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Elizabeth Warren apparently knows very little about Apple; she's making a random and meaningless recommendation based in ignorance. Her rationale for breaking

Elizabeth Warren apparently knows very little about Apple; she's making a random and meaningless recommendation based in ignorance. Her rationale for breaking up Apple is "you’ve got to break it apart from their App Store. It’s got to be one or the other. Either they run the platform or they play in the store." But Apple mostly doesn't "play in the store." Aside from Final Cut and Logic Pro, they sell virtually no products in the app store. All the apps that Apple sells combined together amount to a tiny fraction of one percent of Apple's revenues. It's probably not even one-tenth of one percent. Apple doesn't care at all about this revenue. I'm not sure why Elizabeth Warren cares about it. They could spin their apps off into a separate company, like they did with Claris years ago, but I doubt they'd even bother; they'd either just kill the products or, more likely, give them away for free. (Unless Warren thinks Apple shouldn't be able to provide free software to users, in which case she should really stop while she's not too far behind.)

bitcurious 8y ago
>All the apps that Apple sells... I imagine from the point of view of Elizabeth Warren the problem is all of the apps that Apple doesn't sell - a maps app the integrates as tightly as Apple Maps. A browser that doesn't use Safari as its backend. A messaging app that can read SMS and replace Messages.
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  >A messaging app that can read SMS and replace Messages... And now we've hit on the essential flaw in Warren's "break them up!" soundbite based policy. Her ideas do NOTHING to address the real problem, a lack of data privacy. If you tell apple they have to let people make apps that can access things like sms, boom, all of the users lose control of that data. The App developer takes it, and now it can go anywhere. It'd actually be worse than what we have now. Here's the really sad part about all of this: A law to make the sharing of data between companies explicitly illegal is actually EASIER to implement than the whole "break 'em up!" strategy. So you have to ask yourself, "Why won't they just make it illegal to share data?" And when you start brainstorming potential answers to that question, it can be a bit unsettling. It makes me think we need such a law even more.
  - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
    That is a completely independent problem. Moreover, the privacy issue isn't solved by prohibiting what applications can do, it's solved by giving the user control over them. If a flashlight app wants to access your SMS messages, you should be able to say "no" and still use it as a flashlight. But if an actual messaging app wants to do that for actual messaging purposes, you should still be able to say "yes" and use that app instead of Apple's.
    - mikhailt 8y ago
      Unfortunately, that also won't solve anything. Let's say that I installed Telechat (fake chat app) and it asked for SMS, well yea, I'm going to approve it because it is a chat app. Okay, how does that prevent Telechat from collecting my data and selling it? I understand what you're trying to say but it is not solved by using app policies (controlling which piece of data they can access) because such policies does not prevent said apps from violating your privacy. That isn't to say that such app policies shouldn't be a thing, it's a great tool and limits the potential damage but it has nothing to do with privacy.
      - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
        > Unfortunately, that also won't solve anything. It solves the flashlight app accessing your SMS messages. > Let's say that I installed Telechat (fake chat app) and it asked for SMS, well yea, I'm going to approve it because it is a chat app. But then that's a different problem. It's no longer the app having permissions it shouldn't, it's the user explicitly choosing to trust a malicious app. The solution to that is to have a third party service to verify that apps aren't doing anything malicious. That is nominally what Apple does with the App Store, but there are two main problems with their implementation: (1) You can't choose someone else to trust to verify iOS apps for you, it has to be Apple and there is no alternative if they get it wrong or reject non-malicious apps because they don't want competition. (2) It's not enough to deny malicious apps from accessing SMS, they also need to allow non-malicious apps to do it. This would largely be solved by fixing (1) because then a provider that failed to do (2) would not have to be used.
- newscracker 8y ago
  > A messaging app that can read SMS and replace Messages. Oh, dear! No! One of the best decisions Apple took (among many) from the beginning from the privacy angle was/is not allowing any apps to access SMS or call logs. The way it implemented OTP entry from SMS is also brilliant (though it doesn't work for some message formats). We've seen this on Android over and over again. Most users don't understand app permissions well from the privacy angle, and will say yes to any request (we've known for a long time from usability studies that users will usually do whatever is easy to dismiss any dialog). If Apple gives access to SMS and call logs, then those will be abused by third party apps (like Facebook, Google and many others), just like it has been on Android. Apple could instead do a lot more to restrict the information that apps can collect and improve its app permission model. But it would be nice to allow default apps to be setup as a user likes and give users more freedom. That's something most users would vote for (if it could be achieved that way).
  - Wowfunhappy 8y ago
