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Apple CEO Tim Cook Testifies in Epic Games v. Apple Trial
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If you buy a Honda are you trapped into not getting a Toyota?
Uhhhh… Yes it has? It wasn’t even until 2008 when Apple said they’re going to allow third party devs to make Apps. Things have changed a ton since then, App Store aside.
Also, forgive me for thinking it’s silly I can’t format a USB drive without connecting to *any consumer OS that isn’t iOS*
I'm not getting into more nonsense analogies, the BestBuy ones were enough.
You could actually probably make a profit since you can get more money when selling your Apple device than an Android.
For some reason I thought the App Store opening was still in '07, but you're right, '08. Same thing. You also could never reformat flash drives or do other advanced things. Part of why the iPad sucks and has always sucked for most use cases. What can I say, buy the device that suits your needs.
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He means that you don’t have other options on the device you already own. You have to go out and purchase something completely different. Before you throw your counterarguments at me, know that I’m just explaining the comment, not taking a stance on it.
The YouTube feed is so bad I can barely make out what they are saying.
lol profit, you can't make profit if you resell it on the bay or local sites.
That's always a money loss, and you would also have to rebuy apps and games that you already own.
It's all build up to trap and lockin, just like they stated in the emails which went public.
In your analogy, the customer hasn't bought anything yet. But anyway, almost nobody buys apps, at least not expensive ones. If they do, they know what they're getting into.
Why rebuy apps when you are going to Android? You can just pirate them.
heh "almost nobody buys apps", hmm i wonder from where all these $$$ comes.
Is Tim Cook a drug dealer?
Is there anything about Apple you like? You seem to waste a lot of energy on how bad Apple and some false hope that the EU will change them in some way. Im not a massive google or Samsung fan, so I don't visit forums dedicated to them
Enough sarcasm; enough sneer. There’s already enough of that on this forum. I can easily pirate software on Windows, but most PC gamers and I aren’t out there constantly pirating games instead of purchasing them on Steam. It’s not a rarity for people to get their software the official way; please stop pretending it is.
I’m just saying, I could make a list of things where, prior to Apple introducing said functionality, Apple diehards would just say “get an Android” as if the desire to want to be able to do such a thing was preposterous:
- MMS (this is why they have email!!)
- third party GPS
- widgets
- control center
- downloads in browser
- files app
But after Apple announces it, Apple
fans put on their monocles like “mmmmm yes, perfectly done at the perfect time.”
I don't recall anyone here saying these things with respect to any of those things other than the files app.
swingerofbirch
macrumors 68040
"Apple also references locking people into devices, which Cook says means making products work so well together that customers don't want to switch."
I've heard that's why most prisoners never leave prison. It's just so nice there.
I mean come on . . . a credit card that gives you less back if you don't use an iPhone to pay and until recently couldn't manage on a web-site, bluetooth trackers that become useless if you switch to a different platform, a smart watch that ceases to work if you switch to a different platform.
And yes iMessage is both functionally a feature that people like, but it also does have a psychological allure where people don't want to have to leave their blue bubbles. I'm sure they've considered the psychological effect of the color.
And what about iCloud? For years they sold phones with 16 GB of storage and 4K cameras and no way to add storage (and forget about Image Capture working to store locally, that's another story), so they upsell customers who were getting warning messages on their phones constantly to buy iCloud storage, but iCloud is not like any other online storage service. You can't switch to Android and keep using iCloud Photos. And for files, they only have the most basic web interface for class platform compatibility.
Almost every review for Apple products comes with a mention of, "This product your best choice if you're already in the Apple ecosystem," which so many people are.
I wouldn't be so critical of Apple if their products were great, but the truth is they're not as good as they used to be. They make what I call Taco Bell tech products. All the platforms share a common core, just like all Taco Bell food comes from the same few ingredients in different forms. An iPod was an iPod, and a Mac was a Mac. But now their main platforms have stagnated because they do parity across all of them, even when it means holding each other back. They have four multi-purpose computing platforms now.
Their financial success is an impediment to them being like they were in the early 2000s. If they were on the ropes in any way, given a curve ball, they would be forced to do something interesting and make a change.
