Except that "critical mass" is only in the US. For the rest of the world Apple 's market share blows goats out of a catapult. Heck in the Epic vs Apple Suit the judge ruled the market was global.
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Apple's Plan to Pay $100 Million to Settle Developer Lawsuit Gets Preliminary Approval From Judge
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I am a bit confused by this because this case is being judged by the same judge in the Epic v Apple case and in that case the Judge declared that the app store is not a 'monopoly' but here you have developers making a claim of lost money due to the app store being a monopoly and it appears the developers have won which means the judge must have given merit to the app store being a monopoly.. So how can the developers win considering their whole case revolved around the app store being a monopoly which resulted in them losing money and yet in the Epic v Apple case, the app store was considered not a monopoly resulting in Epic losing on that basis.
Could Epic's lawyers look at this case and go 'hold on a min, how did they win their case where their main argument is the app store is a monopoly and yet we (Epic) make exactly the same argument in our case and it's thrown out'
Apple should not settle. It is their App Store, and it is their Money. They have done no wrong. They should kick all developers who sued them out of the App Store. Sorry I mean invite them out of their App Store.
Why settle when Apple has done no wrong?
At least that is what some MR comments have been suggesting.
Why settle when Apple has done no wrong?
At least that is what some MR comments have been suggesting.
Not really.
$100 million is only 0.174% of the $57.411 billion in net income Apple took in for fiscal year 2020
But this is not only about FY2020. It’s about a factor 5 less even. Hardly worth mentioning.
microsoft too big also not wrong to include internet explorer in os like safari . For you it might seem non related , for a company whom had internal apps . They much prefer their ipa not touch by apple .
When you develop a physical product you can either sell it direct to consumer or retail. If you sell direct to consumer you take all of the profits. If you sell retail you are selling wholesale to your retail partner so they can make money as well (margin is 20-40%).
Apple has a worldwide share of 30% which alone is far from “blows goats”.
But you also need to consider that includes China and India where Android dominates for various reasons including that Apple doesn’t compete in the low end market.
Good for developers. Apple is recently being forced to do things due to court orders.
It isn't that simple. Retail taps into an existing infrastructure (existing stores, marketing, built-in differentiation, ability to scale) and D2C is not all flowers, roses, and rainbows - What stumbles at Harry's and Brandless mean for e-commerce
As related in that that article it is easy to start up D2C but sustaining one is another matter.
What? 30% is what Apple's fee was and they would love to have it that high in terms of marketshare.
Here are some real numbers pulled from statcounter:
Android 39.75%; Windows 32.44%; iOS 16.7%; OS X 6.85%; Unknown 1.9%; Chrome OS 1.1%
Counting iOS and OS X together is 23.55% and the M1 is so new there isn't that much crossover. In the desktop world Apple's global marketshare never got over 10% and today they sit at a dismal 5.41%.
Apple blows goats out of a catapult marketsharewise in South America as well (iOS 6.03%; OS X 2.63%). Also Apple performs so poorly in India they are behind Linux desktop wise (1.07% vs OS X's 0.88%)
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After thinking about it, it hit me that macrumors could have simply missed "the Essence" of the Settlement Agreement.
Which is, IMO, the Auto Opt-In & the "NO Monopoly" clause.
In other words, Apple was willing to agree to pay $100M USD just to get both of those, so that they could use the "NO Monopoly" clause in their other legal battles.
Which is, IMO, the Auto Opt-In & the "NO Monopoly" clause.
In other words, Apple was willing to agree to pay $100M USD just to get both of those, so that they could use the "NO Monopoly" clause in their other legal battles.
Completely disingenuous to combine smartphone and computer market share. The only thing that blows goats is your “analysis”.
