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> [Microsoft] were even more obnoxious in their anti-competitive practices. I'd love to hear why you think that. Microsoft never stopped consumers from install

> [Microsoft] were even more obnoxious in their anti-competitive practices. I'd love to hear why you think that. Microsoft never stopped consumers from installing Linux on a PC. Microsoft never stopped anyone from installing software on Windows. You could always buy a PC and do whatever you wanted to with it. Meanwhile, Apple doesn't let you do anything on an iPhone if it isn't bought from their app store. The level of control that Apple has over iOS is ridiculous compared to what Microsoft had. Apple is 10 times worse towards consumers and developers than Microsoft ever was. I can't even install my own apps on my iPhone without paying Apple $100 per year. Without a developer account, having to re-install the app every 7 days (only from a Mac) is nearly useless. How could I ever take a 2 week vacation and still use my apps? > Apple doesn't have majority market share Yes they do. "Today, the iPhone has 66% market share in the United States, 75% of U.S. App Store revenues, and over 80% of time spent on the mobile internet (iOS’s share of physical e-commerce transactions is likely somewhere in the middle of this range). And this dominance is also growing. Eighty percent of U.S. teenagers have iPhones and the device held 90% of smartphone activations in the week after Christmas 2020." [0] [1] [0] https://www.matthewball.vc/all/applemetaverse https://www.matthewball.vc/all/applemetaverse [1] https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2020/8/18/app-stores https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2020/8/18/app-stores

endisneigh 6y ago
I’m curious - why don’t you just buy an Android phone and PC - then your issues are resolved no?
- wayneftw 6y ago
  Simple: almost everybody I know uses an iPhone. Without an iPhone, I can't FaceTime with my family and friends. Without an iPhone, I'm discriminated against among young people because of green text in iMessage. Without an iPhone I can't do account sharing for all the digital things my family uses. And those sorts of reasons are just from me as a consumer. As a developer, more than half my customers (in the USA) have an iPhone. I literally cannot do business or provide apps to them without going through Apple.
  - endisneigh 6y ago
    I mean you could just get your family and friends to switch to Android too, right? Presumably they're using an iPhone because they find the experience to be superior. Given that iPhones are more experience I would assume this to be the case. I'm curious what your proposed solution to this problem is.
    - wayneftw 6y ago
      > I mean you could just get your family and friends to switch to Android too, right? A completely socially clueless person might try that, sure. > Presumably they're using an iPhone because they find the experience to be superior. [Because they're more expensive...] They're not more expensive. I actually can't find a $299 Android which has the same specs as an iPhone 8 that I got for that price. Also, where's the $2000 iPhone that competes with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2?? So they're cheaper in many cases but even more importantly, Apple has done some excellent marketing to position themselves as a premium brand and most people in my upward/upper-ish middle class circles are extremely susceptible to that kind of signaling. Personally, I can take or leave either one of them. I have to use both for testing and I do support for people in my life all the time and they both definitely have their drawbacks.
- heavyset_go 6y ago
  There are millions, if not billions, of Android phones with manufacturers that go out of their way to prevent users from rooting their phones or putting custom ROMs on them. There are millions, if not billions, of Android phones that will never run a user's choice of ROMs, and millions more are produced each year. Not only that, Google prevents competition in the mobile app distribution market, too, because user installable 3rd party app stores cannot implement automatic upgrades, background installation of apps, or batch installs of apps like the Play Store can.
- varispeed 6y ago
  It's kind of like saying "why don't you look away" if you see someone beating other person. Your argument is low effort.
  - endisneigh 6y ago
    Are you seriously comparing purchasing phones to beating someone...?
    - sebastien_bois 6y ago
      No, they are not - they're pointing out your 'argument' is as without support as that example.
      - endisneigh 6y ago
        I don't understand, the situations are not analogous at all. Not to mention I was merely asking a question - not everything is an "argument".
        sebastien_bois 6y ago
        You are correct - you don't understand.
        endisneigh 6y ago
        Well, this was a productive conversation I suppose then.
      - Rule35 6y ago
        That's what they're trying to do, but they failed. It's not an issue of over-reach (omg, did you just ...) it's that Apple isn't beating (abusing in any way) anyone. People sign up for it. No abuse is happening. So his question is more like "Do you just look away when you see a valid business transaction" but couched in rage terms.
Rule35 6y ago
> Meanwhile, Apple doesn't let you do anything on an iPhone if it isn't bought from their app store. The level of control that Apple has over iOS is ridiculous compared to what Microsoft had. Apple is 10 times worse towards consumers and developers than Microsoft ever was. The reputational difference, I think, is in their self-representation. Microsoft played price-fixing games, let malware be included in the install, manipulated the market, etc, while presenting themselves as honest competitors. Whereas Apple is pretty straight-forward about the lockdown. And that's sort of why we buy them for our non-tech people - because they can't be screwed up in all the user-based ways. We don't particularly want to force Apple to open up until the security/privacy problems of Android and Microsoft have some plausible solution. I hope that once strong U2F tokens are normal and in-use by the average person that we'll have the infrastructure to really allow people to unlock their device without just enabling evil-maid attacks.
taylodl 6y ago
Remember Microsoft's anti-trust lawsuit came about in the 90's - so we have to go back in time and look at what Microsoft was doing back then to prompt this lawsuit. For starters, Microsoft relied heavily on undocumented APIs in both DOS and Windows for their own applications, e.g. Office. When others such as Borland, Lotus, or Word Perfect attempted to reverse-engineer and utilize those APIs in their own applications they'd be broken in the next release. Microsoft would change the undocumented APIs so their competitors would no longer work and release a new release of Office concurrent with the next release of DOS/Windows. Guess what happened as a result? You don't hear of Borland, Lotus or Word Perfect anymore, do you? There were still more dastardly deeds up Microsoft's sleeve. Ever wonder why OS/2 didn't leave Microsoft's Windows in the dust? Or why Linux never became a viable option? Read on. When Windows 3.0 was released in 1990 it took the world by storm. Everybody, and I mean everybody, wanted it. PC makers (HP, Dell, Gateway, Compaq, et. al.) wanted to provide PC's with Windows preinstalled. Microsoft used that to their advantage. They would provide Windows licensing to the PC makers at substantially reduced cost on ONE condition: they could not preinstall any other competitor's OS. Oh and one more thing - EVERY SINGLE machine shipped would have to include a license for Windows. What does that mean? If you wanted to run OS/2 on your Compaq then you will have paid Microsoft for the Windows license you're not going to use AND you're still going to have to pay IBM for OS/2 AND you're going to have to install it yourself - Compaq wasn't allowed to preinstall it for you and still be able to distribute Windows. Pretty bad, no? Get this - in federal court Microsoft argued these practices were legal because they were not a monopoly. They pointed to Apple as their viable competitor. At the time Apple had 2% of the PC market and was on the verge of bankruptcy. The judge noted that Apple wasn't really a healthy, viable competitor and ordered Microsoft to pay Apple several hundred million dollars (this seems to be confused in the press, apparently at the time the Microsoft anti-trust lawsuit was proceeding there was another case where Microsoft and Intel were caught red-handed stealing video codec IP from Apple and were ordered to pay a large infringement settlement). Either way, Microsoft was forced to pay Apple hundreds of millions of dollars. So yes, Microsoft was more obnoxious in their anti-competitive practices and the courts allowed them to carry on with those practices for the price of a few hundred million dollars paid out to Apple. By comparison Apple looks like darling little Angels compared to the Microsoft of the Gates and Ballmer eras.
- 6y ago

