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Epic vs. Google: Google Loses

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Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses

#601

Post by wvenable »

vineyardmike wrote: post #414
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do I develop a mobile app which a majority of people in the US will be able to use without interacting with Apple?

> a mobile app which a majority of people in the US will be able to use Even using Apple, you can't do this, because you need a separate Android and iOS app already. Big picture though, I don't think you really have a "right" or entitlement to just access everyone. You're not entitled to use someone else's business, even if it's a good one. You can't just go and sell your product in the AT&T store, you need to agree…

> Even if you make a phone that only works on the AT&T network, you still need to agree to their terms.

Prior to the 1980s, AT&T, as the dominant telephone service provider in the United States, had a policy that only allowed customers to use telephones that were leased from them. This policy was rooted in the belief that non-AT&T equipment could harm the telephone network. Does that sounds familiar?

Several legal cases (and the eventual breakup of AT&T) eventually opened up the AT&T network to third party phones and consumers rejoiced.

Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses

#602

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

martimarkov wrote: post #169
e63f67dd-065b wrote: post #22

I wonder what the remedies will be -- sideloading is already allowed, so allowing third party in-app billing? That seems to be the actual thing the juries said -- that Google used their dominant position to do anticompetitive things, among which is taking their 30% cut on everything. Hope that this happens to Apple eventually too.

Hope it doesn't happen to Apple as I like and prefer that I can only buy stuff and most importantly have a single place to cancel all my subscriptions without dark patterns like having to talk to a person to cancel. I'll again make my argument that the developers should respect the choice of the users. If the user chose iOS maybe they chose it because they wanted the curated experience and the locked it product. I ce…

> guys, it's a phone/tablet. The consoles are much more like a General Purpose Computers and we are not really touching those

I mean, I'm on board with using video game consoles as proper computers as well, but my phone literally has gcc installed so I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.

Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses

#603

Post by throwaway17_17 »

tw04 wrote: post #577
TerrifiedMouse wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the result of this case is "you can have a monopoly as long as your device and ecosystem are 100% locked down", that's terrible! Monopolies aren’t illegal. Only the abuse of a monopoly position to advance your interest in other markets is illegal. E.g. It’s not illegal to be the only seller of gasoline in the country. It is illegal though to bundle laundry powder with gasoline sales to corner the laundry powder…

>E.g. It’s not illegal to be the only seller of gasoline in the country. It is illegal though to bundle laundry powder with gasoline sales to corner the laundry powder market. I mean, it's far more than that. Most importantly: >Historically they have been held to include exclusive dealing, price discrimination, refusing to supply an essential facility, product tying and predatory pricing. While IANAL - even as a pleb…

Some specificity is required when discussing legal concepts like tying and essential facility.

For tying, while not a firm ‘rule’ the most common application of tying is limited to the ‘tied’ product being from another market when compared to the ‘tying’ product. Also, the current appellate court standard (worded semi-informally) is that a tying of products raises antitrust concerns when it restricts competition AND provides no benefit to consumers.

As to essential facility, the most impactful factor for the plaintiff (as in the hardest burden for the government to overcome to establish monopolistic abuse) is as follows: the plaintiff is REQUIRED to prove that the compelled permission to competitors to utilize the “facility” does not interfere or allow for detrimental effects of the dominant firm’s ability to serve its own customers.

Apple’s historic marketing speak and other ‘on the record’ statements about the app store’s exclusivity ensuring tight control for the security of Apple’s customers is directly written to advance defenses to these two claims.

You can certainly argue that Apple’s conduct is characterized as abuse of monopoly, but there arguments against that can also be compelling.

The above IS NOT and should not be considered legal advice.

Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses

#604

Post by ayewo »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #563
xethos wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that measure, F-Droid is very close in that both have the majority of apps some people use (Aurora for you, F-Droid for me). Neither can compete with the Play store though, as only Google's offering is allowed to update or install apps in the background without user interaction (without root). For that matter, only Google Play Protect (part of the Play Store IIRC) can un install apps from user's devices with no in…

>only Google Play Protect (part of the Play Store IIRC) can uninstall apps from user's devices with no interaction. That sounds horrible. Why can a store decide to delete an app with no prior notice? But it does seem Google has given more freedom to other apps to install apps. I guess it comes down to if that's still too many clicks or too fear mongering to count as "competitive".

It’s a security feature. They’ve had this feature for more than a decade [1].

It allows them to remotely remove any malicious app from Android devices without any user intervention.

1: https://www.computerworld.com/article/2752902/google-remotel...

Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses

#605

Post by oarsinsync »

nostrebored wrote: post #259
cyberax wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't get it, so no company can provide a walled garden Apple doesn't have multiple competing stores. It has ONE store. And if you are a software vendor that makes mobile apps, you HAVE to support Apple or you will go out of business.

