Why is a judge asking a witness questions? Isn't that normally either the prosecutor or defense counsels' job?
Judge in Fortnite case holds Tim Cook's feet to the fire
151–160 of 375 posts
Re: Judge in Fortnite case holds Tim Cook's feet to the fire
#152It's clear the pricing is far above what a fair market competitive rate would be. I would guess their margins on the app store are 90% or higher. If somebody has the number, please provide. But it's clear the fee is significantly above the investment required to keep it running. Legal precedents regarding private spaces are going to have to change in a lot of ways over the coming decades, as we now live in a world wh…
Everything you buy has markup. Everything Digital stores have settled on a 30% standard. Different industries have different standards. It's notable that even on stores that don't charge 30%, like Epic Games Store, the price of the products offered are almost never at a lower price.
I'm pretty sure you'd start screaming blood murder if your grocery store put a flat 30% markup on all items tomorrow.
Re: Judge in Fortnite case holds Tim Cook's feet to the fire
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
Should Taco Bell be legally required to let MacDonalds set up stall rent-free in their stores?
This is a false analogy. People who purchased a phone, own that phone. Apple doesn't own it anymore. Thats the difference. McDonald's own the store. But they don't own your car. And similarly, Apple does not own your phone, but they go to great efforts to prevent you from using other app stores.
You own a phone yes. But you don’t own iOS. So take your own phone and install your own OS on it if that’s what you want.
Re: Judge in Fortnite case holds Tim Cook's feet to the fire
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Then the customers that trust apple to protect them will just stay with the app store. The problem is that if it’s possible to trick grandpa into downloading a malicious app then it will happen. The only defense is to not make it possible. You can argue if that’s a worthy goal or not but thats what Apple has to do if they want to make it impossible to trick people into downloading malware.
That's a false premise because consumers have endured the Microsoft ecosystem for decades and the risk vs choice is one that consumers have accepted. The only way Apple would have an argument for that aspect of their ecosystem, is that if all similar vendors operated the same way. This case is about consumer choice and it's the better consumer choice argument that is going to win.
Apple has made a ton of money from people utterly dissatisfied with the windows ecosystem, so I disagree people have accepted this. (I certainly haven't, and put my parents on an iPad 10 years ago and haven't heard barely a peep out of them since.)
I think more technical HN-type users aren't aware or have forgotten how terribad the Windows download scene was in the 2000s. It was almost impossible to install anything without getting some toolbar or adware bundle, if not outright malware.
Re: Judge in Fortnite case holds Tim Cook's feet to the fire
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
The point is opening it up so users have a choice. Third party stores will emerge, and it is up to the consumer, not Apple, to decide whether the extra features are worth the new apps being a little rough around the edges like they are on Android. If it's as bad as you say, the new stores will not be successful anyway.
> Then we'll have to trust that all of these companies have the same level of competence to prevent malware that Apple does (narrator: "they won't").
This is a losing argument. We've already seen that the Apple store doesn't/can't prevent clones and fakes with information collecting inserts from overwhelming the originals.
Another store might actually do this better.
Re: Judge in Fortnite case holds Tim Cook's feet to the fire
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most phone users aren’t interested in developing software on their phone. They aren’t interested in developing a better systemd. They have no idea what malware actually is. All that is going to happen if Epic gets their own store is Epic will be collecting the 30% rather than Apple, and the user will get apps that are poorly designed, chew battery, and don’t conform to the UX standards that Apple has set (eg: accessi…
The new iPads literally have the same SOC as what are some of, if not the best consumer laptops on the planet currently. But what can you do with them? Not a heck of a lot, thanks to the walled garden that is iPad OS. If you ask me, that's a crying shame. I don't see how it hurts anyone to allow side-loading of apps on iOS devices. Even if you make it as hard as having a toggle behind a scary warning 2 layers deep in…
> If you ask me, that's a crying shame.
If they ask you, buy the MacBook Air instead of the iPad Pro!
Re: Judge in Fortnite case holds Tim Cook's feet to the fire
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a false analogy. People who purchased a phone, own that phone. Apple doesn't own it anymore. Thats the difference. McDonald's own the store. But they don't own your car. And similarly, Apple does not own your phone, but they go to great efforts to prevent you from using other app stores.
You own a phone yes. But you don’t own iOS. So take your own phone and install your own OS on it if that’s what you want.
Ok, and people should be allowed to install whatever they want on their own hardware.
We don't need to force Apple to put apps on its app store.
Instead, people should be allowed to install whatever they want on the hardware that they own.
> So take your own phone and install your own OS
Or, instead of that, we could use the court system, to stop illegal anti-competitive practices, and require, by the existing law, that people are allowed to do what they want with their own phone.
Re: Judge in Fortnite case holds Tim Cook's feet to the fire
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Then the customers that trust apple to protect them will just stay with the app store. The problem is that if it’s possible to trick grandpa into downloading a malicious app then it will happen. The only defense is to not make it possible. You can argue if that’s a worthy goal or not but thats what Apple has to do if they want to make it impossible to trick people into downloading malware.
That's a false premise because consumers have endured the Microsoft ecosystem for decades and the risk vs choice is one that consumers have accepted. The only way Apple would have an argument for that aspect of their ecosystem, is that if all similar vendors operated the same way. This case is about consumer choice and it's the better consumer choice argument that is going to win.
Microsoft making certain choices regarding to safety and how open their platform is has no relevance to what choices Apple makes. Apple happens to choose for a less permissive system and it has been going well for them and their users. I don’t see how that has anything to do with how other vendors choose to operate.
Re: Judge in Fortnite case holds Tim Cook's feet to the fire
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
The point is opening it up so users have a choice. Third party stores will emerge, and it is up to the consumer, not Apple, to decide whether the extra features are worth the new apps being a little rough around the edges like they are on Android. If it's as bad as you say, the new stores will not be successful anyway.
> The point is opening it up so users have a choice. Users have a choice: Don't use iOS. Their actions have pretty overwhelmingly spoken and they don't care. The only people that care are techies. And most obviously not that much because most meetings I show up to are still full of iPhones.
I’m a techie and I don’t want to worry about malware, spyware, extensive software configuration, etc. on my microwave, my car, or my phone. I’ve got plenty of computing devices for that!
Re: Judge in Fortnite case holds Tim Cook's feet to the fire
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most phone users aren’t interested in developing software on their phone. They aren’t interested in developing a better systemd. They have no idea what malware actually is. All that is going to happen if Epic gets their own store is Epic will be collecting the 30% rather than Apple, and the user will get apps that are poorly designed, chew battery, and don’t conform to the UX standards that Apple has set (eg: accessi…
> Keep your grubby mitts off the Apple ecosystem. But it is actually you who want to control how other people use their own phone, that they own. If you don't like Epic's store, just don't use it. Problem solved. That way, people who want to trust apple get what they want, as well as people who want to trust other app stores. Everyone wins, right? Why do you care so much about how other people use their own phone?
Your argument only works if people are forced to use iPhones or if you can show that reasonable people expect to have functionality on their iPhones that doesn’t exist. But on the contrary, I suspect a lot of people choose iPhones specifically because of the perceived curation of the App Store and lack of malware, spyware, etc.