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Apple Asks Judge to Dismiss App Store Monopoly Lawsuit
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I think this is all very interesting.
With a PS3 game, is there's an single authorizing entity for the content even though there's alternate channels to purchase. The PS3 game I buy at GameStop is the same product I buy online from Amazon. It's easier to control because of "hard" media and copy protection. Plus, a company like Sony also wants more channels for distribution, there's no downside for them, since they have established a model for protecting their product.
In the context of PS3 vs. Android is there's a known consistency for the PS3 vs. the [Android] App - the one you download from Google play, may not the same App you download from Amazon or from an attachment in an Email (which is one reason for the proliferation of malware in the Android ecosystem).
If Apple follows this same model, it would need still need to be (assuming: would _want_ to be) responsible for certifying the app, that it would then turn over to a 3rd party for distribution. That would mean some kind of authorization process for distributors, managing some kind of central provisioning IDs, tamper-proofing, etc.
Personally, I don't think it should be a free-for-all with who can distribute apps for any given platform. It's the case for most consumer products, car parts for example. Porsche has to authorize a dealer to distribute OEM parts, you can't just start selling them (this gets into gray market territory), or they can sell 3rd party products (which may introduce warranty issues, etc.)
Disregarding the Apple-wants-all-the-profits argument, it's a tricky task to authorize and manage the end-to-end user experience for applications once they're outside of the distribution channel you have direct control over.
I understand the term, but it doesn't apply in this situation. Apple doesn't even set prices.
Competitive pricing doesn't mean developers have to compete with themselves.
*SIGH* The majority of people like the walled garden. I don't want security issues cropping up. I prefer the iOS platform the way it is as do the majority of developer and users.
If you want to trade BSD Jails security for potentially having to run a virus scanner on your phone, be my guest and jailbreak or use android instead but I want my phone to just "work".
The developers like the Apple store because it takes care of every thing and at least provides some barrier to piracy whereas the open systems have rampant piracy, trojans and other security headaches.
Apple is not doing anything illegal. It is their hardware platform, their OS and their SDK so they make the rules just like how it is with the consoles.
Microsoft got in trouble because it was not their hardware platform or product but they were trying to prevent OEMs from using other operating systems.
In this case, Apple created the entire stack from the software to the hardware so you can vote with your wallet if you don't like it and go elsewhere.
Nice post. And I agree it's interesting. Some people are hung up on whether the case has merit, that Apple isn't a monopoly, everyone is after Apple's money and other irrelevant details.
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I'm not arguing for the breakup of this "monopoly." And I'm not sure you can even call it a monopoly. I wasn't arguing for or against the practice. I was clarifying bad analogies.
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I'm not arguing for the breakup of this "monopoly." And I'm not sure you can even call it a monopoly. I wasn't arguing for or against the practice. I was clarifying bad analogies.
Of course it does. Like Google gives a crap if these apps crash like 100 of times a day (like they did on my Galaxy S2)
Besides the point. The issue isn't about quality/etc. This issue is that to buy an app for iOS - there's ONE place. Everything else is pointless rhetoric.
But Windows doesn't force you to buy from their marketplace to install anything. The fact iPhone forces you to use the App Store is irrelevant for just purchased apps, because their draconian policy on what they deem to be inappropiate is another reason why I want to install my own app. The fact people can pirate shouldn't be a valid concern. Anyone can pirate on a mac or pc they don't lock them down, do they?
Droid and Blackberry far as I remembered allowed you to download unsigned code at the users risk after acknowledging a warning. I think if Apple allowed 3rd party apps by just going to a random website and downloading an ipa file would be really awesome.
And the fact there is no built-in method to demo software is most likely a main reason why people pirate apps. If there was a good method, where it either completely disabled or self-destructed after say 72 hours then there would be much more legal purchases in my opinion.
So I do get it, and I hope the lawsuit is fruitful because it will challenge Apple to become more competitive in why their appstore is to the developers benefit (the fact it is there and promotions is a good incentive) but they will need to either allow adult content and demoing or people will still jailbreak to use Cydia. Most of my Cydia installed apps are tweaks and apps that truly run in the background that leave the "Sandbox".