    On the other hand, it is almost undoubtable that one of the reasons iMessage is so popular, is that it's the only messaging app that can integrate with SMS on the iPhone. Apple then, in turn, uses the existing network effect of iMessage as a way to sell more iPhones. That doesn't seem like fair competition at all.
    - crgwbr 8y ago
      iMessage is popular, but that has less to do with anything Apple has done and more to do with how badly Google has failed with a messaging strategy. iMessage is popular because it works ok-enough, is the default, and is consistent. Would you really rather have the Android situation, where you need SMS and umpteen other third-party messaging apps, including whichever 3 google is pushing this month?
      - Wowfunhappy 8y ago
        Personally? I really, really don't want to switch between two (or more) messaging apps depending on who I'm talking to. I have an iPhone and live in the iMessage-friendly United States, so this works out well enough for me. If I lived in Europe where everyone used Whatsapp, the inability to change the default would be a big point of frustration with iOS.
api 8y ago
The app store is more about gate keeping than revenue.
mjw1007 8y ago
Well, it was the journalist who brought up Apple, not Warren. If "breaking up Apple" in this context turns out to mean "make Apple spin off a very small part of their business", there's no reason to suppose Warren would be unhappy. It's reasonable to suppose that Warren is making the recommendation she's making for the reasons she states, rather than inventing a pretext for an underlying wish to break large companies into approximately equal sized parts.
wayneftw 8y ago
I sure wish someone would force Apple to allow users to sideload apps and buy from other stores though because if you're going to make a smartphone app these days, you cannot afford to ignore iOS and therefore it might as well be a monopoly. Captive markets should be made illegal IMO.
- mjw1007 8y ago
  I'd like to see Apple split apart the two things it's doing with app review. There's value in Apple forbidding installation of apps that might contain malicious code (or just drain your battery). There's also value in Apple running a "store front" which declines to advertise apps which have poor UX or are too similar to a thousand other apps. Apple could have a category of app that has a download page you can link to, but is otherwise invisible on their app store. And it could receive a fee (in line with its costs) for hosting and reviewing those apps.
zeckalpha 8y ago
Apple "sells" many apps in the store for free, preventing others from entering those niches.
EGreg 8y ago
Although I think Warren is wrong about the tech platforms, in the case of Apple she actually has a point! The App Store is what’s preventing apps such as browsers not using WebView to be available. It is preventing competition on so many levels. The Mac App store less so, because the OS lets you install apps other ways.
GeekyBear 8y ago
Apple Music doesn't compete against other subscription based music streaming apps in the App Store? To give one example.
fauigerzigerk 8y ago
Her wording is clumsy but the meaning is crystal clear to me: If you provide a platform you should not be allowed to compete with those who build on top of that platform, because it wouldn't be a level playing field. Apple provides iOS as a platform for others to build on, so in her view Apple should not be allowed to offer Apple Music to compete with Spotify or Apple Maps to compete with Google Maps or the upcoming Apple Movies to compete with Netflix. And this is not a small issue. This is everything Apple means when they say they want to expand their services business. It's very clear what it means. It's not ignorant. But I fear it could have side-effects that she hasn't considered. What if those rules had been in place when Apple first came up with the iPhone? I think Steve Jobs might have opted for vertical integration and against becoming a platform in the first place. There might never have been an App Store at all. There wouldn't have been a level playing field because there wouldn't have been a playing field. I think there is room for better regulation of internet giants. But it's incredibly complex, and each case is very different. I would favor a more cautious approach. For instance, large platforms should be required to have some sort of independent conflict resolution mechanism. Closing accounts of small businesses that build on top of your platform without recourse and with scant explanation is unacceptable if you're one of a handful of platforms worldwide.
- amazingman 8y ago
  >If you provide a platform you should not be allowed to compete with those who build on top of that platform, because it wouldn't be a level playing field. Isn’t this exactly what grocery store chains do?
  - fauigerzigerk 8y ago
    Yes, store brands. I think what sets those internet giants apart is their aggressive drive to expand into ever more business activities, integrating both horizontally and vertically. Supermarket chains appear stagnant and lame in comparison.
- WaltPurvis 8y ago
  That makes a little sense, I guess, but >"Apple should not be allowed to offer Apple Music to compete with Spotify or Apple Maps to compete with Google Maps or the upcoming Apple Movies to compete with Netflix." are pretty bad examples to support this argument. Apple has been competing with Netflix for years, and Netflix has kicked their butt at every turn. By this argument, Google shouldn't be able to offer Maps on Android, so you'd have Apple Maps on Android phones and Google Maps on iPhones? I fail to see how that benefits consumers at all, and more to the point it does little or nothing to help small companies. Antitrust laws are intended to benefit consumers. It's hard to square antitrust laws with the idea that consumers should be forced to pay for apps from small companies rather than enjoying free apps from platform vendors.

