Spotify, Epic Games, and Others Argue Apple's App Store Changes Do Not Comply With DMA

[CarAnalogy]

Apple aren't giving anybody anything for free.

The hardware sells at enormous margins. How do you think their Mac business, where most of the third party software comes from non app store sources, works?!

This is a similar problem to the games industry right now.

It's not that it's impossible to make money without being exploitative.

It's just that once companies see how much more money the exploitative methods make, it seems by comparison that the "old" way isn't nearly profitable enough.

 

[gnipgnop]

It has been proven over the past decade that it is absolutely impossible for another player to break in to this market. There are no real options. The dominant players have to be made to follow some rules, because they cannot be trusted to make their own. Not if anyone actually cares about the users.

In 2007, people said Apple was going to have difficulty competing in smartphones. It was a mature market. It was considered to be a highly competitive market. Most people thought Apple would be a niche player at that time.

 

[Beautyspin]

It might. Apps not available in the App Store will affect people only using the App Store if they want the app.

That is a price you have to pay for supporting Apple.

 

[CarAnalogy]

In 2007, people said Apple was going to have difficulty competing in smartphones. It was a mature market. It was considered to be a highly competitive market. Most people thought Apple would be a niche player at that time.

And that may as well be a completely different world now. Look at the amount of money it took then. Apple makes far more that amount of money per quarter now. It's just not comparable.

And they weren't competing in cell phones. They disrupted it with a new product. That product is now so thoroughly entrenched it is never going to be unseated.

 

[treacher]

People have big software libraries.

 

[gnipgnop]

Exactl.

It does. One could well argue that those, too, should be regulated - but the EU has deemed that market not important enough (and since a console is stationary, PC gaming is a decent substitute for consumers).

But their business models (subsidised console prices) is different and their use much narrower (gaming).

It just shows that the EUs idea of what is "competitive" doesn't really make sense. Prices for apps on mobile are lower than desktop/console. But the app distribution on iOS is the same as consoles. But iOS allows for general computing just like desktop...which also has higher prices for apps. It's a hybrid between desktop/console but has better prices for apps.

 

[gnipgnop]

And that may as well be a completely different world now. Look at the amount of money it took then. Apple makes far more that amount of money per quarter now. It's just not comparable.

And they weren't competing in cell phones. They disrupted it with a new product. That product is now so thoroughly entrenched it is never going to be unseated.

That's only if you believe the current hardware/OS format can't be changed by future technology. It very well could be.

 

[Beautyspin]

There's no way Apple are rolling these changes outwithout knowing it meets DMA requirements.
It would be too hard to release it and then undo it later - you cant force people to install another iOS upgrade.
Just takes one person to hold onto it ...
Apple's lawyers will have checked every word and that the changes meet those words.

EU have had a while now to read what Apple is proposing and they havent come out and said no to it.

Spotify and Epic are knwon whingers leveraging their market share and profile to pretend to be interested in consumers. They arent.

Vestager and the EU have already said that they will start looking at the proposals after March 7th and they will consult third parties before taking any decision. That is why Spotify, EPic Games and others have gone to the EU to complain.

"As from 7 March we will assess companies’ proposals, with the feedback of third parties," Thierry Breton

Apple faces ‘strong action’ if App Store changes fall short, EU’s Breton says

 

[I7guy]

It’s precisely those large customers that provide popular gaming apps/marketplaces and media content (audio streaming, video streaming and ebooks) that Apple competes with with their own services.

There is nothing wrong with that.

The streaming services and ebook stores in particular are platform-agnostic, so do not rely on iOS and their content hasn’t been developed for iOS, so these are clearly separate markets from mobile operating systems. For which Apple anticompetitively favours their own services.

It doesn’t.

 

[I7guy]

Yes it is. The competition isn’t lazy. Neither was Microsoft lazy with Windows Phone. You cannot establish a competing smartphone OS without the Android or iOS ecosystem of third-party apps today - even if you throw billions at it. No one will but it. Similar to how no one will pay for the third, fourth or fifth electricity or phone line running to a house.

