25 ms·

Google and Apple attacked on app store 'monopoly'

114 points by quaesitor 5y ago

titzer 5y ago
> She also accused Apple of preventing Tile from using the technology behind Apple's Find My function, giving AirTags an unfair advantage. > Apple said the product was different. "We didn't copy Tile's product... It's extremely different to anything else on the market," said Apple's Chief Compliance Officer, Kyle Andeer. lol! yeah right, Kyle.
- zapzupnz 5y ago
  Tile plays a sound to be found. AirTag are triangulated by the Find My app. Also, third parties are already signed up for the new third party integrations to Find My.
- fossuser 5y ago
  The irony of Tile's demand was that by Apple opening up Find My to third parties Tile's network effect moat just became irrelevant. Instead of having one serious competitor with a network (Apple) that's only iOS they're now a strict commodity and the "Tile Network" isn't a differentiated advantage. Be careful what you wish for.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
cblconfederate 5y ago
i think it's not productive to call it a literal/actual/effective monopoly, since it's designed to be monopoly. The problem is not so much that it's a monopoly but that it advertises itself to developers and to users as being an open more or less market, which it isn't since it's by design rigged and censored. There's a legal gap here probably because such situations are unprecedented (where a company builds a market completely controlled by itself). Do sellers and buyers have fundamental rights in a free market economy?
- chii 5y ago
  > situations are unprecedented (where a company builds a market completely controlled by itself) not really. Malls are in a similar situation. If you own the mall, you get to dictate whether the tenants are allowed or not. They pay rent to remain in the mall, and there's some rules they must follow or they get kicked out (rules which are made clear upfront). The difference between a mall and the app store is that there can be competing malls (say, right next door!), but currently, apple has made it impossible to create competing app stores. But malls themselves have a natural monopoly, because of pysics - pauli's exclusion principle - you cannot occupy the same space as another mall. So the law should account for this, and make sure that the app store is just as fair as a mall is today.
  - cblconfederate 5y ago
    I dont consider that a good analogy - if a mall closes a cinema because it doesn't like a movie, or a bakery because it baked a cake, there would be legal repercusions for them while apple's developer contract doesn't seem to have lots of legal protections for the seller, or the buyer. Also, a mall doesn't benefit from dictating these decisions in a direct way the way apple does: apps are selected on the basis of improving the value (and price/desirability) of apple's products, not on the basis of giving user satisfaction/choice (when these two conflict) A closer analogy would be a gas station made by Ford that is the only station that that Fords can use. Or Tesla's charger network where competing companies could be invited , but be at their whims. Well, pauli's principle allows up to 2 malls in the same place
    - colejohnson66 5y ago
      > if a mall closes a cinema because it doesn't like a movie, or a bakery because it baked a cake,... Would they though? If a movie theater refuses to show a certain movie, that’s legal. A mall is just refusing to house a tenant they don’t agree with. Apartment owners are allowed to refuse to rent to you for any reason (not covered under a protected class).
- zepto 5y ago
prepend 5y ago
She also must think that Walmart cash registers are literally a monopoly.
BoysenberryPi 5y ago
> She also accused Apple of preventing Tile from using the technology behind Apple's Find My function, giving AirTags an unfair advantage. I am not a person who uses Apple products so someone please clarify for me. Does Apple grant access to this to other people? Can I create a GPS-enabled product and use Apple's SDK to implement "Find My...?"
- zapzupnz 5y ago
  You can.
- easton 5y ago
  Yes. They actually talked about this in the event, and one of Tile's competitors (who's name escapes me) is adding it to some of their products. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/04/apples-find-my-network-now-offers-new-third-party-finding-experiences/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/04/apples-find-my-networ...
- kemayo 5y ago
  Apple recently allowed this. Tile's complaint now is that the Apple Find My integration requires that you only work with Find My, so Tile's app (and presumably related subscription products) becomes unnecessary.
