Apple Faces Antitrust Probe Into Pre-Installed Apps, App Store, and More in Germany

[DeepIn2U]

Because the complaint was filed against Apple, not against Google, Samsung or Sony.



No, but I do catch your whataboutism.

Reading the first paragraph quoted seems like this will investigate all of Apple's businesses and how certain services impact users or developers. That that has to look at bundling apps it's at which point is this going to go? Where is the cut-off. Basically I'm not talking about whataboutism from that typical standpoint it's that who's to profit of changing Apple's business practices, and that will all eventually come to every other platform - at least it should. Sure the focus is on the App Store but it will open up a lot more worms in a can than push up daisy's.

 

[chucker23n1]

Reading the first paragraph quoted seems like this will investigate all of Apple's businesses and how certain services impact users or developers.

Well, that's their job.

That that has to look at bundling apps it's at which point is this going to go? Where is the cut-off. Basically I'm not talking about whataboutism from that typical standpoint it's that who's to profit of changing Apple's business practices, and that will all eventually come to every other platform - at least it should. Sure the focus is on the App Store but it will open up a lot more worms in a can than push up daisy's.

I certainly agree that the outcome should be equally applied to Android, no question. I think it will.

 

[squirrellydw]

If Apple is found guilty, Apples next move will be to shut down the App Store. Everything will go to Web apps.

 

[Hajj.david]

Websites don’t need cookie nags if they don’t want to spy on you.

The reality is, now browsing the internet is an immense pain in the butt thanks to European privacy laws. Sometimes each page I have to configure the cookies before moving forward.

 

[WaffleBoi_15]

WOULD YOU RATHER:

Your phone be part of a tightly integrated ecosystem where everything works together seamlessly. There are other apps out there we could use instead, we KNOW that, but we CHOOSE not to because we consumers would be losing out that wonderful system integration.

OR

Have literally everything about your phone (hardware, software, apps) all be made by completely separate, smaller companies, which means none of it integrates very well at all, you need a different account for all them, you need to give your credit card information to each and every one of them, etc. Massive loss for regular consumers like myself.

The governments are unfortunately choosing option 2.

 

[DeepIn2U]

Why is this not a problem with cars? How come I can't install and sideload any apps inside my car system? Tesla doesn't allow me to install some kind of carplay app or even have perhaps a music streaming service of my choice.. Honestly, I'm not sure this is all in the best interest of consumers.. Yes, the competition is good.. But if the cars get taken over by virus's and starting killing people, is that ok also? I continue to think the walled garden is a good choice.. Even if it limits dev's in some ways.. You know when they used to sell retail software in stores, the stores/wholesale pipeline took over 75% of the profits.. And was that not a problem before??

- Have a GOOD look at one of those games you can on your Tesla and the 'internet' era it had to try and survive in.
Company: Inifinite Dreams, Inc
Game: Sky Force / Sky Force Reloaded

Era: early 90's first debut on Nokia's S60 platform, the same time that OS was on multiple systems that Nokia made and 2 of them on the N-Gage gaming platform. Many company's lost $10K of dollars, not to mention Nokia. The original leaker of all those .sis files hehe never found never brought to court.

Now let's consider that Tesla walled garden - can you install ANY game you want through other stores?
Tesla Arcade seems like Telsa's walled garden.
Yes I've read you could install PC games by using Rainway, but that was early 2020 is this still the case?
Also why do I want to have a game on my cars system just to eat up electrical power?

 

[jarman92]

Cannot wait for the first EU country to come out and say that ATT is anti-competitive and that Apple has to allow apps to secretly track their users, just to show how flagrantly protectionist and absurd most of these European investigations of US tech companies are.

 

[chucker23n1]

WOULD YOU RATHER:

Your phone be part of a tightly integrated ecosystem where everything works together seamlessly. There are other apps out there we could use instead, we KNOW that, but we CHOOSE not to because we consumers would be losing out that wonderful system integration.

OR

Have literally everything about your phone (hardware, software, apps) all be made by completely separate, smaller companies, which means none of it integrates very well at all, you need a different account for all them, you need to give your credit card information to each and every one of them, etc. Massive loss for regular consumers like myself.

The governments are unfortunately choosing option 2.

Hey Siri what is a "strawman argument"

 

[ruka.snow]

I thought Epic's whole thing is that their cut is smaller?