endisneigh 6y ago

I’m curious - why don’t you just buy an Android phone and PC - then your issues are resolved no?

wayneftw 6y ago
Simple: almost everybody I know uses an iPhone. Without an iPhone, I can't FaceTime with my family and friends. Without an iPhone, I'm discriminated against among young people because of green text in iMessage. Without an iPhone I can't do account sharing for all the digital things my family uses. And those sorts of reasons are just from me as a consumer. As a developer, more than half my customers (in the USA) have an iPhone. I literally cannot do business or provide apps to them without going through Apple.
- endisneigh 6y ago
  I mean you could just get your family and friends to switch to Android too, right? Presumably they're using an iPhone because they find the experience to be superior. Given that iPhones are more experience I would assume this to be the case. I'm curious what your proposed solution to this problem is.
  - wayneftw 6y ago
    > I mean you could just get your family and friends to switch to Android too, right? A completely socially clueless person might try that, sure. > Presumably they're using an iPhone because they find the experience to be superior. [Because they're more expensive...] They're not more expensive. I actually can't find a $299 Android which has the same specs as an iPhone 8 that I got for that price. Also, where's the $2000 iPhone that competes with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2?? So they're cheaper in many cases but even more importantly, Apple has done some excellent marketing to position themselves as a premium brand and most people in my upward/upper-ish middle class circles are extremely susceptible to that kind of signaling. Personally, I can take or leave either one of them. I have to use both for testing and I do support for people in my life all the time and they both definitely have their drawbacks.
heavyset_go 6y ago
There are millions, if not billions, of Android phones with manufacturers that go out of their way to prevent users from rooting their phones or putting custom ROMs on them. There are millions, if not billions, of Android phones that will never run a user's choice of ROMs, and millions more are produced each year. Not only that, Google prevents competition in the mobile app distribution market, too, because user installable 3rd party app stores cannot implement automatic upgrades, background installation of apps, or batch installs of apps like the Play Store can.
varispeed 6y ago
It's kind of like saying "why don't you look away" if you see someone beating other person. Your argument is low effort.
- endisneigh 6y ago
  Are you seriously comparing purchasing phones to beating someone...?
  - sebastien_bois 6y ago
    No, they are not - they're pointing out your 'argument' is as without support as that example.
    - endisneigh 6y ago
      I don't understand, the situations are not analogous at all. Not to mention I was merely asking a question - not everything is an "argument".
      - sebastien_bois 6y ago
        You are correct - you don't understand.
        endisneigh 6y ago
        Well, this was a productive conversation I suppose then.
    - Rule35 6y ago
      That's what they're trying to do, but they failed. It's not an issue of over-reach (omg, did you just ...) it's that Apple isn't beating (abusing in any way) anyone. People sign up for it. No abuse is happening. So his question is more like "Do you just look away when you see a valid business transaction" but couched in rage terms.