  - gumby 5y ago
    Except Tile’s competitor that also works with FindMy is not subject to this constraint...
    - kemayo 5y ago
      I think you're wrong about that? I went and checked Apple's press release [1] to work out which tracker it is, and the Chipolo website for the product [2] says "Chipolo ONE Spot works exclusively with the Apple Find My app". To me that implies they've got the same constraint. [1]: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/04/apples-find-my-network-now-offers-new-third-party-finding-experiences/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/04/apples-find-my-networ... [2]: https://chipolo.net/en-us/pages/chipolo-one-spot https://chipolo.net/en-us/pages/chipolo-one-spot
superkuh 5y ago
Yes, it is a monopoly. You can see the effects in software that doesn't even run on Apple devices. The most recent example is Discord being forced to change their entire platform and software on non-apple OSes just to be allowed to have their software run on Apple's monopoly walled garden.
- zapzupnz 5y ago
  Example? As far as I know, Discord mainly uses React Native on all platforms, with some iOS and Android specific code on those platforms for integration and performance reasons. Edit: ahh, you’re talking about content restrictions. They way you phrased your message sounded like you were talking about the technological stack.
- easton 5y ago
  They weren't forced to do it, they did it so they didn't have to have a 17+ rating in the App Store. And then they decided not to. https://www.theverge.com/tech/2021/4/19/22391675/discord-ios-nsfw-ban-loosened-opt-in https://www.theverge.com/tech/2021/4/19/22391675/discord-ios...
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - joking 5y ago
    has any a browser a +17 rating on the App Store?
    - easton 5y ago
      Every browser used to, given you can look at porn on them.
geenew 5y ago
It's hard to argue with the claim - if you have an iOS phone or tablet, for example, it is a monopoly, since it's the only place you can buy a program for your computer. The walled garden has real benefits in security and privacy, but seems to require centralized control, and comes at the expense of user freedom. A solution to the monopoly pricing problem could be to treat app store controllers (currently A & G) to the same type of control that credit card issuers are subject to, and place a limit on the rates they can charge. A solution to the security vs freedom question could be to require that users have the option to opt out of app store controls for installing programs.
- 015a 5y ago
  I don't even buy the "security" argument; MacOS is a highly secure operating system, produced by the same company, which has no forced walled-garden App Store. There certainly are exploits and scams which happen; just like on iOS. The argument sounds great in theory, but in practice, it simply doesn't hold water; security & privacy can (and should) (and does) happen at the OS layer, not application distribution.
  - fastball 5y ago
    macOS is definitely less secure than iOS.
    - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
      What's your definition of "secure" here?
      - fastball 5y ago
        Same as everyone else's, I'd expect – less possibility (higher difficulty for attackers) of viruses / data exfiltration / etc.
        ChuckNorris89 5y ago
c3534l 5y ago
I feel like the entire world has forgotten what a monopoly is. Apparently both Apple and Google are monopolies despite being competitors of one another. Programmers clearly talk about developing apps for one platform or another and sometimes give up on developing for one because the approval process was annoying or arbitrary. Consumers have a choice in the phones they buy and whether to even use a phone app for that service to begin with. Maybe this isn't a healthy ecosystem, but it seems we've completely lost the thread on what a monopoly is.
- bombcar 5y ago
  Monopoly is anything that does something that I don’t like. People bitch about Android vs iPhone and ignore the actual local monopolies present in the phone network itself.
  - arberx 5y ago
    Those are called natural monopolies. It's very difficult to put up network infrastructure.
    - erhk 5y ago
      So why are they not municipal Or should we have water and electric monopolies
- eruleman 5y ago
  You're right. It's a duopoly, a cartel. A system controlled by two players who move in coordination with one another. techcrunch.com/2021/03/16/google-play-drops-commissions-to-15-from-30-following-apples-move-last-year
  - erhk 5y ago
    Good thing that they all cross into each other's primary fields so that there's never a monopoly. Google makes phones. Windows is a search company.
