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Cydia, the original app store, sues Apple on antitrust grounds

535 points by saurik 6y ago

saurik 6y ago
Here is a copy of the actual complaint (which, of course, includes the legal theory and argument, for those who are mostly interested in that angle) -- https://cache.saurik.com/lawsuit/complaint.pdf https://cache.saurik.com/lawsuit/complaint.pdf -- which maybe people here will find more elucidating, particularly given that the article is behind a paywall :(.
newbie578 6y ago
Ehh, no matter how much I dislike Apple and hate everything they stand for, I must stand with them in this particular case (with the information the article gave). They are suing Apple, yet the only thing Apple did in regards to them was make jailbreaking more difficult? I don't see a real case here... If anyone has more insight, please do share.
- chungus_khan 6y ago
  All the Bell Telephone company did was prevent other products/services from working with their system.
  - macjohnmcc 6y ago
    In a time that you could only get phone service from Bell. Now you have many vendors that sell Android based phones that you can choose if you want a wide open market.
    - echelon 6y ago
      The same market where Apple controls 50% under tight lock and key? And access to those consumers is controlled by a non-government entity for everything they do? All commerce impacting their entire life up and down the stack? Apple is the biggest monopoly since Ma Bell and Standard Oil. They're owning people. Whole entities. You have to go through Apple to do business with them.
      - kolinko 6y ago
        I, for one, keep choosing iPhone exactly for this reason - I want only apple to control the app review process. Without this, you’d have every single major company pishing their own installers with a ton of crapware on top of them. To give an example - Epic on Windows requires you to install their own store, with their own update system and notifications, plus ads showing each time you open up their game. I don’t want this on my phone - battery aside, I want the device to be 100% secure, and such crapware has a poor track record of security. I’m really for strong antitrust laws - Google and Facebook are monopolosts who abuse their position. But in case of the phones, both users and devs have a choice - they can use either Apple or Google. Unless both companies are guilty of the same thing (and in this case they are not), how this is an issue?
      - slinkyblack 6y ago
        Apple only controls 50% of the market because consumers keep buying their products. They are free to chose android, there are even plenty of androids phones are comparable in build quality and specs.
      - BlueTemplar 6y ago
        What 50% ?
      - macjohnmcc 6y ago
        People who knew it is what it is right from the get go. They didn't do any bait and switch.
      - adamcstephens 6y ago
        Apple is far from the biggest monopoly of today much less since the others. Amazon probably takes the cake, but Facebook and Google are right there too. Furthermore there are plenty of monopolies in non tech industries that do the same things.
- restingrobot 6y ago
  The issue isn't that apple made jailbreaking harder, its that apple shouldn't be the sole controller of what apps people can install on their phone. For example, if you have a company with millions of users and Apple decides you are a threat to their business, (or whatever reason they make up), they can ban your apps from the store, (e.g. Epic Games). This is monopolistic behavior. If apple were to allow third party store options, (without jailbreaking required), there wouldn't be an issue. The root issue isn't jailbreaking, (that's still possible and required to install non-store apps), but rather the requirement that ONLY store apps can be installed in the first place.
  - dkonofalski 6y ago
    That would be a completely legitimate argument except that people buy their devices with the understanding that APple is the sole controller of what they can install. It's not monopolistic behavior because Apple doesn't have a monopoly. Apple makes the devices, they are 100% legally allowed to only allow apps from their own App Store and that precedent has already been set. The only unique thing in this lawsuit is that Cydia is claiming to be a competitor to the App Store and I firmly believe that it'll be tossed because Cydia's entire existence is predicated on a process that, at the time it was operating, is illegal and violates the DMCA. I don't necessarily think Cydia is bad and people should be able to jailbreak their devices if they want but that can't be used as the basis for a lawsuit that alleges monopolistic behavior or even anti-trust.
    - restingrobot 6y ago
      That's not true though, Apple does make the devices, but the user owns them, and therefore has the legal right to install whatever they wish. Apple does not have control over this, as evidenced by the legality ruling of jailbreaking. >Apple makes the devices, they are 100% legally allowed to only allow apps from their own App Store and that precedent has already been set. This is false. As proven time and time again, the Device Owner has full legal control after purchase. It is monopolistic behavior due to the scope of the control from Apple. The devices are the owner's property, and it is monopolistic for them to implement software/policies/hardware blocks, that prevent users from using the devices as they see fit. Take a simplistic example, Keurig. Keurig tried to prevent users from using any other coffee pod besides theirs. There is precedent to these monopoly lawsuits. https://time.com/2913062/k-cups-war/ https://time.com/2913062/k-cups-war/ https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/consumer-products/beverages/keurig-agrees-to-settle-indirect-buyers-antitrust-class-action-lawsuits-for-31m/#:~:text=Keurig%20has%20agreed%20to%20a,September%202010%20and%20August%202020 https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/consumer-pro....
someluccc 6y ago
I think as lawsuits keep coming, a possible alternative for Apple is to tie the app store to the free update cycle of iOS, essentially making iOS a SaaS product. Consumers and developers will be free to choose if the cost of iOS evens out with whatever fees they may save.
- restingrobot 6y ago
  This concept doesn't really work as the OS updates are required to interface with features of the new phones and support features of older phones. This would essentially force users to buy new devices every cycle, or cough up money for the updated OS. Also what about important security updates and bug fixes? Would Apple just allow these vulnerabilities to exist if people didn't pay? Either way this would be a terrible business decision on their part.
  - someluccc 6y ago
    But isn’t this how OSs have been historically sold? You bought Windows XP and were entitled to a set number of years of support in terms of security parches, etc. Similarly if you don’t like the terms of the App Store you could have the option to purchase an open iOS v.1X and install whichever store you please. The only difference would be that you would need to pay again for subsequent versions of the OS, just like ppl would pay to update windows from XP to Vista to 7, etc.
    - restingrobot 6y ago
      No, historically OS's haven't been linked to hardware like iOS is. Imagine if every time you got a new webcam, you had to buy a new version of Windows. XP was supported for 12 years, iOS 12 was officially discontinued after 1 year. You're talking about orders of magnitude difference in time.
      - holycrapwhodat 6y ago
        > XP was supported for 12 years, iOS 12 was officially discontinued after 1 year. Also a pretty false equivalence, though. Windows 7 was a paid upgrade from Windows XP. iOS 13 was a free upgrade from iOS 12. Devices that shipped with iOS 10 got 11, 12, 13, and 14 for free. (Some/many/most/all) will probably continue getting future iOS versions for free.
Despegar 6y ago
There's basically nothing new here. This is a similar aftermarket case to Kodak [1]. Like the Epic case, this too will fail. A key element of Kodak was a bait and switch. If Apple had monopolized the aftermarket for iOS app distribution after customers were locked in, you may have a case against Apple (if you satisfy the other elements, like switching costs). But that was never true. From day one, the App Store was the only way to legally obtain iOS apps. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_Kodak_Co._v._Image_Technical_Services,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_Kodak_Co._v._Image_Tec....