Because consumers value the Apple ecosystem and UX, both of which you can take advantage of as a developer. What is the problem?

The problem is that after a decade, my choices are to continue to spend money at Apple, or spend even more money and time to leave Apple, go somewhere else, and buy all the apps I already own, all over again.

When I first started, I used to think of Apple as the best option available to me. Now I think about it as the least bad option. The cost of leaving involves so much time and money, that it’s not a realistic option.

Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses

#606

Post by oarsinsync »

vineyardmike wrote: post #414
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do I develop a mobile app which a majority of people in the US will be able to use without interacting with Apple?

> a mobile app which a majority of people in the US will be able to use Even using Apple, you can't do this, because you need a separate Android and iOS app already. Big picture though, I don't think you really have a "right" or entitlement to just access everyone. You're not entitled to use someone else's business, even if it's a good one. You can't just go and sell your product in the AT&T store, you need to agree…

> I don't think you really have a "right" or entitlement to just access everyone. You're not entitled to use someone else's business, even if it's a good one.

And yet you can literally pick up a phone, dial some numbers, and reach everyone else who has a phone number.

Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses

#607

Post by kelnos »

musictubes wrote: post #372
HDThoreaun wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok but apple is hurting consumers with their 30% fee. I would not have bought an iPhone if I knew about that. Now Im locked in.

Locked in? You can't buy another phone? Would you have been able to buy the apps you use without Google taking 30% as well?

Sure, they can buy an Android phone, and then have to re-buy all those apps again, probably at considerable expense.

And yeah, Google taking 30% as well also sucks. Just because Google does it, it doesn't mean it's fine Apple does too.

Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses

#608

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

ThatPlayer wrote: post #560
martimarkov wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hope it doesn't happen to Apple as I like and prefer that I can only buy stuff and most importantly have a single place to cancel all my subscriptions without dark patterns like having to talk to a person to cancel. I'll again make my argument that the developers should respect the choice of the users. If the user chose iOS maybe they chose it because they wanted the curated experience and the locked it product. I ce…

> If the user chose iOS maybe they chose it because they wanted the curated experience and the locked it product. If no iOS user wants a 3rd party store, no one will install them, all of them will fail and we wouldn't be talking about this. So why are Apple so afraid of a little competition? I think some iOS users (me) are willing to use other stores. And that's why Apple blocking it is anti-competitive.

One plausible argument is that Apple is afraid of other parties competing unfairly; if apps can ship outside the App Store - and, critically, if they can thereby bypass some of the restrictions Apple imposes through their review process - then ex. Google and Facebook could ship apps that do bad things (probably privacy related) and abuse their own market positions to coerce people into using such apps. Given that this doesn't happen on Android, it might well not be a problem, but Google already does anything they want on Android and arguably the restrictions that companies would want to bypass just don't exist there so it may or may not be a useful point of comparison.

A different angle is: If a user wants a 3rd party app store, why did they buy an iOS device?

(To be clear, I'm not really convinced either way at this point; I'm throwing out what I think are reasonable arguments but that doesn't mean I'm convinced there aren't good counterarguments to them)

Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses

#609

Post by thfuran »

scarface_74 wrote: post #233
tpush wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sandboxing had nothing to with any app store, and Android security empathetically doesn't suck.

I just had a coworker say that he surreptitiously installed an app on his son’s phone that allowed him to see everything his son was doing remotely and listen in to his son’s conversations. He showed it to us in action.

That's like saying Linux is insecure because sudo exists.

Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses

#610

Post by kmeisthax »

vineyardmike wrote: post #414
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do I develop a mobile app which a majority of people in the US will be able to use without interacting with Apple?

> a mobile app which a majority of people in the US will be able to use Even using Apple, you can't do this, because you need a separate Android and iOS app already. Big picture though, I don't think you really have a "right" or entitlement to just access everyone. You're not entitled to use someone else's business, even if it's a good one. You can't just go and sell your product in the AT&T store, you need to agree…

Part of Epic's argument was that they wanted Apple and Google to distribute Epic Games Store, which makes your argument valid. However, the commenter you were replying to likely isn't aware of this and does not care about how they install EGS, only that they are able to do so if they do not want to deal with Apple or Google.

The sneaky part of Apple's counterargument is that they try to apply your argument not to their own App Store, but to the entire OS. This is a land grab - the App Store is their service, but I own the phone, so the OS should respect my decision to circumvent Apple's curation if I so choose. If I'm not allowed to sell in Target or Walmart, I'm allowed to open my own store and people can circumvent Target to go to me directly. This is how it works for every other form of computer except phones and tablets.

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