jjcon 5y ago
Can we get an updated title mods?
mgarfias 5y ago
I say, “Amy klobuchar is literally a dumbass.”
dilap 5y ago
I don't care or know if it counts as a "monopoly" (I guess I can use Android...), but as a consumer and human being, I would love it if governments compelled big companies to act more in the public interest and less in their own. In particular, I would love to be able to install 3rd party app stores and software w/o having to resort to jailbreaks or weird certificate hacks. To me, it seems obvious this would be a net win for society. (I think you could make the argument that the iPhone is one of the most important creative mediums of our time; from that perspective, it's outrageous that it is censored by an unacountable, prude (& often Kafkaesqe) bureaucracy. Imagine if artists had to get each painting approved by the company that manufactured their oil paints? It's absurd.)
- dTal 5y ago
  So much this. Let's keep our actual utility functions in view. Who cares whether or not it's technically a "monopoly"? It sucks! Worth remembering that "monopoly" wasn't a bad word until we decided it was in the early 20th century. We can decide other things are bad too.
  - ideamotor 5y ago
    What? Companies behaving in anticompetitive behavior was considered mostly illegal in ... the U.S.’s inherited common law from the British before the U.S. was even formed. If anything, we’ve become more restrictive in how we define this. These platform monopolies are absolutely anticompetitive. And it doesn’t need quotes.
  - zepto 5y ago
    > It sucks! It does, but it’s better than what we had before. Forcing us backward will not improve things. We need an actual open OS and open ecosystem, not a government regulated one that is still owned by a monopoly.
- hpoe 5y ago
  Although I agree with the sentiment I am wary of the government trying to force companies to act in the public interest as I am worried it will end up with the government forcing companies to act in the government's interest masquerading as the public's interest. Remember you must always ask yourself when the government is given additional power if you would be okay with your worst enemy having that power as in a democratic society that can happen.
hayst4ck 5y ago
I really like the Apple app store a lot. I like it because I trust it more than alternatives (google play). I like it because it feels more secure. I like the unified purchase interface. I don't think you can say with a straight face that the Google experience is better than the Apple experience for your parents. I moved my parents to Apple devices because it's safer. I especially like it because apple is using their "monopoly" position to create anti-business, but pro consumer policy that can't seem to get implemented otherwise. The government should be legislating privacy, but is incapable or unwilling. Apple is doing better than the government. Calling it a monopoly is a dubious claim, because it's not clear apple is enacting anti-competitive practices in an unfair anti-consumer way. If anything they seem to be enacting pro-consumer policies via monopolistic power. That being said, Apple is doing one thing that should be unacceptable. Apple makes apps that compete with things sold in the store it controls. That is the sole problem with the app store in my opinion. The closed-ness of it is vastly more beneficial than it is harmful, and there are clear competitive alternatives to buying an Apple device if you don't like it. Even that being bad is questionable. Kirkland Signature? Half life on steam? Amazon basics? There is clearly precedent. I doubt you feel the same way about each of those implementations of similar behavior.
- asiachick 5y ago
  If you trust Macy's and you don't trust Bloomingdale's then just keep shopping at Macy's. There's no need for you to ban Bloomingdale's for everyone else. A store and the vehicle I drive to get their shouldn't be tied. Imagine buying a car from Apple and it only being able to drive to Apple licenses stores. Apple can still have the App Store and most users will still only use it. (see Google Play). Banning other stores does zero for Apple and their customers. All it does is ban competition. If you continue to only use the App store from your POV nothing will have changed. You'll still get the same trusted experience.
  - hayst4ck 5y ago
