Just open up installs like macOS, ffs. Such a convoluted malicious compliance.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Announces Major App Store Changes on iOS in Brazil
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Squidiey
macrumors regular
Apple opens up a tiny bit, while Google tightens its grip on app distribution. Soon there will be no meaningful difference between the platforms, at least when it comes to the app stores.
spazzcat
macrumors 601
The whole 3-party store thing has been a huge waste of money and failure in the EU.
SanderEvers
macrumors 6502a
Apps use Apple SDKs for those apps to be run on Apple devices. You pay for the use of these SDKs.
Why is Apple then avoiding the term "license" like the plague? First they called it a fee, now a commission. Methinks Apple's claim regarding the app store fees is much weaker than many people think.
I7guy
macrumors Westmere
We don’t have a term for that. The eu with its loose language has the term.
I7guy
macrumors Westmere
In some cases like the airline’s regulation strangled competition. I’m not for regulating App Store distributions.
I7guy
macrumors Westmere
It’s not rent seeking. Apple adds value whether you agree or not.
Abazigal
Contributor
I will say it’s as strong as Sony or Nintendo’s claim to fees from games sold through their platforms. You agreed to the terms upfront. It’s not like these companies saw that your app was doing well financially and then slapped on the terms retroactively.
dampfnudel
macrumors 603
True, but Apple is stubborn to say the least when it comes to protecting their home market.
Makes no sense.
You should spend millions of dollars and employe thousands of people to build something and when it’s successful and making money you have to let other people bypass you and profit from it.
This is the same as the government forcing Costco to make space and allow anyone to sell in their stores.
You should spend millions of dollars and employe thousands of people to build something and when it’s successful and making money you have to let other people bypass you and profit from it.
This is the same as the government forcing Costco to make space and allow anyone to sell in their stores.
Abazigal
Contributor
I will link back to my earlier response when third party app stores came to Japan.
forums.macrumors.com
It looks like the experience Apple has from fighting the EU has translated well into how it plans to handle similar requests from other countries. Which explains why Apple kept "testing the waters" so much at the start. They needed to know exactly how much they could get away with which they could then distill into a working template that they could easily modify for other regions.
Japan App Store Gets Alternative Marketplaces, Third-Party Payments and More
It looks like the experience Apple has from fighting the EU has translated well into how it plans to handle similar requests from other countries. I guess this is what we mean by high fixed costs (it took a lot of back and forth to settle on something which works) but low marginal costs (you now...
forums.macrumors.com
It looks like the experience Apple has from fighting the EU has translated well into how it plans to handle similar requests from other countries. Which explains why Apple kept "testing the waters" so much at the start. They needed to know exactly how much they could get away with which they could then distill into a working template that they could easily modify for other regions.
MacBH928
macrumors G3
I don't necessarily like it but i am in for "my platform my rules" . There is nothing stopping any one to challenge apple and create another platform complete from hardware and software. In fact, there is android, a variant called GrapheneOS, another called /e/ , and something called sailfish.
Its not Apple's problem that no one can create as good of a product as theirs.
Samplasion
macrumors 6502a
Yeah, there are many alternatives to Android and iOS. We have:
While we're on the topic of non-mainstream OSes, there is a reason why Firefox OS, Ubuntu Touch and even the once promising Windows Phone have failed: the market brought up by Google and Apple together is simply too big for potential competitors to handle. It's not that alternative OSes are worse (I myself am quite fond of Sailfish OS) but Google and Apple's de facto duopoly means competition is heavily stifled.
which is Android, as you stated.
which is, you guessed it, Android (Lineage OS, to be specific). We also have
which has been around for 13 years but only officially supports two devices from the company who develops it and is supported by community members, in its latest version, on only twelve phones. Talking about support, the way this OS handles app compatibility is through... an Android layer!
