Japan App Store Gets Alternative Marketplaces, Third-Party Payments and More

[klm9210]

Yeah, Apple should sell their stuff just in the US to not be bothered by the rest of the annoying world!

America is the whole world to simplistic people like that. The same ones who think America “has it all” just because we have several different climates.

The idea that Apple should pull out of its 4th largest market as a middle finger over a few App Store regulations comes from the mind of someone who will never see a boardroom in their lifetime, thank goodness

 

[ForkHandles]

Cool, the more countries, the better! 👍

I wonder whether you agree with me;
The world has blindly accepted technology without any regulation for thirty years.
Now we are at the point where technology companies are exercising more power than some small countries.

We have an Internet that puts hardcore porn in the devices of ten year olds, instructions on how to commit suicide to mentally ill people and AI that can create deepfake video destroying objective truth.

Countries are beginning to see that all tech is not good for all citizens and they are fighting back. Uk with porn age checks, Australia with social media age checks, Japan making sure that all markets are open and fair.

High time I think that we got a grip and put into check the tail wagging the dog.

 

[ThailandToo]

America is the whole world to simplistic people like that. The same ones who think America “has it all” just because we have several different climates.

The idea that Apple should pull out of its 4th largest market as a middle finger over a few App Store regulations comes from the mind of someone who will never see a boardroom in their lifetime, thank goodness

Yeah. Sounds like someone into a trend not who cares about how these companies are ran by greed. Greed means they will do anything to sell in every market they can and will bend over backwards to stay in markets like Japan. Consumers and all stakeholders need to be protected from these companies. Thankfully some governments cannot be bought out like America’s greed and swamp of political corruption, with liars, cheaters and thieves making up the vast majority of the government there. And nobody is going to change it as the top 1% are in control and have no desire to change the system until it all comes crumbling down with a revolution or worse.

 

[SanderEvers]

Overall a more agreeable version of the DMA if I read this correctly. It still allowes Apple to control and design their own OS but also requires them to allow competition. But with keeping safety and privacy checks.

 

[Adam-Jobs]

ew. no thanks. apple should just pull out of Japan. this stuff just makes the phone more complicated to use.

How will this impact you personally?

 

[ChrisMac47]

All sounds good to me, we have progress.

 

[Tiger_Stud]

How will this impact you personally?

This question might be too difficult

 

[TwoBytes]

Hey Apple, I want to launch ChatGPT instead of Siri too. You had your years and years headstart and failed.

 

[mka2802]

Well suddenly the EU is not the villain anymore-governments worldwide wake up to Apple's Anti-Competitive behaviour. TOP

 

[Abazigal]

Hey Apple, I want to launch ChatGPT instead of Siri too. You had your years and years headstart and failed.

You can map the chatGPT app to the action button on your phone.

 

[MilaM]

I don’t understand why “Apple isn’t allowed to consider security and privacy risks when deciding to whether to implement an interoperability feature” isn’t immediately disqualifying for the DMA.

Personally I'm excited about the interoperability mandates and think that they will have the most immediate positive impact for consumers.

I would also not be so sure that Japan won't introduce additional legislation in the near future. Maybe they are just waiting to see how things play out in the EU. One thing seems obvious. Once the APIs are public, and most FUD regarding security and privacy is debunked, many other countries will demand the same treatment for their citizens.

Apple is still in charge of the implementation and can make the APIs as secure as any other public component that developers can use.

 

[RickDEGH]

The administration should go after Japan, I would guess.

 

[unchecked]

Yeah!

Can't wait till we reach 100 countries with all different regulations. That will just be fantastic. 👍

Apple can afford to hire more people to juggle and maintain all that. Job creation!

 

[2ilent8cho]

Only other store I wish there was is Steam on iOS/iPadOS, tvOS, which long term might help gaming on the whole Apple Ecosystem. Apple would just have to accept they will make money from hardware upgrades instead of game sales such as people buying higher capacity storage or an iPad Air over an iPad. As much as I don't like Steam, it's where the gaming is.

 

[Anaxarxes]

there is only one good thing that our government can do, it is protecting our companies from getting fleeced/blackmailed by the rest of the world.

If I had asked what a government shouldn't be, this would have been the perfect answer.