    I don't understand this argument. You are using car and store but apple isn't selling a phone and an app store, it's selling you the Apple experience (and my understanding is that is literally how apple thinks about it), and if you don't like it, you can easily buy one of the many android phones. > Banning other stores does zero for Apple and their customers. I don't think this is true at all. Apple gets to retain all apps on the app store despite implementing a very unpopular with business but pro consumer policy like privacy labels. With multiple app stores, the apps might vote on a different store, and all of a sudden as a comsumer, I have to install 20 different app stores to get the full set of apps I want. > Banning other stores does zero for Apple and their customers. If you can't come up with 3 good faith explanations of why a closed app store is good, then you're not critically thinking about the situation or responding in good faith. 3 reason's a locked down app store is bad: - Ties the apps closer to the OS creating a form of vendor lock in for both consumers and app makers - I can't fully utilize my device, it comes limited in specific ways. - Gives apple too much power over apps, especially apps it directly competes with. Your argument is that there's no good faith explanation for a closed app store being better. If you can't think of any, that is a failure of yours, not a failure of Apples. Once you make a list of pros and cons, you realize that there are pros and cons and that someone might actually choose one set of limitations even if you philosophically don't agree with it.
discordance 5y ago
Can Apple be considered a monopoly with 23% [0] of the mobile market share? 0: https://www.idc.com/promo/smartphone-market-share/vendor https://www.idc.com/promo/smartphone-market-share/vendor
- anoncake 5y ago
  Apple has a monopoly on Iphone app stores, your number is irrelevant.
tibbydudeza 5y ago
A simple solution to the problem - force Google/Apple to implement API's to allow the loading/code signing verification of applications on their respective platforms. On the PC we have GOG/Steam/EA/Windows Store etc ... why can't mobile device be the same ???.
- hayst4ck 5y ago
  Lets say we have an app ecosystem where you can OK third party apps, and one where that's not possible. Let's say people voted with their dollars that the one where it's not possible is a better ecosystem. Should the one with the closed ecosystem be forced open, especially if the company says that the ecosystem being closed is one of the primary factors in their success and why people prefer it? Apple dictated to companies that they will implement privacy labels. If the ecosystem was open, they could not do that. The big companies could make people jump through hoops to avoid it or put a lot of support into a competitive app platform if iphones were an open platform. I am very in favor of privacy labels, and I think it is a direct result of the closed ecosystem and apples opinionated stance. I think it is a key competitive advantage for apple that the app store remain closed so it can dictate to companies that privacy labels are now a requirement, or HTTPS is a requirement, or anything else. When people say force apple to allow third party app stores, I hear "why do we need Dropbox when there is rsync?" Just because you know that an app is violating your privacy doesn't mean parents do, they can't meaningfully compare and contrast app stores. I hear people not understanding that an app store is a commons in the tragedy of the commons sense, and all commons need a regulator to not turn to garbage.
  - tomjen3 5y ago
    The two systems are not otherwise identical, so I don't see that "you could buy an Android" as a reasonable alternative (I own one). I also don't see the issue in that you can install apps from another store, since it is fairly easy to put up a warning "Apple has not approved any of the apps you can buy from this store".
    - david-cako 5y ago
rektide 5y ago
The fact that iOS won't let any other browser run on the platform is really the "it's not in our interest to allow iMessage on any other platform" keystone of this monopoly. Maybe maybe users could have an ok experience on the web, online, that might make the app-store monopoly not be so insufferable. But Apple also can restrict & deny any online & web experiences they don't like, since they prevent any browser &c competition on their devices. > This is only true because Apple prevents other vendors from bringing the modern, secure engines they ship to every other OS to iOS. https://mobile.twitter.com/slightlylate/status/1385669199842844672 https://mobile.twitter.com/slightlylate/status/1385669199842... Apple isn't just in a monopoly, they're radically restraining the entire web to keep their monopoly, to make sure their monopoly is an important one, that there's no threat from standards-based online technologies.
RestlessMind 5y ago
