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This app does not support the App Store’s private and secure payment system

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Re: This app does not support the App Store’s private and secure payment system

#291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just like back in the day when Microsoft was forced to let users allow other browser when it wasn't even being blocked. Just theirs was pre-installed! Microsoft’s antitrust case is frequently misunderstood. MS was a supplier to the companies that made and sold computers. They got in trouble for messing with other suppliers. Apple manufacturers and sells the computer. It’s not analogous.

It's a LOT closer than you seem to be painting it. Apple is a supplier to software companies (of both hardware and software). They are getting in trouble for messing with other suppliers (of both hardware and software). To quote the charges in the MS case: "the U.S. government accused Microsoft of illegally maintaining its monopoly position in the personal computer (PC) market primarily through the legal and technica…

I don't think this is the case. Here is how I understand this:

Microsoft was accused of having a monopoly in a market (PC) defined by one single software (Windows) and hardware produced by a lot of PC manufacturers.

Apple could be accused of having a "monopoly" in market defined by their own software and their own hardware.

So in a way, IANAL, but Microsoft had a monopoly with their product in a bigger market than the one created by them, while Apple has a "monopoly" on the market (Apple ecosystem) that exists only because they exist. In this way, Microsoft was creating a monopoly in an otherwise free market, while Apple is a monopoly on their own devices, so if Microsoft would stop selling Windows the PC market will still exist, while if Apple will stop selling iPhones with iOS the App Store market will not exist anymore.

The correct comparison could be with Microsoft which has a monopoly on the Surface market where they produce both hardware and software.

Re: This app does not support the App Store’s private and secure payment system

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because physical goods is not digital. Why shouldn't they be able to choose what they charge for? They probably feel that their role is much less important when the service is delivered outside the phone. Makes sense to me. But if they wanted to do it the other way around, or only charge for things before noon, it would be up to them.

Because the warning is about the payment method, not how tangible the goods are. You can directly add credit cards to the Uber app on iPhone, completely outside the normal Apple payment flow. Apple doesn't require Uber to provide an obnoxious full-page modal warning that is intended to discourage people from adding a credit card to their app. This kind of double standard reveals the true nature of this warning dialog…

Physical goods have never been paid for with in-app purchases, so nobody will expect Apple to handle that, and nobody will blame them if things go wrong.

Re: This app does not support the App Store’s private and secure payment system

#293
post #256

I am puzzled that he really appears to find it funny. I am a long-time Mac user and I find myself fervently hoping that Apple has made the completely unnecessary self-own that will finally help people forget the whole keyboard fiasco. This is the most staggering example of deliberate, bad-faith arrogance that they could have come up with. If Apple is now the kind of business that joyfully thumbs its nose at regulator…

What Apple is doing is terrible and it is hilarious. It's hilarious because they could act in good faith, but they don't. It's funny to watch them do this, because it is so wildly out of touch with the image they continue to project. It's funny because they repeatedly do these sorts of things, so much that it is now predictable.

It's not hilarious at all. It is a crucial sign that the consumer tech industry is allowing itself to behave in a way that is malignant, because the company inarguably at the top of it -- which has, for clarity, always been arrogant, indignant, entitled, and pushy -- is now engaging in a kind of tech troll conduct, the absence of which people used to sincerely use to differentiate it from e.g. Uber and Google.

This is a sign of insecurity in what is arguably a bear market and it bodes poorly for a lot of us, I think.

Re: This app does not support the App Store’s private and secure payment system

#294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously they make lots of money from the appstore. What's wrong with that?

Obviously Ma Bell makes lots of money from their telephone system. What's wrong with that? There are limits to everything. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System unfocussed_mike's point is that Apple has obfuscated App Store P&L for years to try to keep regulators from feeling obligated to step in. There's no other obvious explanation for why they would keep it secret from both investors and the cou…

Way more precisely put than I managed, thank you.