No it’s not. The problem is the competition in the hardware where the manufacturers elect to use a specific operating system.

I could go on all day, quoting all of your posts with…

And yes, my argument stands: when you’re in a duopoly with a competitor that largely mirrors your own product and monetisation strategy and there are barriers to switch (hundreds of dollars expense and setting up and getting to know a different OS), you have low incentive to innovate.

Yes. We clearly have different points of view and will continue to go around in circles because of these different views.

 

[wanha]

Epic, Spotify, and the rest would win a lot of CREDIBILITY if they proposed what kind of fee Apple should collect for the use of their platform and how big it should be.

Put an argument out there that acknowledges in some way Apple's ownership of their platform and the customer relationship.

Who cares if they suggest 10% or whatever, start somewhere. Tell us what you think is fair.

As it stands, these companies want it all for free, which renders their arguments largely as self-serving, idealistic propaganda.

As long as the proposal is "give it all to us for free", it's not much of a proposal.

 

[jgdeschamps]

No Apps no platform. See AVP? It is not a hit because there are no real meaningful apps for that. So, Apple will make it easy for developers to develop apps. Once the apps come and the platform becomes a hit, Apple will say that without it there is nothing for the developers. You know why Windows Phone failed? There was a platform but no developers. As long as fanbois and Apple does not understand this, they will pay the price.

But this is not the case. The majority of developers are not complaining. Only 4 or 5 that are really big not thanks to the App Store. Probably a few small ones that tried to circumvent the rules but Apple caught them and were asked to change strategies. Don't generalize the issue. That's what companies like Epic are trying to do. Get public sympathy telling a twisted version of their infringement of contract.

 

[redheeler]

"Core Technology" There it is. Put up or shut up. Either STOP USING Apple's developers' work, or PAY FOR IT. 🤷‍♂️

iOS dev here who literally could never make a penny without standing on the shoulders of thousands of Apple iOS devs, who’ve put in uncountable years of effort into areas I basically have zero experience or expertise in. 👋

Most people claiming Apple's cut is unearned don’t know what “import Foundation” does at the top of literally every iOS code file in literally every AppStore app. (Hint: It's not necessary to get an app into the App Store!)

Ditto for:

import UIKit
import SwiftUI
import CryptoKit
Button()
let task = URLSession.shared.dataTask(with: session)
etc, etc, etc…

Literally 💯 of iOS apps use code written by Apple to do a staggering amount of their work.

ZERO apps roll their own custom code instead of using the mountain of frameworks and APIs that Apple has built and perfected (complete with expected features like free dark mode, rotation, language, compat across device, accessibility size, backgrounding, persistence, etc, etc, etc features).

ZERO apps do this because it would cost 10-20x as much to develop, and nobody would pay for the lesser experience.

Even the simplest app would take literal years more development, and STILL not achieve anything close to feature parity by dropping in Apple’s code with zero effort.

Oh, and when iOS updates with new features, or a new style? INSTANTLY that app needs massive work to retain feature parity with other apps that did zero work to match style or make use of many new features. (Sometimes a TEENY bit of work to make a huge new feature work if you want.)

Show me an app developer who doesn’t lean HEAVILY on Apple’s developers’ work, and I’ll show you somebody who gets to talk about the “outrageous” price Apple charges for their work. 🙄

Apps don't have to use Apple's native APIs unless the developer is really invested in a native experience (such as Apollo for Reddit). I'd like to see more cross-platform web apps that use open web technologies but live on the Home Screen and are distributed as normal functional apps.

There's no reason this can't work or shouldn't be an option. We've been building websites for decades using open standards we expect to work roughly the same on any platform. If Apple wants developers to go native instead, it better be incentivized and not "my way or the highway".

