in app- for a variety of reasons: ease of use, speed, accessibility, streamlined with the rest of their Apple purchases, who knows. People choosing to overpay for Spotify shows the Apple ecosystem and model provides value to at least some consumers. Whether it is worth 30% is a different question.
I think it's "off" meaning "outside of". It's a problem for consumers when confusing marketplace rules coupled with single-company-enforced limited options unnecessarily cost them more. That said, not sure I would want it illegal.
Apple does not hold a monopoly, Android is the dominate platform. To use antitrust law you must first prove a monopoly exists, then prove the monopoly is being used in anti-competitive ways.
This is really only an issue with low-margin licensing subscriptions like Spotify and Netflix, where they would lose money on every purchase if 30% of their margins went to Apple. While I definitely think there are some problems with the App Store, the fact is that it is so easy and streamlined for people buying apps that it’s worth the 30% for the vast majority of developers.
> While I definitely think there are some problems with the App Store, the fact is that it is so easy and streamlined for people buying apps that it’s worth the 30% for the vast majority of developers.
If people would still choose it even if there were competitors, then why is competition prohibited?
The answer is that the App Store would still exist, but might have to charge less or lose business to lower cost competitors. So you would get everything you want and with lower costs.
> The security model is based on an entitlement system. Which other stores are trustworthy enough to be allowed to issue entitlements?
That's up to the user to decide. It's a lot easier to choose curators from among well-known companies like Apple and Amazon than to choose individual apps that are inherently developed by small shops or individuals.
> If the idea is that users would be able to vet which apps or app stores should get entitlements... well, we've seen how well that works on Android.
Exactly. Some of them do a better job than Google itself. There is probably less malware in F-Droid than on iOS.
And if you like Apple's store then... keep using it. Just because other stores would be available doesn't require you to use them.
I have to disagree where 30% is a low margin. This is different to real estate where there are actually foot traffic in front of your store. The App Store is more like a nation charging 30% tax regardless where you live, and that is on Revenue not Profits.
Folks here on HN are (understandably) leaping on the notion that this will force Apple to allow other app stores, or sideloading, or something else that keeps the App Store from being the exclusive distributor of iOS apps. But, a few notes that are important to keep in mind:
(1) Apple is the petitioner here. They're the ones asking the Supreme Court to make a ruling, specifically on whether the complainant has the legal standing to bring this case at all.
(2) If Apple loses at the Supreme Court, this just gets sent back to a lower court. It's not going to force Apple to do anything at this point.
(3) Most importantly, there's no guarantee that if Apple does ultimately lose that the remedy will be opening the iOS ecosystem up to other app stores.
The complaint in Apple v. Pepper is literally that Apple's lock on app distribution drives up app prices. If app prices are not being driven up by that lock, the argument has a very good chance of falling apart.
This is not a case about what restrictions Apple puts on the app store , about software or device freedom, and it's not even a case about whether Apple's mandatory 30% cut is "fairly priced" by whatever definition of fair you care to use -- the case as filed literally hinges on the claim that iOS app prices are artificially inflated by that cut. And I think that in a world where people have been trained to think that $4.99 is a crazy high expensive price for software, that could be a real tough case to prove.
This isn’t an Apples to Apples comparison (no pun intended), but all the folks who think 30% is high, I question if they’ve ever sold physical goods via a store/marketplace.
Say I want to sell my sprocket I designed, built, packaged, and marketed 100% on my own on Amazon. Anybody want to guess how much Amazon takes? I’ll give you a hint, many companies selling on Amazon would kill for 30%.
Think it’s better in brick and mortar land? Try again! Say you go buy a new TV from a major electronics store like Best Buy. Their effective margins are usually 50% or more. It gets even worse in other categories. Take shoes for example, in some cases 80% of the purchase price goes to the middleman.
Let’s also not forget that getting into the App Store, while us developers (myself included) whine about it like it’s the worst abuse, is far far easier than retailers like Amazon, Walmart, etc. Of course staying in the store is important too, talk to any businesses who were pulled due to low sales volume for their not even niche product. When has Apple really done that?
In conclusion, do I think what Apple is doing is fair, maybe, maybe not. I do however wish everyone would get out of their bubble though and realize as much as we like to complain, it’s really been a disruption to what was the status quo before.
What you describe could also be used to argue that prices are higher than they would be in a competitive market, i.e., that for the 30% ratio it's not that the numerator is too small, but that the denominator is too large.
When is the last time you bought a software in a brick and mortar store? Every software is now downloadable, including video games. There are no cost other than hosting.
I don't think the "it could have been distributed at much greater cost with a horse carriage a century ago" argument is very compelling.
If one is trying to sell non-free software, it requires a payment processor like PayPal, Stripe, DigitalRiver, or paying a bank a monthly maintenance fee for a full-blown merchant account to accept credit-cards. A cursory google of Steam says they charge 5% fees for video games. They all have fees based on a percentage of the sales price. Even something outside of traditional payments infrastructure such as Bitcoin has fees.
If the cost is truly $0 like a sibling comment mentioned, how are people selling software for money without paying any fees to any intermediaries?
When was the last time I bought software in a brick and mortar store? It's been so long I can't remember. I have bought software on Amazon in the past year though.
That still doesn't negate my point though, Gamestop shelves are covered in video games, electronic stores sell software of all types. Do you legitimately think they would be on the shelves if they didn't sell? My root point was to step outside of your bubble and understand that many folks have different experiences than you. In those less optimal environments for selling software, the markups for the store are far greater than the 30%. Do I think the 30% is warranted? I don't have the financial figures to say one way or another (and neither do you), but the fact many think 30% is exorbitant and it should be 3-8% is a bit absurd and really isn't reflective of reality for the costs involved.