Plus I tweaked the globalpreferences file to allow certain things that for whatever reason has no preference in the system.
There's only one marketplace for Windows phones that I'm aware of. And you have to have a microsoft account.
I'm just throwing this out there as an idea, but I would love to be able to install Steam on my iOS device and use it to buy games, and later install Steam on my android device, and not have to purchase all of those games again.
Sadly, people don't seem to know the difference between hardware and software markets. There is no monopoly or antitrust violation here for HARDWARE. There are alternatives to Apple products for that market segment available. However, that does not mean Apple is not restricting access to 3rd party software with a demand of 30% of the revenue for 100% of the software for the iOS hardware market. It's just utterly AMAZING that people cannot comprehend the difference. Those are 3rd party software writers being forced to pay 1/3 of their before tax take on any software for that market. They have no alternative way to distribute their software (and jailbreaking has just become illegal again making it literally the only legal way to sell software for Apple's market place). That market place represents MILLIONS of potential buyers for their software, but there sits Apple DEMANDING 30% of all revenue for software they didn't write and refusing to allow any other distribution method for software meaning there is ZERO legal alternatives to distributing software for the iOS market.
It just utterly amazes me that ANYONE could think that should be legal. It would be like Chevrolet saying that no one else can install an aftermarket car stereo in ANY of their vehicles without paying them a 30% fee to unlock the car's core computer system which has a lock on the connected stereo thereby not allowing any other car stereo (without chip or wholesale wiring hacking or else perhaps the car simply won't start without a factory radio present) to be installed without paying them for the right to install it. Exactly WHO owns that car after it is purchased? Chevrolet or the customer who bought it??? This is EXACTLY the same thing. You bought an iOS device and Apple is telling you that you cannot buy software unless they approve it and collect a 30% fee that WILL result in that product being marked up in price 30% above what the developer would normally sell it for (because we all know that producers rarely eat the costs for any additional fees; they just pass it along to the consumer and so the consumer gets HOSED).
So what the lawyers do is play their usual "word" games with the letter of the law rather than the spirit of the law. These laws were designed to protect consumers from companies trying to eliminate direct competition and thereby keep their artificially inflated sky high prices. Meanwhile the consumer pays the price. If Apple decides a "strip poker game" should not be on the iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch, then even the 30% goes out the window. You the consumer simply will not be allowed the freedom of choice to buy it whether you want it or not. You will have to buy an entirely different set of hardware that may or may not put the SAME limitation in place. The real problem is not that the hardware can't run that game, but that the company that makes the hardware thinks it gets to play the moral police AND the Mafia strong-arm (to collect the 30% "protection" monies) at the same time. It's both moral hypocrisy and putting limits to your freedom in the hands of a corporation that has no business making those decisions (just like a Catholic hospital has NO business deciding whether you can get birth control from your insurance company if you work there. It's NONE OF THEIR FREAKING BUSINESS as a matter of your Constitutional right to privacy. Birth control is not illegal and so it's none of their business. Owning a strip poker app is not illegal and so it's none of Apple's business if you put it on your iPhone. It's YOUR phone and property once you buy it and THAT is where these lawsuits should be focusing. All of our rights to privacy are going out the window and we just sit by and let it happen). Imagine if you bought a house and the bank giving you the mortgage told you that you could only put beds in the house if they were sold by Ikea or worse yet, Rent-A-Center. NO ONE would stand for it. But it's OK if Apple tells you what you can put on your iPhone? How the HELL is it ANY different???