 

[WaltCD]

I hope Spotify, Epic, and everyone else causes the iPhone to not get sold in the EU, will be funny to see this disaster that Apple caused start 😂

I, too, hope it happens. It would seem Spotify, Epic, etc., have a lot more to lose than Apple.
Apple pulls out, no longer selling in the EU, then where would that leave Spotify, Epic, etc.? I especially hope it happens after Spotify, Epic, etc. spend millions of dollars in legal fees. Apple can take that hit without blinking an eye. Those companies? Perhaps not so much.

It truly will be funny.

 

[AppliedMicro]

Epic, Spotify, and the rest would win a lot of CREDIBILITY if they proposed what kind of fee Apple should collect for the use of their platform and how big it should be.

If they don't, I will:

👉 Apple should collect the same (and implement the same business terms) for their apps as they do from
- AliExpress
- the Amazon shopping app
- Booking.com
- Uber
- Doordash
- Bank of America
- American Express and
- my local transit and ticketing app.

Fair and non-discriminatory.

Put an argument out there that acknowledges in some way Apple's ownership of their platform and the customer relationship.

👉 Apple don't "own" the customer relationship, when someone uses their Spotify app to listen to music on iOS. And they shouldn't "own" the customer relationship for every single app and consumer on their platform.

That's the very thing that needs to get legislated away from them.

As long as the proposal is "give it all to us for free", it's not much of a proposal.

Apple aren't giving away iOS for free. They're making tons of money from selling it bundled with hardware devices.

But again: Charge Spotify, Epic, Netflix, Match.com the same as they do for any shopping, delivery or mobility app that makes money in-app. Fair and non-discriminatory.

 

[AppliedMicro]

There is nothing wrong with that.

It is undesirable when they use their leverage in one market (iOS) to impose a tax on all other competitors.

It doesn’t.

More argumentless one-liners?

 

[Sophisticatednut]

It means that the EU is requiring gatekeepers to provide equal access to certain types of information/functionality that wasn't necessarily available before AND that the gatekeepers can't charge anyone for this new access.

So all the EU is doing is saying that gatekeepers can't try to monetize the access that wasn't required before. It's not the EU saying gatekeepers aren't allowed to monetize their IP.

Can you point anywhere where it states any of the details you just made up out of the ether?

Furthermore, the gatekeeper shall allow business users and alternative providers of services provided together with, or in support of, core platform services, free of charge, effective interoperability with, and access for the purposes of interoperability to, the same operating system, hardware or software features, regardless of whether those features are part of the operating system, as are available to, or used by, that gatekeeper when providing such services.


Free of charge= free= at no cost for the things they have to provide.

 

[I7guy]

It is undesirable when they use their leverage in one market (iOS) to impose a tax on all other competitors.

Yes, that’s the way it works when you sublet space.

More argumentless one-liners?

It’s better than taking pages to argue against opinions that you disagree with.

Edit:” apple is anti-competitive”. The best response is no it’s not.

 

[AppliedMicro]

Yes, that’s the way it works when you sublet space.

And when you're the only one (or two) that sublet virtually all the space nationwide, you will be regulated as a monopoly (duopoly). That's the way it works.

 

[chris1958]

"Core Technology" There it is. Put up or shut up. Either STOP USING Apple's developers' work, or PAY FOR IT. 🤷‍♂️

iOS dev here who literally could never make a penny without standing on the shoulders of thousands of Apple iOS devs, who’ve put in uncountable years of effort into areas I basically have zero experience or expertise in. 👋

Most people claiming Apple's cut is unearned don’t know what “import Foundation” does at the top of literally every iOS code file in literally every AppStore app. (Hint: It's not necessary to get an app into the App Store!)

Ditto for:

import UIKit
import SwiftUI
import CryptoKit
Button()
let task = URLSession.shared.dataTask(with: session)
etc, etc, etc…

Literally 💯 of iOS apps use code written by Apple to do a staggering amount of their work.

ZERO apps roll their own custom code instead of using the mountain of frameworks and APIs that Apple has built and perfected (complete with expected features like free dark mode, rotation, language, compat across device, accessibility size, backgrounding, persistence, etc, etc, etc features).

ZERO apps do this because it would cost 10-20x as much to develop, and nobody would pay for the lesser experience.

