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Report: Sideloading in Europe Will Still Involve App Review and Fees
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Awesome. No one is entitled to a free ride on Apple's platform, which is what they actually wanted. But since they couldn't ask for that, they had to find a way to circumvent Apple's gateway. Well, they got what they asked for. But it turns out that it won't be what they wanted. Glorious. Truly glorious.
I have no love for the things Apple does wrong, but becoming a runaway success was not one of those things, and it is this success alone that has given some people the impression that they are entitled to the things Apple has created from nothing, and that entitlement irritates me.
I have no love for the things Apple does wrong, but becoming a runaway success was not one of those things, and it is this success alone that has given some people the impression that they are entitled to the things Apple has created from nothing, and that entitlement irritates me.
Will this be analogous to Option 2 of the below system prefs on the Mac? Perhaps apps still have to register as an identified developer for a fee? Even when you select Option 3 "anywhere" stupid Gatekeeper still gets in the way. I don't see why this isn't secure enough, the number of hoops a user has to consciously jump though to widen the net so to speak.
Perhaps it's my lizard brain but I can't understand how a second App Store which is still curated by Apple can be called sideloading other than if the only difference is literally that Apple curate Apps that a customer downloads from a link hosted by the developer themselves.
Perhaps it's my lizard brain but I can't understand how a second App Store which is still curated by Apple can be called sideloading other than if the only difference is literally that Apple curate Apps that a customer downloads from a link hosted by the developer themselves.
Well, if it's dead on arrival then what you're saying is that the expressed purpose of it on paper is not what it was really about, and it was really about just circumventing the fees and platform security that Apple is entitled to.
That's absolutely true, but the value of that is very different depending on the developer.
As example, Microsoft does not need Apple's infrastructure for content delivery, billing, returns or whatever and likely doesn't even need the visibility. To them a 30% fee for services they don't need and would be able to provide at a fraction of the cost by leveraging their already existing infrastructure is a very bad deal.
On the other side, a "smaller" developer would find Apple's fee much more appealing given the infrastructure Apple would provide them that they would otherwise have to implement themselves.
Considering that I can walk into myriad stores (or go online) and purchase the goods on offer, I'm not sure this really makes the point you think it does. Nor do I have to resolve myself to shop only at Target in order to shop there.
Does your fridge only accept milk from Target?
I personally would never side-load an app. Too many security issues!
Which is really just a complaint based on Microsoft's relative level of success and not much else. It certainly isn't a competitive complaint.
Of course it is, but they are "Gatekeeper" in a specific service or product. The "gatekeeper" term directly derives from the "gatekeeping" that can be imposed through said service or product. This is clearly stated in the regulation.
You are free to believe so, but so I am to disagree.
The rationale for the regulation is sound and follows the fundamental principle that market players powerful enough to distort competition are subject to antitrust regulation. There is no question in my mind that the companies designated as "Gatekeepers" do have this power and do leverage it to distort the competition.
That's a great point you make. I hadn't thought of it in those terms, so I appreciate that 👍
I suppose it comes down to the question who gets to determine how much a platform gets to charge for access to its customers.
In the games world, 30% has been the going rate since forever even though Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo also all compete for the same customers with their own in-house games.
Bigger games companies like EA or Epic would obviously not need all the tools that Sony/MS/Nintendo offer, so that 30% is a seemingly "bad" deal for them.
But that's how it works, because Sony, MS, and Nintendo own the customer relationship and it's why they get to determine their cut like any other store.
I get that there are instances where this control is problematic and anti-competitive (e.g. Spotify), but it will be difficult to create a cohesive framework for how this should work that applies across industries.
There are very few distribution channels in the world (online and offline) where you can just bring your products to someone else's store and sell them without giving them a cut.
In fact, I can't think of any.
That doesn't mean there don't need to be some regulatory oversight involved, because there does.
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I think the issue with this is that companies like Spotify want to use Apple's App Store to "advertise" their product for free and steer users to their website for purchase to maintain their margins. Spotify should be required to pay Apple for access to their billions of devices if they're wanting to just advertise and not going to use Apple services. That's why Apple doesn't let developers advertise their products for purchase elsewhere other than the App Store. Apple has spent a lot of money developing the App Store market place to make it an attractive platform for developers so if you want to gain access to that exclusive user base (even if it's just for advertising) it's only fair to pay up, sorry.
If Spotify doesn't want to pay Apple for this privileged access to advertise on their exclusive platform that they built from the ground up, they can always put up their ads elsewhere and point users to their website for purchase and keep all their margins to themselves, why does it need to be through Apple's App Store?
I think their goal in not allowing streaming games is a good user experience. I'm certainly not interested in encouraging developers to abandon native interfaces in favor of cross-platform crap like we see on the Mac.
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I don't see how your quote is adressing my argument.
I'm not sure I understand how they intend this do this.
So I write an app and publish it GitHub. User can sideload by downloading the app from GitHub and install it directly, not via the App Store.
How are Apple in anyway a party in this transaction to be able to lay claim to anything from me at this point?
So I write an app and publish it GitHub. User can sideload by downloading the app from GitHub and install it directly, not via the App Store.
How are Apple in anyway a party in this transaction to be able to lay claim to anything from me at this point?
Absolutely. Subscription fatigue is real. Game streaming needs to be shutdown before it can take hold. Talk about anti-consumer business practices.
I don't think your app will run on iOS unless you have obtained a certificate from Apple, which you will pay Apple for.
E.g. nothing in the regulation states that Apple has to allow unsigned or self-signed apps, so Apple still can require signing and subject that signing to some criterias as long as they can convice the regulator they are necessary for the safety of their OS or hardware.
Seems pretty clear if you follow your conversation. He said Spotify wanted to advertise third-party payments. You said he was wrong. He provided a quote from Spotify saying they want to include ads for alternative pricing.
Do you own a computer? I'm assuming you exclusively use what's available in the Mac App Store or Microsoft Store?
I'd say it's reasonably obvious from the persepective of OS and user safety that it shouldn't be a wild west out there.