Is the App Store really that interesting? It has 2 million apps, which is 1/3 the number of articles on Wikipedia. Does an App Store need 2 million apps when there are only 6 million subjects in the entire world?
Is anything on the App Store that discoverable? Do you find the cream rising to the top? It's like a new version of the Web, but not quite as well indexed and hyperlinked. Should there be an app for McDonald's, Chik Fil A, Bank of America, etc?
He said a third party app store wouldn't be as good. I think it could be better. What if there were an app store that only allowed 200 apps at any time. That gave actual curation. Where it was known products were good enough to charge higher prices than the race to the bottom on the App Store and where trials were offered.
Of course such an App Store could be an app available within the App Store itself, but that's exactly the type of thing Apple has disallowed such as with Xbox and cloud gaming.
"He said that he oversees the strategic direction of the company, and that he works with the App Store in a 'limited review capacity.'"
That's very easy to believe. I picture him sitting in an office watching The Jetsons, and saying, "Let's do that" and rehearsing lines about AR. He is good at squeezing supply chains and maximizing profits. But I don't think Apple would be better if his ideas were front and center, mainly because he doesn't seem to have any ideas.
In his latest interview with Kara Swisher, he talked about AR in general terms and said, "Imagine if we were talking right now, but instead of just talking, I could be showing you a presentation." I was thinking, "Like Powerpoint?"
And I was also thinking, "Do you even know Apple had this feature back in 2008 with iChat Theater that integrated with Keynote? And that it was pretty amazing! And do you know that you got rid of it? And now when you talk about the potential of AR, you're talking about a feature you killed off already."
I kind of think he probably has no idea about that, a lot of Apple's history, or its products.
I imagine he uses an iPad 99% of the time and is mostly focused on the supply chain and legal/political issues and revenue. And granted, he is good at that. It's just not the same company.
His biggest foray was probably the Apple Watch.
It launched doing a lot of things, and doing a lot of things poorly.
Apple had the money to wait and let it mature.
But when Apple was on the brink, it needed OS X to be good.
When they came out the iPod, it did one thing and did it really well.
I don't think Steve Jobs would have let the original Apple Watch ship. It was a Jetsons idea that wasn't ready. It became good. But Apple can ship a lot of crap right now and not suffer the consequence.
As an example many have pointed out, the Music app on the Mac.
Imagine if the first version of iTunes had been that bad. Apple might not have made it. They didn't have the time or money to keep trying over and over.
Something that boxes them into a corner, any sort of disruption, would be a benefit for consumers. Because they are running on inertia in a lot of ways, able to ship a lot of crappy software and half-baked ideas. That is the point of anti-trust action—that it spurs innovation. It is a bit odd that no other company has stepped into fill some of gaps Apple has left wide open. For example, why is messaging so fragmented on Android? All the same, for no other reason than that I am an Apple enthusiast, I would like to see them shaken up a bit.
Edit:
"Cook was asked whether Apple competes against Google in operating systems. "We compete against Samsung and LG," Cook said. "Customers don't buy operating systems, they buy devices,"
He's had the best experts preparing him for this, and no one told him that LG has been losing billions for years in smartphones and just left the business entirely?
When being accused of anti-trust behavior, it's probably not best to direct attention to competitors that were unable to compete and have left the market.
Edit 2 (the article is updating):
I should have been a lawyer. I made the exact same points about the ridiculous size of the app store and about how a third party, actually curated app store could be better before I knew the lawyer had made those same points.
Edit 3:
"Lawyer asked about third-party app stores that are tailored to people's specific interests or more curated, and Cook said he's not aware of that kind of app store."
So he's never heard of Setapp?
Has he ever heard of something called Apple Arcade then, which is a curated app store within the App Store, which no other developer would be allowed to offer?
Edit 4:
"'Are there any benefits to the design that allows users to choose apps that are outside of the Mac App Store?' pressed the lawyer. 'They'd be a lot safer if they did it the other way," said Cook.'"
Apple has a lot of their own software not available on the Mac App Store. In fact I recall downloading something (maybe Airport Utility—something like that) from apple.com a couple of years back (it was not on the App Store) and it had a warning that it could not be opened because it was from an unknown developer. I had to option click open it and give it permission to run. iTunes never even made it to the App Store.
