> Companies that monetize user data in exchange for “free” services that abuse your privacy aren’t affected by this [the app store tax], as they don’t process payments through the App Store. However, privacy-first companies that monetize through subscriptions are disproportionately hit by this fee, putting a major barrier toward the adoption of privacy-first business models.
Huh. I’ve never seen it framed this way and it might be the most compelling argument I’ve heard to date. It’s not simply a debate about whether a company should be allowed to be vertically integrated in isolation, but whether that vertical integration allows them to exert unfair distorting pressure on the free markets we are trying to protect.
I have disorganized thoughts about this, but it's not just a debate about vertical isolation vs not.
1. The size of Apple/Alphabet/Samsung makes it difficult to enter the market (see: factories having ridiculous MOQs for small-batch phone manufacturing), pushing everyone else out.
2. The size of the smartphone market makes it impossible to not have to deal with one of the above companies for certification, market penetrance or such. This makes them kingmakers. If a company somehow manages to become Facebook, Netflix, or Amazon, then the phone companies slide them a secret deal under the table. Everyone else gets a market-limiting set of terms that makes sure "tech" stays one of the "top" industries.
Combined, with no entry allowed, and with forces exerted outwards, we see broad social structures orienting /around/ how we use our phones, rather than the other way around, and that includes ad-monetized-absolutely-everything.
Phones and social media, today, are where TVs and broadcasts were in the 1950s/60s. Ubiquity and centralizing forces. If someone told us in the 1950s a TV manufacturer was exerting pressure on our forms of information distribution and was choosing which voices get a seat at the table, we'd rightly call that archaic and wonder why people would accept a technology provider as a market-shaping force. But today we accept it nonetheless. I refuse to believe the argument that the world's largest company can't figure out how to build a secure pipeline without making plenty of my decisions on my behalf...
Exactly. All the free market logic assumes that barriers to entry are low. They are incredibly high and the market is naturally prone to converging on a single solution. There's basically room for two smartphone ecosystems. Microsoft/Nokia couldn't sustain a third. Android-adjacent things like Amazon Fire and Tizen have little market share.
> factories having ridiculous MOQs for small-batch phone manufacturing
Ironically in the contract manufacturing area the market is actually efficient. Small batches just cost more as an intrinsic fact about manufacturing. I guarantee you could get a quote for any quantity of manufacturing above 1, you just wouldn't like it.
Laws need to be revised to make it easier to remix off the shelf components.
I argue, default compulsory license fees should be a feature of copyright and patent. A 'reasonable' cap to the maximum it costs to reuse an existing device / idea. (Also that it should be a LOT tougher to patent things, maybe 1 patentable thing per expert examiner's work week, which would be the cost of filing for a patent. That only individuals should be able to own a patent. That companies could create 'prior art' with academic detail releases.)
I don't think it's so much patent or copyright as iPhone sits on a huge stack of technology which is proprietary by contract as well. It's very, very vertically integrated.
New Android startups appear now and then. The sort of thing that's achievable with a few tens of millions of dollars of funding. But Android as a whole represents a huge pile of work .. sitting on top of Google Play Services and the App Store, as we can see by the relative non-success of Amazon Fire.
(I was actually involved in the development of a phone-like handset device that was built around phone SOMs from Sierra Wireless. The first minimum order for assembly was ten units, scaling to a thousand after alpha test.)
Remixing off the shelf isn't really the issue if you want to compete, it's the fact that you wont even be able to buy the competitive components at all because they wont sell you them even if you ask and have the money.
That’s covered by the compulsory license part of the comment. Say Apple has a patent on the iPhone, Apple must license the iPhone itself to me at a reasonable fee. Then I can go sell jPhones all day to compete.
I don't think you could compete with the exact same product... the advantage of scale would still give Apple more than sufficient edge.
However if you happened to like E.G. Apple's screen, or camera, or another component that was better than what else could be selected it could be part of a design which competed on other merits. E.G. maybe the touch digitizer is just that much better, so it might make sense on some models of Android or some Libre phone more closely based on Linux or BSD. Or some company that makes an iPhone like device but to GOV spec standards for a given country. (In my mind, I'm thinking US Gov, but IP laws tend to be International too, so maybe Germany wants it's own secure phone.)
Who are you demanding from if there's no incentive to invest? Either the option is there, in which case the incentive clearly must have been there for someone, or it's not, in which case the incentive is the same for wanting to have it in the first place.
Hmm. Depends what you're referring to - iPhone is indeed a closed system, by contractual arrangement, but Android isn't, and it absolutely is feasible for third party Android devices to exist. Occasionally someone does a new phone startup.
Not especially a matter of patent, just good old fashioned contract exclusivity.
> the market is naturally prone to converging on a single solution
Not only that it is "naturally prone" to it (with thinks like bulk efficiencies) but also that it is economically prone to it. A free market with no monopolies drives profit towards zero. No company wants this so the logical response is to become a monopoly (or as close as possible) by putting up barriers to entry and competition.
Note: There's room for more smartphone ecosystems, but not mainstream ones. There are a few nonmainstream phones out there, from Linux phones (Pine, Librem, MNT I think now?) to more openish Android phones (Fairphone) to completely different platforms (that I'm pretty sure exist but I don't remember any of).
> If someone told us in the 1950s a TV manufacturer was exerting pressure on our forms of information distribution and was choosing which voices get a seat at the table, we'd rightly call that archaic and wonder why people would accept a technology provider as a market-shaping force. But today we accept it nonetheless.
A smartphone from Google or Apple is also pretty much required for certain government apps, banking/financial services, and so forth. I wouldn't call it a stretch to say that in the future it would be mandatory to have these duopoly controlled devices on your person at all times, like how you need to carry an ID card.
Many of those apps don't work on rooted phones or custom ROMs without workarounds and doing so is a TOS violation in many cases as well. Also imagine what it would be like if your Google or Apple account got banned by accident with no human support to sort it out.
That's an excellent point. I use Android LineageOS with no google apps. The amount of bullshit that I, a literal computer science PhD, have to put up with to somewhat avoid the more pernicious parts of the monopoly, is insane. Critical and even mandatory parts of my life (banking, government services) require me to engage with google in one way or another.
I actually put up with Lineage for many years before it got so bad that I had to switch to an iPhone. Before 2020 many apps still worked fine with it. All my computers are Linux and I self host everything, but I just couldn't risk an account lockout or a broken bank app.
Honestly I wish there was a legal requirement for those services to provide full access via a relatively open platform (like a web site), not a mobile app.
The entire business model that monetises user data, where the actual customer is the advertiser, users do not vote with their wallets, and honest competition is impossible because no one can compete with free, should simply not exist and maybe regulated against—especially in social media, where it incentivises algorithms to push aggravating content in the name of engagement and ad views.
Whether Apple should be regulated into reducing the fees they charge for access to their hardware and software ecosystem (the ecosystem they unarguably did a pretty stellar job at) is a debatable matter of its own, but it doesn’t strike me as addressing the issue of ad-supported business and how it messes with the way the market is supposed to work.
It is true that platform fee means this distorted business model is unfairly favoured. However, this is just an extension of the business based on ad/data mining (especially social media) being generally unfair in so many ways, and even with zero platform fees that business won’t stop being unfair and won’t be seriously challenged. To reiterate, no one can honestly compete with free; fee reduction merely tweaks the formula from “free vs. $X” to “free vs. slightly less than $X”.
Furthermore, there is the obvious issue that even if an app or service is paid, it can still be additionally monetising user data. Reducing fees will only favour this doubly shady business.
Perhaps what could actually move the needle a bit and make this model less attractive is if walled gardens somehow found a way charge a big fat fee off the ad/data mining revenue, in conjunction with appropriately reducing fees for regular sales of B2C apps and services. Could this be technically possible without walled gardens additionally owning ad exchanges (which might be a can of worms that shouldn’t be opened)?
I think the fix we need is comprehensive legal privacy protection and (even less achievable) significant restriction on advertisement. That would actually curtail the market for user data and prevalence of ad funding as a model.
What’s weird for me is that users can effectively vote with their wallets - they can refuse to engage with ‘freemium’ or ad-supported media - and they can refuse to consume ads when presented, refuse to engage with calls to action, refuse to pay for products advertised to them in this way.
Have you ever been shown a mobile ad, and thought to yourself, “this is a good thing, this is an honest description of a product that I am eager to spend money on?” No, on the contrary, they’re the subject of universal ridicule… and yet they persist. Why? How? Who is paying for them? How are they generating revenue? How can that be worth anything? Where is the value coming from?
So even though I delete apps that force you to sit through ads, and I refuse to be led by ads towards spending money - even though I am in effect ‘voting’ by doing so - it doesn’t seem to have any impact. The ads keep happening anyway, I can only assume because they do actually work on other less canny consumers.
Is the problem really an inability to vote with our wallets? Or is the problem a complete lack of media/marketing literacy, that leads the credulous to engage with ad slop, against their own best interests?
Some of it is more specific to social media, where it is a vicious circle. I wouldn’t latch to voting with your wallet, it’s merely one symptom of a complex issue.
For social it’s key to communicate with others, so as long as you use it you kind of have to be where everybody is, and everybody is where the free stuff is. If you can’t easily leave and continue communicating, because the platform attracts advertisers by the number of figurative eyeballs so it’s not in their interest to let yours go, then you can’t vote with your wallet unless you make yourself an outcast, which humans—extremely social beings—tend to find extremely stressful, which makes it is not really in their best interest no matter their media and marketing literacy.
On the other hand, even if you do make this difficult near-suicide move and leave, you have hardly anywhere to go: because of this phenomenon, any honest competition where you can pay for better service that works in your interest and has actual customer support (remember when that was a thing?) has no chance. All viable competition remains mostly free to use—we have been conditioned that it’s got to be free, but of course if neither users nor advertisers are paying then no one can really demand things that we take for granted from commercial services (like uptime, availability, well-supported convenient clients and so on), and the amount of resources that goes into development and support of these services is much smaller and much less coordinated.
With non-social ad-supported products it’s not as bad, at least in terms of lock-in. I personally would prefer a paid app from a somewhat reputable developer than risk installing a tracking machine from a shady SDK. However, still, most people default to free, and if platform fee is reduced and that honest app costs slightly less but is still not free, will it make any perceptible difference? I doubt it (maybe you’re right, most people lack media/marketing literacy, they can see that with free their economic utility per dollar approaches infinity and are unaware or not concerned about the intangible damage, including to the ecosystem of developers who try to make an honest living) and so I think ad/data mining based model should be fought on another level.
I think if there ever was an indicator that some function should be owned by the public, it’s when the public has come to expect it exists for free, when the social expectation is this thing is so fundamental and necessary that paying for it is absurd and creates equity of access problems.
An issue with regulation of something as public good is stagnation. When companies can make money and compete for serving the customer best, this drives innovation.
I used to think that a good alternative could be making it mandatory to provide feature-complete API for interoperation. Third-party cross-platform clients would remove lock-in and make ads unprofitable, demoting Big Social from platforms to pipes, like mobile providers, and force them to charge for service. It would no longer be in their interest to serve aggravating content to keep us glued to screens if we can just switch to a more mental health friendly competitor, and besides it would lower their server load.
However, I am not sure anymore whether it would do much to other shady practices like all sorts of data mining and sale, including the new practice of using private data for training commercial ML models.
>Is the problem really an inability to vote with our wallets? Or is the problem a complete lack of media/marketing literacy, that leads the credulous to engage with ad slop, against their own best interests?
The problem is companies/marketers who won't take no for an answer... And unfortunately, short of reverse monetization, (marketers must pay individuals for our eyeballs, which has its own logistical problems), there isn't a way to really prevent the pathological impression pipeline that advertising has gravitated toward. In the U.S. unfortunately, there is zero we can do to corral mercantile speech short of collectively coordinated action by the populace since we've written the capability out of our governmental edifice.
Yes, in a way it's a rather good argument. But if you take it to its conclusion, if Apple finds it harder and harder to monetize the App Store through fees, then THEY might eventually decide to switch to privacy violating advertising as their revenue strategy.
> if Apple finds it harder and harder to monetize the App Store through fees, then THEY might eventually decide to switch to privacy violating advertising as their revenue strategy.
They already do this right now anyway, with App Store ads. Apple doesn't care about privacy. It cares about money, and it makes money any way it can. Unlike pretty much every other phone or tablet, iOS devices don't let you install apps without telling Apple. That privacy violation exists because it makes Apple money.
At that point consumers would be free to make a choice to switch away from Apple if they value their privacy enough. The problem right now is that Apple is 'abusing' the fact that privacy-aware consumers are drawn to their platform to charge onerous fees to app developers. They're leveraging their (de facto) monopoly on high-end mobile privacy-aware devices to restrict competition in mobile app fee charging. It's that business practice that's wrong - having a monopoly is fine so long as you don't start using your monopoly position to make money from people who are your customers for some other business.
Microsoft fell foul of this in the early 2000s. It wasn't their monopoly on desktop PC OSs that lost them an anti-trust case. It was the fact they used their monopoly on Windows to push users into adopting IE. They abused their monopoly position. That's the problem.
>At that point consumers would be free to make a choice to switch away from Apple if they value their privacy enough.
Consumers who spent hundreds of dollars in Appstore purchases and have 10+ years of photos, movies and data tied to Apple won't just suddenly leave all that and move to Android and start their digital life from scratch.
And the young consumers just starting their digital lives, are jumping in the ecosystem their friends and family already use (iMessage lock-in). It's basically not even your choice at that point, it's more that you're forced to.
No, the world is not either smartphone or no-smarthone, it's not binary. The correct alternative is not having anti consumer vendor lock-in practices in smartphones.
We had PWA even before we had locked in app-stores but then Apple saw the dollar signs of locking people and app devs in their graded and gave up on PWA and doubled down on draconian lock-in.
I don’t think the qualifier was necessary. I think it was used to describe the obvious nature of anyone owning the sole software distribution means on their platform, it gives them a de facto monopoly on that means as opposed to a natural? monopoly where they just got so big they fell into it.
Apple unquestionably monopolizes the App Store. Whether or not you consider it a substantial monopoly is it's own thing, but the App Store itself is segregated from competition.
> if Apple finds it harder and harder to monetize the App Store through fees, then THEY might eventually decide to switch to privacy violating advertising as their revenue strategy.
Schiller argued that App Store should be free after a billion dollars was earned from it. Apple execs pretend they don't even know how much money App Store makes or loses.
And App Store is already monetized: Apple's hardware pays for everything, and more.
Nobody will use an iPhone without Uber, their banking and transit apps. Apple used to think all 3rd party services will be accessed via Safari, but boy was that a long time ago.
It's a good argument but I'm not sure it'll hold up. Apple went to great lengths to clamp down on privacy-abusing advertising via ATT. I think Facebook have been quite open about the huge revenues it cost them alone.
In the short-term, this happened. Facebook recovered though, as what Apple actually accomplished was destroying all of the smaller providers who didn't have huge first party datasets for modelling.
It's similar to the notion that killing third party cookies is basically a gift to Facebook and Google.
And lets be honest here, Apple themselves are not subject to ATT and (potentially coincidentally) have a rather large ads business. Many moons ago Apple suddenly started becoming the number 1 provider of installs on Apple as they claimed credit for the click to install which is also bonkers.
One can agree that targeted advertising is bad but also note that Apple made these "privacy focused" decisions for commercial rather than idealistic reasons.
It's really the most interesting thing I read in this screed, the rest of which seemed to be clueless BS like, "changes to App Store policies that will improve the state of the internet."
No. Unlike Google, Meta, and Amazon, Apple is not a gatekeeper to the Internet. They are the gatekeeper to one thing: their own app store. It's tiresome to hear the same anti-"big-tech" hysteria aimed at Apple. They aren't a monopoly, period.
But back to this: "The App Store policies hurt privacy"
No, they don't. The plaintiff bases this admittedly novel whine on the fact that Google and its ilk make money on things other than their software. So by that logic, every company that doesn't conduct business through its app hurts every company that does. Give us a break.
So what? Controlling how many fart apps are available on its platform does not make Apple a gatekeeper to any part of the Internet. Apple does not funnel Web traffic into its properties.
Think it through: Amazon dominates shopping-search results. It easily swamps any other shopping portal or indie vendor. So it is a de facto gatekeeper to a huge portion of online shopping. You're citing Apple's alleged 58% of phone-platform share as making it a gatekeeper to the Internet? Amazon is actually an Internet-based entity with huge dominance in its field.
Meanwhile Meta (Facebook) IS the Internet for a large (less tech-savvy) portion of the public. Akin to when AOL slapped Internet access onto its platform.
Apple controls its app store. Is it douchey as hell to developers? Yep. Has it antagonized governments and flouted legal rulings? Yep. Has it lied about App Store search? Yep.
But it is not an Internet gatekeeper or a monopoly.
The Internet and the Web are not the same thing. Apple absolutely gatekeeps the ability to run non-HTTP internet connected apps. Your statement that Apple is not a “gatekeeper to any part of the Internet” is simply false.
> So what? Controlling how many fart apps are available on its platform does not make Apple a gatekeeper to any part of the Internet.
Controlling what kind of software, including _web browsers_, runs on the main device for the majority of the US population, does not make it a gatekeeper? That doesn't make any sense to me. Want to go to Amazon? You need an app or a browser to access it, both of these are controlled by Apple on its devices. Meta/Facebook? Same.
No, it does not. Does the cable company's forcing of you to use DOCSIS-compliant modems control what Web sites you access? No.
Does WebKit direct you to certain sites or block sites based on their content? Does it capture your search terms and curate the results? Does it aggregate content? Does it funnel your viewing to certain sites preferentially? No.
You keep attempting to assert that the viewing tool curates what you view with it. WebKit doesn't. Even if you raise technical points (doesn't support Web MIDI or something), those still don't prevent you from visiting any site you want. Even if a site were totally broken for technical reasons, it doesn't amount to deliberate curation by Apple.
In practice I think he is right unfortunately. Most people would just run Chrome and more websites would require Chrome since they could just tell Apple users to deal with it, making the mono-culture even worse.
Yes I have, I worked with it for years, there's the officially supported standards and then there's the buggy reality you have to deal with. I've encountered bugs with backgrounds, zIndex, videos, forms, localStorage, SVGs, all basic browser features.
Then Safari also is the last non-evergreen browser so it's the slowest to update compared to all the other browsers. If you have a bug, there's a good chance you'll have it for years
Evergreen refers to the speed of update, your average iPhone user takes one year and half to update. Your average Chrome user is updated within 3 weeks, your average Firefox user within 4 weeks.
Call it with another word if you want but Safari is on a league of its own.
How is that gatekeeping? Does Webkit prevent you from visiting certain sites, or funnel you to others?
No.
And the browser-engine ban is being lifted; something that sounded good at first, until you realize that Chrome is already a cancer on the Web that is only held back to the dominance of Safari on mobile. Cheerleading for a total takeover by Chrome isn't smart if you think it through.
If you serve web pages, you likely serve many of your users on their Apple devices. And you can’t support features of the web for those users if Apple doesn’t want them to have those features, and prohibits browsers with other engines that do support them on their App Store, and prohibits other sources of web browsers.
Yes you did: "Try shipping a web browser not based on Apple’s browser functionality on iOS. See how free of gatekeeping the internet is."
And no, it isn't. Not supporting certain browser features does not direct traffic or even deny access. So you obviously don't know what gatekeeping is.
A) it’s not irrelevant at all. Perhaps you don’t do web design, or perhaps you restrict your designs to functionality Apple doesn’t actively or passively prohibit.
Then you might not be aware that Apple does not support everything other browsers support. Or takes longer to support some things.
The internet has two ends (at least), media source and media user. Both ends require compatible software for any connection to work or work fully.
B) Of course I omit other irrelevant issues. No need for argumentative non-points.
A suggestion that would help me understand you better:
Instead of simply dismissing points out of hand, respond with reasoned thoughts.
Maybe you have a sensible viewpoint?
I have no issue learning from you.
If you can communicate how Apple blocking alternate browser engines doesn’t actually block other browser’s additional web functionality, please explain your work around.
I would appreciate any solution you have. So would many others.
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Apple also prohibits (via there App Store) non-browser apps based on how they use the Internet. So that’s additional gate keeping of Internet functionalit.
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Read Apple’s App Store guidelines for developers. Apple is up front and clear about all these restrictions and prohibitions.
I am lost as to what you are trying to claim they allow, that they openly document they don’t allow.
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Perhaps you have confused internet functionality with Internet addresses.
Indeed, Apple doesn’t block IPs.
But some kind of software at both ends is still required to communicate across the Internet. And blocking specific kinds of Internet functionality at one end, effectively blocks it from both ends, on their locked down devices.
You have confused "Web functionality" with gatekeeping.
You can use WebKit to visit any site you want; whether it supports every technical feature you might encounter on a site is irrelevant. I'm not arguing that it's a good engine or even competitive. I don't question your objections to missing functionality, and probably agree with all of them. But that is not gatekeeping. That's like saying black-&-white TVs were "gatekeeping" by not showing color, or some Bluetooth speakers are "gatekeeping" by not being stereo.
Anyway, the point is moot because Apple has to allow other browser engines now. If you think it through, this will simply allow Chrome to completely dominate the Web and take us backward to the bad old days of "this site works best on..."
> They are the gatekeeper to one thing: their own app store.
They also control the OS and don't allow side-loading or other app stores (without putting absurd obstacles in the way) So in the end they completely control the devices they sell.
The end user is _NOT_ forced to buy into their ecosystem though.
There are alternatives, and depending on where on this globe you ask, apple is not even the one with the biggest marketshare.
So while I'm not against the general outcry and need for change, it is not just apple. The problem is way way bigger, and it should not be put onto one of the players in my opinion.
Create regulation/platform that sets the limits, then put ALL players into the process not just one
The difference is that we can easily try to pretend that game consoles are not general purpose computers. And doing so is not going to cause issues to the fabric of the society.
Hahaha, wow, OK. Then we must acknowledge that we're talking about PHONES here, and the applications on it are optional TOYS. The phone could have no app store at all, and still be highly functional and complete. In fact... that's how the iPhone launched. There was no app store for years.
Meanwhile, a game system with no games is not functional at all.
No, they are general purpose computers that can also work as cellphones.
The first iPhone technically wasn't a smartphone (unlike its competitors at the time) because it did not have a way to install third-party programs. This situation only lasted a year though.
It did have a pre-installed Google Maps app, very much not a toy...
And don't game consoles typically come out bundled with some first party games too ?
"The first iPhone technically wasn't a smartphone (unlike its competitors at the time) because it did not have a way to install third-party programs"
What a laughably wrong assertion. The iPhone handled all kinds of PIM data and synced with computers. There was no requirement (or even expectation) that a "smart" phone had third-party applications.
I'm not so sure it's the best argument but I get what they're saying. The problem is, the argument basically says all free apps are bad, all paid apps are good. The price of an app isn't a good indicator of its intentions.
No, it doesn't say that. It says free apps are not hurt by this as much as paid apps, so charging a percentage fee to maintain the app store disproportionately hurts paid apps.
I don't think the argument is that _every_ free app is abusing your privacy, just that there are undoubtedly some, and they're hard to compete with in a privacy-respecting way due to the extra overhead that the app store fees incur.
It's proton suing. That's their entire case. They are a respecting privacy product that is unduly burdened while privacy abusing products are not. (their argument)
This is probably a controversial opinion but I actually use my iPhone because it's locked down with a curated app marketplace and secure payment system. I don't want alternative payment methods or app stores. So I find it distasteful that other companies are seeking to control Apple's product design through the legal system. They're essentially trying to make it impossible to purchase a product I want, which is more monopolistic than the current status quo. iPhones do not have any sort of monopoly on phones.
If you want that, you can purchase any number of Android devices.
if all you want is for your apps to come from Apple's store and your payments to go through Apple's system, you would simply continue to use only those options and allowing other people to have other options would not impact you.
what you actually want is to force all developers to use Apple's distribution and payment systems, so that you can have every app and service from any provider delivered via your chosen mechanisms. that takes away freedom from developers and users who prefer other systems. it eliminates the market for anyone to make or use something better than your chosen options
Except, what happens when apps get removed from the iOS App Store and moved to another store for distribution? If people want to continue or need to use those apps then they would have to use these other app stores.
What if those apps moved to other stores so they can skirt Apple's review and other consumer-friendly restrictions? How is that better for consumers that use Facebook, Insta, etc... for them to have apps with less review and less scrutinized for their behavior? Some of Apples policies have been good for consumers of apps.
Just witness how Fb, etc... already try and skirt those rules that are in place to protect users from tracking and other abuses. Seems pretty logical to assume they would all jump ship to another store to not be under Apple's review process if they could.
I don't doubt for one minute that Fb, etc.. would not jump to another store with less restrictions, and either pull their existing apps or leave them severely restricted in the Apple App Store as an "incentive" to download from the other store.
That's not Facebook moving to an alternative store, that's Facebook the company introducing another application outside of the store.
Also worth noting that they got called out and ultimately shut down for being shady. Even though they were operating outside of Apples locked down environment. It's almost like we don't need Apple to protect us, and in fact we can protect ourselves
If you can only attract good apps by making yourself the only option then your platform is bad. If Apple can't compete in the market they are doing a bad job.
Developers are not forced into using Apple's distribution and payment systems because there are a multitude of other competing devices (with a higher market share mind you) they can and do develop for.
If users and developers prefer other systems they can simply use those.
Apple is not forced into doing business in Europe, because there are a multitude of other anticompetitive tolerant regions (much larger than Europe mind you) they can do business in.
If Apple prefers anticompetitive practices, it can simply only do business in those regions.
I'm curious what becomes the breaking point for them to pull out of a region. Obviously it's about profit but at what point (if any) does it make profitable sense for them to leave?
Leaving a region means they would give up market share, investments and a lot of staff. This is huge. It's not just about quarterly profit, even if it might sometimes feel like it is.
Presumably, before they take such a drastic measure, they would first spend massive amounts on lobbying, which would most likely succeed.
A point we're still lightyears away from. The lengths they go to in order to operate in China are magnitudes greater than to operate in the EU, yet EU makes them $10+ billion more profit than China.
What would actually happen is that the US would start seriously threatening (blackmailing) the EU to a degree where it's forced to relent long before Apple would pull out.
Apple's estimated operating profit from the EU is around $40 billion dollars. If the US government wouldn't get involved, they could force Tim Apple himself to live on top of the Alps and he'd happily do it rather than lose that $40 billion, or shareholders would vote him out ASAP.
Why are you assuming that not only this kind of blackmail is even going to work, but that the EU isn't just going to kick out ALL of US infocoms instead ? (Because of this or because of other issues related to Trump or even Bush (Patriot Act).)
When there is no more profit and only loss, I reckon. Shareholders would not be happy if they pulled out of a region because they can only make $1 over $10. If that $1 is profit, they'll want it.
Never. The Apple bet, the North Star, is that personal computing is both the present and the future. The minute an exception gets carved out, like “personal computing but not in Europe” then Apple enters a death spiral. They’ll deal with each blow that comes their way because it will come for everyone else in the market too, but they’ll still be in the lead.
Except that developers are forced to use Apple's distribution and payment systems to reach users with a native experience on Apple devices. This ability to limit or control competition within a market is called market capture, a key consideration of antitrust.
This argument doesn't make sense. Many developers are de facto forced to distribute their apps on iOS. There are only two mobile platforms globally. Deciding not to support one of them would be economically (and in some cases functionally) unviable for a very large number of apps.
However, the counter argument that opening iOS to other stores and payment methods would not affect users who prefer the App Store is not necessarily true either. If developers can choose not to distribute via Apple's store to avoid restrictions that are unfavourable to their business model then users would no longer be able to buy those apps in the App Store.
This is the dilemma that needs to be solved.
One solution could be to adopt a rule similar to the one for social logins. If an app supports any social logins at all then it must also support Sign in with Apple. Unfortunately, adopting a similar rule for the App Store is a lot more complex.
If an app rejected by Apple is then not allowed to be installed via an alternative app store either, Apple would once again be able to veto apps for whatever reason they want. And if developers were free to set a any price they want for each store, they could effectively make the App Store unviable.
I still feel that there is a set of rules that could make this work. The complexity is unfortunate though.
If it was actually stifling competition we would see many more good apps for Android that don’t exist for iOS. That’s not the case. If anything most companies I know develop first for iOS and then for Android if they have sufficient resources. Why? Because accessing Apple’s user base, even with the Apple Tax, is more lucrative than developing for Android.
The point is that more, different, better and cheaper options might exist. The fact that people are still willing to trade in a large captured market does not mean that competition is not greatly distorted in favor of the market's owner.
> The point is that more, different, better and cheaper options might exist.
They can, on Android, which worldwide is about 75% of the market.
> competition is not greatly distorted in favor of the market's owner
If Apple were primarily engaged in making its own apps that compete with apps in its marketplace, then yes, that is distorting the competition (and one could argue that it does this with certain apps like Mail). But the fact that it takes a cut from anyone who wants access to its user base, doesn't stifle competition per se.
This is primarily about access. If I want to set up a popup store inside a fancy country club to access a captive market, I'm going to pay a lot more in fees to the country club than I would if I put it up in some random strip mall. This is no different.
Not very. Plenty of people, including on HN, agree with you.
> but I actually use my iPhone because it's locked down with a curated app marketplace and secure payment system.
Except it’s not. That argument would be much stronger if the App Store weren’t full of scammy predatory apps which regularly top the top grossing charts.
> I don't want alternative payment methods or app stores.
And I don’t want everything to be a subscription, yet here we are. Just like I have to avoid the majority of apps today, you’ll avoid other App Stores if that is what you want.
You’re at a significant advantage because ignoring other stores is much easier, and opening up the iPhone to third-party stores has an effect on the policies of the main App Store. This is plainly demonstrated by the acceptance of the emulator from the creator of an alternative store. So even by not using those third-party ones, you’re benefiting.
> They're essentially trying to make it impossible to purchase a product I want, which is more monopolistic than the current status quo.
That doesn’t make sense. There’s no monopoly on a product which doesn’t exist.
> iPhones do not have any sort of monopoly on phones.
You don’t have to be a monopoly to be harmful to consumers. Companies have realised that long ago and it’s time consumers do too.
> Except it’s not. That argument would be much stronger if the App Store weren’t full of scammy predatory apps which regularly top the top grossing charts.
Not just that - they also actively interfere with search results for essential apps people need. Looking up government or banking apps in the iOS app store will always surface either dodgy insurance sellers or dodgy banks that aren't the one you want to use before the actual app you want to download.
The App Store's curation is absolutely horrendous - these are also bought/sponsored placements, meaning Apple is actively profiting off of people being led to these sorts of misleading apps.
It's not controversial, you can still have your walled garden as-is.
The point of this is so that there is the possibility of escaping that walled garden, arguably welcoming more users into the ecosystem.
Nothing would change for you. Just like android users can keep using all things Google, they have the possibility of installing apps from other sources.
Things would actually change—developers would instead choose to distribute via the alternate means instead of the App Store.
So, you see, it doesn’t matter whether Apple has the walled garden or the third-party devs have the walled garden. Either way, users will be forced to accept someone’s distribution policy. But the difference really lies in the trust on Apple and its security and privacy practices, which is a choice that will be robbed from people buying iPhones to use apps exactly for this purpose.
> developers would instead choose to distribute via the alternate means instead of the App Store
Would they? I imagine they would distribute via all available, at different price points. At least that's what I would do. Why would I want to forgo access to customers who prefer every last detail to be handled via Apple's infrastructure?
That said, if there were actually a dichotomy between "force developers to distribute via my preferred means" and "permit developers to choose whether or not to use my platform of choice" the former seems obviously immoral and the latter obviously the correct course of action. Why should you get to dictate how developers must do things? That's simply valuing your own preference over everyone else's (both developers and users) right to choose.
Oh devs would absolutely avoid distributing through the App Store if they want to run any code that would fail App Store Review, such as the abuse of private low-level APIs to gather more user data than the app needs, which all businesses have a profit incentive to do.
There are many other possible scenarios: devs forcing users to authenticate with unsecure methods, gather and unsecurely store credit card information, gather passwords, upload contacts, read SMSes, etc. The value that a third-party dev can derive from private user info is far greater than alternately offering a different version of the app that will pass App Store reviews.
Distribution via alternative stores does not mean there’s no review and moderation. Junk stores may have their fans, but competitive alternatives to App Store will inevitably introduce some controls to maintain reputation and remain compliant. Their advantage will be price, not presence of junk apps. That’s how free market with consumer protection laws works: regulation defines parameters of new equilibrium and eventually all start playing by the same rules to the benefit of the consumer.
Price wouldn't be the only point of differentiation though. Say Google were to bring the Play Store to iOS. Apple's App Store allows users to opt out of tracking. The Play Store does not. Wouldn't all apps that use an advertising based business model automatically gravitate towards the Play Store?
If the goal is to make Apple open up their platform in a way that doesn't take away choices from users, we need a set of rules to guarantee that. Otherwise I agree with rTX5CMRXIfFG. Facebook and Google would find ways to gradually make the App Store more and more unattractive until that choice no longer exists. There would be billions of dollars worth of incentives.
>Apple's App Store allows users to opt out of tracking. The Play Store does not.
In EU the only legal way to do tracking is opt in, so this is a matter of law enforcement and not a long term competitive advantage.
The weakness of regulation is a problem of American users, which they can solve by voting for politicians who support better consumer protection. Of course they may choose otherwise and choose instead a quasi-monopoly of more expensive walled gardens. After all, America is democracy, isn’t it? :)
If my apps are changing, yes it is changing for me.
Right now I can manage all of my app subscriptions from the Subscriptions screen in the Settings app of my devices. If they open up to other payment methods, my subscriptions are no longer centralized, I have to give my credit card information to more parties of variable trustworthiness, I have to worry about subscription renewal policies for every individual app, I have to figure out different methods of cancelling which could be a more difficult process than hitting "cancel" and trusting Apple will stop the payments, etc.
sound like an opportunity for a service that provides the conveniences you enjoy without the lock in and high taxes that Apple requires. imagine an app store that was curated more carefully, where every app was hand tested and with a guarantee of safety that Apple has not provided. a subscription manager with even better UI, lower fees, etc. a payment processor that offered better terms than Apple does.
but we cannot have these until the lock in is removed
I think those problems are largely also due to anti competitive and anti consumer behaviors.
We need to craft legislation saying software vendors have to support some kind of standardized payment system with easy cancellation built in to it rather than relying on Apples good will.
Here in the UK we have something called Direct Debit, that is backed by the Direct Debit guarantee. All regular payments are made by DD and we can cancel a regular payment at any time just by contacting our bank. I can go into my banking app, review a list of all DD payments, and cancel any of them with just the press of a button. You should campaign to have that system in America.
I often find it strange that a country that is so advanced in many ways is so backwards when it comes to banking.
Whenever I want a subscription I want inside an app, I actually take the effort to go to their website and buy it from them directly, because it's cheaper (not that they're allowed to tell me this in their app though).
When I want to stop paying for the subscription, I cancel it and I'm done. At least in the EU, this is always an easy thing to do.
Except implementing the functionality to optionally open up your device to the world inherently makes it less secure. I now have no ability to purchase the phone that I want. It's actually decreasing consumer choice.
There are jailbreaks available for iOS 16.6.1 (released in 2023), and every iOS version prior to it. I count that as "recent", though I understand either way.
Recent versions of iOS have specific anti-jailbreak mechanisms (anti-downgrade mechanisms, ephemeral root filesystems) which don't provide general security, so they're sort of cheating. These mechanisms just mean it's harder to use the vulnerabilities for good, without significantly stymieing evil. (And they aren't wholly effective, seeing as 16.6.1 contains all of them, and it's still got a semi-untethered jailbreak.)
Or you end up with companies (like Wal-mart) that decide that they don’t want to accept Apple Pay and become payment processors themselves, requiring you to install their app to do phone/watch payments. Congrats, you now need a whole boquet of payment apps and we’re back to it being easier to use physical credit cards. For some of these things, the consolidation was the whole point.
Since Walmart keeps popping up in other comments, I'll do devil's advocate using the exact same argument other people used:
If you don't want to buy on Walmart and their custom payment system, then just go to a competitor.
With that said: this is an unrealistic scenario. Walmart doesn't pay the famous 30% to ApplePay, only a regular CC-like fee (probably less). Also, physically they can just accept contact payments where they don't interact with Apple but it still works with the iPhone wallet. Online, they can just use credit cards instead of ApplePay, which iPhones have autofill for, and probably not lose much.
That only works if competitors aren’t doing the same exact thing.
There’s also situations where you don’t have a choice. In many parts of the US the only reasonably accessible store (and sometimes grocery store) is a Walmart.
HN's time-honored scapegoat. "Corporations can't be trusted - that's why I trust Apple to fight them" is a ridiculous pretense to support consolidation. If Apple uses their de-facto position of privilege to demand people use their products as a solution, then they have become the problem. The exact same problem as Wal-mart insisting you download their wallet app.
There is a real solution to this, where we codify our social limits through legislation and open standards to prevent these horrible "leopards ate my face" scenarios that everyone seems to hate so much. Or we could keep trusting Apple, and see how many F1 advertisements that nets us in the long-run.
Legislation would be better, no question. Have you seen US politics, though? Not just lately, but for the past couple of decades. Electing knowledgable politicians who are willing to stay properly abreast of technology and work for the interests of their constituents is nigh impossible.
The ones that get into office are most often out of touch and in someone’s pocket because they grandstand on polarizing topics that information-deficient and single-issue voters flock to. I try to vote for candidates who I think will do good that way, and it makes some impact on the micro scale, but on the national scale it’s like trying to drain the Pacific Ocean with a thimble.
Are you now going to argue that Tim Cook is a really nice guy who practices genuinely principled leadership? I hope not, he's only there to convert your loyalty to something more liquid and fungible.
Nope, it’s clear he does what he thinks is best for the company and its shareholders. Companies aren’t your friend. Even without that, the US political system is broken and the alternatives have their own glaring issues that either lie in the blind spots of or are actively ignored by their proponents.
Conversely, we can _not_ open up our bootloaders in Android because banking apps then refuse to run on an "insecure" OS. Of course we'd have to put aside the fact that our computers can access the same banking features through a web browser.
Exactly. Jailbreaking is WAI for the folks who want the “Android experience” on an iPhone. Much of this drama is merely corporations vying to “get theirs” from the ecosystem, without understanding that the extant nature of the ecosystem is why it is the most valuable platform by user spend (that is to say, they care little for the consumer).
Shouting "monopoly" from the rooftops is not enough to affect real change. If I wish not to pay property taxes, my options include moving to another state, but courts do not recognize a general right to challenge tax liability on the grounds of personal preference or disagreement with taxation. Perhaps it's worth sparing a thought as to why, and who ultimately empowered that stance.
Plus, this is often the “if I can’t have it no one can” line of thought, sometimes from companies engaging in anticompetitive practices themselves (like Epic Games).
I'm all for corporations "trying to get theirs" if it benefits the rest of society.
iPhones are a premium product and they don't have a natural right to 30% of transactions going through it if the participants don't want Apple to know about it.
> It’s the “if I can’t have it no one can” line of thought
That describes what you and _benton are advocating. "If I can't have the phone be the way I want, no one can".
That's exactly backwards. I have no desire to limit the types of phones you can purchase, and you have an enormous amount of choices in phones outside Apple that provide essentially the same functionality, and can be as open as you wish. You wish to limit my ability to access a device that I want. I want a locked down phone, and third parties wish to intervene on a transaction between me and Apple so they can illegitimately get a piece of the pie.
How about people who want a Mac (which is still "open" to the extent that it makes a difference), and therefore would also like an iPhone because of the propitiatory APIs Apple makes available solely to the iPhone?
I don't particularly like my iPhone, in fact I see as a worse device in many ways to my old Android phone, but the interoperability with my Mac makes the trade-off worth it. So ironically, the only reason I want it is because of even _more_ anticompetitive practices.
And yes, the day the Mac is as closed off as the iPhone, there will be zero Apple devices in this house.
> You wish to limit my ability to access a device that I want. I want a locked down phone
As others have repeatedly said, you can still opt to not use any other kind of app from outside the AppStore.
But as I asked on another thread, as a thought experiment: What about we meet in the middle and governments force Apple to only "open" 50% of the phones, for the same price. Would that satisfy you?
> third parties wish to intervene on a transaction between me and Apple so they can illegitimately get a piece of the pie.
It's actually Apple that wants to intervene in transactions where I don't want them to be a part of. I don't want to pay 10 euros and give 3 to them.
Never seen WAI before, all I can come up with is Works As Intended or Web Accessibility Initiative?
Anyways- jail breaking requires being or remaining on certain iOS versions on certain specific hardware models. You can’t “just jailbreak” your apple device that you daily drive/use regularly. If you’re not on an old version on the right hardware already, you’re fucked. And waiting for a new jailbreak exploit is a (anecdotally, for me at least) nondeterministic amount of time on the order of O(years), with a significant probability that it will not be relevant for whatever device you’re waiting on.
This is how you know Apple's marketing is effective. When users think they have a sense of security by using Apple's apps and apps on Apple's store and advocate against competition against Apple.
Controversial maybe, but we have to suffer through this exact same incredibly odd opinion in every thread that makes contact with this issue. No one is asking you to leave your walled garden.
iPhone's other aspects would still remain comfortably locked down and strictly controlled for you by them if there was the opt in for those interested to have alternative ways of paying for subscriptions.
I could hardly believe you only pay through Apple for everything, I mean everything, as THE trustful, others are not trusted, not using other safe payment methods for some products due to security concerns. Not only Apple is secure in this regard.
As there are opt ins on iPhone for so many highly unsecure matters, you could share the most sensitive data with the individual apps with a flick if you wish (sharing personal and very sensitive data, sometimes personal data of others without their consent, like contacts) it is very hard to understand why this particular opt in is ringing your alarm bells of security irrevocably lost and get locked out completely ("impossible to purchase product") that hard....
You can have your choice of not choosing still, while Apple's product design would otherwise remain intact in its current form. Your arguments are very inconsistent.
Same here. I don’t want to hack around with my phone like I do my computer. I want it to just work and be as feee as possible from malware etc. Other considerations are a distant second.
Apple's app store practices are an abusive monopoly, and I wish the Proton folks luck.
We once had a Zulip update rejected by Apple because we had a link to our GitHub project with the source code for the app in the app itself. And it turns out, if you then click around GitHub, you can find a "Pricing" page that doesn't pay Apple's tax.
Not related directly and not related to subscription — a recent case of Apple’s anticompetitive and user hostile policies is Apple essentially locking down email push notifications and essentially forcing everyone to use fetch. They had given a way via some signing and now they just shut it down or it broke and they didn’t fix it. Now if every mail provider have their own app then they can circumvent via some shenanigans of non mail push notifications and then fetch mail or some circus. My mail provider doesn’t have their own app so I am stuck with third party apps where push stopped working.
We can play technical gymnastics around this but this just sucks!
> We don’t question Apple’s right to act on behalf of authoritarians for the sake of profit, but Apple’s monopoly over iOS app distribution means it can enforce this perverse policy on all app developers, forcing them to also be complicit.
Reply to a couple hundred comments: You don’t have to be a monopoly to be deemed to be acting in an anti-competitive manner.
Just dominant by some significant measure, in some significant dimension, enough for many people to complain. And for a judge to review the practices and find the company is leveraging that dominance to maintain dominance or hold dominance over adjacent markets in a way that is blocking competition.
Apple is using their control of their phone hardware and OS to preclude any alternate source of apps or app stores, in order to charge a large vig on every app and in app purchase. And block competitive, tech like alternate web browser engines, and any app they don’t like.
They are big enough to warp the whole market for mobile apps and browsers. A large percentage of apps become much less viable if they don’t supportiOS. So “choose another phone” isn’t a viable solution to the harm.
Nothing stops Apple from having an App Store. Using it to enforce security rules. Nothing stops users from using it exclusively (EDIT: Don’t download from other sources, or if you do, click “no” when you get asked if you want to install apps from other sources. This is trivial for Apple to do.)
The problem is the app market is massive, highly dependent on having iOS versions to compete in the overall mobile device space, and Apple is both blocking alternative app sources and taxing all those apps, and completely prohibiting some apps, while prohibiting any other options.
Enforcing rules against anti-competitive behavior isn’t a zero cost practice. it is reasonable for some people to prefer the status quo.
But it’s better than allowing anti-competitive behavior, which would encourage more such behavior because not having competition is incredibly profitable. And the harms of letting anti-competitive behavior go unchecked tend to be significant but only obvious in hindsight, or never. That’s part of the problem. Without healthy competition lots of significant but non-obvious progress gets snuffed out before it has a chance.