Well, keeping in mind the reason why video games are still sold in physical format is that they require enormous binaries which downloading is very problematic for people in remote locations (plus it gives a physical object to wrap for a gift). But even that is going away. There are rumors of a disc-less xbox [1]. This binaries size problem isn't really relevant to anything that is meant to run on a smartphone.
I think it's worth asking whether Apple's 30% cut is too high, and worth asking whether they would still be able to have that cut if there were official ways to load commercial apps onto iOS devices other than the App Store. (By "commercial" I'm explicitly excluding enterprise software and TestFlight.) But I don't think it's the question that's going to be answered by this court case, whether or not that was the original intent of the plaintiffs.
Guess I should’ve expected such a quality response to my factual and detailed comment. But I’ll bite.
0% you say? What about the overhead of hosting the site? The cost to develop it? Drive traffic to it? Credit card processing fees? Managing fraud on payments? Etc etc.
There’s no such thing as a free lunch. If you prefer one avenue’s cost basis over another’s, feel free to use it. But don’t make bogus claims to justify your choice.
Hosting a static bag of bytes (e.g. a mobile app) costs nearly nothing. Just the cost of apple developer program (99$/year) would cover a huge amount of downloads.
> The cost to develop it?
Those are the same when developing an iOS app, except that with the web you would be able to target a much bigger market... if Safari was not actively slowing down the web.
> Drive traffic to it?
Breaking news, you also have to drive traffic to your app.
> Credit card processing fees? Managing fraud on payments?
Other people mentioned 2.9% on stripe. And if you are feeling adventurous, nothing spots you from creating your own payment system.
> Folks here on HN are (understandably) leaping on the notion that this will force Apple to allow other app stores
I'm leaning in quite opposite way. Apple enforces security and privacy policies of its store apps, which is main reason why it is much safer to use than Android.
As for app prices, Apple Store is an open competitive market, no apps are restricted to compete. I see the point being moot. Adtech industry would love to see Apple lose though, don't let them.
iOS Apps have no way to identify user's devices, apps can only store two bits of info locally, DeviceCheck. Location while using the app option, hello Android? :)
Safari's ITP 2.0 clears tracking cookies in a way, that no tracking is longer possible. Adtech not happy.
They have banned the use of VPN APIs to tunnel traffic through a filtering proxy. Apps such as AdGuard Pro used to use this to perform whole-device adblocking.
VPN APIs is for VPNs, not ad blocker apps. Apple is “sandboxing” applications, so apps have limited ability to interfere with each other or alter the overall workings of the phone. Which is a good thing, one app should not see other app's traffic.
I'm not convinced that "Apple's refusal to let developers set app prices at a more granular level is an unfair predatory practice" is a slam dunk argument.
Additional later note: the actual court case here does, in fact, argue that requiring that all app prices end in 0.99 means Apple is dictating pricing terms, which on some level is of course absolutely true, i.e., it's Apple's fault I can't price my app at $1.49, or $3.33, or whatever. But (1) that still doesn't prove that the 30% cut is harming consumers, which is what American antitrust law is relentlessly focused on, and (2) if that's the crux of the argument, it can be addressed simply by removing that restriction. It can probably be met even if Apple says "you can price your apps anything you want to, but if your app is not free, we're going to take a minimum 29¢ cut."
I'm not saying it's a slam dunk argument. I have no opinion on how this case will go because I don't know much about the law. I just think it's pretty clear that setting a 99 cent price floor increases the price of some apps.
The difference here is that the 30% cut is on everything digital sold through apple's payment system - including in app purchases. Amazon has removed in-app purchases from it's kindle and comixology apps because they'd owe a 30% cut to apple. Make whatever justifications for the app store purchases you want, it's the digital content from other stores (video, music, books, etc) that will bring about the anti-trust issues. Add to that the fact that apple is the only one restricting users to their app marketplace and you have the recipe for an antitrust lawsuit. Microsoft got hit with antitrust because they included internet explorer by default, how apple has only allowed one source for applications for ten years and never been challenged on it I will never know.
> Developers “cannot risk the possibility of Apple removing them from the App Store if they bring suit,” the American Antitrust Institute advocacy group said in a brief.
To my untrained IANAL eyes, this seems to be the meat of the argument. Apple is trying to say they are just an agent facilitating a sale, all the while jingling the kingdom keys in their back pocket by controlling who gets to sell.
They are seeking to chill consumers and developers alike.
"Apple said it is acting only as the agent for app developers who sell the apps to consumers through the App Store."
Sure, an agent who just so happens to control the platform, the API's and building blocks, all the rules, the horizontal, the vertical, and unilaterally decides which apps are allowed to exist. But, "we're just an agent".
I'm not familiar enough with the case to form an opinion on the whole thing, but I do hope the court sees through that particular sham of an argument.
i wouldn’t pin that all on anti competitive behaviour though... the end to end control of the platform is kind of Apples MO, and is a fairly distinguishing feature between the Android ecosystem and the Apple ecosystem. it’d be nice to have another distribution option, but not at the expense of a simple UX, security, or any other very valid reason to only allow a tightly controlled experience
Oh okay, so as long as it's their MO to have a monopoly then it's fine. I'm sure plenty of iPhone users, for example, would like to have a PornHub app on their iPhone, but that's currently impossible because of Apple's guidelines. You could build a very high quality app and be denied for a reason strictly outside of the "UX, security 'or any other very valid reason'" that Apple arbitrarily decides.
> And what would this pornhub app do that you couldn’t do from the website?
Store files for offline use or untracked use, have better privacy because user settings can be stored locally rather than on the server, provide source code that can be audited rather than relying on javascript that can change at any time, etc. In general, anything an app can do that a website can't -- otherwise why do native apps even exist?