Re: This app does not support the App Store’s private and secure payment system

#295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean of course it's indirectly about money, they want people to have a good experience with their Mac so they stay in the ecosystem. But when you sideload an app like that there is no question about losing app store revenue (developers can just notarize their app for free), it's only about the user experience. No doubt on iOS it's about both, but my point is that it's reductive to think it's ONLY about losing app s…

> Especially in the Dutch case, where they won't actually lose any revenue, since they're charging 27% anyway. I believe Apple is being forward-looking here. They know such a ridiculous 27% policy is unlikely to be tolerated by the regulators, since it defeats the entire purpose, so they're planning for a future where they're forced to lower that. They want the option to be presented to consumers as being scarier tha…

So you think they are trying to move the Overton Window (haggling policy)?

It is a reasonable interpretation that I tried to get into and failed to.

It's brave if they are, because attempts to move the Overton Window are surely usually deliberately designed to fail before they are enacted, to avoid the cost of action!

Re: This app does not support the App Store’s private and secure payment system

#296

To make matters worse, the Dutch translation of the mandated text has awkward style. It feels grammatically incorrect to me although I can't pin-point why. It feels a bit like This app does not supporting App Store's privately and secure-payment system I think they just ran it through Google Translate or something?

For the added insult.

Re: This app does not support the App Store’s private and secure payment system

#297
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If your tech savvy, you know that this is just fear-mongering on Apple's part. Apple has a policy where every subscription model that is paid for via the app store needs to be one-click cancelable, and from a single system menu that shows all of your subscriptions. That's an actual protection that the app store gives me, the customer, and which I might not receive from other payment processors... so it's not really…

But if you're going through manual app review anyway can they just enforce one-click subscription cancellation like they do with one-click user account deletion?

It’s not just that it’s one-click, it’s that there’s a single menu in Settings.app that shows you all of your subscriptions, which is helpful in case you forgot you had one, and will show you exactly how much it costs per month, how long a trial period has left, will notify when your trial period is about to end, etc.

You can really only do that with third party payment processors if there’s some standard API/protocol/standard for the management of subscriptions… which would be great, but probably isn’t all that feasible in the medium term. It would be great if Apple did that though.

Re: This app does not support the App Store’s private and secure payment system

#298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously they make lots of money from the appstore. What's wrong with that?

Obviously Ma Bell makes lots of money from their telephone system. What's wrong with that? There are limits to everything. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System unfocussed_mike's point is that Apple has obfuscated App Store P&L for years to try to keep regulators from feeling obligated to step in. There's no other obvious explanation for why they would keep it secret from both investors and the cou…

Why would it even be an issue that they're making billions from the app store? They've clearly said many times "this year have helped developers earn x billions through the appstore". Then it's easy to calculate their cut. But making money is not illegal.

The app store is only a monopoly on iOS, not on phones or computers in general. I think it will be very hard to make that case.

Re: This app does not support the App Store’s private and secure payment system

#299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clarifying the rules is not the same as changing them, ask any hermeneutic. > Also, whether an activity is physical or virtual should be entirely irrelevant You can hold any belief you want, but there's nothing illegal or immoral about a phone charging fees for one but not the other. It's up to them obviously, and to me personally it makes a ton of sense to make that distinction. A virtual class provided through an a…

PWA means "progressive web app". You know, the vision Steve Jobs and Apple had for iPhone apps before they released the App Store.[0] What about virtual experiences that are sold through an app that a customer uses, but are held on a different virtual platform? We’re not talking just about virtual events held through the app or FaceTime, we’re also talking about virtual events held through Zoom calls, it’s just that…

Apart from push notifications, which I don't think a lot of people want from their web apps, in what way are they being crippled by Apple?

Re: This app does not support the App Store’s private and secure payment system

#300
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So devs should be able to bypass desired features of iOS and not alert the user that they're doing so? Becuase if I wasnt informed, and they took a subscription that I was then unable to cancel in 1 click from my iCloud subscription settings, I would be very annoyed. Shady.

They could add an API where the app registers a subscription (or link) into the iCloud subscription settings page, they just don't want to.

What does that mean? That apps using third party payment providers should still show up as app store subscriptions? That would make it even less clear that it's third party, that's exactly the opposite of what apple wants.
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