AMC makes AMC popcorn. Apple doesn't make those 3rd party apps.
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Where is the malware for PS4? There are multiple PS4 game stores (best buy, Amazon, etc) and with your logic, there should be malware.
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Supreme Court Allows App Store Monopoly Lawsuit Against Apple to Proceed [Updated]
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AMC makes AMC popcorn. Apple doesn't make those 3rd party apps.
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Where is the malware for PS4? There are multiple PS4 game stores (best buy, Amazon, etc) and with your logic, there should be malware.
AMC sources the kernels from a third party, then pops it.
Apple sources the apps from a third party and installs it.
cube is saying Apple has a monopoly on iOS apps which is a stupid argument for EU "throwing the book" at Apple (whatever that means). if he could argue Apple has a monopoly on phone apps in general, that would make sense in regards to the EU thing, but he can't argue that.
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Antitrust only applies to companies that have a monopoly in their respective market.
A couple of things spring to mind....first off alternative app stores may make security a selling point in precisely the same way Apples marketing department has. Secondly there's nothing stopping competing app stores hosting precisely the same content that Apple has already certified malware free but at a lower cut. Win Win for consumers.
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You have an operating system, you have first and 3rd party app stores active on that operating system. You're suggesting having an app store operating within another app store - I think I can guess why no one's pursued that idea before.
You brought the video game market into the debate wishing only to use walled garden examples similar in setup to iOS/App store. Ignoring the PC sector of that very market would be silly, saying it's not an apt comparison is even sillier.
If that's the case Microsoft is in trouble for not making PS4 games work on the XBox One and letting me buy digital content from Sony. And in the same way, Sony is in trouble for only letting me buy what they decide from their store and only let me play their games I can physically buy boxed from the store.
And Ford is in trouble because they only let me install and run certain apps on the media system.
And Google won't let me install Nintendo Switch games on their Android system.
And...
Wrong. Can just anyone develop their own 3rd Party app / game store to sell apps and games on Xbox, Playstation, or Nintendo systems? No? Ok, why not?
I mean, why don't Steam, GOG, Amazon, Epic game stores exist on Xbox, Playstation, or Nintendo games systems. What allows them to exist on Windows?
And you're the one that doesn't seem to recognize why that wall is allowed to exist in the first place or it's significance. Hence, why Apple is allowed to not allow 3rd party app stores.
This is why I have to make such an absurd App store in an App store comparison.
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This is 100% the right call in my opinion, as they were only allowing the lawsuit to be heard on the grounds that we DO have to buy everything from Apple. I don't ever see a charge from an app on my credit card, I get billed by Apple, and that is what they are getting at in this decision. Glad Kavanaugh went this way.
I can't see a possible way this wins in court, but it should be allowed to go to court.
I can't see a possible way this wins in court, but it should be allowed to go to court.
Yea - I'll have to read the dissenting opinions from the other four justices to see what their view or explanation for why they disagree. I mean, technically, yea, the App or game is being sold by that developer on the App store. But, as you point out - the bill only ever comes from Apple.
The walled gardens exist primarily to protect earnings. There's secondary benefits such as improved security that are trumped up my marketing departments, of course that's a service that could be supplied by a 3rd party.
Do you still wish to talk about the gaming sector? PC / Windows is a great example of an open (unwalled) platform with multiple secure electronic distribution channels demonstrably offering competition and in doing so good value for money.
Nice to see the SC had allowed the antitrust case to continue although in my judgement Apple will likely defend their position.
This is a bit disingenuous of an argument, as for any of those consoles you do not need to use the built-in store to buy your games.
You can go to dozens of different brick and motor re-sellers to buy your game.
While games have to be signed to work, and that's a different argument whether that should be required or not, you as a consumer of video games have the freedom to pick and chose which stores and 3rd party vendors you support and pay for your content.
The walled gardens legally exist because the courts have said if you don't protect your systems, platforms, or hardware - they are free game to use. This was Atari v Activision in the 1980's. So if Apple does not implement a lockout mechanism - a walled garden - anyone can program for, run any compatible OS, or use Apple's hardware in whatever manner the individual sees fit. So Apple, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Intel, AMD, Samsung, Qualcomm, etc, all (in the US) are legally allow to monopolize their own systems, platforms, and hardware whether you like it or not. They legally do not have to allow competition if they so desire. This is why, for example, a MS Surface Pro tablet (running an x86/x64 Intel CPU) won't natively run any other operating system besides Windows and why if Microsoft so desired - they can lock copies of Windows that will run on it to only allow software to install only from their own Windows App store. Why are they not locking it down to their own App store? I'd imagine because they want to sell the tablets on being able to run already existing desktop applications.
