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That would've been called an antitrust abuse by any other company but it seems Apple gets a pass by its fans. Apple ecosystem is completely closed off. It does

by gerash 7y ago

That would've been called an antitrust abuse by any other company but it seems Apple gets a pass by its fans. Apple ecosystem is completely closed off. It does make it easier to ship software. For example they've hijacked SMS by creating their own iMessage, they tried to take full control of the mobile news publishing until Google came up with AMP and they have been dragging their feet when it comes to new web standards in Safari because they prefer native apps. So the morale of the story is as long as you ship quality products you'll get a pass for tactics other companies don't usually get a pass for. None of openness, fairness, privacy, etc. matters really.

smohare 7y ago
Lol, man go spread your disinformation somewhere else.
- dang 7y ago
  Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to HN? especially ones that are personal attacks and/or name-calling. We're trying for a bit better than that here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. When a comment says something false, better options are to respectfully provide correct information so the rest of us can learn something, or (if you don't want to or don't have time) to simply let it go as someone being wrong on the internet again.
aeontech 7y ago
How would this qualify as “antitrust abuse” exactly? You are free to use your own sign on system without adding this.
- ohmaigad 7y ago
  How it is not? If your app offers its own login and any of the social logins you must implement Apple login as well.
  - Marsymars 7y ago
    Or remove the other social logins.
- bdcravens 7y ago
  If your own authentication is the only authentication. The moment you add one other authentication provider, you must add Apple's.
kick 7y ago
Apple has a minority share of the mobile market. Antitrust law hardly applies.
- gerash 7y ago
  This might be too much legalese and IANAL but they do have a majority market share in North America. That said, I'm not suggesting this is an easy lawsuit but that it's obviously an abuse of power over the ecosystem. That is, when your product (Apple Sign in) does not take off by itself you simply force the market to adopt it.
  - roenxi 7y ago
    I'm no lawyer; so that may well be antitrust. But forcing their way in to the party isn't that similar to locking other offerings out of the ecosystem. It isn't easy to see how this hurts anyone strategically. It'd be much more worrying and abusinve if they blocked users from logging in to certain products with their Apple ID.
  - toohotatopic 7y ago
    >This might be too much legalese and IANAL but they do have a majority market share in North America. Citation needed. They make the most profit, but do they make the most devices?
- burnte 7y ago
  People seem to think antitrust violations means you have a monopoly, this is not the case. There are a whole host of antitrust rules beyond monopoly of the market.
Marsymars 7y ago
> That would've been called an antitrust abuse by any other company but it seems Apple gets a pass by its fans. I dunno, I don't have an iPhone and don't plan on using Sign On with Apple, but I think it's still a good move that benefits consumers. Who gets hurt? Companies that don't respect user privacy?
- gretch 7y ago
  It could be hurting you by opportunity (no way to ever know) Imagine a single developer who has an idea to make a cool app. Because data linking is a core part of the app, they will either implement Sign in with Facebook or Google. They don't even have enough cycles to implement the other one, and they certainly don't have the time or energy to implement Sign in with Apple, so the app never gets created. Well that app could have really benefited a niche audience potentially and we now you'll never have it.
  - kyralis 7y ago
    This is a completely invalid scenario. You are only required to implement Sign In with Apple if you use some other third-party sign-in system. If you implement your own sign-in system, there is no requirement for you to implement Sign In with Apple.
    - gretch 7y ago
      I don't understand your comment. I addressed that part in my comment?
  - fyfy18 7y ago
    That sounds like a very unrealistic scenario. This is using OAuth2 behind the scenes (same as Facebook and Google login), so you only need to integrate another provider, not integrate a completely different authentication system. That means you need a couple of URLs, a secret key, and a new button on your login screen. I'm not a mobile developer, but I do run a SaaS that has Facebook and Google login, and adding Apple login would take me a couple of hours tops. I can't see how it would be magnitudes different on a mobile app.
hurricanetc 7y ago
Apple has around 13-14% of the smartphone market. In your opinion this is a high enough percentage to qualify as a monopoly???? Please explain.
- burnte 7y ago
  Antitrust behavior != monopoly. This using it's lock on all iOS customers to force app creators to also use Apple's signin service. It doesn't have to have a monopoly, it's still an abuse of it's position. The app store itself is already under attack as anti competitive, this is just another extension of that behavior.
  - hurricanetc 7y ago
    Antitrust behavior requires a monopoly. It’s part of the basic definition of antitrust. And the comment was edited anyway. It originally did say monopoly.
- yndoendo 7y ago
  Technically the right repair movement is to fight a company's monopoly on repairing a product. If Apple or company X requires you to use them to repair a product they have a 100% market value of repairing the said product. Technically Apple also has a monopoly on Web-engines by requiring a 100% market share of the one they make with-in the iOS infrastructure. Monopolies can existing with-in smaller percentages in the change of categorizations and more finite defintion. I monoplize your time is different than I monoplize your time at work.
- pentae 7y ago
  They have a 100% monopoly on iPhone users. If your customers device is an iPhone and your product or service doesn't comply with their rules then your customer needs to either use a different device or not be your customer.
  - hurricanetc 7y ago
    By this definition nearly every company is a monopoly. Despite the fact that me, a user, can ditch Apple and switch to the actual monopoly OS, Android, at any time.
baryphonic 7y ago
Arguing that Apple has a de facto monopoly (or oligopoly) on phone OS and related services is a defensible argument. This, however, is almost the opposite. Apple isn't banning any other authentication mechanism. Authentication services can still compete and app developers can even listed their preferred auth methods preferentially. Apple is only saying that Apple's service has to be given a chance to compete as well. Apple is certainly using its market power to enforce policy, but if anything it's pro-competitive (even if it benefits Apple itself).
rolltiide 7y ago
It would only be an antitrust issue if they said they couldnt show other sign in options anymore. This is cleverly done and is an option with a lot less friction that needs to leverage its potential network effects.
- joshuamorton 7y ago
  The argument for it being anticompetative is straightforward: apple is leveraging it's position in the mobile Phone space to push it's way into social login "markets", or equivalently hurt others in that space.
  - rolltiide 7y ago
    > apple is leveraging it's position in the mobile Phone space to push it's way into social login but they aren't removing choice, they are only adding choice in their approval processes, and leaving it to the developers to decide to remove choice when they get social login fatigue but want high engagement and low friction. Looks like they dotted their I's and crossed their T's on this one.
    - joshuamorton 7y ago
      They're adding requirements to create an app that hurt competitors of apple in non-appstore contexts. That's anticompetative behavior (at least in some places).
- dannyperson 7y ago
  For a dev with little to no time, this does basically say you can't show other sign in options. You can have only Apple sign in, but not only $competitor sign in. Let's say I have an old app that isn't bringing me much new revenue. I have currently have implemented two options: sign in with email + password, and "sign in with Google". After this announcement, I would just remove "sign in with Google" as an option, and force all my users who previously used "sign in with Google" to set a password.
  - 7y ago

