Tile CEO: 'We Welcome Competition From Apple, But We Think It Needs to Be Fair'

[Unregistered 4U]

With all of these recent complaints, I'm missing the part where it became accepted that Apple must provide third parties access to all the hardware and software capabilities within thier devices? I could be wrong, but neither the hardware or software is open source, so what gives?

I think when you combine:

a. Folks that don’t like Apple, don’t like the fact that they’re successful and want to see them ‘defeated’… with
b. Folks that want to make money from Apple’s infrastructure (built up over 20 years, starting with the iPod) without having to pay for 20 years of R&D and product knowledge,

You end up with the illogical idea that anyone should be able to use Apple’s systems in whatever way they deem fit especially if it ends up being worse off for Apple

 

[Altivec88]

So Apple thinks of a better way to track by spending billions designing and implementing the U1 and instead of recouping their money, they need to give the tech away. What motivation is Apple supposed to have to come up with new ideas? This entitlment is getting out of hand.

Why don't all these developers open up their tech and software to anyone that wants to use it. I should be able to develop an app using Tile's infrastructure for free and they should spend their money helping me to do it. Because that's fair, right?

 

[LordVic]

It makes me wonder if this would all go away if Apple changed it to 15% for everyone.

Or would everyone start demanding 10% ?

I think there's a reasonability that can be met that won't get people frustrated.

from a payment processor point of view, not a single one generally takes more than 1-5% for their fees. Mastercard and VISA are the most popular and still take 2-3% at point of sale.

I don't think anyone would be angry at Apple for a moderate transaction fee to cover payment processing and other small expenses related. it would still be profitable for Apple.

what people get frustrated with is 30%. that's a lot. especially when it's enough to eliminate any profit entirely from the app or service in question. And when you're then competing against apple directly when they don't pay the 30% it's absolutely an uneven playing field that Apple has created to limit the reachability and profitability of competing products


Looking at Spotify as an example. for every single user who subscribed through the App Store, Spotify must give Apple 30% of that. (I think it's 15% after first year). that means from your 9.99 subscription, $3 goes to Apple's revenues and only 6.99 goes to Spotify.

Apple comes in years later and puts their competing product at 9.99. So now Apple receives 9.99 revenues for their product, and Spotify only receives 6.99. that is anti-comeptitive abuse of their monopolistic position as the only app store allowed on iOS

there are numerous ways this could be easily mitigated to not appear anti-trust or monopolistic. Even with leaving the App store monopoly intact. Apple could remove all fees related to products it directly competes against. it can grossly even just reduce them to normal "payment processor" fees of 5ish%

but the idea that apple has done absolutely nothing wrong and isn't acting in an uncompetitive manner has no basis in reality.

 

[G5isAlive]

Epic is wrong.... mostly


their behaviour is pretty ****** and this is a case of crappy company that has a point, behaving like **** because they're dealing with another company that has crappy behaviour

just because Epic themselves are a ****** company doesn't invalidate all the points they're making

Agreed. Their legal points are not invalidated because the are a ****** company. Their legal points are invalid because of the specifics concerning the case, namely in this situation Apple is not acting as a monopoly. Epic had choice. And they chose to sign Apple's agreement. Then violated it.

The question is, when they lose this case, will they still have won their petty war by getting others to take up the battle cry?

I fear we will all lose something if the court of publicity takes away our own choice to be in a more secure environment and makes Apple just another Android.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

You don’t have absolute power over your iPhone. You’re tied to Apple’s eco system. You can only download apps from their AppStore and you have to abide by all their rules. You don’t own that product, it owns you.

APPLE has absolute power over the iPhone they made, just like I have absolute power over the clay pot I made 20 years ago. I MIGHT let you use my clay pot for free, but chances are I’m going to charge you $50 per day. Don’t like it? Don’t use my clay pot.

 

[innovationwho]

Why aren’t they calling out Chipolo, or even T-Mobile?

 

[Phone Junky]

Next week, when they lose their phone, “WHY DOESN’T ‘FIND MY’ WORK? Apple claims it can help you track your phone but I’m not seeing it!!”

I have a paranoid friend that would always turn off everything, even when they didn’t understand what it did, then wondered why some feature didn’t work. “WHY DOESN’T THE MAP WORK ANYMORE?” You turned off location services, remember? “THEY NEED MY LOCATION FOR THE MAP?”

sigh…… yes.