That's the reason why I've been harping on this with you. It's already been decided that Apple does not have to allow anyone else the option to setup their own App store on iOS.
What is a valid argument is whether the terms of having to deal with Apple to use their App Store are anti-competitive or unreasonable. But the argument that it is "anti-competitive or unreasonable" to flat out ban 3rd party app stores is not. It's settled, they can. End of story. Atari v Activision circa 1980's.
This is why Xbox, Playstation, Nintendo systems, and yes Apple's mobile devices do not have to allow Steam, GOG, Amazon, or Epic app or game stores to exist on their system and compete with their own.
Sure, it's unwalled at Microsoft's whim. You can point to it all you want. But, you're going to have to demonstrate and prove to a judge why the 1980's Atari v Activision precedence needs to be thrown out. Nintendo very much got whacked in the late 80's / early 90's for being anti-competitive with it's 3rd party developer agreements to use their platform. But that didn't result in them having to open up their "walled garden". So don't expect that "opening up" will be a required consequence should Apple lose it's upcoming case.
As mentioned, the SC did not comment on the merits of the case at all, they ruled the Plaintiff(s) had standing to sue Apple as they view the customers as direct victims, not indirect. Nothing else.
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Well... so following this line of logic - Can you develop your own Playstation game. Put it in a box and sell it to a brick and mortar store, bypassing Sony's license and 3rd party developer agreements?
No.
You need to talk to Sony and agree to their payment structure, distribution structure, and 3rd party developer agreements - before your game can run on their system or appear on brick and mortar store shelves.
While this is true. It's also true that Sony doesn't have to sell to brick and mortar stores (or online retailers either). The problem there is that those same retailers that Sony just snubbed can up and decided to not sell Sony's Playstation hardware itself. Which would, yea, very much cripple Sony. So this is why the PSN store prices can't be too competitive with the physical stores.
Apple has never had physical copies of Apps to sell on store shelves and I think you'd agree it'd be pretty stupid to do so. They do sell App Store giftcards, though. And those can usually be found on discount, from 5-20% off. So you could argue that retail store discounts for Apps exist. You just get some retailer to offer turn $80 US into $100 App Store credit. I don't understand how discounts on giftcards work - but that's what I do. I only ever buy discounted giftcards so depending on the deal I typically accept anything over a 15% discount. So I'm never paying full price for anything off the iOS App Store.
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Perhaps, but the service is based on your data; and why I said market is a better term than sell. Yes, they do not sell your data directly (which would be stupid because once someone has it there is no need to but services); but you and your data are still the product.
Quite frankly, I would not be surprised in they had agreement with other data aggregators to share data to build more valuable bundles.
I’m going to say Apple will most likely win, or maybe not lose the way some expect them to lose.
If you look at subscription apps, such as HBO and Hulu, their prices are the same on the app store and from them direct; so Apple is not artificially rasing the prices by restricting the supply of alternative distribution stores. If Apple was artificially raising the prices on the app store would be higher. As for apps, it's hard to do a direct comparison but app prices across platforms seem to fall into the same sub$5 range for many apps so there is no indication Apple is artificially raising prices there either.
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If the problem is being a "product", then with iOS, iOS users are also the product. Multiple times apple has said devs should pay the apple tax to get access to iOS customers. Same with the news/tv services apple has in the works.
I disagree. there is a big difference between collecting and marketing your user's demographics, searches, mail topics, etc. to companies so the can target advertising to the users and having a user base that buys your products products and is attractive to other companies that provide complementary products to the user base. One is about personal information, the other is about size and breadth of a customer base.
You need to go back and read my posts on this thread as you've been addressing points I wasn't making.
I've not been arguing the legalities of the walled garden position, I've been arguing the benefits of open competition in all platforms, which so far no one's made any sensible arguments against.
Whether they were to use alternatives or not, every single iOS user who downloads apps would benefit from open competition in the App Store market.
