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Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

accc.gov.au

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Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#451

Post by skydhash »

devwastaken wrote: post #437
emteycz wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, even when there are only 2 choices. No customer has any right, legal or otherwise, for iPhone-the-universal-and-open-computing-device. Not only that, most customers are customers because it's a walled garden. What are you going to say to a company after it loses customers and revenue and its expenses rise because you took away what made it unique? "Sorry, that's how the system works?", I guess?

Yep, that's how the system works. I have no qualms with forcing the richest company in the world to play fair. You may be under the idea that computers are optional - they're not. Almost everyone has a mobile device, even homeless. They're required to participate in government and business. It's how we rent apartments, pay bills and operate in society. The market has become a public problem by apples hand. Markets no…

A lot of people here in my country would say no, that you're wrong. No mobile device for anything, physical presence and cash rule here.

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#452

Post by ksec »

Elidrake24 wrote: post #42
encryptluks2 wrote: post #23

You can have third-party Android app stores. Can you say the same about Apple? While I agree that Google has market-dominance, they are not anti-competition or anti-consumer in the same sense as Apple. Android is open source, Chrome OS is open source, etc. Google is actually providing and contributing something back to the community. Apple intentionally locks people to specific hardware and to their app store.

As a user of iOS, this is precisely why I go with Apple, and why I push my family to do the same. Particularly for the more elderly in my family, Apple's setup (by and large) prevents them from doing anything that would screw themselves over. Removing Apple's control removes my desire to be apart of that ecosystem, and I know that is true for many others outside our insular little community here.

>prevents them from doing anything that would screw themselves over.

That was the case when App Store was born, it really did provide the security and curation of Apps. But now that is no longer the case, scam Apps and low quality apps / games are everywhere. They are not as bad as Android but still bad. Not to mention Apple doesn't care about your IP, if someone make an app that is 99% the same with look and graphics. There is no way to challenge that because Apple said they dont take side ( What ? ).

Especially when they hold the majority of market shares. Today, the iPhone has 66% market share in the United States, 75% of U.S. App Store revenues, and over 80% of time spent on the mobile internet. And these numbers are pre iPhone 12, judging from the trend it looks like the current number will only be higher. They cant hide behind privacy and curation forever.

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#453

Post by [deleted] »

dlgeek wrote: post #5

> The ACCC has put forward a series of potential measures in response to its findings, including that consumers be able to rate and review all apps, that consumers have the ability to change any pre-installed default app on their device, that app developers be allowed to provide consumers with information about alternative payment options and that information collected by Apple and Google in their capacity as app mar…

[deleted]

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#454

Post by anoncake »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #279
encryptluks2 wrote: post #23

You can have third-party Android app stores. Can you say the same about Apple? While I agree that Google has market-dominance, they are not anti-competition or anti-consumer in the same sense as Apple. Android is open source, Chrome OS is open source, etc. Google is actually providing and contributing something back to the community. Apple intentionally locks people to specific hardware and to their app store.

You can have third party app stores in Android, but you can't have third party push notifications. And without them there is no way to deliver data to your app without making it persistent, which is increasingly difficult with every new Android version

Nor can alternative stores provide automatic background updates.

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#455

Post by anoncake »

hugi wrote: post #176
alfongj wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please point to a single source from Apple claiming their mission is privacy.

For me their actions speak volumes. But if you want sources, here's Craig Federighi, Senior VP of software, literally yesterday: "It [privacy] is a value that is so deep in us. Personal information can be used and abused and even weaponized in ways that can be really, really destructive. Often in a way that's not at all apparent to the person who might be giving up that information." and "These devices are so intimat…

Reminds me of the "We value your privacy" pop-ups Google keeps popping up. A for-profit company will say anything that it believes is profitable. PR statements like the one you quoted convey no information.

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#456

Post by jjav »

Elidrake24 wrote: post #42
encryptluks2 wrote: post #23

You can have third-party Android app stores. Can you say the same about Apple? While I agree that Google has market-dominance, they are not anti-competition or anti-consumer in the same sense as Apple. Android is open source, Chrome OS is open source, etc. Google is actually providing and contributing something back to the community. Apple intentionally locks people to specific hardware and to their app store.