If you so much of so think of US as a free market economy, government has zero to-do's in terms of how companies are treated under other country's legislations.

In fact the sole nature of a government is to protect its citizens and their wellbeing, their fundamental human rights and if any organization that is actively engaged in business practices are upholding the laws that are in place to protect the citizens. Governments are there to govern the country and its citizens. Citizens.

United States was briefly that after it's inception. For over 150 years it has been run like a corporate enabler, disregarding its citizens of basic human rights and its government has been a tool for companies to lobby and pass laws that are in their own interest. A true oligarchy.

 

[surferfb]

Personally I'm excited about the interoperability mandates and think that they will have the most immediate positive impact for consumers.

I would also not be so sure that Japan won't introduce additional legislation in the near future. Maybe they are just waiting to see how things play out in the EU. One thing seems obvious. Once the APIs are public, and most FUD regarding security and privacy is debunked, many other countries will demand the same treatment for their citizens.

Apple is still in charge of the implementation and can make the APIs as secure as any other public component that developers can use.

Giving, say Meta, the ability to display notifications means Meta is going to have the ability to know what that notification said and where it’s from. There’s no way to make that private, and no way to prevent Meta from using that information to improve its user profile and sell ads. And most users won’t know clicking yes on “display iPhone notifications on my Meta sunglasses” means they’re enabling that.

We’ve already seen Meta make interoperability requests in the EU that forced Apple to choose between offering a feature or harming its users’ privacy. But we think they won’t use the gave that you’re, say, getting notifications to “Remember to Log Your Weight” from LoseIt to add a “dieting” flag to your profile and show you ads for weight loss drugs?

The idea that “Apple can find a way to make it secure/private” isn’t going to be true every time. Sometimes the effort to do so won’t be worth the cost, other times it’ll be literally impossible. And in those instances, customers in the EU will lose features so a tiny minority get their way. That’s not better for consumers.

The EU should adopt Japan’s stance on this, not the other way around.

 

[Dr McKay]

Meanwhile Nintendo and PlayStation get to do whatever they like.

Games consoles have probably avoided a similar ruling because you still have plenty of options on where to buy the games from. You can buy physical copies or codes at any number of shopfronts, online or in person still. With iOS until these rulings you got the App Store and that was it.

If games consoles did away with physical copies entirely and stopped doing game codes I would expect them to start getting the same treatment.

 

[macfacts]

That $100/year is more of an entry fee. Since Apple controls everything from the hardware to the OS to the software and the App Store, all the money just goes into one giant pool and it's quite the grey area as to what pays for what exactly, which is why I am not a fan of cutting it so cleanly.

Like Maps, iMessage and Siri are free (in that I don't need to pay a separate fee, but they are clearly not free to develop and maintain). Is the money supposed to come from hardware profits, or App Store revenue, or somewhere else?

People like to point out that 30% is more than enough to pay for the costs of operating the App Store, and it suits their agenda to argue that everything could in theory be subsided via iPhone profits alone because who doesn't like free things? But everything is inter-connected, and it can also be argued that it is because of services revenue (eg: App Store commission, Google's $35 billion annual payment, Apple one subscriptions, even Apple Pay) that allow Apple to sell their hardware at their current prices, when they might in fact be even more costly? I know it's hard to imagine that iPhones could be even more expensive, but my point is that none of this exists in a vacuum.

Even with the App Store, the reality is that the bulk of their 30% commission comes from taxing freemium games, so in reality, what all of you here are championing is that the companies behind IAP-riddled games like Diablo Immortal, Fortnite, Clash of Clans and Roblox be allowed to keep more of the money that they are already making via pretty questionable practices. Personally, Apple could tax them 50% and I wouldn't shed a tear.

It's very easy to just tell Apple to comply with whatever demands the EU makes of them. What I am observing is that Apple is instead taking the time to re-evaluate each and every ecosystem feature that the EU has asked them to make available to third parties, and we can see that Apple is not opposed to simply withholding said feature from both third party OEMs and their own customers, if they feel it's not worth the cost of compliance. So users and smaller businesses won't always come out ahead at every turn.

if Tim apple can't figure out how to split up the developer fees into the different resources needed for the iPhone, I'm sure there's others that want to be CEO.