bitcurious 8y ago

>All the apps that Apple sells... I imagine from the point of view of Elizabeth Warren the problem is all of the apps that Apple doesn't sell - a maps app the integrates as tightly as Apple Maps. A browser that doesn't use Safari as its backend. A messaging app that can read SMS and replace Messages.

bilbo0s 8y ago
>A messaging app that can read SMS and replace Messages... And now we've hit on the essential flaw in Warren's "break them up!" soundbite based policy. Her ideas do NOTHING to address the real problem, a lack of data privacy. If you tell apple they have to let people make apps that can access things like sms, boom, all of the users lose control of that data. The App developer takes it, and now it can go anywhere. It'd actually be worse than what we have now. Here's the really sad part about all of this: A law to make the sharing of data between companies explicitly illegal is actually EASIER to implement than the whole "break 'em up!" strategy. So you have to ask yourself, "Why won't they just make it illegal to share data?" And when you start brainstorming potential answers to that question, it can be a bit unsettling. It makes me think we need such a law even more.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  That is a completely independent problem. Moreover, the privacy issue isn't solved by prohibiting what applications can do, it's solved by giving the user control over them. If a flashlight app wants to access your SMS messages, you should be able to say "no" and still use it as a flashlight. But if an actual messaging app wants to do that for actual messaging purposes, you should still be able to say "yes" and use that app instead of Apple's.
  - mikhailt 8y ago
    Unfortunately, that also won't solve anything. Let's say that I installed Telechat (fake chat app) and it asked for SMS, well yea, I'm going to approve it because it is a chat app. Okay, how does that prevent Telechat from collecting my data and selling it? I understand what you're trying to say but it is not solved by using app policies (controlling which piece of data they can access) because such policies does not prevent said apps from violating your privacy. That isn't to say that such app policies shouldn't be a thing, it's a great tool and limits the potential damage but it has nothing to do with privacy.
    - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
      > Unfortunately, that also won't solve anything. It solves the flashlight app accessing your SMS messages. > Let's say that I installed Telechat (fake chat app) and it asked for SMS, well yea, I'm going to approve it because it is a chat app. But then that's a different problem. It's no longer the app having permissions it shouldn't, it's the user explicitly choosing to trust a malicious app. The solution to that is to have a third party service to verify that apps aren't doing anything malicious. That is nominally what Apple does with the App Store, but there are two main problems with their implementation: (1) You can't choose someone else to trust to verify iOS apps for you, it has to be Apple and there is no alternative if they get it wrong or reject non-malicious apps because they don't want competition. (2) It's not enough to deny malicious apps from accessing SMS, they also need to allow non-malicious apps to do it. This would largely be solved by fixing (1) because then a provider that failed to do (2) would not have to be used.
newscracker 8y ago
> A messaging app that can read SMS and replace Messages. Oh, dear! No! One of the best decisions Apple took (among many) from the beginning from the privacy angle was/is not allowing any apps to access SMS or call logs. The way it implemented OTP entry from SMS is also brilliant (though it doesn't work for some message formats). We've seen this on Android over and over again. Most users don't understand app permissions well from the privacy angle, and will say yes to any request (we've known for a long time from usability studies that users will usually do whatever is easy to dismiss any dialog). If Apple gives access to SMS and call logs, then those will be abused by third party apps (like Facebook, Google and many others), just like it has been on Android. Apple could instead do a lot more to restrict the information that apps can collect and improve its app permission model. But it would be nice to allow default apps to be setup as a user likes and give users more freedom. That's something most users would vote for (if it could be achieved that way).
- Wowfunhappy 8y ago
  On the other hand, it is almost undoubtable that one of the reasons iMessage is so popular, is that it's the only messaging app that can integrate with SMS on the iPhone. Apple then, in turn, uses the existing network effect of iMessage as a way to sell more iPhones. That doesn't seem like fair competition at all.
  - crgwbr 8y ago
    iMessage is popular, but that has less to do with anything Apple has done and more to do with how badly Google has failed with a messaging strategy. iMessage is popular because it works ok-enough, is the default, and is consistent. Would you really rather have the Android situation, where you need SMS and umpteen other third-party messaging apps, including whichever 3 google is pushing this month?
    - Wowfunhappy 8y ago
      Personally? I really, really don't want to switch between two (or more) messaging apps depending on who I'm talking to. I have an iPhone and live in the iMessage-friendly United States, so this works out well enough for me. If I lived in Europe where everyone used Whatsapp, the inability to change the default would be a big point of frustration with iOS.