Worse yet, if we allow this crap to keep happening in markets like this, it will set precedents that will allow Chevrolet or whomever to do EXACTLY that to preserve their kickbacks with whatever company pays to make sure you only listen to their stereo products in their brand cars. Do you really want to live in a world where you can't buy Energizer batteries if you bought a Tonka brand toy because the toy must have a smart chip on the Duracell battery to enable it to function???? I'm SERIOUS because that is where it will one day end up. In fact, I probably just gave someone a very bad idea for "smart battery locking" to certain brand name products only. "Yes, we feel strongly that our [insert device here] should only be used with Duracell batteries for the safety of the consumer and so we've chip-locked it to only operate with the new Duracell X-Battery". And people will believe them for that reason too because people are mostly clueless.
The bottom line is we need better consumer protection laws in this country with less loopholes and word games. Freedom of choice should be paramount and it should cover hardware and software products. Companies should compete solely on the merit of their products/services, not tying one to the other so you have no choice but to use X service if you buy Y product. It should all be open marketplace and ultimately that is supposed to be the nature of Capitalism. Limiting consumer choice is the antithesis to Capitalism.
I couldn't agree more, it's a total disgrace that Apple take a 30% cut of the selling price and the company that wrote the software only get 70%.
Ideally we should move back to the boxed product bought from a retailer model of selling software, under which the company that wrote the software got 50% of the selling price.
Oh wait, that's less isn't it.
As an App developer I can say that iOS is a far more open platform then the consoles or other handhelds (safe android, but I'll get to that later.) And with 'open' I mean accessible.
For Xbox, Wii and Playstation there is only one party and that is the platform maker. You need their license and the cost of that is extraordinary. (if you see 'ask for the price;, you know what it means.)
The prices for Xbox-Life-Arcade and Playstation-Network are lower, but still significant. And you have to pay a thousands of dollars for each update you push. Also with these digital distribution methods, you are bound the same way as you are with Apple and the App store.
The App Store is not a vender like gamestop. It distributes (oh and they also do the international taxes, which is a god send.) They do not set the price. We as a developer do that. They ask 30% which is nothing compared to a publisher.
You _cannot_ release a regular title for Xbox/PS/Wii without a publisher, unless you are one your self. (meaning, publishers who bought and absorbed game studio's such as Ubisoft and EA.) Because a developer will never have the means to distribute the product in physical form.
So on-line distributing is a developers only choice if they don't want a publisher and that means there is, per platform, only one party to go to. Only three exceptions I can think of is the PC, Mac and Android market. I believe that BB, Kindle and WP are also closed.
Because of Androids unique position, I pretty much love developing for it and hate releasing on it. Our lead programmer (I'm part of a company of four) spend today, the entire day, filling out forms for the Samsung Android App Store (whatever it is called.) He did the same for the Sony-Xperia-Play store (which isn't even a store, it links back to Google Play) a while back.
It is a complete hassle and costs us valuable time.
We've got revenue streams for all off them a it's a complete mess. But since the consumer has choice, we need to be able to give him that.
And of coruse, we maintain the same price for each of the app-stores. If a app-store asks for less then 30% (which, incidentally, none of them do) we would raise the price so it matches the others. Simply because we do not want to complicate things for the user and prevent anyone from thinking he is losing out.
(Angry birds is a free app on Andoird because Google paid Chillingo a ton of money for it to be so. And it feels unfair for users of other platforms. Rovio would probably have complained.)
iOS is two platforms (iPhone/iPod and iPad) and only a few variations thereof. Only one store, only one price to pay each year (100$ as previously mentioned) and in short, a bliss to release on.
However if you look at digital distribution platforms on the PC (GoG, Steam and whatnot) you do see price differences, and vaguely the same ease of distribution for the developer as on mobile space. (Do not get me started on Steam.)
Open platforms beg open distribution channels, and closed platforms don't. I don't think it's a consumers 'right' for each platform to be open. as stated earlier in this thread, the consumer makes the choice when he or she purchases the device.
And I agree on the notion that form Apple, the product is both the hardware and the software. The two are not separated. (although it technically could, the same way you can dismantle an iPhone and change the parts.)
Took me some time to write this post, if I stepped on the feet on anyone who recently posted.
[Edit]
@MagnusVonMagnum
Lovely writeup. And I do see the idealism behind it. It sould be weird for a car maker to limit the choice (for a radio for exmaple).