I actually did have data loss from a Mac App Store app update related to OneDrive, which is a long story in and of itself, but it's not infallible.
I've heard that's why most prisoners never leave prison. It's just so nice there.
I mean come on . . . a credit card that gives you less back if you don't use an iPhone to pay and until recently couldn't manage on a web-site, bluetooth trackers that become useless if you switch to a different platform, a smart watch that ceases to work if you switch to a different platform.
And yes iMessage is both functionally a feature that people like, but it also does have a psychological allure where people don't want to have to leave their blue bubbles. I'm sure they've considered the psychological effect of the color.
And what about iCloud? For years they sold phones with 16 GB of storage and 4K cameras and no way to add storage (and forget about Image Capture working to store locally, that's another story), so they upsell customers who were getting warning messages on their phones constantly to buy iCloud storage, but iCloud is not like any other online storage service. You can't switch to Android and keep using iCloud Photos. And for files, they only have the most basic web interface for class platform compatibility.
Almost every review for Apple products comes with a mention of, "This product your best choice if you're already in the Apple ecosystem," which so many people are.
I wouldn't be so critical of Apple if their products were great, but the truth is they're not as good as they used to be. They make what I call Taco Bell tech products. All the platforms share a common core, just like all Taco Bell food comes from the same few ingredients in different forms. An iPod was an iPod, and a Mac was a Mac. But now their main platforms have stagnated because they do parity across all of them, even when it means holding each other back. They have four multi-purpose computing platforms now.
Their financial success is an impediment to them being like they were in the early 2000s. If they were on the ropes in any way, given a curve ball, they would be forced to do something interesting and make a change.
Is the App Store really that interesting? It has 2 million apps, which is 1/3 the number of articles on Wikipedia. Does an App Store need 2 million apps when there are only 6 million subjects in the entire world?
Is anything on the App Store that discoverable? Do you find the cream rising to the top? It's like a new version of the Web, but not quite as well indexed and hyperlinked. Should there be an app for McDonald's, Chik Fil A, Bank of America, etc?
He said a third party app store wouldn't be as good. I think it could be better. What if there were an app store that only allowed 200 apps at any time. That gave actual curation. Where it was known products were good enough to charge higher prices than the race to the bottom on the App Store and where trials were offered.
Of course such an App Store could be an app available within the App Store itself, but that's exactly the type of thing Apple has disallowed such as with Xbox and cloud gaming.
"He said that he oversees the strategic direction of the company, and that he works with the App Store in a 'limited review capacity.'"
That's very easy to believe. I picture him sitting in an office watching The Jetsons, and saying, "Let's do that" and rehearsing lines about AR. He is good at squeezing supply chains and maximizing profits. But I don't think Apple would be better if his ideas were front and center, mainly because he doesn't seem to have any ideas.
In his latest interview with Kara Swisher, he talked about AR in general terms and said, "Imagine if we were talking right now, but instead of just talking, I could be showing you a presentation." I was thinking, "Like Powerpoint?"
And I was also thinking, "Do you even know Apple had this feature back in 2008 with iChat Theater that integrated with Keynote? And that it was pretty amazing! And do you know that you got rid of it? And now when you talk about the potential of AR, you're talking about a feature you killed off already."
I kind of think he probably has no idea about that, a lot of Apple's history, or its products.
I imagine he uses an iPad 99% of the time and is mostly focused on the supply chain and legal/political issues and revenue. And granted, he is good at that. It's just not the same company.
His biggest foray was probably the Apple Watch.
It launched doing a lot of things, and doing a lot of things poorly.
Apple had the money to wait and let it mature.
But when Apple was on the brink, it needed OS X to be good.
When they came out the iPod, it did one thing and did it really well.
I don't think Steve Jobs would have let the original Apple Watch ship. It was a Jetsons idea that wasn't ready. It became good. But Apple can ship a lot of crap right now and not suffer the consequence.
As an example many have pointed out, the Music app on the Mac.
Imagine if the first version of iTunes had been that bad. Apple might not have made it. They didn't have the time or money to keep trying over and over.
