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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

#91

Post by programmarchy »

frumper wrote: post #79
programmarchy wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignorantia juris non excusat.

That implies someone can learn what the rules are. Apple is capricious in the enforcement of those overly vague rules.

https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/

We don't know all the facts yet, but there's one surefire way to get terminated:

> If you attempt to cheat the system (for example, by trying to trick the review process, steal user data, copy another developer’s work, manipulate ratings or App Store discovery) your apps will be removed from the store and you will be expelled from the Apple Developer Program.

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

#92

Post by contact9879 »

scarface_74 wrote: post #85
contact9879 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So we shouldn’t believe judges because after looking at the law, the case being argued by Epics high price lawyers and multiple appeals, all of the judges got it wrong. But only contact9879 knows the “truth”

No. My point is that case law and judges only operate within precedent and an interpretation of law. That doesn't mean that the conclusions drawn are "truth"-ful. I'd even argue that case law can not determine a "truth". What constitutes monopolistic behaviour is subjective and case law is reflective of that. In fact, decisions are called "judicial opinions". They are a best effort to determine a truth given the tools and environment within which courts operate. That doesn't mean that the verdict is "correct" (whatever that means in the context of deciding monopolies).

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

#93

Post by lapcat »

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, and what makes the most money.

No, it's because Apple threw the App Store together very quickly (after realizing that the "sweet solution" of web apps wasn't going to fly), and in order to accelerate this process they directly cloned the iTunes Music Store in almost every way. This turned out to be a complete disaster and resulted in a race to the bottom, because the music store was designed to sell 99 cent songs, not software that may have traditionally been $99, or at least $29.

One of the best ways to get visibility is to be in the "top charts", which makes a kind of sense for music, because all singles and all albums are more or less the same price, but to get into the top charts for software you've got to optimize for volume rather than price.

In so many ways, trying to sell apps like songs completely destroyed the software market. Indeed, it wasn't great for the music market either. Apple convinced the music publishers to unbundle albums and resulted in a race to the bottom there too. Musicians need the money from album sales; very few can "make it up in volume" with just hit singles.

> Even desktop, a market that has historically used the up-front model is starting to switch to the "freemium or SaaS" model.

Only because of the downward pressure from the mobile market.

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

#94

Post by uhhhhhhh »

programmarchy wrote: post #91
frumper wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That implies someone can learn what the rules are. Apple is capricious in the enforcement of those overly vague rules.

https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/ We don't know all the facts yet, but there's one surefire way to get terminated: > If you attempt to cheat the system (for example, by trying to trick the review process, steal user data, copy another developer’s work, manipulate ratings or App Store discovery) your apps will be removed from the store and you will be expelled from the Apple Developer Program.

Considering they engaged legal representation and it sounds like Apple rather than fight it restored their account.

So we can probably safely assume it wasn't a glaringly obvious or serious breach of the terms that Apple felt it could defend. I don't imagine Apple would make cost benefit decisions about who can break their terms of service with nothing more than a letter with a legal letterhead.

That being said we will know for sure as the plaintiff seems to be bound to make Apple foot the legal bill one way or another. Good for them.

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

#95

Post by scarface_74 »

taeric wrote: post #90
scarface_74 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://qz.com/103169/how-apple-tried-to-turn-the-e-book-ind...

I'm not really clear what you are showing me here? Nobody argued in court that Amazon was price dumping. It is speculated that the NYT BestSeller deal of $9.99 was maybe in that direction, but nobody really argued that in court. Quite the contrary, it was argued, successfully, that it was perfectly legal for Amazon to offer discounts like this. (Ironically to this debate, they didn't blankly sell all ebooks at 9.99,…

Really? No one was arguing that Amazon was price dumping?

The publishers sold the right to sell the ebooks to Amazon for $x where $x was greater than $9.99. Amazon sold the ebook for $9.99. Was Amazon trying to make it up in volume?

> More, your argument was that sales of physical books were impacted

If the publisher sold the physical books for $16.99 and the right to sell the ebook for $14.99 to Amazon and then Amazon sold it for $9.99, how could it not be impacted?

> You can try and argue that the case was ruled incorrectly, but Apple was unable to do that

So in that case do you agree that the Epic vs Apple case was ruled correctly?

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

#96

Post by realusername »

stalfosknight wrote: post #38
tadfisher wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One can like the iOS platform and still advocate for general-purpose computing. I don't understand why folks on Hacker News, of all places, defend walled gardens so vehemently.

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.

> Again, if that's not your thing you're perfectly free to spend your money elsewhere.

You are in fact not, it's the whole problem. There's two actors colluding in the market, Apple & Google with very similar practices and rules ... and that's it.

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

#98

Post by Apocryphon »

scarface_74 wrote: post #88
Apocryphon wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non sequitur

So an article about what happened in the Apple ebooks case is a non sequitur about what happened in the Apple ebooks case? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised since people are ignoring a judges ruling that Apple isn’t a monopoly and saying it’s irrelevant.

Judges are actively ignoring each other’s rulings these days, what matters is the newest case that will ensue, what happened in the case you are citing is basically an eternity as far as legal regimes go.

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

#99

Post by literalbatshit »

logronoide wrote: post #86

This abuse will come to an end when a CxO goes to jail for a few years. Then things will be taken seriously.

There are so many people that would happily take the risk for significant reward though. Like, make millions of dollars a year, 1% chance you go to prison? Lots of takers.

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

#100

Post by Retric »

goosedragons wrote: post #55
Retric wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There existed general purpose computing platforms, but there’s also been just as many if not more completely closed platforms. Selling ringtones only existed because of how closed most phones were at the time. Palm OS 1.0 was nothing close to a general purpose computing platform. They didn’t even add TCP/IP support until 2.0. If anything the ability to lockdown Palm devices was a major selling point to many customers…

The Commodore 64 also lacked TCP/IP. What's important is that programs doing a wide variety tasks could be programmed. Companies can and do lock down general purpose computing devices all the time, we don't need the manufacturer to decide beforehand.

That’s a personal preference. I do want the manufacturer to lock down the device when I am handing it to a young kid. Zero need for any administrative assistance is a major selling point. I can point to a ton of kid’s computers from the 90’s that included a basic interpreter and no permanent storage so a reboot fixed any problem, they where toys not general computing devices.

As to TCP/IP, a Commodore 64 included the capability to use external storage to exchange information. You don’t need both, but the capability to directly exchange information with similar devices is a major hallmark of “general purpose computing” unlike say calculators or other specialized devices. Palm 1.0 included an email application, thus TCP/IP was a core feature. Instead you need to go from palm > computer > palm, just like say an early iPod or USB stick.

Thus palm started as glorified terminals, and people still loved them.

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