- chokeartist 6y ago
  You forgot the period on the end of the URL :) Corrected: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_Kodak_Co._v._Image_Technical_Services,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_Kodak_Co._v._Image_Tec....
- echelon 6y ago
  Apple monopolizes access to 50% of American computer users and forces software shops big and small to pay their tax. Users can't install what they want on their computers and they can't upgrade them. The DOJ should force Apple to open the iPhone or face break up. Just because a breakup of this nature hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it shouldn't happen. And another thing. There's no reason a company this big should also be a music and film studio.
  - FriendlyNormie 6y ago
    It’s a good thing that whiny melodramatic faggots like you will never have any actual power.
  - Retric 6y ago
    First it’s 50% of cellphones not computers, but secondly as an iPhone customer I have never paid Apple for any app, but I have still paid for apps so that’s clearly false. Apple forces companies to give them a cut of in App purchases, but Kindle and Netflix show you can sell to iPhone customers without that.
rhacker 6y ago
I hate apps. I installed this app for Best Buy because I thought it was needed for curbside pickup. Turns out bestbuy.com on my phone has all the same features. I also have Netflix, Amazon Video and Hulu - but not because I want those apps, but because you can't play their video content in the mobile browser. But most of the time all apps do is annoy the crap out of me with pointless notifications. And I'm thankful that the latest Android let's me disable notifications for these apps - the entire experience is extremely pro-company, not pro-user. I think apps should die and if you want games get a switch.
- echelon 6y ago
  Apps are the worst. Not everything should be an app. There's no reason web couldn't continue to be a powerful app platform with full device API access. Rust+WASM+device APIs and you could have Google Maps and Netflix be "native" web apps. Apps were just an excuse for Jobs to own the iPhone platform. It's why they killed Flash - they didn't want a cross-platform way to develop apps and marginalize their plans.
  - agust 6y ago
    That is also why they are currently preventing competition on web browser engines on iOS, by forcing other browsers to use theirs (webkit). That way they can limit the web app capabilities, by not implementing APIs like the Push API, and make the web look very bad by not fixing bugs. I'm wondering why Mozilla, amongst other companies, hasn't taken action against this anti-competitive behaviour.
    - pseudalopex 6y ago
      Mozilla wins. Apple has to allow other engines on iOS. Most users switch to Chrome. Most developers stop supporting anything else. Mozilla loses.
      - sjwright 6y ago
        Indeed, say what you will about Safari on iOS, it certainly forces some amount of diversity in the overall browser market. (I realise this is a controversial opinion but I don’t lament the slower feature release cadence of Safari because IMHO the web is already far too complex and feature rich for its own good.)
95014_refugee 6y ago
... where "liberate" is a funny way of spelling "pwn", "exploit", "infest" etc.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  You mean, users are so desperate to be able to install the software they want on their own devices that they are willing to use cyberweapons-grade exploits to bypass technical restrictions that Apple has increasingly been baking into their own silicon to prevent?
swiley 6y ago
It's not about the money, it's about not being able to leave an IMAP connection open on IDLE or change the push server for your IRC app or run guile/gcc/vim/git locally at a usable speed.
- lupinglade 6y ago
  Yes - that's the real problem, too many restrictions on what apps can and can't do. This is not something Apple should be able to do - this is itself anti-competitive, as of course Apple are able to do all of those things while competing with other developers.
  - handmodel 6y ago
    I'd like to see someone with more legal knowhow chip in but I'm fairly sure the fact that the app store does restrict apps to be the most compelling legal case for its existence? If it literally blocked nothing then Apple can't say that the app store is part of the ecosystem that makes it unique. If it has a high bar for restrictions, it can successfully argue to avoid spamware and other bad quality apps Apple is going the work for the user to make the phone experience worthwhile.
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      Apple's bar does not successfully keep out a lot of spamware. Have you taken a look at the junk that you get when you search for any generic search term?
mhh__ 6y ago
It seems to me a fairly reasonable piece of legislation to require devices that are quasi-PCs (i.e. the iPhone today is to many what the laptop was 10 years ago) to be able to run software of the users choosing. The manufacturer isn't obligated to do anything beyond providing a stable ground for others to build from. Beyond the user freedom angle, this could also help reduce e-waste as there will be a niche but functional ecosystem of tools to keep the phone or games console (!) running past it's lifecycle
- Terretta 6y ago
  This premise assumes a building full of vacuum tubes and the punch cards are two different things. One immutable set of toggles, and then an infinite variety of suggested settings for those. It's not clear to me that's as true any more, when, randomly for instance, HEVC is in chips, or iPhones include an ASIC that's actually an FPGA. This seems to require a new principle, that a device maker may decide how far up the stack their logic goes, regardless of the form in which that logic is represented. As a check and balance on this, perhaps device makers do not get to retroactively (for a given device) take back intentional open parts of that waterline, as we've seen console makers do with what were deliberate and marketed capabilities, sometimes long after release.
  - mhh__ 6y ago
    > It's not clear to me that's as true any more, when, randomly for instance, HEVC is in chips, or iPhones include an ASIC that's actually an FPGA. Ignoring that it would be pretty wild if I could actually throw Verilog (Yuck) at my phone, I would draw the line at roughly the OS kernel or at least it's rough outline. The OEM wouldn't be allowed to include any time bombs under that layer, but ultimately the focus is on "day to day" work rather than complete control of the hardware.
- tgv 6y ago
  It could also help proliferate hacking bank accounts and identity theft. People cannot be trusted with computers. They install everything that crosses their path. History has shown that, and has shown that that is a great way to get your malware onto someone's machine. The App Store, whatever you may think of the pricing, successfully prevents that, and it should not be taken away in the name of fake liberty, or someone's commercial interest.
lupinglade 6y ago
Installer.app was the first "App Store", before Cydia even existed, I wrote it. I spoke to Steve before they launched their App Store -- we were happy to see them open up the platform and provide an official SDK, which was our goal with Installer.app. I think Apple should either charge considerably less than they do for distribution via their App Stores (that is, even less than 15%) or allow competition. Even more importantly, they need to allow installation of apps via links without requiring an App Store altogether. They also need to provide wider access to low level APIs (with user confirmation), instead of dumbing it down for developers while keeping all the powerful APIs to themselves.
- thanksforthe42 6y ago
  The primary fear is getting kicked off because Apple said so. The fees might suck, but the concern is spending a year on an app only to be denied or lose it once you gain popularity.
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- kbenson 6y ago