> Should Nintendo also be forced to sell a PornHub game?
They shouldn't be allowed to prevent someone else from distributing one.
> So let’s see, you downloaded the files from their server, now they have a unique id for each user and they can track you more.
Which you can verify they aren't doing if they provide the source code. Or the non-Apple app distributor could verify that they aren't or otherwise sandbox the apps they distribute to prevent that from happening -- another advantage to competition.
> Most commercial apps aren’t going to give you access to the source control.
For something like that, why wouldn't they? Especially when there is a specific reason to, because it's something people are unusually privacy-sensitive about.
And it's not as if a community-developed Pornhub app that did would be accepted into the App Store either.
Which you can verify they aren't doing if they provide the source code. Or the non-Apple app distributor could verify that they aren't or otherwise sandbox the apps they distribute to prevent that from happening -- another advantage to competition
So what sandbox is available for apps that don’t allow a native app to ascertain individually identifiable device information?
You also now have to trust the non Apple App Store to check the source code. The entire open source community let the HeartBleed bug stay in open source software for a year and a half...
> So what sandbox is available for apps that don’t allow a native app to ascertain individually identifiable device information?
That's the point. Currently nobody can build that because Apple doesn't allow it.
> You also now have to trust the non Apple App Store to check the source code. The entire open source community let the HeartBleed bug stay in open source software for a year and a half...
"Many eyes" results in fewer bugs over time, not zero bugs instantaneously. It doesn't have to be perfect to be better.
That's the point. Currently nobody can build that because Apple doesn't allow it.
And where does this Sandbox wrapper for third party app stores exist for the Android ecosystem where it is both allowed and their are five time more devices?
Many eyes" results in fewer bugs over time, not zero bugs instantaneously. It doesn't have to be perfect to be better.
Have any statistics to back that up? Is Android more secure or less buggy than iOS?
> And where does this Sandbox wrapper for third party app stores exist for the Android ecosystem where it is both allowed and their are five time more devices?
But what metric would you use anyway? Number of discovered bugs doesn't work because the whole premise is that a higher percentage of the bugs will be found.
It's inherently difficult to measure. But refute the logic: Bugs found by vendor + everyone else > Bugs found by vendor alone. The only assumption is that bugs found by everyone else is non-zero, which is clearly true for any number of open source projects including both Android and Darwin.
So your solution to a sandbox app is to buy a Samsung device and use a corporate MDM product to manage that one device?
But what metric would you use anyway? Number of discovered bugs doesn't work because the whole premise is that a higher percentage of the bugs will be found.
It's inherently difficult to measure. But refute the logic: Bugs found by vendor + everyone else > Bugs found by vendor alone.
Google and third parties have been finding bugs in other people’s closed source products for decades. Again just because people can look at code doesn’t mean that people are looking at code.
You made the claim that there are less bugs in open source software, without any citations, studies, etc.
Android and Darwin are open source but a large part of both iOS and Android are closed source.
> So your solution to a sandbox app is to buy a Samsung device and use a corporate MDM product to manage that one device?
You implied that no one was making any such thing. They do. An app distributor that wanted to do the same for apps it distributes could do so likewise, but not if Apple stands in their way.
> Google and third parties have been finding bugs in other people’s closed source products for decades. Again just because people can look at code doesn’t mean that people are looking at code.
And if the product was open source, they could also fix the bug, rather than having to rely on the vendor to do it -- which they sometimes don't.
It would also be easier for them to discover the bugs, which would result in more of them being discovered.
> You made the claim that there are less bugs in open source software, without any citations, studies, etc.
Because it's an argument from logic rather than an argument from observation. The claim isn't that some specific number of people have been observed using published source code to discover bugs, only that the number is non-zero -- which doesn't require statistics, only a single counterexample that I can provide myself from personal experience in having done it.
> Android and Darwin are open source but a large part of both iOS and Android are closed source.
Then why propose to compare them as though it would provide some useful information about the effect of open source on finding bugs?
Of course I knew about MDM software, it’s been around forever - before the iPhone ever cane out. We used it for Windows Mobile software, deployment of vertical software for both iOS and Android, etc.
And if the product was open source, they could also fix the bug, rather than having to rely on the vendor to do it -- which they sometimes don't.
It would also be easier for them to discover the bugs, which would result in more of them being discovered.
In reality, Android is suppose to be “open” but between Android, iOS, and Windows, the Android ecosystem has the worse track record of both correcting bugs and getting the patches out to users.
In the real world, no one is voluntarily going through each line of either Android or iOS looking for exploits out of the goodness of thier hearts.
Because it's an argument from logic rather than an argument from observation. The claim isn't that some specific number of people have been observed using published source code to discover bugs, only that the number is non-zero -- which doesn't require statistics, only a single counterexample that I can provide myself from personal experience in having done it.
And that “logic” falls apart with one widespread example - the HeartBleed bug that was in the OpenSSL implementation for a year and a half.
The number is also “non zero” of bugs found by third parties in closed source software....
> In reality, Android is suppose to be “open” but between Android, iOS, and Windows, the Android ecosystem has the worse track record of both correcting bugs and getting the patches out to users.
The process of identifying bugs and the process of distributing patches are two separate things. And there is a very specific reason the "Android ecosystem" is slow to distribute patches -- an important piece, namely the hardware drivers, is not open. The reason you can't install the latest stock Android with all the latest patches on your device is that the device is stuck with proprietary blob drivers that aren't compatible with newer kernels.
And the operating system with the best security record is unambiguously OpenBSD.