I agree. They wanted to know how to opt out, I showed them. I didn't even get a thank you. Of course they were just trying to complain once more about Apple and thought not being able to opt their iPhone out of the tracking network was another way to do so.

 

[haydn!]

It makes me wonder if this would all go away if Apple changed it to 15% for everyone.

Or would everyone start demanding 10% ?

No, I don't think that would resolve it. Nor do I think the right solution will be so simple.

I think there does need to be a better differentiation between up-front app purchase payments and in-app purchases. Considering the first is more reliant on Apple's infrastructure, I don't see the current fee being too un-reasonable in principle. For in-app purchases however, the fees should be more nominal - similar to a payment processing fee, something like 5% etc - or Apple should allow developers to choose their preferred payment method. I don't get the justification for forcing Apple Pay on developers/consumers in that particular context.

However, this does run the risk of encouraging developers to move away from up front costs in favour of in-app subscriptions/purchases. So Apple may need to balance this out with lower up-front fees as well and/or increase the developer fee. The App Store is essentially printing money right now, so Apple can afford the hit here - even if the shareholders aren't too happy in the short term.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

I can see where they are coming from. But they have the entire Android market at their disposal. Why can’t they hook up with Google or Samsung and create a decent tracker for the other 71%.

If their tracker was good, like, in and of itself, service and all, Samsung would have been afraid to enter the market on Android that Tile controlled. They would probably have preferred working out a licensing deal. In reality, Samsung looked at the market, saw Tile and thought, “Yeah, we can beat that, easy.” And yet another company writes their own ending story by failing to write their own success story.

 

[Corsig]

So Apple can spend millions on R&D to make the U1 chip and tile wants for reign or else cry foul?

 

[MNGR]

So Apple thinks of a better way to track by spending billions designing and implementing the U1 and instead of recouping their money, they need to give the tech away. What motivation is Apple supposed to have to come up with new ideas? This entitlment is getting out of hand.

Why don't all these developers open up their tech and software to anyone that wants to use it. I should be able to develop an app using Tile's infrastructure for free and they should spend their money helping me to do it. Because that's fair, right?

Just like some countries think they should have IP for free.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

My fear if I were coming to market with a new product that ties into the apple ecosystem. is when is Apple going to come out and undercut me and render my product unable to compete due to being able to leverage the Apple platform.

History shows that the greater fear is when some OTHER company is going to undercut you. Apple has obviated some companies in the past, but the vast majority of companies that don’t make it are due to Amazon or some large development house bringing their idea to fruition before they are able to (or… you know, just poor business sense )

Anyone who’s main focus is Apple is taking their eye off of 99% of the folks most likely to actually render their business dead.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Resulting in ONLY Airtags available for IOS devices.

Well, while they’re not shipping yet, more than AirTags already exists. Chipolo. And, there’s likely more coming.

 

[LordVic]

History shows that the greater fear is when some OTHER company is going to undercut you. Apple has obviated some companies in the past, but the vast majority of companies that don’t make it are due to Amazon or some large development house bringing their idea to fruition before they are able to (or… you know, just poor business sense )

Anyone who’s main focus is Apple is taking their eye off of 99% of the folks most likely to actually render their business dead.

see, I can compete with another person releasing parity product if we're both participating in the same equivelant marketplace.

from that perspective, when Apple isn't a player, we see more even and robust competition.


it's once Apple decides it's a market they want to participate in do we often see this happen where others just can't compete because Apple can control revenue streams of their competition to a limited degree.

you're not wrong that it shouldn't be the #1 concern, but it SHOULD be a concern. it's a risk anyone developing in Apple's ecosystem has to be consciously aware of. If I were developing a new platform or service, I can tell you, I wouldn't be targeting Apple as my only source. I'd be diversifying as much away from them as possible to NOT rely on Apple's "Good faith" to not use their size, power and ecosystem to eliminate me as competition.

