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Apple admits it ranked its Files app ahead of competitor Dropbox

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Re: Apple admits it ranked its Files app ahead of competitor Dropbox

#131

Post by ashton314 »

arthurcolle wrote: post #67
musicale wrote: post #49

Apple PR: > we do not advantage our apps over those of any developer or competitor Apple employee Debankur Naskar: > I think the Files app was manually boosted ... during last WWDC. We are removing the manual boost So which of these is true? Or is PR technically correct because they do not currently "advantage" their apps?

Their use of ‘advantage’ as a word reminds me of this classic Calvin & Hobbes strip. https://www.languagetrainers.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/201... Looks like the 80s/90s kids that were brought up on these skits are finally taking over!

Lol. Calvin & Hobbes is amazing.

Randal Munroe has one in a similar vein: https://xkcd.com/1443/

Re: Apple admits it ranked its Files app ahead of competitor Dropbox

#132

Post by egypturnash »

nexuist wrote: post #84

Does anyone else just…not care? Files is a system app like Windows Explorer. It’s not meant to “compete” with anything. Does anyone think Control Panel competes with Android’s Settings app? iCloud Drive is a cloud storage competitor that Files works well with, but Files also supports Dropbox and Google Drive and many other storage competitors (anyone who wants to implement the API gets to be in Files). Also, the argu…

If you dig down the email chain PDF you get to email from the head of Epic bitching about how a search for “Fortnite” comes up with ads for competitors first. He then goes on to use the ad for Files that showed up at the top of a search for “Dropbox” as another example.

Half the time when I search for any app on the iOS store I get an ad for a knockoff at the top of the search, barely noted as an ad, this is a big problem. Though you get the same shit when you search for anything on Google too. Except a lot of those are ads bought by the very thing you’re searching for, because they have decided giving Google protection money to keep anyone else out of that spot is worth it.

Re: Apple admits it ranked its Files app ahead of competitor Dropbox

#133

Post by mthoms »

graeme wrote: post #128
yyyk wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Files is a system app like Windows Explorer. It’s not meant to “compete” with anything. That defence helped Internet Explorer a lot. Nope. At the very least searching for 'dropbox' should return 'dropbox' and not be overriden by Apple. >but for some reason its position in the App Store is a controversial topic? How many people even delete Files and search for it again? This makes Apple's defence for manually placing…

A filesystem and an internet browser are two very different things! Files = Windows explorer, the filesystem. Which is not internet explorer, the browser. Dropbox and Files indeed aren’t really competitors. I often use Files to browser my Dropbox files!

I just uninstalled Dropbox and upgraded my iCloud storage.

I’ll admit it’s an experiment to see if it meets my needs, but for my use case(syncing between my desktop and laptop), they are absolutely direct competitors.

Re: Apple admits it ranked its Files app ahead of competitor Dropbox

#134

Post by darrenf »

etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #80
arthurcolle wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their use of ‘advantage’ as a word reminds me of this classic Calvin & Hobbes strip. https://www.languagetrainers.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/201... Looks like the 80s/90s kids that were brought up on these skits are finally taking over!

You can also "noun" verbs. One I hear in SV is "an ask". I find myself a bit peeved by it but I don't know why.

“Ask” has had a noun form for as long as I can recall in British English. Phrases like “that’s quite a big ask” and “what’s the ask?” are commonplace IME.

Re: Apple admits it ranked its Files app ahead of competitor Dropbox

#135

Post by Dylan16807 »

ericd wrote: post #127
paulryanrogers wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Dropbox is also a trademarked name. And 'games' is a more general term, such as for a whole category.

Iirc Apple was using Drop Box before Dropbox existed, as a place for other users on the network to drop files onto your hard drive.

That sounds like a significantly different meaning to me. If they were still using that branding in a significant way, and treating an app that does that as a match, that would be more understandable. But that's not what the files app is.

Re: Apple admits it ranked its Files app ahead of competitor Dropbox

#136

Post by simondotau »

musicale wrote: post #49

Apple PR: > we do not advantage our apps over those of any developer or competitor Apple employee Debankur Naskar: > I think the Files app was manually boosted ... during last WWDC. We are removing the manual boost So which of these is true? Or is PR technically correct because they do not currently "advantage" their apps?

This inferred charge of hypocrisy would make sense if the Files app competes with Dropbox. I can see why that would be assumed. But while there’s certainly some overlap, Files isn’t a replacement for Dropbox, or vice versa. Perhaps controversially, I would argue that they do not compete.

Files is a built-in app that ostensibly fills the role of Windows Explorer on macOS Finder, to the extent that the concept of a file browser makes any sense on iOS.