  > I think Apple should either charge considerably less than they do for distribution via their App Stores (that is, even less than 15%) or allow competition. There's no "or" there. They need competition. The fact they were able to quickly halve their fee due to public sentiment and some lawmakers sniffing around means that competition was not working to even that out to costs plus some profit already. I would posit the reason is because there is no real competition because Apple's behavior and control of their platform (from hardware to customer transactions) is extremely anti-competitive. Monopoly or not, anti-competitive behavior that harms consumers is the problem, and the fact they could drop fees so easily and quickly and by an arbitrary amount (half) points towards harm to developers and by extension consumers due to inflated fees because of lack of competition.
baby 6y ago
Apple: I can install whatever I want on my laptop, why can’t I do the same on my phone?
- silviot 6y ago
  Oh, don't worry! They're probably working on it: soon you won't be able to install whatever you want on your laptop. Just making some unsubstantiated irony, but I wouldn't be surprised if it happened.
  - kbenson 6y ago
    How far apart is an iPad Pro with a keyboard from the new MacBook Pro with the M1 chip? It seems pretty obvious they are converging to me. If they do converge, do you think Apple will start allowing MacOS on iPads, or will require MacBooks to run iOS and provide some virtualized OS emulation layer? I know what I'd put my money on, given lack of legal reasons in the future to force it another way.
    - TheOperator 6y ago
      MacOS on iPads won't happen anytime soon. Not so long as Apple can sell you two devices instead of one.
      - kbenson 6y ago
        LOL, that's actually a pretty good argument against them doing that. For now. :)
    - m463 6y ago
      It's like apple got set on a course... And they're on it... following it... and optimizing everything along the way... they're going to converge off the edge of a cliff and into the abyss.
- chaostheory 6y ago
  Why? Security and ensuring "It just works". Choice, freedom, and customization are enemies to both. We can see this in action with the last MacOS update. I'm not saying that I'm with either side, but these are the pros and cons. What I'm not seeing is, does iOS have even enough market share dominance to require regulation? From what I remember they only have around 15% of the market.
mulcahey 6y ago
Was seeing if saurik commented in this thread yet, only to see that he posted it!
- BTCOG 6y ago
  Also only came here to see if saurik posted. ;)
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    I would not be surprised if his lawyer told him to shut up and not comment on this thread ;)
    - judge2020 6y ago
      Only https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25376003 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25376003
timhigins 6y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20201210220357if_/https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/12/10/cydia-apple-lawsuit/ https://web.archive.org/web/20201210220357if_/https://www.wa...
samat 6y ago
Is there an actual lawsuit pdf somewhere? Could not find a link in the wapo article :(
- saagarjha 6y ago
  https://cache.saurik.com/lawsuit/complaint.pdf https://cache.saurik.com/lawsuit/complaint.pdf
ApolloVonZ 6y ago
As an iOS developer I agree with some of the arguments, the 30% are a bit too much and should be less. The 15% for small businesses is a start but it's still not always fair. At the same time, I think the arguments Epic gives for example are bullshit. I rather give 30% of the money Epic takes for basically selling digital nothing to millions of teens to Apple. At least Apple is doing something with that money, maintaining the App Store, providing and developing tools like XCode and Swift. Also for me it makes a difference that Apple is a publicly traded company, Epic is not. But off topic here, the very closed nature of the App Store is a benefit in terms of security, especially for users that don't know much about technology or don't care to care about their security. Having several app stores would water down the whole iOS ecosystem and has actually the potential to hurt the business of many app based companies. Yes, the App Store can be strict at times and quite of few of its restrictive policies need changing. But it does force you to make good stable apps. And it puts your apps right next to every other app in that category, instead of having to care about n different ways of how to distribute your apps. It's only the one, and there you got to get it right. Having more app stores won't really increase your audience either, at the end it's still gonna be the same customers, but a lot more maintenance. So I think if Apple would change its pricing model, the App Store review process, and lift some of the more stricter limitations, which I think it has to in the next year and a half, then the App Store will be a great way to get you apps out there. But that's my opinion from a personal point of view.
- breeny592 6y ago
  > I rather give 30% of the money Epic takes for basically selling digital nothing to millions of teens to Apple. At least Apple is doing something with that money, maintaining the App Store, providing and developing tools like XCode and Swift. Epic also would be spending some of their money on their own development, improvement to games etc. I don't quite follow the line of argument here - if things are 30% more expensive to cover Apples costs, then the consumer is the one losing out in the transaction.
  - ocdtrekkie 6y ago
    And that's the case with the Epic suit: Epic literally dropped their prices when they went around Apple's cut, passing almost all of the savings directly on to consumers. It's really incredible to me the lengths people will go to villanize Epic when they're known for not just advocating for consumer choice and lower prices, but have done crazy things like when dropping their cut... applying it retroactively since they started charging for it: https://marketplacehelp.epicgames.com/s/article/Unreal-Engine-Marketplace-88-12-Revenue-Share-Change-and-Retroactive-Payout?language=en_US https://marketplacehelp.epicgames.com/s/article/Unreal-Engin... Can you even imagine Apple retroactively giving all those small businesses half the Apple cut back?
BasicObject 6y ago
No mention of Synaptic anywhere? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synaptic_%28software%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synaptic_%28software%29 Predates anything here by 5 years. Similar functionality. Yes, nothing is technically for sale in Synaptic, but it's a graphical interface to install thousands of software downloads. What am I missing here?
- anamexis 6y ago
  The fact that they aren't party to this lawsuit?
  - BasicObject 6y ago
    no shit?
m3kw9 6y ago
This is like a black market suing the govt for monopoly.
- leafmeal 6y ago
  It may feel that way, but Cydia did nothing illegal. They were more or less forced out by Apple's anti-competitive practices.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Black market? Cydia pioneered the "App Store" model on iPhone, made it successful, and provided features that Apple stole and put into their own App Store. This is like Sam Walton looking at a mom-and-pop shop, deciding that selling things looks like a good idea, then starting Walmart and getting the local government to ban the idea of any other store. And then you're coming here to call the original thing a "black market"?
- dannyw 6y ago
  Back in the days of pre-computing, we had the “first sale doctrine”. This meant that as soon as you bought something, you had the right to do whatever you wanted with that physical item. Including selling it. Including renting it out. Including bundling it with five other books from other publishers and selling it together for whatever price. Without any of their consent. And it certainly includes tearing a page out. Or writing your own notes over the pages.
  - judge2020 6y ago
    I think it turned out like this because supply control used to come from the time/resource limitation of making physical goods. If you wanted your product to be rarer/higher priced, even on the second-hand market, you needed to produce less of that item. With the computing age, putting software on disks is cheap and sending software via the internet is effectively free, and reproducing that software for free to send to anyone who wants it is both free and easy (less so now with blu-ray DRM but it still happens).
    - 6y ago
zepto 6y ago
The biggest flaw with the complaint seems to be the claim that Apple locked down the iPhone as a response to the success of Cydia. That seems hard to rationalize, given that the iPhone was already locked down before Cydia, and Cydia could only be installed by exploiting a security vulnerability. It’s true that Apple made jailbreaking harder by fixing vulnerabilities, but you’d expect them to do that for security reasons. If the iPhone had supported the installation of 3rd party stores, and then Apple had withdrawn this support after launching their own, I think the case would be stronger.