 

[CopiumWafu]

I don’t understand why “Apple isn’t allowed to consider security and privacy risks when deciding to whether to implement an interoperability feature” isn’t immediately disqualifying for the DMA.

Payment gateway? A security risk
Notification access? A security risk
Anything boot loading? A security risk.

Apple could their entire OS behind the "risk of security" instead of making it proper secure to begin with, as they do with MacOS.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

While I’m not in favor of this law at all, it is a much better solution than the DMA, and the EU could really learn a thing of two from it. Specifically:

It’s the difference between a law designed to create an antagonistic posture in order to bring oneself continuously in the media cycle in order to gain higher political power and to fill the pockets of those with deep pockets AND a law where they just want to fill the pockets of those with deep pockets. Take Vestager out of the equation and you end up with something better.

 

[CarAnalogy]

These would be nice things to have everywhere in the world.

Every time this happens it further undermines their arguments for not doing it everywhere. This cannot be an efficient use of engineering and legal resources.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Well, both are Japanese companies, so yeah, I wouldn't hold my breath either. But overall, the proposed list of concessions is much less strict and onerous to comply with compared to the DMA, so I am not surprised that Apple has been able to comply in a timely fashion, and with less fanfare as well (no issues like iPhone mirroring having to be withheld, for example).

The law was designed with no fanfare. Note how the release doesn’t include the name of a single individual potentially looking to make a name for themselves. The DMA was and is a bad law because it was rushed to score political points in an effort to obtain more power before it was clear that person was no longer going to be around. The folks in power now have to deal with the aftermath.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Every time this happens it further undermines their arguments for not doing it everywhere. This cannot be an efficient use of engineering and legal resources.

Feels like Tim is just playing out the late innings of his last game.

(one can hope at least 😂)

 

[tomtad]

Android has had this functionality globally since its inception and no app has willingly left the Play Store to force people through other methods unless they were kicked out of the store for violating store guidelines. How does it make it more complicated for you to use? What has changed that impacts you personally?

Just think about how crap Siri is, and consider it again

 

[Rogifan]

That $100/year is more of an entry fee. Since Apple controls everything from the hardware to the OS to the software and the App Store, all the money just goes into one giant pool and it's quite the grey area as to what pays for what exactly, which is why I am not a fan of cutting it so cleanly.

Like Maps, iMessage and Siri are free (in that I don't need to pay a separate fee, but they are clearly not free to develop and maintain). Is the money supposed to come from hardware profits, or App Store revenue, or somewhere else?

People like to point out that 30% is more than enough to pay for the costs of operating the App Store, and it suits their agenda to argue that everything could in theory be subsided via iPhone profits alone because who doesn't like free things? But everything is inter-connected, and it can also be argued that it is because of services revenue (eg: App Store commission, Google's $35 billion annual payment, Apple one subscriptions, even Apple Pay) that allow Apple to sell their hardware at their current prices, when they might in fact be even more costly? I know it's hard to imagine that iPhones could be even more expensive, but my point is that none of this exists in a vacuum.

Even with the App Store, the reality is that the bulk of their 30% commission comes from taxing freemium games, so in reality, what all of you here are championing is that the companies behind IAP-riddled games like Diablo Immortal, Fortnite, Clash of Clans and Roblox be allowed to keep more of the money that they are already making via pretty questionable practices. Personally, Apple could tax them 50% and I wouldn't shed a tear.

It's very easy to just tell Apple to comply with whatever demands the EU makes of them. What I am observing is that Apple is instead taking the time to re-evaluate each and every ecosystem feature that the EU has asked them to make available to third parties, and we can see that Apple is not opposed to simply withholding said feature from both third party OEMs and their own customers, if they feel it's not worth the cost of compliance. So users and smaller businesses won't always come out ahead at every turn.

People supporting the status quo are supporting a handful of apps subsidizing all other apps. I’d rather Apple come up with another way of charging for the use of their IP. And then offer 3rd party payments in-app along side Apple’s IAP. Let Apple compete in the payments space. Those who prefer to have all their payments go through Apple can continue to do so. Those who are fine with a 3rd party option can use it. And smaller developers who don’t want to use/offer a 3rd party option wouldn’t have to.