How Apple Cheats • Hacker News Board

Re: How Apple Cheats

#211

Post by AnthonyMouse » Wed, May 28, 2014, 8:37 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #208

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see why it's unreasonable to replace a $500 device, when you already had to buy a $500 device in the first place to get access to iOS apps. You paid $500 for a device that can browse the internet, make phone calls from the back of a moving car, give you directions from anywhere to anywhere, record video, etc. You don't see how having to replace that entire device in order to buy a $1 app is unreasonable? >…

Why does the price of the iPhone, which you already own and which is a sunk cost, factor into it? Further, why do cellular services factor into any of this? Both iOS and Android devices run apps fine without cellular service. In fact, lots of them don't even have the ability to use cellular service. If you're insisting on only examining the scenario where you own an iPhone and a long-term cellular contract, then you…

> Why does the price of the iPhone, which you already own and which is a sunk cost, factor into it?

Exchanging $500 for an iPhone was a sunk cost. You now have an iPhone with an expected future value to you of at least $500 (or why did you pay that much for it?). Using an Android phone instead of the iPhone you already have prevents you from extracting that expected future value from the iPhone. The more you use the Android phone instead, the less value you can extract from the iPhone. It's effectively a $500 opportunity cost.

> Further, why do cellular services factor into any of this? Both iOS and Android devices run apps fine without cellular service. In fact, lots of them don't even have the ability to use cellular service.

If cellular service is so unimportant then why does everybody pay so much for it?

> If you're insisting on only examining the scenario where you own an iPhone and a long-term cellular contract, then you can still switch to Android for $30-50 through the simple expedient of buying an unlocked Android phone, taking the SIM out of your iPhone, and placing it in the Android phone.

Your efforts to reduce the switching cost are doing nothing but incurring more switching costs. A $30 Android phone is not comparable to a $500 iPhone. It will have a slower CPU, less memory, less storage, a lower resolution screen, etc. It's liable to be running an old version of Android that doesn't support newer apps, and any apps it does run will run more slowly and otherwise not work as well as they would on the newer iPhone (or newer Android device). These are all costs -- costs the market values at hundreds of dollars or the price disparity wouldn't exist. Meanwhile even $30 is a significant price to pay against a market for $1 apps.

And sharing a SIM card is an enormous pain in the ass. If you have an iPhone, other iPhones remember that and route text messages to iMessage. Your Android phone won't receive them when it has the SIM card. Any app you use on either device which is dependent on receiving events from the network won't work outside of WiFi whenever you put the SIM card in the other device, and every time you go to a new place you get to type the WiFi password twice. "Is an enormous pain in the ass" is a significant switching cost.

Which is before we even get to all the other costs of switching platforms, like trying to move your data, which is only difficult when it isn't impossible.

Re: How Apple Cheats

#212

Post by spb » Wed, May 28, 2014, 8:40 PM UTC

wannabee wrote: post #180

maaku wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please show me where I can get Android installed on my iOS device.

Since you asked: http://lifehacker.com/5693309/how-to-install-android-on-an-i...

That project hasn't been updated in years, and the home page has lapsed for lack of payment.

Re: How Apple Cheats

#213

Post by kbenson » Wed, May 28, 2014, 8:48 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #209

logfromblammo wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps I was modded down to oblivion because what I said was too obvious, and therefore not adding to the discussion? The fact remains that there are plenty of documented examples of Apple tossing apps from its App Store for reasons that amount to little more than corporate whim or gatekeeper prerogative, or for no adequately explained reasons at all. Should Apple ever decide that its popover API is ready for prime…

> The fact remains that there are plenty of documented examples of Apple tossing apps from its App Store for reasons that amount to little more than corporate whim or gatekeeper prerogative, or for no adequately explained reasons at all. Which is totally unrelated to the discussion about the private API, and if you can replicate a widget provided in one. Which you can.

I thought the inferred relation was clear in his original argument. If Apple makes their private API public, it is then possibly infringing. That's the difference between making an alternate implementation for a private API and something that doesn't exist; there is a higher likelihood that the private API will be made public than that an entirely new API will spring forth that covers the same area. It's already written, just not public.

Re: How Apple Cheats

#214

Post by AnthonyMouse » Wed, May 28, 2014, 9:31 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #210

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is how Sun didn't get involved in trust litigation over the fact that Solaris was the only OS that ran on Sun SPARC hardware There is also the fact that Sun didn't prohibit other operating system or application vendors from making operating systems or applications for its hardware by locking the boot loader.

No, that didn't come into play at all. Sun could have locked it whichever way they wanted, and still they wouldn't get involved in such litigation.

"No" is not an argument.

Re: How Apple Cheats

#215

Post by Iftheshoefits » Wed, May 28, 2014, 9:37 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #154

Iftheshoefits wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Nobody makes an alternative" is demonstrably, empirically false. Android, BlackBerry, Windows, Tizen, etc. In fact, my entire household uses Android phones, as do all my family and with the exception of three individuals (2 Apple, 1 Windows), all my friends.

Did you purposefully misunderstand that sentence or was it simply not clear? To complete the sentence in an unambiguous way 'alternative os for apple mobile hardware'.

I begin to question whether you understand what "alternative" means in the context of the interaction between hardware and software. It's a somewhat gray area, sure, but it's not that gray. There are many, many, many different mobile devices which one can use non-Apple software and non-Apple OSes on. Real, actual, genuine alternatives to Apple mobile devices exist in literally every sense of the word "alternative". In that context, that one cannot install an alternative OS on an Apple product is irrelevant and doesn't mean, at all, by any rational measure, that therefore "alternatives don't exist." It's simply facile to suggest otherwise.