Either you nip it in the bud, or end up dealing with much worse abuses.
Imagine how quickly we’d answer the question of whether consumers actually prefer Apple’s walled garden and are voting with their wallets, or if they’re just locked in and being taken advantage of, if 3rd party app stores with much lower overhead were allowed. If your monthly subscription cost $10 on the Apple app store but $7 on the other one, for the same product, I think we’d get an answer rather efficiently.
Besides the "One App Store" policy (that tbf keeps out the worst scams you can find on android), what bothers me most is that an app can be banned fors speech like "here's the FAQ on our HOMEPAGE".
Huh? "One App Store" is bad, it forces you into a vendor lock-in, to have no choice but to accept whatever a store wants you to do. I'd rather have the freedom of choice rather than being limited to a monopoly.
I'd be ok with one app store if the criteria for being included are transparent, reasonable and not biased towards less strict rules for big players.
Patreon was told to change its whole billing model until a court found in their favor: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1878206.html That's the kind of thing I think we'd both find unacceptable.
But I'd still be ok with "one store, resonable rules, respect user privacy".
Meanwhile on google's lawn, there's hundreds of things like this: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.falnesc.to... a torch app that contains ads and shares your location with selected third parties. At least they don't require permission to read your contacts. (You can buy an ad-free "secure" version for $0.99, or you can just ... turn on your phone's LED for free because that's provided by the OS.)
Technically firefox extensions are "one app store" too - you can't sideload unless you install from the dev/nightly channel and fiddle with the settings. But at least it's a not-for-profit store. Chrome and even Edge allow you to sideload.
How is the 30% tax different than other platforms?
Further, how much do you think should this be (20%? 10%? 5%?) and if zero, why?
Finally, do you believe Apple should be compensated for the services and marketplace that they are offering, if so, what other strategies do you recommend that they deploy to make everyone happy?
> How is the 30% tax different than other platforms?
Because it doesn't have to compete with third-party distributors like MacOS? The App Store on MacOS is almost entirely empty, every real developer abandoned it years ago. It's almost impossible to buy professional Mac software on the App Store, because real developers like Avid or Adobe or Affinity don't think Apple's deal is fair either.
> Finally, do you believe Apple should be compensated for the services and marketplace that they are offering
They already are, through their developer fees. If Apple can't compensate themselves without forcing people to use their services, then they need to redesign their business model.
Installing software is not a service, arguably Apple has no right to demand compensation for it in the first place.
>Because it doesn't have to compete with third-party distributors like MacOS?
Who are the third party distributors for the playstation or xbox?
>They already are, through their developer fees.
It's $100/developer. Considering Microsoft used to charge thousands for Visual Studio, it doesn't seem too unreasonable to claim that $100/year is too low.
>If Apple can't compensate themselves without forcing people to use their services, then they need to redesign their business model.
What's wrong with royalty fee based business models?
>Installing software is not a service, arguably Apple has no right to demand compensation for it in the first place.
Right, which is why Apple characterizes the fee as "core technology fee", ie. for access to its tools and SDKs, not for access to the store.
Nintendo Switch has fully distributed homebrew stores too.
> It's $100/developer.
They can charge more if they don't think they're milking developers enough. They only have, what, a few million of them worldwide.
> What's wrong with royalty fee based business models?
Nothing, if they are forced to compete with other royalty-based services that set a fair baseline price. Otherwise everything is wrong with it. MacOS did this right, although admittedly the App Store didn't quite survive the gauntlet of competition.
Imagine if your favorite band could only make money by signing to a single record label. Do you think their talent would be valued fairly? Do you think they would be respected for who they are, or do you think their likeness would be molested in whichever way was the most profitable for the label?
If that counts as "sideloading", you might as well count the free 7 day signing option that iOS offers (used by alt store) "sideloading".
>Nintendo Switch has fully distributed homebrew stores too.
Officially?
>Nothing, if they are forced to compete with other royalty-based services that set a fair baseline price.
See my previous comments. Apple's claim is that the fee isn't for distribution, it's for access to the SDKs. It's unclear how "if they are forced to compete with other royalty-based services that set a fair baseline price" would work in this case. Epic offers Unreal Engine for free, with the expectation that they'll recoup the money via royalties. That sounds like a lot like Apple's SDKs.
>Imagine if your favorite band could only make money by signing to a single record label.
That's what happens for most bands though? There's typically a exclusivity period, and some artists might stick with a given label their entire lives.
> Who are the third party distributors for the playstation or xbox?
This is a whataboutism. People can discuss Apple's anti-competitive business policies separately from Sony's and Microsoft's. (Does it matter that Playstation and Xbox ecosystems are potentially similarly anti-competitive? That just means the circumstances around their policies should also be scrutinized for the same reasons.)
> it doesn't seem too unreasonable to claim that $100/year is too low
It doesn't seem too unreasonable to tell them tough shit. They can improve their business model themselves; that's their responsibility. It is also their responsibility to avoid anti-competitive business practices.
> What's wrong with royalty fee based business models?
This is a disingenuous question in reply to the pull quote you included from the parent comment. They wrote "without forcing people to use their services". That is the primary anti-competitive thing that people complain about with Apple.
Amazon charges 15% for physical media, including software [1]. Since Apple is not shipping physical media, it seems something less than 15% would be more reasonable.
App store software should have minimal warehousing and shipping costs compared with physical software. I was just trying to come up with a ball-park comparable figure.
Why can't Apple set whatever pricing they want? Unless you're arguing that Apple has a monopoly.
Also it's not a tax, though arguably it can be termed an "economic rent" (a technical term) that can be considered excessive, but I'm not sure about that.
Same reason any company can't set whatever they want. Vast majority of companies aren't deemed monopolies so this doesn't apply to them but this restriction holds over them once they grow to a certain size nonetheless. Even the most ardent capitalists/free market advocates agree that monopolies have to be regulated by the government.
The real questions are what makes company a monopoly. You can always argue you aren't a monopoly but it's what convinces people that makes most sense and many people are beginning to be convinced that Apple/Google etc are monopolies in certain markets.
I don't see an answer to the question you quoted in your post?
It sounds like you are implying that a monopoly classification would somehow be relevant to fee/pricing strategy?
The reality is that every company that has a hardware/software ecosystem has some form of AppStore. Sony, Nintendo, Valve, etc. Should we consider them all to be monopolies of their store? For fun, let's say they all are.
In order for that monopoly classification to have some impact, it would have to be used in an anti competitive way.
Let's say Nintendo wants 20%, Valve wants 30%, and Sony wants 40% of an apps sales price. You adjust your price for each platform, the software costs more on Steam Deck and PlayStation. Are Valve and Sony using their stores in an anti competitive way by charging more than Nintendo? I don't see how. It is not anti competitive for Sony to charge developers more.
An example of something anti competitive would be Sony telling you that you can only put things up in their shop if it's exclusive to Sony.
This is a misunderstanding of free market advocacy. The status quo for mobile apps is not a free market. Free markets are defined by meaningful choice. If there are undue restrictions on switching providers for any service -- it doesn't matter whether the restrictions come from the government or from private companies -- it's not a free market.
> Unless you're arguing that Apple has a monopoly.
Exactly this. There's no competition, because Apple blocks iPhone owners from installing apps through any method other than their App Store (in the US, where this lawsuit is being filed). It's a programmatically-enforced monopoly.
Frankly I'd much rather change that situation than quibble about exactly how much Apple is allowed to charge for their services. Let them charge whatever they want in a free market where they have to compete on a level playing field with everyone else. If developers don't like it, they can use a competing app store to sell their software to iPhone users.
I don’t think any developer considers it reasonable. I mean, apart from apple and the really brainless section of their fanboys, who thinks this is reasonable?
I don't think any big tech company has ever done anything as evil and predatory as Apple walling off iMessage, giving the impression that Apple phones were high technology, and interacting with peasant androids is what made group chats fragment and pictures and videos look like trash.
Few things are more enraging than people being left out of chats with friends and family because they didn't bend over for Apple. Even worse being a teenager and having to endure social shaming for it. It wasn't until the EU signaled it was going to bring down then axe that Apple capitulated to RCS.
- Yes, I know you are part of the domestic US long tail that use signal/telegram with all your friends.
- Yes, I know no one outside the US uses iMessage.
ETA: A note because people are pretty incredulous about "most evil". Tech companies do a lot of evil stuff, no doubt.
But there is something special about putting social connection behind an expensive hardware purchase and walled garden lock in. Every other messaging app I know of is open to anyone on most platforms for little or no cost. Apple on the other hand purposely leveraged social connections in your life to force you into their garden and keep you there. Lets not pretend that Apple couldn't open up iMessage or even charge a nominal fee for outsiders. Instead you get an iphone and just seemlessly slide into iMessage. So seemless that most users don't even know that it is a separate service than sms/mms/rcs. Apple muddies that too.
But they would never do that, because using people's closest social connections to force them into the ecosystem and lock them there is just too juicy. "Oh you don't want an iPhone anymore? Well looks like you have to leave your social circles main discussion hub to do so..."
> For example, when a user purchases an iPhone, the user is steered to use Apple’s default email product, Apple Mail. It is only through a complex labyrinth of settings that a user can change her default email application away from the Apple “Mail” application towards an alternative like Gmail (Google) or Proton Mail.
> At least for mail a user can in theory modify the default setting. On the calendar
front the situation is even worse. A user’s default calendar is Apple Calendar, and the default cannot be modified
That's pretty evil & predatory to me. The fact that it is by design (someone decided it needed to this awful) is why Apple is being evil here. And this is just one example.
There's more
> For example, Apple banned apps from its App Store that
supported Google Voice because Apple sought to advantage its own services over Google’s
That's not what the parent is asking. The OP said it was the most evil ever done.
Big Tech does predatory and evil stuff all the time. That's not what's being claimed. The OP is claiming that this specific thing is the worst, the singular event that is above and beyond all others.
Except that those claims feel like intentional exaggerations and not meaningfully true?
I use both iOS and Android.
> It is only through a complex labyrinth of settings
I have no love for the way iOS settings are done, but calling the setting for this in particular a complex labyrinth is some pretty blatant editorializing.
> A user’s default calendar is Apple Calendar, and the default cannot be modified
I don't think this is a true statement? My default calendar is a Google calendar. Actually switching to instead use my Apple iCloud calendar has been something of a chore.
The "complex labyrinth" is only reinforcing the impression that you and the author of that brief are both cranks. "Email" is the top setting under "Default Apps". My iPhone doesn't even offer Apple's Mail app in that screen, probably because I deleted it, which also was not labyrinthine but actually quite trivial.
Easy if you know where to look. If you end up in the wrong sub menu you might simply search the web for instructions.
Apple provides web pages where they explain how to use the iphone. There is a section called "mail" under "apps" that shows up in the search results. It really wants me to read the help in dutch, the "apps > mail" section has 14 pages that don't talk about changing the default app, in stead they explain how to use the various features of their own mail app (that is also configured by default)
I don't get why the help pages need a different menu structure.
One has to go to "personalize your iphone" which has 18 pages, changing default apps is towards the end.
Searching the Dutch help website for "mail" I get only 3 unhelpful search results. If i change it to US English it immediately redirects to Dutch again. lol?
Using the "English" for Latin America and the Caribbean works. There I get 5 pages worth of results. Changing the default app is on page 3.
Not impossible but it is not a simple prompt on launch of the app "Banana mail is not currently your default email client. Do you want to set Banana mail as your default app for sending email?"
I'm quite dense of course, if they are going to be like that I will NEVER create an email client for this platform.
The web and their TOS is full of good reasons to never create an app for iphone.
In a laps of sanity I created a pwa one time. I've explained to exactly one user how to add the option to add a web app to the home screen to the menu so that they can add a web app to the home screen. It was a really hard sell and it took a long time.
I of course had to laugh at myself for acting against my better judgement.
Imagine someone made a web app email client and tried to compete with the build in client. Then in the middle of the struggle apple jokes about discontinuing PWA.
> Easy if you know where to look. If you end up in the wrong sub menu you might simply search the web for instructions.
Actually, at the very top of the home page of the settings app is a search bar. If you type in anything reasonable (default, email, mail) then one of the first 2-3 results will be “default apps” or “default email”.
Maybe 8/10 people in your family circle would benefit from reading the published user guide for their device. That doesn't take technological proficiency, just reading.
> Not impossible but it is not a simple prompt on launch of the app "Banana mail is not currently your default email client. Do you want to set Banana mail as your default app for sending email?"
This is what happens when you install Gmail, for example. You're both under and over-thinking this.
I'm just baffled how if we look at Microsoft or Google everyone agrees that the tyranny of the default is a problem. Then it comes to Apple and we get statements like "no, I love that I have no choice." It's frustrating.
I mean, does Settings > Apps > Gmail (or whichever other app) > Default Mail App really qualify as “a complex labyrinth”? Sure, it’d be a good thing to add a “Default Apps” section under Settings > General or something, but calling the current route complex almost sounds like an insult to users.
EDIT: Actually, there already is a “Default Apps” section right at the top of the page of Settings > Apps. Yeah, if that’s a “labyrinth” then the assumed level of user intelligence is quite low.
I didn't even know you could change the default mail app on iOS and I’ve used it for the better part of a decade now, as a Proton user too. I’ve endured the frustration because I thought it was fixed. Either being allowed to change it is relatively new, region locked, or yeah it’s a labyrinth.
It’s not region locked, and as the sibling post notes it’s been there for a while. I’m not sure how much more simple it can be made (open Settings, tap Apps, and there it is at the top of the page).
I suppose it could be possible for apps to prompt the user to change the default, but I’m honestly pretty sick of that behavior on desktop (e.g. I have several browsers installed for various reasons and they nearly all bug me about being default) and would rather not see it copied to mobile OSes too (I don’t believe Android allows apps to show such a prompt either).
You may as well ask why you should look anywhere but at your own feet while walking around your city.
You have been told that every new OS update brings new features and abilities, and Apple publishes an iPhone User Guide for learning about iOS features like how to change the default mail app (https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/change-the-default-ap...). It's on you to look.
I've probably used Apple Mail and/or Apple Calendar at some point in my ownership of Apple products but they're both using Google products at the moment on my phone and I have no recollection of setting those up as being complex through a variety of hardware transitions.
It’s also probably worth noting that most of the stock iOS apps are the most service-provider-agnostic in the industry. Mail and Notes work on bog standard IMAP, and Calendar and Contacts are built on CalDAV and CardDAV, respectively. Google services work fine in all of them (though could be better if it weren’t for Google’s crappy IMAP implementation). The only case where they don’t work is with non-standard providers like Proton.
Go try to sign into your open-standards-abiding calendar and notes accounts in the Calendar and Contacts bundled with nearly every Android phone on the planet and see how well that goes.
No, I don't think it's an understatement at all....
In the difficulty of non-iMessage compatibility, I have had people close to me say "Why don't you just get an iPhone?" with an incredulous tone.
Perhaps tech companies have had more evil things happen on their platforms, that for whatever reason they were slow to react to.
But
"Why don't you just get an iPhone" was a precisely and meticulously engineered line, pure social manipulation, that was intentionally orchestrated to be delivered to me through the mouths of the people I trust most in my life turned unknowing pawns.
That is why I consider it the most evil. Apple is by design purposely exploiting a core human function, close social circle communication, to trap people in their garden.
> No, I don't think it's an understatement at all....
It's interesting how this seems like an incredibly American problem. In Europe everyone either uses WhatsApp or Signal and iMessage is hardly ever used.
I am plugged into the Apple ecosystem daily and shamelessly and yeah I think it’s arguably accurate. What makes it so sinister is how benign it seems yet how devastating the consequences have been.
I think gp's statement is a pretty accurate, Apple's behavior was intentional, they know it ends up creating artificial social pressure and bullying. Most appalling and disgusting.
> I don't think any big tech company has ever done anything as evil and predatory as Apple walling off iMessage
Is that really the worst thing you've seen big-tech do? That's very fortunate.
What about Blackberry Messenger which was the mobile instant-messaging golden standard for years and BB exclusive for as long as it mattered in the market? Was that too long ago to remember?
Actually, iMessage happily harms apple customers all the time.
I know many MANY people who have lost chats with their loved ones (especially deceased ones) because there is no way to export and save their conversations.
I think this should be as easy as saving photos, which apple makes (somewhat) easier to export.
Back to email, it is pretty horrible to set up my local email server on an apple device. You have to go through these dialogs, apple servers have to be contacted (for "redirection"), and I usually barely get it working.
> and from what I've seen, often act as if that is some sort of mark of superiority.
Feels like you weren't able to have a proper discussion with those people. In many EU countries, using SMS made/makes no sense because SMS was/is super expensive as compared to WhatsApp. And using iMessage makes no sense because most people don't have an iPhone. From their point of view, it actually makes no sense.
Now if you tell them "well, where I come from everybody has an iPhone" or "SMS have always been free", probably they won't say "still, I'm better than you for no apparent reason".
I don't think that it is actually seen as a mark of superiority anywhere in the EU to use WhatsApp. Unlike apparently in some places it is seen as a mark of superiority to have an iPhone vs an Android phone.
If you go in a EU country where SMS were not prohibitively expensive in the beginning of WhatsApp (e.g. France), you'll see that WhatsApp has been less successful (at least in the beginning). WhatsApp was a killer app because it was free SMS, really.
Since when can WhatsApp interact with SMS users? They're so evil and predatory that they have entirely walled themselves off from that method of communication entirely.
WhatsApp gained popularity in Europe when non-early adopters started switching to smartphones (2010-2012 ish). The difference was that, in contrast to iMessage, you could install it on pretty much any smartphone. In the pre-Meta days they even supported many then dying ecosystems like Symbian, Nokia S40, etc.
They had a yearly subscription fee, but most people never got the request to pay it.
Nobody cared that it was incompatible with SMS, because everybody hated SMS because of the insane prices. In 2009 I got an iPhone 3G with an unlimited data plan, but I was still paying something like 0.20 or 0.25 Euro per SMS.
I like how they (just like imessage) allow you to message someone who cant possibly read the message because they have no whatsapp. Then again, I think they cant even deliver the message over sms on iphone? SMS is only available in the apple app if you first force it to send SMS?
I don't think most of US in the EU really mind, or even know what messaging app people in America use. The privacy conscious folk around here do tend to prefer Signal over Whatsapp though.
A lot of people, in Austria at least, have moved to signal in my experience. My communities in the US and Austria have trended toward adoption of Signal with very few holdovers between messages and WhatsApp, some partly due to my pressure but overall it’s just getting away from the BS of the alts
> Even worse being a teenager and having to endure social shaming for it. It wasn't until the EU signaled it was going to bring down then axe that Apple capitulated to RCS.
Regardless of the merits of Apple's actions as regards technical interoperability I feel compelled to point out that this in particular is a cultural problem, not technical malfeasance. RCS users still appear as green bubbles and even if the lack of functionality has been remedied the stigma has not. People at my lunch table 20 years ago were drawing artificial distinctions between "MP3s" (portable DAPs) and iPods because the latter were expensive luxury products and the former were not. The same thing is at work here because owning an iPhone is a proxy for one's socioeconomic stratum. I own an iPhone and as soon as an Android user appears in an iMessage group chat some joker immediately makes a green bubble quip - no degraded picture message required.
People that define themselves by conspicuous consumption don't care about interoperability. They care about brand recognition.
But that's what so insidious about it - by also actively degrading the chat experience it makes excluding non-Apple users not merely social signalling but also a rational decision even if you don't care about conspicuous consumption whatsoever.
So pick your poison, either you exclude them because of in-group signalling/conspicious consumption or exclude them because you want non-potato resolution, with Android users getting the blame for Apple's UX. Either way Tim Cook says the solution is to buy an iPhone.
Yes, but this is precisely the point isn't it? It's blatantly enabling and embracing "othering" for no technical reason as an explicit strategy to exploit social pressures to maximize profit.
The most evil thing a tech company has done is make a proprietary messaging app?
Apple didn't make SMS bad, it just was. Apple has since implemented RCS and it hasn't changed how I communicate with people from my iPhone at all.
Google should probably take most of the blame for repeatedly fumbling messaging on non-Apple platforms for the past 2 decades. Every time they had something that was getting any amount of traction it got quickly replaced with some stupid new, worse messaging app so a PO could get a promotion.
I think the point was that if Google weren't so inept, iMessage wouldn't be such a monopoly
And you know, maybe they have a point. I especially think about Microsoft and MSN Messenger/Skype. How do you fumble away not one but two dominant messaging apps?
OP's point is about Apple intentionally fragmenting communication in social groups as an ecosystem play (trickling down to bullying starting in grade school etc) so Google's messaging marketshare would only be relevant if there was some reason to believe it would have cowed Apple into interoperating.
Because there are exactly two players in the game, and we’re in a thread under a whiny hyperbolic diatribe from someone that had the former.
Why didn’t Google deliver an alternative to iMessage? Did they choose not to? Is it actually hard? Are they just too incompetent at making software that isn’t for running infrastructure?
This reads like public affairs copy from Meta/Alphabet/et al looking to distract from the real, measurable harm produced against teens by social media and AI products that are either directly (Instagram) or indirectly (character ai) owned.
Apple does not owe Android users a superior non-Apple experience. Android a pretty damn huge platform, right? Way bigger than Apple, I hear? Blame Google. Google failed to compete.
The evil is (so-called) social media in all of its forms. Human connections of all kinds have been comprehensively distorted and enshitified by unchecked corporate opportunism and manipulation.
I don't really agree with this framing. The fundamental issue is user ignorance, full stop. The fact is that our collective tech education is in a terrible state. Apple exploiting this to sell iPhones is just natural behavior for a profit-driven enterprise.
Instead of shaming Apple (which won't be very effective IMO), we should aim to improve education. Teach users how SMS/MMS/iMessage work. Tell them that they can install universal messaging apps and so on.
Perhaps the fundamental issue is your ignorance? Don't you know that users require tools that just work and that they should not be required to understand all of this technical nuance?
"I don't understand why people complain about that AT&T telephone company monopoly, when they could just write each other letters. When did people forget how to do that?"
Telephone calls allow for near-instantaneous communication using voice while letters can (and could) take days to arrive and rely on writing. There is no comparison with using a computer vs. a cell phone to send messages over the Internet. It's even generally using all the same network protocols.
> "Communicate outside the home" is a pretty vast difference
It's genuinely baffling to me that people actually see things this way. When there is a social reason to be outside the house, I take that as a reason not to be staring at a glowing rectangle.
The world got by just fine when answering machines and paper maps were the norm.
What is silly about going to do an errand without distractions? It's more efficient in my experience. I wont look up stuff in the store or answer texts that in reality can totally wait. I've yet to have something happen where not having my phone lead to me missing some big emergency or event.
Going out into the world is in fact the opposite of abandoning all contact, it's directly interfacing. According to your comment, you equated your world with access to your phone.
The world got along fine (better, probably) without the internet, yet here we all are.
> What is silly about going to do an errand without distractions? It's more efficient in my experience. I wont look up stuff in the store or answer texts that in reality can totally wait. I've yet to have something happen where not having my phone lead to me missing some big emergency or event.
> Going out into the world is in fact the opposite of abandoning all contact, it's directly interfacing. According to your comment, you equated your world with access to your phone.
I have a hard time believing this isn't a disingenuous take just for the sake of arguing. "Hey honey, while you're at the grocery store, could you pick up some milk?" "Hey, I'm finishing up at the doctor, any chance you want to meet for lunch?"
Are we really saying we can't understand the difference between a computer and a cellphone? Are we really unable to imagine any reason why communicating outside the home can be a useful ability? That the ability to do something doesn't mean it is the only way to do something, nor does it mean it has to be done that way at all times in all situations?
google with their android anti-fragmentation-agreement is pretty predatory. basically release any/all android devices with google services and pay us cut or release none and use pure aosp. it is some next level shit.
huh. Isnt that what business deals are supposed to be? Two businesses entering into a business relationship, where both parties get something. OEMs get Google services & operating system, or OEMs are free to use open source project.
Are you saying Google should freely give away their products?
> Isnt that what business deals are supposed to be?
To clarify what exactly that agreement does: it prohibits companies from developing competitors. It is nakedly anti-competitive, and no, business deals are not supposed to be that - there's a large body of law, sadly rarely enforced, saying so. Not every business practice is legal just because the directly involved parties agreed.
nice strawman, first google honeypotted the smartphone-os sector with their AOSP (android opensource project). now when they killed every other option except apple & effectively became a monopoly for all smartphone vendors, they are using their monopoly power to prohibit companies from using aosp piecemeal. they are explicitly telling vendors if you make any device with google services then you cannot make an ungoogled device at-all. this is exact opposite of the open source spirit and highlights that they were never interested in opensource, they were doing pretty much what MS did in 90s, release a bundled shitty version of a popular app with OS so you can kill them and maintain dominant monopoly. they just weaponized oss with AOSP to kill off any contenders.
take a moment to think why amazon has no google services on their table and/or an amazon branded basic android smartphone, it would be super easy for them to do it (leave aside firephone .. for reasons).
How is this not monopoly abuse? if Lina Khan had any balls this is what she would have gone after.
> I don't think any big tech company has ever done anything as evil and predatory as Apple walling off iMessage
I think you might be living in a bubble, if this is the "most evil" thing you have heard of a big tech company doing. Go read up on IBM's history, especially in the 30s and 40s. Or a more contemporary example, read up on Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. Or Amazon's mistreatment of workers in both corporate and warehouse settings. Or Meta scraping data off your devices without permission to train AI.
And, though I know some folks here disagree, plenty of people around the world believe what's happening in Gaza is a genocide, and Big Tech has materially contributed to making it happen. Or, if you want another example of human cost, talk about how resources for electronics are mined, or how electronics are manufactured.
Saying, "the most evil thing big tech has ever done is make some chat bubbles blue" puts a whole lot of human lives below the color of some chat bubbles.
You can think Apple did a really bad thing by doing that, that's fine. No complaints. But to call it the most evil thing ever done erases an incalculable amount of human suffering.
> I think you might be living in a bubble, if this is the "most evil" thing you have heard of a big tech company doing. Go read up on IBM's history, especially in the 30s and 40s. Or a more contemporary example, read up on Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. Or Amazon's mistreatment of workers in both corporate and warehouse settings. Or Meta scraping data off your devices without permission to train AI.
I wouldn't count the IBM thing because I don't see it as part of the vernacular "big tech" of today; however I do think it's the most evil so far in this thread.
The others? They are mostly aggressive competition, especially the MS stuff, and altogether I don't see them as more evil than Apple's exclusionary UX. What's at the bottom of it for me is that it harms users directly, e.g. what others said about kids getting shamed for having a non-Apple phone. The one thing not mentioned yet that would qualify for me would be Meta's product altogether with its impact on teenagers; and various gambling simulators like Roblox.
Oh, Roblox by far and away is worse than Apple. But also, Facebook is pretty clearly implicated in a genocide in Myanmar. It's difficult for me to put any genocide in a bucket less important than some kids being put into out-groups.
The difference is that those evil things are second order effects. Nobody in the executive suite at FB was saying "Damn, this genocide is super profitable, let's stole the flames".
Nobody at Roblox is saying "We want to have children do nothing else except play Roblox from dawn to dusk, we lobby against schooling and extra-curiculars to increase Roblox time"
Apple however very intentionally made messaging people not on iPhones painful, and purposely made it out like androids were inferior. They purposely make it so you lose your group chats if you leave iPhone.
Thats why it's the most evil. It's a planned system to use peoples social connections as pawns to rope people into Apples ecosystem. This isn't hypothetical, or "C'mon of course they are saying that!". There are court documents that show it.
My example was not that they try to get kids to spend more time on roblox, of course they do, my example was that they want kids to forgo school to spend more time on roblox. Rather than compete with netflix for engagement, compete with teachers and education.
I can assure you, with all my money bet on it, that no one in a roblox exec meeting ever said "We need to focus on lobbying schools to shorten the school day in key markets." No one at roblox is fantasizing about roblox replacing -all- (I mean this literally, not just entertainment time) facets of a child's life with roblox.
Whereas apple explicitly had their goal "Get kids using iphones, don't port imessage to android, families will be forced to buy iphones and stay on iphones to maintain familial communication."
> Apple walling off iMessage, giving the impression that Apple phones were high technology, and interacting with peasant androids is what made group chats fragment and pictures and videos look like trash.
Which lawsuit PDF related specifically to iMessage interacting with Android was mentioned in this comment? I see a comment about RCS.
Now, maybe you are right, maybe I narrowly interpreted RCS in iMessage to mean chat bubbles, and there's a wider interpretation. Even still, there's no possible way that's the singular most evil thing tech has ever done. The OP is free to be anti-Apple, more power to them, but like, let's be real about levels of evil.
> Also, bringing up IBM, Microsoft or Facebook is "whataboutism".
It's absolutely not whataboutism. The claim the OP made was about Big Tech broadly. Bringing in examples of Big Tech doing evil things is a direct and appropriate rebuttable to the argument that Big Tech doesn't do evil things.
Focusing on the "the most" part is extremely petty.
This whole thread is the complete opposite of "thoughtful and substantive" and the "Converse curiously" from HN guidelines and I regret participating on it.
First of all, when Apple created iMessage, there was no possible way for them to predict that friend groups would use it as a reason to treat members of their groups poorly due to using Android phones.
Second of all, Apple did not deliberately make interacting with non-iMessage users in group chats "look like trash" in order to exclude them. Apple went out of its way to make it possible for iMessage to interoperate with the ubiquitous (in the US) SMS, with reduced features because SMS did not support the better features. If, instead, Apple had just made iMessage not interoperate with SMS at all, you'd be screaming about that instead.
Third of all, if people are leaving others out of chats, that's not Apple's fault. That's something for those families and friend groups to work out amongst themselves. "Hey, guys, I don't have an iPhone, and don't really have the money to get one, so maybe we could use GroupMe/GChat/WhatsApp/Signal/IRC/email/smoke signals/meeting in person/any of the myriad other ways of communicating instead?" A) "Oh, sure, that shouldn't be a problem!" (everything is solved) B) "What? No, we're not going to change anything just because it makes it impossible to actually include you in stuff. That's a you problem!" (turns out, the problem is your friends are assholes)
Apple cannot by any reasonable standard be held to blame for the way bullying, status-seeking teenagers treat each other.
What Apple could have done, for sake of clarity, sanity, and good practice is to handle SMS using one app, and handle iMessage using another, *separate* app.
The problem is not that iMessage exists, it's that it operates in opaque and unpredictable ways, mixing SMS and iMessage (and now RCS) communication in a way where even more tech-savvy users do not understand how it works (first-hand experience - had to explain to someone why their images are super compressed when they send them to me, but OK when they send them to their friend with an iPhone).
And now it's the same with RCS (Android-iOS). I send person A an image, the conversation switches to RCS. They use the "automatic reply" when I call them, conversation switches back to SMS. With person B, the switching between RCS and SMS is even more unpredictable.
> What Apple could have done, for sake of clarity, sanity, and good practice is to handle SMS using one app, and handle iMessage using another, separate app.
>“iMessage on Android would simply serve to remove [an] obstacle to iPhone families giving their kids Android phones,” was Federighi’s concern according to the Epic filing.
Among other statements. Apple was very aware of the social effects of iMessage, and leveraged it to force people into getting iphones.
Tech companies have done lots of evil shit. But never, not once, has one ever crossed the line into turning my friends and family against me (however slightly) because I didn't want to lock myself in Apple's cage, however comfortable it is.
Yeah, you can call my friends and family shitty, but the reality is that the are regular non-tech people, explaining the situation to them is impossible, and iMessage Just Works(TM).
I'm sympathetic to the position that Apple could, if they chose, have made a version of iMessage for Android.
But your position that it is somehow uniquely evil just reads as a coping mechanism—a way of not having to blame your friends and family for being shitty for you.
I know plenty of "regular, non-tech people" who understand perfectly well that a) different computer systems do not work properly together, and b) if you choosing to use a particular computer system excludes someone because they do not have access to it, that's rude, discriminatory, and generally shitty behavior.
SMS not having the same features as iMessage is a technical issue, sure.
Apple not providing iMessage on Android was a business decision, no question.
But people being exclusionary and obnoxious to each other over group chats is a social issue, and should be treated as such, and not blamed on either the technical or business side of things.
Your family being willing to isolate you and leave you out of conversations because it would slightly inconvenience them says more about you and them than it does about Apple. I downloaded WhatsApp to include random neighbors in our neighborhood group chat, and your family who has known your forever won’t do the same? Ever thought about why?
Apple was perfectly right when they did this way back as they were not a dominant platform. Different legal rules applied.
However making an argument that some key aspects of the iPhome were not designed for viral growth is disrespectful to Steve Jobs who, like many of that time, was very familiar with engineering platform growth - probably more and better than most.
> I don't think any big tech company has ever done anything as evil and predatory as Apple walling off iMessage
What a ridiculous statement. Even with your edit it's still an utterly stupid conclusion to come to.
Off the top of my head I can think of way worse things tech companies have done. Cambridge Analytica scandal, Gmail scanning, the Google Shopping lawsuit, Amazon's product clone hijack, Facebooks mood manipulation experiment, Ring doorbell viewing, Uber spying, to name just a few FAR worse things tech companies have done.
I'm not an Apple enthusiast—my rarely used iPad mini is my only Apple device—but let me play devil’s advocate.
If a company invests billions in R&D to create hardware and its integrated software, shouldn’t it have the right to control who or what interacts with it? Why should I be forced to open up the carefully designed ecosystem I’ve built?
If my pitch is premium, high-speed hardware and intuitive software so user-friendly that a monkey can use it, the trade-off is that you agree to my Terms of Service. There are other options out there.
I think it's specifically anticompetitive for Apple to force app developers to go through Apple Payments (with a 30% fee to Apple) for all purchases, otherwise their app is disallowed from being sold on the App store. There's no technological reason for app developers to be restricted from using other payment processors - it's purely a strategy for increased revenue for Apple.
In antitrust terms, it is a form of Vendor Lock-In[0], and could be seen as a form of Tying[1]:
> Tying is often used when the supplier makes one product that is critical to many customers. By threatening to withhold that key product unless others are also purchased, the supplier can increase sales of less necessary products.
As an example, Apple was sued successfully in the early 200s for selling music in a format that could only be played on iPods. iTunes is a platform Apple controls and invented, yet still it was deemed illegal for them to unfairly lock in customers and prevent them from using competing portable music players.
> There's no technological reason for app developers to be restricted from using other payment processors
But there is a customer experience reason. As an iOS user, I very much appreciate that I can ask Apple to cancel some bullshit subscription that used to otherwise try to lock me in behind a labyrinth of added friction and timewasting.
You are free to pay ~30% extra for your preferred customer experience. The rest of us can leverage discounted pricing. Customer Choice for the win!
Also, thinking that all businesses will lock one in using friction and timewasting is not a rational argument. There are a lot of honest businesses there forced to pay the Apple Mafia's tax.
Exactly. This is the part that I dont get about Apple apologists. If one really likes paying 30% extra to Apple for privacy/security (debatable, but whatever) nobody is stopping you.
But for every one of those, there are many who might want to transact with the business directly.
FWIW, I trust Spotify equally as Apple - so if I get a Spotify subscription, I'm more than happy to get a 30% discount and deal with Spotify directly. Heck, I can do that on my MacOS (another fine product the Cupertino company makes) but when it comes to iOS - OMG, virus, malware, user privacy!!
I prefer everything go through Apple b/c I trust Apple more than I trust the average other vendor.
This way, I know if I'm dealing with something on my phone, I have a trusted channel for commerce. I am sophisticated enough that I can probably ascertain what alternative payment schemes are reasonable and which are scams, but Apple's imposed payment monoculture means unsophisticated users are protected as well.
A more permissive payment setup would necessarily mean more scammy apps, or maybe just vendors with gross, dark patterns designed to obfuscate cancellation without quite being fraud. No thanks.
the next response would be "but then i would find myself taking the option that I don't like because the option that I like would put me in a disadvantage so since i can't control my options in order for me to have the best, the other bests should not exist and especially other people can not have better things than what i say is the best because then i would again find myself in choice conflict"
Not just apple apologists btw, it's a full category of people who can't enjoy their "choices" without having everyone else have only that "choice"
> You are free to pay ~30% extra for your preferred customer experience. The rest of us can leverage discounted pricing. Customer Choice for the win!
People say this stuff, but recently I re-examined my subscription to a multi-platform VPN service through the App store and found that they priced it cheaper than getting the same package through their website or through their windows client.
I mean, that's pretty flexible. At $17.99 (AUD) per month it could fit into the $1 step model, which starts at $0.99, maxing at $139.99
They charge $19.39 for the same subscription if you buy it direct. By the logic of Apple taking a 30% cut thereby pushing up the price of doing business, you'd think they could charge $12.59 to direct customers and take the same profit out.
I'm not sure if it is still the case after the EU cases, but it at least used to be that Apple prohibited you from charging more for paying through the app store. And that leads to increased prices for everyone, regardless of if you even own an iOS device.
I thought you could charge more (at least now, maybe not in the before times), but you still can't say explicitly that you're charging more because of Apple's 30% fee.
Well then the rule could be: All apps must offer the possibility to use Apple Pay for payments.
Or Apple could do one of those virtual credit card things. Or do they already? So you could use an Apple virtual credit card with any processor.
But then the 30% extra fee would be visible to the user. Apple's whole schtick is making things way more expensive and hiding the competition pricing from the user. If "$10 with Stripe" was placed side by side with "$13 with Apple Pay", Apple would immediately lose all of their payment customers and about $2,000,000,000 in revenue, which is a lot. They can only prevent this by preventing "$10 with Stripe" from being there at all. (And if they did it with virtual credit cards, they'd have to tell users there's a 30% fee on each transaction)
If customers want to pay more for Apple to facilitate, there isn’t an incentive to not keep apps in the App Store too. If a company has other reasons not to be in Apple’s store, why should they be required to?
this is about allowing business to offer other choices, other store rules still would apply. for example if apple would be to require it's option as always present together with the rest in the app, then noone could say anything against it. it's the lack of choice that is the problem not requirements per se.
I 100% agree with this. Apple should be allowed to put whatever restrictions they want on apps in the App Store.
The problem is they don't allow apps to come from anywhere else, this is the core of the issue and what everything eventually comes down to.
Make it possible for users to control their own app installation sources on the hardware they own, show them what is happening when they do so, that they are replacing Apple as the source of trust with the developers of the app marketplace or app they are installing, but only do it once, it can't become a nag.
If they do that, then whenever anyone complains about App Store rules Apple can just tell them to do everything themselves instead, no APNS, no convenient installation from a pre-installed App Store, no seal of approval from a partner the user trusts, no free hosting, no infrastructure for app updates, etc.
One reason that I support alternative (non-Apple) app stores, is that it allows differentiation between mediocre and higher-Quality apps.
You can get your clothes from Target or Saks Fifth Avenue. For most folks, Target is fine, but there are people that insist on paying $30 for every pair of skivvies. I think that they should have that choice. If they can afford it, then let them eat cake (for the record, I tend to be a Costco type of guy, but have not regretted occasionally getting something from Saks).
Selfishly, I would like them to allow sideloads, because the App Store approval process has slowed to a crawl, lately, as well as APNS calls. I’m certain that’s because of thousands of AI-generated submissions. I think many of those submitters would much rather avoid the hoops they need to jump through, for the store.
But I doubt that Apple sees things that way. The secondary app stores are likely to make a lot of money, which they would miss.
The more damaging thing, however, is that Apple’s brand image could get corroded, and there’s a very good chance that they could be strongarmed into supporting side-loaded crapplets. I’m a bit cynical on this, myself. I feel that Apple has been doing a great job of damaging their own brand, in the past few years. I feel as if the quality of their internal engineering has declined precipitously.
I think the answer is that if you want non-Apple app stores... get a non-Apple phone. For whatever reason, a great deal of people prefer to live inside Apple's walled garden.
> I’m a bit cynical on this, myself. I feel that Apple has been doing a great job of damaging their own brand, in the past few years. I feel as if the quality of their internal engineering has declined precipitously.
Agreed. The quality of Apples own software has declined, as has the outcome of app reviews, there's never been as much crap on the App Store as there is today.
And obviously Apple wants to "have their cake and eat it too", who doesn't? I'm just saying that this is the reason why they're being dragged to court now, because they aren't "playing fair" when they're acting as both store operator and store participant in multiple segments, and are acting as gatekeepers of software for literally hundreds of millions if not billions of devices now (congrats to them).
There is always a customer experience reason. Every anticompetitive company that has ever existed has benefited from the customer experience of everything being in one place and coming from one company. Unfortunately, "my product benefits from being anticompetitive" is not a valid justification for anticompetitive practices.
I struggle to paint a company with a minority marketshare, after having first mover advantage, as anticompetitive.
That said, their argument that the payment policies disproportionately impact apps trying to create sustainable business models that don’t monetize user data is a compelling one that I very much sympathize with.
I’m a Proton subscriber, but I went through their website, just because I tend to do that for any service that isn’t exclusive to Apple or the App Store. The same is true for Kagi, another privacy focused service I subscribe to. I never thought about it, but maybe that’s my way of avoiding lock-in. If I ever leave iOS at some point, I don’t want to have to cancel and resubscribe to something that could cause a service interruption. I also want to make sure that the subscription is everywhere, not just on my Apple devices, and it’s tied to the email I choose.
Anticompetitive practices don't mean that you have a monopoly. In fact people often get this wrong - having a monopoly is not illegal in and of itself. What's illegal is using one's market position to prevent other companies from being able to compete in a market. Whether that market position is 100% or 10%, what matters is that it's significant enough for you to pressure other companies out of the market.
I'm not a fancy lawyer or some kind of top flight ceo but I feel like "being able to cancel subscriptions" doesn't require a 30% cut off the top for apple.
Also, as a customer, presumably you could choose to use apple's store.
If we unpack this argument we can precisely pinpoint the issue.
In order for this argument to be true, Apple would need to have market power.
Having market power is the thing that makes tying etc. an antitrust violation.
Because it can be used for more than allowing people to cancel subscriptions. Like charging a 30% margin in a market where it's normally 3%, or excluding apps that compete with Apple software or services, or requiring customers to use a specific combination of hardware, operating system, app store and services, even if the customer only wants one of those things and binding them together then eliminates competition from any company that can't supply all of them. Which are exactly the sort of things that antitrust rules are meant to prevent.
Steam and Android charge a similar 30% fee in their stores.
When I hear about a 3% fee, I think of the interchange fees for a credit card. That doesn’t have the same overhead as hosting the software, handling the updates, managing the front end, reviews, etc. I can only assume that 2-3% of the 30% are going to Visa, as I’m sure Apple is paying interchange fees to process the payments.
30% probably still creates a very healthy margin, which could be trimmed (and has been for companies making less than $1m). But it is right in line with the rest of the industry, at least for the other big players.
The difference is on my Android phone, I use F-Droid, and I sideload using Obtainium, and on my Steam Deck, I install Heroic Launcher and install games from GOG.
Proton also offers subscriptions through the Play Store. If the issue is the 30% cut hurting non-ad-funded businesses, shouldn’t this be against all these companies charging 30%, not just Apple? Or not have subscriptions in the Play Store, if Google doesn’t have the same requirements against linking out to other payment options?
The outrage against Apple in this regard has never felt consistently applied based.
You didn't address anything I wrote. The issue is not the 30%, it's the lack of choice. Apple locks businesses into having to support Apple Pay to access the user base of Apple users. Google doesn't do this: apps can be distributed via F-Droid or just downloaded from the net. Steam doesn't do this: you can just run apps you bought years ago, or bought from GOG, even on devices built by Valve.
I'll say the same thing, another way: Apple is the only smartphone manufacturer that forces you to install apps through their services only.
I really despise the analogy with Steam. And this is not the first time I hear it. People somehow fail to understand that the core problem with the App Store is that it is operated by the platform owner.
To bring the analogy in line with the App Store, imagine if: (1) Steam was operated by Microsoft, (2) Microsoft only allowed installation of games on Windows through Steam, and (3) Microsoft disallowed installation of alternate OSes on Microsoft PCs.
> To bring the analogy in line with the App Store, imagine if: (1) Steam was operated by Microsoft, (2) Microsoft only allowed installation of games on Windows through Steam, and (3) Microsoft disallowed installation of alternate OSes on Microsoft PCs.
Not only that, because there are other ways to install an app than Steam, the 30% paid to Steam is paying for promotion within their system. Which is valuable because not all apps are available there, so paying for it makes you more likely to be noticed over someone who distributes for the same platform using an external means.
