That would be an interesting case, game system developers make it very hard for games to be copied(side loaded), and its a selling point for game developers to build for their platform. No game developer wants their games to be copied.
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Apple Protests Call for Third-Party App Stores and Lower Platform Fees in Japan
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Well, if they were not forbidden to do so.... would be a valid argument if it didn't actually further throw gasoline on the Apple fire of control. Apps have exploited Apple's API's to make things like notifications useful and got banned faster than I can type this line.
iOS/iPadOS do not allow side loading but they do allow payments for content/subscriptions to be made outside of the App Store for apps that have been dowloaded from the App Store.
This is where Spotify was less than honest with their EU complaint. They complained about the 30% App Store commission in terms of pricing/revenue competition with Apple Music, but it turned out that 99% of their iOS subscribers were paying for the subscription through the internet and not the App Store. It was entirely viable for Spotify to get their customers to pay in a way that Apple got 0%.
Ahem,
Palm Treo - pretty junk for a smartphone - Dialer was terrible across all SW support range, speaker was a joke headset poor quality and NOT the start of smartphone era.
HP iPaq - which specific model? The early ones 3650/3860 started as portable palm PDAs needed a modem module for data - first launch then a second model allowed for data & voice. Don’t ya try me with the early models lol.
Nokia Communicator 9000 yes very early days for S60 based on Psion which evolved to be Symbian.
Ericsson R384 debuted just a few weeks/months before also worthy for early smartphone era (to be considered available to all consumers whom brought the bread and had carrier coverage).
^ These predate iPaq from Compaq (before HP purchase them).
Yeah. I’m both satisfied and disappointed in the switch. I LOVE breath of the wild! But there are two or three locations that lead to about 15 fps.
Well Apple complies with any request from the CCP like instantly. It's definitely not a problem in this case.
Security is paramount (notarization, code signing etc.) but Apple killed a lot of open source software that used to worked perfectly on MacOS before 10.15. (32bit isn't the issue there are some licensing issues) Their new strict rules are a benefit for 99% of users but I'm personally affected by this change and I have to compile applications myself whereas I used to be able to simply download them as executables.
This alone made MacOS a lot less appealing for me. They killed the small open source community. Not everyone has the means or wants to pay to be an Apple developer and users that could benefit from niche little apps are expected to build them themselves.
MacOS it just works
This alone made MacOS a lot less appealing for me. They killed the small open source community. Not everyone has the means or wants to pay to be an Apple developer and users that could benefit from niche little apps are expected to build them themselves.
MacOS it just works
and your statement leads back to my original question. Your expectations are based on US legislation and lobbying. Most places do not work that way. Governments definitely do not.
There is this lovely thing called precedent, and that which sets them. If Apple gets spanked and the beat down and legislation (more like when) results of said spanking, it's not going to be an Apple law. It will be sweeping to all similar models including Play Station, Xbox, Google, Microsoft, etc.
There is also a big difference between Xbox and Playstation digital delivery.... it's not at all the same as Apple.
1. The margin for a brick and mortal store to sell a physical game is 30%-50%. Xbox and Sony's digital stores charge 30%, so it is 100% in line with the industry.
2. The developer is making more margin on digital and saving money in physical printing and distribution netting an extra 10-15% netting the developer 15%-35% MORE profit than they make if someone buys the Game at Best Buy.
3. Sending 80GB of data vs. 50MB (with a few exceptions as some mobile games might hit a gig or two) is a huge difference. Believe it or not, the internet is NOT free. Not since the orange one's administration destroyed net neutrality. MS and Sony are paying ISP's the same as Netflix.
Sony and MS also do this amazing thing that Apple never goes... sales. Lots of sales and lots of promotions and when they do these things.
There is a jolly good reason why Sony and Microsoft are not being attacked. The only people their stores hurt are brick and mortar retailers which is called capitalism and competition, and not hurting the consumer. Brick and mortar stores also often sell digital downloads on their web site so they can compete.... and sometimes their digital deals are even better.
The “but, but consoles” crowd is annoying. First off, consoles probably will face more regulatory scrutiny in the future, but secondly they aren’t the same from a market standpoint.
A marketplace can be defined by the individuals participating in it. In a small town the market will largely be made up of the people living there. If there’s a large city nearby, many people in the small town will also shop in the city. This means there is an overlap in the markets. This in turn limits how much the stores in the small town can mark up their goods. If they mark them up too much, people will just buy them in the city. The more remote the town, the less overlap between markets and the more goods can be marked up.
If we look at consoles, there is significant market overlap. Many gamers have more than one console, or they have a console and a PC. They can pick and choose which “town” to visit when shopping for games. The exact options vary for each console vary, but the customer is still cross-shopping when deciding what to buy.
Smartphones are not like this. iPhone users are not typically buying Android phones and cross-shopping between Google Play and the App Store. The marketplaces are distinct and separate from each other, like two very isolated cities (both the Android and iOS markets are larger than the gaming market combined). The only way a customer uses the other market, is if they leave everything behind, and “move” to the other city (buy a new phone, re-purchase apps, and maybe even a new watch). This has significant costs and the customer is less likely to do so just because they have some issues with how the city/platform is run.
The Apple App Store has a more captive market than game consoles. The market forces of cross-shopping gamers can influence console makers to a degree; but there isn’t a similar market influence on Apple, which is why regulators in multiple countries are stepping in now.
That’s not to say that regulators won’t look at Microsoft and Sony in the future and decide that consoles too have problems that market forces can’t solve.
TLDR: consoles are different because people often have multiple consoles in their home, but only keep one phone in their pocket.
