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Judge in Fortnite case holds Tim Cook's feet to the fire

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Re: Judge in Fortnite case holds Tim Cook's feet to the fire

#261

Post by skinnymuch »

kelnos wrote: post #213
tshaddox wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In my experience people choose iPhones because they are a status symbol, and because Apple has become synonymous with good design and good taste. Due to marketing efforts, Android devices are still seen as the "cheap option" or for people who don't care about their image. Many people are also already locked into the Apple ecosystem through desktop/laptop Macs, iCloud, etc., so getting a non-Apple phone would introduc…

Status symbol where? That can’t be the case majority of the time in the US. Every other person has an iPhone. Literally.

Re: Judge in Fortnite case holds Tim Cook's feet to the fire

#262

Post by pmmucsd »

pixl97 wrote: post #152
fooey wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's exactly what they do. They buy products from suppliers and mark them up, sell the the products and take the margin.

Re: Judge in Fortnite case holds Tim Cook's feet to the fire

#263

Post by fartcannon »

fooey wrote: post #86
fartcannon wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to use these unbelievably powerful portable computers like general purpose computers. Develop applications right on device! My dream.

The pretty obvious solution is to not buy Apple devices I have never owned an Apple device, but they clearly believe locking them down is part of the appeal of the devices in the first place. If you want an impartial platform get an android; if you want a curated ecosystem get an apple

I think the better solution is to persuade them to open up their computing devices.

Re: Judge in Fortnite case holds Tim Cook's feet to the fire

#264

Post by fartcannon »

kergonath wrote: post #244
skohan wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but they clearly believe locking them down is part of the appeal of the devices in the first place. Do they believe that? Their behavior and stance could equally be explained by pursuing their economic best-interest

They most definitely are. But they figured that aligning their interests with their users’ brings in quite a lot of money. Security and privacy certainly is part of the appeal of iOS devices, and strict sandboxing and app vetting is part of that. So is not having to leave your card details on the developer’s database every time you buy an app.

You can still have that even if it's open. There's literally nothing preventing them doing all that while letting others choose not to.

Re: Judge in Fortnite case holds Tim Cook's feet to the fire

#265

Post by kergonath »

rsj_hn wrote: post #193
Dah00n wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US perhaps but not so in the EU.

Not knowing much about the EU, would a district judge responsible for, say, northern Italy be able to change EU-wide business rules? With no appeal to a broader authority?

No, not really. A judge would apply the rules as they exist. And then, depending on the case it would follow the local country’s appeal process and possibly end up at the CJEU. But even then it would not change the rules.

Any change of rules needs to be drafted by the commission or proposed in parliament, and then accepted by the parliament. The EU does not really do common law. Not like in the US anyway.

Re: Judge in Fortnite case holds Tim Cook's feet to the fire

#266

Post by snthd »

nodamage wrote: post #240
grishka wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Computers and Android devices don't employ predatory code signing and can run anything without the manufacturer having a say, yet somehow the hell didn't break loose. Also, if you don't let people make mistakes or see someone else make them, they won't learn. In effect, one might say that this scheme makes people dumber.

At this point I am convinced HN commenters have a blind spot when it comes to how easily non-technical users get infected with malware. The latest statistics[1] show iOS has significantly fewer malware infections compared to Android and Windows devices: iOS: 1.72% Android: 26.64% Windows: 38.92% IoT: 32.72% [1] https://www.nokia.com/networks/portfolio/cyber-security/thre...

Those are not malware infection rates, they're OS "marketshare" of all infected devices.

Re: Judge in Fortnite case holds Tim Cook's feet to the fire

#267

Post by kergonath »

stale2002 wrote: post #139
skizm wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean I really haven't heard a good argument against it. Everyone is just complaining that 30% is too high, or it shouldn't apply to IAP for some reason. None of the questions the judged asked really get to the heart of the matter: why should the government get to tell Apple how to run their app store? What makes app stores different than the xbox marketplace or ebay? If the app store was more specific with the type…

> why should the government get to tell Apple how to run their app store? Do you simply not believe in anti-trust law then? What if microsoft forced you to pay them a 30 percent cut, for installing other web browsers, or apps? You would be ok with that?

Isn’t this the case on the XBox? People seem to be fine with it.

Re: Judge in Fortnite case holds Tim Cook's feet to the fire

#268

Post by splitstud »

mason55 wrote: post #70
m463 wrote: post #52

The best result for customers is that there are alternate ways of putting apps on their own phones that do not require apple's permission. Then the customers that trust apple to protect them will just stay with the app store. The customers that try the alternate ways may find problems, but they will also find enormous positive changes in their ability to do new things on their phone. Personally, I would like the abil…

> 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.

The argument is that this isn't a great goal. The argument is that Apple has chosen a solution that doesn't conform to our legal framework.

Re: Judge in Fortnite case holds Tim Cook's feet to the fire

#269

Post by kergonath »

fartcannon wrote: post #264
kergonath wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They most definitely are. But they figured that aligning their interests with their users’ brings in quite a lot of money. Security and privacy certainly is part of the appeal of iOS devices, and strict sandboxing and app vetting is part of that. So is not having to leave your card details on the developer’s database every time you buy an app.

You can still have that even if it's open. There's literally nothing preventing them doing all that while letting others choose not to.

You can’t, because no app can install other apps. So sandboxing would need to be significantly changed.

Every big software publisher having its own store implies that our details will be stored in more databases, which increases the risk of hack or leak. The alternative would be to not get apps that we can currently get without risking much. It is hard to see this as a progress.

Re: Judge in Fortnite case holds Tim Cook's feet to the fire

#270

Post by skynet-9000 »

alex_young wrote: post #76
ec109685 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Push notifications also don't work with web apps. Totally hamstrung platform.

Isn’t that an os issue? Push notifications work on desktop websites…

It is absolutely an OS issue, but neither mobile OS has any incentive at all to do anything to make PWA's actually work.

In fact, they have every incentive to make sure they don't work. You can see this in their constant regressions in areas that only actually matter to PWA's.

I will say this: Google has been a lot more fair and open to PWA's and related tech (like WebRTC) than Apple. Apple absolutely hates the idea of any web app that might survive outside of the app store. In fact, for a very, very long time you couldn't even upload a photo on Craigslist with a standard HTML "Browse" button, because "IOS doesn't have a filesystem." It was a conscious decision to not allow the camera to be accessed except from within an IOS app.

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