- dannyw 6y ago
  That’s like saying for an antitrust violation to have occurred, the violator must have previously intentionally not been violating. E.g. Intel can tell PC manufacturers they must not sell AMD devices, if they started with condition when they made their first sale. I don’t think the courts will buy this argument. What Apple did from Day 0 was anticompetitive.
  - zepto 6y ago
    It’s unclear how it could have been anticompetitive from day zero. Are you suggesting that all devices capable of running an open operating system must have a way to allow one to be installed? If so, I can get behind that as an actual law worth supporting, but it doesn’t seem like an anti-trust issue.
    - dannyw 6y ago
      No, I’m suggesting that a company may be pursued for an antitrust remedy even if they have been in continuous violation of it in the beginning. The argument I would be making here is that Apple used illegally bundled its app distribution system with its hardware, and used anticompetitive actions to enforce it.
      - zepto 6y ago
        They didn’t bundle the app distribution system from day 0. That is part of Saurik’s argument in the legal complaint.
greatgib 6y ago
Thank you very much Cydia! I was hoping for so long that something like that would come. I'm always stunned that antitrust authorities do nothing on this topic where in my opinion they should have reacted a long time ago. I see a lot of people here saying that Apple monopoly is good because they pay to maintain their app store and for the security of the users blablablah. But no one said that they can't continue their app store with the conditions that they want on it, just it would be fair that any one be able to run competitors app stores with their conditions and the same possibilities as the official one. It's not like anyone will be forced to use another appstore if he wants to stay on apple one for security! Now, apple world is like if we were living in north korea: we are such morons that the party has to decide everything for us, and finally to their own benefit!
- jbombadil 6y ago
  > It’s not like anyone will be forced to use another AppStore if he wants to stay on the apple one for security! That’s exactly what is happening on PC gaming right now. Every game comes with it’s own AppStore (or similar bunch of extra software). I’m torn on this. I do agree with users having more choice, but I also see the huge value of Apple being able to protect user’s privacy and security by having a tight control of the AppStore.
  - jachee 6y ago
    Not just their privacy, but also their financial details.
  - banachtarski 6y ago
    Competition is key though. Plenty of publishers know that ditching established installers and app stores comes with a price, and so publishing or at least co-publishing on steam/epic/gog/etc is pretty important.
    - judge2020 6y ago
      And the consumer experience isn't great when jumping between games during the day means opening 3 different launchers and having them constantly run in the background if you don't manually close them. I've said this before: if Epic wins the lawsuit, you're going to either see the Epic launcher show up on Xbox, Playstation, and Switch or Epic's going to 'negotiate' with those publishers to get an extra 15% (or more) cut of sales.
LockAndLol 6y ago
I understand the philosophy of "I bought it, I own, I should be able to do what I want with what I own". However, you're fighting against a big, fat corporation for a situation you pur yourself into. Why not buy an alternative that actually does what you want? Sure, e-waste is bad, but that's the only strong argument here IMO. Apple should be severely punished for helping create pollution. The rest is up to interpretation.
heavyset_go 6y ago
Apple and Google have held the mobile app distribution market hostage for over a decade now. I hope Cydia is successful in tackling Apple's anti-competitive behavior. We need real competition in the app distribution space. There's a generation being raised right now whose exposure to computing has been limited to what Apple and Google have deemed worthy for them to consume.
- sellyme 6y ago
  The single best-selling smartphone brand in the world is an Android phone that comes with a non-Google app store preinstalled, I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that they're holding the market hostage. Certainly the Galaxy Store/Amazon Appstore/F-Droid/etc aren't anywhere near as ubiquitous as the Play Store, but they're still there and not particularly difficult to access.
  - heavyset_go 6y ago
    In the US, iOS has 52.4% of the mobile OS market[1], and Android has 47%. In the US, Apple's App Store is responsible for the majority of mobile app sales[2], and has 3 times the revenue of Google's Play Store. Apple and Google dominate the mobile OS market, and Apple more so than Google, dominates the mobile app distribution market. Everything else is negligible. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/266572/market-share-held-by-smartphone-platforms-in-the-united-states/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/266572/market-share-held... [2] https://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2020/01/in-2019-apples-app-store-was-1-in-the-us-with-more-3x-google-play-sales.html https://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2020/01/in-2019...
    - jhanschoo 6y ago
      I don't see how this undermines the argument that Google doesn't hold the Android app market "hostage" because users usually buy devices that already have another app store preinstalled and also are free to install other app stores.
      - 6y ago
dijit27 6y ago
There is something about the bias of this article that bugs me. It feels like it is trying to rewrite history to suit its narrative. It implies that developers used to be able to create whatever programs they wanted thanks to Cydia prior to the App Store. This was never the case, the Cydia ecosystem was based on unintended buggy behavior. In the beginning Apple was clear that there were no native apps, only web apps or whatever they called them. They eventually reversed course and implemented the App Store for native apps but was that because of Cydia? That's just speculation. Personally I always speculated that they weren't ready and in classic Apple fashion pretended the idea of native apps was stupid until they were ready. Should Apple be forced to support other app stores or side loading? I don't know. I do feel like there are good arguments for it but they should be allowed to stand on there own merit without skewing the narrative.
blondie9x 6y ago
Remembering that Cydia came before the App Store was added to iPhone is one of the most important pieces of modern historical facts we should know.
shmerl 6y ago
Good, Apple totally violate antitrust with their store policies. The ban on competing browsers is a glaring example too.
lowbloodsugar 6y ago
There are many purchase options if you want a new phone. One of those options, and not the largest selling option, as a product from Apple that requires that you use their app store, and follow certain rules. If you do not like this product, then there are literally far more non-apple products to choose from. There are both for more non-apple options, and there are far more of those sold worldwide.
nethunters 6y ago
Some people advocate that it's for the safety of the users that Apple have created this walled garden. One app store, one payment system, one browser means better security (in theory). In reality users have no freedom and are at the total mercy of Apple's decisions. Apple's one browser isn't working in terms of security as there's been an oversupply of Safari remote code execution, local privilege escalation and sandbox escapes. So if Apple actually cared about users and the security of their devices instead of growing their monopoly shouldn't they instead be concentrating on fixing these vulnerabilities? Not even the enemy of IOS users Android has had exploit brokers stop buying exploits because they are plentiful. https://www.theregister.com/2020/05/14/zerodium_ios_flaws/ https://www.theregister.com/2020/05/14/zerodium_ios_flaws/
cesarvarela 6y ago
One of the reasons I choose Apple products is their “closed ness”, you guys have Android and Windows/Linux tinker with.