> In the real world, no one is voluntarily going through each line of either Android or iOS looking for exploits out of the goodness of thier hearts.
They don't have to do it out of altruism, there are plenty of self-interested reasons to do it. Security researchers build their reputations by discovering vulnerabilities. iOS jailbreaks are valuable. Some companies that use Android in their own products pay to audit the code that runs on them (and incidentally on everyone else's devices). Programmers that discover their device unexpectedly doing something "weird" are more likely to investigate, and more likely to succeed in discovering the cause, when the code is available.
> And that “logic” falls apart with one widespread example - the HeartBleed bug that was in the OpenSSL implementation for a year and a half.
The process of identifying bugs and the process of distributing patches are two separate things. And there is a very specific reason the "Android ecosystem" is slow to distribute patches -- an important piece, namely the hardware drivers, is not open. The reason you can't install the latest stock Android with all the latest patches on your device is that the device is stuck with proprietary blob drivers that aren't compatible with newer kernels.
So that whole tweet from Andy Rubin about “the definition of ‘open’” has always been BS.
And it doesn’t matter why people can’t get security updates. The fact is that iOS users get security updates faster and more reliably than Android users for phones that are up to 5 years old.
They don't have to do it out of altruism, there are plenty of self-interested reasons to do it. Security researchers build their reputations by discovering vulnerabilities. iOS jailbreaks are valuable.
So since security researchers including people from Google have found security exploits in closed sourced software that kind of makes the whole open vs closed thing a moot point...
People really overestimate the difficultly for someone who knows what they are doing to find security exploits in closed source software. Heck, I was disassembling and patching 16 bit x86 code and 8 bit 65C02 code in middle school.
And how many of those were discovered specifically because the source code wasn't available?
Again, there is nothing magic about “source code”. It’s a little harder, but a skilled developer can follow the logic of assembly language.
(Not a lawyer, so no idea if this is still controlling case law)
The full reasoning chain seems to be that Hanover Shoe v United Shoe Machinery Corp (1968), in which the issue was USMC's leasing but refusal to sell machinery on which they had a monopoly, decided that being able to "pass along costs" was not a valid defense by a monopoly when sued by its direct customers.
Consequently, in Illinois Brick v Illinois (1977) the court decided that if a monopoly cannot use "they can pass along costs" as a defense from damages, then it follows that indirect purchasers (ie customers of customers) cannot use same offensively to sue a monopoly.
The intent is to prevent the complexity of calculating damages-once-removed, and putting the onus on the (simpler) damage calculation between direct monopoly and immediate customer.
If the Court upholds the prior decision, the plaintiffs will be denied standing. In that case, the appropriate legal challenge would either be an app seller suing Apple, or a customer suing an app seller (who could likely sue Apple in response).
If this is still case law, the only way I see this going another way is if the Court sees Apple's flat-30% as fundamentally different (and simpler) than the previously considered costs.
the important part against that line of reasoning though is at the very bottom of the article:
“The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year revived the lawsuit, deciding that Apple was a distributor that sold iPhone apps directly to consumers.”
if they decide that apple sells apps directly (after all, you go through apples distribution, payment, and “editorial” channels and have only a tenuous link to the developer i question) rather than the developers selling apps, then that could be an issue for them
Right, this is distinct from the shoe case because here Apple has a direct relationship with the customer in a way that USMC didn't with the purchasers of shoes.
Apple has seized upon a 1977 Supreme Court ruling that limited damages for anti-competitive conduct to those directly overcharged instead of indirect victims who paid an overcharge passed on by others. Part of the concern, the court said in that case, was to free judges from having to make complex calculations of damages.
I'm no lawyer either but that seems to generally be true of this case in that users shouldn't be the ones bringing cases but developers could by my read. But whatever we'll see what the court decides.
mentioned and expanded on in a parent comment, but the important part of the article related to that is right at the bottom:
“The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year revived the lawsuit, deciding that Apple was a distributor that sold iPhone apps directly to consumers.”
the question is whether apple sells the apps, or the developer sells the apps.
Right but that seems to be the ultimate thing at question here not? Whether the ninth circuit's decision is correct.
I'll have to wait for this week in law to cover the case from a legal perspective, they're lawyers so they tend to have a more lawyery view of things and bring on experts in the field. There tends to be more nuance than most engineers tend to bring in "apple charging 30% is immoral" arguments.
Perhaps it’s an unpopular opinion, but I’m hopeful that this doesn’t go anywhere for the simple fact that I don’t want to have to keep 5 different app stores installed to have access to everything. It would be cool to have an iOS equivalent of F-Droid, but I’d rather that not come at the cost of scattering commercial iOS apps across stores.
I’m not keen on the idea of non-WebKit web engines on iOS either because it will inevitably enable a huge contingent of lazy web developers to just display a “screw you and your device’s battery, go download Chrome” message rather than bother with crafting their sites and web apps in a web engine agnostic way. It’ll be just like when IE was the dominant browser, except this time around the dominant engine is favored by web devs and will continue to be thanks to Google’s web-centrism.
I think its good to force Apple to allow non-WebKit web engines on iOS. Right now Apple can forcefully cripple technologies like progressive web apps by not supporting the latest web technologies. This allows Apple to force companies to develop native applications.
Similarly, Apple has been slacking off on improving Webkit and making it as good as V8. By getting rid of Apple's monopoly on web engines, developers will be able to push websites to new levels that are currently hard to attain.
As long as Safari remains the default or very popular, sites will probably have to support it anyway regardless of if other browser engines are available.
There's also some conflict of interest if say Chrome were to come to be the dominant browser on iOS since they also control Android. Would battery life, performance etc be prioritized as highly on iOS as their own platform?
