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Yes I would be required. Fortnite (for example) would NOT be on App Store. Therefore I would be required to reduce the security.
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"If you like the App Store, keep it locked down" does not hold water.

Until Photoshop, Fortnite, Affinity, Office and other apps are no longer on the App Store and I need to use the Adobe, Epic, Microsoft app stores.
Photoshop, Affinity, Office, and other apps would still stay on the app store for the exposure it offers... They're perfectly content to allow other avenues of subscribing to their services while having the iOS app act as a client.
 
Of course as a developer you would support developers more. While I agree that 30% is egregious, you directly benefit from the platform existing, that people know and love and stick with iPhones purely for the OS in many cases (not me since I jump back and forth, but many people I know), and some slight tweaks (iMessage in the U.S. for instance), but I think they deserve SOMETHING, especially since most developers don't seem to realize in most cases, even on Android, the majority of users don't know how to sideload anything. My parents for instance do good to use the phone, they definitely don't want to go elsewhere to look for apps. Not to mention it's easier to know when your kids, who are the primary target for Fortnite decide to spend a lot of money because of controls that are directly tied into an Apple ID. I think that would be harder with an outside payment system, only knowing your kids went nuts with your debit card when you see it on your statement. I just read a horror story about a teen that spent like $20,000 on Twitch.

it is Apple that benefits from the app ecosystem existing.

Smart phones... they are cool and all, but would they have really taken off with just a web browser, apple's music player and a calendar? Does anyone really think that its only a one way benefit to the developers taking advantage of poor $2 Trillion company Apple? Apple of course has benefitted immensely by developers making apps for their products to the tune of 1.5 billion devices sold.
 
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Here you are,
Microsoft was found to violate antitrust laws for "the legal and technical restrictions it put on the abilities of PC manufacturers (OEMs) and users to uninstall Internet Explorer and use other programs such as Netscape and Java". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp

That’s not the same thing at all. Apple makes the hardware and the software. That case was about MS forcing third party hardware manufacturers to Install MS software over third party software.

Also, Microsoft won on appeal and the sought, and got, an agreement to end the case.

Finally - no SCOTUS decision was made here. You therefore have failed to present conclusive proof that your opinion is fact.
 
Photoshop, Affinity, Office, and other apps would still stay on the app store for the exposure it offers... They're perfectly content to allow other avenues of subscribing to their services while having the iOS app act as a client.
I do not think you can say that with 100% accuracy. ONLY Epic will be out of the App Store?
 
Get an Android then. Apple’s software, Apple‘s rules.
People will do just that. Apple will force them to. The choice of apps in App Store is already worse than in Play Store (not to mention side loading) and if Apple does not change the rules, the difference is bound to increase.
 
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Apple is right.
Epic games is trying to play the victim and under dog game but in fact they are a huge multi billion company.
 
That’s not the same thing at all. Apple makes the hardware and the software. That case was about MS forcing third party hardware manufacturers to Install MS software over third party software.

Also, Microsoft won on appeal and the sought, and got, an agreement to end the case.

Finally - no SCOTUS decision was made here. You therefore have failed to present conclusive proof that your opinion is fact.

Yep. People need to look at the Microsoft vs US case again more closely. Microsoft tried to prevent Netscape from even developing Navigator for Windows 95. Then they tried to get OEMs to not install it.

This case was not because Microsoft was big. Its because of what they did that I mentioned above.
 
Yes I would be required. Fortnite (for example) would NOT be on App Store. Therefore I would be required to reduce the security.
[automerge]1597771718[/automerge]


"If you like the App Store, keep it locked down" does not hold water.

Until Photoshop, Fortnite, Affinity, Office and other apps are no longer on the App Store and I need to use the Adobe, Epic, Microsoft app stores.

They would remain in the app store if they thought the terms were worth it between the two options. Thats called competition.
 
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Yep. People need to look at the Microsoft vs US case again more closely. Microsoft tried to prevent Netscape from even developing Navigator for Windows 95. Then they tried to get OEMs to not install it.

This case was not because Microsoft was big. Its because of what they did that I mentioned above.

They never tried to prevent them from MAKING navigator. They never cut off their access to development tools. They did strong arm OEMs into not bundling it, and that they bundled their own product (Honestly, even back then it was more and more evident that some form of web browser was a required part of a modern OS.... since apps started embedding html views, which made it easy to lay out even locally generated content, and would require at least a non-user facing web browser installed). This is the same Microsoft that made OEM's pay based on # of machines sold, not # of machine sold with Windows because their argument was there is nothing else to run but Windows, so clearly everyone is pirating.... of course you could go out and buy OS/2 or get a copy of Linux....
 
I do not think you can say that with 100% accuracy. ONLY Epic will be out of the App Store?
If a company decides to remove themselves from the App Store, it's your choice to not support the company... no one would be forcing you to do anything, if you really want an app outside of the store, you could, but if you want to remain inside the walled garden, you could.

Just as if you wanted android for the features it offers, you could switch to that.

Companies will go where the money is, and more exposure with a higher cut is still more money than low exposure with a lower cut

It would be no different than if epic removed fortnite from the App Store entirely and made it exclusive to Android, you wouldn't be forced to switch to android.
 
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You know what the ultimate irony would be? Something like this:

Epic - Ok Apple you win, we removed the direct payment.
Apple - that's nice
Epic - so uh, when can we have our app back on the store?
Apple - maybe in a fortnight or 2......
 
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That’s not the same thing at all. Apple makes the hardware and the software. That case was about MS forcing third party hardware manufacturers to Install MS software over third party software.

Also, Microsoft won on appeal and the sought, and got, an agreement to end the case.