If an app store is the only way to install apps on a platform then everybody is paying the fee and therefore nobody is getting promoted over anybody else in exchange for it.
So the issue has never been about the 30%, it’s about the closed platform? What if the App Store was free, would people still have an issue, because Apple is controlling the platform and software distribution? If so, why keep going after the 30% fee? It just seems like a convenient headline to use for the attacks.
Valve also makes the Steam Deck. In that case they do own the platform, but if the user wants they can install whatever OS they want… but as designed, and used by most consumers, it’s Valve hardware, running SteamOS from Valve, where people can run games they buy from Steam, Vavle’s game marketplace… where Valve takes 30% of the sales.
The only difference between the Steam Deck and an iPad is that the user can wipe SteamOS off it and use it as a generic system, likely killing most of the reason why they bought the hardware in the first place.
So if the issue is how open the platform is, that seems like an issue for the free market. A lot of people buy Apple stuff because it’s a closed platform that spends a lot of time dialing in the user experience, which is something that often seems lacking on more open platforms, because there are an infinite number of edge cases to cover. If customers want the closed platform, forcing it open end up reducing customer choice, as the closed, tightly knit, ecosystem option no longer exists.
Apple’s business model has also historically been about selling hardware to run their software. “People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.” Forcing them into a Microsoft-style business model is a fundamental change to their core business. There should be room in the market for different ideas. Microsoft, Apple, and Google all have very different business models which serve different types of customers. This is a good thing. I wish there was room for more business models to let the little guy move up, but forcing Apple to be Microsoft, Google, or whomever else doesn’t seem like a win, and it has little to do with the 30% App Store fee.
> So the issue has never been about the 30%, it’s about the closed platform?
No, the issue is that they have both a 30% cut of every software sale and a closed platform. Steam has a 30% cut, but not a closed platform, hence the bad analogy.
Not sure why you're bringing the Steam Deck into this discussion. Is the only way to play Steam games via Deck? No, so it's completely irrelevant.
> Is the only way to play Steam games via Deck? No, so it's completely irrelevant.
Apple has more open platforms as well, macOS.
Paying through Apple is also not the only way to pay for Proton. I'm a Proton subscriber, and have an iPhone. I paid for Proton through their website and Apple didn't see a dime, but I still use Proton Mail on my iPhone.
Let me summarize why Apple’s iOS is not even in the same planet as Valve’s Steam:
Apple sells a device (iPhone) whose OS it controls (iOS) that is so ubiquitous to the point where most businesses cannot afford to not have a presence on this OS/platform.
But in order to have a presence, businesses must list their app on the App Store. There is no other natively supported mechanism available to allow your users to interact with your business. And absolutely no sideloading is allowed. Apple charges businesses a 30% tax to use the App Store.
The cherry on top is that you as a business are also completely disallowed from accepting payment that doesn’t adhere to this tax. Not just that, but even indirectly linking to such payment mechanisms from within your app is disallowed.
Not going to engage any further here because I have made my points.
So you're saying Apple's artificial stronghold is the only reason why apps are using it. Isnt that super-duper bad look on them?
It is one thing to say "listen, people are using our product even though there's another choice" but it is another to say "if we give them a choice, nobody will use us"
i think there are a lot of folks who would be willing to have a 27% discount (allow for ~3% card processing fee) and forego those features.
if apple was saying you had to support their payment processor alongside others (so you could opt into paying +27% and getting easy cancellations), that would be one thing, but they don't allow you to have any other options available in the app, which i think is where the anticompetitive complaints start to feel more valid.
> i think there are a lot of folks who would be willing to have a 27% discount (allow for ~3% card processing fee) and forego those features.
This makes sense because companies are used to making 70%, so obviously when given the choice to make 30% more overnight they will simply lower prices to avoid having to deal with all that extra revenue
Unlike phone platforms, phone apps are a fairly competitive market, and competitive markets have low margins.
Which means that if you remove 30% of revenue as a cost, one of two things happens. Either the price comes down because the suppliers who lower their price get more business, or the customers aren't very price sensitive in which case developers who use the additional money to improve their apps get more of the market and then users get better apps.
Either of those is better for the customer than having the money go into a megacorp's money bin and have them use it for competition-reducing M&A or unrelated empire-building projects or just have them add it to their cash mountain and have the customer paying that money in exchange for nothing.
> This makes sense because companies are used to making 70%,
I would love to live in the world you're living in where companies have 70% margin on $5 apps and $10/month subscriptions. And where they ever had those margins.
It's the other way around. The app devs select the nominal price and offer it on platforms that don't take the massive cut - on their website, for example. And when Apple forces them to give up 30% of their revenue, they instead raise the price and pass the extra cost to the consumers.
That is bad enough. But here comes the infuriating part. Many app devs don't want their customers to pay extra. But Apple forbids them from providing an alternative payment interface or even informing the customers that such an option exists. And the icing on the cake is that Apple used to forbid the app developers from even providing an alternative, until the courts forced their hand. Is this an anticompetitive practice or just plain extortion?
But if you ask Apple or their fanbase, they would say that it takes resources to review and host the apps. But that rings hollow when you consider all the other ways in which Apple wrings both app developers and customers dry. Then perhaps allow the users to sideload the apps? Oh no! That will break Apple's perfect safety record. How about just making it slightly hard instead? No! The user must be protected at all costs, including by holding them hostage! At this point, I'm convinced that either Apple is astroturfing, or the fans suffer from an extreme form of Stockholm syndrome, or both.
I feel like that could still be accomplished by allowing multiple payment backends, and charging them a reasonable fee to integrate (to cover the cost of development/maintenance of the APIs and whatever overhead to account for dealing with abuse/fraud).
It should be possible to open up the “Cancel Subscription” feature/button to apps using other payment providers. Maybe even keep that in as a requirement for all payment providers?
In reality, everyone other than Apple has created as much friction as possible in the cancellation process. With Apple, I simply subscribe and then immediately go and unsubscribe.
I partly agree with you - but then you as a consumer should also be willing to expect variable pricing in such cases. If I as a developer offer a subscription for $10, and Apple demands $3 from it, while other payment providers only want $1 or $2 commissions, I should be able to tell you (the consumer) this information transparently and should be able to give you the options to choose between these different payment service providers. (Note that while you, as a paying customer, are an important part of the ecosystem, we developers too add value to the platform by developing apps that people like you want to use. That Apple seeks to exploit both you and me, should piss you off too. After all, one of us has to absorb the higher cost of Apple's services, and that often ends up being you, the consumer.)
It would be one thing to say "you must offer our payment method as an option to users". It's another to say "our payment method must be the only option you offer to users". Just the former would be enough to cover your use case.
Perhaps then there should be a subscription API, so Apple could make the nice "see all your subscriptions in one place" UI? Or maybe banks could better offer this as part of online banking for credit cards. Not sure the right place to put this.
Anyhow I do see your point that narrowing user options can lead to better UX - if you actually like all the tradeoffs they make. The problem is if you don't, your SoL. And in this case the trade-off is Apple taking a giant extra cut so... I think it's reasonable that folks don't like that trade-off.
This isn't about the a consumer's right to buy a different phone. It's about a business's right to do business with customers without Apple in the middle. And it's specifically about Apple's monopoly power over those businesses. No government is going to accept that some company, Apple, gets that kind of control.
Let's consider cars (or vehicles in general) as another mainstream example of completely vertically integrated products which comprise hardware and – now – software.
Toyota Motor Corp., Volkswagen Group (multiple brands), Hyundai Motor Group, GM and Stellantis N.V. are the top 5 largest automakers in the world whose annual output is comparable with that of largest smartphone makers, including Apple (with the adjustment of the scale).
None of the automakers allow anyone outside the vertical(s) they have built to gain a foothold in the verticals. This includes: replacement parts, mandated regular service at an official, brand-certified dealership as the condition of the warranty (for new vehicles), software updates only from the vehicle manufacturer, probably something else. No outsiders are allowed under any circumstances – if one misses a regular service at an official dealership before the warranty period has lapsed, the warranty is automatically voided. Some even extend to chipped/cracked windshields that, if replaced, will void the vehicle warranty, even though there is nothing special about a windshield today.
Vehicle manufacturers are by all definitions stagegate keepers, and they impose expensive services upon their product users without giving them an alternative.
Why are governments allowing this to happen?[0]
[0] I know that it is because of safety regulations as the manufacturer will claim that they can only guarantee the safety of its own vehicle if it has original parts, but let's pretend for a moment that it is not an issue.
At least some of your points are not allowed in the EU. Manufacturers have to provide the manuals on what constitutes a "proper" service or inspection to independent service places and have to accept their work in their warranty requirements.
Pretty much none of what you mention is true. There's a huge ecosystem of 3rd party mechanics, replacement parts, services and maintenance for used cars.
Even a cursory glance at the world around you quickly proves that what you wrote it just utter crock.
There is no need to respond if you can't hold a civilised discourse and choose to descend into directed insults instead.
One can't install a Ford made shock absorber on a Honda Civic and vice versa. The time of interchangeable spare parts came to an end some time in 1980-90's where the car manufacturers started actively embracing the vertical integration. If somebody makes compatible, third party parts, it is mostly for a small selection of performance and sports cars and is not mainstream. I just replaced the chipped and cracked windshield last week, and I had to wait for 2 months for the replacement to arrive because only the original glass existed out there, with no cheap Chinese alternatives being available – they don't exist, either.
And I had a continuous problem with spare parts for my previous 20 years old car that was more than 10 years out of production, and the car manufacturer stopping making them after 10 years. Lucky for me it was just zero problems, but lately wear and tear turned every other annual safety inspection into a 1-2 week long wait with the mechanic trying to hunt something down. The last time they just gave up and fudged it.
My new car comes with a non-negotiable condition of first five years of regular service getting done at an authorised dealership as a condition of the car warranty. If I were to do it elsewhere, the warranty would lapse automatically. After the end of the warranty, I can take my car wherever I want.
No, you can't install your own or 3rd party software in a modern car, either. This is well known and is indisputable.
I routinely buy printer toner and ink from companies that are not my printer's manufacturer. Where did you get the idea that it isn't possible to do so?
> Where did you get the idea that it isn't possible to do so?
Not op, but the various "must use our genuine brand printer cartridges!" schemes that printer manufacturers have used over the past, oh, 2 decades might have something to do with it?
edit to clarify: I mean the cartridges with their own chips that HP et al. tried to make happen a while back
You absolutely can. Just google for your “<printer name> compatible cartridges” , and you’ll find tons that are cheaper and work just fine with your printer.
I would be cautious of saying "just fine"; third-party cartridges you buy from the first search result on Amazon are generally junk, and it takes quite a bit of research now to find one that will work acceptably.
> If a company invests billions in R&D to create hardware and its integrated software, shouldn’t it have the right to control who or what interacts with it? Why should I be forced to open up the carefully designed ecosystem I’ve built?
Once a company becomes massive enough and displays properties of a monopoly, the rules of free commerce change
(that being said, I agree that Apple largely provides users with a high-quality product)
If a company sells me a hardware and software package, that hardware and software is no longer the property of that company once I have exchanged my money for it.
That’s really the crux of the issue. If I must abide by arbitrary rules to use the package at its full functionality, then I didn’t gain ownership of it, did I?
Can't Apple say in this case "I'm selling you this package under the condition that you accept you don't fully own it, and if you're not happy with that, don't buy it".
I don't like this hypothetical (or maybe real) argument from Apple, but can't answer it either.
Because you can't sign away your rights no matter how much some people wish it were true.
It doesn't matter if your gym includes a clause in their contract stating that they are not liable, even through their neglect. If they cause harm through neglect then they are liable.
No, the point is that we should not allow such contractual arrangements. You buy the software, you should own it. Regulations are often required to enforce this.
I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say that we shouldn't allow that sort of contract at all, but it should be considered fraudulent to call it selling or what the customer does buying. If you're only offering limited right of use subject to conditions and restrictions, then you're offering something else entirely. And the limitations should be required to be clearly conveyed before money is exchanged.
It's important to note that we do have contracts like that already. They're called equipment leases.
But those types of contracts also have obligations on the seller, which is why Apple and similar companies don't want to have to treat their equipment that way and would rather call it "selling" with an asterisk.
Well, I guess you’d argue that if the ecosystem is so big that it has a social-scale impact, then it should be subject to the whims of society. One such whim is adoption of capitalism as economic policy and a following belief in preserving the free markets that enforce the competition that is required.
Why do we oppress any freedom? When doing so protects the society we are trying to build.
> If a company invests billions in R&D to create hardware and its integrated software, shouldn’t it have the right to control who or what interacts with it?
You're asking a rhetorical question without providing any argument for why the answer should be yes, which makes it pretty easy to just answer the question with the word no.
> Why should I be forced to open up the carefully designed ecosystem I’ve built?
The premise of this question is that they have the right to interfere with how other people choose to interact with each other.
Meanwhile the premise of the government-granted copyright monopoly they've used to build their lock-in system is that you build something and in exchange you can charge money for it. Leveraging that into control over markets external to the one you developed is a thing that should be expressly prohibited.
> If a company invests billions in R&D to create hardware and its integrated software, shouldn’t it have the right to control who or what interacts with it?
Do you think the same about printer ink?
Regardless, we need to look at the law - and interoperability has a long history of legal support. Patents protect the product itself, but allow interoperable products. Trade secrets product the product from theft but not reverse engineering.
Even the DMCA has explicit carve-outs for interoperability, though that doesn't stop copyright-abusers from trying to wield it (and sometimes winning due to the money game).
There has been absolutely no legal precedent about those DMCA carve-outs and previous cases that could have rested on them (eg Nintendo vs Yuzu) shouldn’t leave anyone optimistic about their strength.
> Are you legally prevented from controlling your device
The bar isnt whether it is legal or not. You know that no company can create laws, and either you're saying it out of ignorance, or willful ignorance.
When Walmart drives away mom and pop shops, and dominate a certain town and then hikes the prices for groceries, you cant say "but it isnt illegal to go buy groceries from elsewhere, what did we - Walmart - do wrong?"
Say it with me - monopoly rules are about consumer choice.
This analogy makes no sense because you are not prevented in any way from purchasing the many other devices that provide almost identical functionality. It's like complaining that Walmart hiked their prices but ignoring the fact that the mom and pop stores still exist, at a higher number compared to walmarts, and are selling the same products for cheaper. You have incredible consumer choice for phones, you can't chose to purchase a luxury phone and then complain about it.
It has absolutely zero to do with your choice to purchase a different device. It has everything to do with hundreds of thousands of companies' right to do business with customers without Apple in the middle.
What right does a company have to piggyback off of another company?
Like think about this logically? Should a grocery store be forced to sell my products without receiving any of the profit? Can I force a cafe to let me serve customers on their premises without giving anything in return?
They explicitly prevent other companies from providing this infrastructure, marketplace and platform. Apple don't offer this stuff as a favour to developers, they demand that developers use it and prevent them from using anything else. Apple aren't some Good Samaritan providing a centralised set of services out of the goodness of their hearts, they are forcing companies to pay an exorbitant fee to be able to play in their garden, and they make billions of dollars in profit from this.
Compare Apple with Steam (who also provide the infrastructure, marketplace and platform). Steam don't force developers to use their services. They're still successful, but you can get almost every game on Steam from somewhere else. This is what I'd ideally like Apple to do. It wouldn't make any difference to me, as I haven't owned or developed for Apple devices in many decades, but it would make a huge difference to many developers, and many device owners. I doubt it will actually make that much difference to Apple's profits, but it would make a difference to the rapidly declining good will they have in the developer community, and increasingly in their customers.
The mom and pop stores in this analogy are the multitude of devices which are not produced by Apple and provide the same features, like Android phones and phones which are trivial to flash your own custom OS and software on. So no, your analogy does not support your conclusions.
And one gives you the control you want over your device ie. sideloading and alternative app stores right? So why not simply purchase devices that use that operating system?
Are sick people legally prevented from becoming healthy again? Are homeless people legally prevented from having a home? Are starving people legally prevented from eating?
I'm sick of people writing off entire classes of problems because "well, it's not illegal". The law doesn't matter until you're actually in court. What matters is practicalities. There are many rights that are impractical to use and there are many laws that are unenforced. Some problems could be solved by law, others probably not. The law is a solution, not a problem. Focus on problems, not solutions.
I don't see how the legality question is relevant here. My country is not forbidding me from exercising my ownership rights. This "are you prevented by law" question is fallacious, it implies that Apple can do no wrong, since it can't create laws.
What Apple is taking away is practical control for owners of a class of device that has become essential to my practical participation in society.
I actually desire my country to intervene and change laws forcing Apple give me that control.
Maybe if the iPhone was the only phone available to purchase this argument has merit. But it's not, there are no shortage of other phones that provide the same features which are "essential to (your) practical participation in society)". If anything, you are attempting to remove my ability to purchase a device I want to own. And I don't really like that.
There are many phones which let you flash your own OS and use with complete control. Please just purchase one of those and stop trying to interfere with my ability to purchase a phone that I want.
In my opinion it is perfectly fine for society to order a company to hypothetically limit you on this minor thing (and let's be frank: this is super minor), because opening up iOS would benefit companies, countries, economies and other users of phones.
Your consumer desire ... to impose your own arbitrary wishes on other consumers? Apple opening up their platform would not preclude them from offering users an optional setting that continued to impose the current restrictions. Therefore it does not interfere with your own use of the platform. You have no standing here so to speak.
The difference is that the choice to purchase devices that offer the freedom you want is available, if not the primary option. I don't wish to take that away from you. However you are advocating for the only choice for a locked down device be legislated out of existence. There is a fundamental difference here!
You're right. I wish to take this away from you. To me this is completely fine, morally, philosophically and legally, and a lot of people seem to agree with me.
Apple have over a billion iPhones out there I believe, and your phrasing of "it's all of us vs just you" is really inappropriate - both from an argumentation perspective and probably a fact perspective too.
No-one's saying you don't have a right to an opinion. Everyone has that right. It's bad faith to try and misrepresent what the person you're talking to is saying.
It's legitimately easier to just buy a UMPC with an LTE card and use VOIP than do that. That's how bad the situation is at this point.
I say this as someone who gets paid to work on open source and used PostMarketOS on my primary cell phone for years. Even technical people really only have two options right now.
Out of genuine curiosity since you mentioned UMPCs, what would be a good UMPC with LTE module support? I've looked into things like the various GPD Pocket devices, but I'm wondering if any of the other alternatives are any good.
And of course, recommendations for LTE modules would be appreciated. Ideally built in, but external modules are also good, all they really need is linux support.
In this case I hope you have sympathy when I state that I dislike when Apple charges 30% on transactions (but also apps), because this cost is also passed to the consumer: me.
And I 100% guarantee that the piece of this 30% pie is way bigger than the effort it would require them to divert their development like you're suggesting.
EDIT: Oh, and I also bet their lawyer bill for fighting this is bigger than that too. :)
Not really, you can chose to purchase other devices with more favourable payment agreements. It's about having that choice, versus not having the ability to purchase a device with a higher level of security.
No. I prefer to contribute to companies and causes trying to make Apple to be forced to open up. I am 100% ok with limiting your choice.
And if the argument has become about security, as others have said, Jailbreak has repeatedly relied on security issues, so the security problems have always been there.
You've been tricked into thinking that Apple phones are higher security because Apple has taken away your freedom. Apple's ecosystem is neither necessary nor sufficient to provide you with security.
In the most respectful tone possible, I think if you read the article in its entirety you would get your answer. Laws are needed to keep in check powerful and influential companies so they don't take advantage. Your "devil's advocate" position is questioning 'why should consumers and those who create content for the ecosystem be treated fairly within the ecosystem a company built.' If you don't see an issue with taking advantage of people within the boundary of where you have influence/control, then perhaps let me frame it another way. Your "devil's advocate" position is essentially 'I've built a successful company, therefore I should be allowed to take advantage of the employees inside my company. While they are here, they are forced to endure. If they don't like it, they can go work for the only other employeer'
The law is complicated, its a living thing, and we're living through one of the nastier episodes of its capture in living memory. So who knows there. Its also breaking sharply on this issue in what was once a fairly high-compatibility regime of US/EU common-ish values.
So then we get to like, why do we have laws, what's the goal? And this is where you get down to brass tacks. Almost everyone will agree on three basis vectors in principle:
- aggregate prosperity
- broad prosperity and security from want
- individual liberty
You've got to grind through a bunch of thought on a spectrum ranging from Das Capital to Atlas Shrugged to make it really tight, but it sort of simplifies down to: pick two. Put differently, for a given raw capability and Gini-like target, you get to allocate so much liberty to which people: if you don't impose punitive taxes on wealth, it centralizes and calcifies into fungibility. Rich people buy laws. This is a super linear process.
So then it becomes about:
- would I want to be rich if it was part of a system that engineers avoidable want
- if yes, could I realistically make it into the rich group
For me the answer to one is no, and so I think we should re-impose the punitive taxes and regulations that break the backs of rich people and megacorps.
But on HN a common if not typical answer to #1 is yes, and so my appeal is: be realistic, you already missed.
A totalitarian government does not need to buy laws. Imposing punitive taxes on wealth - it's like express line to what you want to avoid with it.
Breaking the backs of rich people and megacorporations or not, is not a choice about your chances of being wealthy, it is a choice about will you die from starvation or not.
People choose not to break the backs of megacorporations because they don't want to starve to death in totalitarian regimes, not because they hope to get a corporation of their own some day.
Look at marginal tax brackets at the top from WW2 to the present and say that again with a straight face.
Real wages and purchasing power at the median are so strongly correlated with 90℅ income tax at the top that the causality digression is a waste of time we don't have. Unchecked executive power via a lockstep legislative apparatus and meek courts is not some unprecedented thing, its a totally predictable response to privatizing the commons and selling it off to oligarchs.
It was a fucking disaster in Russia in 1992 and its shaping up no better here now.
Conficistory taxes at the top work, they keep real assets broadly distributed throughout society which gives everyone a stake in democratic institutions which creates stability and growth. That's recent, robustly researched history.
That's the catch-22, said ecosystem is what they want to use because it's considered "secure", but it's only considered secure because it's closed.
It's the same with all the other stuff like frequent locations, photos, etc. It's a walled garden yes, but one that protects your data from bad actors (like Meta heisting whatever they can get their grubby little hands on), and the price is that you can't let others into your garden, or it's no longer walled.
This continues to be a wild take. People aren't demanding that the app store host every application someone submits, they're asking for apple not to take a cut of things other people sell their own customers.
Also, facebook can already be a "bad actor" right now, they just have to pay apple their 30%.
> People aren't demanding that the app store host every application someone submits, they're asking for apple not to take a cut of things other people sell their own customers
There are two scenarios to this (probably more)
1) A developer wants to use a 3rd party app store to distribute their apps, using 3rd party payment solutions. This is fine, it puts no load on Apple. That's what we've had in EU for a year or more, and truth be told, nobody uses 3rd party app stores. It's a desire that exists because vendors don't want to pay Apple 30%, users have no desire for it.
2) Which leads to the second scenario, where developers will want to publish their apps on the App Store, because that's where the users are, but still use 3rd party payment solutions, meaning Apple essentially hosts their apps for free.
Even after a year in EU, there are literally no users (and not many 3rd party app stores):
AltStore has about 1.5 million users, Epic Games Store has about 29 million users across iOS and Android, so best case they're all iOS users, or worst case it's less than half. There are 450 million people living in the EU.
The Apple App Store is overwhelmingly dominant in EU, despite there being a free choice. So, which scenario do you think is most likely ? 1 or 2 ? The store where nobody shops, or the store where the users are, and developers wants to live rent free ?
> Also, facebook can already be a "bad actor" right now
Facebook, and later Meta has been involved in several "controversies" over the past decade or so, too many to be an accident.
In 2015-2018, people discovered that the Facebook app on Android had been collecting call logs and SMS metadata, presumably to help you connect with people you know, but it was being done without your consent.
in 2016-2020, there were rumors that Facebook listened on conversations using the iOS and Android microphones for use with targeted ads. Nothing was proved, but it was verified in 2019 that Facebook kept the camera active on iOS while you browsed the feed.
The Onavo VPN 2013-2019 (later Facebook Research) app collected various stuff like App usage stats, Web browsing, private messages and network activity on both iOS and Android, until the App was removed from Play Store and App Store in 2019.
Facebook also tracks your location, despite you disallowing this, by using background access, Photo EXIF data, and WiFi//bluetooth beacon.
All of the above were default on, without any informed consent, and the behavior of Meta (and others) are a large part of why both iOS and Android have severely hardened their cross application data access.
> Go ahead and lock down specific purpose computing devices, like ATMs, fridge, mouse firmware.
There are at least a few grey areas of such a carve-out that I'd like to ask about, but I wonder if it's even necessary. What if there simply weren't any exceptions?
The ATM would still be locked down - the owner would possess the keys. Business as usual.
The fridge and mouse either wouldn't be locked down or the keys might be physically present somewhere on them. Probably either neutral or a win for the consumer depending on the specific circumstances.
Something like a fridge should either be running a proper OS (and thus fully under the control of the user) or else shouldn't be connected to the network in the first place. Unpatchable proprietary network connected black boxes expected to have a service life of well over a decade are a recipe for disaster after all.
That's just an argument in favour of monopolization. Monopolization kills innovation and hurts the market. Companies are not individuals that should be allowed to do whatever they want just because they have already invested in R&D, thats a nonsensical argument. That's like saying that car companies don't have to put seatbelts in cars because they already invested in R&D for building the car. It doesn't matter what a company have or haven't done! Rules exists for creating a better society.
> Why should I be forced to open up the carefully designed ecosystem I’ve built?
Because not doing so harms the market and society (the article details how). Governments do not exist solely to enforce contracts and property rights. Ideals (e.g. "a man is entitled to the sweat of his brow") are valuable guides, and worth bearing even significant costs to keep, but they are not to be followed blindly, at any cost.
> There are other options out there.
Law and politics (should) step in when "voting with your feet/wallet" fails. You also ignore Apple's middle-man role - consumers can choose (among the very few) different options, but companies serving Apple's captured market cannot.
Apple has not just created integrated HW/SW to sell as a product, with the AppStore they created a closed market within that product that only Apple controls.
They invite others to sell on that market, but made themselves gatekeeper and simultaneously a player there, controlling the rules of that market in its favor.
Market forces are unable to flow freely, to the point that it affects the "parent" market (in which the iPhone/iPad competes with others) as well as other markets (where other Hardware and Services are sold).
Their closed market reached a significant size now, so it should be reasonable to step in and ensure fair competition also there.
But thanks to those layers of abstraction, billions of dollar in lobbying and marketing, there is always room to argue that ensuring that free market is unjust, hinders innovation, restricts Apple from competing, etc.
> If a company invests billions in R&D to create hardware and its integrated software, shouldn’t it have the right to control who or what interacts with it?
Was that not the sort of rationale Microsoft used to defend its IE shenanigans back in the day?
It was considered to be a violation of antitrust laws then. I don't think Apple would be off the hook now. Especially considering how much more ubiquitous smartphones are in comparison to web browsers back then.
Well, wenare talking about what is essentially a duopoly in the smartphone market. Apple has enough market presence for their anticompetitive behavior to trigger antitrust laws, especially considering that smartphones are inevitable in current times.
It is complicated, but I think the big thing is that Apple is huge. Not a monopoly, but your may miss >50% of your potential revenue if you take the "other option" of not supporting the Apple ecosystem.
But in this case, I still think Apple has a point. It is not a lawsuit so that consumers can truly own their device, it is not about opening bootloaders and things like that. It is just about not paying the 30% tax to Apple. And while not an Apple fan myself, I understand the appeal of Apple controlling the ecosystem, and paying 30% more for it is not a big deal. By simply buying an Apple device, you show that you are ready to pay a premium for this, so paying a premium for software too seems fitting.
Proton has a point regarding ads though, but it can be seen the other way: maybe Apple should control the ad delivery service too and take its cut too. If Apple does it right, it could actually be a good thing for privacy.
I repeat that it is not what I want, I like being able to do what I want with my hardware, but I see the value in what Apple offers. In this case, let the courts decide.
People get hung up on absolute 100% pure monopolies and how nothing meets that criterion. Monopoly power is a much better way of looking at things. Controlling 100% of a market with insurmountable barrier to entry of course grants a heaping pile of monopoly power, but any company that can influence the market price has some. Generally the higher the market share, the more monopoly power. UK monopoly regulation starts taking a closer look at companies once they have 25% market share.
Lots of responses here but none of them mention the Hollywood story!
Thomas Edison and Company invented a patent system that separated their inventions from being able to be accessed by indie movie makers, and indie producers. Their lawyers would effectively shut down any such movements. This caused them to go all the way to Los Angeles because it was the furthest from New York and they built a movie studio on poverty row that later became the capital of Hollywood movie making.
Once Hollywood became financially strong enough, the lawyers were sent over to shut it down, but the court sided with Hollywood and killed all of the patents because the courts thought that they had abused the pattern system to only benefit a few, what I would like to call the cartel.
The cartel were chosen movie makers, and producers, who had access to the movie making stuff and cameras and equipment by which they would share a percentage of the revenue of the movie production and the theater income with Thomas Edison and Company. Effectively they had what Apple has currently.
If you sell me a computer and I don't have a shell on it that's false advertising at best. Doing this en mass with the goal of actually changing people's behavior is even worse IMO. We don't have a word for it because it's not something that could be done before now. Microsoft tried with Windows and IE but the technology at the time meant they couldn't really lock people out of their own devices the way Apple does.
> If you sell me a computer and I don't have a shell on it that's false advertising at best
I believe that's why they're calling it "a phone", or "a tablet". The computer they actually sell has plenty of shells available, and lets you tinker with whatever you like.
A phone is not simply a computer, it's a regulated piece of hardware that must comply with local laws and regulations regarding radio transmissions and other stuff. You can't just peek and poke around anywhere you like in the system.
Besides that, it must be able to talk to carefully tuned 3G/4G/5G cell towers, which sounds easy in theory, but it's not. When I made mobile phones 20 years ago, we had people driving around all countries where we sold it, with a test setup where the phone connected to every cell tower it could "see", and recorded logs and GPS coordinates, and that work (and that of countless others) is partially what became the beginning of A-GPS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_GNSS), which allows you to triangulate your phones location purely from the cell towers it can see.
Of course that's not how it works today, as most carriers these days register their cell towers in a central database with GPS coordinates, so A-GPS these days is simply a database dump (and a whole lot of math).
As a "fun" anecdote, when I wrote software for mobile phones, it was the only place I've ever worked that had a bug category for "potential harm to user". I'm certain companies working in Medicare and other critical industries also has that, but it was the first and only time I ever saw it.
Lol. If phones were actually considered critical devices like this implies Android would have been nuked from orbit.
No. They're computers with a modem peripheral. This is like saying once you plugged your e machine into the phone line it could interfere with 911 calls so they need to be regulated by the FCC. We settled that one over 50 years ago.
Besides the FDA (and similar international counterparts), you're also using your phone for a bunch of other stuff that you probably don't want anyone having root access to.
Wallets are one, banking apps, medical data and devices, password managers, and more.
If you have root access, that means that the apps can also get it, after all the app providing root access is itself an app.
Yes I have my bitcoin-qt wallet, Etrade, my ssh keys, and my password manager on a machine I also have root on. I don't run non-free code on it (and I'm very picky about the open source code I do run.) Also just because I have root access doesn't mean I'm running all my apps as root. That's in insane statement to make. I run administrative tools as root and that's it.
The same thing is happening on your phone, you're just not allowed access to those tools, instead various other companies are and when they do things you don't like your options are: throw out your device and data, or bend over and take it.
Again at the end of the day a computer is a computer regardless of you being administratively locked out of yours.
> shouldn’t it have the right to control who or what interacts with it?
I suppose you have the legal right to do whatever you're able to up until people notice the problems you're causing and pass laws against it (or enforce existing ones, as is being attempted here).
Why should it be legally permissible to "sell" general purpose computing devices that are locked by the manufacturer or vendor? How does such behavior benefit society? Aren't locked down, effectively unauditable devices anathema to a free and open society? Isn't the current situation evidence enough that their existence is damaging to the concept of a free market?
>If a company invests billions in R&D to create hardware and its integrated software, shouldn’t it have the right to control who or what interacts with it?
Of course not. Companies exist only because it is useful to have that sort of legal entity. They should be regulated to ensure that they remain more useful than harmful to society.
It doesn't stop at Apple's ecosystem. It also allows Apple to regulate the choices and privacy of the people and companies using their products. There's hardware, software, and there is data. Trying to control other people's data and taking away their freedom of choice regarding their data and services used is the issue.
I don't own any Apple product, but I do admire occasionally how Apple tries to uphold the quality and security of their ecosystem, even as I principally disagree with the walled garden approach. I certainly hope Apple aspires to keep the quality of their hardware and software high. They should however never control user data or choice of third party services.
> I certainly hope Apple aspires to keep the quality of their hardware and software high. They should however never control user data or choice of third party services.
These two things are often at odds with each other. If people bought into the Apple ecosystem because of the walled garden, the regulators want to rip down those walls and turn it into a fundamentally different product. Bad 3rd party experiences can break the illusion of the perfect walled garden, which is why Apple has many of its rules. Though, I’d say that illusion has already been broken for many, due to a bunch of apps with timed ad pop-ups and other such nonsense. I won’t allow any of that on my phone, but most people do.
I’ve read articles from developers that say they offer options on iOS to go ad-free, while similar options don’t exist on Android for the same app, since not enough people do it and they can make more on ads (I believe I read this from the Angry Birds devs years ago). I would find this unacceptable as a user. I don’t think this is a rule from Apple, but rather differences in the types of users that gravitate to the various platforms; or maybe it’s simply comfort and trust in Apple to process all the payments. I think it should be a rule that any app with ads has the ability to remove them for a price. For smaller apps, I would have a lot less comfort doing this if it didn’t go through Apple (or some similarly large company). I would be very sad if the monkey paw from this lawsuit was that I end up with apps full of ads that I can’t remove, or don’t feel safe removing. This would fly in the face of Proton’s goals as well.
There is also the registration side of things. Today, I can get an app without an account for it, buy it, delete it, and if I re-download it, I can restore that purchase. Going through the developer means yet another account to manage, track, and entrusting another 3rd party.
I paid $30 a couple weeks ago for lifetime access to the “pro” version of an app I’ve been using. I don’t think I would have done that if I would have had to make an account and all that. It would be too much friction and I don’t know enough about the dev. So the dev got $21-25 from me, instead of the alternative, which would have been 0. And that’s what starts the downward spiral toward ads everywhere, which degrades the whole experience.
I don't see people making the same arguments about Steam, Microsoft, Nintendo, etc, etc. Why is Apple special here? Other companies make stores that deliver application and developers don't get to tell them what to do. That's fine apparently, just not for Apple.
Maybe the reason is that the number of Apple users is an order of magnitude higher? Plus, they control both hardware and software. Apple is making very consumer-oriented products, and this comes with it's own downside of having to handle billions of users.
You are not required to use Steam to buy games on any device (even on the Steam Deck it's trivial to install games from other sources). It has big market power because gamers actually like it and actively choose it over alternatives (often even those that come pre-installed with the platform, the Windows store and the XBox app). It does not prevent devs from selling their games on multiple stores. It's dominant position for sure has market effects, but its a lot harder to argue it has the position for any nefarious or abusive reasons. (Although there are some lawsuits ongoing claiming that they did threaten devs over pricing, if those succeed it might change things)
Oh hey I wasn't aware of that lawsuit and (IMO) that's really good news. My only real concern with steam as a platform was the off-platform pricing clause.
I figured it was likely unenforceable if a studio simply released a "steam edition" or whatever artificial version differentiation, but at the same time they can always refuse to do business with you for any reason (or no reason even). So at that point the clause feels like them making a blatant threat.
People usually mix up things: The clear clause in their ToS is about selling Steam keys. A dev on Steam can generate Steam keys and sell them wherever they want, and Steam does not take a cut on those. For those, there is an explicit clause that says that you need to match the pricing on Steam.
For just selling the game elsewhere, there is no such clause, and there are games that e.g. are cheaper on Epic and explicitly say that's because Epic takes lower fees. But there are also devs claiming that Valve pressured them in private to not do that, and that's what the lawsuit is about.
Rubbish. I literally bought a SteamDeck and installed Heroic on it and installed games from GOG just fine. Valve literally helps me do this by giving me desktop mode. I can't think of any analogy that is farther from Apple's attitude.
Surveillance of citizens. Governments are trying to set up digital gulags, and they are first of all putting pressure on the companies that will provide them with the technical part.
No the US Sherman anti trust law prohibit monopolies. Its not a corporate right but right by citizens not to be affected by monopoly by rule of law or until tried.
"The Sherman Act broadly prohibits 1) anticompetitive agreements and 2) unilateral conduct that monopolizes or attempts to monopolize the relevant market. " source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act
> If a company invests billions in R&D to create hardware and its integrated software, shouldn’t it have the right to control who or what interacts with it? Why should I be forced to open up the carefully designed ecosystem I’ve built?
Because once I buy your phone/tablet/whatever, it stops being yours and starts being mine, so I should be in charge of what software it can run from then on.
Any argument in this vein must also apply to the Mac. The hardware is mostly the same. The OS is mostly the same. The native apps and services are identical, as is the security story. So why should the Mac not be locked down if the iPhone is? Put another way, what prevents Apple from using the exact same reasoning to lock down my Mac in the future, perhaps under pressure from authoritarian governments? After all, the technology (notarization) is already in place and is actively being abused for iOS app review in the EU.
Think about this for physical objects. If I bought your hardware, then decided to paint it bright pink in celebration of the fact that I like pink, but you don't like the color pink, should you be able to tell me not to paint it pink? I bought it, it's mine, so I can do just that. Why then, for digital objects, does that not follow?
You're not forced to do anything. There are no criminal outcomes of any anticompetitive legislation.
For companies, there are civil outcomes. This may be undesirable if you have a large financial interest in the company, but it's a tradeoff for the same legislative body allowing you to create a shield from personal liability and taxation.
If you are able to create an ecosystem on your own, do what you like with it.
> shouldn’t it have the right to control who or what interacts with it?
Does the manufacturer of your refrigerator have the right to control what food you're allowed to put into it? If not, why do you have different standards for computing devices? Why did it ever become okay for Apple to decide what you do with your device after they've sold it to you?
Apple isn't dominant in the market worldwide (Android is), and they are competing against Android. Apple often implements things Android did first. That's how competition works.
Samsung is sitting at 28% of the Western European market share with their Android phones. Should we be worried about anti competitive behavior there as well ?
Explain stifle, or more specifically how Apple is doing that ?
Anybody (possibly except Epic Games) can develop and publish on the App Store. There's a cost associated with it, which in Apples case is 30% (or whatever you negotiate apparently). If you play by the rules, you can keep doing that as long as you like.
If you rent a shop in a shopping mall, there will be costs associated with that as well, and it's almost guaranteed to be more than 30%.
That is essentially what Apple is providing for those 30%, they provide a shopping mall where you can expose your goods, and people can pay for them. They handle the pesky stuff like refunds, (international) taxes, compliance with various government requirements, EU rules, and everything else. They even handle potential lawsuits for you (provided your app wasn't the one breaking laws).
They also vet (mostly automated) apps to ensure they're not using private APIs. That is for your protection. It's not an evil scheme by Apple to keep competitors out, it's for protecting the end user from bad actors like Meta scooping up all your personal data for "backup purposes" via some internal API.
Here in Europe we've had "alternative app stores" for a year or so, and despite living in a country where ~70% of the population uses iPhones, I don't know a single person that has ever used an alternative App Store, just like I don't actually know anybody that has downloaded an alternative keyboard despite those being available for a decade or more.
There is really very little you cannot do on the App Store in terms of features, so for many end users it is not a problem.
You may not like the price associated with it, which is what most of these complaints are about, the fact that Apple scoops up 30% of recurring subscriptions created through the App Store as well. People tend to forget that running your own infrastructure is also not free, especially when you need to handle refunds, legal matters and international compliance.
And that's the core of the problem, most of these companies complaining wants to use Apples built in App Store tools, but they want to direct them to their own App Store for free, ditching the complicated stuff of dealing with users on Apple. They're more than happy with Apple to handle payments and refunds if they do it for free.
Sideloading is usually a very bad idea in this day and age. In northern europe at least, your phone is quickly becoming your most trusted device in matters concerning anything state or municipality, and here we have a national ID app on our phones, along with social security, healthcare, drivers license, micro payments, taxes, childcare, hell, there's even video conferencing with your GP, in an app that has access to your medical records, including bloodwork and various scans. There's literally no way in hell I'm trading the perfectly walled garden for the Wild West outside.
Anecdotally, where I live, most companies don't allow Android phones as company phones as they're considered insecure, and instead mandate iPhones. The more regulated the industry (medical, banking, power, etc), the more certain it is that you'll be getting an iPhone.
> You may not like the price associated with it, which is what most of these complaints are about, the fact that Apple scoops up 30% of recurring subscriptions created through the App Store as well. People tend to forget that running your own infrastructure is also not free, especially when you need to handle refunds, legal matters and international compliance.
Simply having a link in my app to a page where someone pays through Stripe instead of through Apple Payments, costs nothing to Apple and creates no obligation for Apple to do anything.
> Sideloading is usually a very bad idea in this day and age.
> Then don't do it. Who exactly is forcing you to?
The problem is, when the option exists it opens up an attack vector that I need to defend against, as it will surely be exploited by malware at some point, downloading an app when you visit some scam site, and boom you're now infected.
> Simply having a link in my app to a page where someone pays through Stripe instead of through Apple Payments,
But it hardly stifles competition, except alternative payment methods ?
> costs nothing to Apple and creates no obligation for Apple to do anything.
The problem is, when stuff breaks, people will contact Apple support. Yes, one call is negligible, but Apple has 2.2 billion users, and it all adds up.
Provided you provide your app for free and charge subscriptions, that also has a cost to apple, as they're providing downloads for your app (again, potentially 2.2. billion of them), as well as any legal troubles (app contents excluded).
I guess Apple could enforce a alternate subscription model where they require you to charge for your app and they take their 30% cut off of that, and lets you use whatever payment provider you like for recurring payments.
It would of course either cut into sales, as people aren't as likely to buy an app and then subscribe to it, though something with "first month free" could probably lure some people in. Alternatively a developer would have to develop a free app, and if people want to have the full experience they'd have to purchase the full version.
Except, developers don't want that. They want to be able to give away their app and sell subscriptions, and they expect Apple to foot the bill for the infrastructure required to provide downloads.
> The problem is, when the option exists it opens up an attack vector that I need to defend against, as it will surely be exploited by malware at some point, downloading an app when you visit some scam site, and boom you're now infected.
This makes no sense. There is no "boom". You can't accidentally do it. There are a series of very deliberate steps, with numerous warning signs. Even on Android I have to specifically enable an option to even be able to install apps from alternate sources, and it is a separate permission per source, and this option can be locked down on a managed device (e.g. a work phone).
By your logic, there should be no web browsers on iOS, since someone might visit a scam website and give away all their money.
> They want to be able to give away their app and sell subscriptions, and they expect Apple to foot the bill for the infrastructure required to provide downloads.
Nobody expects that. What the EU wants is, simply let another app store compete. That new app store will host the downloads.
You keep shedding tears for the costs to Apple's infrastructure, yet as I keep repeating - what many developers really want is to NOT use Apple's infrastructure. NOT use Apple's payment processor. If the problem is that we're being a burden to Apple, well then I'm in full agreement with you, let's stop doing that!
> The problem is, when the option exists it opens up an attack vector that I need to defend against, as it will surely be exploited by malware at some point, downloading an app when you visit some scam site, and boom you're now infected.
This is completely fabricated. I've been using Android for more than 15 years, and this has never happened, ever. Nothing even close to it. To be clear, you're advocating to take away people's freedom to install software of their choosing in order to mitigate a hypothetical security problem. It's not a good trade.
Kaspersky detected more than 1.1 million malicious APKs for android in 2024 [^1]
As per Apple, they rejected 2 million app submissions in 2024 [^2]
So from a birds eye perspective there doesn't appear to be much difference, with iOS even taking the lead, but the key difference is that Kaspersky is not Google, and can only detect malicious software after it has been published. Apple has rejected app submissions over privacy issues, meaning those 2 million apps never made it to the public.
According to Zimperium Global Mobile Threat report [^3], 25% of Android devices have sideloaded apps, and 20% are malware infected (correlatoin is not causation, yet).
Zimperium telemetry also reveals that 38% of detected malware attacks could be tracked to sideloaded apps [^4].
So no, it is certainly not some fabricated threat, but a very realistic and probably threat scenario.
