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Well Apple is not saying it is putting their business model at risk ( it does and it should) they are saying their philosophy to user security is at risk . i.e.

Well Apple is not saying it is putting their business model at risk ( it does and it should) they are saying their philosophy to user security is at risk . i.e. if Epic wins in court apple has a tough choice, either reduce their own rates substantially and / or allow alternative stores . For all apple's flaws, having single app store is better for user security as you know who to trust, it also gives conveniently makes Apple monopoly that they exploit to make 50B+ a year. The question is will Apple sacrifice revenu for user security or is security and privacy are only there when it makes Apple money.

jtdev 6y ago
I don’t want .msi like installers for iOS apps scattered across the web... I know this is an unpopular opinion among techies, but I quite like the garden that Apple has walled off.
- manquer 6y ago
  The problem here is not the walling itself , it is lack of regulations over what they can, they cannot do. Which allows walled gardens to kick out apps they don't like, impose all sorts of rules, and charge outrageously Developers associate the freedom of open standards and protocol to these abuses. In the early GNU years, the same philosophy applied to source availability. Closed source does make similar abuse fare more easier. Abuses can be prevented with well built regulation. Developers do not like to get into governance and policy so they want to solve it technically, Open Source or open protocols and standards etc, sometimes that opens up avenues vulnerabilities in design, which devs generally are tech savy enough to be immune to and come up with even more tech like https, adblockers hardware keys etc. This cat and mouse game leaves rest of the population far behind and vulnerable, sometimes you just have to do governance than look for pure tech solutions.
Bud 6y ago
Please don't make up figures and share them in public. No, Apple didn't make $50B in profit "a year" or last year or in ANY year from App Store fees. Takes about 30 seconds to look up Apple's financials and disprove that. And no, Apple doesn't have a "monopoly". Sony, Google, and Microsoft also get 30% of all revenue from their app stores. Claiming Apple has a "monopoly" is ludicrous and just shows that you don't know what a real monopoly is.
- manquer 6y ago
  It is next to impossible to calculate the profit of any business unit in isolation . As it extremely difficult to split shared costs . I have enough time in my life doing ABC (Activity Based Costing) to know how it usually goes. I did not say they made profit, I said they made , in my part of the world made means commonly revenue not profit. The 50B is well established estimate of App Store revenue. [1]https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/07/apple-app-store-had-estimated-gross-sales-of-50-billion-in-2019.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/07/apple-app-store-had-estimate...
  - je42 6y ago
    The article you linked says: > and generated about $15 billion in revenue for Apple the 50 B is total gross sales.
    - manquer 6y ago
      They processed $50B is perhaps better way to put it, 50 B is not their actual revenue yes. However using GMV[1] as a proxy for revenue is fairly common practice in retail industry. Walmart's revenue in similar sense is not really $500B, while it bit more complicated as Walmart buys from producer/ wholesaler and sells to the consumer (less so by Amazon as significant chunk of their inventory is owned by the sellers directly however revenue numbers are counted the same way). The revenue for their operations is only the difference between selling price and buying price, profit is after you remove the cost of operations from that number. Ecommerce / travel/ delivery startups etc have for long time used this as somewhat misleading metric. This practice used to particularly annoy me few years back, during fundraise pre-series A especially angels used to somewhat blindly compare retail statups "revenue" with SaaS startup numbers. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_merchandise_volume https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_merchandise_volume
PeterStuer 6y ago
At which number does that "you know who to trust" break down? Clearly it is >1, as e.g. Android users seem to be doeing just fine without Apple's store being the one and only. So Google is ok as well? Who else? Amazon? Lenovo? Huawei? Epic? Blizzard? The German Governement? The EU Commission store? Who gets to decide who is ok or not? The WTO?
- manquer 6y ago
  Android users are not doing fine security wise, the OEM update model, shitty locked ROMs provided by some carriers, the unpatched vulnerabilities especially on older devices is a security nightmare, tens or even hundreds of millions are likely already compromised. Apple devices are much more secure in comparsion. Until the epic took this to court, nobody has the balls to challenge Apple. Epic has standing to sue and is ready to fight it. This is going to be decided in U.S. courts. WTO is unlikely to step in, they do not take disputes at a company level, usually betwwn country , unless another country sues the U.S. government for unfair trade practices over allowing this WTO has no standing to take the case. I don't see any country taking it to them , that country will need to show damage to their own app developers, this is difficult as Apple charges the same for U.S. devs too. The EU anti trust and competition does have standing to take it up, and in the past they have fought Google and Microsoft over similar things (promoting own products and browser choice respectively), but I have not heard anything till now. Perhaps epic may also sue/ file complaint in europe and they may take on Apple in the future.
  - ta17711771 6y ago
    > Android users are not doing fine security wise, the OEM update model, shitty locked ROMs provided by some carriers, the unpatched vulnerabilities especially on older devices is a security nightmare, tens or even hundreds of millions are likely already compromised. Mildly OT, but this applies to Lineage users as well.
  - scarface74 6y ago
    How did that whole browser choice thing work out? IE stayed dominant until Chrome took over almost a decade later based solely on the popularity of Google’s home page and Google bundling Chrome with third party software along with Bonzi Buddy.
sharklazer 6y ago
Well, I see this as a good thing for Apple's consumers, and to some degree Apple. Apple might lose distribution of some things, but they can justify higher commission rates with a market that has a reputation for security, versus newly competing markets. I can see this being very beneficial for consumers, with a series of choices that will have different costs associate with them. Short-term, Apple will lose revenue, but this is also a good justification for Apple to open an App Store in the Android ecosystem and offer a "more secure" app store than Google. Long-term, I don't see this as a negative shift for really anyone. If the App Store expands to other platforms, Apple might focus on exclusive distribution rights agreements which would probably give them a greater degree of competition.