535 points by saurik 6y ago

Here is a copy of the actual complaint (which, of course, includes the legal theory and argument, for those who are mostly interested in that angle) -- https://cache.saurik.com/lawsuit/complaint.pdf https://cache.saurik.com/lawsuit/complaint.pdf -- which maybe people here will find more elucidating, particularly given that the article is behind a paywall :(.

newbie578 6y ago

Ehh, no matter how much I dislike Apple and hate everything they stand for, I must stand with them in this particular case (with the information the article gave). They are suing Apple, yet the only thing Apple did in regards to them was make jailbreaking more difficult? I don't see a real case here... If anyone has more insight, please do share.

chungus_khan 6y ago
All the Bell Telephone company did was prevent other products/services from working with their system.
- macjohnmcc 6y ago
  In a time that you could only get phone service from Bell. Now you have many vendors that sell Android based phones that you can choose if you want a wide open market.
  - echelon 6y ago
    The same market where Apple controls 50% under tight lock and key? And access to those consumers is controlled by a non-government entity for everything they do? All commerce impacting their entire life up and down the stack? Apple is the biggest monopoly since Ma Bell and Standard Oil. They're owning people. Whole entities. You have to go through Apple to do business with them.
    - kolinko 6y ago
      I, for one, keep choosing iPhone exactly for this reason - I want only apple to control the app review process. Without this, you’d have every single major company pishing their own installers with a ton of crapware on top of them. To give an example - Epic on Windows requires you to install their own store, with their own update system and notifications, plus ads showing each time you open up their game. I don’t want this on my phone - battery aside, I want the device to be 100% secure, and such crapware has a poor track record of security. I’m really for strong antitrust laws - Google and Facebook are monopolosts who abuse their position. But in case of the phones, both users and devs have a choice - they can use either Apple or Google. Unless both companies are guilty of the same thing (and in this case they are not), how this is an issue?
    - slinkyblack 6y ago
      Apple only controls 50% of the market because consumers keep buying their products. They are free to chose android, there are even plenty of androids phones are comparable in build quality and specs.
    - BlueTemplar 6y ago
      What 50% ?
    - macjohnmcc 6y ago
      People who knew it is what it is right from the get go. They didn't do any bait and switch.
    - adamcstephens 6y ago
      Apple is far from the biggest monopoly of today much less since the others. Amazon probably takes the cake, but Facebook and Google are right there too. Furthermore there are plenty of monopolies in non tech industries that do the same things.
restingrobot 6y ago
The issue isn't that apple made jailbreaking harder, its that apple shouldn't be the sole controller of what apps people can install on their phone. For example, if you have a company with millions of users and Apple decides you are a threat to their business, (or whatever reason they make up), they can ban your apps from the store, (e.g. Epic Games). This is monopolistic behavior. If apple were to allow third party store options, (without jailbreaking required), there wouldn't be an issue. The root issue isn't jailbreaking, (that's still possible and required to install non-store apps), but rather the requirement that ONLY store apps can be installed in the first place.
- dkonofalski 6y ago
  That would be a completely legitimate argument except that people buy their devices with the understanding that APple is the sole controller of what they can install. It's not monopolistic behavior because Apple doesn't have a monopoly. Apple makes the devices, they are 100% legally allowed to only allow apps from their own App Store and that precedent has already been set. The only unique thing in this lawsuit is that Cydia is claiming to be a competitor to the App Store and I firmly believe that it'll be tossed because Cydia's entire existence is predicated on a process that, at the time it was operating, is illegal and violates the DMCA. I don't necessarily think Cydia is bad and people should be able to jailbreak their devices if they want but that can't be used as the basis for a lawsuit that alleges monopolistic behavior or even anti-trust.
  - restingrobot 6y ago
    That's not true though, Apple does make the devices, but the user owns them, and therefore has the legal right to install whatever they wish. Apple does not have control over this, as evidenced by the legality ruling of jailbreaking. >Apple makes the devices, they are 100% legally allowed to only allow apps from their own App Store and that precedent has already been set. This is false. As proven time and time again, the Device Owner has full legal control after purchase. It is monopolistic behavior due to the scope of the control from Apple. The devices are the owner's property, and it is monopolistic for them to implement software/policies/hardware blocks, that prevent users from using the devices as they see fit. Take a simplistic example, Keurig. Keurig tried to prevent users from using any other coffee pod besides theirs. There is precedent to these monopoly lawsuits. https://time.com/2913062/k-cups-war/ https://time.com/2913062/k-cups-war/ https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/consumer-products/beverages/keurig-agrees-to-settle-indirect-buyers-antitrust-class-action-lawsuits-for-31m/#:~:text=Keurig%20has%20agreed%20to%20a,September%202010%20and%20August%202020 https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/consumer-pro....

someluccc 6y ago

I think as lawsuits keep coming, a possible alternative for Apple is to tie the app store to the free update cycle of iOS, essentially making iOS a SaaS product. Consumers and developers will be free to choose if the cost of iOS evens out with whatever fees they may save.

restingrobot 6y ago
This concept doesn't really work as the OS updates are required to interface with features of the new phones and support features of older phones. This would essentially force users to buy new devices every cycle, or cough up money for the updated OS. Also what about important security updates and bug fixes? Would Apple just allow these vulnerabilities to exist if people didn't pay? Either way this would be a terrible business decision on their part.
- someluccc 6y ago
  But isn’t this how OSs have been historically sold? You bought Windows XP and were entitled to a set number of years of support in terms of security parches, etc. Similarly if you don’t like the terms of the App Store you could have the option to purchase an open iOS v.1X and install whichever store you please. The only difference would be that you would need to pay again for subsequent versions of the OS, just like ppl would pay to update windows from XP to Vista to 7, etc.
  - restingrobot 6y ago
    No, historically OS's haven't been linked to hardware like iOS is. Imagine if every time you got a new webcam, you had to buy a new version of Windows. XP was supported for 12 years, iOS 12 was officially discontinued after 1 year. You're talking about orders of magnitude difference in time.
    - holycrapwhodat 6y ago
      > XP was supported for 12 years, iOS 12 was officially discontinued after 1 year. Also a pretty false equivalence, though. Windows 7 was a paid upgrade from Windows XP. iOS 13 was a free upgrade from iOS 12. Devices that shipped with iOS 10 got 11, 12, 13, and 14 for free. (Some/many/most/all) will probably continue getting future iOS versions for free.