I'm also not trying to take away anybodys freedom, you're free to install whatever you want, but you don't need root access to do it. Very few use cases on a phone requires the user to have root access.
iOS has functionality for remote control that is commonly used for security and group policies in large organisations. This is a more likely threat vector, as is rogue state affiliated actors like the infamous israeli malware purveyors.
In any case, generally the threat against most people is fraud, not some technical minutiae.
> Sideloading is usually a very bad idea in this day and age.
There is nothing wrong with sideloading applications. Protection against malicious applications is taken care of by the OS through sandboxing and a granular permission model. Malware scanning and app signing also have no dependency on the App Store.
Really all you are missing out on is the App Store review process, which is not worth much from a security perspective anyways.
> Sideloading is usually a very bad idea in this day and age
You've been tricked into thinking that you're not qualified to select software to run on devices you purchase. I wouldn't hand over control of your digital life to Apple so readily.
Because companies compete globally, not just locally?
Apple isn't building features to compete with Samsung only in the US. It's a global dynamic. Local competition is restricted to tiny subsets of features.
And it's only 57-42 for Apple in the US anyways. If it were 90-10 then sure. But 57-42 is what you get with strong competition. Having a majority doesn't mean there's a lack of competition. It just means one company is currently ahead, as one of them usually will be when there are two main players.
Sure if you're an ISP where you're the only choice in a neighborhood.
But I don't see much that's local about Apple vs. Samsung. It's the same phones for sale in the US or in Thailand. Literally as one-size-fits-all global as you can get.
> It's the same phones for sale in the US or in Thailand.
They actually aren't. US iPhones no longer have SIM card slots. Most international phones don't support the same radio bands that US carriers use. This used to be a bigger issue with CDMA, but still an issue with the many 4G/5G bands and VoLTE. That'll be most Xiaomi and Oppo phones in the US. And there's Huawei phones that are banned and not allowed on US carriers; so it makes zero sense to include them into any marketshare calculations for a US consumer.
So even an iPhone 16 Pro has different models: A3293 (International) A3083 (USA) A3292 (Middle East, Canada, Mexico) and A3294 (China, Hong Kong). The A3293 and the A3294 do not support T-mobile's 5G band 71. This isn't uncommon, and Samsung will do similar international vs US models. Samsung is even worse sometimes, having completely different CPUs between regions.
And of course there's software differences too. Chinese iPhones can disable internet permissions for individual apps but not anyone else for some reason. Google Pixel's Gemini isn't available in EU countries. Apple Intelligence did similarly at launch.
While local marketshare isn't the perfect indicator, it's definitely better than using global marketshare.
Apple has around 60% market share. The US does not have global jurisdiction.
Competitive markets have enough similar suppliers that they are forced to adapt to customers instead of the other way around.
This happens to be incompatible with capitalism due to phenomena like the tendency of the rate of profit to fall and fascism (as well as other corporativist ideologies). Capitalism survives and reproduces through monopolies and oligopolies, i.e. undemocratic forms of rent seeking and price cartels.
Now imagine that instead of an iPad, you've just bought a new house with fantastic materials and an integrated software system. Should the company that built it have the right to control how and who interacts with your house?
It's one thing to design and built an iKettle in such a way that every aspect from the water filter to the power cord is well thought out but propitiatory. It's another to refuse to plug in to another "inferior" socket because that cuts into your cut of propitiatory cable sales.
If their stuff is so superior, then people will see that and prefer it. They wouldn't need to make it impossible or deliberately painful to use competitors services.
>> shouldn’t it have the right to control who or what interacts with it?
Apple can. They can retain ownership of "their" devices. Instead of selling electronics, they can rent iPhones and iPads to users and thereby retain all control over how/when/if they are used. But good luck pitching that to consumers.
Ah finally someone coming to the rescue of criminally underrepresented multi-billion dollar companies and their inevitable tactics of building monopolies, because how else do you 10% revenue growth every year. I hear Shell is also in need of some help, maybe you can find a thread on them? /s
But seriously though: why do people argue that „investing money“ leads to „I can do whatever the hell I want to my client base“? Even if this argument were to hold for all future customers, companies change their TOS all the time. Can I ask for all my money that I paid them back, to exit their ecosystem?..
Living in the US, I trust Apple with securing my communications (I don't have high security needs). I don't exactly trust third party developers. So, three no need for me to use something outside of Apple's apps, unless its something that don't provide. If these apps could prove they were better, id consider them, but all these lawsuits just sound like inferior products trying to force themselves onto a platform they should be on.
> We believe that Apple’s conduct, as detailed in the complaint we filed, constitutes further violations of US antitrust law.
It's not a question of what you like, it's a question of antitrust laws. You can disagree with them of course, but it is their right to sue Apple if they think Apple is breaking laws.
But isnt Apple forcing an inferior product (Subscriptions API) to make more money themselves (and serving copious amounts of kool-aid for people to drink up?).
Lets be honest here - Netflix, Spotify et al are perfectly capable of running their on subscription business. They dont NEED Apple's crappy payment provider, and yet are forced to use it.
I am not sure why I am commenting here but proton, please can you give up an api to your drive (particularly) docs and the fact that now we can have anonymous writes and reads if the document is shared properly can genuinely create an interesting stack for blogs with comment engines and the potential is basically limitless.
I think I haven't asked them but I was just trying to do it and I am so frustrated the best I have got is that there is a way to get a curl command with proper cookies etc. to get text written in the comments section but that text is (rightfully) encrypted and I don't know how to decrypt it... I am not sure.
A really dead simple api or library would be.. wonderful. I wish proton could also go like cloudflare except way way more private and could have some proton s3 or proton workers or something tbh.
To remedy Apple’s unlawful unreasonable restraints of trade, monopolization, attemptedmonopolization, and unfair competition, Plaintiff requests that the Court enter injunctive relief,including but not limited to the following:
(a) Enjoin Apple from conditioning any payment, revenue share, or access toany Apple product or service on an agreement by an app developer to launch an app first orexclusively on the Apple App Store;
(b) Enjoin Apple from conditioning any payment, revenue share, or access toany Apple product or service on an agreement by an app developer not to launch a version of theapp with enhanced or differentiated features on a third-party iOS app distribution platform orstore;
(c) Enjoin Apple from conditioning any payment, revenue share, or access toany Apple product or service on an agreement with an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM)or carrier not to preinstall an iOS app distribution platform or store other than the Apple AppStore;
(d) Require Apple to provide rival iOS app stores with access to the App Storecatalog to ensure interoperability and to facilitate consumer choice;
(e) Require Apple to permit the distribution of rival iOS app stores through theApple App Store on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms;
(f) Enjoin Apple from requiring developers to use Apple’s IAP system as acondition of offering subscriptions, digital goods, or other IAPs;
(g) Require that third-party application developers be given functionality andaccess to iOS application programming interfaces on terms no worse than the terms Apple allowsfor its first-party applications;
(h) Require Apple to allow developers to fully disable Apple’s IAP system;
> (c) Enjoin Apple from conditioning any payment, revenue share, or access toany Apple product or service on an agreement with an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM)or carrier not to preinstall an iOS app distribution platform or store other than the Apple AppStore
Let carriers pre-load apps and app stores on Apple's products? That's insane.
> (d) Require Apple to provide rival iOS app stores with access to the App Storecatalog to ensure interoperability and to facilitate consumer choice;
Wait, what? They want access to Apple's App Store catalog? Also never going to happen.
> (g) Require that third-party application developers be given functionality and access to iOS application programming interfaces on terms no worse than the terms Apple allows for its first-party applications;
As sympathetic as I am to this notion, I'm not sure how it's reasonably achievable. Putting aside the burden of every SPI having to be supported, documented, public API, it would also mean opening up all security-sensitive SPI to the world.
The point I found myself resonating with a lot is:
>Apple’s App Store policies disproportionately favor the surveillance capitalism business model employed by companies like Meta and Google and therefore entrench an online business model that routinely violates consumers’ personal privacy.
I was curious about the suit by proton because I'm a user until I read authoritarian this democracy that .
Proton wants us to believe that corporations should be above nation states and national interests.
If country X deems a certain App as a security risk, it is not the work of apple or some vague state department funded organization to protest .
Proton is explicitly suggesting that a company can choose to help a government with an authoritarian agenda, so they agree with you that a company has no obligation to protest. They make no assertions as to whether corporations should be above nation states but they do wear their politics on their sleeve (that authoritarianism should be opposed).
Their point is that they, as a separate company, can choose to object and attempt to offer products to help people evade authoritarianism and that Apple shouldn't be able to interfere with that in the US market in ways that they do. Obviously in the market of the authoritarian regime they can interfere, but that has no bearing to a US court.
Oh thank you, I totally missed it. Hyperlinking sentences or the nouns or phrases themselves seems to have mostly gone out of style in these sorts of posts these days.
Apple and Proton are two companies that I personally like, but the claim that the internet descended into surveillance capitalism because of the walled garden approach of the App Store is an argument in bad faith. Even if Apple allowed other app stores or payment methods, that would not have stopped Facebook and Google from capitalizing on user data to sell ads and manipulate public opinion. They would give their product away for free and spy on their users anyway.
I never really understood the monopolistic argument against Apple. In the first place, there are very clear legal criteria that define what a monopoly is and what anti-competitive behaviors are, and it’s not even the case that majority of the world runs on iOS. It is actually Android that is the most popular OS globally by a wide margin, though the split is somewhat equal in the US.
But the core of my contention is that: if you make the platform that others run on and which creates entirely new economies and allows businesses to thrive, don’t you get to define the constraints that you want since it’s _your_ platform? What’s effectively happening here is that companies are using the courts to force the design of OSes in a certain way: That only open OSes can ever be made, not closed ones.
Note that the businesses who are lobbying against Apple are operating on the very same capitalist, profit-optimizing interests that drove Apple to choose a walled-garden approach. They are not doing this to make the world a better place, and the vast majority of smartphone users do not even care about this “issue”.
> But the core of my contention is that: if you make the platform that others run on and which creates entirely new economies and allows businesses to thrive, don’t you get to define the constraints that you want since it’s _your_ platform? What’s effectively happening here is that companies are using the courts to force the design of OSes in a certain way: That only open OSes can ever be made, not closed ones.
Huh, the __user__ paid for the product, so they own it. After the user handed over their money, Apple has nothing to say about who I do business with on that product, or what the conditions are.
You can say "platform" as much as you like, but that's just Apple's way of forcing their way into the argument.
Someone has to make the platform. If they want recognition for that or compensation, maybe they should apply for government funding. Don't bother the consumer with it.
And if you don't like a government regulating a market, then you haven't seen a company regulate one.
> Huh, the __user__ paid for the product, so they own it. After the user handed over their money, Apple has nothing to say about who I do business with on that product, or what the conditions are.
But this is already the case. You own the device, you can do whatever you want with it (legally ofc). If I buy a fridge without a freezer, the fact that I can't freeze food with it doesn't mean I don't own the fridge.
Furthermore I don't appreciate other companies using the legal system to profit by forcing Apple to design their products in a specific way.
If you pay for a product and it is tied to a vendor, then you should be able to completely break all ties with that vendor and switch to a different service provider, and still be able to use the product as advertised.
Otherwise you don't own the product.
This basic premise doesn't hold for Apple products.
And by the way, I think consumer rights are more important than rights of companies to do whatever they want.
To give an idea on how much this holds true: I have an old iphone lying around somewhere. It's a perfectly functioning device (barring the battery), I have a cable for it and everything. I wanted to use it as an audio player - plug an AUX cable in it, play some tunes. It's a good way to reuse older phones.
Except I can't activate the fucking thing. It demands a SIM card. Trying to activate or reset it on PC just has iTunes spit out a generic failure message. Apparently it can't contact some activation server.
I have a perfectly usable iPhone. Apple decided on its own that it's a brick now. It's irrevocably tied to the vendor.
> Aww, does it hurt when your favorite multi-trillion dollar company is taken to court?
Please don't sneer or mock like this on HN. It's not what HN is for and it destroys what it is for. Please read the guidelines and make an effort to observe them in future.
This is a needlessly escalatory and inflammatory comment, and the kind of comment that's out of line on HN. It's fine to disagree and counter someone else's comment, but not by breaking the guidelines like this.
This seems like a bad faith argument. But if you're being serious, I can buy non-nike shoes in the same way you can buy non-Apple phones. If anything, the people complaining about Apple would be upset by the lawsuit because they want to buy an iPhone despite other options being available. And in that case, the alternatives are cheaper not more expensive in the case of ethically made shoes.
Your freezer doesn't ask for 30% of every grocery you buy and doesn't forbid you from storing a broccoli in it just because the broccoli company didn't pay the tax to the fridge maker.
Every time you make those comparisons it becomes much clearer just how much of an overreach and danger to market capitalism Apples behaviour is.
The user can hack the product, install a different OS, Strike it with a hammer, or throw it away. Apple hasn't violated their rights in any way. Sure hacking it or installing a different OS are hard but rights are not meant to guarantee something is easy. I never bought the argument that user rights should dictate how a product hardware or software should be manufactured.
> I never bought the argument that user rights should dictate how a product hardware or software should be manufactured
Probably you meant it differently, but guaranties and warranties exist exactly due to this. Users have right to expect their device performs as advertised and in a reasonable manner.
I think those are more about ensuring that the user is buying what they think they are buying. They don't dictate exactly what is sold they merely offer protection to the user that what they bought is what was on the tin.
> I never bought the argument that user rights should dictate how a product hardware or software should be manufactured.
How do you feel about user rights (of wheelchair users) dictating how a product hardware (such as public property and public and private spaces and structures open to the general public) should be manufactured (to include wheelchair ramps and and other amenities such as elevators and accessible restrooms)?
In some philosophical views, rights are meant to guarantee that things are easy. You can see that exact dynamic play out in US states regarding voter ID laws.
> But the core of my contention is that: if you make the platform that others run on and which creates entirely new economies and allows businesses to thrive, don’t you get to define the constraints that you want since it’s _your_ platform?
This question has already been asked to the United States Court of Appeals, and the answer was "no"[1]
When your platform becomes a dominant market it becomes a market and markets are regulated to prevent market abuse, this is what's happening now.
And while Facebook and Google would still be hoarding data, there are a huge amount of games and apps I'd rather pay 5 for that are now ad-fueled invasive crapps and "pay to remove ads" costs 15 instead of 5.
When a significant percentage of the population uses your products and services, expect regulators to prevent you from abusing that significant group.
The capitalism idea that "markets solve all issues" only works when it's regulated so market players play on even-ish odds and the players don't have control of the market. (And even then it doesn't seem to work for public utilities really).
The naive idea that "Apple makes the product let them decide" would fly well for a device with millions of units, but billions is 1000x more and it comes with responsibility, sometimes the responsibility comes late because regulators are slow bureaucrats.
"With power comes responsibility" used to be a thing, now it's "With power responsibility might knock on your doorstep eventually if you abuse it to an extreme level like imposing a third of all REVENUE transacted through their forced store"
Companies should not be regulated just because they are successful. Apple built a really successful app platform. It's theirs to maintain or burn to the ground.
I didn't double check this, but according to a quick search 60% of the adult US population owns an iPhone, you're saying that even though you're operating where more than 50% of your target market has your products you should not be held accountable for predatory behavior?
The thing with this 30% tax the private company Apple imposes on a majority of US adults is reasonable?
When you're "competing" with the government (30% tax sounds pretty government like to a Swede, we have 25% VAT) the government will get involved because you're operating a "shadow government" eventually (you set all the rules and set the tax rate, you're now a government).
Supporting Apple here is unreasonable, sure they should be able to take a margin on the app store, but not allowing other stores OR allowing external payment methods to be advertised is definitely predatory behavior and the government already has a monopoly on that.
And the "core fee" response was entirely unreasonable, it is unreasonably expensive. If Apple were operating like Sony on the Playstation where the console is a loss leader for much of it's lifetime then you ofc deserve a cut from developers since you enable them to build profitable games for your platform which markets the game for you and stuff. But Apple makes a profit of iPhones, they make a profit on iCloud, they make profit on App Store... They make a profit everywhere. It's predatory and I don't know how to agree with them here.
Apple is held accountable by people choosing not to use their device. If iPhone is too expensive for the value it provides people won't use them.
>The thing with this 30% tax the private company Apple imposes on a majority of US adults is reasonable?
By this logic grocery stores have been applying a 30+% tax to all of America since the country was founded.
>but not allowing other stores OR allowing external payment methods to be advertised is definitely predatory behavior
Again comparing to a grocery store I think it is fair for them to prohibit unauthorized sellers to sell within their premises. This is a standard because it can undermine the business model of the business.
>But Apple makes a profit of iPhones, they make a profit on iCloud, they make profit on App Store... They make a profit everywhere.
And that's why Apple is worth 3 trillion and Sony isn't. Apple has created a successful business with large profit margins that people are willing to pay. It's not predatory if people are willing to pay for it.
It might not seem predatory to the end user, but to all developers who want to access these people it's another thing. They can't deliver a mobile app to 60% of Americans without going through Apples little LARP government where they set the tax to 30% and arbitrary rules they see fit to increase their profits.
And in the end that affects the end users because more things become useless adfilled crap because it's more profitable, and everything is more expensive.
I don't even get how you're comparing grocery stores (which do NOT have a 30% profit, maybe 4-6) to Apple passively making 30% off anyone who wants access to "modern day people". Grocery stores don't scale like virtual markets, when you buy something you cost the store money, when i buy whatever through App Store it costs Apple virtually nothing and they make 30% because they like it.
Obviously regulators seem to agree with me and at the end of the day they make the rules, and I agree with the regulators in this case and I don't think many people think what Apple is doing is good and appreciate it. People are forced into the iOS ecosystem because that's what everyone uses in some profitable parts of the world too.
>to all developers who want to access these people it's another thing
Developers don't have a right to access other business's customers. If you want to sell jewelry you don't have a right to have your jewelry put into a nation wide jewelry store chain to be able to access most Americans. Customer relationships are a vary valuable asset of a business.
>passively making 30%
It's only passive if you ignore the billions of dollars they dumped into building the ecosystem and growing a customer base that they can monetize to developers.
It seems we're unable to find common ground. Many governments are pushing back and in the end they're the ones who decide and they don't like Apple taxing everything 30%.
Apple has no choice, now. Their shareholders demand one thing - squeeze money from an audience with no alternative.
If the iPhone's App Store has competition, equivalent to how MacOS already works in America, then Apple has to choose between maintenance or abandonment. In the status quo, Apple is enabled to neglect their platform and users while almost singularly harming developers.
> But the core of my contention is that: if you make the platform that others run on and which creates entirely new economies and allows businesses to thrive, don’t you get to define the constraints that you want since it’s _your_ platform?
Not if you effectively have a monopoly. If there were plenty of (relevant) other app stores, Apple wouldn't be able to tax 30% on every app. The only reason they can is that developers don't have a choice: there are far too many Apple users to ignore, and the only way to sell them an app is through the Apple Store.
I find the platform should be separate from the device. Google Play is a platform, but the device can run whatever. iPhones, the platform is the device, unnecessarily.
> if you make the platform that others run on and which creates entirely new economies and allows businesses to thrive, don’t you get to define the constraints that you want since it’s _your_ platform?
Intuitively, this feels right to me, but I think that in this case my intuition fails, because I think of this "right" from the perspective of a person. "They made that thing, it's theirs, they have the right to decide what to do with it."
I don't think the same right applies to a company, though. Especially one so big that it has a significant impact on society, and so big that it's entirely driven by the incentives of capitalism (and not, for example, by a founder's ideals).
In this context I see companies as amoral automata whose only goal is maximizing profits, regardless of the wider consequences of their actions. This seems to produce very good results for the societies in which these companies operate, but it also comes with some side effects. By putting constraints on what companies can do, we can reap most of the benefits and avoid most of the side effects.
> the claim that the internet descended into surveillance capitalism because of the walled garden approach of the App Store
I did not read this claim. I read the claim that Apple's approach unevenly benefits companies that engage in surveillance capitalism. No one's ad revenue, for instance, must pay a 30% cut of their revenue.
You are making an argument (and then arguing against it) that Proton did not make, as far as I can read.
> if you make the platform that others run on and which creates entirely new economies and allows businesses to thrive, don’t you get to define the constraints that you want since it’s _your_ platform?
I don't think you do. We constrain what companies are permitted to do all the time. Apple must abide by regulatory constraints first, and then they can add the additional constraints they like.
A simple test -- could Apple say, "Everyone is allowed to use Messages, except Hindus"? It's their platform, don't you get to define the constraints because it's your platform? No, we've collectively decided that kicking some people out based on certain characteristics is generally bad.
Yes, the advertising industry seems like it’s the more relevant institution in this particular case. Apple’s culpability has mostly to do with doing nothing to mitigate the runaway race to the bottom in during the App Store’s earliest days, but that would've happened even if they hadn’t taken the walled garden approach. Surveillance capitalism is the inevitable end state where on the web and in apps, ads are the most readily accessible, consistent, and sometimes lucrative form of monetization.
> Note that the businesses who are lobbying against Apple are operating on the very same capitalist, profit-optimizing interests that drove Apple to choose a walled-garden approach. They are not doing this to make the world a better place, and the vast majority of smartphone users do not even care about this “issue”.
They’re all blatantly self-interested, but Spotify is perhaps the biggest hypocrite among them. They’re continuously bolstering their dominance in the streaming music space at the cost of both users and artists, and when Apple gives them features they’ve asked for they refuse to use them because that’d weaken their case. They only care because if it weren’t for Apple Music they’d for all practical purposes have a monopoly.
every developer knows safari is the new ie6 but we all just shrug and build native apps anyway because what else are you gonna do. leave 50% of your users on the table. classic embrace extend extinguish but in reverse. embrace web standards then purposely not extend them so you can extinguish competition
Every colleague in my company only targets and tests against Chrome because they honestly considers _everything_ and anything Chrome does as the standard.
As a FF user it hurts me because even if Apple and Mozilla has implemented some feature according to spec these people ignore that in favour of the Chrome way of doing things.
Calling Safari the new ie6 is ignorant of reality.
IE6 was stagnant and not standards compliant. Safari at least complies with standards. Chrome is the polar opposite of IE6. Turns out it doesn't really matter what you do, if one party controls too much of any market it's bad news for end users one way or another.
That’s not exactly accurate as standards for new web technologies didn’t exist back when IE6 was dominant. The WHATWG had to be founded and the standards made post facto before IE6 was non-compliant.
Isnt that how the system is supposed to work, unless you think Apple would be always benevolent? I think HNers make a mistake (and believe Apple's marketing) that Apple always stands for users, cares about design, pushing the boundary, "think different" etc.
It is painfully obvious, but Apple's singular goal is to make money (profit for shareholders) and THAT IS A GOOD THING. They'll cut corners, test the boundaries in pursuit of that, and sometimes cross over it.
Suing them is the right way to fix those behaviors.
I agree with you that companies are profit-maximising machines. And regulations set the framework into which companies can optimise.
The problem we have with quasi-monopolies is that they have too much power and don't have to care about regulations.
> Suing them is the right way to fix those behaviors.
The problem is that it doesn't work. I am still waiting for Apple or one of the other TooBigTech to get a fine that really, actually hurts. But nobody will do that: the US like monopolies (as long as they are US companies of course) and others (like the EU) don't dare regulating US companies because... well because the US governement won't accept it.
I detest Apple and would happily switch to a timeline where they never existed.
That said, I do not think this is the way to fight them. Just do not make apps for iPhone, or pass the 30% Apple tax to the Apple fanboys. They enjoy being submissive to walled garden overlords and paying for the privilege, so give them what they want.
These are perfectly valid options. Create value for more open ecosystems if you want to hurt the closed ones.
Yeah, I’d probably pay $1.30 instead of $1 for subscriptions just to have them all in one single view where I can cancel them without jumping through hoops.
Someone who did not want to spend money for an apple logo could choose a $50 Android device and put F-Droid on it for 100% free tracking-free open source apps.
People pay extra to be in walled gardens, presumably because they think it will make them cool. If they -like- pointlessly spending money, let them.
No one needs an iPhone, and there is no monopoly. Just educate consumers on alternatives.
> Earlier today, Proton filed court papers in the US District Court for the Northern District of California to join an existing class-action lawsuit against Apple. Proton is a plaintiff in the case, but we are representing and suing on behalf of a class of similarly situated developers. Challenging one of the most powerful corporations in the history of capitalism is not a decision we make lightly, but Proton has long championed online freedom, privacy, and security, and we believe this action is necessary to ensure the internet of the future lives up to its potential.
Challenging one of the most powerful corporations in history, god I feel so much safer already. Sounds like PR campaign speak. I trust Proton as much as I trust Microsoft.
In this case they don't seem to be wanting it AT ALL:
"We don’t question Apple’s right to act on behalf of authoritarians for the sake of profit, but Apple’s monopoly over iOS app distribution means it can enforce this perverse policy on all app developers, forcing them to also be complicit"
Apple can do anything it wants with its software. Just as any person decides who comes into his house, a corporation decides on what terms others can use its software.
I totally agree and this has always been my problem with the iPad. It’s a great peace of hardware that to this day I can’t fully use for development. I have to resort to _crappy_ solutions like running a VM with code-server and SSH in order to do some work on a device perfectly capable of running stuff on its own, but walled off.
There is a lot I hate about building apps and releasing them on the App Store, and I'd be happy for there to be alternatives. But that said, I don't understand how its a monopoly. There is no requirement to build an app for iOS devices. There are other devices and means for software delivery out there. What makes their control of their own ecosystem monopolistic? As someone who has paid the apple tax for digital sales, it sucks but I'm also choosing to try to capture that market and that's the cost of doing business.
I'm not smart enough to get into the politics of other parts of the world, but just because the EU found something illegal doesn't mean its the basis of a good lawsuit under the US rules. Will be interesting to see how this unfolds.
Microsoft was hit with monopoly on browser even though you can install anything or go buy a Mac.
But when you control a huge portion of the PC market, and you put it in by default, you are cascading your monopolistic benefits down to installed software.
Apple does not have complete domination of smartphone across all demographics, but they do have domination in many segments.
For example, it is estimated that around 88% of teenagers have iPhones. Apple makes it very hard to leave their ecosystem because of iMessage, Facetime, and ALL of your digital purchases being tied to their ecosystem. So, what happens when all those teens grow up? Do we really think they will leave Apple ecosystem?
What cascades from that is a long term digital domination strategy, and when you have that only one digital store option, now you have a monopoly argument.
Apple also blocks any web browser on their mobile devices except their web browser. Chrome, Firefox, and any other browser on IOS is using Safari under the hood.
Now why would Apple do this? Because they have hobbled Safari so that it does not have modern web APIs which would allow web developers to create web-apps that use APIs that are only allowed on App-store apps on IOS devices.
This forces developers to either make an app for the App-store, or don't have any IOS users.
This is one of many reasons Apple is being sued by the DOJ - because they won't allow any other browser engines on IOS, at least not in the US, the EU slapped them on the wrist and now it's allowed there.
Safari is the current worst web browser in terms of features and bugs, and Apple wants to keep it this way for no better reason but greed. They want to push people to make App-store apps, which they can extract 30% revenue from.
That is anti-competitive, and monopolistic behavior.
Yeah I hadn't thought about the browser being intentionally bad to push actual apps. That's been the reason for about half of the apps that I've made. The next is also somewhat anti-competitive, and its how bad the web services notifications are compared to the app-based notifications.
> Buying an iPhone and then demanding that it has to work
Buying something used to mean something. If you're still beholden by company rules of a product you _bought_, you have been leasing/renting it.
If I buy a house from a builder, and it came with a requirement that you can only use Amazon Ring cameras, or builder-approved groceries - you'd be pretty pissed.
That's not a valid analogy. There isn't a "requirement" that you only use vanilla Apple software on an iPhone. More accurate would be that the house is set up for ring cameras and the builder doesn't support implementing any other type of camera system.
The house is set up for ring cameras and makes it either impossible or painful to use anything else. Not because of technical limitations, but in order to steer you away from competitors. Building something with it working in a particular way is fine, but building it in a particular way _in order_ for it not to work with competitors hurts everyone. I get the argument it's just because it makes their products work better, and call bullshit.
In my case it's because I'm using another of their products (my Mac) that is _not_ locked down like the iDevices. My laptop doesn't lock me into my phone, but buying a phone that they have locked out of my laptop's special Apple-only APIs puts me at a disadvantage.
i see you’ve never purchased a condo or lived within an HOA community.
Furthermore, in the US (and some other countries), you don’t _actually_ own a house or it’s land. you own the rights to that house (a deed) as long as you continue paying your property taxes. see what happens when you stop paying uncle sam… it’s kind of like a subscription lol.
> - You agree to the letter of the ToS when you click "I Agree" when you set up the iPhone,
I reject that argument.
For start ToS may have unenforceable claims (if someone puts that I agree to give all things I own to them into ToS it has zero effect).
Also, at this point I dispute that ToS clickery should be treated as agreeing to them. "I have read and agree with ToS" is a blatant lie in at least in the first half.
The problem is that app developers can't ignore iOS because the market is too big. Therefore Apple can do whatever they want and developer have to accept their condition.
As a developer, there is no choice. Apple should not be able to abuse their dominant position.
The problem with this is in the very definition of what it means to be an "app" developer. You say "app" and most people immediately understand you mean the iPhone or Android kind, with all that entails.
These companies have been dominating the landscape for decades now, most likely for longer than most app developers have been app developers. As a developer, there's definitely a choice: don't make an iPhone app; don't make an app at all. Make something else.
If you say you want access to the walled garden because that's where the people are, then consider that they are in there because they like the walls. From this point of view, you don't have a right to demand that the walled garden have free entrance.
> If you say you want access to the walled garden because that's where the people are, then consider that they are in there because they like the walls.
I disagree there. Most people I know who have an iPhone didn't choose Apple because they like walls. There are many other reasons to choose Apple other than "I like getting screwed by TooBigTech".
That's not bad faith. Go build another phone if you don't like it. Go be one of those weird freaks with a Graphene phone that can't access carrier RCS because Google says no.
I think it's really a perceived monopoly. Apple has created such a great thing that everyone wanted to get in on it but some people don't want to pay the Apple premium. Because most of their market is Apple App Store, they can make more money from the App Store, it's perceived as having a monopoly on mobile phone app stores.
If tomorrow, Tesla insisted that their cars will only accepted Tesla branded tires, would you be ok with it?
Sure it's their car and they can do whatever they want with it, but consumers are losing choices - which is what anti-monopoly rules are for. Say, Michelin or Pirelli tires are strictly better but Tesla doing this harms consumer choice and that's why it is bad.
Imagine if this were extended to Tesla branded chargers. Or Tesla branded paint. It's your damn car so you should be allowed to do whatever you want with it.
if tesla mandated tesla-only tires since day one (2012?), and they claimed it’s a perk/feature of the car, AND i bought the car anyway. Did i as a consumer not sign up for that?? There is more than 1 car manufacture after all.
None of the ios consumers are hoodwinked and apple offers free returns within 2 week in the US. The locked-down app store has been apples way since (almost) day one. Consumers voted with their wallets to not buy an android phone. I think that’s the difference?
IF android didn’t exist it wound be a different story, and it would also be a missing opportunity in the phone market.
> There is no requirement to build an app for iOS devices
By this logic, there is also no requirement for one to eat and breathe, anyone can simply stop. The problem is the consequences.
Building an iOS app is requirement if you want to provide lots of services and compete on lots of market. The mobile phone OS landscape has become a duopoly, and society is free to impose certain obligations on those companies.
> Companies that monetize user data in exchange for “free” services that abuse your privacy aren’t affected by this [the app store tax], as they don’t process payments through the App Store. However, privacy-first companies that monetize through subscriptions are disproportionately hit by this fee, putting a major barrier toward the adoption of privacy-first business models.
Huh. I’ve never seen it framed this way and it might be the most compelling argument I’ve heard to date. It’s not simply a debate about whether a company should be allowed to be vertically integrated in isolation, but whether that vertical integration allows them to exert unfair distorting pressure on the free markets we are trying to protect.
I have disorganized thoughts about this, but it's not just a debate about vertical isolation vs not.
1. The size of Apple/Alphabet/Samsung makes it difficult to enter the market (see: factories having ridiculous MOQs for small-batch phone manufacturing), pushing everyone else out.
2. The size of the smartphone market makes it impossible to not have to deal with one of the above companies for certification, market penetrance or such. This makes them kingmakers. If a company somehow manages to become Facebook, Netflix, or Amazon, then the phone companies slide them a secret deal under the table. Everyone else gets a market-limiting set of terms that makes sure "tech" stays one of the "top" industries.
Combined, with no entry allowed, and with forces exerted outwards, we see broad social structures orienting /around/ how we use our phones, rather than the other way around, and that includes ad-monetized-absolutely-everything.
Phones and social media, today, are where TVs and broadcasts were in the 1950s/60s. Ubiquity and centralizing forces. If someone told us in the 1950s a TV manufacturer was exerting pressure on our forms of information distribution and was choosing which voices get a seat at the table, we'd rightly call that archaic and wonder why people would accept a technology provider as a market-shaping force. But today we accept it nonetheless. I refuse to believe the argument that the world's largest company can't figure out how to build a secure pipeline without making plenty of my decisions on my behalf...
Exactly. All the free market logic assumes that barriers to entry are low. They are incredibly high and the market is naturally prone to converging on a single solution. There's basically room for two smartphone ecosystems. Microsoft/Nokia couldn't sustain a third. Android-adjacent things like Amazon Fire and Tizen have little market share.
> factories having ridiculous MOQs for small-batch phone manufacturing
Ironically in the contract manufacturing area the market is actually efficient. Small batches just cost more as an intrinsic fact about manufacturing. I guarantee you could get a quote for any quantity of manufacturing above 1, you just wouldn't like it.
Laws need to be revised to make it easier to remix off the shelf components.
I argue, default compulsory license fees should be a feature of copyright and patent. A 'reasonable' cap to the maximum it costs to reuse an existing device / idea. (Also that it should be a LOT tougher to patent things, maybe 1 patentable thing per expert examiner's work week, which would be the cost of filing for a patent. That only individuals should be able to own a patent. That companies could create 'prior art' with academic detail releases.)
I don't think it's so much patent or copyright as iPhone sits on a huge stack of technology which is proprietary by contract as well. It's very, very vertically integrated.
New Android startups appear now and then. The sort of thing that's achievable with a few tens of millions of dollars of funding. But Android as a whole represents a huge pile of work .. sitting on top of Google Play Services and the App Store, as we can see by the relative non-success of Amazon Fire.
(I was actually involved in the development of a phone-like handset device that was built around phone SOMs from Sierra Wireless. The first minimum order for assembly was ten units, scaling to a thousand after alpha test.)
Remixing off the shelf isn't really the issue if you want to compete, it's the fact that you wont even be able to buy the competitive components at all because they wont sell you them even if you ask and have the money.
That’s covered by the compulsory license part of the comment. Say Apple has a patent on the iPhone, Apple must license the iPhone itself to me at a reasonable fee. Then I can go sell jPhones all day to compete.
I don't think you could compete with the exact same product... the advantage of scale would still give Apple more than sufficient edge.
However if you happened to like E.G. Apple's screen, or camera, or another component that was better than what else could be selected it could be part of a design which competed on other merits. E.G. maybe the touch digitizer is just that much better, so it might make sense on some models of Android or some Libre phone more closely based on Linux or BSD. Or some company that makes an iPhone like device but to GOV spec standards for a given country. (In my mind, I'm thinking US Gov, but IP laws tend to be International too, so maybe Germany wants it's own secure phone.)
In that world, why invest in R&D? Wait for someone else to, and then demand the fruit of the work…
Who are you demanding from if there's no incentive to invest? Either the option is there, in which case the incentive clearly must have been there for someone, or it's not, in which case the incentive is the same for wanting to have it in the first place.
You get to charge royalties and license fees.
Hmm. Depends what you're referring to - iPhone is indeed a closed system, by contractual arrangement, but Android isn't, and it absolutely is feasible for third party Android devices to exist. Occasionally someone does a new phone startup.
Not especially a matter of patent, just good old fashioned contract exclusivity.
> the market is naturally prone to converging on a single solution
Not only that it is "naturally prone" to it (with thinks like bulk efficiencies) but also that it is economically prone to it. A free market with no monopolies drives profit towards zero. No company wants this so the logical response is to become a monopoly (or as close as possible) by putting up barriers to entry and competition.
Note: There's room for more smartphone ecosystems, but not mainstream ones. There are a few nonmainstream phones out there, from Linux phones (Pine, Librem, MNT I think now?) to more openish Android phones (Fairphone) to completely different platforms (that I'm pretty sure exist but I don't remember any of).
> If someone told us in the 1950s a TV manufacturer was exerting pressure on our forms of information distribution and was choosing which voices get a seat at the table, we'd rightly call that archaic and wonder why people would accept a technology provider as a market-shaping force. But today we accept it nonetheless.
A smartphone from Google or Apple is also pretty much required for certain government apps, banking/financial services, and so forth. I wouldn't call it a stretch to say that in the future it would be mandatory to have these duopoly controlled devices on your person at all times, like how you need to carry an ID card.
Many of those apps don't work on rooted phones or custom ROMs without workarounds and doing so is a TOS violation in many cases as well. Also imagine what it would be like if your Google or Apple account got banned by accident with no human support to sort it out.
South Korea managed to tie their government ID system to ActiveX for many years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_compatibility_issues_in_So...
Entire country was stuck on IE6 for far too long.
The UK e-visa system worries me for similar reasons: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/online-immigration-status-evisa
That's an excellent point. I use Android LineageOS with no google apps. The amount of bullshit that I, a literal computer science PhD, have to put up with to somewhat avoid the more pernicious parts of the monopoly, is insane. Critical and even mandatory parts of my life (banking, government services) require me to engage with google in one way or another.
Non-technical people have absolutely no hope.
I actually put up with Lineage for many years before it got so bad that I had to switch to an iPhone. Before 2020 many apps still worked fine with it. All my computers are Linux and I self host everything, but I just couldn't risk an account lockout or a broken bank app.
Honestly I wish there was a legal requirement for those services to provide full access via a relatively open platform (like a web site), not a mobile app.
Apple and Google censorship of apps not getting nearly as much attention and publicity as it deserves.
Because of the close tie to services, there is no smartphone market. There is an android market and an iOS market.
The entire business model that monetises user data, where the actual customer is the advertiser, users do not vote with their wallets, and honest competition is impossible because no one can compete with free, should simply not exist and maybe regulated against—especially in social media, where it incentivises algorithms to push aggravating content in the name of engagement and ad views.
Whether Apple should be regulated into reducing the fees they charge for access to their hardware and software ecosystem (the ecosystem they unarguably did a pretty stellar job at) is a debatable matter of its own, but it doesn’t strike me as addressing the issue of ad-supported business and how it messes with the way the market is supposed to work.
It is true that platform fee means this distorted business model is unfairly favoured. However, this is just an extension of the business based on ad/data mining (especially social media) being generally unfair in so many ways, and even with zero platform fees that business won’t stop being unfair and won’t be seriously challenged. To reiterate, no one can honestly compete with free; fee reduction merely tweaks the formula from “free vs. $X” to “free vs. slightly less than $X”.
Furthermore, there is the obvious issue that even if an app or service is paid, it can still be additionally monetising user data. Reducing fees will only favour this doubly shady business.
Perhaps what could actually move the needle a bit and make this model less attractive is if walled gardens somehow found a way charge a big fat fee off the ad/data mining revenue, in conjunction with appropriately reducing fees for regular sales of B2C apps and services. Could this be technically possible without walled gardens additionally owning ad exchanges (which might be a can of worms that shouldn’t be opened)?
I think the fix we need is comprehensive legal privacy protection and (even less achievable) significant restriction on advertisement. That would actually curtail the market for user data and prevalence of ad funding as a model.
What’s weird for me is that users can effectively vote with their wallets - they can refuse to engage with ‘freemium’ or ad-supported media - and they can refuse to consume ads when presented, refuse to engage with calls to action, refuse to pay for products advertised to them in this way.
Have you ever been shown a mobile ad, and thought to yourself, “this is a good thing, this is an honest description of a product that I am eager to spend money on?” No, on the contrary, they’re the subject of universal ridicule… and yet they persist. Why? How? Who is paying for them? How are they generating revenue? How can that be worth anything? Where is the value coming from?
So even though I delete apps that force you to sit through ads, and I refuse to be led by ads towards spending money - even though I am in effect ‘voting’ by doing so - it doesn’t seem to have any impact. The ads keep happening anyway, I can only assume because they do actually work on other less canny consumers.
Is the problem really an inability to vote with our wallets? Or is the problem a complete lack of media/marketing literacy, that leads the credulous to engage with ad slop, against their own best interests?
Some of it is more specific to social media, where it is a vicious circle. I wouldn’t latch to voting with your wallet, it’s merely one symptom of a complex issue.
For social it’s key to communicate with others, so as long as you use it you kind of have to be where everybody is, and everybody is where the free stuff is. If you can’t easily leave and continue communicating, because the platform attracts advertisers by the number of figurative eyeballs so it’s not in their interest to let yours go, then you can’t vote with your wallet unless you make yourself an outcast, which humans—extremely social beings—tend to find extremely stressful, which makes it is not really in their best interest no matter their media and marketing literacy.
On the other hand, even if you do make this difficult near-suicide move and leave, you have hardly anywhere to go: because of this phenomenon, any honest competition where you can pay for better service that works in your interest and has actual customer support (remember when that was a thing?) has no chance. All viable competition remains mostly free to use—we have been conditioned that it’s got to be free, but of course if neither users nor advertisers are paying then no one can really demand things that we take for granted from commercial services (like uptime, availability, well-supported convenient clients and so on), and the amount of resources that goes into development and support of these services is much smaller and much less coordinated.
With non-social ad-supported products it’s not as bad, at least in terms of lock-in. I personally would prefer a paid app from a somewhat reputable developer than risk installing a tracking machine from a shady SDK. However, still, most people default to free, and if platform fee is reduced and that honest app costs slightly less but is still not free, will it make any perceptible difference? I doubt it (maybe you’re right, most people lack media/marketing literacy, they can see that with free their economic utility per dollar approaches infinity and are unaware or not concerned about the intangible damage, including to the ecosystem of developers who try to make an honest living) and so I think ad/data mining based model should be fought on another level.
I think if there ever was an indicator that some function should be owned by the public, it’s when the public has come to expect it exists for free, when the social expectation is this thing is so fundamental and necessary that paying for it is absurd and creates equity of access problems.
An issue with regulation of something as public good is stagnation. When companies can make money and compete for serving the customer best, this drives innovation.
I used to think that a good alternative could be making it mandatory to provide feature-complete API for interoperation. Third-party cross-platform clients would remove lock-in and make ads unprofitable, demoting Big Social from platforms to pipes, like mobile providers, and force them to charge for service. It would no longer be in their interest to serve aggravating content to keep us glued to screens if we can just switch to a more mental health friendly competitor, and besides it would lower their server load.
However, I am not sure anymore whether it would do much to other shady practices like all sorts of data mining and sale, including the new practice of using private data for training commercial ML models.
>Is the problem really an inability to vote with our wallets? Or is the problem a complete lack of media/marketing literacy, that leads the credulous to engage with ad slop, against their own best interests?
The problem is companies/marketers who won't take no for an answer... And unfortunately, short of reverse monetization, (marketers must pay individuals for our eyeballs, which has its own logistical problems), there isn't a way to really prevent the pathological impression pipeline that advertising has gravitated toward. In the U.S. unfortunately, there is zero we can do to corral mercantile speech short of collectively coordinated action by the populace since we've written the capability out of our governmental edifice.
Yes, in a way it's a rather good argument. But if you take it to its conclusion, if Apple finds it harder and harder to monetize the App Store through fees, then THEY might eventually decide to switch to privacy violating advertising as their revenue strategy.
> if Apple finds it harder and harder to monetize the App Store through fees, then THEY might eventually decide to switch to privacy violating advertising as their revenue strategy.
They already do this right now anyway, with App Store ads. Apple doesn't care about privacy. It cares about money, and it makes money any way it can. Unlike pretty much every other phone or tablet, iOS devices don't let you install apps without telling Apple. That privacy violation exists because it makes Apple money.
At that point consumers would be free to make a choice to switch away from Apple if they value their privacy enough. The problem right now is that Apple is 'abusing' the fact that privacy-aware consumers are drawn to their platform to charge onerous fees to app developers. They're leveraging their (de facto) monopoly on high-end mobile privacy-aware devices to restrict competition in mobile app fee charging. It's that business practice that's wrong - having a monopoly is fine so long as you don't start using your monopoly position to make money from people who are your customers for some other business.
