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U.S. Supreme Court to Review Whether Lawsuit Accusing Apple of App Store Monopoly Should Proceed

firewood said:
If such a thing exists, exactly what laws makes a vertical monopoly illegal for any company that does not even have a majority of horizontal market share? (of either mobile apps downloads or smartphones unit sales)
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I said it is a vertical monopoly, whether it is illegal is for the court to decide.
 
While it can be nice to be able to install apps from third party sources, this will also open the door for piracy. Android is a great example of this. I think this would work against developers and this means also against the users. The only real problem with having only one App Store are certain weird Apple guidelines, that are preventing certain types of apps to be available (for example emulators).
 
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I can install OS X apps outside the App Store. So iOS should do the same. Users should be allowed to, even if it's at their own risk.
 
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[AUT] Thomas said:
Most people here don't understand what monopoly actually means.
You don't need to be the only player, it's enough to have sufficient market share. Otherwise google wouldn't have been subject to regulation in the past. Everyone can choose a different search engine if they want to. However, we are not only talking about users, but also the other side. In case of google: the websites. If your business isn't found using google, what happens? Loss of revenue.

This is not about iPhone users, but developers!
If that's not clear enough: as a dev you are not free to choose the plattform. If you don't have an App on the Play Store and the App-Store your app revenues will be ZERO.
Although, for Android you can upload the APK to your website and provide the download link upon payment if google decides to kick you out.
How do you that for iPhones? XCode? Only with open source. Now tell me again how Apple does not qualify as monopolist.

The App-Store is the only way devs can reach customers. However, Apple is exercising a policy on the App Store where it won't publish Apps of similar behaviour or for whatever other arbitrary reason (see Steam). In it's current state the App-Store is not a capitalistic market place, but Apples app-selection. Also, when you re-install you phone, your purchased App my no longer be available as Apple removed it from the App-Store.

As more plattforms implement this store concept it requires a legal framework. Especially when it comes to change of Terms & Conditions. New T&C can't be forced upon customers that have made a purchase without the possiblity of a refund (i.e. 100% in the first year, 50% in the 2nd and 25% in the 3rd year). Currently, this "here, have our new T&Cs! If you don't like them you may quit and lose all your paid apps." is a bad joke.
Also a store provider must not delete any purchased app without due notice to make a local backup.
A store provider must publish all apps if they fullfill plattform requirements & pass QC and security checks.
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Market share does not determine an illegal monopoly. You could have 95% of the market and be fine. The law prevents you from using that market share to harm competitors. This is where Microsoft ran into trouble with IE. While you could install other browsers, at that time IE was integrated with the OS and could not be removed. The court saw that as Microsoft using its market share to make sure IE was installed on all PCs and people would probably just use what came out of the box.

This argument cannot be used for Apple, as the app store does not damage the competition in any way. Now, if Apple owned 95% of the iPhone market, and created a store for Android that sold the same apps for less (a loss leader), that would be anti competitive behavior as it would be designed to put the other stores out of business.
 
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As much as I dislike Apple's hardware, I actually don't mind the walled garden. The quality of software on both the IOS and Mac OS app stores is very high. I've moved over to Android and the quality of apps is definitely lower, and don't get me started on the Microsoft app store. So for those battling against all this, be careful what you wish for....
 
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[AUT] Thomas said:
Most people here don't understand what monopoly actually means.

This is not about iPhone users, but developers!
If that's not clear enough: as a dev you are not free to choose the plattform. If you don't have an App on the Play Store and the App-Store your app revenues will be ZERO.
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Here's the thing: Apple created this shiny little phone. They're under no obligation to support third party code on their devices. But they decided to give everyone the privilege to create third party code to run on their plattform. It's not your right and you're not forced to participate, and as such, you're subject to whatever conditions you're required to comply in order to have your code on their property. Don't agree with them? go elsewhere, free will.
 
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neutralguy said:
Somehow that argument didn't work in favor of Microsoft..if you didn't like internet explorer, you didn't have to buy a Windows desktop.
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Monopoly:

windows_share_july_2014.png


Not a monopoly:

US-Smartphone-OS-market-share-Aug-2014-comscore.png


:rolleyes:
 
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OLSinFLA said:
This argument cannot be used for Apple, as the app store does not damage the competition in any way.
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If you buy an app on the iOS Appstore, you can only install it in iOS.

If you buy an app on a Amazon appstore, you can install it on any Android fork, so you would likely not have to repurchase your apps if it was also available for iOS, opening up the smartphone market.
 
BoulderAdonis said:
Monopoly:

windows_share_july_2014.png


Not a monopoly:

US-Smartphone-OS-market-share-Aug-2014-comscore.png


:rolleyes:
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But there is a choice involved. People are free to get a Mac. True monopoly is when we discuss ISPs or Cable providers.
[doublepost=1529340277][/doublepost]
cube said:
If you buy an app on the iOS Appstore, you can only install it in iOS.

If you buy an app on a Amazon appstore, you can install it on any Android fork, so you would likely not have to repurchase your apps if it was also available for iOS, opening up the smartphone market.
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How is that any different between Windows vs macOS apps? Or PS4 vs Xbox games? If I get a program on Windows, I would usually need to rebuy it for macOS.
 
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xWhiplash said:
How is that any different between Windows vs macOS apps? Or PS4 vs Xbox games? If I get a program on Windows, I would usually need to rebuy it for macOS.
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If you buy a game on Steam, you can install it on Mac, Windows, or Linux (assuming a port exists).
 
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neutralguy said:
Somehow that argument didn't work in favor of Microsoft..if you didn't like internet explorer, you didn't have to buy a Windows desktop.
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It's simple. Microsoft owned, and owns, the desktop market. They are a monopoly on the desktop. They had 90% percent of the market. Apple has about 15% of the mobile market.
 
I'm suing Toyota for not selling me a Honda!

I get their not identically the same thing, but at the heart of it. It's a store that should be able to decide what can be sold and how it's sold. Not a monopoly when there are more devices out there with the Google Play Store then there are with the App Store.
 
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Michael Goff said:
It's simple. Microsoft owned, and owns, the desktop market. They are a monopoly on the desktop. They had 90% percent of the market. Apple has about 15% of the mobile market.
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And maybe a large part of the other 85% do not switch to iOS because they would have to repurchase their apps.
 
xWhiplash said:
But there is a choice involved. People are free to get a Mac. True monopoly is when we discuss ISPs or Cable providers.
[doublepost=1529340277][/doublepost]

How is that any different between Windows vs macOS apps? Or PS4 vs Xbox games? If I get a program on Windows, I would usually need to rebuy it for macOS.
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Except Microsoft was said, by the court, to be a monopoly.
 
This is stupid. For starters you can download certain apps from the net for business.

And second, after all the crap on the news regarding security/privacy, I trust Apple and what they allow in their closed atmosphere
 
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