Despegar 6y ago

There's basically nothing new here. This is a similar aftermarket case to Kodak [1]. Like the Epic case, this too will fail. A key element of Kodak was a bait and switch. If Apple had monopolized the aftermarket for iOS app distribution after customers were locked in, you may have a case against Apple (if you satisfy the other elements, like switching costs). But that was never true. From day one, the App Store was the only way to legally obtain iOS apps. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_Kodak_Co._v._Image_Technical_Services,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_Kodak_Co._v._Image_Tec....

chokeartist 6y ago
You forgot the period on the end of the URL :) Corrected: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_Kodak_Co._v._Image_Technical_Services,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_Kodak_Co._v._Image_Tec....
echelon 6y ago
Apple monopolizes access to 50% of American computer users and forces software shops big and small to pay their tax. Users can't install what they want on their computers and they can't upgrade them. The DOJ should force Apple to open the iPhone or face break up. Just because a breakup of this nature hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it shouldn't happen. And another thing. There's no reason a company this big should also be a music and film studio.
- FriendlyNormie 6y ago
  It’s a good thing that whiny melodramatic faggots like you will never have any actual power.
- Retric 6y ago
  First it’s 50% of cellphones not computers, but secondly as an iPhone customer I have never paid Apple for any app, but I have still paid for apps so that’s clearly false. Apple forces companies to give them a cut of in App purchases, but Kindle and Netflix show you can sell to iPhone customers without that.

rhacker 6y ago

I hate apps. I installed this app for Best Buy because I thought it was needed for curbside pickup. Turns out bestbuy.com on my phone has all the same features. I also have Netflix, Amazon Video and Hulu - but not because I want those apps, but because you can't play their video content in the mobile browser. But most of the time all apps do is annoy the crap out of me with pointless notifications. And I'm thankful that the latest Android let's me disable notifications for these apps - the entire experience is extremely pro-company, not pro-user. I think apps should die and if you want games get a switch.

echelon 6y ago
Apps are the worst. Not everything should be an app. There's no reason web couldn't continue to be a powerful app platform with full device API access. Rust+WASM+device APIs and you could have Google Maps and Netflix be "native" web apps. Apps were just an excuse for Jobs to own the iPhone platform. It's why they killed Flash - they didn't want a cross-platform way to develop apps and marginalize their plans.
- agust 6y ago
  That is also why they are currently preventing competition on web browser engines on iOS, by forcing other browsers to use theirs (webkit). That way they can limit the web app capabilities, by not implementing APIs like the Push API, and make the web look very bad by not fixing bugs. I'm wondering why Mozilla, amongst other companies, hasn't taken action against this anti-competitive behaviour.
  - pseudalopex 6y ago
    Mozilla wins. Apple has to allow other engines on iOS. Most users switch to Chrome. Most developers stop supporting anything else. Mozilla loses.
    - sjwright 6y ago
      Indeed, say what you will about Safari on iOS, it certainly forces some amount of diversity in the overall browser market. (I realise this is a controversial opinion but I don’t lament the slower feature release cadence of Safari because IMHO the web is already far too complex and feature rich for its own good.)

95014_refugee 6y ago

... where "liberate" is a funny way of spelling "pwn", "exploit", "infest" etc.

saagarjha 6y ago
You mean, users are so desperate to be able to install the software they want on their own devices that they are willing to use cyberweapons-grade exploits to bypass technical restrictions that Apple has increasingly been baking into their own silicon to prevent?

swiley 6y ago

It's not about the money, it's about not being able to leave an IMAP connection open on IDLE or change the push server for your IRC app or run guile/gcc/vim/git locally at a usable speed.

lupinglade 6y ago
Yes - that's the real problem, too many restrictions on what apps can and can't do. This is not something Apple should be able to do - this is itself anti-competitive, as of course Apple are able to do all of those things while competing with other developers.
- handmodel 6y ago
  I'd like to see someone with more legal knowhow chip in but I'm fairly sure the fact that the app store does restrict apps to be the most compelling legal case for its existence? If it literally blocked nothing then Apple can't say that the app store is part of the ecosystem that makes it unique. If it has a high bar for restrictions, it can successfully argue to avoid spamware and other bad quality apps Apple is going the work for the user to make the phone experience worthwhile.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    Apple's bar does not successfully keep out a lot of spamware. Have you taken a look at the junk that you get when you search for any generic search term?

mhh__ 6y ago

It seems to me a fairly reasonable piece of legislation to require devices that are quasi-PCs (i.e. the iPhone today is to many what the laptop was 10 years ago) to be able to run software of the users choosing. The manufacturer isn't obligated to do anything beyond providing a stable ground for others to build from. Beyond the user freedom angle, this could also help reduce e-waste as there will be a niche but functional ecosystem of tools to keep the phone or games console (!) running past it's lifecycle

Terretta 6y ago
This premise assumes a building full of vacuum tubes and the punch cards are two different things. One immutable set of toggles, and then an infinite variety of suggested settings for those. It's not clear to me that's as true any more, when, randomly for instance, HEVC is in chips, or iPhones include an ASIC that's actually an FPGA. This seems to require a new principle, that a device maker may decide how far up the stack their logic goes, regardless of the form in which that logic is represented. As a check and balance on this, perhaps device makers do not get to retroactively (for a given device) take back intentional open parts of that waterline, as we've seen console makers do with what were deliberate and marketed capabilities, sometimes long after release.
- mhh__ 6y ago
  > It's not clear to me that's as true any more, when, randomly for instance, HEVC is in chips, or iPhones include an ASIC that's actually an FPGA. Ignoring that it would be pretty wild if I could actually throw Verilog (Yuck) at my phone, I would draw the line at roughly the OS kernel or at least it's rough outline. The OEM wouldn't be allowed to include any time bombs under that layer, but ultimately the focus is on "day to day" work rather than complete control of the hardware.
tgv 6y ago
It could also help proliferate hacking bank accounts and identity theft. People cannot be trusted with computers. They install everything that crosses their path. History has shown that, and has shown that that is a great way to get your malware onto someone's machine. The App Store, whatever you may think of the pricing, successfully prevents that, and it should not be taken away in the name of fake liberty, or someone's commercial interest.

lupinglade 6y ago

Installer.app was the first "App Store", before Cydia even existed, I wrote it. I spoke to Steve before they launched their App Store -- we were happy to see them open up the platform and provide an official SDK, which was our goal with Installer.app. I think Apple should either charge considerably less than they do for distribution via their App Stores (that is, even less than 15%) or allow competition. Even more importantly, they need to allow installation of apps via links without requiring an App Store altogether. They also need to provide wider access to low level APIs (with user confirmation), instead of dumbing it down for developers while keeping all the powerful APIs to themselves.

thanksforthe42 6y ago
The primary fear is getting kicked off because Apple said so. The fees might suck, but the concern is spending a year on an app only to be denied or lose it once you gain popularity.
- deleted 6y ago
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kbenson 6y ago
> I think Apple should either charge considerably less than they do for distribution via their App Stores (that is, even less than 15%) or allow competition. There's no "or" there. They need competition. The fact they were able to quickly halve their fee due to public sentiment and some lawmakers sniffing around means that competition was not working to even that out to costs plus some profit already. I would posit the reason is because there is no real competition because Apple's behavior and control of their platform (from hardware to customer transactions) is extremely anti-competitive. Monopoly or not, anti-competitive behavior that harms consumers is the problem, and the fact they could drop fees so easily and quickly and by an arbitrary amount (half) points towards harm to developers and by extension consumers due to inflated fees because of lack of competition.