api 8y ago

The app store is more about gate keeping than revenue.

mjw1007 8y ago

Well, it was the journalist who brought up Apple, not Warren. If "breaking up Apple" in this context turns out to mean "make Apple spin off a very small part of their business", there's no reason to suppose Warren would be unhappy. It's reasonable to suppose that Warren is making the recommendation she's making for the reasons she states, rather than inventing a pretext for an underlying wish to break large companies into approximately equal sized parts.

wayneftw 8y ago

I sure wish someone would force Apple to allow users to sideload apps and buy from other stores though because if you're going to make a smartphone app these days, you cannot afford to ignore iOS and therefore it might as well be a monopoly. Captive markets should be made illegal IMO.

mjw1007 8y ago
I'd like to see Apple split apart the two things it's doing with app review. There's value in Apple forbidding installation of apps that might contain malicious code (or just drain your battery). There's also value in Apple running a "store front" which declines to advertise apps which have poor UX or are too similar to a thousand other apps. Apple could have a category of app that has a download page you can link to, but is otherwise invisible on their app store. And it could receive a fee (in line with its costs) for hosting and reviewing those apps.

zeckalpha 8y ago

Apple "sells" many apps in the store for free, preventing others from entering those niches.

EGreg 8y ago

Although I think Warren is wrong about the tech platforms, in the case of Apple she actually has a point! The App Store is what’s preventing apps such as browsers not using WebView to be available. It is preventing competition on so many levels. The Mac App store less so, because the OS lets you install apps other ways.

GeekyBear 8y ago

Apple Music doesn't compete against other subscription based music streaming apps in the App Store? To give one example.

fauigerzigerk 8y ago

Her wording is clumsy but the meaning is crystal clear to me: If you provide a platform you should not be allowed to compete with those who build on top of that platform, because it wouldn't be a level playing field. Apple provides iOS as a platform for others to build on, so in her view Apple should not be allowed to offer Apple Music to compete with Spotify or Apple Maps to compete with Google Maps or the upcoming Apple Movies to compete with Netflix. And this is not a small issue. This is everything Apple means when they say they want to expand their services business. It's very clear what it means. It's not ignorant. But I fear it could have side-effects that she hasn't considered. What if those rules had been in place when Apple first came up with the iPhone? I think Steve Jobs might have opted for vertical integration and against becoming a platform in the first place. There might never have been an App Store at all. There wouldn't have been a level playing field because there wouldn't have been a playing field. I think there is room for better regulation of internet giants. But it's incredibly complex, and each case is very different. I would favor a more cautious approach. For instance, large platforms should be required to have some sort of independent conflict resolution mechanism. Closing accounts of small businesses that build on top of your platform without recourse and with scant explanation is unacceptable if you're one of a handful of platforms worldwide.

amazingman 8y ago
>If you provide a platform you should not be allowed to compete with those who build on top of that platform, because it wouldn't be a level playing field. Isn’t this exactly what grocery store chains do?
- fauigerzigerk 8y ago
  Yes, store brands. I think what sets those internet giants apart is their aggressive drive to expand into ever more business activities, integrating both horizontally and vertically. Supermarket chains appear stagnant and lame in comparison.
WaltPurvis 8y ago
That makes a little sense, I guess, but >"Apple should not be allowed to offer Apple Music to compete with Spotify or Apple Maps to compete with Google Maps or the upcoming Apple Movies to compete with Netflix." are pretty bad examples to support this argument. Apple has been competing with Netflix for years, and Netflix has kicked their butt at every turn. By this argument, Google shouldn't be able to offer Maps on Android, so you'd have Apple Maps on Android phones and Google Maps on iPhones? I fail to see how that benefits consumers at all, and more to the point it does little or nothing to help small companies. Antitrust laws are intended to benefit consumers. It's hard to square antitrust laws with the idea that consumers should be forced to pay for apps from small companies rather than enjoying free apps from platform vendors.