While we're on the topic of non-mainstream OSes, there is a reason why Firefox OS, Ubuntu Touch and even the once promising Windows Phone have failed: the market brought up by Google and Apple together is simply too big for potential competitors to handle. It's not that alternative OSes are worse (I myself am quite fond of Sailfish OS) but Google and Apple's de facto duopoly means competition is heavily stifled.
Abazigal
Contributor
The reality is that it's just not enough to ship a smartphone OS these days and call it a day. You need to own and control your own ecosystem, and the costs and efforts requires is simply too prohibitive.
Second is that developers simply don't want to support another platform.
Third, what even would the selling point of a third smartphone OS be? How would this differentiate itself from iOS or Android?
This is not an Apple or Google problem. It's one of simple pragmatism and economics.
I7guy
macrumors Westmere
We might as well say there is one operating system: Unix. Since all of the above is derived in some fashion from Unix.
Incorrect. Saying apple and google are too big implies something nefarious happened. Apple is popular. It is big because it produces products people like and want to not because of any other reason. Not due to lock-in, not due to corporate greed (which is the antithesis to producing good products).
Samplasion
macrumors 6502a
If you want to get technical, you couldn't abstract it all under the "Unix" umbrella since that would imply app package interoperability, but the software architectures (ie. APIs, software capabilities, etc.) for both systems are not the same. Also, Android's kernel is an embedded Linux kernel with Java utilities and as such, it's not even Unix. 😉
The sentence is not "They're too big period", the sentence is "they're too big for other companies to come in".
I agree with this, and it's the reason even Microsoft failed to get ahold of a piece of the market. I also think, given these constraints, the next best thing is fostering competition within the two monoliths that have since solidified themselves.
Classic chicken-and-egg problem, devs won't support a platform without users and users won't buy devices with no dev support.
More competition in the market is often good for the health of said market.
True. In this case the companies at play are Apple and Google, just because those two companies ended up owning 99.99% of the market. In another timeline, we'd probably be arguing about Nokia and some other company.
I7guy
macrumors Westmere
Ar some point in its life the ancestors were Unix. 😉
That takes away from the consumer discretionary part of the business. My water company is national and I have no choice in the matter. An upstart water company is not going to come in the space and claim the pipes. Apple is hugely popular, not by lock-in or greed. By the rabid fan base. It’s a large capital investment to enter the cell phone space. Not impossible, but it has nothing to do with the size of Apple or Google.
Sure foster competition but leave forced completion out of it. That’s not competition that’s Robin Hood.
I would buy a phone with decent capabilities. Doesn’t have to have a myriad of apps. Of course though I like my Apple devices
But not forced completion by regulation.
Probably.
Powerbooky
macrumors demi-god
Actually, 30% fee has become a standard in many online stores. For example: A barber shop that has an online reservation website via Google or other provider also will be scraped 30% for each transaction. The pay terminal in shops, provided by an intermediary, similar fees.
The place a competitive third OS would likely come from is China. But American regulators are working overtime to make sure Apple doesn't have to compete with China.
Apple loves the regulations that let them sell in a China-free hug box. Government intervention for me, but not for thee.
Apple loves the regulations that let them sell in a China-free hug box. Government intervention for me, but not for thee.
Abazigal
Contributor
The funny thing I realise is that the very often, the people championing for more competition tend to be the ones not supporting them ultimately.
It also shows in that nobody here has been able to articulate what the value add a third smartphone OS would bring to the market, and what it could offer that iOS and android currently do not. Instead, we are left making motherhood statements about how the market needs more competition.
There is a third option that comes to mind. China was able to push for their own smartphone OS and their own alternatives to popular online services and social media platforms, but at the cost of essentially being able to surveil everybody living within its borders (and then some, by way of the WeChat app). That's one way to guard against the US tech giant hegemony, but it's also debatable whether the cure is any better or worse than the ailment.
Maybe the EU could consider going in that direction. 😉
Very few iPhones, iPads, and Macs would be sold if there were no 3rd-party apps. Does Apple share a % of hardware sale profits with those who make the profits possible?