U.S. House Committee Wants Tim Cook to Testify in App Store Antitrust Probe in July

Hopefully Apple is forced to let users on iOS and iPad OS decide what the default browser or mail app should be.

I do not care one way or another if Apple decides to allow this. I am completely against Congress or the courts mandating it. The problem that so many people on here have is defining the market incorrectly. As great as iOS is, the market is not the iOS market, it is the mobile phone market. In that market, Apple does not have anything close to a monopoly.

No developer is forced to compete with Apple on its platform, they choose to do so. If they are unable to make money doing so, they should leave the platform. They stay because, despite Apple's rules, it is still profitable and/or the customers they acquire on the platform are profitable.
 
gogo .. distribute ipa freeely
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I do not care one way or another if Apple decides to allow this. I am completely against Congress or the courts mandating it. The problem that so many people on here have is defining the market incorrectly. As great as iOS is, the market is not the iOS market, it is the mobile phone market. In that market, Apple does not have anything close to a monopoly.

No developer is forced to compete with Apple on its platform, they choose to do so. If they are unable to make money doing so, they should leave the platform. They stay because, despite Apple's rules, it is still profitable and/or the customers they acquire on the platform are profitable.
a bit wrong, apple is close system , microsoft have fail, google have fail. As developer , you will find some customer dont want their idea seen by apple. No need approval in enterprise and no need limit. Apple just handle warranty in apple store.
 
pretty lame dude, that is because the app name is mail and you searched for mail. Try a few others 1) spreadsheets, word processors, 3) time management 4) basically anything where the apple app name is not the search term

With respect though it is Apple's devices and Apple's store. In other words it is their ecosystem and as such they are in my view perfectly entitled to have their own apps rank top in searches. if anyone does not like it then either create their own ecosystem or use another one such as Google etc.
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To be fair Spotify still needs to pay the artists so Apple also getting a chunk of that revenue as well definitely affects their bottom line.

No, not really. It just means that Spotify have to share a tiny portion of their profits that are made as a result of people subscribing from within the Apple store. Most people probably do not go down that route I would bet. I certainly did not.
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Anti-competitive policies ultimately hurt the consumer, remember that next time you defend a giant corporation. Competition drives innovation, and preventing competition (i.e., closing your platform so that there’s only one App Store, then promoting your own apps above others in the App Store) is harmful to consumers.

Even us iOS users would benefit from increased competition from third party apps. It would force Apple to innovate.

Imagine how much better Siri could be if people on iPhone had the option to set google assistant as their default voice assistant. Applewood feel immense pressure and might have immensely improved Siri

I disagree with you because whilst you are technically correct about completion happening when there are more players it does not work like that in the real world. In the real world what happens to drive competition is not how many players there are but how they tackle problems and how they move forward. If I understand it correctly you are saying that Apple competitor should be given free ride. They should basically have Appel hand over a lot of their profits to Google or Samsung or Spotify etc simply because Apple is successful.

That is akin to you working hard at work and being successful only to have me demand that you give me lots of your pay cheque because I am not as successful as you are at work.
I do not see that catching on or being popular.
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This concerns none of that and is not seen as an issue by either side (well if Spotify wins then they will go for the default apps setting next)
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Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo are playing close attention to this. Cause if Apple falls to this then why not go for the consoles as well. EA will lead that charge.

Personally I do not see Apple losing because as another poster has said Apple have a monopoly but not an illegal one.You can not make such things as app stores illegal to own by companies whether they are Apple or Google etc.
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So should Apple allow apps to use their own payment gateways in app through a webview? Apple prohibits buttons or links to any other external ways to pay.
No offence but you missed the point. The point is that if I want to subscribe to Spotify I can either go through IOS and that would give Apple a cut of the revenue generated as a result or I can not go through IOS and I can simply go straight to Spotify and thus Apple get 0% of the revenue generated.
Users have an option and that therefore does not back up Spotify's claims I am afraid.
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This is a straw man argument. A shop is not a shop if it has no goods in it. Apple needs the goods as much as the goods need a shop. I think Microsoft took a risk building a platform and no one was interested in selling anything in there, emphasising that the goods are way more important than the shop.

When you go shopping are you doing it to wonder at the architecture or to buy goods?

And when you go shopping, do you anticipate having to buy everything in the same shop?

If you’re in any ordinary shop and they only promote their own or only display their own wares would you be satisfied?

With respect you make it sound as though Apple are putting a gun to our heads and forcing us to use their apps and services and only theirs. People have something called free will and as such are free to either use Apple apps and services or not. When I subscribed to Spotify I simply went straight to their website and ignored IOS completely. problem solved!
Sometimes the problem only exists inside people's heads.
 
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in-app links to non-Apple payment systems, policies surrounding setting non-Apple apps as default.

Those parts I agree with and Apple should be forced to change

I disagree because as a consumer I am free too simply not use IOS to subscribe to Spotify and you know what I did? I went straight to Spotify and hey presto! No problem!
People have free will and in my view Spotify simply want free ride.
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gogo .. distribute ipa freeely
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a bit wrong, apple is close system , microsoft have fail, google have fail. As developer , you will find some customer dont want their idea seen by apple. No need approval in enterprise and no need limit. Apple just handle warranty in apple store.

It is not wrong, it is right actually. A developer is not and I repeat NOT forced to put their apps on App Store, Google and other stores are very successful and whilst they are not as successful as Apple in terms of profits they are still successful. A person has free will, why do so many of you act as though apple are putting gun to our heads?
 
