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Dutch Regulator Says Apple's Plan for Third-Party In-App Payments is Insufficient, Fines Apple 5 Million Euros
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Well you’ve managed to talk yourself all the way around the question without actually addressing it. Regardless of the answer though, web apps still aren’t necessarily a viable alternative as they require an active internet connection to function.
But, fortunately, there are more platforms that devs can make money on. However, if, as a business, they choose to make an app that DEPENDS on the device being handheld and mobile, then they are choosing to limit their ability to control distribution, either to Apple or Nintendo, but less so to Google. Actually, if they choose anything OTHER than a Windows PC, they’re choosing to limit their ability to control distribution.
Why just dating apps specifically?
As a user, it might be easier for me instead of purchasing itunes card to pay with whatever means I currently have like Venmo or Paypal.
Some people do have have CC, some do not like storing it online, and some are in areas where itunes cards are not widely available.
I guess its bad for PR, plus this is only Germany. If 10 or so countries follow up it will be $500M so not sure if its worth it for Apple at that point to save the money.
the 30% is nice for small time devs like you but bad for big time corporates. Lets assume Epic makes $1B on iOS sales, just because Apple is a middle man it will make $300M . Meanwhile Epic can have their own accounting and financial processing for department with a budget of $50M a year and keep that $250M in their pocket.
Thats $250M in saving each year will total $1B in 4 years, and can make profit of $30M or so sitting in the bank gaining interest. So....yeah , it is a big deal for bigger companies.
As a user, it might be easier for me instead of purchasing itunes card to pay with whatever means I currently have like Venmo or Paypal.
Some people do have have CC, some do not like storing it online, and some are in areas where itunes cards are not widely available.
I guess its bad for PR, plus this is only Germany. If 10 or so countries follow up it will be $500M so not sure if its worth it for Apple at that point to save the money.
the 30% is nice for small time devs like you but bad for big time corporates. Lets assume Epic makes $1B on iOS sales, just because Apple is a middle man it will make $300M . Meanwhile Epic can have their own accounting and financial processing for department with a budget of $50M a year and keep that $250M in their pocket.
Thats $250M in saving each year will total $1B in 4 years, and can make profit of $30M or so sitting in the bank gaining interest. So....yeah , it is a big deal for bigger companies.
It's not free. It would be a part of the OS, which I paid for when I bought the device.
Other examples of "free" services include xcode, iCloud, and even the iOS API that allows other developers to write iOS apps for the operating system.
And that’s exactly why we’re seeing push back from around the world on these business practices. Up until around the 2010’s, far and away the most essential computing platforms were computer-based, mostly Windows, though Mac to some degree as well. And on neither platform were you forced to agree to whatever terms either platform operator decided to dictate. Anybody who wanted to could release software for those platforms. However, over the course of the last decade or so, mobile platforms have become the most important computing and software platforms for most people. And leaving things as the status quo means the most essential devices for daily life will have moved from largely open platforms that anybody could develop whatever they wanted to for, to one’s that are locked down. Particularly iOS, which has over majority market share in the U.S and no way to get around Apple’s App Store distribution model.
Really is no point to make. You’re more than welcome to find out if one single use case of a particular app YOU use is possible across multiple technologies. Regardless there are technical solutions to write once deploy many. And some apps do require an internet connection, as I would think dating apps would.
And to add insult to injury, let’s remember why Amazon is so dominant in ebooks. At least in the US, remember when Bezos basically wrote the Justice Dept’s case that Apple was anti-competitive in ebooks, punishing and limiting Apple in that market, and then giving Amazon the share they didn’t already have. But let’s go on pretending Apple is always the issue.
What monopoly? Of iOS?
Even the US just ruled (Epic case) that Apple wasn’t a monopoly (at minimum, Epic couldn’t prove it). If the market for phones/mobile OSs was all run by Apple, then yeah, that makes sense. If you are buying an iPhone/iPad, you know it’s a walled garden, and that short of jail breaking your phone, apps are going to come through the App Store. If you want the option to download apps from multiple sources, you buy an android, which also is a mobile OS that competes with Apple, and runs on devices made by multiple manufacturers. That is, competition on the devices, competition on the OS. Competition in devices and OS doesn’t equal a monopoly.
