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Japanese game publisher Digital Will has filed a lawsuit against Apple

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Re: Japanese game publisher Digital Will has filed a lawsuit against Apple

#61

Post by stalfosknight »

contact9879 wrote: post #59
stalfosknight wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you call a "walled garden" someone else would call an openly opinionated, thoughtfully designed, and well managed platform with seamless integration and world-class support. Again, if that's not your thing you're perfectly free to spend your money elsewhere.

You can be opinionated, thoughtfully designed, and well managed without being a walled garden. Maybe once Apple is a primarily services company, they'll care less about their "walled garden" and let their devices play nice.

I honesty think that would be nice to see Apple loosen up in some ways.

But I really appreciate some of the ways in which they are strict. Developers really need to restrained from their own worst behaviors like slurping up private data, abusive advertising practices, not providing simple one-click cancelation of subscriptions, and so on.

Re: Japanese game publisher Digital Will has filed a lawsuit against Apple

#62

Post by contact9879 »

scarface_74 wrote: post #42
anonymousab wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the judge cleared the Cupertino-based company of monopolistic malpractices That does not appear to be anything like affirming that they are not a monopoly. One can be a monopoly without being guilty of anticompetitive monopolistic behavior. Likewise, Epic failing to make their narrow case is not a statement of absolute fact about Apple's market or industry position; it is a statement that Epic's specific argument w…

So whose viewpoint should I believe in whether Apple did anything wrong, a real judge or a random commenter on HN?

Neither? Judges are also just random people chosen to interpret "the law". That doesn't mean their interpretation can accurately determine what is or isn't monopolistic. Judges make historically "wrong" decisions all the time.

Re: Japanese game publisher Digital Will has filed a lawsuit against Apple

#63

Post by LordDragonfang »

donmcronald wrote: post #57
CamperBob2 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is ZERO reason to be anything other than 100% transparent. The customary rationale, at least around here, goes something like "B...b...b...but if we actually document the rules and tell you what you did wrong, it helps the BAD GUYS!!!11!!"

I think the app store monopoly is literally the thing that lets the bad guys participate in the first place. Consider competing app stores. Some of them would be stricter than Apple and do a far better job of curation IMO. For example, apps that exist to trick children into in-app purchases could be forbidden. Or maybe someone would start a store for games that only allows up-front sales, no subscriptions, and no ads…

> Or maybe someone would start a store for games that only allows up-front sales, no subscriptions, and no ads. [...] [Those] stores would filter out a huge amount of junk that’s currently on the Apple app store.

While I'd love to live in a universe where this could actually happen, in reality this is a pipe dream.

The reason the app store is full of freemium apps stuffed with ads and microtransactions is because that's overwhelmingly the thing that consumers choose, and what makes the most money. Even desktop, a market that has historically used the up-front model is starting to switch to the "freemium or SaaS" model.

Any app store that tried to have such principles would find that they get almost no devs willing to add their apps, and those that did would get barely any sales compared to their less scrupulous peers (rendering the store unable to stay solvent at worst, or having almost no effect on the wider market at best)

Re: Japanese game publisher Digital Will has filed a lawsuit against Apple

#64

Post by AnthonyMouse »

donmcronald wrote: post #57
CamperBob2 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is ZERO reason to be anything other than 100% transparent. The customary rationale, at least around here, goes something like "B...b...b...but if we actually document the rules and tell you what you did wrong, it helps the BAD GUYS!!!11!!"

I think the app store monopoly is literally the thing that lets the bad guys participate in the first place. Consider competing app stores. Some of them would be stricter than Apple and do a far better job of curation IMO. For example, apps that exist to trick children into in-app purchases could be forbidden. Or maybe someone would start a store for games that only allows up-front sales, no subscriptions, and no ads…

They're afraid of competition in general, because competition benefits customers.

You could find stricter or more specialized stores where you can trust everything in them more than you can from a general purpose store.

You could find stores that allow apps you may want that Apple prohibits even though they're not malicious, like BitTorrent or third party browser engines or adult content.

The competition would reduce their margins; 30% is absurd and only exists because it's a monopoly rent.

Everything about it benefits you, which is why there are supposed to be laws constraining them from removing your ability to choose.

Re: Japanese game publisher Digital Will has filed a lawsuit against Apple

#65

Post by ryandrake »

lapcat wrote: post #8
coldtea wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Historical revisionism. For more than 30 years prior to iOS, general-purpose computing platforms were mostly open with no vendor-controlled store. That's quite the historical revisionism. Phones weren't "general-purpose computing platforms" for the most part of those 30 years (Gordon Gecko's phone didn't have apps). Nor where they considered as such. And there were tons of capable of "general purpose computing" pop…

> Phones weren't "general-purpose computing platforms" for the most part of those 30 years (Gordon Gecko's phone didn't have apps). Nor where they considered as such. We're all well aware of that, but so what? There's nothing inherent to smartphones that requires vendor-locked stores, and indeed some other smartphone platforms allow various levels of so-called "sideloading". > And there were tons of capable of "gener…

What makes a phone a "general-purpose computing platform" that is also not true for game consoles? They seem the same to me: They both have general purpose processors which -can- run arbitrary programs, but the owners of their ecosystems choose to limit what is allowed to run on them. If one is a "general-purpose computing platform" then the other must be, and vice versa.