Microsoft fell foul of this in the early 2000s. It wasn't their monopoly on desktop PC OSs that lost them an anti-trust case. It was the fact they used their monopoly on Windows to push users into adopting IE. They abused their monopoly position. That's the problem.
>At that point consumers would be free to make a choice to switch away from Apple if they value their privacy enough.
Consumers who spent hundreds of dollars in Appstore purchases and have 10+ years of photos, movies and data tied to Apple won't just suddenly leave all that and move to Android and start their digital life from scratch.
And the young consumers just starting their digital lives, are jumping in the ecosystem their friends and family already use (iMessage lock-in). It's basically not even your choice at that point, it's more that you're forced to.
And switching to Android, which is only technically not the only alternative, doesn't exactly help privacy anyways.
The alternative is not having a smart phone.
No, the world is not either smartphone or no-smarthone, it's not binary. The correct alternative is not having anti consumer vendor lock-in practices in smartphones.
We had PWA even before we had locked in app-stores but then Apple saw the dollar signs of locking people and app devs in their graded and gave up on PWA and doubled down on draconian lock-in.
> They're leveraging their (de facto) monopoly
If it's necessary to put a qualifier on the word "monopoly", it's a great indication that it's not a monopoly.
I don’t think the qualifier was necessary. I think it was used to describe the obvious nature of anyone owning the sole software distribution means on their platform, it gives them a de facto monopoly on that means as opposed to a natural? monopoly where they just got so big they fell into it.
Apple unquestionably monopolizes the App Store. Whether or not you consider it a substantial monopoly is it's own thing, but the App Store itself is segregated from competition.
This word is not used in the real world anyway. And depending on the jurisdiction, there often isn't even a minimum 50% market share to qualify.
> if Apple finds it harder and harder to monetize the App Store through fees, then THEY might eventually decide to switch to privacy violating advertising as their revenue strategy.
Schiller argued that App Store should be free after a billion dollars was earned from it. Apple execs pretend they don't even know how much money App Store makes or loses.
And App Store is already monetized: Apple's hardware pays for everything, and more.
Nobody will use an iPhone without Uber, their banking and transit apps. Apple used to think all 3rd party services will be accessed via Safari, but boy was that a long time ago.
It's a good argument but I'm not sure it'll hold up. Apple went to great lengths to clamp down on privacy-abusing advertising via ATT. I think Facebook have been quite open about the huge revenues it cost them alone.
In the short-term, this happened. Facebook recovered though, as what Apple actually accomplished was destroying all of the smaller providers who didn't have huge first party datasets for modelling.
It's similar to the notion that killing third party cookies is basically a gift to Facebook and Google.
And lets be honest here, Apple themselves are not subject to ATT and (potentially coincidentally) have a rather large ads business. Many moons ago Apple suddenly started becoming the number 1 provider of installs on Apple as they claimed credit for the click to install which is also bonkers.
One can agree that targeted advertising is bad but also note that Apple made these "privacy focused" decisions for commercial rather than idealistic reasons.
It's really the most interesting thing I read in this screed, the rest of which seemed to be clueless BS like, "changes to App Store policies that will improve the state of the internet."
No. Unlike Google, Meta, and Amazon, Apple is not a gatekeeper to the Internet. They are the gatekeeper to one thing: their own app store. It's tiresome to hear the same anti-"big-tech" hysteria aimed at Apple. They aren't a monopoly, period.
But back to this: "The App Store policies hurt privacy"
No, they don't. The plaintiff bases this admittedly novel whine on the fact that Google and its ilk make money on things other than their software. So by that logic, every company that doesn't conduct business through its app hurts every company that does. Give us a break.
> They are the gatekeeper to one thing: their own app store
Which is also the only allowed way to run software on 58% of US smartphones?
> Unlike Google, Meta, and Amazon
I could agree with Google, but how are Meta and Amazon gatekeepers of the internet? Especially _more than Apple_
So what? Controlling how many fart apps are available on its platform does not make Apple a gatekeeper to any part of the Internet. Apple does not funnel Web traffic into its properties.
Think it through: Amazon dominates shopping-search results. It easily swamps any other shopping portal or indie vendor. So it is a de facto gatekeeper to a huge portion of online shopping. You're citing Apple's alleged 58% of phone-platform share as making it a gatekeeper to the Internet? Amazon is actually an Internet-based entity with huge dominance in its field.
Meanwhile Meta (Facebook) IS the Internet for a large (less tech-savvy) portion of the public. Akin to when AOL slapped Internet access onto its platform.
Apple controls its app store. Is it douchey as hell to developers? Yep. Has it antagonized governments and flouted legal rulings? Yep. Has it lied about App Store search? Yep.
But it is not an Internet gatekeeper or a monopoly.
The Internet and the Web are not the same thing. Apple absolutely gatekeeps the ability to run non-HTTP internet connected apps. Your statement that Apple is not a “gatekeeper to any part of the Internet” is simply false.
Oh really? Because this app seems to have good reviews: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/udp-tcp-network-utility/id6569...
So, since UDP is allowed, I'm curious as to what non-HTTP traffic Apple bans apps from using.
You can’t listen for incoming traffic persistently.
Ah, that totally qualifies Apple as a gatekeeper to huge swaths of the Internet on par with Google, Amazon, and Meta.
I hope the DOJ adds this to the list of Apple's transgressions, along with green bubbles making Android kiddies feel bad.
> So what? Controlling how many fart apps are available on its platform does not make Apple a gatekeeper to any part of the Internet.
Controlling what kind of software, including _web browsers_, runs on the main device for the majority of the US population, does not make it a gatekeeper? That doesn't make any sense to me. Want to go to Amazon? You need an app or a browser to access it, both of these are controlled by Apple on its devices. Meta/Facebook? Same.
No, it does not. Does the cable company's forcing of you to use DOCSIS-compliant modems control what Web sites you access? No.
Does WebKit direct you to certain sites or block sites based on their content? Does it capture your search terms and curate the results? Does it aggregate content? Does it funnel your viewing to certain sites preferentially? No.
You keep attempting to assert that the viewing tool curates what you view with it. WebKit doesn't. Even if you raise technical points (doesn't support Web MIDI or something), those still don't prevent you from visiting any site you want. Even if a site were totally broken for technical reasons, it doesn't amount to deliberate curation by Apple.
Come on.
Try shipping a web browser not based on Apple’s browser functionality on iOS. See how free of gatekeeping the internet is.
I’m not convinced opening up the platform to Chrome skins is good for the web, we’ll just end up with one browser that much faster
Are Safari skins any better? If they opened it, you could run Firefox.
In practice I think he is right unfortunately. Most people would just run Chrome and more websites would require Chrome since they could just tell Apple users to deal with it, making the mono-culture even worse.
Less sites would do this is Safari wasn't the last non evergreen browser lagging behind everybody else.
Maybe the answer from Apple should be to improve Safari instead of restricting competition.
I support Safari on a web app and have very rarely run into issues. It’s nothing like supporting even IE11 was.
I've also worked during the IE11 days and while Safari is indeed better, I'd only put it marginally better.
Whatever that means. Do you have specific complaints about Safari?
FYI:
...fewer sites...
...if Safari were...
Yes I have, I worked with it for years, there's the officially supported standards and then there's the buggy reality you have to deal with. I've encountered bugs with backgrounds, zIndex, videos, forms, localStorage, SVGs, all basic browser features.
Then Safari also is the last non-evergreen browser so it's the slowest to update compared to all the other browsers. If you have a bug, there's a good chance you'll have it for years
OK, that's much more informative.
But "non-evergreen" doesn't mean anything.
Evergreen refers to the speed of update, your average iPhone user takes one year and half to update. Your average Chrome user is updated within 3 weeks, your average Firefox user within 4 weeks.
Call it with another word if you want but Safari is on a league of its own.
Totally valid gripe. I agree.
Yep. We're going right back to "This site works best on Internet Explorer."
Sad to see supposedly technically-knowledgeable people cheerleading for regression.
But you wouldn't. Look at desktop browser share.
How is that gatekeeping? Does Webkit prevent you from visiting certain sites, or funnel you to others?
No.
And the browser-engine ban is being lifted; something that sounded good at first, until you realize that Chrome is already a cancer on the Web that is only held back to the dominance of Safari on mobile. Cheerleading for a total takeover by Chrome isn't smart if you think it through.
iOS is not the Internet anymore than Jitterbug is telephones.
Nobody made such a claim.
If you serve web pages, you likely serve many of your users on their Apple devices. And you can’t support features of the web for those users if Apple doesn’t want them to have those features, and prohibits browsers with other engines that do support them on their App Store, and prohibits other sources of web browsers.
That’s called “gatekeeping”.
Yes you did: "Try shipping a web browser not based on Apple’s browser functionality on iOS. See how free of gatekeeping the internet is."
And no, it isn't. Not supporting certain browser features does not direct traffic or even deny access. So you obviously don't know what gatekeeping is.
Apple is denying access to browsers that support web features they don’t support themselves.
Your argument, or attempt to make an argument, somehow neglects this obvious Apple created and enforced barrier.
It "neglects" a universe of equally irrelevant observations.
A) it’s not irrelevant at all. Perhaps you don’t do web design, or perhaps you restrict your designs to functionality Apple doesn’t actively or passively prohibit.
Then you might not be aware that Apple does not support everything other browsers support. Or takes longer to support some things.
The internet has two ends (at least), media source and media user. Both ends require compatible software for any connection to work or work fully.
B) Of course I omit other irrelevant issues. No need for argumentative non-points.
A suggestion that would help me understand you better:
Instead of simply dismissing points out of hand, respond with reasoned thoughts.
Maybe you have a sensible viewpoint?
I have no issue learning from you.
If you can communicate how Apple blocking alternate browser engines doesn’t actually block other browser’s additional web functionality, please explain your work around.
I would appreciate any solution you have. So would many others.
—-
Apple also prohibits (via there App Store) non-browser apps based on how they use the Internet. So that’s additional gate keeping of Internet functionalit.
—-
Read Apple’s App Store guidelines for developers. Apple is up front and clear about all these restrictions and prohibitions.
I am lost as to what you are trying to claim they allow, that they openly document they don’t allow.
—-
Perhaps you have confused internet functionality with Internet addresses.
Indeed, Apple doesn’t block IPs.
But some kind of software at both ends is still required to communicate across the Internet. And blocking specific kinds of Internet functionality at one end, effectively blocks it from both ends, on their locked down devices.
You have confused "Web functionality" with gatekeeping.
You can use WebKit to visit any site you want; whether it supports every technical feature you might encounter on a site is irrelevant. I'm not arguing that it's a good engine or even competitive. I don't question your objections to missing functionality, and probably agree with all of them. But that is not gatekeeping. That's like saying black-&-white TVs were "gatekeeping" by not showing color, or some Bluetooth speakers are "gatekeeping" by not being stereo.
Anyway, the point is moot because Apple has to allow other browser engines now. If you think it through, this will simply allow Chrome to completely dominate the Web and take us backward to the bad old days of "this site works best on..."
WHEEEE!
Apple is not the Internet, stop allowing your friends, family and colleagues to treat it that way.
Meanwhile, I can't convince my dad that he doesn't need to pay for AOL anymore...
> They are the gatekeeper to one thing: their own app store.
They also control the OS and don't allow side-loading or other app stores (without putting absurd obstacles in the way) So in the end they completely control the devices they sell.
The end user is _NOT_ forced to buy into their ecosystem though. There are alternatives, and depending on where on this globe you ask, apple is not even the one with the biggest marketshare.
So while I'm not against the general outcry and need for change, it is not just apple. The problem is way way bigger, and it should not be put onto one of the players in my opinion. Create regulation/platform that sets the limits, then put ALL players into the process not just one
For discussion's sake,
They are "forced" if they:
1) want to be cool
or 2) don't want to be uncool
or 3) don't want to spend effort on a technical decision they think doesn't matter to them
So what? So does every game-console manufacturer. Buy a different one.
The difference is that we can easily try to pretend that game consoles are not general purpose computers. And doing so is not going to cause issues to the fabric of the society.
Hahaha, wow, OK. Then we must acknowledge that we're talking about PHONES here, and the applications on it are optional TOYS. The phone could have no app store at all, and still be highly functional and complete. In fact... that's how the iPhone launched. There was no app store for years.
Meanwhile, a game system with no games is not functional at all.
Might want to reconsider your argument here.
No, they are general purpose computers that can also work as cellphones.
The first iPhone technically wasn't a smartphone (unlike its competitors at the time) because it did not have a way to install third-party programs. This situation only lasted a year though.
It did have a pre-installed Google Maps app, very much not a toy...
And don't game consoles typically come out bundled with some first party games too ?
"The first iPhone technically wasn't a smartphone (unlike its competitors at the time) because it did not have a way to install third-party programs"
What a laughably wrong assertion. The iPhone handled all kinds of PIM data and synced with computers. There was no requirement (or even expectation) that a "smart" phone had third-party applications.
I'm not so sure it's the best argument but I get what they're saying. The problem is, the argument basically says all free apps are bad, all paid apps are good. The price of an app isn't a good indicator of its intentions.
No, it doesn't say that. It says free apps are not hurt by this as much as paid apps, so charging a percentage fee to maintain the app store disproportionately hurts paid apps.
They should probably reword it so that "free services" and "abuse your privacy" is not so closely linked in that case.
I don't think the argument is that _every_ free app is abusing your privacy, just that there are undoubtedly some, and they're hard to compete with in a privacy-respecting way due to the extra overhead that the app store fees incur.
It's proton suing. That's their entire case. They are a respecting privacy product that is unduly burdened while privacy abusing products are not. (their argument)
This is probably a controversial opinion but I actually use my iPhone because it's locked down with a curated app marketplace and secure payment system. I don't want alternative payment methods or app stores. So I find it distasteful that other companies are seeking to control Apple's product design through the legal system. They're essentially trying to make it impossible to purchase a product I want, which is more monopolistic than the current status quo. iPhones do not have any sort of monopoly on phones.
If you want that, you can purchase any number of Android devices.
if all you want is for your apps to come from Apple's store and your payments to go through Apple's system, you would simply continue to use only those options and allowing other people to have other options would not impact you.
what you actually want is to force all developers to use Apple's distribution and payment systems, so that you can have every app and service from any provider delivered via your chosen mechanisms. that takes away freedom from developers and users who prefer other systems. it eliminates the market for anyone to make or use something better than your chosen options
Except, what happens when apps get removed from the iOS App Store and moved to another store for distribution? If people want to continue or need to use those apps then they would have to use these other app stores.
What if those apps moved to other stores so they can skirt Apple's review and other consumer-friendly restrictions? How is that better for consumers that use Facebook, Insta, etc... for them to have apps with less review and less scrutinized for their behavior? Some of Apples policies have been good for consumers of apps.
Just witness how Fb, etc... already try and skirt those rules that are in place to protect users from tracking and other abuses. Seems pretty logical to assume they would all jump ship to another store to not be under Apple's review process if they could.
I don't doubt for one minute that Fb, etc.. would not jump to another store with less restrictions, and either pull their existing apps or leave them severely restricted in the Apple App Store as an "incentive" to download from the other store.
A) this has not happened on Android, where 3rd party stores and side loading have always been possible
B) if people truly value the Apple lock down system, they will not use applications that don't comply with the lock down system
Just fwiw, my understanding is that this has already happened on both Android and iOS (via TestFlight): https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/29/facebook-project-atlas/
That's not Facebook moving to an alternative store, that's Facebook the company introducing another application outside of the store.
Also worth noting that they got called out and ultimately shut down for being shady. Even though they were operating outside of Apples locked down environment. It's almost like we don't need Apple to protect us, and in fact we can protect ourselves
Here's what they just got caught doing on Android - "secretly communicating with Meta’s apps on Android devices"
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/06/protect-yourself-metas...
If you can only attract good apps by making yourself the only option then your platform is bad. If Apple can't compete in the market they are doing a bad job.
Developers are not forced into using Apple's distribution and payment systems because there are a multitude of other competing devices (with a higher market share mind you) they can and do develop for.
If users and developers prefer other systems they can simply use those.
Apple is not forced into doing business in Europe, because there are a multitude of other anticompetitive tolerant regions (much larger than Europe mind you) they can do business in.
If Apple prefers anticompetitive practices, it can simply only do business in those regions.
I'm curious what becomes the breaking point for them to pull out of a region. Obviously it's about profit but at what point (if any) does it make profitable sense for them to leave?
Leaving a region means they would give up market share, investments and a lot of staff. This is huge. It's not just about quarterly profit, even if it might sometimes feel like it is.
Presumably, before they take such a drastic measure, they would first spend massive amounts on lobbying, which would most likely succeed.
A point we're still lightyears away from. The lengths they go to in order to operate in China are magnitudes greater than to operate in the EU, yet EU makes them $10+ billion more profit than China.
What would actually happen is that the US would start seriously threatening (blackmailing) the EU to a degree where it's forced to relent long before Apple would pull out.
Apple's estimated operating profit from the EU is around $40 billion dollars. If the US government wouldn't get involved, they could force Tim Apple himself to live on top of the Alps and he'd happily do it rather than lose that $40 billion, or shareholders would vote him out ASAP.
Why are you assuming that not only this kind of blackmail is even going to work, but that the EU isn't just going to kick out ALL of US infocoms instead ? (Because of this or because of other issues related to Trump or even Bush (Patriot Act).)
rofl, people would never accept not having their locked down iphones or facebook.
this would be a very losing battle for politicians
You don't have a good feel for the anti-American-corporation sentiment here.
Politicians in fact pay lip-service to "data sovereignty", for the points it gets them.
When there is no more profit and only loss, I reckon. Shareholders would not be happy if they pulled out of a region because they can only make $1 over $10. If that $1 is profit, they'll want it.
Never. The Apple bet, the North Star, is that personal computing is both the present and the future. The minute an exception gets carved out, like “personal computing but not in Europe” then Apple enters a death spiral. They’ll deal with each blow that comes their way because it will come for everyone else in the market too, but they’ll still be in the lead.
Except that developers are forced to use Apple's distribution and payment systems to reach users with a native experience on Apple devices. This ability to limit or control competition within a market is called market capture, a key consideration of antitrust.
It's not a market, it's a product within a market.
This argument doesn't make sense. Many developers are de facto forced to distribute their apps on iOS. There are only two mobile platforms globally. Deciding not to support one of them would be economically (and in some cases functionally) unviable for a very large number of apps.
However, the counter argument that opening iOS to other stores and payment methods would not affect users who prefer the App Store is not necessarily true either. If developers can choose not to distribute via Apple's store to avoid restrictions that are unfavourable to their business model then users would no longer be able to buy those apps in the App Store.
This is the dilemma that needs to be solved.
One solution could be to adopt a rule similar to the one for social logins. If an app supports any social logins at all then it must also support Sign in with Apple. Unfortunately, adopting a similar rule for the App Store is a lot more complex.
If an app rejected by Apple is then not allowed to be installed via an alternative app store either, Apple would once again be able to veto apps for whatever reason they want. And if developers were free to set a any price they want for each store, they could effectively make the App Store unviable.
I still feel that there is a set of rules that could make this work. The complexity is unfortunate though.
> multitude of other competing devices
You mean, the Google system that collects 20 times more telemetry than the iPhones? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26639261
If it was actually stifling competition we would see many more good apps for Android that don’t exist for iOS. That’s not the case. If anything most companies I know develop first for iOS and then for Android if they have sufficient resources. Why? Because accessing Apple’s user base, even with the Apple Tax, is more lucrative than developing for Android.
The point is that more, different, better and cheaper options might exist. The fact that people are still willing to trade in a large captured market does not mean that competition is not greatly distorted in favor of the market's owner.
> The point is that more, different, better and cheaper options might exist.
They can, on Android, which worldwide is about 75% of the market.
> competition is not greatly distorted in favor of the market's owner
If Apple were primarily engaged in making its own apps that compete with apps in its marketplace, then yes, that is distorting the competition (and one could argue that it does this with certain apps like Mail). But the fact that it takes a cut from anyone who wants access to its user base, doesn't stifle competition per se.
This is primarily about access. If I want to set up a popup store inside a fancy country club to access a captive market, I'm going to pay a lot more in fees to the country club than I would if I put it up in some random strip mall. This is no different.
> This is probably a controversial opinion
Not very. Plenty of people, including on HN, agree with you.
> but I actually use my iPhone because it's locked down with a curated app marketplace and secure payment system.
Except it’s not. That argument would be much stronger if the App Store weren’t full of scammy predatory apps which regularly top the top grossing charts.
> I don't want alternative payment methods or app stores.
And I don’t want everything to be a subscription, yet here we are. Just like I have to avoid the majority of apps today, you’ll avoid other App Stores if that is what you want.
You’re at a significant advantage because ignoring other stores is much easier, and opening up the iPhone to third-party stores has an effect on the policies of the main App Store. This is plainly demonstrated by the acceptance of the emulator from the creator of an alternative store. So even by not using those third-party ones, you’re benefiting.
> They're essentially trying to make it impossible to purchase a product I want, which is more monopolistic than the current status quo.
That doesn’t make sense. There’s no monopoly on a product which doesn’t exist.
> iPhones do not have any sort of monopoly on phones.
You don’t have to be a monopoly to be harmful to consumers. Companies have realised that long ago and it’s time consumers do too.
> Except it’s not. That argument would be much stronger if the App Store weren’t full of scammy predatory apps which regularly top the top grossing charts.
Not just that - they also actively interfere with search results for essential apps people need. Looking up government or banking apps in the iOS app store will always surface either dodgy insurance sellers or dodgy banks that aren't the one you want to use before the actual app you want to download.
The App Store's curation is absolutely horrendous - these are also bought/sponsored placements, meaning Apple is actively profiting off of people being led to these sorts of misleading apps.
It's not controversial, you can still have your walled garden as-is.
The point of this is so that there is the possibility of escaping that walled garden, arguably welcoming more users into the ecosystem.
Nothing would change for you. Just like android users can keep using all things Google, they have the possibility of installing apps from other sources.
Things would actually change—developers would instead choose to distribute via the alternate means instead of the App Store.
So, you see, it doesn’t matter whether Apple has the walled garden or the third-party devs have the walled garden. Either way, users will be forced to accept someone’s distribution policy. But the difference really lies in the trust on Apple and its security and privacy practices, which is a choice that will be robbed from people buying iPhones to use apps exactly for this purpose.
> developers would instead choose to distribute via the alternate means instead of the App Store
Would they? I imagine they would distribute via all available, at different price points. At least that's what I would do. Why would I want to forgo access to customers who prefer every last detail to be handled via Apple's infrastructure?
That said, if there were actually a dichotomy between "force developers to distribute via my preferred means" and "permit developers to choose whether or not to use my platform of choice" the former seems obviously immoral and the latter obviously the correct course of action. Why should you get to dictate how developers must do things? That's simply valuing your own preference over everyone else's (both developers and users) right to choose.
Oh devs would absolutely avoid distributing through the App Store if they want to run any code that would fail App Store Review, such as the abuse of private low-level APIs to gather more user data than the app needs, which all businesses have a profit incentive to do.
There are many other possible scenarios: devs forcing users to authenticate with unsecure methods, gather and unsecurely store credit card information, gather passwords, upload contacts, read SMSes, etc. The value that a third-party dev can derive from private user info is far greater than alternately offering a different version of the app that will pass App Store reviews.
Distribution via alternative stores does not mean there’s no review and moderation. Junk stores may have their fans, but competitive alternatives to App Store will inevitably introduce some controls to maintain reputation and remain compliant. Their advantage will be price, not presence of junk apps. That’s how free market with consumer protection laws works: regulation defines parameters of new equilibrium and eventually all start playing by the same rules to the benefit of the consumer.
Price wouldn't be the only point of differentiation though. Say Google were to bring the Play Store to iOS. Apple's App Store allows users to opt out of tracking. The Play Store does not. Wouldn't all apps that use an advertising based business model automatically gravitate towards the Play Store?
If the goal is to make Apple open up their platform in a way that doesn't take away choices from users, we need a set of rules to guarantee that. Otherwise I agree with rTX5CMRXIfFG. Facebook and Google would find ways to gradually make the App Store more and more unattractive until that choice no longer exists. There would be billions of dollars worth of incentives.
>Apple's App Store allows users to opt out of tracking. The Play Store does not.
In EU the only legal way to do tracking is opt in, so this is a matter of law enforcement and not a long term competitive advantage.
The weakness of regulation is a problem of American users, which they can solve by voting for politicians who support better consumer protection. Of course they may choose otherwise and choose instead a quasi-monopoly of more expensive walled gardens. After all, America is democracy, isn’t it? :)
>In EU the only legal way to do tracking is opt in
EU newspapers routinely make users choose between accepting tracking and buying a subscription. Apple does not allow that.
Anyway, what the EU does is sort of beside the point as the App Store issue is global and lawsuit that Proton joined was filed in California.
> Nothing would change for you.
If my apps are changing, yes it is changing for me.
Right now I can manage all of my app subscriptions from the Subscriptions screen in the Settings app of my devices. If they open up to other payment methods, my subscriptions are no longer centralized, I have to give my credit card information to more parties of variable trustworthiness, I have to worry about subscription renewal policies for every individual app, I have to figure out different methods of cancelling which could be a more difficult process than hitting "cancel" and trusting Apple will stop the payments, etc.
sound like an opportunity for a service that provides the conveniences you enjoy without the lock in and high taxes that Apple requires. imagine an app store that was curated more carefully, where every app was hand tested and with a guarantee of safety that Apple has not provided. a subscription manager with even better UI, lower fees, etc. a payment processor that offered better terms than Apple does.
but we cannot have these until the lock in is removed
I think those problems are largely also due to anti competitive and anti consumer behaviors.
We need to craft legislation saying software vendors have to support some kind of standardized payment system with easy cancellation built in to it rather than relying on Apples good will.
Here in the UK we have something called Direct Debit, that is backed by the Direct Debit guarantee. All regular payments are made by DD and we can cancel a regular payment at any time just by contacting our bank. I can go into my banking app, review a list of all DD payments, and cancel any of them with just the press of a button. You should campaign to have that system in America.
I often find it strange that a country that is so advanced in many ways is so backwards when it comes to banking.
It's really not as scary as you think it is.
Whenever I want a subscription I want inside an app, I actually take the effort to go to their website and buy it from them directly, because it's cheaper (not that they're allowed to tell me this in their app though).
When I want to stop paying for the subscription, I cancel it and I'm done. At least in the EU, this is always an easy thing to do.
Except implementing the functionality to optionally open up your device to the world inherently makes it less secure. I now have no ability to purchase the phone that I want. It's actually decreasing consumer choice.
I'm sure you won't have to worry.
If apple is incompetent and makes it less secure, I'm sure they'll fix it.
> implementing the functionality to optionally open up your device to the world inherently makes it less secure
Are you saying that Qubes OS is less secure than iOS?
Are there any versions of iOS without jailbreak exploits in them? The security was always theatre.
I think all recent iOS versions have no public jailbreak exploits.
There are jailbreaks available for iOS 16.6.1 (released in 2023), and every iOS version prior to it. I count that as "recent", though I understand either way.
Recent versions of iOS have specific anti-jailbreak mechanisms (anti-downgrade mechanisms, ephemeral root filesystems) which don't provide general security, so they're sort of cheating. These mechanisms just mean it's harder to use the vulnerabilities for good, without significantly stymieing evil. (And they aren't wholly effective, seeing as 16.6.1 contains all of them, and it's still got a semi-untethered jailbreak.)
You're free to keep your own device locked down yourself and to only use Apple's own app store if you want.
Until your employer or government requires a side-loaded app for you to do something that you need to do.
Your employer can already require you install an app that isn’t from the App Store, through the enterprise developer program.
Or you end up with companies (like Wal-mart) that decide that they don’t want to accept Apple Pay and become payment processors themselves, requiring you to install their app to do phone/watch payments. Congrats, you now need a whole boquet of payment apps and we’re back to it being easier to use physical credit cards. For some of these things, the consolidation was the whole point.
Since Walmart keeps popping up in other comments, I'll do devil's advocate using the exact same argument other people used:
If you don't want to buy on Walmart and their custom payment system, then just go to a competitor.
With that said: this is an unrealistic scenario. Walmart doesn't pay the famous 30% to ApplePay, only a regular CC-like fee (probably less). Also, physically they can just accept contact payments where they don't interact with Apple but it still works with the iPhone wallet. Online, they can just use credit cards instead of ApplePay, which iPhones have autofill for, and probably not lose much.
That only works if competitors aren’t doing the same exact thing.
There’s also situations where you don’t have a choice. In many parts of the US the only reasonably accessible store (and sometimes grocery store) is a Walmart.
HN's time-honored scapegoat. "Corporations can't be trusted - that's why I trust Apple to fight them" is a ridiculous pretense to support consolidation. If Apple uses their de-facto position of privilege to demand people use their products as a solution, then they have become the problem. The exact same problem as Wal-mart insisting you download their wallet app.
There is a real solution to this, where we codify our social limits through legislation and open standards to prevent these horrible "leopards ate my face" scenarios that everyone seems to hate so much. Or we could keep trusting Apple, and see how many F1 advertisements that nets us in the long-run.
Legislation would be better, no question. Have you seen US politics, though? Not just lately, but for the past couple of decades. Electing knowledgable politicians who are willing to stay properly abreast of technology and work for the interests of their constituents is nigh impossible.
The ones that get into office are most often out of touch and in someone’s pocket because they grandstand on polarizing topics that information-deficient and single-issue voters flock to. I try to vote for candidates who I think will do good that way, and it makes some impact on the micro scale, but on the national scale it’s like trying to drain the Pacific Ocean with a thimble.
I've seen the politicians that Apple relies on to prevent legislative reform: https://apnews.com/article/trump-tariff-apple-iphone-tax-170...
Are you now going to argue that Tim Cook is a really nice guy who practices genuinely principled leadership? I hope not, he's only there to convert your loyalty to something more liquid and fungible.
Nope, it’s clear he does what he thinks is best for the company and its shareholders. Companies aren’t your friend. Even without that, the US political system is broken and the alternatives have their own glaring issues that either lie in the blind spots of or are actively ignored by their proponents.
Conversely, we can _not_ open up our bootloaders in Android because banking apps then refuse to run on an "insecure" OS. Of course we'd have to put aside the fact that our computers can access the same banking features through a web browser.
If they have to make changes in software to allow an "unlocked" device that makes it inherently less secure.
Exactly. Jailbreaking is WAI for the folks who want the “Android experience” on an iPhone. Much of this drama is merely corporations vying to “get theirs” from the ecosystem, without understanding that the extant nature of the ecosystem is why it is the most valuable platform by user spend (that is to say, they care little for the consumer).
Shouting "monopoly" from the rooftops is not enough to affect real change. If I wish not to pay property taxes, my options include moving to another state, but courts do not recognize a general right to challenge tax liability on the grounds of personal preference or disagreement with taxation. Perhaps it's worth sparing a thought as to why, and who ultimately empowered that stance.
Plus, this is often the “if I can’t have it no one can” line of thought, sometimes from companies engaging in anticompetitive practices themselves (like Epic Games).
Edit:
WAI stands for working as intended
I'm all for corporations "trying to get theirs" if it benefits the rest of society.
iPhones are a premium product and they don't have a natural right to 30% of transactions going through it if the participants don't want Apple to know about it.
> It’s the “if I can’t have it no one can” line of thought
That describes what you and _benton are advocating. "If I can't have the phone be the way I want, no one can".
That's exactly backwards. I have no desire to limit the types of phones you can purchase, and you have an enormous amount of choices in phones outside Apple that provide essentially the same functionality, and can be as open as you wish. You wish to limit my ability to access a device that I want. I want a locked down phone, and third parties wish to intervene on a transaction between me and Apple so they can illegitimately get a piece of the pie.
How about people who want a Mac (which is still "open" to the extent that it makes a difference), and therefore would also like an iPhone because of the propitiatory APIs Apple makes available solely to the iPhone?
I don't particularly like my iPhone, in fact I see as a worse device in many ways to my old Android phone, but the interoperability with my Mac makes the trade-off worth it. So ironically, the only reason I want it is because of even _more_ anticompetitive practices.
And yes, the day the Mac is as closed off as the iPhone, there will be zero Apple devices in this house.
Same. Considering the Mac is my work device, it's not even out of principle but purely because it would be a useless brick.
> You wish to limit my ability to access a device that I want. I want a locked down phone
As others have repeatedly said, you can still opt to not use any other kind of app from outside the AppStore.
But as I asked on another thread, as a thought experiment: What about we meet in the middle and governments force Apple to only "open" 50% of the phones, for the same price. Would that satisfy you?
> third parties wish to intervene on a transaction between me and Apple so they can illegitimately get a piece of the pie.
It's actually Apple that wants to intervene in transactions where I don't want them to be a part of. I don't want to pay 10 euros and give 3 to them.
Never seen WAI before, all I can come up with is Works As Intended or Web Accessibility Initiative?
Anyways- jail breaking requires being or remaining on certain iOS versions on certain specific hardware models. You can’t “just jailbreak” your apple device that you daily drive/use regularly. If you’re not on an old version on the right hardware already, you’re fucked. And waiting for a new jailbreak exploit is a (anecdotally, for me at least) nondeterministic amount of time on the order of O(years), with a significant probability that it will not be relevant for whatever device you’re waiting on.
This is how you know Apple's marketing is effective. When users think they have a sense of security by using Apple's apps and apps on Apple's store and advocate against competition against Apple.
Controversial maybe, but we have to suffer through this exact same incredibly odd opinion in every thread that makes contact with this issue. No one is asking you to leave your walled garden.
iPhone's other aspects would still remain comfortably locked down and strictly controlled for you by them if there was the opt in for those interested to have alternative ways of paying for subscriptions.
I could hardly believe you only pay through Apple for everything, I mean everything, as THE trustful, others are not trusted, not using other safe payment methods for some products due to security concerns. Not only Apple is secure in this regard.
As there are opt ins on iPhone for so many highly unsecure matters, you could share the most sensitive data with the individual apps with a flick if you wish (sharing personal and very sensitive data, sometimes personal data of others without their consent, like contacts) it is very hard to understand why this particular opt in is ringing your alarm bells of security irrevocably lost and get locked out completely ("impossible to purchase product") that hard....
You can have your choice of not choosing still, while Apple's product design would otherwise remain intact in its current form. Your arguments are very inconsistent.
That's not how choice works.
Same here. I don’t want to hack around with my phone like I do my computer. I want it to just work and be as feee as possible from malware etc. Other considerations are a distant second.
Apple's app store practices are an abusive monopoly, and I wish the Proton folks luck.
We once had a Zulip update rejected by Apple because we had a link to our GitHub project with the source code for the app in the app itself. And it turns out, if you then click around GitHub, you can find a "Pricing" page that doesn't pay Apple's tax.
Details are here for anyone curious: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28175759
Not related directly and not related to subscription — a recent case of Apple’s anticompetitive and user hostile policies is Apple essentially locking down email push notifications and essentially forcing everyone to use fetch. They had given a way via some signing and now they just shut it down or it broke and they didn’t fix it. Now if every mail provider have their own app then they can circumvent via some shenanigans of non mail push notifications and then fetch mail or some circus. My mail provider doesn’t have their own app so I am stuck with third party apps where push stopped working.
We can play technical gymnastics around this but this just sucks!
Do you have more sources on that please? Thanks.
Sources on this thing/news?
I had made a post recently which didn't see any traction https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44398136 maybe it can be a pointer
> We don’t question Apple’s right to act on behalf of authoritarians for the sake of profit, but Apple’s monopoly over iOS app distribution means it can enforce this perverse policy on all app developers, forcing them to also be complicit.
Ouch. Those are some fighting words.
We are living in the wrong timeline.
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It's a comment intended for the court of public opinion, not one of the law.
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The line between law and politics is not as iron-clad as you think.
Reply to a couple hundred comments: You don’t have to be a monopoly to be deemed to be acting in an anti-competitive manner.
Just dominant by some significant measure, in some significant dimension, enough for many people to complain. And for a judge to review the practices and find the company is leveraging that dominance to maintain dominance or hold dominance over adjacent markets in a way that is blocking competition.
Apple is using their control of their phone hardware and OS to preclude any alternate source of apps or app stores, in order to charge a large vig on every app and in app purchase. And block competitive, tech like alternate web browser engines, and any app they don’t like.
They are big enough to warp the whole market for mobile apps and browsers. A large percentage of apps become much less viable if they don’t supportiOS. So “choose another phone” isn’t a viable solution to the harm.
Nothing stops Apple from having an App Store. Using it to enforce security rules. Nothing stops users from using it exclusively (EDIT: Don’t download from other sources, or if you do, click “no” when you get asked if you want to install apps from other sources. This is trivial for Apple to do.)
The problem is the app market is massive, highly dependent on having iOS versions to compete in the overall mobile device space, and Apple is both blocking alternative app sources and taxing all those apps, and completely prohibiting some apps, while prohibiting any other options.
Enforcing rules against anti-competitive behavior isn’t a zero cost practice. it is reasonable for some people to prefer the status quo.
But it’s better than allowing anti-competitive behavior, which would encourage more such behavior because not having competition is incredibly profitable. And the harms of letting anti-competitive behavior go unchecked tend to be significant but only obvious in hindsight, or never. That’s part of the problem. Without healthy competition lots of significant but non-obvious progress gets snuffed out before it has a chance.
Either you nip it in the bud, or end up dealing with much worse abuses.
Imagine how quickly we’d answer the question of whether consumers actually prefer Apple’s walled garden and are voting with their wallets, or if they’re just locked in and being taken advantage of, if 3rd party app stores with much lower overhead were allowed. If your monthly subscription cost $10 on the Apple app store but $7 on the other one, for the same product, I think we’d get an answer rather efficiently.
Besides the "One App Store" policy (that tbf keeps out the worst scams you can find on android), what bothers me most is that an app can be banned fors speech like "here's the FAQ on our HOMEPAGE".
Huh? "One App Store" is bad, it forces you into a vendor lock-in, to have no choice but to accept whatever a store wants you to do. I'd rather have the freedom of choice rather than being limited to a monopoly.
I'd be ok with one app store if the criteria for being included are transparent, reasonable and not biased towards less strict rules for big players.
Patreon was told to change its whole billing model until a court found in their favor: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1878206.html That's the kind of thing I think we'd both find unacceptable.
But I'd still be ok with "one store, resonable rules, respect user privacy".
Meanwhile on google's lawn, there's hundreds of things like this: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.falnesc.to... a torch app that contains ads and shares your location with selected third parties. At least they don't require permission to read your contacts. (You can buy an ad-free "secure" version for $0.99, or you can just ... turn on your phone's LED for free because that's provided by the OS.)
Technically firefox extensions are "one app store" too - you can't sideload unless you install from the dev/nightly channel and fiddle with the settings. But at least it's a not-for-profit store. Chrome and even Edge allow you to sideload.
I'm still stuck on the whole 30% tax. How is that considered even remotely reasonable?
How is the 30% tax different than other platforms?
Further, how much do you think should this be (20%? 10%? 5%?) and if zero, why?
Finally, do you believe Apple should be compensated for the services and marketplace that they are offering, if so, what other strategies do you recommend that they deploy to make everyone happy?
> How is the 30% tax different than other platforms?
Because it doesn't have to compete with third-party distributors like MacOS? The App Store on MacOS is almost entirely empty, every real developer abandoned it years ago. It's almost impossible to buy professional Mac software on the App Store, because real developers like Avid or Adobe or Affinity don't think Apple's deal is fair either.
> Finally, do you believe Apple should be compensated for the services and marketplace that they are offering
They already are, through their developer fees. If Apple can't compensate themselves without forcing people to use their services, then they need to redesign their business model.
Installing software is not a service, arguably Apple has no right to demand compensation for it in the first place.
>Because it doesn't have to compete with third-party distributors like MacOS?
Who are the third party distributors for the playstation or xbox?
>They already are, through their developer fees.
It's $100/developer. Considering Microsoft used to charge thousands for Visual Studio, it doesn't seem too unreasonable to claim that $100/year is too low.
>If Apple can't compensate themselves without forcing people to use their services, then they need to redesign their business model.
What's wrong with royalty fee based business models?
>Installing software is not a service, arguably Apple has no right to demand compensation for it in the first place.
Right, which is why Apple characterizes the fee as "core technology fee", ie. for access to its tools and SDKs, not for access to the store.
> Who are the third party distributors for the playstation or xbox?
Plenty. The retail Xbox has supported sideloading for almost a decade now: https://www.howtogeek.com/703443/how-to-put-your-xbox-series...
Nintendo Switch has fully distributed homebrew stores too.
> It's $100/developer.
They can charge more if they don't think they're milking developers enough. They only have, what, a few million of them worldwide.
> What's wrong with royalty fee based business models?
Nothing, if they are forced to compete with other royalty-based services that set a fair baseline price. Otherwise everything is wrong with it. MacOS did this right, although admittedly the App Store didn't quite survive the gauntlet of competition.
Imagine if your favorite band could only make money by signing to a single record label. Do you think their talent would be valued fairly? Do you think they would be respected for who they are, or do you think their likeness would be molested in whichever way was the most profitable for the label?
>Plenty. The retail Xbox has supported sideloading for almost a decade now: https://www.howtogeek.com/703443/how-to-put-your-xbox-series...
If that counts as "sideloading", you might as well count the free 7 day signing option that iOS offers (used by alt store) "sideloading".
>Nintendo Switch has fully distributed homebrew stores too.
Officially?
>Nothing, if they are forced to compete with other royalty-based services that set a fair baseline price.
See my previous comments. Apple's claim is that the fee isn't for distribution, it's for access to the SDKs. It's unclear how "if they are forced to compete with other royalty-based services that set a fair baseline price" would work in this case. Epic offers Unreal Engine for free, with the expectation that they'll recoup the money via royalties. That sounds like a lot like Apple's SDKs.
>Imagine if your favorite band could only make money by signing to a single record label.
That's what happens for most bands though? There's typically a exclusivity period, and some artists might stick with a given label their entire lives.
> Who are the third party distributors for the playstation or xbox?
This is a whataboutism. People can discuss Apple's anti-competitive business policies separately from Sony's and Microsoft's. (Does it matter that Playstation and Xbox ecosystems are potentially similarly anti-competitive? That just means the circumstances around their policies should also be scrutinized for the same reasons.)
> it doesn't seem too unreasonable to claim that $100/year is too low
It doesn't seem too unreasonable to tell them tough shit. They can improve their business model themselves; that's their responsibility. It is also their responsibility to avoid anti-competitive business practices.
> What's wrong with royalty fee based business models?
This is a disingenuous question in reply to the pull quote you included from the parent comment. They wrote "without forcing people to use their services". That is the primary anti-competitive thing that people complain about with Apple.
Amazon charges 15% for physical media, including software [1]. Since Apple is not shipping physical media, it seems something less than 15% would be more reasonable.
1. https://sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/external...
>Since Apple is not shipping physical media, it seems something less than 15% would be more reasonable.
The link you provided is only for "Referral fee", not whatever fee charges to fulfill the order (ie. warehousing and shipping), which is separate: https://sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/external...
App store software should have minimal warehousing and shipping costs compared with physical software. I was just trying to come up with a ball-park comparable figure.
Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft have similar taxes for their game stores where they have monopoly.
Nintendo for example has NDA where you cannot even share online how much they take.
If that's true, sounds like a slam dunk lawsuit waiting to happen for Nintendo
Why can't Apple set whatever pricing they want? Unless you're arguing that Apple has a monopoly.
Also it's not a tax, though arguably it can be termed an "economic rent" (a technical term) that can be considered excessive, but I'm not sure about that.
>Why can't Apple set whatever pricing they want?
Same reason any company can't set whatever they want. Vast majority of companies aren't deemed monopolies so this doesn't apply to them but this restriction holds over them once they grow to a certain size nonetheless. Even the most ardent capitalists/free market advocates agree that monopolies have to be regulated by the government.
The real questions are what makes company a monopoly. You can always argue you aren't a monopoly but it's what convinces people that makes most sense and many people are beginning to be convinced that Apple/Google etc are monopolies in certain markets.
I don't see an answer to the question you quoted in your post?
It sounds like you are implying that a monopoly classification would somehow be relevant to fee/pricing strategy?
The reality is that every company that has a hardware/software ecosystem has some form of AppStore. Sony, Nintendo, Valve, etc. Should we consider them all to be monopolies of their store? For fun, let's say they all are.
In order for that monopoly classification to have some impact, it would have to be used in an anti competitive way.
