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Apple, Epic, and the App Store

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Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#71

Post by reaperducer »

baby wrote: post #40
braythwayt wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not my sole reason, but since you asked, here I am. I give my children iPhones. I like having certain family controls over what they use, and further controls over what appears in the app store to begin with. I like having a single vendor for all my software purchases, that I can trust to issue refunds and discontinue subscriptions promptly. I spend all day thinking about computers, I don't want to also be my own IT…

Should a parent really get their children iPhones?

Should a parent really get their children iPhones?

Not your kids. Not your business.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#72

Post by kaiju0 »

orliesaurus wrote: post #14

Okay this is going to sound stupid but maybe someone else feels like me about it: I don't understand why Apple has to take such a big chunk from transactions of in-app purchases? Similarly Google. Why 30%? Why not 5%? That feels like it would be more honest. Is it just because "they can"?

Yes the are providing an eco system, customers and payment processing.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#73

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

partiallypro wrote: post #57
ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #11

A pretty well-thought out article, given the inflammatory nature of the subject matter. I think Apple is right on the line. But I don't see a good argument as to what their doing is being anti-competitive. ~2 million apps are on the app store. Charging a fee for giving developers a huge market that spends money is not exactly unfair. And the rules of engagement are generally applied equally to everyone - the exceptio…

At least in terms of their banning xCloud, they recently filed a patent to make their own cloud gaming service. I would definitely say that sounds anti-competitive to ban competitors that are ahead of you from your store, so you have time to make your own.

It depends on the reason for banning xCloud and if their product becomes market dominant. The rules are there. It seems unfair to punish Apple for someone else breaking an agreement.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#74

Post by vageli »

cschneid wrote: post #27

The Hey saga emphasized that Apple has multiple products interacting in a single app store. * Screened apps - Apple only lets "safe" apps into the store. * Discoverability - Apple in theory lets users find apps that they didn't know about before. Customer Acquisition * Payments - Apple makes it easy to accept payments, for their 30% fee. One or all of those are useful and great. Where I have an issue is when they use…

> That feels like using an existing monopoly (actually a duopoly w/ google's similar practices) to force developers to purchase products they don't want. Hey didn't want to accept payments via apple, but Apple's market power and decisions were focused on forcing them to.

In order to sell goods in a place like Walmart, a manufacturer is subject to onerous terms. Why is the app store different than a retailer limiting access to their shelf space? I personally feel they are different but I cannot put into words why.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#75

Post by spanhandler »

baby wrote: post #40
braythwayt wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not my sole reason, but since you asked, here I am. I give my children iPhones. I like having certain family controls over what they use, and further controls over what appears in the app store to begin with. I like having a single vendor for all my software purchases, that I can trust to issue refunds and discontinue subscriptions promptly. I spend all day thinking about computers, I don't want to also be my own IT…

Should a parent really get their children iPhones?

Maybe, maybe not, but by like 5th grade most of them seem to have one regardless. Many younger kids have one. By 7th it's practically all of them (a smartphone, that is, though yeah, often an iPhone)

Our school assigns every kid an iPad. In Kindergarten. Good idea? I kinda don't think so, though it's been useful this year, of course. But it happens.

Increasingly parents have trouble letting kids wander the neighborhood on their own without a tracker/communication-device on them, and a smartphone's really good at serving that role. There are other options but kids want to have their smartphone on them, and as soon as you want them to be able to do one other smartphone-thing any other option starts to look kinda pointless.

(just relating observations of parenting in the wild, not my own parenting approach)

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#76

Post by the8472 »

ericmay wrote: post #15
jasode wrote: post #6

In the spirit of this particular story, I'd like to ask HN the following question: Should closed hardware (that owns its entire stack) even be legal to sell? Yes, it's legal today but should we make it illegal? To try another example besides Apple iPhone, consider the $35000 Prima Cinema movie server to play 1st run movies at home on day of release: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22prima+cinema%22&source=ln... In m…

> Should closed hardware even be legal to sell? I don't see why not. If it's a problem, then either a competitor will emerge, or people won't purchase the product. If it's truly a bad business practice, it'll lose out in the end. Besides that I actually love the closed system of the iPhone + App Store, we can't just go around banning things anytime we think we might not like them. Every time I see this story it just…

> If it's truly a bad business practice, it'll lose out in the end.

Many bad business practices only lose out because they're made illegal. Protection rackets are great for the ones running them. Although one could quibble that the police is the cheapest universally available protection racket that pushes out all the competition.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#77

Post by bhupy »

baby wrote: post #26
noncoml wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some customers buy into the Apple ecosystem because of its walled garden. Not despite of it.

Really? Who?

Me, without a doubt. I'm too old and busy to worry about configuring my phone or making sure that it's safe / clean.

I also buy it for my parents for the same reason.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#78

Post by reaperducer »

smnrchrds wrote: post #45
baby wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Who?

On every discussion about this topic on HN, there has been at least one but typically many more commenters saying they love the walled garden and they would pay a premium for it. They trust Apple so they are OK with paying them 30% more instead of paying the app developers directly. They would never dare recommend Windows or Linux or Android to their parents but they would happily recommend them to get iPhones and iP…

Personally, this is so different from the way I think that I find it utterly surprising

Seven billion people on the planet. It shouldn't be surprising to learn that not everyone thinks the way that you do.

I wonder if it's an age thing. When you're young and have more time than money, tinkering with the technical hassles of your phone is worth it to save a buck or two. When you're older and have more money than time, you happily pay $399 for an iPhone if it means getting hours or days of your life to spend on other things.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#79

Post by romanoderoma »

reaperducer wrote: post #42
wmf wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing stopping you from putting a Blu-ray player in your rack next to the Prima box and the cost is trivial. There's a common-sense argument that a person is only going to have one phone, one phone carrier, one ISP, etc. and thus those companies shouldn't hold their customers hostage. Turning that into a legal principle is left as an exercise for the reader.

There's nothing stopping you from putting a Blu-ray player in your rack next to the Prima box and the cost is trivial. There's nothing stopping an iPhone owner from also buying an Android phone, and the cost is trivial. There's a common-sense argument that a person is only going to have one phone, one phone carrier There are hundreds of thousands of people in the United States, maybe even millions, who have more than…

This is a common argument, but it's wrong IMO

iPhone is not an Android competitor, iPhone is a Samsung/Huawei/LG etc competitor

Android competes with iOS

If I could install iOS on a Samsung device or Android on an iPhone that would be different

But I can't

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#80

Post by _jal »

jasode wrote: post #6

In the spirit of this particular story, I'd like to ask HN the following question: Should closed hardware (that owns its entire stack) even be legal to sell? Yes, it's legal today but should we make it illegal? To try another example besides Apple iPhone, consider the $35000 Prima Cinema movie server to play 1st run movies at home on day of release: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22prima+cinema%22&source=ln... In m…

So, the core issue, it seems to me, is one of outcomes. Do we want a locked down future? Or do we want an open one? Do we even want to have a choice?

That last question is actually important - maybe "the market" (meaning whoever is positioned at time) should decide. Maybe "we" already have "decided" and the rest is just that decision playing out.

But I don't think this discussion is that useful without specifics. Imagine 10 years forward - Amazon, Facebook and Google all require locked down (you do not have root) hardware to access anything they store for you/to buy anything. Maybe you can still give your Raspberry Pi an IP and send packets, but interaction with any mainstream entity requires signing your traffic with a key on a chip. ("To solve identity theft" "for the children" "do you want the terrorists to win?")

Is that a world you want to live in?

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