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Apple Exec: We Feature Competitors' Apps 'All The Time' on the App Store

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On May 3, the Epic Games vs. Apple trial got underway, and every day, new emails between Apple executives and employees continue to be shared by Epic as evidence for its case against Apple.

apple-app-store-page.jpg

In the latest batch of emails, the vice president of the App Store, Matt Fischer, claims that Apple features apps made by its competitors "all the time" on the store and rejects the sentiment that it seeks to degrade the exposure of those apps.

According to internal Apple correspondence submitted as evidence by Epic, an Apple employee wrote an email regarding a collection of apps on the App Store that were a part of the VoiceOver collection. In the email, which was forwarded to Sarah Herrlinger, Apple's senior director of global accessibility policy, the employee claims that Fisher feels "extremely strong" about not featuring competing apps on the platform. The email reads:
Hi Andrea,

Just spoke with Tanya about featuring Google and Amazon apps in the VoiceOver collection and she asked us to exclude them from the lineup. Although they may be our best and the brightest apps, Matt feels extremely strong about not featuring our competitors on the App Store store, so Yanta asked us to apply the same filters for this collection. I'm sorry I didn't check this earlier.
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Responding to the claim made by the employee, Fischer says that Apple features and promotes competing apps on the App Store "all the time," and cites the specific example of Apple featuring Peacock, Hulu, and Hulu Plus on the platform, despite them competing with its own Apple TV+ streaming service.

Apple has long faced criticism that it decreases the exposure of competing third-party apps on the App Store when compared to its own apps. In 2019, the company adjusted its App Store algorithm after it realized that many of its apps were ranking higher on App Store search results rather than apps made by other developers. Despite the change, research from analytics firm Sensor Tower at the time showed that first-party Apple apps ranked first for over 700 search terms.

(Via iMore)

Article Link: Apple Exec: We Feature Competitors' Apps 'All The Time' on the App Store
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/05/07/apple-executive-feature-competing-apps/
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This kind of debate is naturally inherit from Apple's setup. Unless Apple dosen't provide its native solution (like weather app on iPad), it will always be questioned or even assumed..............
 
First: I have a feeling - from the multiple MacRumors post - Fisher might be looking for a new job that doesn’t involve the App Store. Phil has issues with all the low rating/counterfeit apps that keep making it onto the App Store (from the another article yesterday), and now we have this email.
Two: I wonder if this is just bad choice of words from the email author or that person hearing what they want to hear and relaying it. We have all probably been in a similar situation, were you say something or heard something and the end results are not what was actually relaid. Example: I have had these issues when I worked retail: Ask the cashiers to see to their cashier task before helping another staff with her task. A few days later I find out that they have been telling the other staff that I said not to help out the other lady, which I know is false, which has now created bigger issues.
The bigger issue, people will hear and read things that are not inline with what was originally said/written (or at least not what the OP though was said/written). It is part of life - and these forums are proof.
 
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Apple has plenty of incentive to promote any apps that use its itunes pay system. Not so much for those that don't..amazon, netflix, etc. It doesn't really matter if Apple has a competing app.
 
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wanha said:
Would love to know how many times Epic has promoted competitors' products on their platform for free.
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Not really a good question, as their goal is to create a full on game store (ecosystem) with competing products to rival Steam over on the PC. They're literally burning money trying to establish it - and the user experience is terrible, but you have advertising blasting in your face. Of course their Windows based games (Fortnite being the big one) are only offered through it - and only launched through it (you can't just launch the program, exe, by itself you have to see the advertising).

Knowing they'd want to bring that experience to iOS etc., it really would be unfortunate if they won, but I don't expect them too. I also don't expect them to bring the iOS and Mac versions of their products back - both because Sweeney is that kind of guy, but also I think they want to move users of non console and non windows versions over to GeForce Now as it would a bunch of platforms they'd no longer have to fund. JMHO.
 