It's probably more than Apple makes from the apps affected by this ruling.
The evidence in that court case was Epic made $700m from iOS prior to being banned by Apple and that was about 7% of their revenue across all platforms.
Clearly 7% is not a monopoly. Also there were four other platforms that made up a higher percentage of Epic's revenue.
But that was just Epic. The numbers are very different for other apps.
If you want to sideload your apps, choose Android or Jailbreak your iPhone.Sideloading (of iOS apps on iOS devices) MUST be supported by Apple!
Lol I’m sure my use case isn’t the only one that exists where an iPhone interfaces with third-party hardware through a wireless connection. Yes some apps do require an internet connection. And some don’t. A web app would not be suitable for the latter. Though if you want to stick with dating apps in particular then sure.
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The thing is, 50 million fine is nothing for Apple, and Apple will NOT pay the fine themselves. Taxpayers will pay the fine instead, and apple will not lose a single dime. Otherwise, how could apple become the first $3T company if they have to keep paying pocket change fines all the time?
The sad part is those companies will then follow up with a massive price hike to cover those fines. At the end of the day, customer hurts anyways, financially or otherwise.
Customers are punished by massive price hikes, downgraded service quality, or a combination of both.
Price hikes huh? Sounds like a good way for Apple to push consumers to their competitors.
Actually, it appears to me that, around the world, the “essential computing platform” is WhatsApp, FAR more deeply embedded into everyday folks lives all around the world. In lots of places, if you don’t have WhatsApp, you’re not going to be able to take advantage of essential government activities. An iPhone’s level of being “essential” ONLY is determined by whether or not WhatsApp is running on it. If it doesn’t have WhatsApp, it’s about as essential as a pocket calculator. Which is to say, not much. And, fortunately, the US still has analog and non-mobile fallbacks for essential services, making the iPhone far more dispensable in the US than WhatsApp is around the world.
Unfortunately, with laws that penalize companies for pure customer pleasing success, the likelihood of a company coming along and overtaking Apple is decreasing day by day. It’s impressive to me how so many are bound and determined to maintain Apple as the ONLY non-Android technology. The message being sent to the new technology companies waiting in the wings is that the primary way companies have historically made taking risks beneficial (i.e. profit sharing) is now out of the question. At any point in their growth, one country or another can see fit to deem that they have unfair monopoly control over the thing that wouldn’t even exist if they hadn’t created it! Since the benefit to trying is being yanked away, this will just maintain Apple and Google’s positions.
Then again, I suppose that’s why Apple is the only company LIKE Apple. Only Apple was crazy enough to even try to go against the Nokia giant… not by buying up competing handset makers or locking carriers out of carrying Nokia phones, but just by making something that a few people might actually want to buy and, later, that developers might want to make money on.
Considering that where we are now is because 15 years ago, a company looked at the risk and took a chance that they’d be able to at LEAST be profitable, with that profit no longer on the table for today’s companies, 15 years from now could just look like more of today.
Ecosystem lock is too powerful for customers to just stand up and leave. I believe more customers will eat the price hike over moving to competitor platforms. It’s not like streaming services.
Maybe in the US, but Apple already has a tiny share in the rest of the world. Most of them can just take their WhatsApp account to an Android device and have all they need.
WhatsApp is a computing platform now?? And here I thought it was a messaging app. Whatever. Cut it down to size too.
Where are these “companies waiting in the wings” with the status quo? There hasn’t been a relevant third choice of mobile OS for like a decade now. Are they waiting for Apple and Google to further entrench themselves before jumping into the game? That seems like a terrible decision.
The fact is it doesn’t matter if the laws change or not, nobody else is jumping in. Apple and Android have enormous app catalogs. They’ve got smart home support. They’ve got support for interfacing with cars. Another party getting into the game now is just throwing money away because infrastructure and support for a new platform is about 15 years behind the competition. The only way around it is through a paradigm shift to a new kind of computing platform, a la the shift from desktops and notebooks to tablets and smartphones.
Ah ecosystem lock-in, another cudgel Apple uses against consumers and developers to maintain its market dominance.
Android has no ecosystem of their own to speak of (well googles ecosystem) and hence no lock in. Unless you count dev, Knox and paid android apps.