baby 6y ago

Apple: I can install whatever I want on my laptop, why can’t I do the same on my phone?

silviot 6y ago
Oh, don't worry! They're probably working on it: soon you won't be able to install whatever you want on your laptop. Just making some unsubstantiated irony, but I wouldn't be surprised if it happened.
- kbenson 6y ago
  How far apart is an iPad Pro with a keyboard from the new MacBook Pro with the M1 chip? It seems pretty obvious they are converging to me. If they do converge, do you think Apple will start allowing MacOS on iPads, or will require MacBooks to run iOS and provide some virtualized OS emulation layer? I know what I'd put my money on, given lack of legal reasons in the future to force it another way.
  - TheOperator 6y ago
    MacOS on iPads won't happen anytime soon. Not so long as Apple can sell you two devices instead of one.
    - kbenson 6y ago
      LOL, that's actually a pretty good argument against them doing that. For now. :)
  - m463 6y ago
    It's like apple got set on a course... And they're on it... following it... and optimizing everything along the way... they're going to converge off the edge of a cliff and into the abyss.
chaostheory 6y ago
Why? Security and ensuring "It just works". Choice, freedom, and customization are enemies to both. We can see this in action with the last MacOS update. I'm not saying that I'm with either side, but these are the pros and cons. What I'm not seeing is, does iOS have even enough market share dominance to require regulation? From what I remember they only have around 15% of the market.

mulcahey 6y ago

Was seeing if saurik commented in this thread yet, only to see that he posted it!

BTCOG 6y ago
Also only came here to see if saurik posted. ;)
- saagarjha 6y ago
  I would not be surprised if his lawyer told him to shut up and not comment on this thread ;)
  - judge2020 6y ago
    Only https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25376003 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25376003

timhigins 6y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20201210220357if_/https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/12/10/cydia-apple-lawsuit/ https://web.archive.org/web/20201210220357if_/https://www.wa...

samat 6y ago

Is there an actual lawsuit pdf somewhere? Could not find a link in the wapo article :(

saagarjha 6y ago
https://cache.saurik.com/lawsuit/complaint.pdf https://cache.saurik.com/lawsuit/complaint.pdf

ApolloVonZ 6y ago

As an iOS developer I agree with some of the arguments, the 30% are a bit too much and should be less. The 15% for small businesses is a start but it's still not always fair. At the same time, I think the arguments Epic gives for example are bullshit. I rather give 30% of the money Epic takes for basically selling digital nothing to millions of teens to Apple. At least Apple is doing something with that money, maintaining the App Store, providing and developing tools like XCode and Swift. Also for me it makes a difference that Apple is a publicly traded company, Epic is not. But off topic here, the very closed nature of the App Store is a benefit in terms of security, especially for users that don't know much about technology or don't care to care about their security. Having several app stores would water down the whole iOS ecosystem and has actually the potential to hurt the business of many app based companies. Yes, the App Store can be strict at times and quite of few of its restrictive policies need changing. But it does force you to make good stable apps. And it puts your apps right next to every other app in that category, instead of having to care about n different ways of how to distribute your apps. It's only the one, and there you got to get it right. Having more app stores won't really increase your audience either, at the end it's still gonna be the same customers, but a lot more maintenance. So I think if Apple would change its pricing model, the App Store review process, and lift some of the more stricter limitations, which I think it has to in the next year and a half, then the App Store will be a great way to get you apps out there. But that's my opinion from a personal point of view.

breeny592 6y ago
> I rather give 30% of the money Epic takes for basically selling digital nothing to millions of teens to Apple. At least Apple is doing something with that money, maintaining the App Store, providing and developing tools like XCode and Swift. Epic also would be spending some of their money on their own development, improvement to games etc. I don't quite follow the line of argument here - if things are 30% more expensive to cover Apples costs, then the consumer is the one losing out in the transaction.
- ocdtrekkie 6y ago
  And that's the case with the Epic suit: Epic literally dropped their prices when they went around Apple's cut, passing almost all of the savings directly on to consumers. It's really incredible to me the lengths people will go to villanize Epic when they're known for not just advocating for consumer choice and lower prices, but have done crazy things like when dropping their cut... applying it retroactively since they started charging for it: https://marketplacehelp.epicgames.com/s/article/Unreal-Engine-Marketplace-88-12-Revenue-Share-Change-and-Retroactive-Payout?language=en_US https://marketplacehelp.epicgames.com/s/article/Unreal-Engin... Can you even imagine Apple retroactively giving all those small businesses half the Apple cut back?

BasicObject 6y ago

No mention of Synaptic anywhere? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synaptic_%28software%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synaptic_%28software%29 Predates anything here by 5 years. Similar functionality. Yes, nothing is technically for sale in Synaptic, but it's a graphical interface to install thousands of software downloads. What am I missing here?

anamexis 6y ago
The fact that they aren't party to this lawsuit?
- BasicObject 6y ago
  no shit?

m3kw9 6y ago

This is like a black market suing the govt for monopoly.

leafmeal 6y ago
It may feel that way, but Cydia did nothing illegal. They were more or less forced out by Apple's anti-competitive practices.
saagarjha 6y ago
Black market? Cydia pioneered the "App Store" model on iPhone, made it successful, and provided features that Apple stole and put into their own App Store. This is like Sam Walton looking at a mom-and-pop shop, deciding that selling things looks like a good idea, then starting Walmart and getting the local government to ban the idea of any other store. And then you're coming here to call the original thing a "black market"?
dannyw 6y ago
Back in the days of pre-computing, we had the “first sale doctrine”. This meant that as soon as you bought something, you had the right to do whatever you wanted with that physical item. Including selling it. Including renting it out. Including bundling it with five other books from other publishers and selling it together for whatever price. Without any of their consent. And it certainly includes tearing a page out. Or writing your own notes over the pages.
- judge2020 6y ago
  I think it turned out like this because supply control used to come from the time/resource limitation of making physical goods. If you wanted your product to be rarer/higher priced, even on the second-hand market, you needed to produce less of that item. With the computing age, putting software on disks is cheap and sending software via the internet is effectively free, and reproducing that software for free to send to anyone who wants it is both free and easy (less so now with blu-ray DRM but it still happens).
  - 6y ago

zepto 6y ago

The biggest flaw with the complaint seems to be the claim that Apple locked down the iPhone as a response to the success of Cydia. That seems hard to rationalize, given that the iPhone was already locked down before Cydia, and Cydia could only be installed by exploiting a security vulnerability. It’s true that Apple made jailbreaking harder by fixing vulnerabilities, but you’d expect them to do that for security reasons. If the iPhone had supported the installation of 3rd party stores, and then Apple had withdrawn this support after launching their own, I think the case would be stronger.