I think it would be nice to be able to load apps from outside the app store especially on devices like the iPad Pro, but I think that's a separate issue from web standards. I think the only practical way to advance web standards is for the major browser vendors to agree and implement them, even if that sometimes takes a while.
> As long as Safari remains the default or very popular, sites will probably have to support it anyway regardless of if other browser engines are available.
But if another engine supports additional features that Safari doesn't, you could still offer those features to users of other browsers, i.e. you could do something like "install Chrome/Firefox to use our PWA".
> Would battery life, performance etc be prioritized as highly on iOS as their own platform?
Maybe not, but in that case people could switch back to Safari or another competitor like Firefox.
WebKit does support service workers now and they're working on support for Web App Manifests. Some web apps, like Kindle Web Reader work fine in offline mode on my iPhone, granted that site is using the older (deprecated) App Cache manifest.
> I don’t want to have to keep 5 different app stores installed to have access to everything.
The nice thing about F-Droid is that the repository format is open. So you only need one "app-store" app installed (F-Droid), then add multiple app sources that are each controlled by some app curator. For example, the "F-Droid repo", the "Guardian Project repo", the "copperhead OS repo", the "micro G repo", etc etc. This allows for a unified user experience without centralising app execution power in the hands of one organisation.
If you've used GNU/Linux this is exactly how package repos work (and what F-Droid was inspired by), since several decades before the term "App Store" was invented.
> Perhaps it’s an unpopular opinion, but I’m hopeful that this doesn’t go anywhere for the simple fact that I don’t want to have to keep 5 different app stores installed to have access to everything.
Ideally what should happen is that someone makes a Store app that will install apps from arbitrary distribution services. Then there is still one interface for installing apps, but competition for distribution/payment/curation services.
You're really in favor of Apple controlling what software can and cannot be run on your computers for convenience sake? Android allows multiple app stores and multiple browser engines and it hasn't caused the problem you fear at all. I can't think of a major app that is not available in the Google Play store.
Isn't the premise of this case, that Apple's "monopoly" on the app store and 30% toll on developers is effectively jacking up app prices for consumers, pretty hard to support with evidence? My impression is that the modern app store coincides with (if it didn't actually cause, which is possible as well) an industry-historic decline in software prices for consumers. Things we pay $0.99 today for used to cost $50.
The rising tide lifts all technological boats, so it makes little since to compare today with historical water levels. Things can be overall cheaper compared to the past, but still anti-competitively hamstrung. If you can compare to costs of things in the past, you probably won't find any technology more expensive.
That's a colorable argument on a message board, but in court, if intervention is to be premised on harm to consumers through overcharging, Apple's opponents will need to present empirical evidence, not counterfactuals. Be that as it may: all the evidence available to me suggests that mobile app stores have drastically reduced the cost of retail software to consumers.
If anything, what I've seen is the opposite concern, which is that app stores make prices too favorable for consumers, at an untenable cost to the developers.
But it’s easy to make across the full ecosystem of digital app stores which are near universally 30 percent rakes. I’m including games in that list; Xbox, PlayStation, Steam, etc.
That said, even if mobile apps are cheaper than they used to be many could be even cheaper if Apple took a 10% cut.
I don’t like living in a world where almost every major distribution platform has complete vertical integration. The 30% cut is a farce. But I’m not sure this is the best argument to end it.
The game app stores have also driven prices way down from their 'traditional' retail prices. The argument for government remedy has to be based on some kind of actual harm to consumers rather than a feeling that 30% is too damn high.
Digital game stores are a great comparison. Lets stick to windows gaming, since I'm most familiar with those. Steam & co did cut out physical media production and distribution, obviously driving the price down. But there is also competition. If EA doesn't want to give Valve a cut, they can try to reach me directly. Steam is my preferred store for games and the only client I let auto start, so that won't be easy. But doable for a good game / price.
Compare that to apple users. As a start, you'd probably have to convince those to buy a non-apple device. That's a huge barrier to entry. It might be justified, i you believe that's good for other reasons like security. But then we're far of from driving down app prices.
I want fine grained competition. It is what makes our economy more efficient. Market leaders in contrast don't want to compete on profitable parts of their business and as such, will employ any tactic possible to stop that. Like e.g. placing barriers to entry (see above). Or make it difficult do make informed decisions (stores reads quite a bit like printers and overpriced ink). Thus I have a hard time buying into those "this is for the good of the consumer" talking point.
The prices would be even lower if Apple decided to have a profit margin of 4% instead of 40%. The question wasn't 'how could the prices be lower', it was 'what's the evidence Apple has engaged in illegal, consumer-harming practices'.
It's interesting because I imagine that'll be Apple's argument, and the natural counter-argument is that the $0.99 price is deceptive because of the "freemium" model of most apps.
Not sure how convincing they can make that argument, but it'll be interesting nonetheless. I imagine it'll involve putting an average "cost-per-app" including in-app purchases.
The is a consumer choice - look at literally every new product announcement that comes with a >4.99 price tag. Basically you get people saying it’s unreasonable because making a copy of an app costs nothing. Because heaven forbid they give any value to the time required to design and create a piece of software.
It’s often followed up by claims that they could do it thenselves for much less in much less time, ignoring the realization that that is only possible because the original developer has done all the hard engineering and design work, and worked out how to make things fun, etc. (my most obvious memory of this was when Threes came out and it was instantly cloned by people who had full access to the game design)
Answer is not to give choice in where to download apps. If you don't like Apple app store, then maybe switch to Android or BlackBerry. Or something else.
I like being able to go to just one store and get my Apps there. Imagine the horror of having to get the apps from AT&T or Vz store for iPhone, or having to choose if I need to get an app from official store or from another one run by some east European dude from his basement. I love that apple curates the apps and at least tries to get rid of worst offenders whether it's privacy violations or outright malware.