Companies* will limit what they can limit. You have a hard time limiting radio choice, since one can brake it open.
On software there is a lot you can limit. And, god forbid, do some game publishes do their best with DRM.
But I also see the elegance in Apple's way of doing things. it's restrictive, but fights against the principle: give a users freedom and they will break it. Instantly and always. As a game designer this fact is more prominent then ever. Give the user the choice to skip text, you _know_ they will and enter the game uninformed. Give the user the ability to change their smartPhone desktop, they call you up and ask how to change the color of the text, since they cannot read it anymore. Give users the option to dance with their units in a game, they will exploit it. Give the user the ability to break any block in the world, your dream house is destroyed by fellow players over night. Etc. etc.
In this case: give the user the freedom to install any software. They will need virus-scanners and think the OS maker is worthless.
As a game designer I do not wish it for my user, and if I were an OS developer I wouldn't either.
As a consumer I would want, maybe even demand, freedom. because "I know what I'm doing"
*not all of them obviously
[Edit 2]
As far as I know, every mobile distribution platform asks 30%. And that is so much better then any publisher deal one may get in order to distribute your game physically.
It does feel like they earn money for doing nothing. But they do kinda made the entire market. They earn their share. We make money using their hardware, their OS, their services, their servers and payment methods.
And their patents as well (sigh).
But as a business, it's not a bad deal at all.
@babyj you should hear Chris Taylor about it. it's really depressing. And working for the lame titles publishers demand is incredibly frustrating.
For Xbox, Wii and Playstation there is only one party and that is the platform maker. You need their license and the cost of that is extraordinary. (if you see 'ask for the price;, you know what it means.)
The prices for Xbox-Life-Arcade and Playstation-Network are lower, but still significant. And you have to pay a thousands of dollars for each update you push. Also with these digital distribution methods, you are bound the same way as you are with Apple and the App store.
The App Store is not a vender like gamestop. It distributes (oh and they also do the international taxes, which is a god send.) They do not set the price. We as a developer do that. They ask 30% which is nothing compared to a publisher.
You _cannot_ release a regular title for Xbox/PS/Wii without a publisher, unless you are one your self. (meaning, publishers who bought and absorbed game studio's such as Ubisoft and EA.) Because a developer will never have the means to distribute the product in physical form.
So on-line distributing is a developers only choice if they don't want a publisher and that means there is, per platform, only one party to go to. Only three exceptions I can think of is the PC, Mac and Android market. I believe that BB, Kindle and WP are also closed.
Because of Androids unique position, I pretty much love developing for it and hate releasing on it. Our lead programmer (I'm part of a company of four) spend today, the entire day, filling out forms for the Samsung Android App Store (whatever it is called.) He did the same for the Sony-Xperia-Play store (which isn't even a store, it links back to Google Play) a while back.
It is a complete hassle and costs us valuable time.
We've got revenue streams for all off them a it's a complete mess. But since the consumer has choice, we need to be able to give him that.
And of coruse, we maintain the same price for each of the app-stores. If a app-store asks for less then 30% (which, incidentally, none of them do) we would raise the price so it matches the others. Simply because we do not want to complicate things for the user and prevent anyone from thinking he is losing out.
(Angry birds is a free app on Andoird because Google paid Chillingo a ton of money for it to be so. And it feels unfair for users of other platforms. Rovio would probably have complained.)
iOS is two platforms (iPhone/iPod and iPad) and only a few variations thereof. Only one store, only one price to pay each year (100$ as previously mentioned) and in short, a bliss to release on.
However if you look at digital distribution platforms on the PC (GoG, Steam and whatnot) you do see price differences, and vaguely the same ease of distribution for the developer as on mobile space. (Do not get me started on Steam.)
Open platforms beg open distribution channels, and closed platforms don't. I don't think it's a consumers 'right' for each platform to be open. as stated earlier in this thread, the consumer makes the choice when he or she purchases the device.
