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Apple to Comply With New Court Ordered App Store Rules, But Will Appeal
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So just don't use apps from developers you don't trust? Not the worst idea - on all operating systems.
And the people that use this argument ignore that the macOS market is tiny in comparison to the PC market, so not as much point for the criminals to make malware for macOS. iOS on the other hand....
eh I'd much prefer Apps in a trusted location such as the App Store. declutter all the trash that pollutes it, hire talent that genuinely reviews and supports the developers and distribution and get it back on track. In one aspect forcing Apple to allow developers to link back to whatever source they want is a bit of malpractice and if not formatted properly consumers could assume Apple is leading them to malware infested sites or whatever happens on the other side of the fence per se.
I imagine there will be another App Store (ie; like a big box retailer) for developers to distribute their apps from vs consumers finding it on random websites. I feel apple was a head of the game with this and just needs to fine tune it.
I imagine there will be another App Store (ie; like a big box retailer) for developers to distribute their apps from vs consumers finding it on random websites. I feel apple was a head of the game with this and just needs to fine tune it.
And the iPhone would be just a bit more than a landline phone without apps. Apple has benefited tremendously from third party apps.
Been using OS X since Yosemite and I haven’t gotten any malware (as far as I know). It’s literally a non Issue. When I used to use windows on the other hand…
You’ve never bought anything from the internet? You have to give your credit card to pay and it works more than fine
For me, Apple has finally completely succumbed to the Dark Side.
They’ve become just another evil, greedy mega corporation.
It’s as ridiculous book publishers having to report their direct-sales revenue to Amazon or Barnes & Noble - just for including a link to the publisher’s web site in the books they print.
Apple is free to charge app developers for access to developer tools or the App Store. In fact, - they do!
Charging developers for tools or services does not mean “taxing” them on their revenue - particularly once customers have already completed the transaction with Apple (downloading and installing a third-party app).
Once the third-party developer’s app has been downloaded to the consumer’s device, the intellectual property has been paid for. Apple’s service has been fulfilled. Cause the apps Apple is selling aren’t their own, remember? They claim it’s just a commission-based business.
Tim Cook might have made shareholders wealthy but to me, he has destroyed the brand and culture of a wonderful company. I no longer advocate Apple products to family and friends, nor do I buy them.
I simply wouldn’t buy a 3rd party app outside the appstore. Apple’s built-in, no hassle unsubscription and their easy refunds is unmatched anywhere. All this ruling will do is make me abandon any 3rd party app that force me to buy from the web, taking away the protections and simplicity that I cherish in the Apple ecosystem. Unfortunately, some necessary apps, like banking or electric cars, will now be able to force us to buy from the web and make us susceptible to their greed. How many times have we purchased subscriptions on the web from companies who make it impossible to unsubscribe. I’m with Apple on this ruling. They are big, but not evil, and they certainly are not a monopoly.
Is Epic somehow supposed to come out of this looking like the good guys, what a joke. Apple were simply trying to maintain the business model that people using the App Store had signed up to in the first place. All companies are going to act in their own self interest it's not a friendship society. This judgement just seems like a load of BS moralising.
These are companies. There are no good or bad guys. The herofication of corporations is ridiculous.
Fanboyism prevents from keeping a neutral view on what decisions are made by their management, and what the intentions are of those at the whelm.
Like you said, companies will strive for revenue (self-interests in a personification), but a company in itself does not hold an ideology. So we need critical thinking to determine when their actions are in our interest or not.
Neither Apple nor Epic are per se acting in our interests. In my view, however, the ruiling of the court will benefit developers (and users), as it prevents from excessive control from Apple’s part.
Hoping Apple loses this once and for all, Tim is a disgrace to the company
Yes, and that is a worse experience for consumers than the ease of iOS. And making running unsigned apps difficult is better for users. (Maybe not for you and me, people who post on technology enthusiast forums, but it is absolutely better for the vast majority of users that unsigned apps can’t run without jumping through hoops.
Again, I agree with most of this ruling. I am against Apple’s anti steering rules. My only point is that anti-steering isn’t a purely black or white issue where Apple is just being greedy, and I don’t think most people in this thread have considered there might be legitimate, customer-focused reasons for doing so.
I personally don’t think those reasons outweigh the developer relationship hit, particularly because I think most developers will still use the App Store purchasing workflow, but they absolutely exist.
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how much do real shops charge for goods on shelves?
often a lot more than 30% (or 15% in many cases).
"Apple does not have an absolute right to the intellectual property that it wields as a shield to competition without adequate justification of its value"
(footnote 65 of the decision)
If you read the actual ruling, it makes a strong case that Apple's anti-steering rules (and particularly the ones they came up in response to the trial) were, in fact, deliberately design out of greed more than anything else.
"To summarize: One, after trial, the Court found that Apple’s 30 percent commission “allowed it to reap supracompetitive operating margins” and was not tied to the value of its intellectual property, and thus, was anticompetitive.
Apple’s response: charge a 27 percent commission (again tied to nothing) on off-app purchases, where it had previously charged nothing, and extend the commission for a period of seven days after the consumer linked-out of the app.
Apple’s goal: maintain its anticompetitive revenue stream. Two, the Court had prohibited Apple from denying developers the ability to communicate with, and direct consumers to, other purchasing mechanisms. Apple’s response: impose new barriers and new requirements to increase friction and increase breakage rates with full page “scare” screens, static URLs, and generic statements.
Apple’s goal: to dissuade customer usage of alternative purchase opportunities and maintain its anticompetitive revenue stream. In the end, Apple sought to maintain a revenue stream worth billions in direct defiance of this Court’s Injunction.
In stark contrast to Apple’s initial in-court testimony, contemporaneous business documents reveal that Apple knew exactly what it was doing and at every turn chose the most anticompetitive option."
Irrelevant.
Apple does not stack third-party apps on physical shelves.
We don't live in an age where software content (let alone content for smartphones) is stacked on physical shelves anymore.
Technological progress - such as transmission of data and media content at (virtually) zero marginal cost - over telecommunications networks is bound to lower costs for distribution of said content.
I’m not going to go back and forth on this because we actually agree on 95% of the ruling.
My only issue is not allowing Apple to charge a commission, and frankly Apple brought that upon themselves - had they meaningfully complied with the order and kept a commission for facilitating the sale I suspect we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
Try picking something off the shelf in Walmart and asking if you could pay Target for it because they were cheaper... or asking who they use to process their card transactions (not necessarily the same as the issuer of your card) and insist on using an alternative... Try putting up a stand in Walgreens handing out free razors with blades exclusively available from Amazon (without offering the store a slice of blade sales).
Apple's approach is still problematic (and the law is the law), but the EU solution is so much better and actually gives consumers a choice - require Apple to allow independent app stores (which people don't have to use) which have to compete with Apple's store by offering a better range/service (plus, the rules apply to all "gatekeepers" like Google/Meta/Amazon). Wanna buy something from Target, go to Target. The US sponsored-by-Fortnite answer of forcing Apple to accept third party payments rosks turning the App store into a repository of "free" demos with third-party in-app payments.