If you think the services the Apple app store provides are worth the price increase, then you as an individual consumer could choose to buy apps just from that store.
Or you could buy an app directly from the developer, whom you presumably trust (and even if you don't, the app is sandboxed, so the chances of something bad happening are pretty low).
Or you could buy the app from an alternative store that's more trustworthy than just "some east European dude from his basement", which would someone would almost certainly create if they had the option to.
Plus, Apple isn't just getting rid of the "worst offenders", it's also banning apps with content it dislikes, or that hurt its business model:
It's easier to change from iOS to Android than it is to change ISPs in huge portions of the US.
At least changing from iOS to Android (or vice versa) doesn't require you to buy a new house and move—probably move far enough that you need to find a new job, too.
> I like being able to go to just one store and get my Apps there.
But nobody is saying you can't or that it won't be curated or anything. The unfortunate part is some liking what ways others get their apps, not themselves. (granted I don't believe user freedom in this case should be government enforced, but we should all strive not to assume that our app retrieval methods are the best for others)
Here’s what I don’t get: in what sense is this a monopoly? Consumers have knowledge that the App Store is the only game in town on an iPhone, and they have the option to buy a different phone if they don’t want to use the App Store.
That’s like saying that the manufacturer of my vacuum has a monopoly on vacuum bags.
Yes, pretty much. Except vacuum cleaner manufacturers don't actually have that monopoly. You can easily buy substitute bags from another manufacturer for most popular vacuum cleaners.
Your vacuum manufacturer probably has a monopoly on vacuum bags for it's machine because it's niche enough for nobody else to care about making alternative bags. If someone decided that they wanted to, they could.
This isn't the case with the iPhone. It isn't niche and plenty of people want to build and be listed in alternatives, but they are prevented from doing so.
Sounds similar to what EU EC did with Google's anti-trust fine case, i.e. they considered Google to be dominant in the market of "app stores for the Android mobile operating system" (along with some other markets).
> But it’s in the Supreme Court so it can’t be completely without legal merit.
From my understanding, the lower courts haven't looked at that argument yet, since the question "do these people even have standing to sue" comes before any arguments.
“The question presented is:
Whether consumers may sue for antitrust damages anyone who delivers goods to them, even where they seek damages based on prices set by third parties who would be the immediate victims of the alleged offense.”
Not true, nothing ever goes to the Supreme court without a lower court considering and rendering a decision on the same question. Otherwise the court would be swamped and unable to function.
I think you misunderstood the thread. Of course the question asked to the Supreme Court has been looked at in detail by the lower courts, but other questions in the case haven't yet.
I think it's strange since I can download software for MacOS anywhere. The only reason that it's accepted that you must use the App Store is because Apple was first to the smartphone scene.
Had Apple tried to force everyone into using a gatekeeping App Store after smartphones took hold, end users would've rejected it.
That's the contingency: Where is the separation of product? Apple isn't strictly a hardware company more than it's strictly a software company. If you consider the iPhone a unified inseparable product, then the ability to install other apps is a privilege
Sort of. Some printers have built the print head (with low MTBF) into the ink cartridge itself. You can refill once, but by the second time the output will be really bad.
Some printers ship with only partially-filled cartridges. This winds up being destructive on several fronts - users feel buying a whole new printer is cheaper than buying all the refill cartridges, not understanding that the new cartridges are different than what they had. This means the printer company is constantly selling new printers at a loss, with functional printer hardware thrown away to make space.
The print cartridges also usually sell with an XL-size option that appears cheaper overall. However, people who feel they should buy a new printer rather than cartridges are typically people who are at an ultra-low usage level (<10 pages per month). Even at the normal size, they are not going to make it through the ink before the cartridge starts to degrade with age.
HP rolled out a printer monitoring/ink subscription service which may solve these problems - assuming people feel it is financially sound to subscribe.
No one has made a decision on that issue, and that's not what's being appealed. The question here is about who can sue, not whether there is an antitrust violation.
but don't they? i think a more apt analogy would be your trash can manufacturer having a monopoly on trash bags. You shouldn't really expect that to be the case at all.
Why is that more apt? Why shouldn’t I expect it? Apple didn’t even invent the walled-garden digital software store; Microsoft was using it on the X-Box in 2005. If you go back to before digital distribution, Sony and Nintendo had total authority over third-party software releases for their platforms since the 90s and 80s respectively.
I understand the free-software arguments for why I should be able to run arbitrary code on any computer I own. What I don’t get is the monopoly argument.
“Called out”? Sure. It was called out when Microsoft rolled it out and it’s been called out persistently for ten years, to the point that I’m used to being called an “apologist”. But public criticism is orders of magnitude different from a legal injunction. I simply don’t see how the definitions and aims of a theory of monopoly can be usefully applied to this case.
plenty of reasons. the difference between android and apple is pretty stark, and they both have merit but dont dismiss the arguments against the more closed ecosystem
the apple method allows a really easy UX for every single purchase and install on ios; if you allow a developer to decide that they’re only releasing on NewOpenAppStore, a user has to go ahead and somehow install that, which is a mess. apple don’t want that, because it just looks bad for the whole ecosystem
the security implications are obvious; if a user wants a pirated app, they will follow the “technical instructions” to click through menus and allow 3rd party installs so they can download their package from legitnotmalware.com
there are plenty more in the same kinda thinking, but overall they are different approaches but the walled garden should not be dismissed. you can argue that the down sides outweigh the upsides, but don’t just dismiss anyone that decides the upsides are worth it as “apple apologists” in an effort to condescend and shut down conversation
You must be joking if your argument is that a closed system is in any way superior to an open one.