Even the simplest app would take literal years more development, and STILL not achieve anything close to feature parity by dropping in Apple’s code with zero effort.

Oh, and when iOS updates with new features, or a new style? INSTANTLY that app needs massive work to retain feature parity with other apps that did zero work to match style or make use of many new features. (Sometimes a TEENY bit of work to make a huge new feature work if you want.)

Show me an app developer who doesn’t lean HEAVILY on Apple’s developers’ work, and I’ll show you somebody who gets to talk about the “outrageous” price Apple charges for their work. 🙄

As customer of Apple, I pay a lot of money for this "core technology". Why should I be charged a second time, when buying an app? With this fee the apps will be much more expensive or, if there is no chance to sell them at the necessary price, not available at all.

 

[MrTemple]

Apps don't have to use Apple's native APIs unless the developer is really invested in a native experience (such as Apollo for Reddit). I'd like to see more cross-platform web apps that use open web technologies but live on the Home Screen and are distributed as normal functional apps.

Using things like React Native just puts an abstraction layer over those exact same APIs.

People (not you) suggesting Apple could develop some weird custom pay-per-api scheme aren't wrong, but who's gets to step in to a business and tell them how they have to charge for services they are providing?

Apple chooses a pretty simple flat cut. A messier system could be more 'fair', but I shudder to imagine how complicated that would be to develop and implement that accurately.

There's no reason this can't work or shouldn't be an option. We've been building websites for decades using open standards we expect to work roughly the same on any platform. If Apple wants developers to go native instead, it better be incentivized and not "my way or the highway".

You don't follow open standards very closely do you?

There is a reason. It squashes ability for one platform to improve its experience before the rest. Because all the other vendors at the table try to limit the standard to what essentially in a way that doesn't have them lag behind.

This is a WHOLE lot more complicated than web standards that at the end of the day do not much more than render pixels in a square. After you get deeper than that, you're into custom code running in-browser and way past these open standards you speak of.

That custom code running on websites is an incredibly small subset of the type of code that can run in a native app, but is massively non-standard already.

Trying to make an open standard for that is frankly impossible.

Trying to make an open standard for how a native app behaves, how it interacts with the device and with the zillion vendor-specific services (OS and Cloud) to perform the way it does, is infinitely impossible.

And it would mean that it's basically impossible for Google or Apple to make a new OS/Cloud level service to provide new features to apps on their platform. Not without going through years-long process to let every other vendor decide how to limit the new feature until they can catch up.

 

[redheeler]

Using things like React Native just puts an abstraction layer over those exact same APIs.

People (not you) suggesting Apple could develop some weird custom pay-per-api scheme aren't wrong, but who's gets to step in to a business and tell them how they have to charge for services they are providing?

Apple chooses a pretty simple flat cut. A messier system could be more 'fair', but I shudder to imagine how complicated that would be to develop and implement that accurately.

The $99/year developer fee is the flat fee you're talking about? That is, by definition, a flat fee.

Core Technology Fee is anything but flat.

 

[redheeler]

You don't follow open standards very closely do you?

There is a reason. It squashes ability for one platform to improve its experience before the rest. Because all the other vendors at the table try to limit the standard to what essentially in a way that doesn't have them lag behind.

This is a WHOLE lot more complicated than web standards that at the end of the day do not much more than render pixels in a square. After you get deeper than that, you're into custom code running in-browser and way past these open standards you speak of.

That custom code running on websites is an incredibly small subset of the type of code that can run in a native app, but is massively non-standard already.

Trying to make an open standard for that is frankly impossible.

Trying to make an open standard for how a native app behaves, how it interacts with the device and with the zillion vendor-specific services (OS and Cloud) to perform the way it does, is infinitely impossible.

And it would mean that it's basically impossible for Google or Apple to make a new OS/Cloud level service to provide new features to apps on their platform. Not without going through years-long process to let every other vendor decide how to limit the new feature until they can catch up.