Let's say Nintendo wants 20%, Valve wants 30%, and Sony wants 40% of an apps sales price. You adjust your price for each platform, the software costs more on Steam Deck and PlayStation. Are Valve and Sony using their stores in an anti competitive way by charging more than Nintendo? I don't see how. It is not anti competitive for Sony to charge developers more.
An example of something anti competitive would be Sony telling you that you can only put things up in their shop if it's exclusive to Sony.
This is a misunderstanding of free market advocacy. The status quo for mobile apps is not a free market. Free markets are defined by meaningful choice. If there are undue restrictions on switching providers for any service -- it doesn't matter whether the restrictions come from the government or from private companies -- it's not a free market.
> Unless you're arguing that Apple has a monopoly.
Exactly this. There's no competition, because Apple blocks iPhone owners from installing apps through any method other than their App Store (in the US, where this lawsuit is being filed). It's a programmatically-enforced monopoly.
Frankly I'd much rather change that situation than quibble about exactly how much Apple is allowed to charge for their services. Let them charge whatever they want in a free market where they have to compete on a level playing field with everyone else. If developers don't like it, they can use a competing app store to sell their software to iPhone users.
How do you think Target and Walmart work? They pay someone $10 for a widget and mark it up 100% and sell it for $20.
App fees have basically been the same amount for all time. Literally every single developer looked at the numbers and decided to go into business.
Feel like you’ve never tried to sell anything in a retail store.
I don’t think any developer considers it reasonable. I mean, apart from apple and the really brainless section of their fanboys, who thinks this is reasonable?
I don't think any big tech company has ever done anything as evil and predatory as Apple walling off iMessage, giving the impression that Apple phones were high technology, and interacting with peasant androids is what made group chats fragment and pictures and videos look like trash.
Few things are more enraging than people being left out of chats with friends and family because they didn't bend over for Apple. Even worse being a teenager and having to endure social shaming for it. It wasn't until the EU signaled it was going to bring down then axe that Apple capitulated to RCS.
- Yes, I know you are part of the domestic US long tail that use signal/telegram with all your friends.
- Yes, I know no one outside the US uses iMessage.
ETA: A note because people are pretty incredulous about "most evil". Tech companies do a lot of evil stuff, no doubt.
But there is something special about putting social connection behind an expensive hardware purchase and walled garden lock in. Every other messaging app I know of is open to anyone on most platforms for little or no cost. Apple on the other hand purposely leveraged social connections in your life to force you into their garden and keep you there. Lets not pretend that Apple couldn't open up iMessage or even charge a nominal fee for outsiders. Instead you get an iphone and just seemlessly slide into iMessage. So seemless that most users don't even know that it is a separate service than sms/mms/rcs. Apple muddies that too.
But they would never do that, because using people's closest social connections to force them into the ecosystem and lock them there is just too juicy. "Oh you don't want an iPhone anymore? Well looks like you have to leave your social circles main discussion hub to do so..."
It's just evil on another level.
> I don't think any big tech company has ever done anything as evil and predatory
Don't you think this is _maybe_ an overstatement? I was annoyed about this for years but reading your take is borderline satirical.
From the lawsuit
> For example, when a user purchases an iPhone, the user is steered to use Apple’s default email product, Apple Mail. It is only through a complex labyrinth of settings that a user can change her default email application away from the Apple “Mail” application towards an alternative like Gmail (Google) or Proton Mail.
> At least for mail a user can in theory modify the default setting. On the calendar front the situation is even worse. A user’s default calendar is Apple Calendar, and the default cannot be modified
That's pretty evil & predatory to me. The fact that it is by design (someone decided it needed to this awful) is why Apple is being evil here. And this is just one example.
There's more
> For example, Apple banned apps from its App Store that supported Google Voice because Apple sought to advantage its own services over Google’s
> That's pretty evil & predatory to me.
That's not what the parent is asking. The OP said it was the most evil ever done.
Big Tech does predatory and evil stuff all the time. That's not what's being claimed. The OP is claiming that this specific thing is the worst, the singular event that is above and beyond all others.
Except that those claims feel like intentional exaggerations and not meaningfully true?
I use both iOS and Android.
> It is only through a complex labyrinth of settings
I have no love for the way iOS settings are done, but calling the setting for this in particular a complex labyrinth is some pretty blatant editorializing.
> A user’s default calendar is Apple Calendar, and the default cannot be modified
I don't think this is a true statement? My default calendar is a Google calendar. Actually switching to instead use my Apple iCloud calendar has been something of a chore.
The "complex labyrinth" is only reinforcing the impression that you and the author of that brief are both cranks. "Email" is the top setting under "Default Apps". My iPhone doesn't even offer Apple's Mail app in that screen, probably because I deleted it, which also was not labyrinthine but actually quite trivial.
home screen > settings > default apps > email
Easy if you know where to look. If you end up in the wrong sub menu you might simply search the web for instructions.
Apple provides web pages where they explain how to use the iphone. There is a section called "mail" under "apps" that shows up in the search results. It really wants me to read the help in dutch, the "apps > mail" section has 14 pages that don't talk about changing the default app, in stead they explain how to use the various features of their own mail app (that is also configured by default)
I don't get why the help pages need a different menu structure.
One has to go to "personalize your iphone" which has 18 pages, changing default apps is towards the end.
Searching the Dutch help website for "mail" I get only 3 unhelpful search results. If i change it to US English it immediately redirects to Dutch again. lol?
Using the "English" for Latin America and the Caribbean works. There I get 5 pages worth of results. Changing the default app is on page 3.
Not impossible but it is not a simple prompt on launch of the app "Banana mail is not currently your default email client. Do you want to set Banana mail as your default app for sending email?"
I'm quite dense of course, if they are going to be like that I will NEVER create an email client for this platform.
The web and their TOS is full of good reasons to never create an app for iphone.
In a laps of sanity I created a pwa one time. I've explained to exactly one user how to add the option to add a web app to the home screen to the menu so that they can add a web app to the home screen. It was a really hard sell and it took a long time.
I of course had to laugh at myself for acting against my better judgement.
Imagine someone made a web app email client and tried to compete with the build in client. Then in the middle of the struggle apple jokes about discontinuing PWA.
Seems a pretty level playing field?
> Easy if you know where to look. If you end up in the wrong sub menu you might simply search the web for instructions.
Actually, at the very top of the home page of the settings app is a search bar. If you type in anything reasonable (default, email, mail) then one of the first 2-3 results will be “default apps” or “default email”.
8/10 people in my family circle do not know this bar exists. I know it’s not necessarily Apple‘s fault, but not everyone is a tech-proficient.
Maybe 8/10 people in your family circle would benefit from reading the published user guide for their device. That doesn't take technological proficiency, just reading.
Maybe the design is terrible, that's an option too.
> Not impossible but it is not a simple prompt on launch of the app "Banana mail is not currently your default email client. Do you want to set Banana mail as your default app for sending email?"
This is what happens when you install Gmail, for example. You're both under and over-thinking this.
I'm just baffled how if we look at Microsoft or Google everyone agrees that the tyranny of the default is a problem. Then it comes to Apple and we get statements like "no, I love that I have no choice." It's frustrating.
I mean, does Settings > Apps > Gmail (or whichever other app) > Default Mail App really qualify as “a complex labyrinth”? Sure, it’d be a good thing to add a “Default Apps” section under Settings > General or something, but calling the current route complex almost sounds like an insult to users.
EDIT: Actually, there already is a “Default Apps” section right at the top of the page of Settings > Apps. Yeah, if that’s a “labyrinth” then the assumed level of user intelligence is quite low.
I didn't even know you could change the default mail app on iOS and I’ve used it for the better part of a decade now, as a Proton user too. I’ve endured the frustration because I thought it was fixed. Either being allowed to change it is relatively new, region locked, or yeah it’s a labyrinth.
It’s not region locked, and as the sibling post notes it’s been there for a while. I’m not sure how much more simple it can be made (open Settings, tap Apps, and there it is at the top of the page).
I suppose it could be possible for apps to prompt the user to change the default, but I’m honestly pretty sick of that behavior on desktop (e.g. I have several browsers installed for various reasons and they nearly all bug me about being default) and would rather not see it copied to mobile OSes too (I don’t believe Android allows apps to show such a prompt either).
> Either being allowed to change it is relatively new, region locked, or yeah it’s a labyrinth.
It's about 5 years old by now. Not having looked for something in a couple of years and being bummed out by that doesn't make Apple the bad guy.
Why would anyone look for something they haven't been told about?
You may as well ask why you should look anywhere but at your own feet while walking around your city.
You have been told that every new OS update brings new features and abilities, and Apple publishes an iPhone User Guide for learning about iOS features like how to change the default mail app (https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/change-the-default-ap...). It's on you to look.
I've probably used Apple Mail and/or Apple Calendar at some point in my ownership of Apple products but they're both using Google products at the moment on my phone and I have no recollection of setting those up as being complex through a variety of hardware transitions.
It’s also probably worth noting that most of the stock iOS apps are the most service-provider-agnostic in the industry. Mail and Notes work on bog standard IMAP, and Calendar and Contacts are built on CalDAV and CardDAV, respectively. Google services work fine in all of them (though could be better if it weren’t for Google’s crappy IMAP implementation). The only case where they don’t work is with non-standard providers like Proton.
Go try to sign into your open-standards-abiding calendar and notes accounts in the Calendar and Contacts bundled with nearly every Android phone on the planet and see how well that goes.
> I mean, does Settings > Apps > Gmail (or whichever other app) > Default Mail App really qualify as “a complex labyrinth”?
Compared to Android?
Yes.
I have no idea why iPhone users put up with this shit.
See my edit. I have two Android devices sitting right in front of me, and they’re identical to iOS in this regard: Settings > Apps > Default apps.
No, I don't think it's an understatement at all....
In the difficulty of non-iMessage compatibility, I have had people close to me say "Why don't you just get an iPhone?" with an incredulous tone.
Perhaps tech companies have had more evil things happen on their platforms, that for whatever reason they were slow to react to.
But
"Why don't you just get an iPhone" was a precisely and meticulously engineered line, pure social manipulation, that was intentionally orchestrated to be delivered to me through the mouths of the people I trust most in my life turned unknowing pawns.
That is why I consider it the most evil. Apple is by design purposely exploiting a core human function, close social circle communication, to trap people in their garden.
I remember many years ago when I realized this is what they were doing with iMessage. It’s really truly brilliant.
I went all in; for years I paid 100% to replace phones of friends or lovers who were still sending archaic SMS.
It’s the implicit camraderie between the speaker and listener in “A computer for the rest of us…”
Today, I don’t even have iMessage enabled on my disposable carrier number. It’s off off.
Reminds me of "Consuming kids" where the marketeers conclude the children in the family decide which car brand dad will buy.
> No, I don't think it's an understatement at all....
It's interesting how this seems like an incredibly American problem. In Europe everyone either uses WhatsApp or Signal and iMessage is hardly ever used.
Considering how much it's messing up with kids and young people's social circles, this is seriously very fucked up even for big tech standards.
I am plugged into the Apple ecosystem daily and shamelessly and yeah I think it’s arguably accurate. What makes it so sinister is how benign it seems yet how devastating the consequences have been.
No, it isn't. It literally created a second class of phone users in America.
Specific example: When on dating apps you see "green bubbles" as a red flag/un-dateable trait, it has done considerable harm.
I think gp's statement is a pretty accurate, Apple's behavior was intentional, they know it ends up creating artificial social pressure and bullying. Most appalling and disgusting.
> I don't think any big tech company has ever done anything as evil and predatory as Apple walling off iMessage
Is that really the worst thing you've seen big-tech do? That's very fortunate.
What about Blackberry Messenger which was the mobile instant-messaging golden standard for years and BB exclusive for as long as it mattered in the market? Was that too long ago to remember?
my understanding is that BBM was different because there was nothing to interoperate with at the time
Apple refusing RCS integration is a very clear example of hurting everyone in pursuit of profit
it's likely not the most evil, but I do think it qualifies as evil. it stands out by being inarguably willful, and having a very broad impact
I find harming hundreds of millions (probably billions) of friendships to be quite evil
Android didn't introduce RCS support until 2019, 8 years after the introduction of iMessage.
Windows Mobile? iOS absolutely existed alongside BBM as well.
Apple didn't integrate with RCS because RCS was a fragmented pile of garbage. It still is, but it's I suppose less fragmented now.
None of that "harmed" friendships, certainly not any real ones.
Actually, iMessage happily harms apple customers all the time.
I know many MANY people who have lost chats with their loved ones (especially deceased ones) because there is no way to export and save their conversations.
I think this should be as easy as saving photos, which apple makes (somewhat) easier to export.
Back to email, it is pretty horrible to set up my local email server on an apple device. You have to go through these dialogs, apple servers have to be contacted (for "redirection"), and I usually barely get it working.
FWIW, on a Mac you can just query the iMessage database — it's just a plain old sqlite file sitting somewhere on disk.
[flagged]
This drives me crazy on iPad! Such a missed opportunity to dominate personal laptop market is given up buy horrible UX.
> No dumb hacks to deal with some retarded Cupertino PM's idea of how computing should work
You can't comment like this on Hacker News, no matter how right you are or think you are. It's not what HN is for and it destroys what it is for.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> - Yes, I know no one outside the US uses iMessage.
Yes, people in the EU use WhatsApp, by Meta & Zuckerberg, and from what I've seen, often act as if that is some sort of mark of superiority.
> and from what I've seen, often act as if that is some sort of mark of superiority.
Feels like you weren't able to have a proper discussion with those people. In many EU countries, using SMS made/makes no sense because SMS was/is super expensive as compared to WhatsApp. And using iMessage makes no sense because most people don't have an iPhone. From their point of view, it actually makes no sense.
Now if you tell them "well, where I come from everybody has an iPhone" or "SMS have always been free", probably they won't say "still, I'm better than you for no apparent reason".
I don't think that it is actually seen as a mark of superiority anywhere in the EU to use WhatsApp. Unlike apparently in some places it is seen as a mark of superiority to have an iPhone vs an Android phone.
If you go in a EU country where SMS were not prohibitively expensive in the beginning of WhatsApp (e.g. France), you'll see that WhatsApp has been less successful (at least in the beginning). WhatsApp was a killer app because it was free SMS, really.
>because it was free SMS, really.
Since when can WhatsApp interact with SMS users? They're so evil and predatory that they have entirely walled themselves off from that method of communication entirely.
WhatsApp gained popularity in Europe when non-early adopters started switching to smartphones (2010-2012 ish). The difference was that, in contrast to iMessage, you could install it on pretty much any smartphone. In the pre-Meta days they even supported many then dying ecosystems like Symbian, Nokia S40, etc.
They had a yearly subscription fee, but most people never got the request to pay it.
Nobody cared that it was incompatible with SMS, because everybody hated SMS because of the insane prices. In 2009 I got an iPhone 3G with an unlimited data plan, but I was still paying something like 0.20 or 0.25 Euro per SMS.
I like how they (just like imessage) allow you to message someone who cant possibly read the message because they have no whatsapp. Then again, I think they cant even deliver the message over sms on iphone? SMS is only available in the apple app if you first force it to send SMS?
I don't think most of US in the EU really mind, or even know what messaging app people in America use. The privacy conscious folk around here do tend to prefer Signal over Whatsapp though.
A lot of people, in Austria at least, have moved to signal in my experience. My communities in the US and Austria have trended toward adoption of Signal with very few holdovers between messages and WhatsApp, some partly due to my pressure but overall it’s just getting away from the BS of the alts
>often act as if that is some sort of mark of superiority
Well, you could argue that it's morally superior to be reachable by everyone, regardless of what brand of phone they use.
The ability to install a 3rd party messaging app also shows some technical skill.
I never had problems telling people: "oh I use this other one" and they probably have it alongside whatsapp.
There's always that one Facebook mom that refuses to use anything but FB Messenger, then get's upset why nobody reads her messenges.
> Even worse being a teenager and having to endure social shaming for it. It wasn't until the EU signaled it was going to bring down then axe that Apple capitulated to RCS.
Regardless of the merits of Apple's actions as regards technical interoperability I feel compelled to point out that this in particular is a cultural problem, not technical malfeasance. RCS users still appear as green bubbles and even if the lack of functionality has been remedied the stigma has not. People at my lunch table 20 years ago were drawing artificial distinctions between "MP3s" (portable DAPs) and iPods because the latter were expensive luxury products and the former were not. The same thing is at work here because owning an iPhone is a proxy for one's socioeconomic stratum. I own an iPhone and as soon as an Android user appears in an iMessage group chat some joker immediately makes a green bubble quip - no degraded picture message required.
People that define themselves by conspicuous consumption don't care about interoperability. They care about brand recognition.
But that's what so insidious about it - by also actively degrading the chat experience it makes excluding non-Apple users not merely social signalling but also a rational decision even if you don't care about conspicuous consumption whatsoever.
So pick your poison, either you exclude them because of in-group signalling/conspicious consumption or exclude them because you want non-potato resolution, with Android users getting the blame for Apple's UX. Either way Tim Cook says the solution is to buy an iPhone.
Yes, but this is precisely the point isn't it? It's blatantly enabling and embracing "othering" for no technical reason as an explicit strategy to exploit social pressures to maximize profit.
The most evil thing a tech company has done is make a proprietary messaging app?
Apple didn't make SMS bad, it just was. Apple has since implemented RCS and it hasn't changed how I communicate with people from my iPhone at all.
Google should probably take most of the blame for repeatedly fumbling messaging on non-Apple platforms for the past 2 decades. Every time they had something that was getting any amount of traction it got quickly replaced with some stupid new, worse messaging app so a PO could get a promotion.
How did you manage to shift the conversation to Google in a thread about Apple?
I think the point was that if Google weren't so inept, iMessage wouldn't be such a monopoly
And you know, maybe they have a point. I especially think about Microsoft and MSN Messenger/Skype. How do you fumble away not one but two dominant messaging apps?
OP's point is about Apple intentionally fragmenting communication in social groups as an ecosystem play (trickling down to bullying starting in grade school etc) so Google's messaging marketshare would only be relevant if there was some reason to believe it would have cowed Apple into interoperating.
iMessage wouldn’t need to interoperate. Look at WhatsApp, works great on iOS and Android and dominates the market in a lot of the world.
Because there are exactly two players in the game, and we’re in a thread under a whiny hyperbolic diatribe from someone that had the former.
Why didn’t Google deliver an alternative to iMessage? Did they choose not to? Is it actually hard? Are they just too incompetent at making software that isn’t for running infrastructure?
This reads like public affairs copy from Meta/Alphabet/et al looking to distract from the real, measurable harm produced against teens by social media and AI products that are either directly (Instagram) or indirectly (character ai) owned.
Apple does not owe Android users a superior non-Apple experience. Android a pretty damn huge platform, right? Way bigger than Apple, I hear? Blame Google. Google failed to compete.
There's something uniquely dystopian about tying emotional/social exclusion to a hardware upgrade
The evil is (so-called) social media in all of its forms. Human connections of all kinds have been comprehensively distorted and enshitified by unchecked corporate opportunism and manipulation.
I don't really agree with this framing. The fundamental issue is user ignorance, full stop. The fact is that our collective tech education is in a terrible state. Apple exploiting this to sell iPhones is just natural behavior for a profit-driven enterprise.
Instead of shaming Apple (which won't be very effective IMO), we should aim to improve education. Teach users how SMS/MMS/iMessage work. Tell them that they can install universal messaging apps and so on.
Perhaps the fundamental issue is your ignorance? Don't you know that users require tools that just work and that they should not be required to understand all of this technical nuance?
Apple users had/have plenty of other options - WhatsApp Signal Skype (back in the day) Line WeChat etc etc. So not really a big deal
Or you could use an actual program on a desktop computer to do it. When did everyone forget how that works?
Use a program on a desktop computer to do what exactly?
To communicate with friends and family.
"I don't understand why people complain about that AT&T telephone company monopoly, when they could just write each other letters. When did people forget how to do that?"
Telephone calls allow for near-instantaneous communication using voice while letters can (and could) take days to arrive and rely on writing. There is no comparison with using a computer vs. a cell phone to send messages over the Internet. It's even generally using all the same network protocols.
> There is no comparison with using a computer vs. a cell phone to send messages over the Internet.
"Communicate outside the home" is a pretty vast difference
> It's even generally using all the same network protocols.
This whole thread was about proprietary iMessage
> "Communicate outside the home" is a pretty vast difference
It's genuinely baffling to me that people actually see things this way. When there is a social reason to be outside the house, I take that as a reason not to be staring at a glowing rectangle.
Ok, and what about the overwhelming majority of reasons to be outside the house, which are not social reasons?
It's a bit silly to abandon all contact with the world just because you have to wait for the doctor, go grocery shopping, sit in the train, etc.
The world got by just fine when answering machines and paper maps were the norm.
What is silly about going to do an errand without distractions? It's more efficient in my experience. I wont look up stuff in the store or answer texts that in reality can totally wait. I've yet to have something happen where not having my phone lead to me missing some big emergency or event.
Going out into the world is in fact the opposite of abandoning all contact, it's directly interfacing. According to your comment, you equated your world with access to your phone.
The world got along fine (better, probably) without the internet, yet here we all are.
> What is silly about going to do an errand without distractions? It's more efficient in my experience. I wont look up stuff in the store or answer texts that in reality can totally wait. I've yet to have something happen where not having my phone lead to me missing some big emergency or event. > Going out into the world is in fact the opposite of abandoning all contact, it's directly interfacing. According to your comment, you equated your world with access to your phone.
I have a hard time believing this isn't a disingenuous take just for the sake of arguing. "Hey honey, while you're at the grocery store, could you pick up some milk?" "Hey, I'm finishing up at the doctor, any chance you want to meet for lunch?"
Are we really saying we can't understand the difference between a computer and a cellphone? Are we really unable to imagine any reason why communicating outside the home can be a useful ability? That the ability to do something doesn't mean it is the only way to do something, nor does it mean it has to be done that way at all times in all situations?
> It's a bit silly to abandon all contact with the world just because you have to wait for the doctor, go grocery shopping, sit in the train, etc.
On the contrary, I find it liberating, and I hate the idea of people trying to compel me to maintain contact through those situations.
google with their android anti-fragmentation-agreement is pretty predatory. basically release any/all android devices with google services and pay us cut or release none and use pure aosp. it is some next level shit.
huh. Isnt that what business deals are supposed to be? Two businesses entering into a business relationship, where both parties get something. OEMs get Google services & operating system, or OEMs are free to use open source project.
Are you saying Google should freely give away their products?
> Isnt that what business deals are supposed to be?
To clarify what exactly that agreement does: it prohibits companies from developing competitors. It is nakedly anti-competitive, and no, business deals are not supposed to be that - there's a large body of law, sadly rarely enforced, saying so. Not every business practice is legal just because the directly involved parties agreed.
nice strawman, first google honeypotted the smartphone-os sector with their AOSP (android opensource project). now when they killed every other option except apple & effectively became a monopoly for all smartphone vendors, they are using their monopoly power to prohibit companies from using aosp piecemeal. they are explicitly telling vendors if you make any device with google services then you cannot make an ungoogled device at-all. this is exact opposite of the open source spirit and highlights that they were never interested in opensource, they were doing pretty much what MS did in 90s, release a bundled shitty version of a popular app with OS so you can kill them and maintain dominant monopoly. they just weaponized oss with AOSP to kill off any contenders.
take a moment to think why amazon has no google services on their table and/or an amazon branded basic android smartphone, it would be super easy for them to do it (leave aside firephone .. for reasons).
How is this not monopoly abuse? if Lina Khan had any balls this is what she would have gone after.
edit: chatgpt explanation: https://chatgpt.com/share/686350ce-47dc-8008-8c30-14c6298d75...
> I don't think any big tech company has ever done anything as evil and predatory as Apple walling off iMessage
I think you might be living in a bubble, if this is the "most evil" thing you have heard of a big tech company doing. Go read up on IBM's history, especially in the 30s and 40s. Or a more contemporary example, read up on Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. Or Amazon's mistreatment of workers in both corporate and warehouse settings. Or Meta scraping data off your devices without permission to train AI.
And, though I know some folks here disagree, plenty of people around the world believe what's happening in Gaza is a genocide, and Big Tech has materially contributed to making it happen. Or, if you want another example of human cost, talk about how resources for electronics are mined, or how electronics are manufactured.
Saying, "the most evil thing big tech has ever done is make some chat bubbles blue" puts a whole lot of human lives below the color of some chat bubbles.
You can think Apple did a really bad thing by doing that, that's fine. No complaints. But to call it the most evil thing ever done erases an incalculable amount of human suffering.
> I think you might be living in a bubble, if this is the "most evil" thing you have heard of a big tech company doing. Go read up on IBM's history, especially in the 30s and 40s. Or a more contemporary example, read up on Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. Or Amazon's mistreatment of workers in both corporate and warehouse settings. Or Meta scraping data off your devices without permission to train AI.
I wouldn't count the IBM thing because I don't see it as part of the vernacular "big tech" of today; however I do think it's the most evil so far in this thread.
The others? They are mostly aggressive competition, especially the MS stuff, and altogether I don't see them as more evil than Apple's exclusionary UX. What's at the bottom of it for me is that it harms users directly, e.g. what others said about kids getting shamed for having a non-Apple phone. The one thing not mentioned yet that would qualify for me would be Meta's product altogether with its impact on teenagers; and various gambling simulators like Roblox.
Oh, Roblox by far and away is worse than Apple. But also, Facebook is pretty clearly implicated in a genocide in Myanmar. It's difficult for me to put any genocide in a bucket less important than some kids being put into out-groups.
The difference is that those evil things are second order effects. Nobody in the executive suite at FB was saying "Damn, this genocide is super profitable, let's stole the flames".
Nobody at Roblox is saying "We want to have children do nothing else except play Roblox from dawn to dusk, we lobby against schooling and extra-curiculars to increase Roblox time"
Apple however very intentionally made messaging people not on iPhones painful, and purposely made it out like androids were inferior. They purposely make it so you lose your group chats if you leave iPhone.
Thats why it's the most evil. It's a planned system to use peoples social connections as pawns to rope people into Apples ecosystem. This isn't hypothetical, or "C'mon of course they are saying that!". There are court documents that show it.
People at Roblox absolutely try to get children to spend more time and money on the platform. Why would you think they don’t?
My example was not that they try to get kids to spend more time on roblox, of course they do, my example was that they want kids to forgo school to spend more time on roblox. Rather than compete with netflix for engagement, compete with teachers and education.
I can assure you, with all my money bet on it, that no one in a roblox exec meeting ever said "We need to focus on lobbying schools to shorten the school day in key markets." No one at roblox is fantasizing about roblox replacing -all- (I mean this literally, not just entertainment time) facets of a child's life with roblox.
Whereas apple explicitly had their goal "Get kids using iphones, don't port imessage to android, families will be forced to buy iphones and stay on iphones to maintain familial communication."
That is evil.
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> Apple walling off iMessage, giving the impression that Apple phones were high technology, and interacting with peasant androids is what made group chats fragment and pictures and videos look like trash.
Which lawsuit PDF related specifically to iMessage interacting with Android was mentioned in this comment? I see a comment about RCS.
Now, maybe you are right, maybe I narrowly interpreted RCS in iMessage to mean chat bubbles, and there's a wider interpretation. Even still, there's no possible way that's the singular most evil thing tech has ever done. The OP is free to be anti-Apple, more power to them, but like, let's be real about levels of evil.
> Also, bringing up IBM, Microsoft or Facebook is "whataboutism".
It's absolutely not whataboutism. The claim the OP made was about Big Tech broadly. Bringing in examples of Big Tech doing evil things is a direct and appropriate rebuttable to the argument that Big Tech doesn't do evil things.
Focusing on the "the most" part is extremely petty.
This whole thread is the complete opposite of "thoughtful and substantive" and the "Converse curiously" from HN guidelines and I regret participating on it.
This is hopelessly exaggerated and bad-faith.
First of all, when Apple created iMessage, there was no possible way for them to predict that friend groups would use it as a reason to treat members of their groups poorly due to using Android phones.
Second of all, Apple did not deliberately make interacting with non-iMessage users in group chats "look like trash" in order to exclude them. Apple went out of its way to make it possible for iMessage to interoperate with the ubiquitous (in the US) SMS, with reduced features because SMS did not support the better features. If, instead, Apple had just made iMessage not interoperate with SMS at all, you'd be screaming about that instead.
Third of all, if people are leaving others out of chats, that's not Apple's fault. That's something for those families and friend groups to work out amongst themselves. "Hey, guys, I don't have an iPhone, and don't really have the money to get one, so maybe we could use GroupMe/GChat/WhatsApp/Signal/IRC/email/smoke signals/meeting in person/any of the myriad other ways of communicating instead?" A) "Oh, sure, that shouldn't be a problem!" (everything is solved) B) "What? No, we're not going to change anything just because it makes it impossible to actually include you in stuff. That's a you problem!" (turns out, the problem is your friends are assholes)
Apple cannot by any reasonable standard be held to blame for the way bullying, status-seeking teenagers treat each other.
What Apple could have done, for sake of clarity, sanity, and good practice is to handle SMS using one app, and handle iMessage using another, *separate* app.
The problem is not that iMessage exists, it's that it operates in opaque and unpredictable ways, mixing SMS and iMessage (and now RCS) communication in a way where even more tech-savvy users do not understand how it works (first-hand experience - had to explain to someone why their images are super compressed when they send them to me, but OK when they send them to their friend with an iPhone).
And now it's the same with RCS (Android-iOS). I send person A an image, the conversation switches to RCS. They use the "automatic reply" when I call them, conversation switches back to SMS. With person B, the switching between RCS and SMS is even more unpredictable.
> What Apple could have done, for sake of clarity, sanity, and good practice is to handle SMS using one app, and handle iMessage using another, separate app.
That sounds like a terrible user experience ?
I'm in a frequently-used group chat in which some people apparently have Android phones and others use iPhones. It works perfectly well.
If some teenagers see green bubbles as some sort of challenge to their identities, it's probably a useful life lesson.
http://theverge.com/2021/4/9/22375128/apple-imessage-android...
>“iMessage on Android would simply serve to remove [an] obstacle to iPhone families giving their kids Android phones,” was Federighi’s concern according to the Epic filing.
Among other statements. Apple was very aware of the social effects of iMessage, and leveraged it to force people into getting iphones.
Tech companies have done lots of evil shit. But never, not once, has one ever crossed the line into turning my friends and family against me (however slightly) because I didn't want to lock myself in Apple's cage, however comfortable it is.
Yeah, you can call my friends and family shitty, but the reality is that the are regular non-tech people, explaining the situation to them is impossible, and iMessage Just Works(TM).
I'm sympathetic to the position that Apple could, if they chose, have made a version of iMessage for Android.
But your position that it is somehow uniquely evil just reads as a coping mechanism—a way of not having to blame your friends and family for being shitty for you.
I know plenty of "regular, non-tech people" who understand perfectly well that a) different computer systems do not work properly together, and b) if you choosing to use a particular computer system excludes someone because they do not have access to it, that's rude, discriminatory, and generally shitty behavior.
SMS not having the same features as iMessage is a technical issue, sure.
Apple not providing iMessage on Android was a business decision, no question.
But people being exclusionary and obnoxious to each other over group chats is a social issue, and should be treated as such, and not blamed on either the technical or business side of things.
"Public transit is bad because people like driving cars, it's a social issue, not a business one"
Just think about your logic.
Your family being willing to isolate you and leave you out of conversations because it would slightly inconvenience them says more about you and them than it does about Apple. I downloaded WhatsApp to include random neighbors in our neighborhood group chat, and your family who has known your forever won’t do the same? Ever thought about why?
Why would I use a random app when I can use my expensive phone's default message program that already does everything?
Apple was perfectly right when they did this way back as they were not a dominant platform. Different legal rules applied.
However making an argument that some key aspects of the iPhome were not designed for viral growth is disrespectful to Steve Jobs who, like many of that time, was very familiar with engineering platform growth - probably more and better than most.
Really?
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-faceb...
> I don't think any big tech company has ever done anything as evil and predatory as Apple walling off iMessage
What a ridiculous statement. Even with your edit it's still an utterly stupid conclusion to come to.
Off the top of my head I can think of way worse things tech companies have done. Cambridge Analytica scandal, Gmail scanning, the Google Shopping lawsuit, Amazon's product clone hijack, Facebooks mood manipulation experiment, Ring doorbell viewing, Uber spying, to name just a few FAR worse things tech companies have done.
It's hard to deny that the App Store rules have created a massively uneven playing field
I'm not an Apple enthusiast—my rarely used iPad mini is my only Apple device—but let me play devil’s advocate.
If a company invests billions in R&D to create hardware and its integrated software, shouldn’t it have the right to control who or what interacts with it? Why should I be forced to open up the carefully designed ecosystem I’ve built?
If my pitch is premium, high-speed hardware and intuitive software so user-friendly that a monkey can use it, the trade-off is that you agree to my Terms of Service. There are other options out there.
I think it's specifically anticompetitive for Apple to force app developers to go through Apple Payments (with a 30% fee to Apple) for all purchases, otherwise their app is disallowed from being sold on the App store. There's no technological reason for app developers to be restricted from using other payment processors - it's purely a strategy for increased revenue for Apple.
In antitrust terms, it is a form of Vendor Lock-In[0], and could be seen as a form of Tying[1]:
> Tying is often used when the supplier makes one product that is critical to many customers. By threatening to withhold that key product unless others are also purchased, the supplier can increase sales of less necessary products.
As an example, Apple was sued successfully in the early 200s for selling music in a format that could only be played on iPods. iTunes is a platform Apple controls and invented, yet still it was deemed illegal for them to unfairly lock in customers and prevent them from using competing portable music players.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tying_(commerce)
> There's no technological reason for app developers to be restricted from using other payment processors
But there is a customer experience reason. As an iOS user, I very much appreciate that I can ask Apple to cancel some bullshit subscription that used to otherwise try to lock me in behind a labyrinth of added friction and timewasting.
Not every problem is technological.
You are free to pay ~30% extra for your preferred customer experience. The rest of us can leverage discounted pricing. Customer Choice for the win!
Also, thinking that all businesses will lock one in using friction and timewasting is not a rational argument. There are a lot of honest businesses there forced to pay the Apple Mafia's tax.
Exactly. This is the part that I dont get about Apple apologists. If one really likes paying 30% extra to Apple for privacy/security (debatable, but whatever) nobody is stopping you.
But for every one of those, there are many who might want to transact with the business directly.
FWIW, I trust Spotify equally as Apple - so if I get a Spotify subscription, I'm more than happy to get a 30% discount and deal with Spotify directly. Heck, I can do that on my MacOS (another fine product the Cupertino company makes) but when it comes to iOS - OMG, virus, malware, user privacy!!
I prefer everything go through Apple b/c I trust Apple more than I trust the average other vendor.
This way, I know if I'm dealing with something on my phone, I have a trusted channel for commerce. I am sophisticated enough that I can probably ascertain what alternative payment schemes are reasonable and which are scams, but Apple's imposed payment monoculture means unsophisticated users are protected as well.
A more permissive payment setup would necessarily mean more scammy apps, or maybe just vendors with gross, dark patterns designed to obfuscate cancellation without quite being fraud. No thanks.
the next response would be "but then i would find myself taking the option that I don't like because the option that I like would put me in a disadvantage so since i can't control my options in order for me to have the best, the other bests should not exist and especially other people can not have better things than what i say is the best because then i would again find myself in choice conflict" Not just apple apologists btw, it's a full category of people who can't enjoy their "choices" without having everyone else have only that "choice"
> You are free to pay ~30% extra for your preferred customer experience. The rest of us can leverage discounted pricing. Customer Choice for the win!
People say this stuff, but recently I re-examined my subscription to a multi-platform VPN service through the App store and found that they priced it cheaper than getting the same package through their website or through their windows client.
No idea why.
You can’t just stamp a price tag on your app. Apple have price tiers and you must choose a pre-defined price tier.
Edit: Not sure if up to date but for example: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/App-Store-Pricing-Update...
I mean, that's pretty flexible. At $17.99 (AUD) per month it could fit into the $1 step model, which starts at $0.99, maxing at $139.99
They charge $19.39 for the same subscription if you buy it direct. By the logic of Apple taking a 30% cut thereby pushing up the price of doing business, you'd think they could charge $12.59 to direct customers and take the same profit out.
(This is month by month subscriptions to NordVPN)
I'm not sure if it is still the case after the EU cases, but it at least used to be that Apple prohibited you from charging more for paying through the app store. And that leads to increased prices for everyone, regardless of if you even own an iOS device.
I thought you could charge more (at least now, maybe not in the before times), but you still can't say explicitly that you're charging more because of Apple's 30% fee.
Is that the norm or just an outlier?
I don't know, it's the only data point I have!
I would presume an outlier as it seems to make poor business sense.
If businesses don't have to offer the more consumer friendly option, they won't offer it.
Well then the rule could be: All apps must offer the possibility to use Apple Pay for payments.
Or Apple could do one of those virtual credit card things. Or do they already? So you could use an Apple virtual credit card with any processor.
But then the 30% extra fee would be visible to the user. Apple's whole schtick is making things way more expensive and hiding the competition pricing from the user. If "$10 with Stripe" was placed side by side with "$13 with Apple Pay", Apple would immediately lose all of their payment customers and about $2,000,000,000 in revenue, which is a lot. They can only prevent this by preventing "$10 with Stripe" from being there at all. (And if they did it with virtual credit cards, they'd have to tell users there's a 30% fee on each transaction)
That’s an unsupportable claim.
If customers want to pay more for Apple to facilitate, there isn’t an incentive to not keep apps in the App Store too. If a company has other reasons not to be in Apple’s store, why should they be required to?
> > If businesses don't have to offer the more consumer friendly option, they won't offer it.
> That’s an unsupportable claim.
It's supported well enough in my view by a long history of sleaze that apparently people have forgotten.
this is about allowing business to offer other choices, other store rules still would apply. for example if apple would be to require it's option as always present together with the rest in the app, then noone could say anything against it. it's the lack of choice that is the problem not requirements per se.
I 100% agree with this. Apple should be allowed to put whatever restrictions they want on apps in the App Store.
The problem is they don't allow apps to come from anywhere else, this is the core of the issue and what everything eventually comes down to.
Make it possible for users to control their own app installation sources on the hardware they own, show them what is happening when they do so, that they are replacing Apple as the source of trust with the developers of the app marketplace or app they are installing, but only do it once, it can't become a nag.
If they do that, then whenever anyone complains about App Store rules Apple can just tell them to do everything themselves instead, no APNS, no convenient installation from a pre-installed App Store, no seal of approval from a partner the user trusts, no free hosting, no infrastructure for app updates, etc.
One reason that I support alternative (non-Apple) app stores, is that it allows differentiation between mediocre and higher-Quality apps.
You can get your clothes from Target or Saks Fifth Avenue. For most folks, Target is fine, but there are people that insist on paying $30 for every pair of skivvies. I think that they should have that choice. If they can afford it, then let them eat cake (for the record, I tend to be a Costco type of guy, but have not regretted occasionally getting something from Saks).
Selfishly, I would like them to allow sideloads, because the App Store approval process has slowed to a crawl, lately, as well as APNS calls. I’m certain that’s because of thousands of AI-generated submissions. I think many of those submitters would much rather avoid the hoops they need to jump through, for the store.
But I doubt that Apple sees things that way. The secondary app stores are likely to make a lot of money, which they would miss.
The more damaging thing, however, is that Apple’s brand image could get corroded, and there’s a very good chance that they could be strongarmed into supporting side-loaded crapplets. I’m a bit cynical on this, myself. I feel that Apple has been doing a great job of damaging their own brand, in the past few years. I feel as if the quality of their internal engineering has declined precipitously.
I think the answer is that if you want non-Apple app stores... get a non-Apple phone. For whatever reason, a great deal of people prefer to live inside Apple's walled garden.
> if you want non-Apple app stores... get a non-Apple phone
And you will get 20 times telemetry as a bonus: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26639261
> I’m a bit cynical on this, myself. I feel that Apple has been doing a great job of damaging their own brand, in the past few years. I feel as if the quality of their internal engineering has declined precipitously.
Agreed. The quality of Apples own software has declined, as has the outcome of app reviews, there's never been as much crap on the App Store as there is today.
And obviously Apple wants to "have their cake and eat it too", who doesn't? I'm just saying that this is the reason why they're being dragged to court now, because they aren't "playing fair" when they're acting as both store operator and store participant in multiple segments, and are acting as gatekeepers of software for literally hundreds of millions if not billions of devices now (congrats to them).
And if Apple keeps tolerating these declines in quality, they'll lose their advantage over Android, and create space for a third competitor.
There is always a customer experience reason. Every anticompetitive company that has ever existed has benefited from the customer experience of everything being in one place and coming from one company. Unfortunately, "my product benefits from being anticompetitive" is not a valid justification for anticompetitive practices.
I struggle to paint a company with a minority marketshare, after having first mover advantage, as anticompetitive.
That said, their argument that the payment policies disproportionately impact apps trying to create sustainable business models that don’t monetize user data is a compelling one that I very much sympathize with.
I’m a Proton subscriber, but I went through their website, just because I tend to do that for any service that isn’t exclusive to Apple or the App Store. The same is true for Kagi, another privacy focused service I subscribe to. I never thought about it, but maybe that’s my way of avoiding lock-in. If I ever leave iOS at some point, I don’t want to have to cancel and resubscribe to something that could cause a service interruption. I also want to make sure that the subscription is everywhere, not just on my Apple devices, and it’s tied to the email I choose.
Anticompetitive practices don't mean that you have a monopoly. In fact people often get this wrong - having a monopoly is not illegal in and of itself. What's illegal is using one's market position to prevent other companies from being able to compete in a market. Whether that market position is 100% or 10%, what matters is that it's significant enough for you to pressure other companies out of the market.
I'm not a fancy lawyer or some kind of top flight ceo but I feel like "being able to cancel subscriptions" doesn't require a 30% cut off the top for apple.
Also, as a customer, presumably you could choose to use apple's store.
Some vital apps will stop using apple’s store entirely if they could, it’ll proliferate
If we unpack this argument we can precisely pinpoint the issue.
In order for this argument to be true, Apple would need to have market power.
Having market power is the thing that makes tying etc. an antitrust violation.
Because it can be used for more than allowing people to cancel subscriptions. Like charging a 30% margin in a market where it's normally 3%, or excluding apps that compete with Apple software or services, or requiring customers to use a specific combination of hardware, operating system, app store and services, even if the customer only wants one of those things and binding them together then eliminates competition from any company that can't supply all of them. Which are exactly the sort of things that antitrust rules are meant to prevent.
Steam and Android charge a similar 30% fee in their stores.
When I hear about a 3% fee, I think of the interchange fees for a credit card. That doesn’t have the same overhead as hosting the software, handling the updates, managing the front end, reviews, etc. I can only assume that 2-3% of the 30% are going to Visa, as I’m sure Apple is paying interchange fees to process the payments.
30% probably still creates a very healthy margin, which could be trimmed (and has been for companies making less than $1m). But it is right in line with the rest of the industry, at least for the other big players.
> Steam and Android charge a similar 30% fee in their stores.
You are free to install any game you want through any other different service on the same OS where Steam runs.
Steam doesn't say "oh, for every transaction you make in those other stores on the same OS we'll take the 30% commission anyway"
Not sure about steam, but it does not fly for android, since sideloading, and alternative stores has always been an option.
Having the ability to move out acts as a great check against unreasonable rent-seeking.
The difference is on my Android phone, I use F-Droid, and I sideload using Obtainium, and on my Steam Deck, I install Heroic Launcher and install games from GOG.
Proton also offers subscriptions through the Play Store. If the issue is the 30% cut hurting non-ad-funded businesses, shouldn’t this be against all these companies charging 30%, not just Apple? Or not have subscriptions in the Play Store, if Google doesn’t have the same requirements against linking out to other payment options?
The outrage against Apple in this regard has never felt consistently applied based.
You didn't address anything I wrote. The issue is not the 30%, it's the lack of choice. Apple locks businesses into having to support Apple Pay to access the user base of Apple users. Google doesn't do this: apps can be distributed via F-Droid or just downloaded from the net. Steam doesn't do this: you can just run apps you bought years ago, or bought from GOG, even on devices built by Valve.
I'll say the same thing, another way: Apple is the only smartphone manufacturer that forces you to install apps through their services only.
I really despise the analogy with Steam. And this is not the first time I hear it. People somehow fail to understand that the core problem with the App Store is that it is operated by the platform owner.
To bring the analogy in line with the App Store, imagine if: (1) Steam was operated by Microsoft, (2) Microsoft only allowed installation of games on Windows through Steam, and (3) Microsoft disallowed installation of alternate OSes on Microsoft PCs.