Rule35 6y ago

> Meanwhile, Apple doesn't let you do anything on an iPhone if it isn't bought from their app store. The level of control that Apple has over iOS is ridiculous compared to what Microsoft had. Apple is 10 times worse towards consumers and developers than Microsoft ever was. The reputational difference, I think, is in their self-representation. Microsoft played price-fixing games, let malware be included in the install, manipulated the market, etc, while presenting themselves as honest competitors. Whereas Apple is pretty straight-forward about the lockdown. And that's sort of why we buy them for our non-tech people - because they can't be screwed up in all the user-based ways. We don't particularly want to force Apple to open up until the security/privacy problems of Android and Microsoft have some plausible solution. I hope that once strong U2F tokens are normal and in-use by the average person that we'll have the infrastructure to really allow people to unlock their device without just enabling evil-maid attacks.

taylodl 6y ago

Remember Microsoft's anti-trust lawsuit came about in the 90's - so we have to go back in time and look at what Microsoft was doing back then to prompt this lawsuit. For starters, Microsoft relied heavily on undocumented APIs in both DOS and Windows for their own applications, e.g. Office. When others such as Borland, Lotus, or Word Perfect attempted to reverse-engineer and utilize those APIs in their own applications they'd be broken in the next release. Microsoft would change the undocumented APIs so their competitors would no longer work and release a new release of Office concurrent with the next release of DOS/Windows. Guess what happened as a result? You don't hear of Borland, Lotus or Word Perfect anymore, do you? There were still more dastardly deeds up Microsoft's sleeve. Ever wonder why OS/2 didn't leave Microsoft's Windows in the dust? Or why Linux never became a viable option? Read on. When Windows 3.0 was released in 1990 it took the world by storm. Everybody, and I mean everybody, wanted it. PC makers (HP, Dell, Gateway, Compaq, et. al.) wanted to provide PC's with Windows preinstalled. Microsoft used that to their advantage. They would provide Windows licensing to the PC makers at substantially reduced cost on ONE condition: they could not preinstall any other competitor's OS. Oh and one more thing - EVERY SINGLE machine shipped would have to include a license for Windows. What does that mean? If you wanted to run OS/2 on your Compaq then you will have paid Microsoft for the Windows license you're not going to use AND you're still going to have to pay IBM for OS/2 AND you're going to have to install it yourself - Compaq wasn't allowed to preinstall it for you and still be able to distribute Windows. Pretty bad, no? Get this - in federal court Microsoft argued these practices were legal because they were not a monopoly. They pointed to Apple as their viable competitor. At the time Apple had 2% of the PC market and was on the verge of bankruptcy. The judge noted that Apple wasn't really a healthy, viable competitor and ordered Microsoft to pay Apple several hundred million dollars (this seems to be confused in the press, apparently at the time the Microsoft anti-trust lawsuit was proceeding there was another case where Microsoft and Intel were caught red-handed stealing video codec IP from Apple and were ordered to pay a large infringement settlement). Either way, Microsoft was forced to pay Apple hundreds of millions of dollars. So yes, Microsoft was more obnoxious in their anti-competitive practices and the courts allowed them to carry on with those practices for the price of a few hundred million dollars paid out to Apple. By comparison Apple looks like darling little Angels compared to the Microsoft of the Gates and Ballmer eras.

6y ago