Android lets you install apps outside of play store, without any hard tech knowledge. That's not possible on Apple devices unless you are tech savvy and can go through a 10 step process.
Whatever upside you think they have flies in the face of openness.
Side-loading apps used to require switching the phone to a developer mode which disabled certain security restrictions in Android. They made it so any user could do it, including users without the technical chops to understand the ramifications.
Likewise, rather than having Apple review entitlements and for entitlements to privacy-impacting features like location or the camera be approved by the user at runtime, Google put a screen that asked users without the proper technical knowledge to make an evaluation a decision - either allow things that sound scary, or abort running the app.
The App Store review process is an abstraction that allows normal users to decide they trust the system to limit abuse so that they don't have to learn how to evaluate entitlement policies. Putting roadblocks to side loading apps (as you seem to know, still possible on iOS, but harder) means you don't have third parties convincing users to agree to security changes they don't understand.
This is not an open vs closed argument, since it is theoretically possible to build an open system with such features exposed opt-out with sufficient gymnastics. But that is a lot harder, and there is no financial motivation by Apple (or Google, or Microsoft, or any of the console vendors) for doing so.
> Apple didn’t even invent the walled-garden digital software store; Microsoft was using it on the X-Box in 2005.
I can't install software I buy in a store or direct from someone else without going through Apple. Even with the XBox, I could buy from a store, or second hand and play the game. Apple has invented the computer that forces you to pay Apple for for software or services you want to buy because of their store.
> What I don’t get is the monopoly argument.
The argument is this: Apple has a monopoly on iOS devices. Whether you think that has standing or is an issue in the smart phone market is a different issue. But at least you now understand what the argument is.
Apples total lack of PWA support is a real pain. Making a mobile app is 10x the investment of a PWA and most ‘apps’ would be better off as a website. This issue is annoying me more and more lately as Apple simply wants to hold back so many things. All so they can take 30%.
I don't understand why Apple isn't getting slapped for only allowing Safari-based browsers in the App Store. I don't understand anti-trust laws that well, but didn't Microsoft settle out of a very similar case related to bundling Media Player and IE with Windows?
Microsoft had a monopoly on the desktop OS market, and so pushing IE was anti-competitive. Apple isn’t anywhere near having a monopoly in phones, in the US or anywhere else.
It’s not just the behavior that’s against the law, it’s the behavior plus the market position.
I wasn’t making a judgement on the move, simply pointing out ‘undercut your competitor until they’re broke’ strategy is a classic the government goes after. It wasn’t just that MS had a higher market share.
In addition to the argument others are suggesting, that their market share isn't high enough to qualify, I believe they have also made legal arguments in the past about the sandboxed nature of their platform. I imagine they could also make a convincing argument that it's a feature they sell their customer- one that is at the core of why this requirement exists. They could probably also point to macOS, where they do not have the requirements and the technical environment is different, as support that it's platform-specific related to the sandbox.
I expect the substantial difference is that Microsoft's share of the PC market was far closer to a monopoly than Apple's share of the smartphone market is now (about 40% in the U.S.)
I can't imagine how you would implement such a scheme. For example, forcing Apple to allow non-Safari browsers in the app store is a binary choice, not something you can implement on a gradient. On top of that, market share tends to move around, sometimes a lot, so you would be changing the rules of the game constantly.
40% definitely is low enough to escape scrutiny as a monopoly, in any case. More than half of everyone who buys a smartphone chooses something non-Apple.
So if every top vendor did that, you'd have something like a cartel, except it wouldn't just be high prices, it would be "once you're in our ecosystem, no more interchangeable parts for you, we own the whole stack". It's a bit like feudalism!
Microsoft only got in trouble because they started selling IE as a separate product, then later added it to Windows. If they had just included it as a native Windows "accessory" from the beginning like Minesweeper or Calculator for no extra charge then it would have been tougher to make a case against them.
> Unlike Firefox on Android, Firefox for iOS does not support browser add-ons. Additionally, it uses Apple's Webkit rendering engine, rather than Mozilla's Gecko. Both of these limitations are in accordance with Apple's rules for submitting apps to the App Store.
Calling them skins is not correct at all. Being able to auto translate whole pages or sync all bookmarks and browsing history or passwords in iOS chrome
is not merely a skin.
I feel that all these measures are stop gaps at best. The fundamental thing you want is for customers to install whatever software they want on the hardware they buy. For mass market devices, it really ought to be a law that requires the manufacturer to allow consumers to do whatever they want. The manufacturer doesn't need to support these modes, and that's fine. Once you have that, the rest falls into place. This was the idea behind GPLv3 and anti-tivoization, but it never caught any traction for anything that matters.
I guess the issue is that side loading apps or an alternative App Store is not supported. That and disallowing purchases or rentals on amazon video or kindle apps for iOS.
I'm looking forward to the day I don't have to charge a non-profit doing good in this world $99 a year just to keep their app on the app store. Apple devices should have the equivalent of F-Droid for FLOSS goodies, and that's exactly the conclusion the courts should decide on IMO. This of course will make Apple devices less secure. But then again the current state of affairs is arguably worse given the lack of competition.
IIUC if Apple loses then there may finally be better way to get GPLed software on iOS/tvOS. I currently run Kodi on my Apple TV but I had to compile and sign it myself because they can't put it on the Apple store without an alternate license AFAICT.
Unfortunately while I personally think Apple should allow other app stores I don't think this particular suit will succeed.
IMHO, the reason some GPLed software is not allowed on iOS/tvOS is because RMS and others don't want their GPL code on iOS/tvOS.