> To bring the analogy in line with the App Store, imagine if: (1) Steam was operated by Microsoft, (2) Microsoft only allowed installation of games on Windows through Steam, and (3) Microsoft disallowed installation of alternate OSes on Microsoft PCs.
Not only that, because there are other ways to install an app than Steam, the 30% paid to Steam is paying for promotion within their system. Which is valuable because not all apps are available there, so paying for it makes you more likely to be noticed over someone who distributes for the same platform using an external means.
If an app store is the only way to install apps on a platform then everybody is paying the fee and therefore nobody is getting promoted over anybody else in exchange for it.
So the issue has never been about the 30%, it’s about the closed platform? What if the App Store was free, would people still have an issue, because Apple is controlling the platform and software distribution? If so, why keep going after the 30% fee? It just seems like a convenient headline to use for the attacks.
Valve also makes the Steam Deck. In that case they do own the platform, but if the user wants they can install whatever OS they want… but as designed, and used by most consumers, it’s Valve hardware, running SteamOS from Valve, where people can run games they buy from Steam, Vavle’s game marketplace… where Valve takes 30% of the sales.
The only difference between the Steam Deck and an iPad is that the user can wipe SteamOS off it and use it as a generic system, likely killing most of the reason why they bought the hardware in the first place.
So if the issue is how open the platform is, that seems like an issue for the free market. A lot of people buy Apple stuff because it’s a closed platform that spends a lot of time dialing in the user experience, which is something that often seems lacking on more open platforms, because there are an infinite number of edge cases to cover. If customers want the closed platform, forcing it open end up reducing customer choice, as the closed, tightly knit, ecosystem option no longer exists.
Apple’s business model has also historically been about selling hardware to run their software. “People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.” Forcing them into a Microsoft-style business model is a fundamental change to their core business. There should be room in the market for different ideas. Microsoft, Apple, and Google all have very different business models which serve different types of customers. This is a good thing. I wish there was room for more business models to let the little guy move up, but forcing Apple to be Microsoft, Google, or whomever else doesn’t seem like a win, and it has little to do with the 30% App Store fee.
> So the issue has never been about the 30%, it’s about the closed platform?
No, the issue is that they have both a 30% cut of every software sale and a closed platform. Steam has a 30% cut, but not a closed platform, hence the bad analogy.
Not sure why you're bringing the Steam Deck into this discussion. Is the only way to play Steam games via Deck? No, so it's completely irrelevant.
> Is the only way to play Steam games via Deck? No, so it's completely irrelevant.
Apple has more open platforms as well, macOS.
Paying through Apple is also not the only way to pay for Proton. I'm a Proton subscriber, and have an iPhone. I paid for Proton through their website and Apple didn't see a dime, but I still use Proton Mail on my iPhone.
Let me summarize why Apple’s iOS is not even in the same planet as Valve’s Steam:
Apple sells a device (iPhone) whose OS it controls (iOS) that is so ubiquitous to the point where most businesses cannot afford to not have a presence on this OS/platform.
But in order to have a presence, businesses must list their app on the App Store. There is no other natively supported mechanism available to allow your users to interact with your business. And absolutely no sideloading is allowed. Apple charges businesses a 30% tax to use the App Store.
The cherry on top is that you as a business are also completely disallowed from accepting payment that doesn’t adhere to this tax. Not just that, but even indirectly linking to such payment mechanisms from within your app is disallowed.
Not going to engage any further here because I have made my points.
So you're saying Apple's artificial stronghold is the only reason why apps are using it. Isnt that super-duper bad look on them?
It is one thing to say "listen, people are using our product even though there's another choice" but it is another to say "if we give them a choice, nobody will use us"
i think there are a lot of folks who would be willing to have a 27% discount (allow for ~3% card processing fee) and forego those features.
if apple was saying you had to support their payment processor alongside others (so you could opt into paying +27% and getting easy cancellations), that would be one thing, but they don't allow you to have any other options available in the app, which i think is where the anticompetitive complaints start to feel more valid.
> i think there are a lot of folks who would be willing to have a 27% discount (allow for ~3% card processing fee) and forego those features.
This makes sense because companies are used to making 70%, so obviously when given the choice to make 30% more overnight they will simply lower prices to avoid having to deal with all that extra revenue
Unlike phone platforms, phone apps are a fairly competitive market, and competitive markets have low margins.
Which means that if you remove 30% of revenue as a cost, one of two things happens. Either the price comes down because the suppliers who lower their price get more business, or the customers aren't very price sensitive in which case developers who use the additional money to improve their apps get more of the market and then users get better apps.
Either of those is better for the customer than having the money go into a megacorp's money bin and have them use it for competition-reducing M&A or unrelated empire-building projects or just have them add it to their cash mountain and have the customer paying that money in exchange for nothing.
> This makes sense because companies are used to making 70%,
I would love to live in the world you're living in where companies have 70% margin on $5 apps and $10/month subscriptions. And where they ever had those margins.
I agree, I would also love to in a world where “revenue” means “profit”
It's the other way around. The app devs select the nominal price and offer it on platforms that don't take the massive cut - on their website, for example. And when Apple forces them to give up 30% of their revenue, they instead raise the price and pass the extra cost to the consumers.
That is bad enough. But here comes the infuriating part. Many app devs don't want their customers to pay extra. But Apple forbids them from providing an alternative payment interface or even informing the customers that such an option exists. And the icing on the cake is that Apple used to forbid the app developers from even providing an alternative, until the courts forced their hand. Is this an anticompetitive practice or just plain extortion?
But if you ask Apple or their fanbase, they would say that it takes resources to review and host the apps. But that rings hollow when you consider all the other ways in which Apple wrings both app developers and customers dry. Then perhaps allow the users to sideload the apps? Oh no! That will break Apple's perfect safety record. How about just making it slightly hard instead? No! The user must be protected at all costs, including by holding them hostage! At this point, I'm convinced that either Apple is astroturfing, or the fans suffer from an extreme form of Stockholm syndrome, or both.
I feel like that could still be accomplished by allowing multiple payment backends, and charging them a reasonable fee to integrate (to cover the cost of development/maintenance of the APIs and whatever overhead to account for dealing with abuse/fraud).
It should be possible to open up the “Cancel Subscription” feature/button to apps using other payment providers. Maybe even keep that in as a requirement for all payment providers?
Should be possible.
In reality, everyone other than Apple has created as much friction as possible in the cancellation process. With Apple, I simply subscribe and then immediately go and unsubscribe.
I partly agree with you - but then you as a consumer should also be willing to expect variable pricing in such cases. If I as a developer offer a subscription for $10, and Apple demands $3 from it, while other payment providers only want $1 or $2 commissions, I should be able to tell you (the consumer) this information transparently and should be able to give you the options to choose between these different payment service providers. (Note that while you, as a paying customer, are an important part of the ecosystem, we developers too add value to the platform by developing apps that people like you want to use. That Apple seeks to exploit both you and me, should piss you off too. After all, one of us has to absorb the higher cost of Apple's services, and that often ends up being you, the consumer.)
It would be one thing to say "you must offer our payment method as an option to users". It's another to say "our payment method must be the only option you offer to users". Just the former would be enough to cover your use case.
Perhaps then there should be a subscription API, so Apple could make the nice "see all your subscriptions in one place" UI? Or maybe banks could better offer this as part of online banking for credit cards. Not sure the right place to put this.
Anyhow I do see your point that narrowing user options can lead to better UX - if you actually like all the tradeoffs they make. The problem is if you don't, your SoL. And in this case the trade-off is Apple taking a giant extra cut so... I think it's reasonable that folks don't like that trade-off.
Indian banks already allow this for some payment methods.
I think that is better solved with regulations, but I'm not from the US.
Indeed, but the US is violently opposed to enacting the ones required, so now what?
> There are other options out there.
This isn't about the a consumer's right to buy a different phone. It's about a business's right to do business with customers without Apple in the middle. And it's specifically about Apple's monopoly power over those businesses. No government is going to accept that some company, Apple, gets that kind of control.
Let's consider cars (or vehicles in general) as another mainstream example of completely vertically integrated products which comprise hardware and – now – software.
Toyota Motor Corp., Volkswagen Group (multiple brands), Hyundai Motor Group, GM and Stellantis N.V. are the top 5 largest automakers in the world whose annual output is comparable with that of largest smartphone makers, including Apple (with the adjustment of the scale).
None of the automakers allow anyone outside the vertical(s) they have built to gain a foothold in the verticals. This includes: replacement parts, mandated regular service at an official, brand-certified dealership as the condition of the warranty (for new vehicles), software updates only from the vehicle manufacturer, probably something else. No outsiders are allowed under any circumstances – if one misses a regular service at an official dealership before the warranty period has lapsed, the warranty is automatically voided. Some even extend to chipped/cracked windshields that, if replaced, will void the vehicle warranty, even though there is nothing special about a windshield today.
Vehicle manufacturers are by all definitions stagegate keepers, and they impose expensive services upon their product users without giving them an alternative.
Why are governments allowing this to happen?[0]
[0] I know that it is because of safety regulations as the manufacturer will claim that they can only guarantee the safety of its own vehicle if it has original parts, but let's pretend for a moment that it is not an issue.
At least some of your points are not allowed in the EU. Manufacturers have to provide the manuals on what constitutes a "proper" service or inspection to independent service places and have to accept their work in their warranty requirements.
Pretty much none of what you mention is true. There's a huge ecosystem of 3rd party mechanics, replacement parts, services and maintenance for used cars.
Even a cursory glance at the world around you quickly proves that what you wrote it just utter crock.
There is no need to respond if you can't hold a civilised discourse and choose to descend into directed insults instead.
One can't install a Ford made shock absorber on a Honda Civic and vice versa. The time of interchangeable spare parts came to an end some time in 1980-90's where the car manufacturers started actively embracing the vertical integration. If somebody makes compatible, third party parts, it is mostly for a small selection of performance and sports cars and is not mainstream. I just replaced the chipped and cracked windshield last week, and I had to wait for 2 months for the replacement to arrive because only the original glass existed out there, with no cheap Chinese alternatives being available – they don't exist, either.
And I had a continuous problem with spare parts for my previous 20 years old car that was more than 10 years out of production, and the car manufacturer stopping making them after 10 years. Lucky for me it was just zero problems, but lately wear and tear turned every other annual safety inspection into a 1-2 week long wait with the mechanic trying to hunt something down. The last time they just gave up and fudged it.
My new car comes with a non-negotiable condition of first five years of regular service getting done at an authorised dealership as a condition of the car warranty. If I were to do it elsewhere, the warranty would lapse automatically. After the end of the warranty, I can take my car wherever I want.
No, you can't install your own or 3rd party software in a modern car, either. This is well known and is indisputable.
So all of that rings true.
so then i should be able to use any ink in my printer then...
> so then i should be able to use any ink in my printer then...
Well, yes.
I routinely buy printer toner and ink from companies that are not my printer's manufacturer. Where did you get the idea that it isn't possible to do so?
> Where did you get the idea that it isn't possible to do so?
Not op, but the various "must use our genuine brand printer cartridges!" schemes that printer manufacturers have used over the past, oh, 2 decades might have something to do with it?
edit to clarify: I mean the cartridges with their own chips that HP et al. tried to make happen a while back
Don't forget about the refrigerators with chips in the water filter cartridges. And the barcoded coffee pods. And ...
https://gizmodo.com/hp-printers-drm-update-block-third-party...
Didn't realize HP was still up to those tricks. I've used Brother for a while and no issues with 3p ink/toner.
You absolutely can. Just google for your “<printer name> compatible cartridges” , and you’ll find tons that are cheaper and work just fine with your printer.
I would be cautious of saying "just fine"; third-party cartridges you buy from the first search result on Amazon are generally junk, and it takes quite a bit of research now to find one that will work acceptably.
You can jailbreak your phone too
Can you? I'd love to see a jailbreak for anything more recent that 5y ago.
For the ink, I just buy it elsewhere online.
Are there only two printer manufacturers in the world ? Do they set a 30% tax on when you wish to print a page from a website ?
Yes, you absolutely should be able to, and printer companies should not be allowed to try and stop it.
Exactly. People talk all the time about "third party applications", but Apple is the "third party" in these transactions.
> If a company invests billions in R&D to create hardware and its integrated software, shouldn’t it have the right to control who or what interacts with it? Why should I be forced to open up the carefully designed ecosystem I’ve built?
Once a company becomes massive enough and displays properties of a monopoly, the rules of free commerce change
(that being said, I agree that Apple largely provides users with a high-quality product)
If a company sells me a hardware and software package, that hardware and software is no longer the property of that company once I have exchanged my money for it.
That’s really the crux of the issue. If I must abide by arbitrary rules to use the package at its full functionality, then I didn’t gain ownership of it, did I?
Can't Apple say in this case "I'm selling you this package under the condition that you accept you don't fully own it, and if you're not happy with that, don't buy it".
I don't like this hypothetical (or maybe real) argument from Apple, but can't answer it either.
Update; well, here's the answer to that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44427725
Because you can't sign away your rights no matter how much some people wish it were true.
It doesn't matter if your gym includes a clause in their contract stating that they are not liable, even through their neglect. If they cause harm through neglect then they are liable.
No, the point is that we should not allow such contractual arrangements. You buy the software, you should own it. Regulations are often required to enforce this.
I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say that we shouldn't allow that sort of contract at all, but it should be considered fraudulent to call it selling or what the customer does buying. If you're only offering limited right of use subject to conditions and restrictions, then you're offering something else entirely. And the limitations should be required to be clearly conveyed before money is exchanged.
It's important to note that we do have contracts like that already. They're called equipment leases.
But those types of contracts also have obligations on the seller, which is why Apple and similar companies don't want to have to treat their equipment that way and would rather call it "selling" with an asterisk.
Well yeah, they can and do say that.
My stance and others that align with me are that ownership in trade is an inalienable right and their statement should be challenged.
Well, I guess you’d argue that if the ecosystem is so big that it has a social-scale impact, then it should be subject to the whims of society. One such whim is adoption of capitalism as economic policy and a following belief in preserving the free markets that enforce the competition that is required.
Why do we oppress any freedom? When doing so protects the society we are trying to build.
> If a company invests billions in R&D to create hardware and its integrated software, shouldn’t it have the right to control who or what interacts with it?
You're asking a rhetorical question without providing any argument for why the answer should be yes, which makes it pretty easy to just answer the question with the word no.
> Why should I be forced to open up the carefully designed ecosystem I’ve built?
The premise of this question is that they have the right to interfere with how other people choose to interact with each other.
Meanwhile the premise of the government-granted copyright monopoly they've used to build their lock-in system is that you build something and in exchange you can charge money for it. Leveraging that into control over markets external to the one you developed is a thing that should be expressly prohibited.
> If a company invests billions in R&D to create hardware and its integrated software, shouldn’t it have the right to control who or what interacts with it?
Do you think the same about printer ink?
Regardless, we need to look at the law - and interoperability has a long history of legal support. Patents protect the product itself, but allow interoperable products. Trade secrets product the product from theft but not reverse engineering.
Even the DMCA has explicit carve-outs for interoperability, though that doesn't stop copyright-abusers from trying to wield it (and sometimes winning due to the money game).
There has been absolutely no legal precedent about those DMCA carve-outs and previous cases that could have rested on them (eg Nintendo vs Yuzu) shouldn’t leave anyone optimistic about their strength.
> shouldn’t it have the right to control who or what interacts with it?
In their own machines they can do whatever they want.
Once they sell it to you, not anymore.
Are you legally prevented from controlling your device in any way you wish after purchase?
I think people are conflating ease of modification from legally being able to do so. If it's legal, then Apple retains no control over the device.
> Are you legally prevented from controlling your device
The bar isnt whether it is legal or not. You know that no company can create laws, and either you're saying it out of ignorance, or willful ignorance.
When Walmart drives away mom and pop shops, and dominate a certain town and then hikes the prices for groceries, you cant say "but it isnt illegal to go buy groceries from elsewhere, what did we - Walmart - do wrong?"
Say it with me - monopoly rules are about consumer choice.
This analogy makes no sense because you are not prevented in any way from purchasing the many other devices that provide almost identical functionality. It's like complaining that Walmart hiked their prices but ignoring the fact that the mom and pop stores still exist, at a higher number compared to walmarts, and are selling the same products for cheaper. You have incredible consumer choice for phones, you can't chose to purchase a luxury phone and then complain about it.
It has absolutely zero to do with your choice to purchase a different device. It has everything to do with hundreds of thousands of companies' right to do business with customers without Apple in the middle.
What right does a company have to piggyback off of another company?
Like think about this logically? Should a grocery store be forced to sell my products without receiving any of the profit? Can I force a cafe to let me serve customers on their premises without giving anything in return?
> What right does a company have to piggyback off of another company?
Apple has no right to piggybacking off of another company's business. Therefore the 30% must go.
They aren't piggybacking, they provide the infrastructure, marketplace, and platform.
They explicitly prevent other companies from providing this infrastructure, marketplace and platform. Apple don't offer this stuff as a favour to developers, they demand that developers use it and prevent them from using anything else. Apple aren't some Good Samaritan providing a centralised set of services out of the goodness of their hearts, they are forcing companies to pay an exorbitant fee to be able to play in their garden, and they make billions of dollars in profit from this.
Compare Apple with Steam (who also provide the infrastructure, marketplace and platform). Steam don't force developers to use their services. They're still successful, but you can get almost every game on Steam from somewhere else. This is what I'd ideally like Apple to do. It wouldn't make any difference to me, as I haven't owned or developed for Apple devices in many decades, but it would make a huge difference to many developers, and many device owners. I doubt it will actually make that much difference to Apple's profits, but it would make a difference to the rapidly declining good will they have in the developer community, and increasingly in their customers.
Apple is forcing companies and users to use this infrastructure, so this is indeed Apple piggybacking and putting its hands where it shouldn't.
They're not piggybacking off another company if they use alternative distribution networks.
Should the construction company that built the grocery store be able to take a cut off grocery profits and have a say in what the store is selling?
Depends on the contract between the grocery store and the construction company.
Also depends on legislation. If the government says "fuck you" to the construction company, it has to comply.
I don't think a construction company, much less one that has a near-monopoly in a market, should be able to set insane terms like that.
You're wrong. It's like complaining that Walmart hiked their prices after they drove away all Mom and Pop stores.
> I think it's perfectly fine to prevent you from having this
Yes I can, legally and morally.
The mom and pop stores in this analogy are the multitude of devices which are not produced by Apple and provide the same features, like Android phones and phones which are trivial to flash your own custom OS and software on. So no, your analogy does not support your conclusions.
It is not about devices, but rather about mobile OSs. There are only two really viable ones for practical use.
And one gives you the control you want over your device ie. sideloading and alternative app stores right? So why not simply purchase devices that use that operating system?
Because I have other interests and preferences when purchasing a device.
You agree with ATT that they should never have been forced to allow other people to plug their phones in?
You can always just build your own phone network if you don't like it!
You are on the wrong side of history.
You state it is trivial to use Android as an alternative.
How is the data checkout working on iOS to migrate to Android?
If every other teenager only uses the iMessage app, it does prevent you to purchase any other device since you'll be excluded otherwise.
Are sick people legally prevented from becoming healthy again? Are homeless people legally prevented from having a home? Are starving people legally prevented from eating?
I'm sick of people writing off entire classes of problems because "well, it's not illegal". The law doesn't matter until you're actually in court. What matters is practicalities. There are many rights that are impractical to use and there are many laws that are unenforced. Some problems could be solved by law, others probably not. The law is a solution, not a problem. Focus on problems, not solutions.
I don't see how the legality question is relevant here. My country is not forbidding me from exercising my ownership rights. This "are you prevented by law" question is fallacious, it implies that Apple can do no wrong, since it can't create laws.
What Apple is taking away is practical control for owners of a class of device that has become essential to my practical participation in society.
I actually desire my country to intervene and change laws forcing Apple give me that control.
Maybe if the iPhone was the only phone available to purchase this argument has merit. But it's not, there are no shortage of other phones that provide the same features which are "essential to (your) practical participation in society)". If anything, you are attempting to remove my ability to purchase a device I want to own. And I don't really like that.
There are only two viable phone OSs and both have problems.
"Vote with your wallet" is a BS argument in such a duopoly, because people care about other stuff.
There are many phones which let you flash your own OS and use with complete control. Please just purchase one of those and stop trying to interfere with my ability to purchase a phone that I want.
No.
In my opinion it is perfectly fine for society to order a company to hypothetically limit you on this minor thing (and let's be frank: this is super minor), because opening up iOS would benefit companies, countries, economies and other users of phones.
Who are you to claim that my consumer desires are irrelevant?
Your consumer desire ... to impose your own arbitrary wishes on other consumers? Apple opening up their platform would not preclude them from offering users an optional setting that continued to impose the current restrictions. Therefore it does not interfere with your own use of the platform. You have no standing here so to speak.
Compared to major interests of "companies, countries, economies and other users of phones", this is inarguably small.
Especially in the light of the only real complaint being that "there is a possibility of loss of security".
The difference is that the choice to purchase devices that offer the freedom you want is available, if not the primary option. I don't wish to take that away from you. However you are advocating for the only choice for a locked down device be legislated out of existence. There is a fundamental difference here!
Feel free to lock down your device. Stick to the Apple Store. You have that freedom. The rest of us want our freedom too.
You're right. I wish to take this away from you. To me this is completely fine, morally, philosophically and legally, and a lot of people seem to agree with me.
> a lot of people seem to agree with me
Apple have over a billion iPhones out there I believe, and your phrasing of "it's all of us vs just you" is really inappropriate - both from an argumentation perspective and probably a fact perspective too.
This phrasing is not the good representation of what I mean at all.
And the fact that people have iPhones doesn't invalidate my assertion, also it doesn't affect my right to an opinion.
> also it doesn't affect my right to an opinion
No-one's saying you don't have a right to an opinion. Everyone has that right. It's bad faith to try and misrepresent what the person you're talking to is saying.
I didn't say or imply that you suggested otherwise, I was merely making a statement.
> No-one's saying you don't have a right to an opinion
Someone said to me “Who are you to claim that my consumer desires are irrelevant?” so you’re wrong.
> However you are advocating for the only choice for a locked down device be legislated out of existence
Why would you make up something like this? What's the benefit to you?
Lol.
It's legitimately easier to just buy a UMPC with an LTE card and use VOIP than do that. That's how bad the situation is at this point.
I say this as someone who gets paid to work on open source and used PostMarketOS on my primary cell phone for years. Even technical people really only have two options right now.
Out of genuine curiosity since you mentioned UMPCs, what would be a good UMPC with LTE module support? I've looked into things like the various GPD Pocket devices, but I'm wondering if any of the other alternatives are any good.
And of course, recommendations for LTE modules would be appreciated. Ideally built in, but external modules are also good, all they really need is linux support.
> If anything, you are attempting to remove my ability to purchase a device I want to own.
What about we meet in the middle and governments force Apple to only open 50% of the phones, for the same price. Would that satisfy you?
No, because that requires the development and maintenance of two different operating systems, the cost of which is then passed to the consumer (me).
In this case I hope you have sympathy when I state that I dislike when Apple charges 30% on transactions (but also apps), because this cost is also passed to the consumer: me.
And I 100% guarantee that the piece of this 30% pie is way bigger than the effort it would require them to divert their development like you're suggesting.
EDIT: Oh, and I also bet their lawyer bill for fighting this is bigger than that too. :)
Not really, you can chose to purchase other devices with more favourable payment agreements. It's about having that choice, versus not having the ability to purchase a device with a higher level of security.
No. I prefer to contribute to companies and causes trying to make Apple to be forced to open up. I am 100% ok with limiting your choice.
And if the argument has become about security, as others have said, Jailbreak has repeatedly relied on security issues, so the security problems have always been there.
I dont think anyone is arguing you shouldn't be allowed to pay 1000% markups on payment processing to Apple if you'd like to.
But making the argument that Apple is the only company to solve secure payments on the internet is silly.
You've been tricked into thinking that Apple phones are higher security because Apple has taken away your freedom. Apple's ecosystem is neither necessary nor sufficient to provide you with security.
Google has been trying to do the same with Android.
On one side it's called jailbreaking, on the other it's called rooting. It's really the same thing you're fighting against.
I think people see phones like Android, they like the things they can do with it but like the iPhone better and want Apple to do it with iPhone.
In the most respectful tone possible, I think if you read the article in its entirety you would get your answer. Laws are needed to keep in check powerful and influential companies so they don't take advantage. Your "devil's advocate" position is questioning 'why should consumers and those who create content for the ecosystem be treated fairly within the ecosystem a company built.' If you don't see an issue with taking advantage of people within the boundary of where you have influence/control, then perhaps let me frame it another way. Your "devil's advocate" position is essentially 'I've built a successful company, therefore I should be allowed to take advantage of the employees inside my company. While they are here, they are forced to endure. If they don't like it, they can go work for the only other employeer'
> shouldn’t it have the right to control who or what interacts with it?
If they wanted that right they shouldn't have sold the computer.
Sssh. Coming soon: "Leases, by Apple"
The law is complicated, its a living thing, and we're living through one of the nastier episodes of its capture in living memory. So who knows there. Its also breaking sharply on this issue in what was once a fairly high-compatibility regime of US/EU common-ish values.
So then we get to like, why do we have laws, what's the goal? And this is where you get down to brass tacks. Almost everyone will agree on three basis vectors in principle:
- aggregate prosperity - broad prosperity and security from want - individual liberty
You've got to grind through a bunch of thought on a spectrum ranging from Das Capital to Atlas Shrugged to make it really tight, but it sort of simplifies down to: pick two. Put differently, for a given raw capability and Gini-like target, you get to allocate so much liberty to which people: if you don't impose punitive taxes on wealth, it centralizes and calcifies into fungibility. Rich people buy laws. This is a super linear process.
So then it becomes about:
- would I want to be rich if it was part of a system that engineers avoidable want
- if yes, could I realistically make it into the rich group
For me the answer to one is no, and so I think we should re-impose the punitive taxes and regulations that break the backs of rich people and megacorps.
But on HN a common if not typical answer to #1 is yes, and so my appeal is: be realistic, you already missed.
>pick two
And if you pick wrong, you get nothing.
>Rich people buy laws.
A totalitarian government does not need to buy laws. Imposing punitive taxes on wealth - it's like express line to what you want to avoid with it.
Breaking the backs of rich people and megacorporations or not, is not a choice about your chances of being wealthy, it is a choice about will you die from starvation or not.
People choose not to break the backs of megacorporations because they don't want to starve to death in totalitarian regimes, not because they hope to get a corporation of their own some day.
Look at marginal tax brackets at the top from WW2 to the present and say that again with a straight face.
Real wages and purchasing power at the median are so strongly correlated with 90℅ income tax at the top that the causality digression is a waste of time we don't have. Unchecked executive power via a lockstep legislative apparatus and meek courts is not some unprecedented thing, its a totally predictable response to privatizing the commons and selling it off to oligarchs.
It was a fucking disaster in Russia in 1992 and its shaping up no better here now.
Conficistory taxes at the top work, they keep real assets broadly distributed throughout society which gives everyone a stake in democratic institutions which creates stability and growth. That's recent, robustly researched history.
> There are other options out there.
That's the catch-22, said ecosystem is what they want to use because it's considered "secure", but it's only considered secure because it's closed.
It's the same with all the other stuff like frequent locations, photos, etc. It's a walled garden yes, but one that protects your data from bad actors (like Meta heisting whatever they can get their grubby little hands on), and the price is that you can't let others into your garden, or it's no longer walled.
This continues to be a wild take. People aren't demanding that the app store host every application someone submits, they're asking for apple not to take a cut of things other people sell their own customers.
Also, facebook can already be a "bad actor" right now, they just have to pay apple their 30%.
> People aren't demanding that the app store host every application someone submits, they're asking for apple not to take a cut of things other people sell their own customers
There are two scenarios to this (probably more)
1) A developer wants to use a 3rd party app store to distribute their apps, using 3rd party payment solutions. This is fine, it puts no load on Apple. That's what we've had in EU for a year or more, and truth be told, nobody uses 3rd party app stores. It's a desire that exists because vendors don't want to pay Apple 30%, users have no desire for it.
2) Which leads to the second scenario, where developers will want to publish their apps on the App Store, because that's where the users are, but still use 3rd party payment solutions, meaning Apple essentially hosts their apps for free.
Even after a year in EU, there are literally no users (and not many 3rd party app stores): AltStore has about 1.5 million users, Epic Games Store has about 29 million users across iOS and Android, so best case they're all iOS users, or worst case it's less than half. There are 450 million people living in the EU.
The Apple App Store is overwhelmingly dominant in EU, despite there being a free choice. So, which scenario do you think is most likely ? 1 or 2 ? The store where nobody shops, or the store where the users are, and developers wants to live rent free ?
> Also, facebook can already be a "bad actor" right now
Facebook, and later Meta has been involved in several "controversies" over the past decade or so, too many to be an accident.
In 2015-2018, people discovered that the Facebook app on Android had been collecting call logs and SMS metadata, presumably to help you connect with people you know, but it was being done without your consent.
in 2016-2020, there were rumors that Facebook listened on conversations using the iOS and Android microphones for use with targeted ads. Nothing was proved, but it was verified in 2019 that Facebook kept the camera active on iOS while you browsed the feed.
The Onavo VPN 2013-2019 (later Facebook Research) app collected various stuff like App usage stats, Web browsing, private messages and network activity on both iOS and Android, until the App was removed from Play Store and App Store in 2019.
Facebook also tracks your location, despite you disallowing this, by using background access, Photo EXIF data, and WiFi//bluetooth beacon.
All of the above were default on, without any informed consent, and the behavior of Meta (and others) are a large part of why both iOS and Android have severely hardened their cross application data access.
> Why should I be forced to open up the carefully designed ecosystem I’ve built?
I think general purpose computing devices should be open.
This is a moralistic argument, putting legal and business reasons to the side.
Go ahead and lock down specific purpose computing devices, like ATMs, fridge, mouse firmware.
The practice of setting up fiefdoms to become the landlord is an abhorrent practice.
> Go ahead and lock down specific purpose computing devices, like ATMs, fridge, mouse firmware.
There are at least a few grey areas of such a carve-out that I'd like to ask about, but I wonder if it's even necessary. What if there simply weren't any exceptions?
The ATM would still be locked down - the owner would possess the keys. Business as usual.
The fridge and mouse either wouldn't be locked down or the keys might be physically present somewhere on them. Probably either neutral or a win for the consumer depending on the specific circumstances.
Something like a fridge should either be running a proper OS (and thus fully under the control of the user) or else shouldn't be connected to the network in the first place. Unpatchable proprietary network connected black boxes expected to have a service life of well over a decade are a recipe for disaster after all.
That's just an argument in favour of monopolization. Monopolization kills innovation and hurts the market. Companies are not individuals that should be allowed to do whatever they want just because they have already invested in R&D, thats a nonsensical argument. That's like saying that car companies don't have to put seatbelts in cars because they already invested in R&D for building the car. It doesn't matter what a company have or haven't done! Rules exists for creating a better society.
> Why should I be forced to open up the carefully designed ecosystem I’ve built?
Because not doing so harms the market and society (the article details how). Governments do not exist solely to enforce contracts and property rights. Ideals (e.g. "a man is entitled to the sweat of his brow") are valuable guides, and worth bearing even significant costs to keep, but they are not to be followed blindly, at any cost.
> There are other options out there.
Law and politics (should) step in when "voting with your feet/wallet" fails. You also ignore Apple's middle-man role - consumers can choose (among the very few) different options, but companies serving Apple's captured market cannot.
>Governments do not exist solely to enforce contracts and property rights.
And it's a shame
>Law and politics (should) step in when "voting with your feet/wallet" fails.
No, they shouldn't. Such stepping in is always vulnerable for abuse and always leads to results worse than original failing
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Apple has not just created integrated HW/SW to sell as a product, with the AppStore they created a closed market within that product that only Apple controls.
They invite others to sell on that market, but made themselves gatekeeper and simultaneously a player there, controlling the rules of that market in its favor.
Market forces are unable to flow freely, to the point that it affects the "parent" market (in which the iPhone/iPad competes with others) as well as other markets (where other Hardware and Services are sold).
Their closed market reached a significant size now, so it should be reasonable to step in and ensure fair competition also there.
But thanks to those layers of abstraction, billions of dollar in lobbying and marketing, there is always room to argue that ensuring that free market is unjust, hinders innovation, restricts Apple from competing, etc.
> If a company invests billions in R&D to create hardware and its integrated software, shouldn’t it have the right to control who or what interacts with it?
Was that not the sort of rationale Microsoft used to defend its IE shenanigans back in the day?
It was considered to be a violation of antitrust laws then. I don't think Apple would be off the hook now. Especially considering how much more ubiquitous smartphones are in comparison to web browsers back then.
Microsoft had >90% of the desktop computer market share back then. Apple has <30% of the smartphone market share now.
While I am not a specialist on the matter, I don't think Antitrust regulations have anything to do with market share.
It's whether you are engaging in anticompetitive behavior or not.
Market share is a commmon practical enabler of anti-competitive behavior. It’s leverage.
Well, wenare talking about what is essentially a duopoly in the smartphone market. Apple has enough market presence for their anticompetitive behavior to trigger antitrust laws, especially considering that smartphones are inevitable in current times.
It is complicated, but I think the big thing is that Apple is huge. Not a monopoly, but your may miss >50% of your potential revenue if you take the "other option" of not supporting the Apple ecosystem.
But in this case, I still think Apple has a point. It is not a lawsuit so that consumers can truly own their device, it is not about opening bootloaders and things like that. It is just about not paying the 30% tax to Apple. And while not an Apple fan myself, I understand the appeal of Apple controlling the ecosystem, and paying 30% more for it is not a big deal. By simply buying an Apple device, you show that you are ready to pay a premium for this, so paying a premium for software too seems fitting.
Proton has a point regarding ads though, but it can be seen the other way: maybe Apple should control the ad delivery service too and take its cut too. If Apple does it right, it could actually be a good thing for privacy.
I repeat that it is not what I want, I like being able to do what I want with my hardware, but I see the value in what Apple offers. In this case, let the courts decide.
>Not a monopoly
People get hung up on absolute 100% pure monopolies and how nothing meets that criterion. Monopoly power is a much better way of looking at things. Controlling 100% of a market with insurmountable barrier to entry of course grants a heaping pile of monopoly power, but any company that can influence the market price has some. Generally the higher the market share, the more monopoly power. UK monopoly regulation starts taking a closer look at companies once they have 25% market share.
Lots of responses here but none of them mention the Hollywood story!
Thomas Edison and Company invented a patent system that separated their inventions from being able to be accessed by indie movie makers, and indie producers. Their lawyers would effectively shut down any such movements. This caused them to go all the way to Los Angeles because it was the furthest from New York and they built a movie studio on poverty row that later became the capital of Hollywood movie making.
Once Hollywood became financially strong enough, the lawyers were sent over to shut it down, but the court sided with Hollywood and killed all of the patents because the courts thought that they had abused the pattern system to only benefit a few, what I would like to call the cartel.
The cartel were chosen movie makers, and producers, who had access to the movie making stuff and cameras and equipment by which they would share a percentage of the revenue of the movie production and the theater income with Thomas Edison and Company. Effectively they had what Apple has currently.
If you sell me a computer and I don't have a shell on it that's false advertising at best. Doing this en mass with the goal of actually changing people's behavior is even worse IMO. We don't have a word for it because it's not something that could be done before now. Microsoft tried with Windows and IE but the technology at the time meant they couldn't really lock people out of their own devices the way Apple does.
> If you sell me a computer and I don't have a shell on it that's false advertising at best
I believe that's why they're calling it "a phone", or "a tablet". The computer they actually sell has plenty of shells available, and lets you tinker with whatever you like.
A phone is not simply a computer, it's a regulated piece of hardware that must comply with local laws and regulations regarding radio transmissions and other stuff. You can't just peek and poke around anywhere you like in the system.
Besides that, it must be able to talk to carefully tuned 3G/4G/5G cell towers, which sounds easy in theory, but it's not. When I made mobile phones 20 years ago, we had people driving around all countries where we sold it, with a test setup where the phone connected to every cell tower it could "see", and recorded logs and GPS coordinates, and that work (and that of countless others) is partially what became the beginning of A-GPS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_GNSS), which allows you to triangulate your phones location purely from the cell towers it can see.
Of course that's not how it works today, as most carriers these days register their cell towers in a central database with GPS coordinates, so A-GPS these days is simply a database dump (and a whole lot of math).
As a "fun" anecdote, when I wrote software for mobile phones, it was the only place I've ever worked that had a bug category for "potential harm to user". I'm certain companies working in Medicare and other critical industries also has that, but it was the first and only time I ever saw it.
Lol. If phones were actually considered critical devices like this implies Android would have been nuked from orbit.
No. They're computers with a modem peripheral. This is like saying once you plugged your e machine into the phone line it could interfere with 911 calls so they need to be regulated by the FCC. We settled that one over 50 years ago.
Let me put it another way.
Besides the FDA (and similar international counterparts), you're also using your phone for a bunch of other stuff that you probably don't want anyone having root access to. Wallets are one, banking apps, medical data and devices, password managers, and more.
If you have root access, that means that the apps can also get it, after all the app providing root access is itself an app.
Don't tell me what I want.
Yes I have my bitcoin-qt wallet, Etrade, my ssh keys, and my password manager on a machine I also have root on. I don't run non-free code on it (and I'm very picky about the open source code I do run.) Also just because I have root access doesn't mean I'm running all my apps as root. That's in insane statement to make. I run administrative tools as root and that's it.
The same thing is happening on your phone, you're just not allowed access to those tools, instead various other companies are and when they do things you don't like your options are: throw out your device and data, or bend over and take it.
Again at the end of the day a computer is a computer regardless of you being administratively locked out of yours.
> shouldn’t it have the right to control who or what interacts with it?
Yes, except when they use that control to stifle competition. Competition is good, so we want to promote it.
That is sort of the basis for all anti trust law, to my layman’s understanding at least.
> shouldn’t it have the right to control who or what interacts with it?
I suppose you have the legal right to do whatever you're able to up until people notice the problems you're causing and pass laws against it (or enforce existing ones, as is being attempted here).
Why should it be legally permissible to "sell" general purpose computing devices that are locked by the manufacturer or vendor? How does such behavior benefit society? Aren't locked down, effectively unauditable devices anathema to a free and open society? Isn't the current situation evidence enough that their existence is damaging to the concept of a free market?
Competition law exists for a reason, and it doesn't matter how much Apple invested, it's not negating that reason.
If anything, it's the opposite - the bigger Apple is, the worse is the damage they cause.
>If a company invests billions in R&D to create hardware and its integrated software, shouldn’t it have the right to control who or what interacts with it?
Of course not. Companies exist only because it is useful to have that sort of legal entity. They should be regulated to ensure that they remain more useful than harmful to society.
It doesn't stop at Apple's ecosystem. It also allows Apple to regulate the choices and privacy of the people and companies using their products. There's hardware, software, and there is data. Trying to control other people's data and taking away their freedom of choice regarding their data and services used is the issue.
I don't own any Apple product, but I do admire occasionally how Apple tries to uphold the quality and security of their ecosystem, even as I principally disagree with the walled garden approach. I certainly hope Apple aspires to keep the quality of their hardware and software high. They should however never control user data or choice of third party services.
> I certainly hope Apple aspires to keep the quality of their hardware and software high. They should however never control user data or choice of third party services.
These two things are often at odds with each other. If people bought into the Apple ecosystem because of the walled garden, the regulators want to rip down those walls and turn it into a fundamentally different product. Bad 3rd party experiences can break the illusion of the perfect walled garden, which is why Apple has many of its rules. Though, I’d say that illusion has already been broken for many, due to a bunch of apps with timed ad pop-ups and other such nonsense. I won’t allow any of that on my phone, but most people do.
I’ve read articles from developers that say they offer options on iOS to go ad-free, while similar options don’t exist on Android for the same app, since not enough people do it and they can make more on ads (I believe I read this from the Angry Birds devs years ago). I would find this unacceptable as a user. I don’t think this is a rule from Apple, but rather differences in the types of users that gravitate to the various platforms; or maybe it’s simply comfort and trust in Apple to process all the payments. I think it should be a rule that any app with ads has the ability to remove them for a price. For smaller apps, I would have a lot less comfort doing this if it didn’t go through Apple (or some similarly large company). I would be very sad if the monkey paw from this lawsuit was that I end up with apps full of ads that I can’t remove, or don’t feel safe removing. This would fly in the face of Proton’s goals as well.
There is also the registration side of things. Today, I can get an app without an account for it, buy it, delete it, and if I re-download it, I can restore that purchase. Going through the developer means yet another account to manage, track, and entrusting another 3rd party.
I paid $30 a couple weeks ago for lifetime access to the “pro” version of an app I’ve been using. I don’t think I would have done that if I would have had to make an account and all that. It would be too much friction and I don’t know enough about the dev. So the dev got $21-25 from me, instead of the alternative, which would have been 0. And that’s what starts the downward spiral toward ads everywhere, which degrades the whole experience.
I don't see people making the same arguments about Steam, Microsoft, Nintendo, etc, etc. Why is Apple special here? Other companies make stores that deliver application and developers don't get to tell them what to do. That's fine apparently, just not for Apple.
> I don't see people making the same arguments about Steam, Microsoft, Nintendo, etc, etc. Why is Apple special here?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp._v_European_Com...
BTW, I wonder have they paid that €860 million in the end - and how can I check this.
> Other companies make stores that deliver application and developers don't get to tell them what to do.
AFAIK Microsoft users can install software not using Microsoft store, however it is called.
Not on the Xbox
right, it may be applicable there
sorry for forgetting, I have never used or seen Xbox
Maybe the reason is that the number of Apple users is an order of magnitude higher? Plus, they control both hardware and software. Apple is making very consumer-oriented products, and this comes with it's own downside of having to handle billions of users.
Steam has a near total monopoly on PC gaming and has an equivalent cut.
You are not required to use Steam to buy games on any device (even on the Steam Deck it's trivial to install games from other sources). It has big market power because gamers actually like it and actively choose it over alternatives (often even those that come pre-installed with the platform, the Windows store and the XBox app). It does not prevent devs from selling their games on multiple stores. It's dominant position for sure has market effects, but its a lot harder to argue it has the position for any nefarious or abusive reasons. (Although there are some lawsuits ongoing claiming that they did threaten devs over pricing, if those succeed it might change things)
Oh hey I wasn't aware of that lawsuit and (IMO) that's really good news. My only real concern with steam as a platform was the off-platform pricing clause.
I figured it was likely unenforceable if a studio simply released a "steam edition" or whatever artificial version differentiation, but at the same time they can always refuse to do business with you for any reason (or no reason even). So at that point the clause feels like them making a blatant threat.
People usually mix up things: The clear clause in their ToS is about selling Steam keys. A dev on Steam can generate Steam keys and sell them wherever they want, and Steam does not take a cut on those. For those, there is an explicit clause that says that you need to match the pricing on Steam.
For just selling the game elsewhere, there is no such clause, and there are games that e.g. are cheaper on Epic and explicitly say that's because Epic takes lower fees. But there are also devs claiming that Valve pressured them in private to not do that, and that's what the lawsuit is about.
Steam is not making basically impossible to install games on PC in other ways, unlike Apple does for their devices.
Steam is not even controlling PCs as their fief so they cannot do this even if they would want to do it.
Rubbish. I literally bought a SteamDeck and installed Heroic on it and installed games from GOG just fine. Valve literally helps me do this by giving me desktop mode. I can't think of any analogy that is farther from Apple's attitude.
I can put regular Arch on SteamDeck I can't on iPhone
Surveillance of citizens. Governments are trying to set up digital gulags, and they are first of all putting pressure on the companies that will provide them with the technical part.
No the US Sherman anti trust law prohibit monopolies. Its not a corporate right but right by citizens not to be affected by monopoly by rule of law or until tried.
"The Sherman Act broadly prohibits 1) anticompetitive agreements and 2) unilateral conduct that monopolizes or attempts to monopolize the relevant market. " source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act
> If a company invests billions in R&D to create hardware and its integrated software, shouldn’t it have the right to control who or what interacts with it? Why should I be forced to open up the carefully designed ecosystem I’ve built?
Because once I buy your phone/tablet/whatever, it stops being yours and starts being mine, so I should be in charge of what software it can run from then on.