A marketplace can be defined by the individuals participating in it. In a small town the market will largely be made up of the people living there. If there’s a large city nearby, many people in the small town will also shop in the city. This means there is an overlap in the markets. This in turn limits how much the stores in the small town can mark up their goods. If they mark them up too much, people will just buy them in the city. The more remote the town, the less overlap between markets and the more goods can be marked up.
If we look at consoles, there is significant market overlap. Many gamers have more than one console, or they have a console and a PC. They can pick and choose which “town” to visit when shopping for games. The exact options vary for each console vary, but the customer is still cross-shopping when deciding what to buy.
Smartphones are not like this. iPhone users are not typically buying Android phones and cross-shopping between Google Play and the App Store. The marketplaces are distinct and separate from each other, like two very isolated cities (both the Android and iOS markets are larger than the gaming market combined). The only way a customer uses the other market, is if they leave everything behind, and “move” to the other city (buy a new phone, re-purchase apps, and maybe even a new watch). This has significant costs and the customer is less likely to do so just because they have some issues with how the city/platform is run.
The Apple App Store has a more captive market than game consoles. The market forces of cross-shopping gamers can influence console makers to a degree; but there isn’t a similar market influence on Apple, which is why regulators in multiple countries are stepping in now.
That’s not to say that regulators won’t look at Microsoft and Sony in the future and decide that consoles too have problems that market forces can’t solve.
TLDR: consoles are different because people often have multiple consoles in their home, but only keep one phone in their pocket.
Really puts it in perspective just how completely ridiculous the idea of leaving the markets that have or will have laws Apple doesn't like really is. And somehow Apple leaving China is not up for discussion or the simple notion of Apple refusing to comply with anything from CCP. It's extremely funny.
There wouldn't be any iOS users if there was't any third party apps.
In other words, you didn't really find anything that compelling from a competition standpoint. Similar to claiming that quality varies from developer, the fact that the Play Store has 1.3 million more apps can be chalked up to something as mundane as lower standards for entry or lower standards for remaining on the store.
Android has been around since 2009. There's been plenty of time for it to develop into a significantly better environment for app purchasing and that just hasn't happened despite the 3rd party stores etc.
People keep saying that but it’s not true. Will it be baked it the law that every developer still needs to put their app on Apple’s App Store? I have not seen such a clause. So developers will pull their apps THUS forcing us to use alternate stores.
And don’t counter the argument saying I don’t need said app. With that line of thinking, you don’t need side loading to get whatever-random-app either.
Yes.. all the world governments, including our own, are conspiring against Apple with bad policy decisions.
We don't want/need 50 different mobile OSes, each with only a few apps. That does nobody any good. This is one of the situations where a monopoly/duopoly is benificial.
What is your context? My context is a market comparison for apps as it currently exists on Android/iOS.
These are ex-ante regulation and hence the burden of proof rests with the party designated as Gate Keepers to prove that they are being anti-competitive. That is why this is a game changer.
"I see you've disproven my point, so I'm going to choose to ignore what you said."
Evidence of cheaper prices. Clearly a larger selection (which you said didn't exist I might add). Neither of those are compelling? Both of those are reason enough to take action and that's on top of not wanting to allow Apple to be the final arbiter on what software most of their country's citizens are allowed to install on their smartphone.
There's no chicken/egg comparison to be made. Apple created the OS, phone, and store before app developers did anything. The level of consumer sales for iOS/iPhone is what attracted developers to the platform. That's how it always works.
It makes me smile to see so many countries and jurisdictions finally going after Apple here.
It's long past time for changes around iOS Apps, App Stores and where and how users can get applications and what we can do with our iOS devices.
It's long past time for changes around iOS Apps, App Stores and where and how users can get applications and what we can do with our iOS devices.
Two totally different business models and markets.
Sony and MS make less than brick and mortar stores do in most cases selling digital downloads. It's not at all the same thing. They are essentially online retailers the same as Best Buy, Target, or Amazon.
Anyone can buy digital download codes from Target, Best Buy, or a physical disk (and they make 30-50% on the disk sales, more than the digital sale in many cases) and redeem them for download on their console or buy physical media. There is consumer choice at ever level. There is none in the App Store.
What Apple is doing is essentially charging a 30% transaction fee more akin to a credit card processing free which is usually only 5%, and they are not acting as a reseller. They are also the only "seller" in regards to a paid app. Because Apple does not allow you to obtain the digital goods in any other way, this is where they are being anticompetitive. They impose their own requirements on the developer as well. When you buy an game from Sony, Microsoft, Target, Best Buy, etc., that 30% is a mark up that nets the items margin and then they eat the 5% credit card transaction fee out of that margin, and eat 100% of the cost of any returns in most cases where Apple charges that back to the developer.
Apple could just as easily allow you to purchase a code direct from the developer or a third party reseller to redeem for an app or add on item like gaming does, but they do not.
I can see where people don't connect the dots in how its different because it sounds the same, but when you drill into the details its totally not at all the same.
BioWare sets the wholesale cost of a game at say $41.99. Microsoft, Target, BestBuy all sell the game at the MSRP of $59.99 netting them the 30% margin, and usually have a contract with BioWare to not sell below MSRP for the first 60-90 days after the game is released.
When you see Microsoft and Sony having a sale, sometimes that game is getting a manufacturer's subsidized discount, and other times, Microsoft and Sony are just making 10% on and reducing their margin, the same as Best Buy does.
The only thing that is truly the same is that with MS and Sony, it's digital goods and not physical goods. The business model is very much the same historic model goods have had since the first store opened its doors thousands of years ago.
The console situation, despite being very different, might get looked also at some point.
For now though, it has no bearing or real relevance for this situation with Apple.