As a user of iOS, this is precisely why I go with Apple, and why I push my family to do the same. Particularly for the more elderly in my family, Apple's setup (by and large) prevents them from doing anything that would screw themselves over. Removing Apple's control removes my desire to be apart of that ecosystem, and I know that is true for many others outside our insular little community here.

OTOH if the elders of your family are not hacker tinkerer types, they're not going to install an alternate app store even if that was possible on iOS. So the existence of an alternative wouldn't change their usage or your need of involvement at all.

It just provides a way to run applications of my choice on my hardware to people who want that.

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#457

Post by fblp »

simondotau wrote: post #249
fblp wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what part of the report do they call on Google and Apple to "give up control over the mechanisms which have allowed them to clamp down on malicious financial activity including some (but not all) subscription traps and scams." ?

The "mechanisms which have allowed them to clamp down on malicious financial activity" are their payment gateways, the rules surrounding their use use, the ability to perform oversight over app payment activity, and the threat (whether actual or perceived) of total banishment if they are caught—particularly in Apple's case where there's no alternative path to customers. In the same breath, Google and Apple are also b…

Hey sorry i don't see how stating these mechanisms are a concern = calling on them to give up control (or "threatening banishment") per your comments. Your comments seem presumptive given the actual content of the preliminary report.

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#458

Post by jjav »

havernator wrote: post #125
edrxty wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can both have our cake and eat it too, we just need either an unlocked bootloader, or the ability to sideload apps over an ADB-like usb interface. People who don't want that functionality will never know it's there and there won't be any decrease in security.

Unlocked boot loader would be fine. Sideloading's fine as long as the UI's bad enough that normal people can't, say, click a link on a website and keep clicking "OK" until the app's installed on their phone, and it also can't (somehow? Not sure how this restriction would be enforced) be scripted into a desktop-based store (as ADB could be, and likely would have been if alternative stores couldn't just be installed di…

> Essentially as long as nothing threatens Apple's ability to tell other companies, including other tech giants, to play ball or pound sand, I'm fine with it.

Is your premise is that the vast majority of iOS users want the Apple control of apps exactly as it is today?

If that premise is true, then having additional app stores available will not change your experience at all. The vast majority, as you assert, of iOS users will want no part in the alternative app stores, thus the Apple app store retains dominance and Apple doesn't need to change their behavior at all. So nothing changes for you. And the few oddballs who want to run non-Apple-approved software, still can, but they'll be a fringe.

But if you're worried that there will be a mass exodus to the non-Apple app store, (if that was allowed) then I'm hearing that there is in fact large percentages of unhappy users, which is itself proof that removing control from Apple is required.

What doesn't make sense it simultaneously assert that nearly all iOS users are happy with the Apple iron fist but large percentage of them are itching to break away from it the second they could. One or the other can be true, not both.

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#459

Post by havernator »

Mindwipe wrote: post #386
havernator wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absent government regulation? Yes, exactly. If Mecha-Godzilla shows up I'm very, very happy to have Godzilla around to fuck them up, even if Godzilla is a dangerous monster and it would be better to have no monsters.

And screw the vulnerable people your Gozilla murders under it's feet eh?

Since don’t-have-monsters isn’t an option—yes? Especially since most of the ones being “murdered” by Apple aren’t the vulnerable, in any kind of relevant sense, but software developers and publishes. People who just use the devices knew what they were getting and paid extra for it.

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#460

Post by havernator »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #447
havernator wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple can no longer force vendors who want access to iOS to play by the rules that I want them to be forced to play by, is the main risk of adding more stores. I bought iOS devices in part for the effects of that leverage—I chose that. It's also a choice.

"Apple can no longer force vendors who want access to iOS to play by the rules" Yes, thank you for spelling it out thst you want apple to continie violating other people's freedom and perpetuating anticonpetitive practicea

Kicking a business out of your mall for abusive behavior has got to be the lamest variety of “violating freedom” ever.
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