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Apple, Epic, and the App Store

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Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#111

Post by arkanciscan »

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…

First of all; Yes in my opinion.

But just as a devil's advocate; what about rentals? You can't just put new wheels on your ZipCar. If we made locked platforms illegal, they would simply become rentals. But at least it would be explicit then.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#112

Post by the8472 »

vageli wrote: post #74
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…

Even a frequent walmart buyer can still order online. On the other hand most people only own 1 phone and thus are a captive audience which limits the ways developers can reach them.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#113

Post by gfosco »

cmiller1 wrote: post #16
maxdo wrote: post #8

This particular company decided to grow financially by cutting apple from a revenue stream. Apple invested billions of dollars in rnd, PR , legal protection, security, servers etc... Behemoth like Epic decided to ignore that, at the same time still using apple services and platforms. Such a simple case to me. The funny part is I never heard from small company that gain traction from apple store that it's bad. It's a…

And they didn't even start with the lawsuit, they just broke the terms of service explicitly and then surprise pikachu faced when Apple slapped them down.

They were well prepared for this, with what must've taken months of planning. They added the payment option, got banned, filed the lawsuit and published their 1984 parody ad, all within 24 hours.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#114

Post by badsectoracula »

romanoderoma wrote: post #106
noncoml wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who don’t want to exposed their non-technical family to the Wild West of Android.

That's just the tip of the iceberg https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/mar/11/my-kids-spent-...

Uh, that is about iPad, so Apple's walled garden didn't help.

And kids shouldn't be able to buy things with their parents' cards, which is something completely unrelated to a platform being open or not.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#115

Post by runako »

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…

> closed hardware (that owns its entire stack) even be legal to sell?

Two thoughts:

1 - As software goes into everything, keep in mind that the universe of devices to which this applies will grow to include the set of "non-organic physical objects."

2 - And this will means that surprising outcomes could come of requiring everything to be open. Who do you trust to verify the software in your used car/refrigerator/lightswitch/water heater/etc? For devices where physical safety is at play, how do you verify that the (possibly aftermarket) software is up to code or other certification? Imagine every car sale or home inspection required a software assurance verification of every embedded system. Closed systems implicitly provide some level of assurance here.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#116

Post by farisjarrah »

darkwizard42 wrote: post #50
baby wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Who?

Me for one. I don't want to deal with several different terms of service, different ways of payment, lack of clarity on if an app is trustworthy or not. Apple is simple. I trust Apple to protect me and honestly based on the stories I read about Google's Play Store I feel more confident in Apple to do the right thing for consumers in the long run. Their incentive is aligned to my needs (good safe hardware that protect…

Is Apple's app store actually protecting you from anything, or do you just get the illusion that its protecting you?

Although the situation has gotten much better the past couple years, its still not uncommon to find apps on the app store that charge like 10$ a month for some wallpapers or something of a similar nature. Furthermore, every few months there are new news articles coming out about how ""XYZ"" app is collecting ""ABC"" data from iPhone users(like apps scraping clipboard data, or apps trying to access the microphone or camera when the user thinks there should be no recording going on).

The claim that the iOS is actually protecting users seems dubious at best. Apple tends to exert control over the app store, but it always seems to be in response to users finding out that some app is doing something evil rather then Apple protecting users up front to begin with.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#117

Post by stale2002 »

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…

> . ~2 million apps are on the app store.

Having a large customer base is not an argument against them being a monopoly. Quite the opposite, it is evidence of it being a monopoly.

> Charging a fee for giving developers a huge market that spends money is not exactly unfair.

It is unfair if they are engaging in anti-competitive practices to prevent competitions from competing.

> What would make it fair? Lowering the fee?

Allowing alternative apps stores to compete against apple's would make it fair, and giving users the option and ability to do this, easily. So, specifically I should be able to install a Steam, or epic app store, on the iphone, without apple having any ability at all to stop me, or take a cut.

> What actual harm is Apple inflicting on the market by their behavior? Developers make less money? That isn't good enough.

Of course it is. If you have a monopoly, then the harm is on the customers of the market. That includes both buyers and sellers. That is how monopolies work.

And also, it is not just developers making less money. Instead, the monopoly place in the market, prevents developers from passing on the savings to the consumer.

So the fee would have to be literally 0%, for me to even accept the idea that consumers aren't harmed by it.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#118

Post by zepto »

bluedevil2k wrote: post #35
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…

actual harm => consumers end up paying more for the apps because the app developers have to increase their price to cover Apple's cut (which is more like a shakedown). I don't see any reason why a company needs to pay any percent of their revenue instead of a flat fee. You pay a % of revenue when someone is your partner or an investor in your company. Apple is neither. In fact, they've shown to be the opposite of a t…

This isn’t a clear argument.

Many customers and developers want the service the App Store provides and are willing to pay for it.

I.e. it’s not a shakedown, it’s a service just like any other.

But even if you argue that people should be allowed to have someone else provide a different service (which is technically problematic since they will still need to use Apple’s API’s), there is no reason to presume that more stores equates to lower prices.

It doesn’t in streaming for example, because of exclusive content.

It also means developers will need to support multiple stores and pass that cost on to the customers.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#119

Post by romanoderoma »

vageli wrote: post #74
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…

Because you can buy the same exact item on Zalando and put it on fire if you want to

Imagine if you could buy shoes only at Walmart because you bought the shoe rack there.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#120

Post by actuator »

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…

I think this comparison is in bad faith. I would put it like this, it should definitely be illegal to be anti-competitive on general computing devices once you hit a significant revenue(the revenue bit only to allow small players to compete first and not be stifled).

Devices like Kindle are one purpose devices. It is supposed to be a replacement for a book. The integration with Kindle Store for ebooks can be complained about, but Amazon gives you the freedom to use ebooks from anywhere, infact if you can live with the bad experience you can use the browser itself to download them on the device.

iPhone is a different ballgame, it is an ecosystem creating device. I have no problem with them restricting the APIs for third party developers if it improves security on the device, that's a good thing. But then the rent seeking on apps like Spotify is just bad for upcoming companies and would be for users in the end. This is not just limited to software, they can use the same leverage to even kill companies in hardware space.

Sure, Apple doesn't have a monopoly in terms of device share, but they absolutely are in a position to kill a company.

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