by gerash 7y ago

smohare 7y ago

Lol, man go spread your disinformation somewhere else.

dang 7y ago
Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to HN? especially ones that are personal attacks and/or name-calling. We're trying for a bit better than that here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. When a comment says something false, better options are to respectfully provide correct information so the rest of us can learn something, or (if you don't want to or don't have time) to simply let it go as someone being wrong on the internet again.

aeontech 7y ago

How would this qualify as “antitrust abuse” exactly? You are free to use your own sign on system without adding this.

ohmaigad 7y ago
How it is not? If your app offers its own login and any of the social logins you must implement Apple login as well.
- Marsymars 7y ago
  Or remove the other social logins.
bdcravens 7y ago
If your own authentication is the only authentication. The moment you add one other authentication provider, you must add Apple's.

kick 7y ago

Apple has a minority share of the mobile market. Antitrust law hardly applies.

gerash 7y ago
This might be too much legalese and IANAL but they do have a majority market share in North America. That said, I'm not suggesting this is an easy lawsuit but that it's obviously an abuse of power over the ecosystem. That is, when your product (Apple Sign in) does not take off by itself you simply force the market to adopt it.
- roenxi 7y ago
  I'm no lawyer; so that may well be antitrust. But forcing their way in to the party isn't that similar to locking other offerings out of the ecosystem. It isn't easy to see how this hurts anyone strategically. It'd be much more worrying and abusinve if they blocked users from logging in to certain products with their Apple ID.
- toohotatopic 7y ago
  >This might be too much legalese and IANAL but they do have a majority market share in North America. Citation needed. They make the most profit, but do they make the most devices?
burnte 7y ago
People seem to think antitrust violations means you have a monopoly, this is not the case. There are a whole host of antitrust rules beyond monopoly of the market.

