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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

#631

Post by narrator »

yesenadam wrote: post #619

"in 2020, Apple’s app store commission revenue was close to $15bn, which was larger than total global revenue from the entire digital music industry... Around 90% of this revenue comes from games, and almost all of that comes from in-app purchases." https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2021/5/13/apples-ads...

Has someone written a treatise on in-app game purchases? It's a huge aspect of human behavior that I cannot understand intuitively and I guess I ought to. I have no desire to do it. I'll pay under $10 for an old Grand Theft Auto game that I can play start to finish, but the in-app stuff I don't get. It's like some sort of exploit for human psychologically that is phenomenally lucrative that somehow I got a patch for.

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

#632

Post by newsbinator »

nwallin wrote: post #629

I will not buy any device that does not give me control of the device. If I can't sideload apps, can't install a 3rd party store, do not have the ability to root my own device, I won't buy it. Apple has decided that's not allowed, fine, I won't buy their product. That's between Apple and their customers. But it is certifiably insane that Apple thinks they have the right to dictate to Epic what Epic charges for its ap…

It’s still unclear to me why Apple should have any limits in what rules they set for their store. Don’t publishers have the option to skip Apple’s store and sell in other ones?

I mean this isn’t price gouging generators during a winter storm. This is video games and apps.

What stops publishers from simply shrugging, walking away, and letting Apple users miss out?

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

#633

Post by akudha »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #593
5560675260 wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One possible solution is to start giving our money to companies that are not Apple or Google. Otherwise we'll be forever stuck with this duopoly and various alternative OS will keep being niche at best.

Show me a viable 3rd party OS phone that doesn't require me to jump through 1000 hoops and accept subpar reception/user experience and I'll hop right on it. Until then I'll choose iPhone for it's superior user privacy policy (compared to Android/Google)

I hope projects like librem 5 will catch on, at least amongst the tech savvy, might take a while though.

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

#634

Post by mjthompson »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #613

The only aspect of the Apple App Store that strikes me as truly anticompetitive is their prohibition on adjusting prices to include Apple’s fees, or even to tell the user what they are. I can accept that Apple can demand a 30% fee for billing customers on their devices. And I can accept that they would prohibit installation/sales of software any other way. But I should be allowed to mark up the price by 30% and then…

Apple's use of its own market power on its store to regulate conduct on other markets is deeply concerning.

Another example is Apple ID. If I use Google or Facebook SSO in my app, I have to offer Apple SSO alongside it. That is okay. However Apple will refuse the app into the App Store if I don't also offer Apple ID login on desktop and Android platforms.

Apple should keep its nose in its own business.

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

#635

Post by cmorgan31 »

nwallin wrote: post #629

I will not buy any device that does not give me control of the device. If I can't sideload apps, can't install a 3rd party store, do not have the ability to root my own device, I won't buy it. Apple has decided that's not allowed, fine, I won't buy their product. That's between Apple and their customers. But it is certifiably insane that Apple thinks they have the right to dictate to Epic what Epic charges for its ap…

So they don’t get to be on iOS. I’d leave ethics and morals out of this convo since neither side has anyone’s interest but their own. Sounds like you already found a solution to this court case - don’t buy Apple if you want to tinker with your hardware. I’m shocked that is news to anyone. I’m shocked so many of us want to dictate what the rest of us have as the status quo because it doesn’t align with your feelings and belief system.

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

#636

Post by akudha »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #259
fastaguy88 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I am not particularly a fan of Apple. Still, I think Apple is better than Google. That is how sad the situation is. There is simply no choice other than iOS and Android. I really wish Microsoft hadn't given up so soon on windows phone. Microsoft isn't great either, but at least there would be three choices instead of two.