I think governments should go after cartels rather than monopolies. Google and Apple combined have a >99% market share for mobile OS/app store market share. They also impose a synchronized 30% fee cut. There is a case to be made for an antitrust behavior from this cartel.
- Traster 5y ago
  Do you really think that they colluded though? The exact same result can be expected if they simply independently reacted to market conditions. It’d be very hard to prove illegal coordination.
  - sumedh 5y ago
    Apple and Google colluded to not poach employees from one another, why do you think they wont collude again?
    - Traster 5y ago
      Because they don’t need to.
      - sumedh 5y ago
        They did not need to collude to suppress employee wages yet they did.
- Someone 5y ago
  I don’t see that going anywhere. I would expect both parties to argue that this is conscious parallelism, which Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_collusion#Conscious_parallelism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_collusion#Conscious_para...) states “is very hard to prosecute because it may occur without any collusion between the competitors”. They’ll also argue that they don’t keep prices high in their stores and provide value that makes that 15/30% cut worthwhile. Anti-trust, IMO, won’t work either. Currently, Apple will (rightfully, IMO) argue it has viable competition in Android, and Google will say the same about iOS and say they allow other stores to exist. I think we need new law to handle this kind of stuff.
boris1 5y ago
Do yourselves a favor, and read Ayn Rand. Monopolies are created by governments, and are impossible in laissez-faire. Apple has created the App store when MS was seen as a "monopoly" that no one could move. Innovations beats anyone who dominates the market. Google did the same to a Alta Vista and Lycos, just by being better.
unityByFreedom 5y ago
Apple is the best at getting consumers to buy software. US govt cracking down on that is shooting themselves in the foot. Google Play is mostly free ad-supported apps with a higher incentive to resell data.
- username90 5y ago
  People buy apple phones since they are fine with spending money, so then they spend more money in app stores as well. It has nothing to do with how Apple runs the store.
  - unityByFreedom 5y ago
    Noone comes close to their success selling software to consumers. That's because of a legit strategy to unify hardware and software, not anti-competitive behavior. Software piracy was rampant in the 90s and early 2000s. It's why everything now is subscription or online-only. Apple was hugely successful securing their devices and store to convince people to buy software. Disrupting Apple for their success here would hurt competition, not help it. Apple provides developers a secure platform that has customers, and it provides consumers with software and hardware they can trust. Without Apple carrying the torch we would have even more data breaches, less trust, less investment and less innovation.
toyg 5y ago
This will be round 2 in the fight for formalizing the role of OS developers versus App developers. Round 1 was the MS antitrust case, the outcome of which was clearly too weak to survive in the long run. The definition of general-purpose Operating Systems should be formalized, and there should be a clear separation of roles: if you make an OS you cannot make apps and services, end of story. Then force Apple, Google, and Microsoft, to spin off their OS divisions or their apps&services divisions. That would immediately create a level playing-field for everyone. Is this difficult? Yes. Is it necessary? Also yes.
- kwyjobojoe 5y ago
  It's impossible to fairly compete against a company that has total knowledge and access to the OS, access to stats on what your programs do and how they work, and total knowledge and control of future development.
- rhn_mk1 5y ago
  This is too simplistic. Linux distributions like Ubuntu provide both the OS and the apps and services. One could argue that the OS is the apps and services. Yet we see neither a monopoly there, nor complaints. Which leads me to believe that what you're proposing is not addressing the root cause.
  - toyg 5y ago
    There are complaints in the Linux world too, about package management (e.g. the push to snaps), they’re just less relevant since the platform is fully open anyway and there is no economic impact.