The purpose of the Dropbox app is to access the Dropbox service and to buy their cloud storage. Apple’s Files app does not compete with this—except insofar as it shows you the cloud storage that you are currently paying for (potentially including Dropbox) or local storage that you have already paid for.

Let’s be real here, if anyone typed dropbox into an App Store search because they wanted the dropbox app, literally nobody is going to be confused. Literally nobody is going to be misled by an app that isn’t called Dropbox. We all understand this sensation when doing Google searches—even when a competitor’s ad is bigger and more prominent, we can be functionally blind to it when exactly the result we wanted is right there underneath.

(By they way, let’s also remember that the word dropbox is a generic term. It is a word that has been used for file sharing before the Dropbox(tm) service existed. Companies shouldn’t get to own generic words just because they were first to commercialise them. Microsoft wouldn’t have a leg to stand on, legally or morally, if Oracle or postgres wanted to market the offering as an “SQL server”.)

Re: Apple admits it ranked its Files app ahead of competitor Dropbox

#137

Post by Dylan16807 »

ElFitz wrote: post #55
passivate wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need to re-evaluate what "rights" mean in a digital age. Apple should not have a monopoly on digital stores on iOS. "Apple made it so they can do anything they want. Take it or leave it" - is not an acceptable position (in my opinion). >By that logic costco has no competitors whatsoever that sell kirkland signature products. Can you explain how you came to that conclusion and what 'that logic' is?

Honestly, if I were to make a platform and someone else were to come by and somehow force my hand regarding what should be allowed on it and how they should be ranked in it, I’d just shut it all down, even the company if need be, give their money back to whatever investors there may be, and walk away. Let them have fun building it themselves if they want it to run any other way. But that’s just me, and it probably sp…

As long as you're not in an absolutely massive market position, this kind of forcing won't happen to you.

If you are in such a position, you can sell it for billions of dollars.

Re: Apple admits it ranked its Files app ahead of competitor Dropbox

#138

Post by ericd »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #135
ericd wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iirc Apple was using Drop Box before Dropbox existed, as a place for other users on the network to drop files onto your hard drive.

That sounds like a significantly different meaning to me. If they were still using that branding in a significant way, and treating an app that does that as a match, that would be more understandable. But that's not what the files app is.

I’m not trying to defend Apple, just adding context around the discussion of “Dropbox” as trademarked term vs in general usage, even by Apple.

Re: Apple admits it ranked its Files app ahead of competitor Dropbox

#139

Post by MetaWhirledPeas »

stefan_ wrote: post #89
nexuist wrote: post #84

Does anyone else just…not care? Files is a system app like Windows Explorer. It’s not meant to “compete” with anything. Does anyone think Control Panel competes with Android’s Settings app? iCloud Drive is a cloud storage competitor that Files works well with, but Files also supports Dropbox and Google Drive and many other storage competitors (anyone who wants to implement the API gets to be in Files). Also, the argu…

I don't think you read the article. Apple boosted their generic Files app above Dropbox for the query Dropbox . That is the controversy.

While this is an abuse of their monopoly powers, to me this is less bad than locking out 3rd party app stores. I never heard much complaining about that before Epic did their thing.

Re: Apple admits it ranked its Files app ahead of competitor Dropbox

#140

Post by judge2020 »

judge2020 wrote: post #3

> “We are removing the manual boost and the search results should be more relevant now,” wrote Apple app search lead Debankur Naskar, after the company was confronted by Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney over Apple’s Files app showing up first when searching for Dropbox. “Dropbox wasn’t even visible on the first page [of search results],” Sweeney wrote.

See the following image for the full email chain, by the way:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20805886-epic-v-appl...

Forwarded message from Tim Sweeney (not part of future conversations):

- In fact, Dropbox wasn't even visible on the first page. Google bought the top search result, and Apple put its Files app ahead of Dropbox in line. For the search: "Dropbox".

Matt Fischer (VP App Store):

- Also, who green lit putting the Files app above Dropbox in organic search results? I didn't know we did that, and I don't think we should.

Debankur Naskar (App Store Search and Recommendations product management):

- I think the Files app was manually boosted on the top for the query "Dropbox" during last WWDC. We are removing the manual boost and the search results should be more relevant now (change will take effect in a couple of hours). Also, FYI, the quality of some of the keywords in our 1st party apps are not very relevant and hence search results are getting impacted. We are auditing those and will clean them up.

Matt Fischer:

- Debankur - I wasn't aware that we were boosting the Files app and would like to know how that happened and who requested it. In the future, I want any similar requests to come to me for review/approval.

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