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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

#311

Post by fsloth »

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.

With the risk of sounding overly harsh - If 99$ per annum is a concrete financial risk maybe being a solo developer is not such a good lifepath financially. I imagine anyone capable of deploying an app store app has pretty good skills and is quite hireable.

Of course individual situations can be different, but this is discussion about the "generic situation".

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

#312

Post by kitsunesoba »

akg_67 wrote: post #8
Hamuko wrote: post #2

Tim Cook's line of argument seemed a bit weird to me. On one hand he's saying that he doesn't know if Apple's customers would be able to distinguish between Apple's good and holy curated store and Epic's filthy shitheap of porn and blackjack, but he's also saying that Apple's customers definitely want Apple's App Store as-is. > Lawyer says, “if people really value Apple’s curation and Apple’s App Store, even if there…

I hope multiple App Stores don’t become a thing on iOS. The reason I like iPhone is that I am assured that apps I download from App Store are not shit and curated by Apple. Apple has vested interest to keep apps made available to be clean and not going to compromise iPhone. Android play store, in comparison, is full of crap and free for all, basically buyer (or downloader) beware. Phone is used by too broad of user g…

What I fear is that as a reaction to Apple's recent moves on privacy (tracking transparency, requiring user consent prior to tracking, etc), Facebook is going to spin up its own App Store without such rules where user data is a free for all.

This wouldn't be a threat in itself, but having control of heavy hitters like the Facebook app, Instagram, and WhatsApp among others, they could drive traffic levels that no third-party App Store has ever seen overnight. They can also afford to buy other heavy-hitting exclusives, and some data hungry devs would likely come on board with no incentive at all.

This would be a terrible outcome. If iOS is to support third party app stores, I'd rather it be after legislation is passed that effectively enforces Apple's App Store privacy policies at a federal level.

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

#313

Post by tshaddox »

wayneftw wrote: post #59
jrsj wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because my grandma is clueless and I give her an iPhone so she doesn’t install malware like she managed to on her Android phone

And Apple protecting her from that is the only solution? I don't think so... With just a tiny bit of imagination I'm sure we can come up with something which will work. Here's an idea: Let Apple sell Apple-locked and unlocked iPhones. It can work just like carrier locking. Buy one unlocked, maybe pay a little extra, and you can have 3rd party app stores. That took me a minute to come up with. I am absolutely positive…

If that was the law then sure, Apple could just sell a Samsung Android phone on their store so they don’t get fined. This approach obviously doesn’t actually change anything for smartphone users or developers.

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

#314

Post by kec »

celsoazevedo wrote: post #55
jrsj wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because my grandma is clueless and I give her an iPhone so she doesn’t install malware like she managed to on her Android phone

It's weird that a clueless person was able to download and install a malware apk when by default Android forces you to go to your settings and allow apps to install other apps (the behaviour has changed over the years, but you always need to do something). Not to mention that Google Play Protect scans your apps and warns you if it finds something sketchy. In any case and as much as I like my own clueless grandma, I d…

It’s not really weird at all. When a dialog pops up while a user is trying to do something like install an app 90% of users will blindly click “ok” in order to get on with it.

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

#315

Post by josephcsible »

spiderice wrote: post #219
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.

I find it telling that you use AWS as an example because they are different than the apple model, while ignoring all the companies using the exact same model as apple, including how Epic charges developers to host content on the Epic store.

There's no device or platform for which the Epic Store is the only way to get apps, so it shouldn't be held to the same standard as Apple's App Store.

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

#316

Post by w7 »

rdedev wrote: post #196
0xEFF wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose you install a messaging app to talk to your friend. How do you know they installed their copy from the good App Store and not the bad one?

Most messaging apps are centralized. Some form of server side checking can be easily added to make sure the client is legit and not tampered with. Same form of checking thing if it's P2P but it would be very cumbersome. Now it is possible that someones has cracked the encrypted messaged payload and figured out how to fool the client authenticity checking part but at that point you are probably dealing with a state ac…

That's not state actor level of effort. Kids do that stuff for video games.

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

#317

Post by tyingq »

websites420 wrote: post #294
tyingq wrote: post #183

"While Rogers’ questions don’t necessarily indicate how she’ll rule" Really? Here's some quotes from her: “The gaming industry seems to be generating a disproportionate amount of money to the IP you’re giving them and everyone else” “You don’t have competition in those in-app purchases, though,” “It doesn’t seem to me that you feel any pressure or competition to actually change the manner in which you act to address…

>but it seems like there's at least some indication of how she feels about it. This is not true. The judge's job is to follow pertinent line of inquiries to the case and get responses from the plaintiff and defense. Not pursuing a line of questioning might indicate that the questions were already resolved in briefs, and are therefore not needed in open court. Open court is a very, very small part of these trials, so…

What I posted weren't questions though. They are statements from the judge that don't sound like "devil's advocate" type set ups.

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

#318

Post by josephcsible »

smnrchrds wrote: post #128
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…

I have seen this time after time, that when the question of Apple store comes up, a top-rated comment always makes a comparison with game consoles to argue it is all fair. I don't personally believe the comparison makes sense, but many on HN do. So I am going to ask, how is this different from PS/Xbox/etc? If the game consoles still 'own' the device after you have bought it, e.g. when PS disabled Linux installation f…

I don't think it's different. I think game console makers are also being unfair and should open up their consoles.

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

#319

Post by slver »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #253
easton wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So you're annoyed by a few dozen apps you've installed sending notifications that "clutter your screen", and the solution is to allow the thousands of sites you visit do the same.

Okay.

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

#320

Post by ssaturn »

akg_67 wrote: post #8
Hamuko wrote: post #2

Tim Cook's line of argument seemed a bit weird to me. On one hand he's saying that he doesn't know if Apple's customers would be able to distinguish between Apple's good and holy curated store and Epic's filthy shitheap of porn and blackjack, but he's also saying that Apple's customers definitely want Apple's App Store as-is. > Lawyer says, “if people really value Apple’s curation and Apple’s App Store, even if there…

I hope multiple App Stores don’t become a thing on iOS. The reason I like iPhone is that I am assured that apps I download from App Store are not shit and curated by Apple. Apple has vested interest to keep apps made available to be clean and not going to compromise iPhone. Android play store, in comparison, is full of crap and free for all, basically buyer (or downloader) beware. Phone is used by too broad of user g…

Then don't download apps that aren't from the app store, no one is forcing you to. But dont restrict choices of users who want to.
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