Courts doing what they do is fine. The law (and courts' interpretation of the law) is not perfect. I was merely responding to the comment that "this is America - let the market decide". The consumer "market" has no power, so we do need regulation to at least try and maintain some consumer protections.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Epic Lost Trial Due to Flawed Argument, Not Legal Error, Apple Says in Appeals Filing
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
That is an example of rival corporations driving out a competitor. The lack of consumer power comes in when all the major players implement the same non-consumer-friendly practices. e.g. every wireless carrier requires customers to sign a binding arbitration agreement. As consumers, we know this is detrimental to our legal position and we don't want to sign. But, there is nowhere else to go, since the all the major carriers do it. The only way to control this type of behavior is through regulation. There are many examples, such as the zero liability for fraud on credit cards. Do you think corporations do that out of the goodness of their hearts? They do it because government forced them to. If the law was repealed, they would all go straight to a consumer liability model, and "the market" could not "speak with their wallets" b/c there would be no alternative.
Why did blackberry go out of existence? I believe people stopped buying their phones.
Anyone who ran Lotus 1-2-3, dBase, FrameMaker, or any similar program during the mid-80s to early 90s, was definitely installing them. Between the advent of hard drives & copy protection, installation from floppy to hard drive was the standard & only method for "running" any program.
You don't know what a monopoly is, do you?
Not in Blackberry's case. They drove themselves out of the market by laughing about the iPhone and not innovating. When the 1st Gen came out, Blackberry had to see how successful it was becoming and yet for the next 4 years they decided not to change.
Consumers voted with their wallets, and RIM/Blackberry lost.
Who is Apple’s competitor in the market of iPhone app distribution/ iPhone App Store operator?
For every (company), the distribution of (that company’s product) is performed by (that company). That’s why you would not see a Big Mac (made by MacDonald’s) distributed by Restaurant Brands International, the company that owns Burger King.
Once you remove company names and the names of trademarked products, ANY company can produce “hamburgers” and any company can produce “smartphones”. When you include, as a market description, ANY trademarked name of a product a company produces, you’re simply describing “a product a company makes”.
Adobe Lightroom is Adobe’s product. And, the distribution of Lightroom is provided by Adobe (If Adobe doesn’t distribute the code to Apple for curation on Apple’s App Store, then users can’t download it using Apple’s App Store for installation on Apple’s iPhones.)
But distribution of Lightroom is performed by Apple not Adobe right?
No, Adobe distributes Lightroom. If they don’t provide it to Apple for curation, then it’s not distributed.
Legal monopoly. No need to have a competitor. But wouldn't the play store be a competitor?
Unless the Play Store provides apps for iOS devices, it's not a competitor to Apple in this context. Also, since Google allows sideloading on Android devices, it alleviates this particular issue for itself.
Apple does not have allow “competitors”though. Consumers have multiple ways for example of getting WSJ content.
And there's still only a single way for consumers to get apps of any kind, regardless of the source of that app.
Correct and that is called a legal monopoly. But the consumers still have choices to get apps across multiple platforms.
They can’t be on Apple’s App Store, which enables the purchase and download to Apple iPhones and iPads, without Apple (it’s there in the company name and trademarks). They distribute to platforms OTHER than iOS and iPadOS using different processes, some that don’t require Apple at all. There’s no exclusivity.
Who is McDonalds' competitor in the market of making / selling food inside McDonalds restaurants?
The iPhone had a "walled-garden" ecosystem when you bought it, and that wasn't hidden information, it was widely available. You bought the phone knowing that (if you didn't know, that's on you).
Now you want to have the government magically change the phone you already bought into, essentially, an Android clone, working the same way that Android does, because you made the wrong choice (for you) and you don't want to be responsible for the consequences of your own actions.
Yes, you can do anything with the device you want - use it as a paperweight, put it through a hard drive shredder, use it as a hockey puck, etc. The operating system (iOS), on the other hand, is NOT owned by you, only licensed to you subject to the terms of the licensing agreement you agreed to when you set up your phone.
Moreover, you (eh, the commenter you replied to) has the right to ask Apple to make changes in how iOS works, to add new features or whatnot. And Apple has the right to say no. You do not have the right to demand that Apple change the phone you bought to do things differently than it did when you bought it. And when you start involving the government, trying to get them to force Apple to make a change to make the phone operate differently than when you bought it (especially if lots of other people want it to continue to operate the way it does now), you're getting into reprehensible behavior territory.
Now, if you find the phone or it's software is actually harming people - say, razor blades are popping out of the side of the phone and slicing up users' hands, or it turns out the phone is auto-answering all those Nigerian prince emails and auto-sending your financial details to them - then that would be a perfectly reasonable case for involving the government. But, "I would prefer this to work a different way" is not the same as "actually harming people", even if you think your "different way" is a really good idea. Getting the government to force a company to change something merely because you like your idea better is... reprehensible behavior.
How can the play store be a competitor if its products (i.e. apps) don’t work on iPhone ? In order to use the play store you need to purchase a different device. So from the perspective of “Where to get iPhone apps” the App Store is a monopoly. Android has different app stores there’s the play store but there’s also the Amazon store for example.
Within the iPhone and iPad operating system ecosystem, the Apple App Store is a monopoly. I’m not saying Apple should not charge a fee and earn revenue for processing in app purchases and recouping its costs. But apple doesn’t charge a fee for physical goods like Uber and Lyft which use in app purchases. So why then are digital goods charged a fee? Why the discrimination between digital and physical goods?
Also, why not let developers use an alternative payment processor if they are savvy enough to do so? Some people say apple won’t recoup its App Store costs. No one knows what it costs apple to run the App Store but I think some people forget that apple already made money on the sale of the iPhone so why not let some developers trim some fat off the costs of their services by using their own payment processing system?
Secondly, macOS is wide open and users need not use the app store. M1 iPads, for example, use the same exact chip as in M1 macs. So why is the m1 in a mac allowed to run apps from outside the App Store, but the m1 in an iPad is restricted to only running apps from within the App Store? If the problem is security and privacy then why is macOS not locked down too?
There are internal inconsistencies in Apple’s position. But one thing that remains true is, so long as there are no competing app stores or in-app purchase processors, Apple continues to reap big profits from its 30% cut. Competition from alternative App Stores (assuming they charge lower fees) would put competitive pressure on apple to lower its fees.But this competition is restricted today. And this is why the EU government is looking into this because who is Apple or Google to restrict legal trade? It is not illegal for citizens who own an iPhone to run apps on their iPhone from outside of the App Store. Cydia taught us this, the makers of Cydia App Store have never been issued a judgement by a judge to cease operations due to violating a law. Of course jailbreaking has its risks but would users jailbreak if they could freely get their apps from outside of the App Store?
Also, it must be said, even if other app stores open up, similar to android, there’s no need to use any of them if the default store has everything you’re looking for.
Last edited: