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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

#41

Post by webmobdev »

GeekyBear wrote: post #22
webmobdev wrote: post #5

Developers of ios (and soon macOS) platform have no one to blame but themselves for situations like this. Alarm bells should have been raised among us developers when Apple suddenly asked everyone to shell out $99 for the "privilege" of making an app available on the "App Store", and treated it as something normal. And later, more so, when Apple demanded a percentage cut too on every sale you make from your app. It i…

> Alarm bells should have been raised among us developers when Apple suddenly asked everyone to shell out $99 for the "privilege" of making an app available on the "App Store", and treated it as something normal. Somebody has absolutely no idea how high developer fees on proprietary platforms used to be. >Double Fine's Tim Schaefer pegged the cost of submitting an Xbox 360 patch at $40,000 in an interview with Hooksh…

True. I don't have an idea of how high developer fees have been on proprietary, and restricted use platforms before. I have generally avoided them and grew up on mostly open platforms (Unix / Linux / Windows) before becoming a web application developer and moving on to mobile apps. My main point is that the computing environment is very different today and we should a fight such regressive practices - just because they have been doing something in the past, and can do it now at a larger scale too, doesn't mean we have to accept it and normalise it. Right?

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

#43

Post by nobodyknowsyoda »

Rubayo wrote: post #34
codesternews wrote: post #28

Apple has made life of small developers hard. Mac software and app industry has died. Even after notarising apps they show malicious popup to users. Same practices has adapted by apple like search ad etc etc. They make competing services and steal ideas of developers and those app dies. For eg screen time for Moments app. They have unfair advantage and small developers could not complete. Only handful of indie develo…

Yet given all this, for a substantial cohort of customers, the Apple brand is still bought as a badge of "coolness".

Slightly off topic, but I do love the translucent terminal on the Mac. It is very cool

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

#44

Post by vmception »

crazygringo wrote: post #2

These are exactly the kinds of issues antitrust legislation needs to be updated to handle. I have no issue with a company running a store and selling its own products within, but it has to provide a level playing field. It's good they fixed it -- that the VP in question didn't know it had been done and then nixed it -- but this shouldn't even be legal in the first place.

So you would be fine if a separate "Apple Apps Inc" was required by law to exist, and it had created the Files app instead, and it had the same dropbox integration and it was therefore in the accurate metadata, and it surfaced higher than the dropbox app anyway?

Congratulations, we did it guys.

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

#45

Post by zaptheimpaler »

vmception wrote: post #44
crazygringo wrote: post #2

These are exactly the kinds of issues antitrust legislation needs to be updated to handle. I have no issue with a company running a store and selling its own products within, but it has to provide a level playing field. It's good they fixed it -- that the VP in question didn't know it had been done and then nixed it -- but this shouldn't even be legal in the first place.

So you would be fine if a separate "Apple Apps Inc" was required by law to exist, and it had created the Files app instead, and it had the same dropbox integration and it was therefore in the accurate metadata, and it surfaced higher than the dropbox app anyway? Congratulations, we did it guys.

Makes no sense. The whole point is they manually boosted Files to make it surface higher. If it surfaces higher under a level playing field, that is fine.

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

#46

Post by singlow »

crazygringo wrote: post #29
Railsify wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would that extend to grocery stores, where would you force walmart to put their own brands?

I don't see any uneven playing field when it comes to grocery stores. The national brands and store brands are always next to each other on the same shelf. So there isn't any problem that needs solving. Also brands already pay for promotional positioning (like the ends of aisles), and when the store puts its own brands in those spots it loses out on those payments, and so is effectively paying equally. So the field d…

The brand names pay for their spot, so its moot. There is no meritocracy in grocery store product placement. For the most part the grocery store doesn't have a formula to decide where to put most things based on sales data. If you sell a cereal or soda or fancy mustard and you want premium shelf height, just pay extra for it. The store basically rents the shelf space out.

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

#47

Post by bombcar »

crazygringo wrote: post #29
Railsify wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would that extend to grocery stores, where would you force walmart to put their own brands?

I don't see any uneven playing field when it comes to grocery stores. The national brands and store brands are always next to each other on the same shelf. So there isn't any problem that needs solving. Also brands already pay for promotional positioning (like the ends of aisles), and when the store puts its own brands in those spots it loses out on those payments, and so is effectively paying equally. So the field d…

You don’t see the brands they don’t carry at all. Only the brands they carry get displayed and they often make more money on the name brands anyway.

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

#48

Post by singlow »

abhorrence wrote: post #33
gruez wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You mean the grocery stores that have many competitors who also sell groceries? google? >How would you extend that analogy to the iOS App Store, which has no competitors whatsoever who sell iOS apps? By that logic costco has no competitors whatsoever that sell kirkland signature products.

I think if we took the reverse analogy, this would be like a situation where depending on the model of car you owned you could only shop at a specific grocery store. Bought a Honda? Only Kroger for you. Ford? You get Albertsons. There's a sizable purchase with phones and computers that creates a cost to switching stores. There's no cost to me to go to Kroger one week and Albertsons the next. Something like Amazon is…

But if you have an android phone you can buy apps where ever you choose, even from the developer directly. There are alternative app stores. The market has a low barrier to entry.

Apple only has control over consumers who chose for them to have that control. If you are selling an app to an iPhone user, you are selling to someone who only wants your app if Apple blesses it. If you are an Apple user that doesn't want that, then why did you by an Apple? Free yourself and buy a real computer or phone next time.

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

#49

Post by musicale »

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?

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

#50

Post by heavyset_go »

codesternews wrote: post #28

Apple has made life of small developers hard. Mac software and app industry has died. Even after notarising apps they show malicious popup to users. Same practices has adapted by apple like search ad etc etc. They make competing services and steal ideas of developers and those app dies. For eg screen time for Moments app. They have unfair advantage and small developers could not complete. Only handful of indie develo…

> Mac software and app industry has died. Even after notarising apps they show malicious popup to users.

I maintain a handful of open source apps for macOS, and have for years. If I don't pay the $100 Apple tax, macOS will treat those apps as if they're radioactive, and it will trick users into believing the apps are either broken or malicious.

In order to run them, users must know how to change arcane settings and do a magic ritual with the UI, otherwise they just won't open.

If the tables were turned and it was Linux that wouldn't run apps that were not signed and approved by Red Hat without having to jump through arcane hoops first, people would be rightfully pointing out how user and developer hostile it is.

> They killed the industry.

Not only that, they helped usher in the race to the bottom when it comes to the app distribution market. Now everyone expects to spend a dollar or two for an app if they're spending anything at all. They also killed the paid update/upgrade model for apps.

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