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Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

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Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#251

Post by stadium »

ericlewis wrote: post #226
truth_ wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is bull. Apple deserves a "rent", and not a "cut". They are providing infrastructure and services, and they deserve a minimum rent for these, which they already take. But Apple should not take cut on every purchases made through the app. It makes no sense. AWS does not take a "cut" on every Netflix subscription bought. They just charge for the storage and traffic. This is how App Store should function.

Rent would go up and there would be basically 0 actually free apps anymore. It’s already hard to pay 99$ a year for many people. Now you have to pay some larger number and your app may never make money. It’s always an achievement just to get your 99$ back anyway.

Android has mostly free apps, ad supported.

iOS has more paid apps, for one because people that can afford a high end phone are more willing to pay for $99 for an app.

Look at the pricing for the same app on Android vs iOS.

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#252

Post by enos_feedler »

mthoms wrote: post #205
crazygringo wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, Apple has to maintain this rule because otherwise developers will implement workarounds to avoid charging in the App Store altogether. Remember when eBay charged a commission on the sale price but not shipping? Suddenly $50 items became $1 with $49 shipping -- so eBay had to charge the commission on the shipping too even though it didn't seem "fair". Same here -- every app would turn free, and charge t…

Apple requires developers to offer sign-in with Apple if they use other sign-in systems (like FB). They could have the same requirement with payments. Users should be given the option of using Apple's system if they want to . After all, It's Apples' argument that their payment system is light-years better for consumers. If true, then users will naturally gravitate towards Apples' payment system. Right? This would res…

The point of Apple’s payment system isn’t to compete on merits with other systems. Sure they want it to be the best. The purpose, however, is to collect fees from app developers.

Apple “puts up or shuts up” with the phone itself. Thats the product and the consumer choice they focus on.

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#253

Post by fauigerzigerk »

easton wrote: post #99
candiddevmike wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PWAs and web based push notifications only benefit Google?

I don’t know about “only Google”, but Apple feels that web push in its current form doesn’t benefit the user (at least, how most browsers currently implement it where every page can ask you for notification privileges). They could gate the functionality behind PWA install, but right now they don’t.

I don't see how this restriction benefits anyone but Apple. What this restriction does is replace an annoyance that doesn't benefit Apple with one that does.

Instead of websites asking to send notifications, they are now nagging us to install useless apps that ask to send notifications and clutter our screens. An honest curator would never even allow these apps into their app store.

This is purely a business decision on Apple's part, nothing to do with user interests at all.

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#254

Post by judge2020 »

kmonsen wrote: post #239
crazygringo wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing weird about it. If there were no food regulations, I don't know if I'd be able to pick restaurants and grocery store brands that were safe to eat. But I definitely know I want safe food to eat. Most people want safe food but they want the government to figure out what that means. Same thing here -- most people just want a safe app store. They don't want the work of having to figure out which app store…

It would more be like if food safety inspections were optional, but only restaurants that opt in would be allowed to show a sign they were inspected either physically or on their web page. It would be trivial to be able to check for this. Door dash would show a sign saying which restaurant is safe to avoid being sued after an incident. If you think restaurants and food safety is a good analogy it’s not a good argumen…

Apple is still the food inspector in this situation, and epic wants an App Store without any apple oversight - I doubt they allow a notarization-type system to be the outcome of this court case.

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#255

Post by bryanrasmussen »

wccrawford wrote: post #4

Other news on this has quotes from Tim Cook saying that they'd have to find a way to track purchases on IOS and bill developers so that Apple still gets their cut when using other payment processors. For me, this is way over the line. If they want to charge developers to be on their store, fine. I don't have a problem with that. And charging for using them as a payment processor makes sense. Charging for using Apple…

>with developers being able to use

I guess you mean not being able to? Normally I wouldn't bring it up but I spent a several read throughs trying to make sense of that sentence, and still not sure if I'm right?