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Points at the unwalled operating system where consumers and business enjoy higher efficiencies through competition for their business from multiple reputable electronic distribution platforms.
Conversely iOS is walled at Apples whim, unwalling it would allow you to enjoy the benefits of competing app stores, win win for nearly everyone.
Not necessarily. Developers could wind up paying a fee, like Apple currently charges, for access to an app store, with potentially a much smaller market, plus a cut of the price; and there is no assurance a separate app store would structure its fees any differently than Apple does in the long run.
There is no indication app prices would go down so consumers would see no benefit.
Apple could refuse to issue a certificate for apps they have not verified, meaning developers would have to certify an app for each app store, adding to their cost. Apple could also implement, like in Mac OS, settings to prevent non=approved apps from running if the user wants a higher level of security. That would limit a developers market and the desirability of alternative stores.
The grass is not always greener.
Or Apple might not do any of those things and open competition would likely lead to the same benefits that it brings to almost every other market.
So how do you square the “benefits” with the rights businesses are provided? Besides as we found out back in the 80’s - opening the floodgates on the Atari VCS instead crashed the market. Even though the courts decision was correct; It was demonstrably bad for the market. The system was quickly saturated with titles many uninspired and of poor quality all hoping to cash in on the booming video game market. Had Atari maintained control or had some measure to control development things could have perhaps been better. But, instead they lost complete control. And the market evaporated in just one years time.
That said, the lost lawsuit was not the only factor contributing to the video game market crash - PCs were taking off and had better capabilities for video gaming so interest was moving there. But they were typically 5 to 10x more expensive and required technical skill to operate. The Atari by contrast was Plug and Play.
Point is it wasn't until Nintendo introduced their NES with a walled garden that the TV video game market was able to restart - as no retailer wanted to stock them. No one was buying TV video games or systems anymore as the market was toxic. This is why Nintendo's "seal of quality" was such a big deal.
Walled gardens not only exist to protect the legal rights of the manufacturer, but also to provide control and control of growth where needed. You may sneer at it and just say "Free market and unrestricted competition is always good, period, end of story." But that belies the reasons why the court allowed for these protections in the first place.
It could be that the protections need to be re-evaluated now that we're nearly a half-century down the road from that landmark decision of Atari v Activision. But I remain unconvinced that forcing things wide open for Xbox, Playstation, Nintendo systems, as well as Apple's market will be the unilaterally good thing you claim it to be. And I remain unconvinced that the courts will force them to open up.
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I agree.
I'm not sure I need to square anything beyond pointing to existing similar markets where the open model functions well to the benefit of most parties.
I'd certainly been favourite of taking the risk of market disruption over a model where we can be pretty confident every transaction is overpriced through a lack of in platform competition. I take your point about the situation with the video game industry in the early 80's, and I'd never say that it's impossible for that to repeat itself. However in my judgement given that the market's a lot more mature now and with huge numbers of new middle class consumers driving growth it makes a saturation related crash far less likely.
That’s because those companies are not charging the users the extra Apple tax. It upsets users when a company offloads pricing on its users. Ideally, very few large companies want you to go thru the Apple store to purchase their products
At least we agree that the benefits may or may not happen.
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I am not convinced apps are overpriced. There seems to be a race towards free or only a few dollars; rather than increasing prices over time. In addition, in cases where you can get an app from the app store (OS X) or directly from a developer the price is the same. In one case I saw it was less on the app store due to the developer removing functionality to comply with Apple's rules.
If they were overpriced on the app store we'd see developers charging a bit less to drive sales to their store rather than the app store.
What I think we are seeing tis the app stores 15% fee is probably close to what the overhead would be for a developer to maintain their own site and sales process. Competing app stores would probably charge the same simply because of the costs of maintaining the infrastructure and vetting apps are only really covered by paid apps so they need to chareg enough tyo cover the costs of hosting free apps.
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If they wanted to drive sales to their site they'd charge less there. They are simply charging what the market will bear and making a bit more selling direct but access to the Apple user base is worth a 15% cut for them; especially when it involves only collecting a check from Apple every quarter.
Not sure if “worth” is the right word here. Most brands generally don’t want to provide different payment experiences of one platform over another because at face value you want to provide a unified experience.
Forcing customers to pay the 15/30 transaction cost will only rub them the wrong way. See how cable companies offload RSN costs to subscribers