That comment shows you didn't even bother to actually read Case 4:20-cv-05640-YGR. The Judge spend a long time explaining why Apple's market was what she said it was. Here are the high points:
“A threshold step in any antitrust case is to accurately define the relevant market, which refers to ‘the area of effective competition.’” FTC v. Qualcomm Inc., 969 F.3d 974, 992 (9th Cir. 2020) (“Qualcomm”) (quoting Ohio v. Am. Express Co. (“Amex”), 138 S. Ct. 2274, 2285 (2018)); see also Image Tech. Servs., Inc. v. Eastman Kodak Co., 125 F.3d 1195, 1202 (9th Cir. 1997) (“Image Tech Services II”) (“The relevant market is the field in which meaningful competition is said to exist.”) (citation omitted). - pg 120
“The relevant market must include both a geographic market and a product market.” Hicks v. PGA Tour, Inc., 897 F.3d 1109, 1120 (9th Cir. 2018) (citation omitted). The latter “must encompass the product at issue as well as all economic substitutes for the product.” Newcal Indus., Inc. v. Ikon Office Sol., 513 F.3d 1038, 1045 (9th Cir. 2008) - pg 120
A plaintiff cannot ignore economic reality and “arbitrarily choose the product market relevant to its claims”; rather, the plaintiff must “justify any proposed market by defining it with reference to the rule of reasonable interchangeability and cross-elasticity of demand.” Buccaneer Energy (USA) v. Gunnison Energy Corp., 846 F.3d 1297, 1313 (10th Cir. 2017) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). The proper market definition “can be determined only after a factual inquiry into the commercial realities faced by consumers.” High Tech. Careers v. San Jose Mercury News, 996 F.2d 987, 990 (9th Cir. 1993) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). pg 121
It is the plaintiff’s burden to establish the relevant product and geographic markets. See Thurman Indus., 875 F.2d at 1373; Fount-Wip, Inc. v. Reddi-Wip, Inc., 568 F.2d 1296, 1302 (9th Cir. 1978) (noting that plaintiffs bear the “burden of proof” to establish a relevant market). To meet that burden, a plaintiff must produce specific evidence supporting the proposed market definition that is “relevant to the particular legal issue being litigated.” - pg 121
The Analysis goes from pg 121 to 134 to page with Relevant Product Market running from 121 to 134 with Geographic Market on pg 134:
The United States antitrust laws’ concern with anticompetitive conduct, includes harm that such American businesses suffer relating to their transactions with foreign consumers. See 15 U.S.C. § 6a (Sherman Act generally applies to conduct affecting “export trade”). Importantly here, the question focuses on the area of effective competition, not the reach of United States antitrust laws which is addressed elsewhere. - pg 134
What follows that is regarding the Sherman Antitrust act (pg 134-156) and why Apple does not fall under its provisions.
Judges are supposed to follow the law citing the reasoning behind why they made the decision they did. Heck, the judge spent 35 pages citing cases and explaining how they related. Just because the law doesn't say what you think or want it to say does not mean a Judge "simply doesn't know any better".
Hoeg Law (an actual lawyer) went through this document in Epic v Apple: Judgment Day - Who Won? Who Lost? ...and Why? (VL538) summarizing and explaining it - and that took nearly two and a half hours.
Please tells us why that is a problem as you claimed "Apple has a worldwide share of 30%" and Apple makes a smartphone/tablet OS (iPadOS is a variant of iOS can so appears as "iOS") and a computer OS (MacOS)
The numbers from statcounter (Android 39.75%; Windows 32.44%; iOS 16.7%; OS X 6.85%; Unknown 1.9%; Chrome OS 1.1%) add up to 98.47% which giving rounding errors is within reason.
Apple makes both iOS 16.7% and OS X 6.85% so it makes perfect sense to add them hence 23.55%.
Even if we got silly and gave Apple the missing 1.53% that only gets us up to 25.08% which last I checked is not "a worldwide share of 30%".
You just don't want to admit you effectively made up that "worldwide share of 30%".
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The arbitrary $1M cutoff where your fees double is still stupid, they need to fix that. It puts developers anywhere near the cutoff value in a tough position. Either a progressive scale or at least just say that the first $1M is 15% and only additional is 30%.
Or more reasonably, just make it 15% across the board, I think everyone would be OK with that and Apple would still make huge amounts of money. Personally, as a developer, I feel like 15% is a steep but reasonable fee but 30% is just highway robbery. If you're a small shop with 5-10 employees, that could be the difference between surviving and going out of business, or having to seek cheaper offshore labor to make up the difference.
Or more reasonably, just make it 15% across the board, I think everyone would be OK with that and Apple would still make huge amounts of money. Personally, as a developer, I feel like 15% is a steep but reasonable fee but 30% is just highway robbery. If you're a small shop with 5-10 employees, that could be the difference between surviving and going out of business, or having to seek cheaper offshore labor to make up the difference.
Don't buy an iPhone. Problem solved. My friends that don't have iPhones just a laugh at the whining Apple customers do.
Statcounter for web traffic is one a single metric among hundreds... it is not strong enough of a metric to define Apple market share.
Statcounter it is not total number of unique devices, but rather the total web requests within their survey data. This data can be skewed in so many different ways.
Device sales are typically a better metric for market share but even that is problematic because it ignores the aspect of older active devices vs non-functioning. For example at work I am still using a higher end 2015 27" iMac. While there are a lot of quality PCs out there, the average PC purchase is of budget machines that are made more cheaply and typically does not last as long as the average Mac. That fact really affects the active device marketshare.
Apple has never been a dominate player until the iPhone came out.