I disagree because as a consumer I am free too simply not use IOS to subscribe to Spotify and you know what I did? I went straight to Spotify and hey presto! No problem!
People have free will and in my view Spotify simply want free ride.
every customer want to rid 30 percent sin tax in the end something game fornight come back to play store.
 
pretty lame dude, that is because the app name is mail and you searched for mail. Try a few others 1) spreadsheets, word processors, 3) time management 4) basically anything where the apple app name is not the search term

That's just crazy. If I buy an Apple device I expect all Apple software to have prominence. If Apple makes an anti-smoking app I expect it to be clearly listed before any 3rd party options. Paying $99 for a developer licence does not make your software better than Apple's and it's crazy to think it is.

I don't want there to be change that someone thinks some 3rd party app is an official app.

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And when you go shopping, do you anticipate having to buy everything in the same shop?
For high end stuff, yeah.

If you’re in any ordinary shop and they only promote their own or only display their own wares would you be satisfied?

You mean like Archer Farms, Great Value and Amazon Basic? Yeah, I expect the store brands to get priority display over other brands. I expect other brands to pay a premium to get access to high profile locations. If you fall between those two than be thankful you have shelf space.[/QUOTE]
 
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I don’t get all these anti-trust issues. it’s an apple device, of course apple-backed app are prioritised. it wouldn’t be too hard to scroll a little bit down to the next search result. smh instead of the US government focusing on a more pressing issue, they chose to focus on this a little bit more
 
Spotify steals from artists - they report incorrect streaming data plus they pay a lower rate to artists that Apple Music - they are a bunch of greedy whiners. You don't need to pay for a subscription to spoify through the App Store.
 
Anti-competitive policies ultimately hurt the consumer, remember that next time you defend a giant corporation.

No. Sometimes practices that limit some types of competition benefit the consumer. For example, limiting fraudulent apps limits competition, but benefits the consumer. Making it more difficult to steal apps (by requiring that all apps be distributed through the App Store benefits developers, in turn benefiting consumers.

Competition drives innovation, and preventing competition (i.e., closing your platform so that there’s only one App Store, then promoting your own apps above others in the App Store) is harmful to consumers.

Sometimes. Sometimes competition prevents innovation by driving prices so low that an innovator can never recover the costs of innovation. That is exactly the reason for patents and copyright. Given that there is another player in the market (Android) with fewer restrictions, Apple has to continually improve their platform to remain competitive. However, one difference they provide is the restricted, well integrated platform. You may not like it, others do. Having that option is great for the market.

Even us iOS users would benefit from increased competition from third party apps. It would force Apple to innovate.

Actually, in many cases it would mean that things were left with ****** “good enough options”, instead of really well integrated privacy-respecting products. Apple Maps is one example. Were they not the restricted option for a long time, Apple would never have had enough users of their service to bother fixing it.

Imagine how much better Siri could be if people on iPhone had the option to set google assistant as their default voice assistant. Applewood feel immense pressure and might have immensely improved Siri

Not likely. Apple feels pressure to improve Siri, simply because Android exists. That is why they hired John Giannandrea. Had people switched their default to Google assistant, it is very possible that so many users would have switched that it would never make sense for them to actually build a higher quality competitor.

Your mistake, like that of so many others, is thinking that the only kind of competition is head to head on the same platform, whereas in reality, one of the most interesting areas of competition between the two companies is over the choices they made and provide for their customer. Android users have a less restricted environment at the expense of other features (like security and integration).

If you do not like the mix Apple offers, you are free to switch. However, eliminating that choice for those of us who want it does not improve things, it just makes the world less rich.
 
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Anti-competitive policies ultimately hurt the consumer, remember that next time you defend a giant corporation. Competition drives innovation, and preventing competition (i.e., closing your platform so that there’s only one App Store, then promoting your own apps above others in the App Store) is harmful to consumers.

Even us iOS users would benefit from increased competition from third party apps. It would force Apple to innovate.

Imagine how much better Siri could be if people on iPhone had the option to set google assistant as their default voice assistant. Applewood feel immense pressure and might have immensely improved Siri

What's stopping those who think Siri isn't up to scratch from buying an Android phone?
 
What's stopping those who think Siri isn't up to scratch from buying an Android phone?
You can definitely be in the “if you don’t like it, leave” camp, but I challenge you to imagine how much better the iPhone experience could be if people could choose to use Google Assistant (only using this as an example). It’s far more accurate, it’s far quicker. It would force Apple to improve Siri in order to compete.

Competition fuels innovation.

Right now folks don’t have the choice to replace Siri on iPhone, so there’s no app developers / companies building a better voice assistant, and Apple has allowed Siri to remain stagnant.

Imagine how much nicer the iPhone could be if developers were given a real shot to improve on the built-in apps.
 
You can definitely be in the “if you don’t like it, leave” camp, but I challenge you to imagine how much better the iPhone experience could be if people could choose to use Google Assistant (only using this as an example). It’s far more accurate, it’s far quicker. It would force Apple to improve Siri in order to compete.
Why can't people use google assistant?
Competition fuels innovation.
But not government intervention.
Right now folks don’t have the choice to replace Siri on iPhone, so there’s no app developers / companies building a better voice assistant, and Apple has allowed Siri to remain stagnant.
Maybe folks shouldn't be allowed to replace SIRI? How much latitude do you have on your operating system for your Samsung or LG TV?

Imagine how much nicer the iPhone could be if developers were given a real shot to improve on the built-in apps.
What is stopping any developer from developing a killer app today?
 
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