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EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

appleinsider.com

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Re: EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

#971

Post by pornel »

turquoisevar wrote: post #585
no_wizard wrote: post #298

Ironically, I believe all this scrutiny on Apple really started with degraded developer relations and their 30% take on in app sales. If they had invested in better dev relations and dropped their 30% take (instead of coming up with all the weird ways you have to qualify for lower rates, which don't cover all scenarios), I don't think there would have been enough noise from below on this.

I’m happy with my 15% but the 30% never bothered me either. I still remember the cheers when the 30% was announced because it was vastly better than what the splits were before the launch of the App Store and even now it’s an industry standard. > (instead of coming up with all the weird ways you have to qualify for lower rates, which don't cover all scenarios) Not sure what you’re alluding to here. You essentially au…

It's not just the price that's outrageous, but also anti-competitive terms that come with it.

You're not allowed to have a better price outside of the App Store. iOS users aren't paying for their preferred payment system, it's everyone else subsidizing Apple's cut. You're not allowed to give customers a choice of payment methods (people like Apple's subscription, but some may prefer PayPal, especially for multi-platform products). You're not allowed to say they exist outside of the App Store. You're not allowed to even say the word "Android" in the App Store description.

Apple intentionally bundles and mixes together security, convenience, and anti-competitive terms. This confuses the discussion, because if you protest the inflated price, or the unfair terms, they say "oh, so you want users to get malware, huh!?".

The price is high for what you get — an inflexible payment system without ability to offer direct customer support for the payments, and a lottery ticket to maybe appear somewhere else in the store than search results for your app's name, with your competitor's ad first.

Low-margin businesses can't exist with Apple's pricing. Even higher-margin business sucks with Apple - 40% margin is good, but when 30% goes to Apple, Apple earns 3x more than you do.

If I develop and app, and market it myself, and already have a relationship with my customers, Apple just inserts themselves with a "product" I don't want, my users may not want, but we're forced to buy it.

Re: EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

#972

Post by rat9988 »

astrange wrote: post #22
smithcoin wrote: post #5

I for one am excited at the prospect that I might be able to install Firefox with ublock origin on my iPhone.

You won't, because once Chrome becomes available it will kill every other browser vendor.

At least firefox would be available too, that's a bit more market available to it. If anything, ios policy is killing firefox not helping it.

Re: EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

#973

Post by dml2135 »

wpm wrote: post #892
dml2135 wrote: post #852

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drop the “app” from store for a second and make your argument again, except imagine a scenario where there is just one physical store for all the consumer goods you need, and you’d be upset about that being broken up because now you’ll be inconvenienced. But what you won’t be is under the thumb of a single company that has way too much power over you.

Imagine a scenario where there is a store that requires strict controls on ingredients and supply chain, where if you want your crackers or frozen pizzas or fruit sold there, you have to ensure they are USDA organic, free of GMOs, pesticides, and so on. But I like Cheez-its, and Cheez-its are NOT USDA organic and the supply chain is full of modern monoculture farmed grain and its full of artificial ingredients. The s…

If Anytown was some small town whose economy can only support one store, sure. But I think in this scenario Anytown is more like NYC. One store is not enough, and saying “if you don’t like it, move” is not really appealing. I’m not going to move, I’m going to get my fellow citizens together and break the damn store up.

Re: EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

#975

Post by s3p »

pornel wrote: post #971
turquoisevar wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m happy with my 15% but the 30% never bothered me either. I still remember the cheers when the 30% was announced because it was vastly better than what the splits were before the launch of the App Store and even now it’s an industry standard. > (instead of coming up with all the weird ways you have to qualify for lower rates, which don't cover all scenarios) Not sure what you’re alluding to here. You essentially au…

It's not just the price that's outrageous, but also anti-competitive terms that come with it. You're not allowed to have a better price outside of the App Store. iOS users aren't paying for their preferred payment system, it's everyone else subsidizing Apple's cut. You're not allowed to give customers a choice of payment methods (people like Apple's subscription, but some may prefer PayPal, especially for multi-platf…

This is not true. Youtube Premium, for instance, is more expensive if you subscribe on iOS versus web.

Re: EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

#976

Post by ghusto »

faeriechangling wrote: post #310
ghusto wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm more or less with you, except for ... > We'd 100% still be using Flash Oh no? I remember that whole thing, and being thoroughly confused. I was able to watch videos on websites on my Android phone that iPhone users couldn't, and it had no noticeable effect on my battery life. I'm not saying we should all go to defend Flash, but I strongly suspect Apple killing Flash had a lot more to do with the fact that using F…

It maybe also had to do with Flash being one of the most insecure pieces of software ever devised? It also had to do with Macromedia, at the time the iPhone was released, not giving every platform equal support? So Apple might have been in the position of negotiating with Adobe to get them to support iPhone? I can hardly blame them for pushing open standards like HTML5 and their own app store instead. I honestly woul…

Hilariously, the moment they start supporting WebP, they're hit with a zero day exploit ... from WebP

Re: EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

#978

Post by Moldoteck »

maratc wrote: post #967
ragestorm wrote: post #905

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I severely doubt that big corps will force side loading their app in iPhone when the easier experience is the iOS AppStore. Same reason why all those apps you mentioned are in the android store and not just apk downloads from their site.

We don't know how this will play out, and probably instead of sideloading the new stores will be downloaded from the app store. So say you want WhatsApp on your phone. Today: AppStore - get WhatsApp. Tomorrow: AppStore - get Facebook store - start Facebook store - get WhatsApp. The power Facebook (also, Microsoft and Google) have over the users of their apps may be so great that they could pull it. Small companies? N…

But apple can ban other stores in it's store. They can say 'we made platform open to sideloading, you can even sideload other stores' in combo with several warnings that sideloading is dangerous when a user attempts to do it. This can guarantee that apps will stay inside appstore bc it will be too hard for users otherwise

Re: EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

#979

Post by OrangeMusic »

RGBCube wrote: post #964
jimmyk2 wrote: post #830

Apple should open up the boot loader and let you install an alternate OS. Can’t get any more open than that. But I think we will find people actually want access to Apple’s audience and dev tools for free. I’m loathe to stump for megacorp like Apple, but in the same vein as iMessage, I don’t think we should drag iOS down to Android’s level just because Googles messaging strategy has been a turd for a decade.

> I don’t think we should drag iOS down to Android’s level just because Googles messaging strategy has been a turd for a decade. Wdym? Google Messages supports RCS, which has been a thing for a while , it's also an open standard. Apple still doesn't support it, they're stuck with SMS.

Messages is like the 10th iteration/variation of an Android chat app. Google's lack of cohesiveness and long term vision is why we have WhatsApp.

Re: EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

#980

Post by Aerbil313 »

smcleod wrote: post #940
Tagbert wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the user base of Firefox now? Single digits, last I hear. Chrome just keeps growing. Once iOS no longer uses WebKit as it’s base, the Chrome Blink will dominate.

It’s a lot larger than single digits. Those metrics are generated largely from tracking methods that Firefox blocks.

Hahaha. It'd be pretty ironic if Firefox eventually dies solely because no one bothers to support it because single digits on StatCounter which Firefox itself blocks.

Someone should fix this. Don't block whatever trackers StatCounter use.

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