In particular, the argument I've seen used in the past to contest GPL code in App Store apps is that Apple (as distributor) must distribute the source directly on the App Store, rather than the application or the App Store description having a link to the source via the developer's website or another third party site.
This isn't something Apple really cares about - but if someone says your app has a license violation, Apple will of course push dealing with said people onto you.
This has always stuck out to me as pedantic and hardly a violation of the spirit of the license. Such politics are what have and will continue to relegate the FSF to being a small social group rather than the originally intended purpose (whether you consider that a revolution, or a reversion back to software freedom)
I have recently found myself reconsidering my views on Tim Cook. He has generally positioned himself as the voice of reason, especially on matters of privacy. He’s gone as far as attack companies like Google and Facebook. And yet, all of this masks a simple truth abt Apple: any extra privacy or consumer protection comes at a very hefty cost, making most of its products unaffordable for most of the world. In contrast, Google’s Android is affordable for many large markets Apple doesn’t find worthy of competing in.
In principle there's nothing stopping Android device manufacturers from respecting privacy by using AOSP without Google services. However in practice such devices have either been market failures, or are even worse from a privacy standpoint (i.e. infested with Chinese government spyware).
Until very lately there were secrect mandatory agreements with google which made device manufacturers unable to sell devices with and without googles software at the same time. You had to choose one.
If you didn't use third-party sellers, you could have published your software on your website and accepted payments via any of the "software registration" services or even PayPal. 5-15%.
Presumably they'd be open to the same kind of suit, which IMHO is appropriate.
The issue at hand here is standing: do consumers have the right to sue for antitrust violations or is that limted to the app/game vendors who paid the markup most directly? The supreme court isn't going to decide on the merits of the specific case (because the original case in district court was thrown out due to standing -- this is the appeal of that decision) or whether or not Apple's 30% cut is appropriate.
I don't think that's a fair comparison, since I can buy hard copy games from a variety of stores in addition to buying digital games. I can't buy hard copy iPhone apps.
Yes you can but hard copy games, but guess what? Those games still have to be approved by the console maker and won’t run unless they have a digital signature from the console manufacturer. It’s been that way since the 80s.
I've developed homebrew games on multiple platforms. I know that NES, GBA, PSP, and DS have little to no restrictions. The Wii has a few restrictions, but not many.
So you’re claiming there is no lock out chip even though there was a Supreme Court case - Atari vs Nintendo where Atari circumvented it and this article.
I don't know what to tell you. I've flashed on a blank cart and used it on a real NES. Not sure what blank carts have done to circumvent it, but it's no work on my end.
Yes it’s possibke to distribute home brew games by using circumvention. Good luck trying to make that a commercially viable option. That stands up about as well as saying you can distribute iOS apps outside of the App Store for jailbroken phones....
Seems having an open iOS AppStore is just an incentive for crap apps. Not to say iOS doesn’t have them currently, but not matching the levels of Android
Not being American, this is the one thing I wish Trump/GOP/conservatives did in the US: bust the tech trusts. They're taking the courts, they can surely find state or federal attorneys to bring the cases, and the executive would provide them with cover and enforcement.
I'm surprised they haven't done it already. It would make sense for purely partisan reasons because tech companies are very liberal and extremely hostile to Trump's administration. But they could even reach across the aisle with megacorps like Amazon pretty clearly abusing their lower level employees which has been a cause on the left for decades.
The Democrats have been the ones looking into tech companies for years (just do some searching and you'll find it's been going on for years). The only reasons Republicans would jump on this now is for political reasons.
Any outcome would be tainted by the nakedly partisan motives. It would send a clear message to companies that they must bend to the administration's ideology.
Anyone who opposes the administration would be short-sighted to allow themselves to be used as puppets in this manner.
Speaking selfishly from the outside the short-term effects might not seem so bad, but the I wouldn't relish the long-term consequences.
Trump/GOP/conservatives aren't exactly pro-consumer. I would be surprised if they implemented regulations (e.g - GDPR like stuff) that would help the average person.
It wouldn't be hypocritical for Trump since IIRC he bashed Amazon during the campaign. Probably a little more difficult for the Chamber of Commerce republicans.
Perhaps it's a proxy attack but he criticized Amazon's tax practices for putting smaller shops out of business and the supposed preferential treatment by the USPS.
Anyway, my point was that it doesn't matter. His administration could do good here for purely partisan reasons.
The USPS allegation was 100% untrue as reported by the postmaster general (who you think would be someone Trump would have consulted).
The tax stuff is really none of his damn business (because it is really a state tax code issue at this point, not a federal issue)
If Trump does anything to attack Apple, it will be because he things doing so will benefit the US economy (likely because someone else told him it would). Things like convincing Apple to make certain parts in the US, even if doing so would increase prices in the US (and dramatically do so elsewhere in the world).
it is sort of "expected". People want a native experience.
To me, the entire concept seems wrong. It's like having to submit your website to chrome, and safari, and mozila, and be approved by them, for them to display your site... Don't you think it's wrong? Who are they to decide what I can or can not install on my device?
The perfect example of this is the subscription services, right now you can get a cheaper subscription to a service such as Spotify if you buy it off the App Store. That is a prime example of how much the 30% payment to Apple is hurting developers and ultimately consumers... Apple is so upset about this they won’t let developers like Spotify link to buying the subscription on their own website anywhere on the app that is sold through their App Store, if that’s not Monopoly abuse I don’t know what is.
As much as I love Apples products I do feel that they have gotten away with a lot here, especially since there is zero other ways to load apps into iOS devices, in the very least consumers are paying 30% more for apps if there was a competing App Store on iOS that charged less to load apps.
Edit: whether the Supreme Court will see it this way or not is a whole other issue.