Can customers sue Google and Apple for not having enough choice? Or it's only the competition that has some chances?
Epic vs. Google: Google Loses
671–680 of 1001 posts
Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses
#672Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is a difference between selling donuts in the coffee shop and preventing anyone who drinks your coffee from buying a competitor's donuts.
And, to extend the analogy, paying the coffee patrons you think might consider opening a competitive donut shop next door to avoid that from happening (ie Google).
"Coffee patrons" would be consumers - literally paying consumers to not shop at your competitor is just offering extremely low (i.e. negative) prices, which may be perfectly legal depending on the context.
Paying off gamedevs would be analogous to paying off dough-makers (or doughnut bakers?) to only supply your store, and not your competitor, which would be super illegal. AMD sued Intel for very similar activity, and won.
Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses
#673Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, but this is only because Apple designed the phone that way. Apple should not be immune from antitrust law purely because they decided not to allow competition.
They do allow competition. Build your own phone and your own app store.
That's like saying that everything in the US is legal, since you're perfectly able to renounce your citizenship and move to Somalia where there aren't any laws.
Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses
#674There seems to be a lot of confusion in this thread regarding why Apple won their case against Epic while Google lost theirs.
The key reason Apple won their case is the fact that consumers generally purchase iPhones knowing ahead of time that their app download options are restricted to the App Store. If they disagreed with that restriction then they could have made the choice to purchase another phone instead, but deciding to purchase an iPhone anyway means they "knowingly agreed to the challenged restraint".
Under US law the precedent is very clear (established by the Supreme Court case Eastman Kodak v. Image Technical Services and the 9th Circuit case Newcal v. Ikon) that if the consumer knowingly agrees to aftermarket restraints ahead of time then that aftermarket will essentially not be considered a monopoly for antitrust purposes.
Source: The Epic v. Apple 9th Circuit ruling (specifically pages 30 to 40 which explains this in detail).
Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses
#675Earlier quoted context omitted.
Third party stores do not have the same functionality as Google's store, this is one of the things Epic sued over, so I imagine it will factor into the remedies.
AuroraStore is very close, using a ton of reverse engineered stuff from the play store It should all totally be open though
Google Play is not just app store, but also the only way to efficiently deliver push notifications on Android devices. And latest modifications to Android OS make it very rippled without push notifications, all background apps unload from memory very fast. The result is that it makes many types of apps impossible to implement without relying on push notifications - and lock in to Google Play services.
Same is true for Apple, of course.
Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses
#676There seems to be a lot of confusion in this thread regarding why Apple won their case against Epic while Google lost theirs. The key reason Apple won their case is the fact that consumers generally purchase iPhones knowing ahead of time that their app download options are restricted to the App Store. If they disagreed with that restriction then they could have made the choice to purchase another phone instead, but d…
"Knowingly agrees" - that phrase is doing a lot. The average consumer who buys an iPhone has no idea about Apple approved apps or app store restrictions. There also not told about it when purchasing the device or setting it up.
Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses
#677Earlier 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…
There has been several prominent cases where Apple removed some app from the store just to bring out an app in the same space. Also Apple products don't have the same restrictions as others when in comes to ads, api etc. To me that sounds quite clearly like like they are abusing their monopoly position.
Perhaps, but that is not what Epic vs Apple was about.
Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses
#678Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't think stores have an obligation to carry your products, it isn't like supermarkets are breaking the law because they don't have an open-door policy on products. I agree. However, consumers have the right to go to a different supermarket, without selling their house.
Speaking as someone who's gotten more than one tech illiterate relative an iPhone and iPad, the walled garden is WHY I bought in. It's literally Apple's biggest selling point, not having to worry about fake apps and malware and scams.
10 years ago that might have been true, but nowadays Apple doesn't give a single flying shit about fake/scammy apps on the iOS app store.
It's to the point where you can't look up local government apps here without getting some advertising garbage in the results first because Apple started selling app space.
Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses
#679In all fairness, the folks saying that the App store model isn't illegal, per last year's split judgment may want to consider Epic could re-open the case.
- Citing the current payment options open to most subscription services - How practically do these other options end up saving the 30% fees structure for end consumers and businesses - Explicit demonstrations of non-App Store purchases and restoration of ownership in games - How Apple enforces App Store review processes for apps with other payment options
If these are proven and turn out to be hurting competition and customers, that lawsuit might see an overturn. We'll have to see where it goes.
Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses
#680Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't fully understand. Are these functionalities baked into Android that only allow Play Store to use it?
Pretty much. Google Play services runs as like a root process that can (among other things) bypass all the security checks that the OS usually has. That includes those annoying update confirmation dialogs which make it impossible to install updates automatically without user interaction.
> That includes those annoying update confirmation dialogs which make it impossible to install updates automatically without user interaction.
Important to note this has changed starting with android 12, now you just need accept installing the app, and the source can update the app without interaction.
Droidify (third party fdroid client) supports it, among others like Aurora store.