 

[dguisinger]

I think when you combine:

a. Folks that don’t like Apple, don’t like the fact that they’re successful and want to see them ‘defeated’… with
b. Folks that want to make money from Apple’s infrastructure (built up over 20 years, starting with the iPod) without having to pay for 20 years of R&D and product knowledge,

You end up with the illogical idea that anyone should be able to use Apple’s systems in whatever way they deem fit especially if it ends up being worse off for Apple

My phone is my phone, letting other developers make things for my phone isn't "making money off Apple's infrastructure", especially if they aren't using any of Apple's hosted services to do it. Which, I may remind you, most of these guys are saying they don't want to do.

 

[Xak444]

No one is stopping you from creating your own mobile phone and OS.

The problem these companies have is making one accessory should not be a business. You can just do one thing poorly and expect to be in business forever.

 

[Kilibee]

Well, I'm sure Apple is not surprised by Tile's actions at all. They carefully worked this out from any legal angle.

The release of the FindMe APIs a couple of weeks ago had exactly the reason to document that they specifically are opening these features to 3rd party competitors under FRAND terms, and allowing 3rd parties to actually release products. Clearly they had to do this – and I'm 100% certain that Tile was asked to join as well, but refused.

However, the problem for Tile is that they rely on opening a revenue stream for their „services“. This model will not fly because the competition will have better features in the FindMy framework, and its free to use.

So their services are now dead in the water on iOS, and they would have to compete based on physical features like i.e. better form factors and price, where competition is fierce.

I really liked Tile in the beginning, but then they enforced using their services, then their services sucked, and finally they never got the critical mass to be truly useful. So now they simply face competition from Apple + Others that kills their old business model. Obviously, this sucks, but there is not guarantee to keep your business model intact.

Apple has redefined the sector by launching this new framework, it has specifically invited competition, so Tile could either adapt or go the way of the Dodo.

 

[fncd]

Let me get this straight - The majority of opinions seem to show:

Tile was fine - until Apple made a product - and now Tile is the enemy.

Intel was amazing, best thing ever "RIP PPC" - until Apple made the M1 - and now Intel is garbage, worst product on the market.

Epic was fine - until they decided that they didn't want to pay Apple 30% of their revenue - Now Epic can go to hell (even though a ton of games / movie studios use their products to create the entertainment that most people here consume).

Spotify was a wonderful streaming service - until Apple Music came along and Spotify cried foul - Now Spotify is the worst thing out there.

I could go on an on with examples from this forum. I can't wait to see what the next product that gets ditched by the Apple Beloved is.

 

[HacKage]

All of these companies claiming that Apple is being unfair - turn the argument on it's head. So Apple are NOT allowed to create a piece of hardware that works with their platform and OS, just BECAUSE they own the platform and OS, in case that might give them an unfair advantage over others? That position would be incredibly unfair to Apple. Apple can invest huge amounts of money to create the phone and it's OS, but they're NOT allowed to leverage that to make other items, such as watches, headphones, glasses etc that work with the eco-system. Just because that might be unfair to someone else?

For example, do you see Bowers & Wilkins, Bose, Sony, Bang, or any of the myriad other headphone manufacturers whining? No. Because they compete on features and value for money. All Apple's wearable audio products feature incredibly easy pairing that other manufacturers cannot offer because that part of the system is closed to them. Unfair advantage to Apple? It's certainly an advantage. But it is most definitely not unfair. They built the damned system. But it's just a part of the functionality. There are plenty of other reasons for the consumer to favour, say, B&W over Beats, regardless of the nifty pairing. And so those companies still have a market.

If Tile focused on innovating and added features that might make people want to purchase their products, then they would do well. The U1 capabilities are not everything. Just a part of the tracking solution.

Stop whining Tile. Go do something positive and prove everyone on here that they're wrong, and that you do have a survivable business model.

Is it not more like Apple bringing out earphones that used a specific wireless protocol, and wouldn't allow other companies to also use the same functionality if they also wanted to use their own, additional connection methods? In your scenario, you are talking about how an Apple product interacts with another Apple product through Bluetooth, which is the protocol in question. Bluetooth is open to all manufacturers if they desire, and Apple can't restrict other brand of headphones from connecting to Apple devices through Bluetooth.

The U1 chip is being withheld by Apple from Tile who presumably don't want all their eggs in one basket. Apple are allowing other companies to access the U1 chip for full functionality, but not tile who presumably want to use it alongside other methods. If Apple allowed Tile access to the U1 through licensing, while also allowing them to have other connection methods then there would be no talk of things being unfair.

