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Apple Protests Call for Third-Party App Stores and Lower Platform Fees in Japan
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I don't know. I want to know why Yodobashi Camera in Akihabara does not allow Mandarake to take over one of their floors rent free. It is a competitive advantage to have such an enormous retail space on a prominent intersection near mass transit and unfair to smaller shops...
The antitrust laws are based on company size and market share and specifically call out restrictions on what companies meeting those criteria are allowed to do. If you don't like the laws you should petition to have them changed.
Courts can only apply laws which exist. If no laws exist that qualify the things that Apple is doing as being anti-competitive, then legislatures have the right to enact laws stating as much. Being anti-competitive isn't some kind of discernible natural state. It's an attribute made up by humans and one that is subject to change.
What if I told you that you do not pay to install software (other than whatever fee they charge to purchase said software)? That is a yearly fee for developers to have access to dev tools, SDKs, APIs, and other resources - and vastly less expensive than dev kits and all the other requirements for the privilege of developing on the extremely restrictive video game platforms.
IMO, if someone is going to claim that a single 1st party store is anti-competitive versus 3rd party stores then it should be easy to demonstrate that lack of competition through prices, quality, selection and satisfaction with apps on the platform. None of the governments in question are doing that. They're entirely avoiding those kinds of comparisons. That's a rather obvious red flag within the "game".
Apple should pull out of every market and only sell iPhones in Somalia where there are no regulations.
You think Japan is going to go after their most successful international brands when Apple is worth more than several of them combined?
Laws are subject to change but citizens typically expect those changes to be based on a realistic need. There doesn't appear to be any realistic competitive appraisal happening per the App Store. Legislators are refusing to do even basic comparisons for standard consumer issues like price/quality/selection/satisfaction.
You don’t need an iPhone. Sorry but you don’t.
1 / 2 year warranty is mandatory in many countries. Apple doesn’t just provide that out of good heart
I agree. Some semblance of leeway would take the heat off of them but by refusing and refusing it just ratchets up the tension.
different platform? Why am I allowed to download apps to one of my vehicles that I can’t on my bike?
It is not easy in this world without a smartphone. A game console on the other hand is just entertainment.
The smartphone has become a very important part of everyday life, way beyond calls, texts, facebook and games.
That industry is dominated by 2 of the biggest companies in the world.
One company having complete control over what can be installed on roughly two thirds of Japanese citizen's smartphones would seem to be a realistic need. When a country does something like that, it's called authoritarian, but if a for-profit company does that suddenly it's justified "because capitalism", even though the net effect is largely the same, trampling the rights of consumers and the ability of legitimate businesses to operate.
One day there will be deappled phones competing with degoogled phones. I’d call that competition.
Would it be feasible and make practical sense for Apple to somehow review the 3rd party app stores and the apps that were on them? (maybe not the apps that are on them). But make it so you can't just willy nilly be some 3rd party app store. Develop a strict set of rules associated with the 3rd party app store. For example, you must have and maintain a robust review system. If any app, downloaded from your store does harm (needs to be defined) to the "system" (again needs to be defined), then you lose your privledges/access to the platform. It cannot be the wild west. This would be no different that a retail store having rules for being on display (shelf fees, returns, etc.).
Need as in food, water, air, shelter? Of course not. But having a smartphone today would fall into a second tier of needs like transportation, companionship, glasses if you have poor vision, etc. And seeing as how there is a need and a duopoly exists among smartphone OS's, it should be regulated.
But the real question is, just because they did it that way on the Mac, a device created and maintain though a period of time when that was just how that sort of thing was done, why does that mean Apple MUST stick to the Mac model, and that governments decide what their model should be?
As someone mentioned further down the thread, Spotify makes the vast majority of its money through subscribes via the web, not through the app. They would make less or charge more if payments went through the app, but as it is the app is free and people just pay through their site. They had other good examples of how this is closer to the console experience of alternate places to pay, etc than we may think.
I just don’t think the “well, that’s how the Mac works” is a compelling legal argument. It may feel like a moral argument. But, Apple chose to change things with their iOS devices. Not sure why that should be ILLEGAL.
These "Apple should pull out of [insert market here]" comments are ridiculous.
Perhaps an Apple Store on Mars is the answer. From what I understand there's not a lot of regulation or government oversight there.
*purposely excluding the sarcasm tag...
Perhaps an Apple Store on Mars is the answer. From what I understand there's not a lot of regulation or government oversight there.
*purposely excluding the sarcasm tag...