The App Store is a monopoly: Here's why the EU is correct to investigate Apple • Hacker News Board

Re: The App Store is a monopoly: Here's why the EU is correct to investigate Apple

#511

Post by manicdee » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 4:46 AM UTC

admax88q wrote: post #287

wlesieutre wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beyond the security of not giving our credit cards, and the convenience of not having 8 different game updater/launcher clients, Apple’s App Store policies also limit 3rd party software’s ability to fuck up my devices in a myriad of ways. If they’re forced to open up to 3rd party stores, I hope they can do it in a way that prevents Adobe from running 8 background processes to make sure my license is current and there…

An operating system that actually empowered you would give you the tools and options to prevent that, while also letting you run whatever software you desired. I will never understand people's desire to be handcuffed by Apple. Give me control over my own device god damn it.

If you want to work on your ultimate phone environment as a hobby, there is Android. If you want things to work just the way they are with the fewest surprises and least amount of finagling use Apple.

I use macOS instead of Linux for this reason: last time I tried updating the production packages on a Linux box it took me hours to clean up the mess that X11 left behind.

Don’t criticise my walled garden just because you want to experiment with weed salad in your community garden.

Re: The App Store is a monopoly: Here's why the EU is correct to investigate Apple

#512

Post by ac29 » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 4:50 AM UTC

threeseed wrote: post #199

bostonvaulter2 wrote: post #119

As an app developer, what bothers me is not so much the fact that you have to pay the 30% when going through the app store it's the fact that you cannot even mention the Android Play store AT ALL. Also I don't like that they completely force app developers to use IAP instead of supporting other purchasing flows (without Apple's cut)

You actually want Apple to allow you to advertise a competitor's phone on their phone. What company would ever allow that ?

Pre-smartphone era pretty much every hardware vendor didnt impose arbitrary restrictions on software like that (the notable exception being video game consoles). If you wanted to write a Mac app that said "also available on Windows" (or vice versa), no one cared.

Re: The App Store is a monopoly: Here's why the EU is correct to investigate Apple

#513

Post by threatofrain » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 5:04 AM UTC

xvector wrote: post #470

aeurielesn wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rest assured that despite the somehow surprisingly recent blind support for Apple here, there are people too that want to own our devices. I can just hope that the EU is successful in stopping all of Apple's trickeries ranging from 2.5mm headset jacks, ports, OS slow downs, mysterious battery underperformance, app store, the list just goes on.

> headset jacks You want the EU to regulate whether a company wants to put a headphone jack in their devices? > OS slow downs iOS has gotten faster over time [1]. > mysterious battery underperformance It's common knowledge that this was an honest engineering mistake because as a phone ages, the battery cannot support the max voltage of the processor. Apple now lets you enable full performance with the understanding t…

The problem with the battery thing is then Apple can give the appearance that their phones have some speed profile when in reality it’s more complicated, even if the complications are in their sum a calculated benefit to the consumer.

However, I’m not really sure that other companies are contextually more honest to consumers in their advertising, or that such standards in communication even exist for the American marketplace. It’s hard to criticize Apple for the details when the bigger story is their great relationship with customers.

Re: The App Store is a monopoly: Here's why the EU is correct to investigate Apple

#514

Post by Findeton » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 5:52 AM UTC

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #101

slivanes wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"No one is forcing any company to publish into the App Store." Yes Apple is, there is no alternative to the App Store on an iPhone.

"Nobody is forcing them to be iPhone developers" - HN

Well it's true isn't it? People make bad career choices all the time. And people also build failing business and we shouldn't save those companies because "they deserve it".

Re: The App Store is a monopoly: Here's why the EU is correct to investigate Apple

#515

Post by simonh » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 5:58 AM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #476

scarface74 wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are lawsuits to invalidate patents not to sue other people for using their patents.

You asked for patent lawsuits initiated under Cook's CEO tenure. Words Mean Things.

The thread was explicitly about apple suing other companies over using their patents. You know that’s the context.

Re: The App Store is a monopoly: Here's why the EU is correct to investigate Apple

#516

Post by simonh » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 6:08 AM UTC

tootie wrote: post #49

simonh wrote: post #12

The only monopoly here is Apple’s monopoly on designing its own products. The iPhone, iOS, it’s development tools and the App Store are all Apple products, so Apple gets to decide what features they have. It’s also not unusual for companies to make deals with third parties to include their technology and software in their products, often as optional chargeable extras. That’s all the App Store is, it’s a way to add op…

I'd love to see a Congressional panel ask why developers need an OSX device to build for iOS and still have to pay a fee to Apple for the privilege.