And I agree on the notion that form Apple, the product is both the hardware and the software. The two are not separated. (although it technically could, the same way you can dismantle an iPhone and change the parts.)
Took me some time to write this post, if I stepped on the feet on anyone who recently posted.
[Edit]
@MagnusVonMagnum
Lovely writeup. And I do see the idealism behind it. It sould be weird for a car maker to limit the choice (for a radio for exmaple).
Companies* will limit what they can limit. You have a hard time limiting radio choice, since one can brake it open.
On software there is a lot you can limit. And, god forbid, do some game publishes do their best with DRM.
But I also see the elegance in Apple's way of doing things. it's restrictive, but fights against the principle: give a users freedom and they will break it. Instantly and always. As a game designer this fact is more prominent then ever. Give the user the choice to skip text, you _know_ they will and enter the game uninformed. Give the user the ability to change their smartPhone desktop, they call you up and ask how to change the color of the text, since they cannot read it anymore. Give users the option to dance with their units in a game, they will exploit it. Give the user the ability to break any block in the world, your dream house is destroyed by fellow players over night. Etc. etc.
In this case: give the user the freedom to install any software. They will need virus-scanners and think the OS maker is worthless.
As a game designer I do not wish it for my user, and if I were an OS developer I wouldn't either.
As a consumer I would want, maybe even demand, freedom. because "I know what I'm doing"
*not all of them obviously
[Edit 2]
As far as I know, every mobile distribution platform asks 30%. And that is so much better then any publisher deal one may get in order to distribute your game physically.
It does feel like they earn money for doing nothing. But they do kinda made the entire market. They earn their share. We make money using their hardware, their OS, their services, their servers and payment methods.
And their patents as well (sigh).
But as a business, it's not a bad deal at all.
@babyj you should hear Chris Taylor about it. it's really depressing. And working for the lame titles publishers demand is incredibly frustrating.
Last edited:
Not really. A legitimate business justification for a practice is a defense against antitrust regulation.
It's too bad you don't freaking get it. At least the developer has CHOICE of distributor to use OR can use his own web site and distribute software himself if he/she chooses, etc.. You're defending something completely unrelated (i.e. store fronts with extra costs) rather the choice of the developer and consumer alike to buy their software from other sources. More to the point, if developers and consumers had more online distribution choices, that 30% fee would likely drop somewhat due to COMPETITION and therefore benefit both developer and consumer alike in the long run and quite frankly, the last time I checked Capitalism is SUPPOSED to be based on COMPETITION.
If this has merit....
http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/06/microsoft-european-commission-fine/
then this suit definitely has merit.
http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/06/microsoft-european-commission-fine/
then this suit definitely has merit.
You've got competition on Android and yet the main players (Amazon and Google) still charge 30%. Why hasn't someone setup an appstore for Android that only charges the 5% that some people claim is fair, or even 20%? Isn't it possible that the 30% isn't as outrageous as you claim and is actually a fair cut to take?
I have no beef at all with current pricing structure. My problem is with the limitation on what apps are allowed into the store. f.lux is my go to example of an app that should exist in the App Store. iFile would be another great example. ...The ability to send anything as an attachment in mail. I see why the sandbox is there, but can we really not ever grow up enough to play outside of it? Give me warnings, ban my device from servicing at the apple store, whatever... just let me have some freedom.
Some of you people are idiots. If Apple controls all the software market for iOS devices, they are a monopoly. People don't buy the devices for the appstore, they buy them for the design,functionality, and apps. And frankly, anybody with the resources to host a server can offer apps. So having Apple control one store for everything and limiting choice IS a monopoly.
Refuted? Laughable. You can't have a monopoly on accessories and for all intents and purposes the app store is an accessory.
Just the other day a piece of my vacuum broke and I needed a replacement part which I could only attain by calling a number on my vacuum and ordering directly through the company. Does this company have a monopoly in vacuums or vacuum parts? No. They sell vacuums that have proprietary parts that can only be purchases through one channel.
As soon as my vacuum company, or Apple for that matter, hit 90% of the market, then we can talk.