Re: How Apple Cheats

#216

Post by logfromblammo » Wed, May 28, 2014, 9:59 PM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #213

coldtea wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fact remains that there are plenty of documented examples of Apple tossing apps from its App Store for reasons that amount to little more than corporate whim or gatekeeper prerogative, or for no adequately explained reasons at all. Which is totally unrelated to the discussion about the private API, and if you can replicate a widget provided in one. Which you can.

I thought the inferred relation was clear in his original argument. If Apple makes their private API public, it is then possibly infringing. That's the difference between making an alternate implementation for a private API and something that doesn't exist; there is a higher likelihood that the private API will be made public than that an entirely new API will spring forth that covers the same area. It's already writ…

Not only already written, but usable on [some] iOS devices. When developers can be affected by things that Apple might do in the future, that affects their behavior in the present.

As for myself, the terms for Apple's developer program and its App Store alone are enough for me to prefer to develop in HTML5+javascript or in Android-flavored Java over Objective C for iOS. When you have only one route between you and your money, and one person standing on it, you're going to have issues eventually.

It isn't just true for Apple. When PayPal locks your account, you don't want that to bring your business to a screaming halt, so you open up alternate payment processors, like Stripe, Google, Amazon, Rixty, etc. But unlike that competitive market, there is no alternative to Apple's App Store available to non-jailbroken devices. That is a chokepoint that gives the one holding it dangerous amounts of power over you. Any solo coder or dev shop that gets their revenue exclusively from Apple's ecosystem has a banhammer of Damocles hanging over them at all times. They can't afford to take any risks like that, so they have to dance to Apple's tune, even when there is no strict obligation to do so.

The extra revenue from Apple's customers might be worth it to them. I'd rather have more freedom of choice.

Re: How Apple Cheats

#217

Post by AnthonyMouse » Wed, May 28, 2014, 10:08 PM UTC

ctdonath wrote: post #179

jacquesm wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible to run Windows Phone or Android on iPhones now? They may not have a monopoly on smartphones (they wished they did, and maybe they even think they deserve one), but that's not for lack of trying and as far as systems software on hardware supplied by Apple goes they do. You can't buy an iPhone without iOs and nobody makes an alternative. Anti-trust law does not require a monopoly per-se, 'market power' i…

You're missing the key point that Microsoft makes an OS designed to run on hardware they don't make. Apple makes the iP* hardware and the entwined OS to run on it, much like PlayStation, Xbox, etc. Apple isn't trying to elbow other people off someone else's hardware - but Microsoft did, and got slapped down for it. Yes, somebody does "make an alternative". There are hundreds of smartphones which are, at base specs, l…

> Apple makes the iP* hardware and the entwined OS to run on it, much like PlayStation, Xbox, etc.

Tying software to hardware is not some magic immunity to antitrust. If you have a monopoly on either of them then the tying itself is illegal! If Microsoft did the same thing in the 90s all it would have done for them is to have Dell and HP filing complaints with the FTC alongside Sun and Netscape.

Re: How Apple Cheats

#218

Post by AnthonyMouse » Wed, May 28, 2014, 10:17 PM UTC

Iftheshoefits wrote: post #215

jacquesm wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you purposefully misunderstand that sentence or was it simply not clear? To complete the sentence in an unambiguous way 'alternative os for apple mobile hardware'.

I begin to question whether you understand what "alternative" means in the context of the interaction between hardware and software. It's a somewhat gray area, sure, but it's not that gray. There are many, many, many different mobile devices which one can use non-Apple software and non-Apple OSes on. Real, actual, genuine alternatives to Apple mobile devices exist in literally every sense of the word "alternative". I…

What you're failing to understand is that there is more than one market in question. Nobody is saying that Apple has a monopoly on smartphones. The issue is that Apple has a monopoly on iOS app distribution. It's a completely different market, and there is no substitute product in that market. You can't get iPhone apps from Google Play and you can't run Android apps on your iPhone.

Re: How Apple Cheats

#219

Post by coldtea » Wed, May 28, 2014, 11:35 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #214

coldtea wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that didn't come into play at all. Sun could have locked it whichever way they wanted, and still they wouldn't get involved in such litigation.

"No" is not an argument.

The rest of the comment was though. No was just a TL;DR; of the previous non-fact.

Re: How Apple Cheats

#220

Post by dTal » Wed, May 28, 2014, 11:44 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #95

icantthinkofone wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference may be that Microsoft used the private APIs to give itself (and select partners) advantages over competitors while being a monopoly. I don't know if Apple is using those APIs to give themselves an advantage over competitors but they certainly are not a monopoly as Microsoft is.

As microsoft was . At this point in time I don't think that anybody would be able to present an argument to the effect that Microsoft is the dominant player in consumer or business computing. The number of devices not running a Microsoft OS is significant.

Devices, sure. But computing? Some perspective:

You cannot buy a laptop not running Windows, unless you go Apple (a very small percentage of laptops sold, and high-end only). Businesses universally use PowerPoint, Excel, and Word. If you work in industry or manufacturing, you may have noticed that the drivers for specialist equipment are always for Windows. "Industry Standard" software like 3ds Max only runs on Windows. Government still overwhelmingly uses Windows, which is why it's still "news" when somewhere switches to Linux (usually Berlin again). Healthcare uses Windows.

In the consumer OS space, nobody is even trying to compete with them commercially. The worst they have to worry about there is poor publicity from a lemon version of Windows, because no matter how crap it is all new computers will still ship with it.

Seems to me Microsoft is still dominant.