The iOS application frameworks are Apple products based on the libraries in OSX. In fact in many many cases they are the exact same libraries in OSX, and apps running in the iPhone simulator actually run against the OSX libraries under the hood, not iOS versions of them. To develop iOS apps on another platform, Apple would have to port their entire development tool chain, and their OS application frameworks and test tools to other OS platforms. Why should the be coerced into doing that? These are all their products, what gives you the right to demand that they spend millions of dollars adding features and doing all that work?

Should we coerce Microsoft into porting the Win32 development stack and tooling to OSX and Linux? It doesn’t make any sense. If you don’t want to use their products, don’t.

Re: The App Store is a monopoly: Here's why the EU is correct to investigate Apple

#517

Post by spiderfarmer » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 6:39 AM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #308

spiderfarmer wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Apple decided to implement the Push Notification API for Mobile Safari, it would be very beneficial to the users of my forum websites. Now I’m forced to build an app, while my forums users are all happy with the website as it is. They just want push notifications and I’m convinced Apple is holding that back on purpose. I bet there are internal emails about that issue as well.

I hate that half the request for push notifications are used for websites to spam me.

True. Apple could make it impossible to request permission. I’d be okay. As long as users who want it have a way to enable it.

Re: The App Store is a monopoly: Here's why the EU is correct to investigate Apple

#518

Post by avianlyric » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 7:34 AM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #332

avianlyric wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would a better comparison be a cruise ship? You pay thousands to board, and you literally can’t leave at will. While you’re aboard you can only purchase food, drink and entertainment from the cruise company. I don’t think a cruise ship would ever allow competing companies to provide those services. I’m personally a little mixed on the App Store. I don’t a have fundamental issue with the App Store model, and as an App…

How is Spotify and especially Netflix being harmed? If I search for a movie on either my iPhone, iPad, or AppleTV and the movie is available on Netflix, I’m told that I can watch it for free instead of being guided toward Apple’s movie store. Spotify whined for years that they couldn’t stream music to the Apple Watch or download music to the Watch. Apple allowed third party integration over a year ago. Pandora added…

> Spotify also doesn’t allow in app purchases so Apple doesn’t get a cut.

This is how Spotify and Netflix are harmed. They have to pick between funding their competitor, or not providing simple signups and subscriptions on one of the worlds largest computing platforms.

This directly harms either their revenue stream or cost-of-acquisition. Both to the advantage of one of one of their largest competitors who has artificially introduced this barrier.

Re: The App Store is a monopoly: Here's why the EU is correct to investigate Apple

#519

Post by scarface74 » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 7:39 AM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #484

xvector wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is honestly frightening that HN wants to give the government more power over tech after what we've seen from Australia and forced backdoors.

It is honestly frightening that HN wants to give Apple more power over tech after what we've seen from their treatment of HEY, the butterfly keyboard, and the Magic Mouse 2 port.

Yes because Apple with 10% market share in computers has so much power over the computer market. I’m sure the same congress where one of the Senators asked Zuckerberg about why Twitter put Don Jr in time out could design the perfect keyboard and mouse.

Basecamp also restricts who can integrate with their platform.

Re: The App Store is a monopoly: Here's why the EU is correct to investigate Apple

#520

Post by scarface74 » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 7:40 AM UTC

d0gbread wrote: post #503

scarface74 wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you trust the current politicians who were more concerned about Big Tech being unfair to conservatives than they were about antitrust. Did anything productive come out of the dog and pony shoe?

Yes, very productive things have come out of the dog and pony show: tons of conversation and debate amongst voters as people familiarize themselves with the nuance of these topics. Do I trust the politicians? Maybe not the ones you're describing but read through Elizabeth Warren's proposal around platform utilities: https://medium.com/@teamwarren/heres-how-we-can-break-up-big... Maybe you agree, maybe you don't - the…

Right because a representative who asked Zuckerberg about a Twitter policy is really smart.

The very first paragraph she used MS as an example of when the government intervened in tech. How did that work out? Microsoft is still one of the five largest companies in tech and still has the same dominance in PC operating systems and productivity apps.