"Epic then switched to a royalties system -- initially, if your game made more than $3,000 per calendar quarter, Epic would take a 5% royalty. When announcing Unreal Engine 5, the company also changed this system and removed all royalties on the first $1 million in revenue for all games made in Unreal Engine. This took effect on May 13, 2020, but is retroactive to January 1, 2020"
So let me see if I have this right. A $1 million cut off where your fees double is stupid but the very same $1 million cut off for fees to kick in is intelligent. Please explain how that makes any flipping sense.
I might add that Unity (which has been curb stomping Unreal's laughable ~14%) has a $200K cutoff where and I quote "you are required to use Pro or Enterprise" which is, of course, more expensive.
You sound like some of the people who want to have a flat income tax and don't realize the ramifications that would have.
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Apple isn't even a dominate player even with the iPhone as far as the global market is concerned. And Epic's evidence is even more off the wall gonzo than using statcounter.
"First, he reports that 30- 43% of respondents “regularly” use a Microsoft Windows phone even though Microsoft had 0% market share in smartphones in 2018 and no longer sells phones." Case 4:20-cv-05640-YGR Document 812 Filed 09/10/21 pg 60
"The only evidence of market share in the proposed market concerning video gaming comes primarily from Apple’s expert witness, Dr. Hitt." Case 4:20-cv-05640-YGR Document 812 Filed 09/10/21 pg 87 (sic)
"Apple’s internal business records[432] show a consistent belief that Apple’s market share of the global video gaming market increased over time beginning in 2015 with 18%; 2016 with either 21.8% or 23%; 2017 with either 24% or 27%; 2018 with 23.8%; 2019 with 23.9% or 25%; and 2020 forecasted at a range between 24.7% and 31%". Case 4:20-cv-05640-YGR Document 812 Filed 09/10/21 pg 87-88.
Only in its forecast does Apple's marketshare get anywhere near 30%. Also the iPhone was released June 29, 2007 so even with the iPhone Apple wasn't a "dominate" player for a long time and even if we except the 30% that isn't "dominate" as far as Apple is concerned.
The only thing that comes close is Dr. Hitt’s 37.5% for Apple's video game store but look at what his sample was.
"Dr. Hitt’s analysis relies upon the assumption that the App Store has many competitors, including other game transaction platforms, for mobile, PC, and console, as well as game streaming services, and limits the scope to the United States. Case 4:20-cv-05640-YGR Document 812 Filed 09/10/21 pg 87.
As noted Apple's global marketshare is nowhere near its United States number and the court threw out everything but mobile and only video game purchases within that market.
Again Krizoitz's claim of "Apple has a worldwide share of 30%" doesn't have any basis in anything we have in terms of reliable information
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I don't know what you're talking about, if anything I'm arguing for the opposite of a flat tax, a tiered progressive fee system. Which I guess technically they have right now but it's 2 tiers, it's too abrupt. Making the 30% apply to only the amount of revenue over $1M helps with that a lot. I did suggest a fallback of 15% across the board (again, not preferred), at least that wouldn't make anyone pay more than they are right now and for developers it would eliminate issues jumping from $999,999 in revenue to $1,000,000 in revenue.
But who in the business world wants to have something akin to the train wreck that is the US income tax structure?
Besides you missed the two points. Epic has just as abrupt a tier system. Since Epic's tier system has Unreal free up to $1M and there is no number you can multiply with 0 and not get 0, Epic's jump is more than Apple's.
As I said before Unity (which has been curb stomping Unreal's laughable ~14%) has a $200K cutoff where and I quote "you are required to use Pro or Enterprise" which is, of course, more expensive. That is no different from Apple's system as you make up to $200K you pay one fee but make $200001 or higher you pay a much higher fee (forced into a higher priced package)
And that 15% across the board is different from a flat tax system how? "The evidence was undisputed that over 80% of apps in the App Store are free" Case 4:20-cv-05640-YGR Document 812 Filed 09/10/21 Page 124.
So technically Apple has a three tier system. Now, hmm. who also uses a three tier system? Oh that's right microtransactions - Minnows (pay only the $99 fee), Dolphins (15%), and Whales (30%)
As I said in another post on another board it is a Peter-Paul set up.
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That's a valid assumption but I would put forward that Apple could prefill a lot of these details in an application and actively reach out to developers with an automated email and system. Instead, they're sitting on their hands waiting and hoping people don't register while collecting all this magnificent PR from people who don't know any better.
If you feel 30 percent is theft every item you buy you've been had. Thirty percent is a normal percentage for any step in distribution chain. I wonder how much was lost when a game manufacturer had to negotiate with a wholesaler who then delivered it to retailers which also took a cut.
Will Epic from now on only add 15 percent profit margin to its production costs?
Will Epic from now on only add 15 percent profit margin to its production costs?
Yeah, it was brought by American developers. They didn't expand it. Well, you all got systems of law. Go to it!