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This is huge! I've had so many business ideas that I've killed at the idea stage because giving 30% of revenue to Apple or Google made it not viable. Might be time to revisit them...
Good thing it's 15% for both of them then.
For anyone curious why Google lost: >Epic v. Google [...] hinged on secret revenue sharing deals between Google, smartphone makers, and big game developers, ones that Google execs internally believed were designed to keep rival app stores down. Without finding the same thing in Apple, I doubt this will affect Apple's case much, but of course I should mention I'm not a lawyer; I'm perfectly happy to be schooled if som…
https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/12/22667694/epic-v-apple-tri...
Absolutely fantastic news. Now extend it to Apple.
In that case consoles from Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo? Why stop there? Smart TV manufacturers? Cars?
Since you brought up the TV analogy - how would you feel about being forced to pay a Samsung tax every time you buy new groceries for your Smart Fridge? That's basically what Apple does. So they can, respectfully, get fucked.
So they will take this back to Apple and probably win then? To me this means Epic has unilaterally won. Android was the more open of the two. We all know from the personal computer how it should be. Apple and Google are on borrowed time.
Not likely, they aren’t the same type of case. Apple didn’t force anyone else to install their App Store. That’s where Google differs and what Epic proved they did. They can’t prove Apple did anything like that since Apple doesn’t offer iOS to anyone else.
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And the fact Epic lost so handily against Apple for the same thing is pretty chilling for the future of open devices. Lock down your platform tight as a drum and you may employ all manners of anticompetitive practices because you legally forbid the existence of competitors and you're "curating your experience" but open yourself up to any competition and your behavior becomes anticompetitive.
To be fair, that's literally called a video game console.
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I don't get it, so no company can provide a walled garden? Or at least, not if they're successful? That doesn't make sense to me, why is that not an acceptable and desirable feature for some people ? You don't have to buy an iPhone, this isn't like a railroad or a telecom that owns all of the possible infrastructure. If you want a walled garden get an iPhone. If you want freedom with all that implies, go Android.
> I don't get it, so no company can provide a walled garden You can provide a walled garden. But that's not Apple does. Instead, Apple is a mafia that shakes down all the vendors for the right to sell in their semi-open market square. If Apple iOS were a walled garden, it would have contained only Apple applications.
Assuming this ruling stands, and the pattern is extended to Apple as well, what does a multi-app-store world look like? How does one "install" a new app store, what sort of permissions does it get? Who can start a new app store? What risks does a user accept when they do business with a 3rd party store? I for one would welcome a mobile store from Valve, Epic etc, especially if I could have my purchases work on multip…
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It seems the reasoning is that Google isn't really competing against the iOS app store, in which sense they don't look much like a monopoly, but just against all the potential other android app stores, in which sense they do look a lot like a monopoly. Seems sort of ironic that Apple avoided this argument by just not having any alternative app stores at all to be anticompetitive with.
It's not the first time Google has been paradoxically punished for being more open than Apple. When you have partners and competitors then there are a lot of people to argue against you in court. When you forbid competition and partner with nobody then the people harmed are the theoretical partners and competitors you would have had, but theoretical people don't show up in court.
I'm not sure how I feel about this, on the one hand monopolies are obviously very anti consumer, but I do see Google's point of securing the already questionable appStore. But surely there's a happy medium in there to simply allow 3rd party payment processing?
Why is there this assumption that third party apps are going to be so unsafe? We already run untrusted executable code in the form of JavaScript. Why does the android system need to be different? Why can’t we say the OS needs sandboxing, api permissions, etc. I really don’t want the only thing protecting my phone being the fact that a human sometimes reviews an app.
So they will take this back to Apple and probably win then? To me this means Epic has unilaterally won. Android was the more open of the two. We all know from the personal computer how it should be. Apple and Google are on borrowed time.