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Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

wsj.com

161–170 of 631 posts

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#161

"She also referred the case to prosecutors for potential criminal investigation into the company and a top finance executive." That's big. You really have to piss off a judge for them to refer a case for criminal investigation.

i think all you need to do is commit a crime

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It made me laugh, if you pretend to be worth 30% of revenue (an insane markup), you better really invest in those developer tools to show it off because the sad state of xcode really isn't showing that. I don't know where this money is going but certainly not in the developer tooling because it's absolutely terrible

> if you pretend to be worth 30% of revenue (an insane markup) Back in 2008, if you were an indie dev then their 30% ask was more than reasonable because the cost-of-doing-business on other platforms (like Windows Mobile) was much higher due to the lack of any central App Store; for example, you'd often need to partner with a company like Digital River, and pay more for marketing/advertising and overcome the signific…

At the time, the Verizon/Qualcomm BREW platform had absurd levels of revenue sharing: Up to 90% (!!!) went to the carrier unless you were big enough to negotiate a specific deal.

The 30% that Apple announced was a game changer.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It made me laugh, if you pretend to be worth 30% of revenue (an insane markup), you better really invest in those developer tools to show it off because the sad state of xcode really isn't showing that. I don't know where this money is going but certainly not in the developer tooling because it's absolutely terrible

> if you pretend to be worth 30% of revenue (an insane markup) Back in 2008, if you were an indie dev then their 30% ask was more than reasonable because the cost-of-doing-business on other platforms (like Windows Mobile) was much higher due to the lack of any central App Store; for example, you'd often need to partner with a company like Digital River, and pay more for marketing/advertising and overcome the signific…

> Back in 2008, if you were an indie dev then their 30% ask was more than reasonable because the cost-of-doing-business on other platforms (like Windows Mobile) was much higher due to the lack of any central App Store

The first iPhone indie devs were Mac indie devs who already knew Objective-C and Cocoa and Xcode and paid 0% to Apple on the Mac.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#164
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100%. This doesn't deserve a fine. This deserves Apple to be given an ultimatum about their mob boss behavior with mobile. Apple and Google quickly built up their duopoly such that everyone doing anything with mobile phones has to pay them a tax. You can't even deploy your own apps at your own cadence, without strict review, using your own technology. You have to jump through unplanned upgrade cycles, you're forced t…

I understand people like this ruling and want Apple and Google to open up. But this is just silly rewriting of history: > Apple and Google quickly built up their duopoly such that everyone doing anything with mobile phones has to pay them a tax. Long before Apple and Google made phones, a huge mobile device ecosystem already existed, including app stores, and it was way more locked down and expensive than what we hav…

> They only added the native SDK and app store after developers and customers demanded it.

People demanded native SDK because web apps were garbage, unlike the native first party apps. Some people wanted an app store. No one ever wanted or demanded an exclusive app store. Putting demand for native SDK and demand for app store in one sentence smells like gaslighting.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand people like this ruling and want Apple and Google to open up. But this is just silly rewriting of history: > Apple and Google quickly built up their duopoly such that everyone doing anything with mobile phones has to pay them a tax. Long before Apple and Google made phones, a huge mobile device ecosystem already existed, including app stores, and it was way more locked down and expensive than what we hav…

Sure, but parallel to the mobile device (featurephone) ecosystem, there was also the old smartphone ecosystem which grew out of the PDA market where you could install your own program without paying the middleman. I would argue that modern day smartphone is more similar to the old smartphones than the featurephones.

And somehow despite that ecosystem existing before, new entrants Apple and Google emerged victorious. Maybe it had something to do with their different approach.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To hide the truth, Vice-President of Finance, Alex Roman, outright lied under oath Well that sounds rather damning.

Happens more than you’d think. Happened to me in the past as well in some business conflict. It was baffling how people can just lie in court under oath and get away with it.

The asterisk is that the government has to be able to prove knowledge and intent to lie, and prove that beyond a reasonable doubt. It makes it really hard to successfully charge anybody with perjury.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#168
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100%. This doesn't deserve a fine. This deserves Apple to be given an ultimatum about their mob boss behavior with mobile. Apple and Google quickly built up their duopoly such that everyone doing anything with mobile phones has to pay them a tax. You can't even deploy your own apps at your own cadence, without strict review, using your own technology. You have to jump through unplanned upgrade cycles, you're forced t…

I'm fine with Google and Apple having App stores, so long as I'm not forced to use them. They should compete like everyone else. The walls of the walled garden have to be torn down. They still get to have a garden, they just can't lock unwitting people inside of it.

I think the realistic possible end-states are either effectively Facebook controls the app store that matters or Apple/Google do.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#169
post #97

"In Slack communications dated November 16, 2021, the Apple employees crafting the warning screen for Project Michigan discussed how best to frame its language. (CX-206.) Mr. Onak suggested the warning screen should include the language: “By continuing on the web, you will leave the app and be taken to an external website” because “‘external website’ sounds scary, so execs will love it.” (Id. at .2.) From Mr. Onak’s…

> I could never imagine Apple employees doing it like this.

Curious why your imagination is so limited here regarding a pretty standard human behavior pattern. Do you personally know Apple employees or is it more of a general respect for their products or ...?

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About time for what? Another company to get charged with something that they don't get punished for? The fines are always less than the companies' net gains from the practice. Gains are often indirect, risk-related, and/or part of a larger strategy, so they cannot be calculated. Everything short of prison is a waste of time, waste of tax dollars, and spits in the face of decent citizens.

I like the idea of civil judgements that require responsible individuals to remove themselves from the company. And void any forward looking renumeration in their contracts. Personal fines too, such as returning past remunerations during the problematic time in question. Salaries. Stock grants. There is no such thing as an incentive, that doesn't incentivize someone. Relatively small fines relative to revenues and pr…

> There is no such thing as an incentive, that doesn't incentivize someone.

It's wild how the public discourse on incentives is so split. On one hand, the poor are guilty until proven innocent of six dimensional chess to eek "unearned" pennies from social programs, yet the very idea that mega billionaires might pull easy, obvious levers for unethical mega million payouts is one that must beg and scrape for consideration.

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