jtdev 6y ago

I don’t want .msi like installers for iOS apps scattered across the web... I know this is an unpopular opinion among techies, but I quite like the garden that Apple has walled off.

manquer 6y ago
The problem here is not the walling itself , it is lack of regulations over what they can, they cannot do. Which allows walled gardens to kick out apps they don't like, impose all sorts of rules, and charge outrageously Developers associate the freedom of open standards and protocol to these abuses. In the early GNU years, the same philosophy applied to source availability. Closed source does make similar abuse fare more easier. Abuses can be prevented with well built regulation. Developers do not like to get into governance and policy so they want to solve it technically, Open Source or open protocols and standards etc, sometimes that opens up avenues vulnerabilities in design, which devs generally are tech savy enough to be immune to and come up with even more tech like https, adblockers hardware keys etc. This cat and mouse game leaves rest of the population far behind and vulnerable, sometimes you just have to do governance than look for pure tech solutions.

Bud 6y ago

Please don't make up figures and share them in public. No, Apple didn't make $50B in profit "a year" or last year or in ANY year from App Store fees. Takes about 30 seconds to look up Apple's financials and disprove that. And no, Apple doesn't have a "monopoly". Sony, Google, and Microsoft also get 30% of all revenue from their app stores. Claiming Apple has a "monopoly" is ludicrous and just shows that you don't know what a real monopoly is.

manquer 6y ago
It is next to impossible to calculate the profit of any business unit in isolation . As it extremely difficult to split shared costs . I have enough time in my life doing ABC (Activity Based Costing) to know how it usually goes. I did not say they made profit, I said they made , in my part of the world made means commonly revenue not profit. The 50B is well established estimate of App Store revenue. [1]https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/07/apple-app-store-had-estimated-gross-sales-of-50-billion-in-2019.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/07/apple-app-store-had-estimate...
- je42 6y ago
  The article you linked says: > and generated about $15 billion in revenue for Apple the 50 B is total gross sales.
  - manquer 6y ago
    They processed $50B is perhaps better way to put it, 50 B is not their actual revenue yes. However using GMV[1] as a proxy for revenue is fairly common practice in retail industry. Walmart's revenue in similar sense is not really $500B, while it bit more complicated as Walmart buys from producer/ wholesaler and sells to the consumer (less so by Amazon as significant chunk of their inventory is owned by the sellers directly however revenue numbers are counted the same way). The revenue for their operations is only the difference between selling price and buying price, profit is after you remove the cost of operations from that number. Ecommerce / travel/ delivery startups etc have for long time used this as somewhat misleading metric. This practice used to particularly annoy me few years back, during fundraise pre-series A especially angels used to somewhat blindly compare retail statups "revenue" with SaaS startup numbers. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_merchandise_volume https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_merchandise_volume

PeterStuer 6y ago

At which number does that "you know who to trust" break down? Clearly it is >1, as e.g. Android users seem to be doeing just fine without Apple's store being the one and only. So Google is ok as well? Who else? Amazon? Lenovo? Huawei? Epic? Blizzard? The German Governement? The EU Commission store? Who gets to decide who is ok or not? The WTO?

manquer 6y ago
Android users are not doing fine security wise, the OEM update model, shitty locked ROMs provided by some carriers, the unpatched vulnerabilities especially on older devices is a security nightmare, tens or even hundreds of millions are likely already compromised. Apple devices are much more secure in comparsion. Until the epic took this to court, nobody has the balls to challenge Apple. Epic has standing to sue and is ready to fight it. This is going to be decided in U.S. courts. WTO is unlikely to step in, they do not take disputes at a company level, usually betwwn country , unless another country sues the U.S. government for unfair trade practices over allowing this WTO has no standing to take the case. I don't see any country taking it to them , that country will need to show damage to their own app developers, this is difficult as Apple charges the same for U.S. devs too. The EU anti trust and competition does have standing to take it up, and in the past they have fought Google and Microsoft over similar things (promoting own products and browser choice respectively), but I have not heard anything till now. Perhaps epic may also sue/ file complaint in europe and they may take on Apple in the future.
- ta17711771 6y ago
  > Android users are not doing fine security wise, the OEM update model, shitty locked ROMs provided by some carriers, the unpatched vulnerabilities especially on older devices is a security nightmare, tens or even hundreds of millions are likely already compromised. Mildly OT, but this applies to Lineage users as well.
- scarface74 6y ago
  How did that whole browser choice thing work out? IE stayed dominant until Chrome took over almost a decade later based solely on the popularity of Google’s home page and Google bundling Chrome with third party software along with Bonzi Buddy.

sharklazer 6y ago

Well, I see this as a good thing for Apple's consumers, and to some degree Apple. Apple might lose distribution of some things, but they can justify higher commission rates with a market that has a reputation for security, versus newly competing markets. I can see this being very beneficial for consumers, with a series of choices that will have different costs associate with them. Short-term, Apple will lose revenue, but this is also a good justification for Apple to open an App Store in the Android ecosystem and offer a "more secure" app store than Google. Long-term, I don't see this as a negative shift for really anyone. If the App Store expands to other platforms, Apple might focus on exclusive distribution rights agreements which would probably give them a greater degree of competition.