They do less for their cut. Just one expensive instance is that they don't pay the local taxes on your sales. It is very expensive to pay the taxes in each country you operate. Apple, Google, Valve, and Microsoft do this for you. The money you get in goes to the bank. Epic don't do this or very much of anything for you, you have to pay these things yourself. If Epic gave you the same service for less than everyone else then developers would be on their side. Instead Epic charges you 12.5% for a store listing and leave developers to cover all the other costs, might as well use something like FastSpring... but even they do more for their cut than Epic.

 

[ruka.snow]

The reality is, now browsing the internet is an immense pain in the butt thanks to European privacy laws. Sometimes each page I have to configure the cookies before moving forward.

Use a adblocker, then you get no nags and no cookies. Or write to the websites in question and get them to remove invasive trackers instead of trying to get you to agree to a persistent nag that will allow them to track everything you do. All the EU did was bring to light how dodgy a lot of websites have had to become to generate money.

 

[MrDerby01]

WTF? What has App Tracking Transparency to do with "anti-competitive practices"?
Also, I would hardly call it a business model if it's based on ripping off people and hoping they don't find out about it. If your customers decide to stop giving you money (data) when they find out what (how much) they pay for your service, it's the companies fault and not Apple's, isn't it?
And of course Facebook was involved here again. This company makes me so sick..

Agreed. I am more for the default apps, choices on what apps will natively open music, books, web, email, weather even messaging. At a later part a choice on the APP store would be ideal.

 

[MrDerby01]

Use a adblocker, then you get no nags and no cookies. Or write to the websites in question and get them to remove invasive trackers instead of trying to get you to agree to a persistent nag that will allow them to track everything you do. All the EU did was bring to light how dodgy a lot of websites have had to become to generate money.

Maybe a small PfSense box could help..

 

[_Spinn_]

This is stupid. Are we going to have to ask about every app installed during the setup process? That sounds like a major pain.

 

[MrDerby01]

This is stupid. Are we going to have to ask about every app installed during the setup process? That sounds like a major pain.

See your view.. Would be ok with a basic backdrop and maybe just the app store OR an option "Setup like new" OR "Setup with default apps"

 

[mazz0]

In the physical world if a consumer or merchant doesn’t like a particular location of business they can move to another. Not so on iOS. The AppStore is the only game.

Not so, they can go to Android (and there have been other competitors that few people showed any interest in).

The argument of “move to Android” doesn’t hold water either because it is telling a developer to forego almost half their potential revenue or a customer to move to a less secure product.

You could say the same thing about a dominant supermarket - as a seller if you want access to their customers sell your goods there, or hope those customers will go somewhere else for your goods. As a customer, either buy what's on offer there or go to another supermarket.

Neither does saying it will make the product less secure. Don’t want the risk? Don’t download another marketplace. And the walled garden is still there. Consumers should be given the choice to punch down those walls if they are OK with the risk. The Mac works exactly this way and it is still far from the Wild West of security we used to live in.

Realistically though you'll have to download other stores, for the same reason you can't really get by with only AppStore apps on a Mac. Once they have the option of selling through their own stores without the restrictions Apple imposes (such as the ATT rules which triggered this whole argument) some of the big players like Google, Facebook (obviously), Microsoft, etc will, I predict, remove their products from the App Store and sell them exclusively through less well regulated stores. Once they have opened these poorly regulated stores and ensured they have large built in customer-bases no doubt a bunch of other developers will move their own apps there - why would they comply with Apple's customer-friendly regulations when they don't have to?

 

[_Spinn_]

See your view.. Would be ok with a basic backdrop and maybe just the app store OR an option "Setup like new" OR "Setup with default apps"

That would probably help make things less painful during setup.

 

[MrDerby01]

Not so, they can go to Android (and there have been other competitors that few people showed any interest in).


You could say the same thing about a dominant supermarket - as a seller if you want access to their customers sell your goods there, or hope those customers will go somewhere else for your goods. As a customer, either buy what's on offer there or go to another supermarket.


Realistically though you'll have to download other stores, for the same reason you can't really get by with only AppStore apps on a Mac. Once they have the option of selling through their own stores without the restrictions Apple imposes (such as the ATT rules which triggered this whole argument) some of the big players like Google, Facebook (obviously), Microsoft, etc will, I predict, remove their products from the App Store and sell them exclusively through less well regulated stores. Once they have opened these poorly regulated stores and ensured they have large built in customer-bases no doubt a bunch of other developers will move their own apps there - why would they comply with Apple's customer-friendly regulations when they don't have to?

