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

[jarman92]

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?

That's what the article makes it sound like, but no. The email is from 2016 and says they don't want to feature competing apps. Fischer is the VP of the App Store, and he's testifying in-person that the employee in the email is wrong, and that Apple features competing apps all the time.

Which they obviously do—anyone can go look at the Store right now and verify that—so not sure why Epic even introduced the email.

 

[thebeans]

No surprise. Search "Word Processing": Apple Pages (Free), nearly everything else (not free)

I searched. Pages was 8th down the list. Grammarly, Word, Google Docs, Office, etc were all above Pages.

 

[jarman92]

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 product, that names comes up first, when he 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

YES! I hope one of the witnesses points this out. And it's not like Apple named their apps specifically to be first in search...they've had that naming convention for decades.

 

[gaximus]

No surprise. Search "Word Processing": Apple Pages (Free), nearly everything else (not free)

Maybe it comes up first because its free and has the most downloads. Apple makes no money off of showing free apps in the search results first. Apple makes more money off of other paid apps.

 

[jarman92]

I searched. Pages was 8th down the list. Grammarly, Word, Google Docs, Office, etc were all above Pages.

Same here. And right after Word was a huge featured story about MS Word.

 

[macintoshmac]

Well, you feature them "all the time" because most of the times they are functionally more sound and capable than your own, dear Apple.

The hard work of third-party developers is the hook you use to draw people to your hardware. And then you want to use your position in the market to do whatever it is you do that irks those very developers.

 

[ani4ani]

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 product, that names comes up first, when he 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

Apple have already said in this case, that typically the top app in each catergory is a paid advert. That has been the case for years. If I search for "Excel"...the top App is Office Suite.

 

[jarman92]

Maybe it comes up first because its free and has the most downloads. Apple makes no money off of showing free apps in the search results first. Apple makes more money off of other paid apps.

Also, what's the argument in this case? That people looking for "word processing" apps don't know about Word? Give me a break.

 

[fncd]

I searched. Pages was 8th down the list. Grammarly, Word, Google Docs, Office, etc were all above Pages.

Does it really matter if it's on the 8th page when it's pre-loaded on every mac, iphone, ipad though?

 

[dk001]

Apple Store is such a mess I can usually get a better idea of the options via Google Search.

One aspect of search in the store is the “suggested” list. It never makes sense from a “me” standpoint.

 

[gnomeisland]

The two legitimate complaints (IMO) about Apple's control/handling of iOS right now are the quality of the app review process and Apple competing against similar 3rd party apps/services.

I could see some regulation concerning these areas but they seem very ancillary to Epic's case, which seems only about money and fees at it's core. But I also don't see a problem with Apple running an exclusive store on it's platforms as long as those two areas improve.

 

[Cosmosent]

Apple NEVER promotes OR recommends third-party apps that represent a "Significant Engineering Accomplishment" !

There is where they can be beaten-up badly in Court !

Specifically, suppression of third-party App Innovation, either for their own benefit, OR simply due to Incompetence in those running the show (few, if ANY of those in charge of making decisions in the App Store have a technical background).

NOT sure this aspect has been mentioned so far in this court case.

Anybody ?

 

[Cosmosent]

The two legitimate complaints (IMO) about Apple's control/handling of iOS right now are the quality of the app review process and Apple competing against similar 3rd party apps/services.

I could see some regulation concerning these areas but they seem very ancillary to Epic's case, which seems only about money and fees at it's core. But I also don't see a problem with Apple running an exclusive store on it's platforms as long as those two areas improve.

Apple has a Complete & Total Stranglehold on App Discovery.

That's the bigger issue, much bigger than Epic's profit battle with Apple, & it affects far more Apps & App Devs.

Apple should NOT be allowed to suppress third-party App Innovation for ANY reason !

And, they do so for a multitude of reasons !

 

[TiggrToo]

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

Calendar...

 

[Razorpit]

That's what the article makes it sound like, but no. The email is from 2016 and says they don't want to feature competing apps. Fischer is the VP of the App Store, and he's testifying in-person that the employee in the email is wrong, and that Apple features competing apps all the time.

Which they obviously do—anyone can go look at the Store right now and verify that—so not sure why Epic even introduced the email.

Terrible lawyers that don’t understand what they just introduced? ?

YES! I hope one of the witnesses points this out. And it's not like Apple named their apps specifically to be first in search...they've had that naming convention for decades.

Which makes you wonder if they had the long game in place all those years ago… ? ??‍♂️

 

[genovelle]

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

To those haters I’d say. It’s not Apple’s job to make 3rd party products desirable to consumers. If you have built the value of your brand the customer will buy it from you. Someone Microsoft has done their job selling Excel is not going to switch and download pages instead. If someone chooses Apple Music over Spotify then Spotify hasn’t built value in what they do. Case closed.

 

[mazz0]

That's what the article makes it sound like, but no. The email is from 2016 and says they don't want to feature competing apps. Fischer is the VP of the App Store, and he's testifying in-person that the employee in the email is wrong, and that Apple features competing apps all the time.

Ah right. Doesn't just make it sound like that, it says it explicitly:

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.

So "In the latest batch of emails..." should read "When questioned regarding the latest batch of emails..."?

 

[ian87w]

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

You should've lost respect the minute it was revealed that Epic has planned for this for years, and even intended to circumvent Apple's ToS via a hotfix, and the only motivation was just because their revenue was declining. That by itself already showed ill intent from Epic.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

I did the same search just now and Pages was 8th down the list not including an ad for an app named “Grammarly”and an AppStore Story featuring Microsoft Word.

View attachment 1771233

I did it on an iPad and got Collabio, Microsoft Word, a STORY about Microsoft Word
https://apps.apple.com/us/story/id1452450803
and Google Docs. When I scrolled down, I got Pages and TextEditor.

Google Docs and Microsoft Word are even rated higher than Pages (and more ratings)

I feel I should clarify further that, of the apps showing ratings indicated above, Pages is the lowest ranked.

 

[urmaster]

Why are so many people talking about the search? This is about features; apps that are promoted to you without you searching for them.

Doh, I obviously didn’t read the last paragraph, thought that was something settled a while ago.

 

[fncd]

Calendar...

View attachment 1771348

That's an ad. No different than companies paying to be at the top of a google list. Apple isn't "featuring" PocketLife.

 

[frenchcamp49er]

No surprise. Search "Word Processing": Apple Pages (Free), nearly everything else (not free)

And? 9th on the list with Microsoft 1st.

 

[1258186]

Epic’s lawyers are doing a really good job exposing Apple’s secret policies.

 

[Killbill2]

I searched. Pages was 8th down the list. Grammarly, Word, Google Docs, Office, etc were all above Pages.

The evidence wasn’t about a “search”

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.

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:
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

the evidence presented wasn’t about searching but presented Voiceover capable apps and the reality was, and still is, that Apple ensures it’s Apps are using UIAccessibility where as both MS and especially Google and Adobe don’t, in fact they seem to go out of their way to ensure their apps are not VoiceOver capable. Why would Apple feature apps that aren’t best in class under the accessibility banner?

 

[Killbill2]

Epic’s lawyers are doing a really good job exposing Apple’s secret policies

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.

Remember the time Amazon didn’t support screen readers? In fact they got sued… boasting the “same experience” isn’t a defined term so the boast was a false claim. Amazon let’s you use their pay system but doesn’t do Apple Pay only accepts Apple Card (MasterCard) where’s the whining about that equal experience?