Re: Japanese game publisher Digital Will has filed a lawsuit against Apple

#66

Post by Terretta »

> anti-trust

Anti whose trust?*

Apple targets users' trust.

If you count up news headlines for your statistics, you may end up biased on the utility a platform provides to end users by shutting down fraudulent dev accounts and erring on the side of caution.

Because there are "think of the innocents" headlines when a small dev gets caught in the dragnet, but no headlines about the hordes constantly getting shutdown before more consumers are harmed. The ratio of reporting gives a false impression of the utility.

Instead of looking for stories of bad devs getting shut down, you will find plenty pearl clutching headlines castigating Apple for failing to "clean up the app store" (although again, with no denominator under the numerator).

In general, though, from the conception of the Mac as a "bicycle for the mind" to the last revamp into Apple-as-a-Service, Apple's platform is, and has always been, for everyday end users, not for devs.

It's increasingly difficult to keep it safe for everyday users, and that's pain borne both by the platform creator, and app creators, so that users can do their jobs to be done with less friction, worry, or risk. (See IAP subs vs. any subscription to any other online service, effectively un-cancelable.)

If one doesn't agree with that goal, and the costs of maintaining that goal, there are other platforms one can develop for. Meanwhile, 99% of apps, especially ad-supported apps, can be delivered through HTML5: https://developer.ibm.com/tutorials/x-html5mobile3/

All that said ...

Devs are a user persona too, and Apple can afford to take accountability for any "we're in this together"-driven policy errors.

TL;DR:

Apple should automatically and proactively make-good any losses caused by mistaken shutdowns.

They have the stats: recurring revenue + projected growth + inconvenience/opportunity-cost coverage, auto-deposited for duration. That would be a fine motivation to get better at discriminating on the margins.

Would show user trust is important, and dev trust is of value too.

- - -

* Should have gone without saying: “Anti-trust” is not synonymous with “anti trust”, this was just a hook to talk about trust.

Re: Japanese game publisher Digital Will has filed a lawsuit against Apple

#67

Post by programmarchy »

HumblyTossed wrote: post #22

> Since the developer had no idea what it was supposed to have done wrong, it was unable to meet Apple’s appeal requirement of explaining what happened, and how it has resolved the issue. The appeal was thus denied. If nothing else, Apple should fix this. There is ZERO reason to be anything other than 100% transparent.

Ignorantia juris non excusat.

Re: Japanese game publisher Digital Will has filed a lawsuit against Apple

#68

Post by AnthonyMouse »

LordDragonfang wrote: post #63
donmcronald wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the app store monopoly is literally the thing that lets the bad guys participate in the first place. Consider competing app stores. Some of them would be stricter than Apple and do a far better job of curation IMO. For example, apps that exist to trick children into in-app purchases could be forbidden. Or maybe someone would start a store for games that only allows up-front sales, no subscriptions, and no ads…

> Or maybe someone would start a store for games that only allows up-front sales, no subscriptions, and no ads. [...] [Those] stores would filter out a huge amount of junk that’s currently on the Apple app store. While I'd love to live in a universe where this could actually happen, in reality this is a pipe dream. The reason the app store is full of freemium apps stuffed with ads and microtransactions is because tha…

> The reason the app store is full of freemium apps stuffed with ads and microtransactions is because that's overwhelmingly the thing that consumers choose

But that's the problem with a generalist store. They're leaving too much money on the table to exclude those things, so they include them, and then the store is full of crap and you can't trust anything.

If anyone could start a store then you could have a store operated by a tiny startup with low overhead who only has to pay one or two salaries and can therefore be sustainable with only a tiny fraction of the market, because they have a niche. Which enables the quality store to exist, and serve all of the customers who prefer that.

Re: Japanese game publisher Digital Will has filed a lawsuit against Apple

#69

Post by thrown1212 »

Terretta wrote: post #66

> anti-trust Anti whose trust?* Apple targets users' trust. If you count up news headlines for your statistics, you may end up biased on the utility a platform provides to end users by shutting down fraudulent dev accounts and erring on the side of caution. Because there are "think of the innocents" headlines when a small dev gets caught in the dragnet, but no headlines about the hordes constantly getting shutdown be…

Anti-trust not anti trust

Re: Japanese game publisher Digital Will has filed a lawsuit against Apple

#70

Post by fyrn_ »

tinus_hn wrote: post #11

It’s a textbook case, yet the hundreds of times we’ve heard this story before the lawsuit went nowhere. Perhaps reality isn’t as cut and dried as this article makes it look.

Or perhaps Apple has really good lawyers, and whenever a case looks like it might set precedent they settle out of court?
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