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  >there should be a clear separation of roles: if you make an OS you cannot make apps and services, end of story. This. How come the authorities cracked down hard on Microsoft in the 90's and early 2000's for exactly this but aren't doing the same with Apple and Google now? I remember the days when, at least in the EU, due to antitrust laws, Windows XP had to come without Windows Media Player and without Internet Explorer preinstalled[1], which made for a rough out of the box experience for newbie users if they just wanted to quickly browse the web or play their "totally legit" mp3s after installing it, but it served to give competing apps and browsers a fighting chance and not allow Microsoft to entrench its monopoly further. By the same logic, why can't we force Google/Apple to not prioritize their own apps and services on their platforms against their competitors? [1]https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14465160 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=144651...
ENGNR 5y ago
We need an Ethereum App Store to handle vouching for apps. Let apps pay a bond and ever reducing insurance to the people who vouch for them, based on auditing and perceived risk by the market Apple doesn’t dare charge a fee to WeChat, we need something as big for the open community
xd455e 5y ago
What happens when an app store distributed via apple store contains apps that have malware? Will apple be able to remove them? The entire news will be of apple iphone has malware and such. I would like easy sideloading of different ipa stores. So that we can have modded premium apps. Youtube with adblocker and sponsorblock and so many things
dzonga 5y ago
to the people that have experience designing Operating Systems - how difficult is it to have proper application sandboxing ? If everything is user level sandboxed. app can only access it's data. then apple | google wouldn't need to charge 30% to vet apps. if data is to be shared - it has to be explicit.
- zepto 5y ago
  It’s impossible because it doesn’t solve social engineering or phishing attacks.
- vbezhenar 5y ago
  Browser environment provides a living example that it's possible to have a proper application sandboxing. Even with multiple different produciton-quality implementations. A more interesting and practical question is how difficult is it to have proper application sandboxing, while keeping reasonable backwards compatibility level with existing code. I think that it's near impossible, that's why I don't hold high hopes regarding any existing OS sandboxing. But new systems like Fuchsia might actually bring us Android successor able to run any code without fear.
brap 5y ago
I find it scary that not a single person in this thread is against the idea of the government using its force against tech. Everyone’s just nodding in unison.
- matthewdgreen 5y ago
  If you violate the various copyright, trademark and patent laws that protect the App Store business model, tech will have no problem instigating the government to use force on you. Ask Corellium or geohot. ETA: The above may sound snarky, but my point is serious. This entire business model exists because of a series of powerful laws that are backed with the threat of force. To pretend that we can just leave the government out of this debate is foolish: it’s already there, enacting policy. There is no opt-out.
- Jochim 5y ago
  What do you find scary about it? You're comment doesn't help me understand why we should be worried about the government reining them in.
- sumedh 5y ago
  I find it scary that you trust Apple and Google and others who have admitted that they colluded to not poach employees from one another and suppress wages.
  - tracer4201 5y ago
    My own city has suffered from lawlessness, with government rendering law enforcement useless and advocating policies that threaten the safety and welfare of its citizens. Meanwhile, homelessness has skyrocketed and our public parks and other public spaces are dangerous because of aggressive homeless people littering trash, feces, and their drug needles. I trust Apple almost infinitely more than I trust my local government. They can collude about employees all they want, but I would rather have my government run the way Tim Cook runs Apple. I like what Apple delivers. My local government delivers no value, in my opinion, and they’re making the situation worse. In fact, my local government blames big companies and their only solution is to tax us to death. The tax revenue is plundered on a non profit industry whose supposed goals are to help these homeless people, but the majority of their funding goes to paying their own salaries, their executives, and all the overhead. I’m honestly worried about sending my children to school. We’ve now had homeless camps on school grounds. You can shoot heroine on school grounds now. In my mind, government isn’t the answer — it’s actually the source of the rot.