Marsymars 7y ago

> That would've been called an antitrust abuse by any other company but it seems Apple gets a pass by its fans. I dunno, I don't have an iPhone and don't plan on using Sign On with Apple, but I think it's still a good move that benefits consumers. Who gets hurt? Companies that don't respect user privacy?

gretch 7y ago
It could be hurting you by opportunity (no way to ever know) Imagine a single developer who has an idea to make a cool app. Because data linking is a core part of the app, they will either implement Sign in with Facebook or Google. They don't even have enough cycles to implement the other one, and they certainly don't have the time or energy to implement Sign in with Apple, so the app never gets created. Well that app could have really benefited a niche audience potentially and we now you'll never have it.
- kyralis 7y ago
  This is a completely invalid scenario. You are only required to implement Sign In with Apple if you use some other third-party sign-in system. If you implement your own sign-in system, there is no requirement for you to implement Sign In with Apple.
  - gretch 7y ago
    I don't understand your comment. I addressed that part in my comment?
- fyfy18 7y ago
  That sounds like a very unrealistic scenario. This is using OAuth2 behind the scenes (same as Facebook and Google login), so you only need to integrate another provider, not integrate a completely different authentication system. That means you need a couple of URLs, a secret key, and a new button on your login screen. I'm not a mobile developer, but I do run a SaaS that has Facebook and Google login, and adding Apple login would take me a couple of hours tops. I can't see how it would be magnitudes different on a mobile app.

hurricanetc 7y ago

Apple has around 13-14% of the smartphone market. In your opinion this is a high enough percentage to qualify as a monopoly???? Please explain.

burnte 7y ago
Antitrust behavior != monopoly. This using it's lock on all iOS customers to force app creators to also use Apple's signin service. It doesn't have to have a monopoly, it's still an abuse of it's position. The app store itself is already under attack as anti competitive, this is just another extension of that behavior.
- hurricanetc 7y ago
  Antitrust behavior requires a monopoly. It’s part of the basic definition of antitrust. And the comment was edited anyway. It originally did say monopoly.
yndoendo 7y ago
Technically the right repair movement is to fight a company's monopoly on repairing a product. If Apple or company X requires you to use them to repair a product they have a 100% market value of repairing the said product. Technically Apple also has a monopoly on Web-engines by requiring a 100% market share of the one they make with-in the iOS infrastructure. Monopolies can existing with-in smaller percentages in the change of categorizations and more finite defintion. I monoplize your time is different than I monoplize your time at work.
pentae 7y ago
They have a 100% monopoly on iPhone users. If your customers device is an iPhone and your product or service doesn't comply with their rules then your customer needs to either use a different device or not be your customer.
- hurricanetc 7y ago
  By this definition nearly every company is a monopoly. Despite the fact that me, a user, can ditch Apple and switch to the actual monopoly OS, Android, at any time.

baryphonic 7y ago

Arguing that Apple has a de facto monopoly (or oligopoly) on phone OS and related services is a defensible argument. This, however, is almost the opposite. Apple isn't banning any other authentication mechanism. Authentication services can still compete and app developers can even listed their preferred auth methods preferentially. Apple is only saying that Apple's service has to be given a chance to compete as well. Apple is certainly using its market power to enforce policy, but if anything it's pro-competitive (even if it benefits Apple itself).

rolltiide 7y ago

It would only be an antitrust issue if they said they couldnt show other sign in options anymore. This is cleverly done and is an option with a lot less friction that needs to leverage its potential network effects.

joshuamorton 7y ago
The argument for it being anticompetative is straightforward: apple is leveraging it's position in the mobile Phone space to push it's way into social login "markets", or equivalently hurt others in that space.
- rolltiide 7y ago
  > apple is leveraging it's position in the mobile Phone space to push it's way into social login but they aren't removing choice, they are only adding choice in their approval processes, and leaving it to the developers to decide to remove choice when they get social login fatigue but want high engagement and low friction. Looks like they dotted their I's and crossed their T's on this one.
  - joshuamorton 7y ago
    They're adding requirements to create an app that hurt competitors of apple in non-appstore contexts. That's anticompetative behavior (at least in some places).
dannyperson 7y ago
For a dev with little to no time, this does basically say you can't show other sign in options. You can have only Apple sign in, but not only $competitor sign in. Let's say I have an old app that isn't bringing me much new revenue. I have currently have implemented two options: sign in with email + password, and "sign in with Google". After this announcement, I would just remove "sign in with Google" as an option, and force all my users who previously used "sign in with Google" to set a password.
- 7y ago