Many different choices.. Samsung "Galaxy Store" Huawei "store\HSM" Amazon.. Lot's of other choices

 

[mazz0]

The reality is, now browsing the internet is an immense pain in the butt thanks to European privacy laws. Sometimes each page I have to configure the cookies before moving forward.

Doesn't your add-blocker stop that?

 

[mazz0]

- Have a GOOD look at one of those games you can on your Tesla and the 'internet' era it had to try and survive in.
Company: Inifinite Dreams, Inc
Game: Sky Force / Sky Force Reloaded

Era: early 90's first debut on Nokia's S60 platform, the same time that OS was on multiple systems that Nokia made and 2 of them on the N-Gage gaming platform. Many company's lost $10K of dollars, not to mention Nokia. The original leaker of all those .sis files hehe never found never brought to court.

Now let's consider that Tesla walled garden - can you install ANY game you want through other stores?
Tesla Arcade seems like Telsa's walled garden.
Yes I've read you could install PC games by using Rainway, but that was early 2020 is this still the case?
Also why do I want to have a game on my cars system just to eat up electrical power?

I found this post very confusing. What has Tesla got to do with old mobile phone games?

 

[AppliedMicro]

If Apple is found guilty, Apples next move will be to shut down the App Store. Everything will go to Web apps.

...and lose out on hardware purchases from enterprise customers, gamers, developers?

I believe it when I see it.

 

[jmgregory1]

Agreed. I am more for the default apps, choices on what apps will natively open music, books, web, email, weather even messaging. At a later part a choice on the APP store would be ideal.

You have the choice of what default apps you can use, you can switch to Android.

Imagine if you had created a piece of hardware and the software used to run it, then you allowed tens of thousands of other developers to be able to access the millions of customers you’ve worked (and spent billions of dollars) to acquire, making these very developers millions of dollars themselves.

Then some government says you need to not have any of your own applications you developed show up as standard items, instead making every other competitive app be a choice that has to be made by the consumer right out of the gates. These other apps wouldn’t exist had it not been for the fact that you allowed the developers onto your app store and to potentially make them millions / billions of dollars - does that seem fair or right to you that a government would even get that say in the matter?

What it sounds like to me isn’t consumer protection, but rather government’s not understanding that this is selfishness on the part of other companies who want a piece of what Apple developed and to get it they want Apple to give up control of something that isn’t even a problem as it stands.

 

[nitramluap]

I think it only matters if the intent is nefarious, then yeah… challenge it. But I don’t think that’s ever Apple’s MO. If so, forget about it. The choice is simple, buy a non-Apple device (there are many manufacturers to choose from) and install whatever you like on Android (and side-load if you really want as you can do that too).

This just smells like a targeted effort by a tiny minority of tech-literate trouble-making nerds to rattle the cages of politicians who have no idea what they‘re talking about - be careful what you wish for!

Meanwhile, 99% of users just want to get on with other things.

As both a developer and user, this sort of ‘opening up’ of iOS will do more harm than good, despite the vocal minority’s whining.

 

[nitramluap]

“I want to run Xbox exclusive games on Playstation - it’s not fair” - same daft argument.

 

[nitramluap]

These inquiries remind me somewhat of how the ‘right’ drums up overblown concern (moral panic) about things like ‘political correctness’ or ‘cancel culture’, when it’s not actually what they claim it is, nor is it that bad.

Meanwhile the ‘left’ starts fighting among themselves, arguing the trivial, finer points - while the ‘right’ sits back and watches them self-destruct. It’s a classic technique.

I wonder if there is an element of this with these stories? I mean, who exactly is so concerned about this they need to raise it with government? Sounds like a squeaky wheel with an axe to grind… to mix metaphors.

 

[Somepeople]

These inquiries remind me somewhat of how the ‘right’ drums up overblown concern (moral panic) about things like ‘politician correctness’ or ‘cancel culture’, when it’s not actually what they claim it is, nor is it that bad.

Meanwhile the ‘left’ starts fighting among themselves, arguing the trivial, finer points - while the ‘right’ sits back and watches them self-destruct. It’s a classic technique.

I wonder if there is an element of this with these stories. I mean, who exactly is so concerned about this they need to raise it with government? Sounds like a squeaky wheel with an axe to grind… to mix metaphors.

Google is upset android is bad and getting worse, since they can't even compete with iOS they need help From governments and they pay lobbyists loads of money to make apples life hard.