I’ll repeat: Preventing developers (or competitors) from deploying their own software solutions on widely-deployed hardware doesn‘t incentivise innovation. Quite the contrary.
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EU Approves Landmark Legislation to Regulate Apple and Other Big Tech Firms
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I know how Apple Pay works.
When the government forces you to give away your tech, it will disincentivize innovation.
I agree it'll disincentivise innovation.
But governments aren't forcing them to give it away.
Apple is making billions of dollars in earnings of iPhone hardware sales.
EDIT: The irony is that Apple - and Google - willingly chose to (virtually) give away their tech (search engine, SDK, App Store access) for free in the beginning. And that's exactly what propelled them to their current position as such gatekeepers.
SDKs were given with the intention of having developers develop for the App Store not side loading. If the EU had a problem with this business model, it should have raised the issue in the beginning, not more than a decade later.
It could not have been foreseen how important these mobile apps would become in our lives and how few competitors would control that entire market.
It has become an issue with time - and leaving them unregulated will increase the issues in the future.
Government work largely reactive to the emergence of such market conditions.
Should the EU require Microsoft to donate Surface devices to schools because they're making billions of dollars on software sales?
You're really amusing. I guess because of the lack of any real arguments you need to have these fantasies which make no logical sense whatsoever.
The probability any of these companies will get fined is 0. All of them have a track-record of following the law, what you say doesn't matter at all, you were just trying to force a joke that isn't funny.
Again, when Apple entered the market, they entered with 0% market share. They should not be punished for being successful.
Also, the App Store operates much in the same way Sony and Microsoft operates the PlayStation and Xbox stores. They also have market dominance. Why are they not being targeted?
I can envisage a race to the bottom happening with data being used as currency in place of money.
Why do so few competitors control the entire market? Did consumers make that decision willingly, or did those competitors engage in anticompetitive practices to become dominant?
Everyone enters a market with 0% market share. It's kind of an inherent part of entering a market. And this isn't punishment, it's setting up safeguards for almost the whole of the market. How many different markets do Apple and Google participate in in one way or another? Consumer electronics, software, music, tv shows, movies, smart home, photography, banking, health, etc. And apparently soon we'll be able to add automobiles and the still relatively immature AR/VR market.
Do you imagine folks cheering the EU's actions here are against the same for Sony and MS? This may be news, but we're not, at least most of us.
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You can be legally competitive in one market while being anti-competitive in another. Folks aren't generally accusing Apple of anti-competitive behavior in the smartphone hardware market for instance. However Apple's actions regarding app distribution or mobile payments is another story.
Yes which is why in my plan you can use any store you want Apple will ask for a pecentage of profit to develop after the first year. Even if you use another appstore you have to pay Apple to have xcode.They will go to other app stores. Apple's Appstore would be barren. It would lose about 80 billion revenues annually (and 15% of it as commission assuming an average of 15%). For a company that sells cleaning cloth for 20 dollars, I doubt this is a good move. Do you know how many cleaning cloths it would have to sell to make this shortfall?
Apple isn't losing it's cut.
But for Apple the smartphone hardware and software market are one and the same thing, they aren't 2 separate markets.
If only having iOS and Android available as operating systems is fine for consumers, why is having iOS and Android as the only options available not fine for developers? Why are consumers not being given redress with regulations to create more competition?
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I didn't say software as in the OS, which is what you're referring to. I'm talking about third-party applications and mobile banking, which are separate from the hardware/OS market.
The problem for developers is that there are not enough competing platforms, there's only iOS and Android. These regulations do not address the problem. Consumers suffer from the same problem of there not being enough competing platforms. Consumers can pick from a huge number of different hardware combinations but can only pick between iOS and Android for software.
Regulators should be fostering competition at the level that needs the competition instead of tacitly accepting that iOS and Android are and shall be the only platforms there ever will be.
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Why do you imagine you can force more competitors into the market than the market will support? We used to have more, but they died off because the market won't support more than two major players. This should hardly be surprising as this is essentially what we saw in the desktop computing market for many years. In fact that market very nearly went to just a single major player in the late 90's/early 2000's. What your half-baked argument misses is that applications are what makes the silicon and metal brick in someone's hand useful. Developers are the one's who write those apps. Said developers only have so many available resources and operate on the same profit motive that Apple does. Developers aren't going to waste (or may not even have) the resources on developing software for minor players. Why put in double the resources of developing for four platforms rather than two when the third and fourth ranked players have a combined market share in the single digits in a mature market? From there, what consumers are going to want to buy a smartphone that offers next to none of the third-party software that they want or need. Look at the high-end gaming market for reference. Apple's computer hardware and software is perfectly capable of running high-end games. Apple even goes as far as offering things like Metal. Yet Apple is an also-ran in that space because game developers don't often develop for Macs and gamers don't often use Macs.
Not only this will hurt Apple’s bottom line a lot, I don’t think the EU will let them circumvent this way
Why would it hurt the bottom line? There has been rumors of them going in this direction anyway.
Apple Is Working on a Hardware Subscription Service for IPhones
Apple Inc. is working on a subscription service for the iPhone and other hardware products, a move that could make device ownership similar to paying a monthly app fee, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
www.bloomberg.com
If Apple maintains "ownership" of the devices, they should be able to limit what a leasee can do on the devices.
If Apple wants to get cute the EU can simply amend the law to apply to what Apple is doing with leases.Why would it hurt the bottom line? There has been rumors of them going in this direction anyway.
Apple Is Working on a Hardware Subscription Service for IPhones
Apple Inc. is working on a subscription service for the iPhone and other hardware products, a move that could make device ownership similar to paying a monthly app fee, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
The same way these regulators are trying to force more competition into the market? Why do we have to accept no competition in one market but try and force competition in other markets? Why don't we have regulations that force competition into all these markets?
Consumers have already chosen iOS and Android, yet here we have regulators trying to change the iOS and android platforms so they become something other than what consumers originally chose, but also don’t address the lack of competition in the operating system market so that competitors can emerge that offer consumers who want what iOS and android did offer, but now can’t.
If iOS is forced to become more like android, which many consumers don’t want, how does a competing operating system emerge that operates like iOS currently operates that these users can then choose to buy? These regulations don’t seem to address that at all.
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This is really sad. I believe the EU may have gone too far with the list of requirements … precisely what I feared. But that is what happens in face of non cooperation with state entities with valid concerns from companies that believe that have become untouchable.
Microsoft learned that … now it’s time for Google and Apple to get the same lesson.
PS: I believe the way they approached the Dutch regulation, arrogantly choosing to pay million dollar fines rather then genuinely go for compliance … like thugs … did not fell well. At least this is what looked like it was.
Microsoft learned that … now it’s time for Google and Apple to get the same lesson.
PS: I believe the way they approached the Dutch regulation, arrogantly choosing to pay million dollar fines rather then genuinely go for compliance … like thugs … did not fell well. At least this is what looked like it was.
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It’s what happens when regulations are formed in favour of business interests rather than consumer interests (with the naive assumption that the business interests ultimately lead to satisfying consumer interests).
I suspect the outcome of all of this will benefit developers and harm consumers. Apple and google will probably make the same or more money as they will simply shift the revenue they lose from one business area to increased prices in another area.