Finally - no SCOTUS decision was made here. You therefore have failed to present conclusive proof that your opinion is fact.
1. The final appeal says "We upheld the district court's ruling that Microsoft violated § 2 of the Sherman Act by the ways in which it maintained its monopoly, but we reversed the district court's finding of liability for attempted monopolization" Microsoft broke the law. Plain and simple. https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/373/1199/474311/
2. The agreement forced Microsoft to "share its application programming interfaces with third-party companies". A similar agreement for Apple would drastically undermine Apple's anticompetitive conduct.
3. A case is not case law because no SCOTUS decision was made. Where did you learn that?
 
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People will do just that. Apple will force them to. The choice of apps in App Store is already worse than in Play Store (not to mention side loading) and if Apple does not change the rules, the difference is bound to increase.

Nit sure why you think most people give a rats about this. No matter how popular Fortnite may be, it’s still a minor player in the iOS landscape.

Taking 2019, for example, 78% of players used consoles. The peak Fortnight was August with 80m active players. Let’s be awfully generous and say that Apple had a 15% cut of that remaining 32% - that’s -12m users worldwide out of 1.5bn active Apple devices. Again, let’s pretend that everyone has two devices, so that’s 750m users.

So, at its peak you may have had 1.6%.

Again, let’s be overly conservative and round that up to 5%.

So. At its peak 5% of iOS owners may have been playing fortnight.

Now, really, does that 5% sound like much?
 
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Do they take 30% of just the hair salon's revenue while letting the clothing stores off completely rent free? That's what you have here. I'm all for fair and transparent, but Apple is mandating companies like Epic only use and publicize Apple's payment system that charges 30% off the top while other companies like Uber are free to distribute their apps at no cost and use whatever payment system they want. A little consistency would go a long way to showing Apple isn't harming consumers by arbitrarily creating "rules" that only apply to a very specific set of businesses but not to others.
They take different percentages from different stores. For example, APple pays a much lower percentage to mall operators, because the mall operators are compensated by apple in other ways (for example by bringing foot traffic)
 
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I think Epic is being greedy. I remember Epic games were featured in WWDC and Apple supported them. The Apple platform turned lots of these small devs to giants over the years. I can understand why Apple doesn’t want external links for payments.

that beings said, I think Apple should lower their commission on IAP to be fair.
 
Yep. People need to look at the Microsoft vs US case again more closely. Microsoft tried to prevent Netscape from even developing Navigator for Windows 95. Then they tried to get OEMs to not install it.

This case was not because Microsoft was big. Its because of what they did that I mentioned above.

"Relying upon the district court's findings of fact, we determined that Microsoft took three actions to bind IE to Windows: (1) it excluded IE from the "Add/Remove Programs" utility; (2) it commingled in the same file code related to browsing and code used by the operating system so that removal of IE files would cripple Windows; and (3) it designed Windows in such a manner that, in certain circumstances, a user's choice of an internet browser other than IE would be overridden. Id. at 64-65. Although all three acts had anticompetitive effects, only the first two had no offsetting justification and, therefore, "constitute [d] exclusionary conduct [] in violation of § 2." Id. at 67." https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/373/1199/474311/

Preventing a Windows user from uninstalling IE was ruled illegal.
 
1. The final appeal says "We upheld the district court's ruling that Microsoft violated § 2 of the Sherman Act by the ways in which it maintained its monopoly, but we reversed the district court's finding of liability for attempted monopolization" Microsoft broke the law. Plain and simple. https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/373/1199/474311/
2. The agreement forced Microsoft to "share its application programming interfaces with third-party companies". A similar agreement for Apple would drastically undermine Apple's anticompetitive conduct.
3. A case is not case law because no SCOTUS decision was made. Where did you learn that?

You’ve skipped past some important details here:

1) This was about MS forcing third party manufacturers to install MS software.

2) MS settled with the DOJ and the courts signed off on that settlement which meant that they got away with pretty much everything (To quote Andrew Chin: Microsoft got “a special antitrust immunity to license Windows and other 'platform software' under contractual terms that destroy freedom of competition”

So, still seeing nothing that shows your opinion is nothing more than an opinion.
 
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Apple forced every developer to use the same payment method in order to impose a 30% fees such as subscription and that can constitute antitrust law on the app store.

Guess what? The developer will be forced to increase the price substantially and the customer will be paying more due to the limitation of third party payment.
 
Nit sure why you think most people give a rats about this. No matter how popular Fortnite may be, it’s still a minor player in the iOS landscape

This is a silly take. This story wouldn’t have been in the nytimes if it didn’t stir widespread interest.
 
I think Epic is being greedy. I remember Epic games were featured in WWDC and Apple supported them. The Apple platform turned lots of these small devs to giants over the years. I can understand why Apple doesn’t want external links for payments.

that beings said, I think Apple should lower their commission on IAP to be fair.

But that's the thing. Apple does allow external payments. Need a ride? Use the Uber app to order one and then pay for it right in the app with your own credit card. Want a quick lunch? Order McDonalds in the app and have it charged to your card. None of that goes through Apple's in-app payment system.

Epic, on the other hand, not only can't use their existing payment system; they can't even put a message in the app letting customers know the system exists.

Apple should just make their IAP optional. Smaller and independent developers who don't have the knowledge and scale to set up their own payment system can give Apple a 30% fee for handling it all for them. Larger developers than have the ability to manage payments themselves could do so, just like Uber, Amazon, Airbnb, McDonald's, etc. do for every other type of sale. Others may do what Epic did and offer both methods with the Apple surcharge passed on to the customer. Let the developer decide which system works best for them.
 
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