114 points by quaesitor 5y ago

> She also accused Apple of preventing Tile from using the technology behind Apple's Find My function, giving AirTags an unfair advantage. > Apple said the product was different. "We didn't copy Tile's product... It's extremely different to anything else on the market," said Apple's Chief Compliance Officer, Kyle Andeer. lol! yeah right, Kyle.

zapzupnz 5y ago
Tile plays a sound to be found. AirTag are triangulated by the Find My app. Also, third parties are already signed up for the new third party integrations to Find My.
fossuser 5y ago
The irony of Tile's demand was that by Apple opening up Find My to third parties Tile's network effect moat just became irrelevant. Instead of having one serious competitor with a network (Apple) that's only iOS they're now a strict commodity and the "Tile Network" isn't a differentiated advantage. Be careful what you wish for.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

cblconfederate 5y ago

i think it's not productive to call it a literal/actual/effective monopoly, since it's designed to be monopoly. The problem is not so much that it's a monopoly but that it advertises itself to developers and to users as being an open more or less market, which it isn't since it's by design rigged and censored. There's a legal gap here probably because such situations are unprecedented (where a company builds a market completely controlled by itself). Do sellers and buyers have fundamental rights in a free market economy?

chii 5y ago
> situations are unprecedented (where a company builds a market completely controlled by itself) not really. Malls are in a similar situation. If you own the mall, you get to dictate whether the tenants are allowed or not. They pay rent to remain in the mall, and there's some rules they must follow or they get kicked out (rules which are made clear upfront). The difference between a mall and the app store is that there can be competing malls (say, right next door!), but currently, apple has made it impossible to create competing app stores. But malls themselves have a natural monopoly, because of pysics - pauli's exclusion principle - you cannot occupy the same space as another mall. So the law should account for this, and make sure that the app store is just as fair as a mall is today.
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  I dont consider that a good analogy - if a mall closes a cinema because it doesn't like a movie, or a bakery because it baked a cake, there would be legal repercusions for them while apple's developer contract doesn't seem to have lots of legal protections for the seller, or the buyer. Also, a mall doesn't benefit from dictating these decisions in a direct way the way apple does: apps are selected on the basis of improving the value (and price/desirability) of apple's products, not on the basis of giving user satisfaction/choice (when these two conflict) A closer analogy would be a gas station made by Ford that is the only station that that Fords can use. Or Tesla's charger network where competing companies could be invited , but be at their whims. Well, pauli's principle allows up to 2 malls in the same place
  - colejohnson66 5y ago
    > if a mall closes a cinema because it doesn't like a movie, or a bakery because it baked a cake,... Would they though? If a movie theater refuses to show a certain movie, that’s legal. A mall is just refusing to house a tenant they don’t agree with. Apartment owners are allowed to refuse to rent to you for any reason (not covered under a protected class).
zepto 5y ago

prepend 5y ago

She also must think that Walmart cash registers are literally a monopoly.

BoysenberryPi 5y ago

> She also accused Apple of preventing Tile from using the technology behind Apple's Find My function, giving AirTags an unfair advantage. I am not a person who uses Apple products so someone please clarify for me. Does Apple grant access to this to other people? Can I create a GPS-enabled product and use Apple's SDK to implement "Find My...?"

zapzupnz 5y ago
You can.
easton 5y ago
Yes. They actually talked about this in the event, and one of Tile's competitors (who's name escapes me) is adding it to some of their products. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/04/apples-find-my-network-now-offers-new-third-party-finding-experiences/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/04/apples-find-my-networ...
kemayo 5y ago
Apple recently allowed this. Tile's complaint now is that the Apple Find My integration requires that you only work with Find My, so Tile's app (and presumably related subscription products) becomes unnecessary.
- gumby 5y ago
  Except Tile’s competitor that also works with FindMy is not subject to this constraint...
  - kemayo 5y ago
    I think you're wrong about that? I went and checked Apple's press release [1] to work out which tracker it is, and the Chipolo website for the product [2] says "Chipolo ONE Spot works exclusively with the Apple Find My app". To me that implies they've got the same constraint. [1]: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/04/apples-find-my-network-now-offers-new-third-party-finding-experiences/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/04/apples-find-my-networ... [2]: https://chipolo.net/en-us/pages/chipolo-one-spot https://chipolo.net/en-us/pages/chipolo-one-spot

superkuh 5y ago

Yes, it is a monopoly. You can see the effects in software that doesn't even run on Apple devices. The most recent example is Discord being forced to change their entire platform and software on non-apple OSes just to be allowed to have their software run on Apple's monopoly walled garden.

zapzupnz 5y ago
Example? As far as I know, Discord mainly uses React Native on all platforms, with some iOS and Android specific code on those platforms for integration and performance reasons. Edit: ahh, you’re talking about content restrictions. They way you phrased your message sounded like you were talking about the technological stack.
easton 5y ago
They weren't forced to do it, they did it so they didn't have to have a 17+ rating in the App Store. And then they decided not to. https://www.theverge.com/tech/2021/4/19/22391675/discord-ios-nsfw-ban-loosened-opt-in https://www.theverge.com/tech/2021/4/19/22391675/discord-ios...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- joking 5y ago
  has any a browser a +17 rating on the App Store?
  - easton 5y ago
    Every browser used to, given you can look at porn on them.

geenew 5y ago

It's hard to argue with the claim - if you have an iOS phone or tablet, for example, it is a monopoly, since it's the only place you can buy a program for your computer. The walled garden has real benefits in security and privacy, but seems to require centralized control, and comes at the expense of user freedom. A solution to the monopoly pricing problem could be to treat app store controllers (currently A & G) to the same type of control that credit card issuers are subject to, and place a limit on the rates they can charge. A solution to the security vs freedom question could be to require that users have the option to opt out of app store controls for installing programs.

