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

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

#581

Post by inopinatus »

moralsupply wrote: post #189
inopinatus wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Apple's rules oblige app vendors to not advertise or link to any external method of signing up for a service. So, not only can you can only use Apple's payment methods, but you have to lie (by omission) to consumers about their options. This is the market distortion of the App Store.

> Apple's rules oblige app vendors The rules only oblige app vendors if they agree with that contract. Users also only engage in doing business with Apple on a voluntary basis. That's not extortion, by definition.

I didn't say it was. It's also not illegal to have market power.

What is unlawful, at least in my enlightened jurisdiction, is abusing market power to mislead the consumer, and even more so obliging other parties to do so.

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

#582

Post by scarface74 »

Apocryphon wrote: post #558
scarface74 wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you propose that Apple never crack down on them? Apple loss money by giving away a free alternative instead of taking a 30% cut. What next? Are you going to complain that Apple made it harder for advertisers to track you?

Apple should have cracked down earlier, simpler as that. The fact they didn't makes them look like hypocrites. I'm aware that it's impossible to go back to earlier and crack down then to not look like hypocrites. So it's important that going forward they are less capricious about enforcing App Store guidelines and don't make themselves look bad.

So the argument went from “Apple harmed a spyware developer” to “Apple should have harmed them sooner”.

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

#583

Post by inopinatus »

zepto wrote: post #212
inopinatus wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am 100% in favor of the way run the app store You want Apple to prohibit the apps you use from being allowed to tell you about alternative payment options?

Yes, because I want to be continue to recommend Apple products to friends and family who would definitely be scammed by fake payment mechanisms if Apple wasn’t preventing it.

There are ways to provide safety interlocks for naive users that don't require bowdlerising the entire platform.

What's more, Apple doesn't prevent those users entering payment card details into websites they reach by other means; this protection is patchy at best. Nor does it prevent apps using psychological tricks to maximise their revenue through the platform itself, e.g. as with many gambling and gaming apps.

So with the best will in the world I can't see that this security angle justifies the anti-competitive behaviour.

I'll also observe that in most card schemes, account holders aren't liable for fraudulent transactions. Although I would concede that many scams aren't technically fraudulent (merely egregious, unfair, and deceptive), and that naive users often don't understand their rights or how to assert them.

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

#584

Post by aeurielesn »

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…

> Apple does not exist to satisfy your whims.

I never said so. In any case, I don't need you to tell me what to do.

I vote with my wallet and I don't buy Apple products anymore.

The government does not need to regulate it, the market itself will do it just like it did with Microsoft. On the meantime, I'll let you keep finding excuses for Apple's shady practices.

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

#585

Post by admax88q »

manicdee wrote: post #511
admax88q wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 y…

Whether a system "just works" or it requires finagling is or should be an orthogonal discussion to whether it respects you as a user.

Its reasonable to ask for both.

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

#586

Post by zepto »

inopinatus wrote: post #583
zepto wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because I want to be continue to recommend Apple products to friends and family who would definitely be scammed by fake payment mechanisms if Apple wasn’t preventing it.

There are ways to provide safety interlocks for naive users that don't require bowdlerising the entire platform. What's more, Apple doesn't prevent those users entering payment card details into websites they reach by other means; this protection is patchy at best. Nor does it prevent apps using psychological tricks to maximise their revenue through the platform itself, e.g. as with many gambling and gaming apps. So…

People know the difference between the web and apps, and the whole point is that people trust in app purchase app purchases more than they do entering their card details into browsers.

Clearly a browser that didn’t let you enter text would have been unacceptable and the iPhone would have failed as a product.

On the other hand, it’s clear that Apple does actually see this as a serious problem, which is why ApplePay for the web exists, and I know quite a few people who feel far safer with websites that use it.

The argument that Apple hasn’t yet made the web safe for their users even though they are working on it, therefore they should abandon the safety have managed to achieved on the store doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

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

#587

Post by saagarjha »

scarface74 wrote: post #465
Silhouette wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Web browsers.

Apple makes money from not allowing third party web browsers?

Apple makes an absolutely exorbitant amount of money from this, mostly from Google because Safari on iOS is essentially the only browser that matters on the platform and Google is willing to pay through the nose to get themselves in that prime spot. (We'll see if that amount lessens with iOS 14.)

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

#588

Post by saagarjha »

throwaway851 wrote: post #106
wvenable wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't how they run their store -- the problem is that they are the only store.

If there were multiple stores, chances are that the app developer would choose the least restrictive App Store. So maybe Apple’s App Store rejects an app because it’s doing something sneaky, but some other App Store isn’t as rigorous and publishes the app. If you’ve ever been in the situation where you’re the IT person for your extended family, don’t be surprised when your grandmother tells you that she needs help wi…

> the press views Android as so inferior to iOS that it’s not a viable alternative for Apple users

It's not just the press: switching to Android would have very negative drawbacks to many Apple users, even if you don't consider it to be strictly inferior. It would be like pointing a sports car owner to a minivan and saying that they should buy that when they complain about their manufacturer removing buttons from the dashboard. (More accurately, assume that the only sports car available was from one manufacturer and you had to move over to the minivan or you have to ride a bike everywhere.)

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

#589

Post by saagarjha »

chrisseaton wrote: post #235
oscargrouch wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The MacDonalds its not yours, while your iPhone is. There's a big difference between the two, and the key difference here is ... Property. But i like your example because its shows the mindset that the iPhone you bought, is in the end the property of Apple, not really yours, and that you are "fine with it".

You can do already do whatever you want with your phone from the point you receive it in the condition Apple sell it to you. But you cannot require that Apple do work to build support for third-party app stores. Property rights do not extend to forcing other people to do labour for you. If your phone doesn't come with support for third-party stores when you buy it then I don't see how it would be your right to have t…

Apple does work to prevent third-party app stores from being on their platform.

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

#590

Post by saagarjha »

chrisseaton wrote: post #455
oscargrouch wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't need to support, they just have no right to forbid. There's a big difference between those two things. Imagine if windows crippled Netscape by forcing them to use Internet Explorer engine on Windows? And this is just one thing Apple are doing that is unbelievable they are getting away with it.

But there's a specific consumer safety reason for it. Not letting other browsers use their own JS engine (which is what it means to 'forcing them to use Internet Explorer engine on Windows' in your analogy) is because Apple want to disallow write|execute for people's safety.

Granting dynamic-codesigning exclusively to JavaScriptCore shows a lack of confidence in their platform sandbox and the app store review mechanism, and a (occasionally dangerous) overconfidence in the quality of WebKit's security.
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