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#256

Post by gjsman-1000 »

wgjordan wrote: post #189
tomp wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making Tim Cook sound stupid and/or evil, but he does have a point. > If customers really value real, safe drugs, even if there's multiple drug suppliers (some offering fake, unsafe drugs), people should still go to a pharmacy? > It seems like a decision that they shouldn't have to make. > Will people not be able to distinguish between safe drugs and fake unsafe drugs? > They've never had to do it before.

Analogy to drug safety makes no sense - FDA regulates drug safety and 'fake' generic drugs are very much allowed, so customers may choose generic drugs without needing to distinguish safe/unsafe themselves.

Counter to your point, pretend Apple is the FDA and the drugs are apps. Now pretend the government wants to get rid of Apple/FDA.

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#257

Post by ubercow13 »

coldtea wrote: post #145
SheinhardtWigCo wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why Apple holds back important APIs from their browser, years after they are available in other browsers: fast 3D graphics, offline storage and compute, push notifications, to name a few.

Yes. To avoid the crappification of mobile, where everything it's a bunch of slow, memory and battery draining Electron apps, doing whatever they want, each with custom UI...

How is that not what exists? Aren't many apps based on web technologies, and/or have custom UIs? There's little standardisation even among 'real' native apps.

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#258

Post by abecedarius »

simonh wrote: post #171
framecowbird wrote: post #157

I just don't buy this argument that Apple maintaining control over iOS is necessary for privacy. I think it's a false dichotomy. If you build a good OS, with good strong APIs, you can achieve both privacy and a more open ecosystem.

Lets say Apple allowed side-loading. They would have no way to examine side-loaded apps to see what they do. iOS would have to provide access to various basic services like networking and connectivity, but not e.g. your address book without checking with the user. All well and good. So I could write an app that interrogates the cellular network and other sources to implement location tracking (cruder than GPS but goo…

Your argument presumes apps get capabilities by default. OSes have been invented where apps get nothing implicitly (the object-capability model); it's a design problem to install mass-market apps with usable security in that paradigm, and it might be a difficult one. But there's been a little work on it and it's worth pursuing.

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#259

Post by gjsman-1000 »

fastaguy88 wrote: post #194
akudha wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the solution is to force majority of the population to use Apple store, to protect minority of the population who aren't tech savvy? If Apple allowed other stores, before a user can install an app from non-Apple store, iOS can show a message saying the app is not from Apple's holy store and that it is users responsibility to make sure the app is trustworthy? This won't be pretty, but at least it is a compromise. T…

Pretty hard to know who the minority is in this case. Based on other HN opinions about Apple products, there seems to be a consensus that Apple customers are mostly not tech savvy. If they were, they wouldn’t buy Apple stuff.

Even though this is a stereotype not grounded in reality and there are plenty of techie people who buy Apple products.

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#260

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

crazygringo wrote: post #165
wccrawford wrote: post #4

Other news on this has quotes from Tim Cook saying that they'd have to find a way to track purchases on IOS and bill developers so that Apple still gets their cut when using other payment processors. For me, this is way over the line. If they want to charge developers to be on their store, fine. I don't have a problem with that. And charging for using them as a payment processor makes sense. Charging for using Apple…

Unfortunately, Apple has to maintain this rule because otherwise developers will implement workarounds to avoid charging in the App Store altogether. Remember when eBay charged a commission on the sale price but not shipping? Suddenly $50 items became $1 with $49 shipping -- so eBay had to charge the commission on the shipping too even though it didn't seem "fair". Same here -- every app would turn free, and charge t…

>otherwise developers will implement workarounds to avoid charging in the App Store altogether.

The Windows store has plenty of applications despite having fees (5%).

As an aside- to me that seems like an important differentiating factor. Apps must pay a fee to be on these platforms. Who do they pay the fee to? Whoever they pay a fee to shouldn't be allowed to also have apps on there since this is unfair and anti competitive. Fees do not negatively affect Apple but they negatively affect competition.

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