It reads that Apple wants Tile to get rid of the way they've been working for 8 years in order to be allowed access to the U1 that other, new to the market companies have access to. That is giving other companies an unfair advantage.

 

[Xak444]

see, I can compete with another person releasing parity product if we're both participating in the same equivelant marketplace.

from that perspective, when Apple isn't a player, we see more even and robust competition.


it's once Apple decides it's a market they want to participate in do we often see this happen where others just can't compete because Apple can control revenue streams of their competition to a limited degree.

you're not wrong that it shouldn't be the #1 concern, but it SHOULD be a concern. it's a risk anyone developing in Apple's ecosystem has to be consciously aware of. If I were developing a new platform or service, I can tell you, I wouldn't be targeting Apple as my only source. I'd be diversifying as much away from them as possible to NOT rely on Apple's "Good faith" to not use their size, power and ecosystem to eliminate me as competition.

Do we tho. Before Apple decided to make airtags. How many companies were making them. Your choice was tile or nothing until Apple. And I used tiles they’re a joke. They always have been. And anyone that pays a subscription for something that doesn’t get better is a sucker.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

especially when it's enough to eliminate any profit entirely from the app or service in question.

If 30% is enough to eliminate profit, then there are other more fundamental issues with the business. They’re not charging enough, they’ve hired too many people, they’re paying the people too much, they’ve ramped up cloud costs faster than new customers are joining, the new customers are not enthused so not telling other users about the service, the new customers are actively telling users NOT to use the service, etc.

For any company making less than 1 million, it’s only 15%… and again if 15% is enough to eliminate profit, the FIRST place to look is how you’re running your business. If the expectation is that revenue=profit, then they should hire a business planner.

 

[JetLaw]

Translation: “We’re pissed that Apple disrupted our monopoly so now we’re gonna get the FTC to hurt them.”

 

[Xak444]

Let me get this straight - The majority of opinions seem to show:

Tile was fine - until Apple made a product - and now Tile is the enemy.

Intel was amazing, best thing ever "RIP PPC" - until Apple made the M1 - and now Intel is garbage, worst product on the market.

Epic was fine - until they decided that they didn't want to pay Apple 30% of their revenue - Now Epic can go to hell (even though a ton of games / movie studios use their products to create the entertainment that most people here consume).

Spotify was a wonderful streaming service - until Apple Music came along and Spotify cried foul - Now Spotify is the worst thing out there.

I could go on an on with examples from this forum. I can't wait to see what the next product that gets ditched by the Apple Beloved is.

I really beg to differ. I really don’t think tile was good before Apple. I really don’t think they’ve ever made a good product.

honestly I feel the same about intel. Only their super high end stuff was really any good. And I wouldn’t say it was worth the price.

Epic is their own problem. I think their game has really slipped since their fight with Apple updates just seemed recycled. Plus there business model is to take money from children to make money

 

[msp3]

So the market leader wants corrupt politicians (redundant) to shut down the competition so they stay market leader forever and approach monopoly. Just like Spotify! Don’t give these crooks a single dime I hope Tile goes out of business

 

[Xak444]

Well, I'm sure Apple is not surprised by Tile's actions at all. They carefully worked this out from any legal angle.

The release of the FindMe APIs a couple of weeks ago had exactly the reason to document that they specifically are opening these features to 3rd party competitors under FRAND terms, and allowing 3rd parties to actually release products. Clearly they had to do this – and I'm 100% certain that Tile was asked to join as well, but refused.

However, the problem for Tile is that they rely on opening a revenue stream for their „services“. This model will not fly because the competition will have better features in the FindMy framework, and its free to use.

So their services are now dead in the water on iOS, and they would have to compete based on physical features like i.e. better form factors and price, where competition is fierce.

I really liked Tile in the beginning, but then they enforced using their services, then their services sucked, and finally they never got the critical mass to be truly useful. So now they simply face competition from Apple + Others that kills their old business model. Obviously, this sucks, but there is not guarantee to keep your business model intact.

Apple has redefined the sector by launching this new framework, it has specifically invited competition, so Tile could either adapt or go the way of the Dodo.

I think the opening find my was more of a peace offering than a oh were going to get in trouble.