Something that boxes them into a corner, any sort of disruption, would be a benefit for consumers. Because they are running on inertia in a lot of ways, able to ship a lot of crappy software and half-baked ideas. That is the point of anti-trust action—that it spurs innovation. It is a bit odd that no other company has stepped into fill some of gaps Apple has left wide open. For example, why is messaging so fragmented on Android? All the same, for no other reason than that I am an Apple enthusiast, I would like to see them shaken up a bit.
Edit:
"Cook was asked whether Apple competes against Google in operating systems. "We compete against Samsung and LG," Cook said. "Customers don't buy operating systems, they buy devices,"
He's had the best experts preparing him for this, and no one told him that LG has been losing billions for years in smartphones and just left the business entirely?
When being accused of anti-trust behavior, it's probably not best to direct attention to competitors that were unable to compete and have left the market.
Edit 2 (the article is updating):
I should have been a lawyer. I made the exact same points about the ridiculous size of the app store and about how a third party, actually curated app store could be better before I knew the lawyer had made those same points.
Edit 3:
"Lawyer asked about third-party app stores that are tailored to people's specific interests or more curated, and Cook said he's not aware of that kind of app store."
So he's never heard of Setapp?
Has he ever heard of something called Apple Arcade then, which is a curated app store within the App Store, which no other developer would be allowed to offer?
Edit 4:
"'Are there any benefits to the design that allows users to choose apps that are outside of the Mac App Store?' pressed the lawyer. 'They'd be a lot safer if they did it the other way," said Cook.'"
Apple has a lot of their own software not available on the Mac App Store. In fact I recall downloading something (maybe Airport Utility—something like that) from apple.com a couple of years back (it was not on the App Store) and it had a warning that it could not be opened because it was from an unknown developer. I had to option click open it and give it permission to run. iTunes never even made it to the App Store.
I actually did have data loss from a Mac App Store app update related to OneDrive, which is a long story in and of itself, but it's not infallible.
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Yeah, but they did.
Like straight up, I don’t know what else to say. People do complain, but they’re surprisingly tolerant when Apple hasn’t added an asked-for feature. And yes, I’m admittedly one of them.
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Man, I remember it most with MMS. To this day it makes no sense to me why they waited 2 years to add it.
How on earth could Apple differentiate between impulse purchases and carefully thought-out purchases? This is especially funny coming from lawyers for a company that makes a game that explicitly relies on so-called impulse purchases - in-app currency.
The analogy is spot on contrary to your assertion otherwise. Cook isn't comparing the iPhone to Best Buy he's comparing the App "STORE" to a Best Buy "STORE". The fact that one is a digital marketplace and the other is brick and mortar is irrelevant. All the rules and consumer laws that apply to selling goods in a brick and mortar STORE apply to the App STORE.
You can buy a copy of WoW at a Gamestop or you can buy the digital version directly from Blizzard. They are the same thing despite one being brought in a brick and mortar store and the other online. And guess what, Gamestop can't be forced to lose out on sales by being required to put a sign up telling customers they can purchase the game directly from Blizzard which is what Epic wants Apple to do.
Additionally, I have never subscribed or played any online multiplayer game where I didn't have to provide a valid email address. There is absolutely nothing stopping Epic, or any other developer, from sending promotional emails to subscribers to suggest they renew their subscription directly on Epic's website. The only prohibition is that they can't do that promotion within the App Store itself. Which begs the question what type of lousy marketing department does Epic really have that they can't convince the majority of iOS players to renew subscriptions / make in game purchases directly from their website.
Epic wants all the benefits of the App Store not only for free but without having to do the basic work any reasonable company would do to promote direct purchases.
Apple store policy increases overall quality of many apps. The cost for developing for iOS ecosystem is already higher than others. This pushes developers to make better apps (and with help from high quality resources from Apple). And yes, trash apps are exist but far less than other counterparts like Android or Windows. You could argue that those systems allow any apps to install. But iOS is a close-system designed OS and Apple doing a great job pushing developers to make better apps on a close environment.
It goes to show how respected Tim is that instead of answering questions from lawyers he gets to ask them.