I hope projects like Librem 5 succeed, but they are a long way :(

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

#637

Post by majewsky »

mthoms wrote: post #379
sidlls wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comment was not unsubstantial, nor was it “clever” in the way you suggest was attempted. Cigarettes were quite a popular market driven product for literally decades. The point being, obviously, that “the market decides” isn’t necessarily a good way to determine or identify quality, or what consumers actually want or need.

The "what about cigarettes?" argument would be relevant if one of the market participants in this scenario was literally killing people (or otherwise harming society in some way). An honest reader would not interpret my pro-free-market comment as being 100% absolute in any and all circumstances. An honest reader would consider the context. You're not arguing in good faith. Try again?

> An honest reader would not interpret my pro-free-market comment as being 100% absolute in any and all circumstances.

FWIW, based on my experience, whenever I see Americans arguing pro-free-market, I am going to assume that they genuinely argue in absolutes. ("FWIW" because I can see from your profile that you're Canadian.)

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

#638

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#639

Post by bredren »

ineedasername wrote: post #592
bredren wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the surface, ebooks as a category of content make sense to allow direct sale as you described. However, your use of Amazon also serves as an illustration of Apple’s case. Among kindle enthusiasts, Amazon had notoriously neglected the Kindle product hardware and software platform. From neglecting Goodreads to stagnation, to not including USB-C on its very expensive Oasis product, the whole brand is a picture of “we…

If you're making a usability case between an Apple product, you have to use the comparable Amazon product: Kindle Fire. Amazon's eink readers are a completely different product class than anything from Apple. And on a Kindle fire the experience isn't dramatically different than any other android based system, and the kindle reader apps between Apple and Fires are nearly identical. Comparing an eink interface to iOS i…

How do you account for Amazon's investment in making the Kindle Fire OS updated and valuable? Haven't they paid their own expense to deliver a comparable application?

My point on e-ink was to show that Amazon has not invested in the Kindle product line.

Kindle readers can't support any modern interaction. And that part of the reason the interface speed is bad is because Amazon has neglected to invest whatsoever in the technology.

But to focus on the Kindle Fire app and its comparison, if you look at the most negative recent reviews, they generally focus on device incompatibility.

If you look at the App Store reviews for the kindle reader, they do not focus on that. They focus on other common issues between the platforms.

Device compatibility and support is a real value that Amazon Kindle users on iOS get.

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

#640

Post by Lazare »

ajkjk wrote: post #625
erikpukinskis wrote: post #613

The only aspect of the Apple App Store that strikes me as truly anticompetitive is their prohibition on adjusting prices to include Apple’s fees, or even to tell the user what they are. I can accept that Apple can demand a 30% fee for billing customers on their devices. And I can accept that they would prohibit installation/sales of software any other way. But I should be allowed to mark up the price by 30% and then…

Dystopian is the word for it. It's fucking insane that you can't talk about why it's priced that way. Of course, if you include the fee explicitly then people will think to look elsewhere and realize they can avoid it. But that's fine, taking a cut is stupid anyway. Really just seems like the app should be paying more to Apple (like a physical store paying rent on real estate) up front and getting the full price of t…

Really can't agree more.

It's clear that the App Store offers significant value for many vendors, and charging for it is fine. Epic apparently generates $500m of revenue per year from the iPhone, and they're doing so using platforms, tools, and APIs that Apple built to help developers do that. It's reasonable that Apple would get a slice of that. The company I work for makes, well, a lot less revenue that Epic, but a decent chunk of the revenue we do make goes to AWS and Stripe, as compensation for their help in letting us earn that revenue.

What's not great is the specific way Apple has chosen to get this cut. AWS and Stripe both run, more-or-less, on a cost-plus model; they package up a service, and resell it to us at a markup (in the case of AWS bandwidth, a very, very, fat markup), and they let us decide how much of that service to consume, and how we want to balance our purchases between them and competing vendors.

Apple's stance here is a little like if AWS tried to force people who use any AWS service to use their overpriced egress bandwidth for everything, and sued customers found to be using Cloudflare to reduce their costs.

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