I don't follow open standards but I do use them as a web developer. There's a misconception nowadays about what is and isn't possible in a web app.

When the iPhone first came out in 2007, Apple wanted web apps to be the norm. Developers were the ones that wanted native apps because web apps weren't there yet at the time. Single-page web apps were basically not a thing yet, excluding Adobe Flash which obviously didn't work on iPhone (and even if it did, those Flash websites would've looked and ran terrible).

Fast-forward 15 years and things are totally different. We have single-page web apps that asynchronously load pages and stream audio/video content without Flash. We have WebGL, WebGPU, and WebAssembly. We have CSS breakpoints that allow for fluid responsive design instead of separate desktop and mobile apps. We have web components. These are all open-source technologies rendered by open-source browsers that anyone can use, either directly or indirectly through a framework like React or Vue. So why not at least offer the option?

More demanding apps and games may still need to use native code, but a lot is actually possible with web apps.

Streaming services can be web apps. Messaging services, social medial, dating apps can be web apps. The list goes on and on.

 

[visualseed]

Apps don't have to use Apple's native APIs unless the developer is really invested in a native experience (such as Apollo for Reddit). I'd like to see more cross-platform web apps that use open web technologies but live on the Home Screen and are distributed as normal functional apps.

There's no reason this can't work or shouldn't be an option. We've been building websites for decades using open standards we expect to work roughly the same on any platform. If Apple wants developers to go native instead, it better be incentivized and not "my way or the highway".

Have you actually ever built an iOS app? Non-native UI frameworks like React still import and extend UIKit. Apple core technologies go far deeper than the UI or other superficial APIs you can opt out of if you don't use. Are you going to write your own TCP/IP stack to communicate with the Wi-Fi modem? If you do are you going to license the use of the drivers from Broadcom and write your own or are you going to use Apple's networking framework that already rolls up these licenses and dozens of others that you will need? Even websites being built on "open standards" are being delivered and rendered using proprietary code from other companies. The web is probably the worst example because it relies on many parties footing the bill along the way for it to seem to work seamlessly while providing the least user-centric experience.

 

[xiJulian_]

"Core Technology" There it is. Put up or shut up. Either STOP USING Apple's developers' work, or PAY FOR IT. 🤷‍♂️

iOS dev here who literally could never make a penny without standing on the shoulders of thousands of Apple iOS devs, who’ve put in uncountable years of effort into areas I basically have zero experience or expertise in. 👋

Most people claiming Apple's cut is unearned don’t know what “import Foundation” does at the top of literally every iOS code file in literally every AppStore app. (Hint: It's not necessary to get an app into the App Store!)

Ditto for:

import UIKit
import SwiftUI
import CryptoKit
Button()
let task = URLSession.shared.dataTask(with: session)
etc, etc, etc…

Literally 💯 of iOS apps use code written by Apple to do a staggering amount of their work.

ZERO apps roll their own custom code instead of using the mountain of frameworks and APIs that Apple has built and perfected (complete with expected features like free dark mode, rotation, language, compat across device, accessibility size, backgrounding, persistence, etc, etc, etc features).

ZERO apps do this because it would cost 10-20x as much to develop, and nobody would pay for the lesser experience.

Even the simplest app would take literal years more development, and STILL not achieve anything close to feature parity by dropping in Apple’s code with zero effort.

Oh, and when iOS updates with new features, or a new style? INSTANTLY that app needs massive work to retain feature parity with other apps that did zero work to match style or make use of many new features. (Sometimes a TEENY bit of work to make a huge new feature work if you want.)

Show me an app developer who doesn’t lean HEAVILY on Apple’s developers’ work, and I’ll show you somebody who gets to talk about the “outrageous” price Apple charges for their work. 🙄

You keep repeating “Apple’s developers’ work” as if Apple is going to give the Core Technology Fee to those developers, but they won’t, the developers will still get paid the same as before and besides that this is not the only revenue source for Apple, stop acting as if without this fee Apple won’t be able to pay those developers. iOS app developers already pay for their Apple devices and the yearly developer license fee..