Sasparilla said:
Not really a good question, as their goal is to create a full on game store (ecosystem) with competing products to rival Steam over on the PC. They're literally burning money trying to establish it - and the user experience is terrible, but you have advertising blasting in your face. Of course their Windows based games (Fortnite being the big one) are only offered through it - and only launched through it (you can't just launch the program, exe, by itself you have to see the advertising).

Knowing they'd want to bring that experience to iOS etc., it really would be unfortunate if they won, but I don't expect them too. I also don't expect them to bring the iOS and Mac versions of their products back - both because Sweeney is that kind of guy, but also I think they want to move users of non console and non windows versions over to GeForce Now as it would a bunch of platforms they'd no longer have to fund. JMHO.
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I had to sign up for an account with them to use Rocket League properly on my Switch. The UX on the website is so terrible it had me considering giving up playing RL
 
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I'm a bit confused by this article. So there are two internal emails, both written by Apple staff, one of which says "we don't feature competitor apps" and this email is quoted above, and there's another that says "we feature them all the time" but this one isn't quoted above? It's a bit hard to follow, why are Apple staff disagreeing with themselves on this point?
 
Morgenland said:
Epic: Pretty Dirty Pack. Publishing emails is really borderline, because often such dialogues are just negotiation statements. Taking this to court now is: dirty.
Epic no longer deserves any respect.

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emails are a pretty common type of evidential material in trials. That's why you should be very careful about what you write in them. Even the Microsoft monopoly trial back in the 1990's featured them.
 
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Remember that time they got upset Amazon bragged about the Kindle experience being the same on iOS and Android so they banned iOS apps from allowing internal purchases, so now you have to buy your books through the website?

Pepperidge farm remembers.
 
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If there is a company out there that does not fear competition they are doing it wrong. Epic intentionally provides benefits and reduced fees on their store to anyone using UE, yet that is not a story..
 
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AngerDanger said:
What's that picture mean? Looks like a crop of one of the Epic/Apple litigation images rotated 180º.
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The female representation is Epic's battleship and is always used as a bunny for MacRumors. I was getting bored with this. Therefore headstand.
 
Just because Apple features competitor products doesn’t mean competitor can compete with Apple on an even playing field. More exposure is only part of trying to get customers on board for your products.

It is interesting to see how these behind the scene stuff surfacing, and I’d say Epic Game has achieved this goal, whether intended or not. But as usual, there is always more That meets the eye.
 
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Shirasaki said:
Just because Apple features competitor products doesn’t mean competitor can compete with Apple on an even playing field. More exposure is only part of trying to get customers on board for your products.

It is interesting to see how these behind the scene stuff surfacing, and I’d say Epic Game has achieved this goal, whether intended or not. But as usual, there is always more That meets the eye.
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With all the bits and pieces coming to light from all sides, it would be no surprise to see Apple win the battle but lose the war.
 
Terms apple is listed first:
Music
Numbers
Pages
Keynote
home
Calendar
Preview
Contacts

Terms Apple is not listed First
Music Streaming
Spotify
Tidal
Spreadsheets
Excel
Sheets
word Processing
electronic publising
Word
Slides
powerpoint


You get the idea, when the name of the Apple application is the same as the search term, voila, it comes up first. when the name as the search term is a comptetitor's product, that name comes up first, when the name is generic, who knows, but maybe most popular. spreadsheet yields Excel, so.....

And seriously, even if a free Apple app came up first versus a paid competitor, 1) apple makes no money on that, 2) if they were equally good, wouldn't you choose the free app?

This argument is all in the minds of the haters, and has been for some time
 
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Morgenland said:
Epic: Pretty Dirty Pack. Publishing emails is really borderline, because often such dialogues are just negotiation statements. Taking this to court now is: dirty.
Epic no longer deserves any respect.

View attachment 1771186
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Pretty routine...and valuable to do so; Apple will be doing much the same...remember, Apple were asking Steam to publish their profits game by game to present in their disposition.
 
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