Any argument in this vein must also apply to the Mac. The hardware is mostly the same. The OS is mostly the same. The native apps and services are identical, as is the security story. So why should the Mac not be locked down if the iPhone is? Put another way, what prevents Apple from using the exact same reasoning to lock down my Mac in the future, perhaps under pressure from authoritarian governments? After all, the technology (notarization) is already in place and is actively being abused for iOS app review in the EU.
Think about this for physical objects. If I bought your hardware, then decided to paint it bright pink in celebration of the fact that I like pink, but you don't like the color pink, should you be able to tell me not to paint it pink? I bought it, it's mine, so I can do just that. Why then, for digital objects, does that not follow?
You're not forced to do anything. There are no criminal outcomes of any anticompetitive legislation.
For companies, there are civil outcomes. This may be undesirable if you have a large financial interest in the company, but it's a tradeoff for the same legislative body allowing you to create a shield from personal liability and taxation.
If you are able to create an ecosystem on your own, do what you like with it.
> shouldn’t it have the right to control who or what interacts with it?
Does the manufacturer of your refrigerator have the right to control what food you're allowed to put into it? If not, why do you have different standards for computing devices? Why did it ever become okay for Apple to decide what you do with your device after they've sold it to you?
Why would any of these factors outweigh their dominant position in the market and the value of market competition?
Why wouldn't they?
Apple isn't dominant in the market worldwide (Android is), and they are competing against Android. Apple often implements things Android did first. That's how competition works.
Apple's global marketshare is 30% or just under.
30% is a pretty big chunk of a market. There is no reason we have to wait until a company has 99% of the market to address anticompetitive behavior.
Samsung is sitting at 28% of the Western European market share with their Android phones. Should we be worried about anti competitive behavior there as well ?
If Samsung is using their market position to stifle competitors, then by all means yes.
Explain stifle, or more specifically how Apple is doing that ?
Anybody (possibly except Epic Games) can develop and publish on the App Store. There's a cost associated with it, which in Apples case is 30% (or whatever you negotiate apparently). If you play by the rules, you can keep doing that as long as you like.
If you rent a shop in a shopping mall, there will be costs associated with that as well, and it's almost guaranteed to be more than 30%.
That is essentially what Apple is providing for those 30%, they provide a shopping mall where you can expose your goods, and people can pay for them. They handle the pesky stuff like refunds, (international) taxes, compliance with various government requirements, EU rules, and everything else. They even handle potential lawsuits for you (provided your app wasn't the one breaking laws).
They also vet (mostly automated) apps to ensure they're not using private APIs. That is for your protection. It's not an evil scheme by Apple to keep competitors out, it's for protecting the end user from bad actors like Meta scooping up all your personal data for "backup purposes" via some internal API.
Here in Europe we've had "alternative app stores" for a year or so, and despite living in a country where ~70% of the population uses iPhones, I don't know a single person that has ever used an alternative App Store, just like I don't actually know anybody that has downloaded an alternative keyboard despite those being available for a decade or more.
There is really very little you cannot do on the App Store in terms of features, so for many end users it is not a problem.
You may not like the price associated with it, which is what most of these complaints are about, the fact that Apple scoops up 30% of recurring subscriptions created through the App Store as well. People tend to forget that running your own infrastructure is also not free, especially when you need to handle refunds, legal matters and international compliance.
And that's the core of the problem, most of these companies complaining wants to use Apples built in App Store tools, but they want to direct them to their own App Store for free, ditching the complicated stuff of dealing with users on Apple. They're more than happy with Apple to handle payments and refunds if they do it for free.
Sideloading is usually a very bad idea in this day and age. In northern europe at least, your phone is quickly becoming your most trusted device in matters concerning anything state or municipality, and here we have a national ID app on our phones, along with social security, healthcare, drivers license, micro payments, taxes, childcare, hell, there's even video conferencing with your GP, in an app that has access to your medical records, including bloodwork and various scans. There's literally no way in hell I'm trading the perfectly walled garden for the Wild West outside.
Anecdotally, where I live, most companies don't allow Android phones as company phones as they're considered insecure, and instead mandate iPhones. The more regulated the industry (medical, banking, power, etc), the more certain it is that you'll be getting an iPhone.
> Explain stifle, or more specifically how Apple is doing that ?
I wrote a comment about that here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44426128#44427725
> You may not like the price associated with it, which is what most of these complaints are about, the fact that Apple scoops up 30% of recurring subscriptions created through the App Store as well. People tend to forget that running your own infrastructure is also not free, especially when you need to handle refunds, legal matters and international compliance.
Simply having a link in my app to a page where someone pays through Stripe instead of through Apple Payments, costs nothing to Apple and creates no obligation for Apple to do anything.
> Sideloading is usually a very bad idea in this day and age.
Then don't do it. Who exactly is forcing you to?
> Then don't do it. Who exactly is forcing you to?
The problem is, when the option exists it opens up an attack vector that I need to defend against, as it will surely be exploited by malware at some point, downloading an app when you visit some scam site, and boom you're now infected.
> Simply having a link in my app to a page where someone pays through Stripe instead of through Apple Payments,
But it hardly stifles competition, except alternative payment methods ?
> costs nothing to Apple and creates no obligation for Apple to do anything.
The problem is, when stuff breaks, people will contact Apple support. Yes, one call is negligible, but Apple has 2.2 billion users, and it all adds up.
Provided you provide your app for free and charge subscriptions, that also has a cost to apple, as they're providing downloads for your app (again, potentially 2.2. billion of them), as well as any legal troubles (app contents excluded).
I guess Apple could enforce a alternate subscription model where they require you to charge for your app and they take their 30% cut off of that, and lets you use whatever payment provider you like for recurring payments.
It would of course either cut into sales, as people aren't as likely to buy an app and then subscribe to it, though something with "first month free" could probably lure some people in. Alternatively a developer would have to develop a free app, and if people want to have the full experience they'd have to purchase the full version.
Except, developers don't want that. They want to be able to give away their app and sell subscriptions, and they expect Apple to foot the bill for the infrastructure required to provide downloads.
> The problem is, when the option exists it opens up an attack vector that I need to defend against, as it will surely be exploited by malware at some point, downloading an app when you visit some scam site, and boom you're now infected.
This makes no sense. There is no "boom". You can't accidentally do it. There are a series of very deliberate steps, with numerous warning signs. Even on Android I have to specifically enable an option to even be able to install apps from alternate sources, and it is a separate permission per source, and this option can be locked down on a managed device (e.g. a work phone).
By your logic, there should be no web browsers on iOS, since someone might visit a scam website and give away all their money.
> They want to be able to give away their app and sell subscriptions, and they expect Apple to foot the bill for the infrastructure required to provide downloads.
Nobody expects that. What the EU wants is, simply let another app store compete. That new app store will host the downloads.
You keep shedding tears for the costs to Apple's infrastructure, yet as I keep repeating - what many developers really want is to NOT use Apple's infrastructure. NOT use Apple's payment processor. If the problem is that we're being a burden to Apple, well then I'm in full agreement with you, let's stop doing that!
> The problem is, when the option exists it opens up an attack vector that I need to defend against, as it will surely be exploited by malware at some point, downloading an app when you visit some scam site, and boom you're now infected.
This is completely fabricated. I've been using Android for more than 15 years, and this has never happened, ever. Nothing even close to it. To be clear, you're advocating to take away people's freedom to install software of their choosing in order to mitigate a hypothetical security problem. It's not a good trade.
Kaspersky detected more than 1.1 million malicious APKs for android in 2024 [^1]
As per Apple, they rejected 2 million app submissions in 2024 [^2]
So from a birds eye perspective there doesn't appear to be much difference, with iOS even taking the lead, but the key difference is that Kaspersky is not Google, and can only detect malicious software after it has been published. Apple has rejected app submissions over privacy issues, meaning those 2 million apps never made it to the public.
According to Zimperium Global Mobile Threat report [^3], 25% of Android devices have sideloaded apps, and 20% are malware infected (correlatoin is not causation, yet). Zimperium telemetry also reveals that 38% of detected malware attacks could be tracked to sideloaded apps [^4].
So no, it is certainly not some fabricated threat, but a very realistic and probably threat scenario. I'm also not trying to take away anybodys freedom, you're free to install whatever you want, but you don't need root access to do it. Very few use cases on a phone requires the user to have root access.
[^1] : https://securelist.com/mobile-threat-report-2024/115494/
[^2] : https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/05/the-app-store-prevent...
[^3] : https://lp.zimperium.com/hubfs/Reports/2025%20Global%20Mobil...
[^4] : https://zimperium.com/blog/the-hidden-risks-of-sideloading-a...
iOS has functionality for remote control that is commonly used for security and group policies in large organisations. This is a more likely threat vector, as is rogue state affiliated actors like the infamous israeli malware purveyors.
In any case, generally the threat against most people is fraud, not some technical minutiae.
> Sideloading is usually a very bad idea in this day and age.
There is nothing wrong with sideloading applications. Protection against malicious applications is taken care of by the OS through sandboxing and a granular permission model. Malware scanning and app signing also have no dependency on the App Store.
Really all you are missing out on is the App Store review process, which is not worth much from a security perspective anyways.
> Sideloading is usually a very bad idea in this day and age
You've been tricked into thinking that you're not qualified to select software to run on devices you purchase. I wouldn't hand over control of your digital life to Apple so readily.
Of course
Why does Apple's global marketshare matter when the suit is being brought to US courts where Apple holds the majority of the market
Because companies compete globally, not just locally?
Apple isn't building features to compete with Samsung only in the US. It's a global dynamic. Local competition is restricted to tiny subsets of features.
And it's only 57-42 for Apple in the US anyways. If it were 90-10 then sure. But 57-42 is what you get with strong competition. Having a majority doesn't mean there's a lack of competition. It just means one company is currently ahead, as one of them usually will be when there are two main players.
Companies may be global, but individual consumers are not. Anti-trust is about consumer harm. So that's why local markets matter.
Sure if you're an ISP where you're the only choice in a neighborhood.
But I don't see much that's local about Apple vs. Samsung. It's the same phones for sale in the US or in Thailand. Literally as one-size-fits-all global as you can get.
> It's the same phones for sale in the US or in Thailand.
They actually aren't. US iPhones no longer have SIM card slots. Most international phones don't support the same radio bands that US carriers use. This used to be a bigger issue with CDMA, but still an issue with the many 4G/5G bands and VoLTE. That'll be most Xiaomi and Oppo phones in the US. And there's Huawei phones that are banned and not allowed on US carriers; so it makes zero sense to include them into any marketshare calculations for a US consumer.
So even an iPhone 16 Pro has different models: A3293 (International) A3083 (USA) A3292 (Middle East, Canada, Mexico) and A3294 (China, Hong Kong). The A3293 and the A3294 do not support T-mobile's 5G band 71. This isn't uncommon, and Samsung will do similar international vs US models. Samsung is even worse sometimes, having completely different CPUs between regions.
And of course there's software differences too. Chinese iPhones can disable internet permissions for individual apps but not anyone else for some reason. Google Pixel's Gemini isn't available in EU countries. Apple Intelligence did similarly at launch.
While local marketshare isn't the perfect indicator, it's definitely better than using global marketshare.
Apple has around 60% market share. The US does not have global jurisdiction.
Competitive markets have enough similar suppliers that they are forced to adapt to customers instead of the other way around.
This happens to be incompatible with capitalism due to phenomena like the tendency of the rate of profit to fall and fascism (as well as other corporativist ideologies). Capitalism survives and reproduces through monopolies and oligopolies, i.e. undemocratic forms of rent seeking and price cartels.
Now imagine that instead of an iPad, you've just bought a new house with fantastic materials and an integrated software system. Should the company that built it have the right to control how and who interacts with your house?
To an extent, yes.
It's one thing to design and built an iKettle in such a way that every aspect from the water filter to the power cord is well thought out but propitiatory. It's another to refuse to plug in to another "inferior" socket because that cuts into your cut of propitiatory cable sales.
If their stuff is so superior, then people will see that and prefer it. They wouldn't need to make it impossible or deliberately painful to use competitors services.
No, people should not be able to control other people.
>> shouldn’t it have the right to control who or what interacts with it?
Apple can. They can retain ownership of "their" devices. Instead of selling electronics, they can rent iPhones and iPads to users and thereby retain all control over how/when/if they are used. But good luck pitching that to consumers.
Ah finally someone coming to the rescue of criminally underrepresented multi-billion dollar companies and their inevitable tactics of building monopolies, because how else do you 10% revenue growth every year. I hear Shell is also in need of some help, maybe you can find a thread on them? /s
But seriously though: why do people argue that „investing money“ leads to „I can do whatever the hell I want to my client base“? Even if this argument were to hold for all future customers, companies change their TOS all the time. Can I ask for all my money that I paid them back, to exit their ecosystem?..
You pays your money and you makes your choice
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Living in the US, I trust Apple with securing my communications (I don't have high security needs). I don't exactly trust third party developers. So, three no need for me to use something outside of Apple's apps, unless its something that don't provide. If these apps could prove they were better, id consider them, but all these lawsuits just sound like inferior products trying to force themselves onto a platform they should be on.
> We believe that Apple’s conduct, as detailed in the complaint we filed, constitutes further violations of US antitrust law.
It's not a question of what you like, it's a question of antitrust laws. You can disagree with them of course, but it is their right to sue Apple if they think Apple is breaking laws.
This is exactly what it is. They're trying to force Apple to design an inferior (imo) product so they can make more money.
But isnt Apple forcing an inferior product (Subscriptions API) to make more money themselves (and serving copious amounts of kool-aid for people to drink up?).
Lets be honest here - Netflix, Spotify et al are perfectly capable of running their on subscription business. They dont NEED Apple's crappy payment provider, and yet are forced to use it.
As a user you should be enraged, but here we are.
I am not sure why I am commenting here but proton, please can you give up an api to your drive (particularly) docs and the fact that now we can have anonymous writes and reads if the document is shared properly can genuinely create an interesting stack for blogs with comment engines and the potential is basically limitless.
I think I haven't asked them but I was just trying to do it and I am so frustrated the best I have got is that there is a way to get a curl command with proper cookies etc. to get text written in the comments section but that text is (rightfully) encrypted and I don't know how to decrypt it... I am not sure.
A really dead simple api or library would be.. wonderful. I wish proton could also go like cloudflare except way way more private and could have some proton s3 or proton workers or something tbh.
What remedies is proton mail seeking exactly?
last few pages: https://res.cloudinary.com/dbulfrlrz/images/v1751299117/wp-p...
REQUESTED INJUNCTIVE RELIEF
To remedy Apple’s unlawful unreasonable restraints of trade, monopolization, attemptedmonopolization, and unfair competition, Plaintiff requests that the Court enter injunctive relief,including but not limited to the following:
(a) Enjoin Apple from conditioning any payment, revenue share, or access toany Apple product or service on an agreement by an app developer to launch an app first orexclusively on the Apple App Store;
(b) Enjoin Apple from conditioning any payment, revenue share, or access toany Apple product or service on an agreement by an app developer not to launch a version of theapp with enhanced or differentiated features on a third-party iOS app distribution platform orstore;
(c) Enjoin Apple from conditioning any payment, revenue share, or access toany Apple product or service on an agreement with an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM)or carrier not to preinstall an iOS app distribution platform or store other than the Apple AppStore;
(d) Require Apple to provide rival iOS app stores with access to the App Storecatalog to ensure interoperability and to facilitate consumer choice;
(e) Require Apple to permit the distribution of rival iOS app stores through theApple App Store on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms;
(f) Enjoin Apple from requiring developers to use Apple’s IAP system as acondition of offering subscriptions, digital goods, or other IAPs;
(g) Require that third-party application developers be given functionality andaccess to iOS application programming interfaces on terms no worse than the terms Apple allowsfor its first-party applications;
(h) Require Apple to allow developers to fully disable Apple’s IAP system;
...
among other things
> (c) Enjoin Apple from conditioning any payment, revenue share, or access toany Apple product or service on an agreement with an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM)or carrier not to preinstall an iOS app distribution platform or store other than the Apple AppStore
Let carriers pre-load apps and app stores on Apple's products? That's insane.
> (d) Require Apple to provide rival iOS app stores with access to the App Storecatalog to ensure interoperability and to facilitate consumer choice;
Wait, what? They want access to Apple's App Store catalog? Also never going to happen.
> (g) Require that third-party application developers be given functionality and access to iOS application programming interfaces on terms no worse than the terms Apple allows for its first-party applications;
As sympathetic as I am to this notion, I'm not sure how it's reasonably achievable. Putting aside the burden of every SPI having to be supported, documented, public API, it would also mean opening up all security-sensitive SPI to the world.
The point I found myself resonating with a lot is:
>Apple’s App Store policies disproportionately favor the surveillance capitalism business model employed by companies like Meta and Google and therefore entrench an online business model that routinely violates consumers’ personal privacy.
Spot on.
I was curious about the suit by proton because I'm a user until I read authoritarian this democracy that . Proton wants us to believe that corporations should be above nation states and national interests. If country X deems a certain App as a security risk, it is not the work of apple or some vague state department funded organization to protest .
Proton is explicitly suggesting that a company can choose to help a government with an authoritarian agenda, so they agree with you that a company has no obligation to protest. They make no assertions as to whether corporations should be above nation states but they do wear their politics on their sleeve (that authoritarianism should be opposed).
Their point is that they, as a separate company, can choose to object and attempt to offer products to help people evade authoritarianism and that Apple shouldn't be able to interfere with that in the US market in ways that they do. Obviously in the market of the authoritarian regime they can interfere, but that has no bearing to a US court.
Mozilla should join it too, Apple banned Firefox in iOS for decades.
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Can we have links to the actual class action? Case number?
It is linked at the bottom of the article.
https://res.cloudinary.com/dbulfrlrz/images/v1751299117/wp-p...
Oh thank you, I totally missed it. Hyperlinking sentences or the nouns or phrases themselves seems to have mostly gone out of style in these sorts of posts these days.
I stand with proton.
I'm so tired of lawsuits and "market competition" regulating these companies. Just nationalize or regulate them already.
Apple and Proton are two companies that I personally like, but the claim that the internet descended into surveillance capitalism because of the walled garden approach of the App Store is an argument in bad faith. Even if Apple allowed other app stores or payment methods, that would not have stopped Facebook and Google from capitalizing on user data to sell ads and manipulate public opinion. They would give their product away for free and spy on their users anyway.
I never really understood the monopolistic argument against Apple. In the first place, there are very clear legal criteria that define what a monopoly is and what anti-competitive behaviors are, and it’s not even the case that majority of the world runs on iOS. It is actually Android that is the most popular OS globally by a wide margin, though the split is somewhat equal in the US.
But the core of my contention is that: if you make the platform that others run on and which creates entirely new economies and allows businesses to thrive, don’t you get to define the constraints that you want since it’s _your_ platform? What’s effectively happening here is that companies are using the courts to force the design of OSes in a certain way: That only open OSes can ever be made, not closed ones.
Note that the businesses who are lobbying against Apple are operating on the very same capitalist, profit-optimizing interests that drove Apple to choose a walled-garden approach. They are not doing this to make the world a better place, and the vast majority of smartphone users do not even care about this “issue”.
> But the core of my contention is that: if you make the platform that others run on and which creates entirely new economies and allows businesses to thrive, don’t you get to define the constraints that you want since it’s _your_ platform? What’s effectively happening here is that companies are using the courts to force the design of OSes in a certain way: That only open OSes can ever be made, not closed ones.
Huh, the __user__ paid for the product, so they own it. After the user handed over their money, Apple has nothing to say about who I do business with on that product, or what the conditions are.
You can say "platform" as much as you like, but that's just Apple's way of forcing their way into the argument.
Someone has to make the platform. If they want recognition for that or compensation, maybe they should apply for government funding. Don't bother the consumer with it.
And if you don't like a government regulating a market, then you haven't seen a company regulate one.
> Huh, the __user__ paid for the product, so they own it. After the user handed over their money, Apple has nothing to say about who I do business with on that product, or what the conditions are.
But this is already the case. You own the device, you can do whatever you want with it (legally ofc). If I buy a fridge without a freezer, the fact that I can't freeze food with it doesn't mean I don't own the fridge.
Furthermore I don't appreciate other companies using the legal system to profit by forcing Apple to design their products in a specific way.
If you pay for a product and it is tied to a vendor, then you should be able to completely break all ties with that vendor and switch to a different service provider, and still be able to use the product as advertised.
Otherwise you don't own the product.
This basic premise doesn't hold for Apple products.
And by the way, I think consumer rights are more important than rights of companies to do whatever they want.
To give an idea on how much this holds true: I have an old iphone lying around somewhere. It's a perfectly functioning device (barring the battery), I have a cable for it and everything. I wanted to use it as an audio player - plug an AUX cable in it, play some tunes. It's a good way to reuse older phones.
Except I can't activate the fucking thing. It demands a SIM card. Trying to activate or reset it on PC just has iTunes spit out a generic failure message. Apparently it can't contact some activation server.
I have a perfectly usable iPhone. Apple decided on its own that it's a brick now. It's irrevocably tied to the vendor.
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> Aww, does it hurt when your favorite multi-trillion dollar company is taken to court?
Please don't sneer or mock like this on HN. It's not what HN is for and it destroys what it is for. Please read the guidelines and make an effort to observe them in future.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
It does hurt when I can no longer purchase a product that I want because other corporations wish to use the legal system to make more money, yes.
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This is a needlessly escalatory and inflammatory comment, and the kind of comment that's out of line on HN. It's fine to disagree and counter someone else's comment, but not by breaking the guidelines like this.
This seems like a bad faith argument. But if you're being serious, I can buy non-nike shoes in the same way you can buy non-Apple phones. If anything, the people complaining about Apple would be upset by the lawsuit because they want to buy an iPhone despite other options being available. And in that case, the alternatives are cheaper not more expensive in the case of ethically made shoes.
When the analogy obscures more than it reveals, it ceases to be a reasoning aid, and becomes a red herring.
Your freezer doesn't ask for 30% of every grocery you buy and doesn't forbid you from storing a broccoli in it just because the broccoli company didn't pay the tax to the fridge maker.
Every time you make those comparisons it becomes much clearer just how much of an overreach and danger to market capitalism Apples behaviour is.
The user can hack the product, install a different OS, Strike it with a hammer, or throw it away. Apple hasn't violated their rights in any way. Sure hacking it or installing a different OS are hard but rights are not meant to guarantee something is easy. I never bought the argument that user rights should dictate how a product hardware or software should be manufactured.
> I never bought the argument that user rights should dictate how a product hardware or software should be manufactured
Probably you meant it differently, but guaranties and warranties exist exactly due to this. Users have right to expect their device performs as advertised and in a reasonable manner.
I think those are more about ensuring that the user is buying what they think they are buying. They don't dictate exactly what is sold they merely offer protection to the user that what they bought is what was on the tin.
> I never bought the argument that user rights should dictate how a product hardware or software should be manufactured.
How do you feel about user rights (of wheelchair users) dictating how a product hardware (such as public property and public and private spaces and structures open to the general public) should be manufactured (to include wheelchair ramps and and other amenities such as elevators and accessible restrooms)?
In some philosophical views, rights are meant to guarantee that things are easy. You can see that exact dynamic play out in US states regarding voter ID laws.
Perhaps, but I disagree with those views.
> But the core of my contention is that: if you make the platform that others run on and which creates entirely new economies and allows businesses to thrive, don’t you get to define the constraints that you want since it’s _your_ platform?
This question has already been asked to the United States Court of Appeals, and the answer was "no"[1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
It's only no in certain instances. Try and apply that ruling to Brother or Ford or in fact, MS itself.
When your platform becomes a dominant market it becomes a market and markets are regulated to prevent market abuse, this is what's happening now.
And while Facebook and Google would still be hoarding data, there are a huge amount of games and apps I'd rather pay 5 for that are now ad-fueled invasive crapps and "pay to remove ads" costs 15 instead of 5.
When a significant percentage of the population uses your products and services, expect regulators to prevent you from abusing that significant group.
The capitalism idea that "markets solve all issues" only works when it's regulated so market players play on even-ish odds and the players don't have control of the market. (And even then it doesn't seem to work for public utilities really).
The naive idea that "Apple makes the product let them decide" would fly well for a device with millions of units, but billions is 1000x more and it comes with responsibility, sometimes the responsibility comes late because regulators are slow bureaucrats.
"With power comes responsibility" used to be a thing, now it's "With power responsibility might knock on your doorstep eventually if you abuse it to an extreme level like imposing a third of all REVENUE transacted through their forced store"
Companies should not be regulated just because they are successful. Apple built a really successful app platform. It's theirs to maintain or burn to the ground.
I didn't double check this, but according to a quick search 60% of the adult US population owns an iPhone, you're saying that even though you're operating where more than 50% of your target market has your products you should not be held accountable for predatory behavior?
The thing with this 30% tax the private company Apple imposes on a majority of US adults is reasonable?
When you're "competing" with the government (30% tax sounds pretty government like to a Swede, we have 25% VAT) the government will get involved because you're operating a "shadow government" eventually (you set all the rules and set the tax rate, you're now a government).
Supporting Apple here is unreasonable, sure they should be able to take a margin on the app store, but not allowing other stores OR allowing external payment methods to be advertised is definitely predatory behavior and the government already has a monopoly on that.
And the "core fee" response was entirely unreasonable, it is unreasonably expensive. If Apple were operating like Sony on the Playstation where the console is a loss leader for much of it's lifetime then you ofc deserve a cut from developers since you enable them to build profitable games for your platform which markets the game for you and stuff. But Apple makes a profit of iPhones, they make a profit on iCloud, they make profit on App Store... They make a profit everywhere. It's predatory and I don't know how to agree with them here.
>held accountable for predatory behavior?
Apple is held accountable by people choosing not to use their device. If iPhone is too expensive for the value it provides people won't use them.
>The thing with this 30% tax the private company Apple imposes on a majority of US adults is reasonable?
By this logic grocery stores have been applying a 30+% tax to all of America since the country was founded.
>but not allowing other stores OR allowing external payment methods to be advertised is definitely predatory behavior
Again comparing to a grocery store I think it is fair for them to prohibit unauthorized sellers to sell within their premises. This is a standard because it can undermine the business model of the business.
>But Apple makes a profit of iPhones, they make a profit on iCloud, they make profit on App Store... They make a profit everywhere.
And that's why Apple is worth 3 trillion and Sony isn't. Apple has created a successful business with large profit margins that people are willing to pay. It's not predatory if people are willing to pay for it.
It might not seem predatory to the end user, but to all developers who want to access these people it's another thing. They can't deliver a mobile app to 60% of Americans without going through Apples little LARP government where they set the tax to 30% and arbitrary rules they see fit to increase their profits.
And in the end that affects the end users because more things become useless adfilled crap because it's more profitable, and everything is more expensive.
I don't even get how you're comparing grocery stores (which do NOT have a 30% profit, maybe 4-6) to Apple passively making 30% off anyone who wants access to "modern day people". Grocery stores don't scale like virtual markets, when you buy something you cost the store money, when i buy whatever through App Store it costs Apple virtually nothing and they make 30% because they like it.
Obviously regulators seem to agree with me and at the end of the day they make the rules, and I agree with the regulators in this case and I don't think many people think what Apple is doing is good and appreciate it. People are forced into the iOS ecosystem because that's what everyone uses in some profitable parts of the world too.
>to all developers who want to access these people it's another thing
Developers don't have a right to access other business's customers. If you want to sell jewelry you don't have a right to have your jewelry put into a nation wide jewelry store chain to be able to access most Americans. Customer relationships are a vary valuable asset of a business.
>passively making 30%
It's only passive if you ignore the billions of dollars they dumped into building the ecosystem and growing a customer base that they can monetize to developers.
It seems we're unable to find common ground. Many governments are pushing back and in the end they're the ones who decide and they don't like Apple taxing everything 30%.
Do you also prefer lightning over USB-C?
I'm neutral on lightning. I don't know much about hardware so I have not formed a true opinion on them.
Apple has no choice, now. Their shareholders demand one thing - squeeze money from an audience with no alternative.
If the iPhone's App Store has competition, equivalent to how MacOS already works in America, then Apple has to choose between maintenance or abandonment. In the status quo, Apple is enabled to neglect their platform and users while almost singularly harming developers.
> But the core of my contention is that: if you make the platform that others run on and which creates entirely new economies and allows businesses to thrive, don’t you get to define the constraints that you want since it’s _your_ platform?
Not if you effectively have a monopoly. If there were plenty of (relevant) other app stores, Apple wouldn't be able to tax 30% on every app. The only reason they can is that developers don't have a choice: there are far too many Apple users to ignore, and the only way to sell them an app is through the Apple Store.
I find the platform should be separate from the device. Google Play is a platform, but the device can run whatever. iPhones, the platform is the device, unnecessarily.
> if you make the platform that others run on and which creates entirely new economies and allows businesses to thrive, don’t you get to define the constraints that you want since it’s _your_ platform?
Intuitively, this feels right to me, but I think that in this case my intuition fails, because I think of this "right" from the perspective of a person. "They made that thing, it's theirs, they have the right to decide what to do with it."
I don't think the same right applies to a company, though. Especially one so big that it has a significant impact on society, and so big that it's entirely driven by the incentives of capitalism (and not, for example, by a founder's ideals).
In this context I see companies as amoral automata whose only goal is maximizing profits, regardless of the wider consequences of their actions. This seems to produce very good results for the societies in which these companies operate, but it also comes with some side effects. By putting constraints on what companies can do, we can reap most of the benefits and avoid most of the side effects.
</couch-economist>
> the claim that the internet descended into surveillance capitalism because of the walled garden approach of the App Store
I did not read this claim. I read the claim that Apple's approach unevenly benefits companies that engage in surveillance capitalism. No one's ad revenue, for instance, must pay a 30% cut of their revenue.
You are making an argument (and then arguing against it) that Proton did not make, as far as I can read.
> if you make the platform that others run on and which creates entirely new economies and allows businesses to thrive, don’t you get to define the constraints that you want since it’s _your_ platform?
I don't think you do. We constrain what companies are permitted to do all the time. Apple must abide by regulatory constraints first, and then they can add the additional constraints they like.
A simple test -- could Apple say, "Everyone is allowed to use Messages, except Hindus"? It's their platform, don't you get to define the constraints because it's your platform? No, we've collectively decided that kicking some people out based on certain characteristics is generally bad.
Yes, the advertising industry seems like it’s the more relevant institution in this particular case. Apple’s culpability has mostly to do with doing nothing to mitigate the runaway race to the bottom in during the App Store’s earliest days, but that would've happened even if they hadn’t taken the walled garden approach. Surveillance capitalism is the inevitable end state where on the web and in apps, ads are the most readily accessible, consistent, and sometimes lucrative form of monetization.
> Note that the businesses who are lobbying against Apple are operating on the very same capitalist, profit-optimizing interests that drove Apple to choose a walled-garden approach. They are not doing this to make the world a better place, and the vast majority of smartphone users do not even care about this “issue”.
They’re all blatantly self-interested, but Spotify is perhaps the biggest hypocrite among them. They’re continuously bolstering their dominance in the streaming music space at the cost of both users and artists, and when Apple gives them features they’ve asked for they refuse to use them because that’d weaken their case. They only care because if it weren’t for Apple Music they’d for all practical purposes have a monopoly.
every developer knows safari is the new ie6 but we all just shrug and build native apps anyway because what else are you gonna do. leave 50% of your users on the table. classic embrace extend extinguish but in reverse. embrace web standards then purposely not extend them so you can extinguish competition
> every developer knows safari is the new ie6
Every colleague in my company only targets and tests against Chrome because they honestly considers _everything_ and anything Chrome does as the standard.
As a FF user it hurts me because even if Apple and Mozilla has implemented some feature according to spec these people ignore that in favour of the Chrome way of doing things.
Calling Safari the new ie6 is ignorant of reality.
Chrome is the new IE6 if anything. Tons of websites fail to work on safari.
IE6 was stagnant and not standards compliant. Safari at least complies with standards. Chrome is the polar opposite of IE6. Turns out it doesn't really matter what you do, if one party controls too much of any market it's bad news for end users one way or another.
That’s not exactly accurate as standards for new web technologies didn’t exist back when IE6 was dominant. The WHATWG had to be founded and the standards made post facto before IE6 was non-compliant.
Different eras. The "IE6" here is the IE6 in 2009 that stubbornly refused to die.
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Maybe because Safari isnt funded by Apple, and would rather pump that money into extracting rent from App Store?
The few engineers that Safari has are top-top notch, but they wouldnt let them grow the teams and would much rather drag their feet.
Is that so? I develop primarily in Safari and don't have too many complaints.
I also use Safari as my main browser on the Mac. However, for YouTube and dev I go with Chrome atm.
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Even if this were true it doesn't change their argument.
This is simply not true. I've just checked
Paid sub for year and years.
I have no banner or any advertising, at all.
Untrue.
I don't see anything of the sort.
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Isnt that how the system is supposed to work, unless you think Apple would be always benevolent? I think HNers make a mistake (and believe Apple's marketing) that Apple always stands for users, cares about design, pushing the boundary, "think different" etc.
It is painfully obvious, but Apple's singular goal is to make money (profit for shareholders) and THAT IS A GOOD THING. They'll cut corners, test the boundaries in pursuit of that, and sometimes cross over it.
Suing them is the right way to fix those behaviors.
How many spare billions you have for a lawsuit against trillion dollar companies
>Suing them is the right way to fix those behaviors.
Is it really though?
It requires money. Regular people can't to this.
I agree with you that companies are profit-maximising machines. And regulations set the framework into which companies can optimise.
The problem we have with quasi-monopolies is that they have too much power and don't have to care about regulations.
> Suing them is the right way to fix those behaviors.
The problem is that it doesn't work. I am still waiting for Apple or one of the other TooBigTech to get a fine that really, actually hurts. But nobody will do that: the US like monopolies (as long as they are US companies of course) and others (like the EU) don't dare regulating US companies because... well because the US governement won't accept it.
And what if you lose? Or your lawsuit has no real impact?
Different countries have different laws.
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Lots of explicitly anti freedom takes here, not surprising for HN I guess
I detest Apple and would happily switch to a timeline where they never existed.
That said, I do not think this is the way to fight them. Just do not make apps for iPhone, or pass the 30% Apple tax to the Apple fanboys. They enjoy being submissive to walled garden overlords and paying for the privilege, so give them what they want.
These are perfectly valid options. Create value for more open ecosystems if you want to hurt the closed ones.
Yeah, I’d probably pay $1.30 instead of $1 for subscriptions just to have them all in one single view where I can cancel them without jumping through hoops.
what about $130 instead of $100?
Someone who did not want to spend money for an apple logo could choose a $50 Android device and put F-Droid on it for 100% free tracking-free open source apps.
People pay extra to be in walled gardens, presumably because they think it will make them cool. If they -like- pointlessly spending money, let them.
No one needs an iPhone, and there is no monopoly. Just educate consumers on alternatives.
> Earlier today, Proton filed court papers in the US District Court for the Northern District of California to join an existing class-action lawsuit against Apple. Proton is a plaintiff in the case, but we are representing and suing on behalf of a class of similarly situated developers. Challenging one of the most powerful corporations in the history of capitalism is not a decision we make lightly, but Proton has long championed online freedom, privacy, and security, and we believe this action is necessary to ensure the internet of the future lives up to its potential.
Challenging one of the most powerful corporations in history, god I feel so much safer already. Sounds like PR campaign speak. I trust Proton as much as I trust Microsoft.
Are you seriously suggesting that Apple is too big to fail/be questioned/be scrutinized, or worse - can do no wrong?
What is the logic behind everyone wanting Apple to be champion of democracy in authoritarian countries?
In this case they don't seem to be wanting it AT ALL:
"We don’t question Apple’s right to act on behalf of authoritarians for the sake of profit, but Apple’s monopoly over iOS app distribution means it can enforce this perverse policy on all app developers, forcing them to also be complicit"
Ideally we want all companies to be champions again authoritarianism, surely?
Apple can do anything it wants with its software. Just as any person decides who comes into his house, a corporation decides on what terms others can use its software.
The law disagrees with your opinion. And that's a good thing.
Can a person cut your leg off in his house as part of "terms of service"?
If I buy it and fully own it, I should be able to do anything I want with it.
I totally agree and this has always been my problem with the iPad. It’s a great peace of hardware that to this day I can’t fully use for development. I have to resort to _crappy_ solutions like running a VM with code-server and SSH in order to do some work on a device perfectly capable of running stuff on its own, but walled off.
There is a lot I hate about building apps and releasing them on the App Store, and I'd be happy for there to be alternatives. But that said, I don't understand how its a monopoly. There is no requirement to build an app for iOS devices. There are other devices and means for software delivery out there. What makes their control of their own ecosystem monopolistic? As someone who has paid the apple tax for digital sales, it sucks but I'm also choosing to try to capture that market and that's the cost of doing business.
I'm not smart enough to get into the politics of other parts of the world, but just because the EU found something illegal doesn't mean its the basis of a good lawsuit under the US rules. Will be interesting to see how this unfolds.
Monopoly effects can be cascading.
Microsoft was hit with monopoly on browser even though you can install anything or go buy a Mac.
But when you control a huge portion of the PC market, and you put it in by default, you are cascading your monopolistic benefits down to installed software.
Apple does not have complete domination of smartphone across all demographics, but they do have domination in many segments.
For example, it is estimated that around 88% of teenagers have iPhones. Apple makes it very hard to leave their ecosystem because of iMessage, Facetime, and ALL of your digital purchases being tied to their ecosystem. So, what happens when all those teens grow up? Do we really think they will leave Apple ecosystem?
What cascades from that is a long term digital domination strategy, and when you have that only one digital store option, now you have a monopoly argument.
Not at all comparable. Windows had 90%+ of the PC market. Mac was 2-3%.
Apple has about half the phone OS market, with Android the other half.
Maybe in US (which is about 4% of world population). Worldwide, iOS is around 27% [1].
[1] https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/worldwide
Apple also blocks any web browser on their mobile devices except their web browser. Chrome, Firefox, and any other browser on IOS is using Safari under the hood.
Now why would Apple do this? Because they have hobbled Safari so that it does not have modern web APIs which would allow web developers to create web-apps that use APIs that are only allowed on App-store apps on IOS devices.
This forces developers to either make an app for the App-store, or don't have any IOS users.
This is one of many reasons Apple is being sued by the DOJ - because they won't allow any other browser engines on IOS, at least not in the US, the EU slapped them on the wrist and now it's allowed there.
Safari is the current worst web browser in terms of features and bugs, and Apple wants to keep it this way for no better reason but greed. They want to push people to make App-store apps, which they can extract 30% revenue from.
That is anti-competitive, and monopolistic behavior.
Yeah I hadn't thought about the browser being intentionally bad to push actual apps. That's been the reason for about half of the apps that I've made. The next is also somewhat anti-competitive, and its how bad the web services notifications are compared to the app-based notifications.
Their ecosystem is your phone. As long as you cannot install anything on your phone without going through their app store, it's a monopoly
If you define the scope narrow enough, everything is a monopoly.
- You don't need to have an iPhone
- You agree to the letter of the ToS when you click "I Agree" when you set up the iPhone,
- You also already agree to the spirit of the App Store when you buy it. After all, it's not some big secret
- You can get by with webapps for the most part anyway
- You can buy an Android, a flip phone, or pull a power move and have no phone
Buying an iPhone and then demanding that it has to work differently is acting in bad faith IMO.
> Buying an iPhone and then demanding that it has to work
Buying something used to mean something. If you're still beholden by company rules of a product you _bought_, you have been leasing/renting it.
If I buy a house from a builder, and it came with a requirement that you can only use Amazon Ring cameras, or builder-approved groceries - you'd be pretty pissed.
That's not a valid analogy. There isn't a "requirement" that you only use vanilla Apple software on an iPhone. More accurate would be that the house is set up for ring cameras and the builder doesn't support implementing any other type of camera system.
The house is set up for ring cameras and makes it either impossible or painful to use anything else. Not because of technical limitations, but in order to steer you away from competitors. Building something with it working in a particular way is fine, but building it in a particular way _in order_ for it not to work with competitors hurts everyone. I get the argument it's just because it makes their products work better, and call bullshit.
Then why not buy one of the multitude of houses that exist with alternative and open camera systems, that are also cheaper and more ubiquitous?
In my case it's because I'm using another of their products (my Mac) that is _not_ locked down like the iDevices. My laptop doesn't lock me into my phone, but buying a phone that they have locked out of my laptop's special Apple-only APIs puts me at a disadvantage.
No, I just wouldn't buy that house.
But you're right, maybe we should invent a new word for a purchase that is encumbered by legal agreements or subscriptions.
i see you’ve never purchased a condo or lived within an HOA community.
Furthermore, in the US (and some other countries), you don’t _actually_ own a house or it’s land. you own the rights to that house (a deed) as long as you continue paying your property taxes. see what happens when you stop paying uncle sam… it’s kind of like a subscription lol.
Civilization-as-a-service
> - You agree to the letter of the ToS when you click "I Agree" when you set up the iPhone,
I reject that argument.
For start ToS may have unenforceable claims (if someone puts that I agree to give all things I own to them into ToS it has zero effect).
Also, at this point I dispute that ToS clickery should be treated as agreeing to them. "I have read and agree with ToS" is a blatant lie in at least in the first half.
The problem is that app developers can't ignore iOS because the market is too big. Therefore Apple can do whatever they want and developer have to accept their condition.
As a developer, there is no choice. Apple should not be able to abuse their dominant position.
The problem with this is in the very definition of what it means to be an "app" developer. You say "app" and most people immediately understand you mean the iPhone or Android kind, with all that entails.
These companies have been dominating the landscape for decades now, most likely for longer than most app developers have been app developers. As a developer, there's definitely a choice: don't make an iPhone app; don't make an app at all. Make something else.
If you say you want access to the walled garden because that's where the people are, then consider that they are in there because they like the walls. From this point of view, you don't have a right to demand that the walled garden have free entrance.
> From this point of view, you don't have a right to demand that the walled garden have free entrance.
there are other points of view, including one that monopolies should be illegal
> If you say you want access to the walled garden because that's where the people are, then consider that they are in there because they like the walls.
I disagree there. Most people I know who have an iPhone didn't choose Apple because they like walls. There are many other reasons to choose Apple other than "I like getting screwed by TooBigTech".
> There is no requirement to build an app for iOS devices.
Either this is bad faith, or you are uninformed.
> that's the cost of doing business.
All the question is there. Is that the cost of doing business, or is Apple abusing their dominant position?
That's not bad faith. Go build another phone if you don't like it. Go be one of those weird freaks with a Graphene phone that can't access carrier RCS because Google says no.
That has nothing to do with what I said. There are, most definitely, requirements to build an app for iOS devices.
I think it's really a perceived monopoly. Apple has created such a great thing that everyone wanted to get in on it but some people don't want to pay the Apple premium. Because most of their market is Apple App Store, they can make more money from the App Store, it's perceived as having a monopoly on mobile phone app stores.
> But that said, I don't understand how its a monopoly.
Because you've redefined the market.
Which part of this article quote don't you understand?
> but Apple’s monopoly over iOS app distribution means
If tomorrow, Tesla insisted that their cars will only accepted Tesla branded tires, would you be ok with it?
Sure it's their car and they can do whatever they want with it, but consumers are losing choices - which is what anti-monopoly rules are for. Say, Michelin or Pirelli tires are strictly better but Tesla doing this harms consumer choice and that's why it is bad.
Imagine if this were extended to Tesla branded chargers. Or Tesla branded paint. It's your damn car so you should be allowed to do whatever you want with it.
If this happened tomorrow, you'd have every right to be outraged.
But if someone then bought a Tesla the day after, they'd have far less right to be outraged.
And if the new tires & paint were integral to fundamental value-add of the car (the analogy breaks down here), then there's just zero grounds for it.
A better analogy might be:
if tesla mandated tesla-only tires since day one (2012?), and they claimed it’s a perk/feature of the car, AND i bought the car anyway. Did i as a consumer not sign up for that?? There is more than 1 car manufacture after all.
None of the ios consumers are hoodwinked and apple offers free returns within 2 week in the US. The locked-down app store has been apples way since (almost) day one. Consumers voted with their wallets to not buy an android phone. I think that’s the difference?
IF android didn’t exist it wound be a different story, and it would also be a missing opportunity in the phone market.
They don't sell parts to shops, so effectively they have a lock on repairs.
> There is no requirement to build an app for iOS devices
By this logic, there is also no requirement for one to eat and breathe, anyone can simply stop. The problem is the consequences.
Building an iOS app is requirement if you want to provide lots of services and compete on lots of market. The mobile phone OS landscape has become a duopoly, and society is free to impose certain obligations on those companies.