dannyw 6y ago
That’s like saying for an antitrust violation to have occurred, the violator must have previously intentionally not been violating. E.g. Intel can tell PC manufacturers they must not sell AMD devices, if they started with condition when they made their first sale. I don’t think the courts will buy this argument. What Apple did from Day 0 was anticompetitive.
- zepto 6y ago
  It’s unclear how it could have been anticompetitive from day zero. Are you suggesting that all devices capable of running an open operating system must have a way to allow one to be installed? If so, I can get behind that as an actual law worth supporting, but it doesn’t seem like an anti-trust issue.
  - dannyw 6y ago
    No, I’m suggesting that a company may be pursued for an antitrust remedy even if they have been in continuous violation of it in the beginning. The argument I would be making here is that Apple used illegally bundled its app distribution system with its hardware, and used anticompetitive actions to enforce it.
    - zepto 6y ago
      They didn’t bundle the app distribution system from day 0. That is part of Saurik’s argument in the legal complaint.

greatgib 6y ago

Thank you very much Cydia! I was hoping for so long that something like that would come. I'm always stunned that antitrust authorities do nothing on this topic where in my opinion they should have reacted a long time ago. I see a lot of people here saying that Apple monopoly is good because they pay to maintain their app store and for the security of the users blablablah. But no one said that they can't continue their app store with the conditions that they want on it, just it would be fair that any one be able to run competitors app stores with their conditions and the same possibilities as the official one. It's not like anyone will be forced to use another appstore if he wants to stay on apple one for security! Now, apple world is like if we were living in north korea: we are such morons that the party has to decide everything for us, and finally to their own benefit!

jbombadil 6y ago
> It’s not like anyone will be forced to use another AppStore if he wants to stay on the apple one for security! That’s exactly what is happening on PC gaming right now. Every game comes with it’s own AppStore (or similar bunch of extra software). I’m torn on this. I do agree with users having more choice, but I also see the huge value of Apple being able to protect user’s privacy and security by having a tight control of the AppStore.
- jachee 6y ago
  Not just their privacy, but also their financial details.
- banachtarski 6y ago
  Competition is key though. Plenty of publishers know that ditching established installers and app stores comes with a price, and so publishing or at least co-publishing on steam/epic/gog/etc is pretty important.
  - judge2020 6y ago
    And the consumer experience isn't great when jumping between games during the day means opening 3 different launchers and having them constantly run in the background if you don't manually close them. I've said this before: if Epic wins the lawsuit, you're going to either see the Epic launcher show up on Xbox, Playstation, and Switch or Epic's going to 'negotiate' with those publishers to get an extra 15% (or more) cut of sales.

LockAndLol 6y ago

I understand the philosophy of "I bought it, I own, I should be able to do what I want with what I own". However, you're fighting against a big, fat corporation for a situation you pur yourself into. Why not buy an alternative that actually does what you want? Sure, e-waste is bad, but that's the only strong argument here IMO. Apple should be severely punished for helping create pollution. The rest is up to interpretation.

heavyset_go 6y ago

Apple and Google have held the mobile app distribution market hostage for over a decade now. I hope Cydia is successful in tackling Apple's anti-competitive behavior. We need real competition in the app distribution space. There's a generation being raised right now whose exposure to computing has been limited to what Apple and Google have deemed worthy for them to consume.

sellyme 6y ago
The single best-selling smartphone brand in the world is an Android phone that comes with a non-Google app store preinstalled, I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that they're holding the market hostage. Certainly the Galaxy Store/Amazon Appstore/F-Droid/etc aren't anywhere near as ubiquitous as the Play Store, but they're still there and not particularly difficult to access.
- heavyset_go 6y ago
  In the US, iOS has 52.4% of the mobile OS market[1], and Android has 47%. In the US, Apple's App Store is responsible for the majority of mobile app sales[2], and has 3 times the revenue of Google's Play Store. Apple and Google dominate the mobile OS market, and Apple more so than Google, dominates the mobile app distribution market. Everything else is negligible. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/266572/market-share-held-by-smartphone-platforms-in-the-united-states/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/266572/market-share-held... [2] https://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2020/01/in-2019-apples-app-store-was-1-in-the-us-with-more-3x-google-play-sales.html https://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2020/01/in-2019...
  - jhanschoo 6y ago
    I don't see how this undermines the argument that Google doesn't hold the Android app market "hostage" because users usually buy devices that already have another app store preinstalled and also are free to install other app stores.
    - 6y ago

dijit27 6y ago

There is something about the bias of this article that bugs me. It feels like it is trying to rewrite history to suit its narrative. It implies that developers used to be able to create whatever programs they wanted thanks to Cydia prior to the App Store. This was never the case, the Cydia ecosystem was based on unintended buggy behavior. In the beginning Apple was clear that there were no native apps, only web apps or whatever they called them. They eventually reversed course and implemented the App Store for native apps but was that because of Cydia? That's just speculation. Personally I always speculated that they weren't ready and in classic Apple fashion pretended the idea of native apps was stupid until they were ready. Should Apple be forced to support other app stores or side loading? I don't know. I do feel like there are good arguments for it but they should be allowed to stand on there own merit without skewing the narrative.

blondie9x 6y ago

Remembering that Cydia came before the App Store was added to iPhone is one of the most important pieces of modern historical facts we should know.

shmerl 6y ago

Good, Apple totally violate antitrust with their store policies. The ban on competing browsers is a glaring example too.

lowbloodsugar 6y ago

There are many purchase options if you want a new phone. One of those options, and not the largest selling option, as a product from Apple that requires that you use their app store, and follow certain rules. If you do not like this product, then there are literally far more non-apple products to choose from. There are both for more non-apple options, and there are far more of those sold worldwide.

nethunters 6y ago

Some people advocate that it's for the safety of the users that Apple have created this walled garden. One app store, one payment system, one browser means better security (in theory). In reality users have no freedom and are at the total mercy of Apple's decisions. Apple's one browser isn't working in terms of security as there's been an oversupply of Safari remote code execution, local privilege escalation and sandbox escapes. So if Apple actually cared about users and the security of their devices instead of growing their monopoly shouldn't they instead be concentrating on fixing these vulnerabilities? Not even the enemy of IOS users Android has had exploit brokers stop buying exploits because they are plentiful. https://www.theregister.com/2020/05/14/zerodium_ios_flaws/ https://www.theregister.com/2020/05/14/zerodium_ios_flaws/

cesarvarela 6y ago

One of the reasons I choose Apple products is their “closed ness”, you guys have Android and Windows/Linux tinker with.