015a 5y ago
I don't even buy the "security" argument; MacOS is a highly secure operating system, produced by the same company, which has no forced walled-garden App Store. There certainly are exploits and scams which happen; just like on iOS. The argument sounds great in theory, but in practice, it simply doesn't hold water; security & privacy can (and should) (and does) happen at the OS layer, not application distribution.
- fastball 5y ago
  macOS is definitely less secure than iOS.
  - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
    What's your definition of "secure" here?
    - fastball 5y ago
      Same as everyone else's, I'd expect – less possibility (higher difficulty for attackers) of viruses / data exfiltration / etc.
      - ChuckNorris89 5y ago

c3534l 5y ago

I feel like the entire world has forgotten what a monopoly is. Apparently both Apple and Google are monopolies despite being competitors of one another. Programmers clearly talk about developing apps for one platform or another and sometimes give up on developing for one because the approval process was annoying or arbitrary. Consumers have a choice in the phones they buy and whether to even use a phone app for that service to begin with. Maybe this isn't a healthy ecosystem, but it seems we've completely lost the thread on what a monopoly is.

bombcar 5y ago
Monopoly is anything that does something that I don’t like. People bitch about Android vs iPhone and ignore the actual local monopolies present in the phone network itself.
- arberx 5y ago
  Those are called natural monopolies. It's very difficult to put up network infrastructure.
  - erhk 5y ago
    So why are they not municipal Or should we have water and electric monopolies
eruleman 5y ago
You're right. It's a duopoly, a cartel. A system controlled by two players who move in coordination with one another. techcrunch.com/2021/03/16/google-play-drops-commissions-to-15-from-30-following-apples-move-last-year
- erhk 5y ago
  Good thing that they all cross into each other's primary fields so that there's never a monopoly. Google makes phones. Windows is a search company.

jjcon 5y ago

Can we get an updated title mods?

mgarfias 5y ago

I say, “Amy klobuchar is literally a dumbass.”

dilap 5y ago

I don't care or know if it counts as a "monopoly" (I guess I can use Android...), but as a consumer and human being, I would love it if governments compelled big companies to act more in the public interest and less in their own. In particular, I would love to be able to install 3rd party app stores and software w/o having to resort to jailbreaks or weird certificate hacks. To me, it seems obvious this would be a net win for society. (I think you could make the argument that the iPhone is one of the most important creative mediums of our time; from that perspective, it's outrageous that it is censored by an unacountable, prude (& often Kafkaesqe) bureaucracy. Imagine if artists had to get each painting approved by the company that manufactured their oil paints? It's absurd.)

dTal 5y ago
So much this. Let's keep our actual utility functions in view. Who cares whether or not it's technically a "monopoly"? It sucks! Worth remembering that "monopoly" wasn't a bad word until we decided it was in the early 20th century. We can decide other things are bad too.
- ideamotor 5y ago
  What? Companies behaving in anticompetitive behavior was considered mostly illegal in ... the U.S.’s inherited common law from the British before the U.S. was even formed. If anything, we’ve become more restrictive in how we define this. These platform monopolies are absolutely anticompetitive. And it doesn’t need quotes.
- zepto 5y ago
  > It sucks! It does, but it’s better than what we had before. Forcing us backward will not improve things. We need an actual open OS and open ecosystem, not a government regulated one that is still owned by a monopoly.
hpoe 5y ago
Although I agree with the sentiment I am wary of the government trying to force companies to act in the public interest as I am worried it will end up with the government forcing companies to act in the government's interest masquerading as the public's interest. Remember you must always ask yourself when the government is given additional power if you would be okay with your worst enemy having that power as in a democratic society that can happen.

hayst4ck 5y ago

I really like the Apple app store a lot. I like it because I trust it more than alternatives (google play). I like it because it feels more secure. I like the unified purchase interface. I don't think you can say with a straight face that the Google experience is better than the Apple experience for your parents. I moved my parents to Apple devices because it's safer. I especially like it because apple is using their "monopoly" position to create anti-business, but pro consumer policy that can't seem to get implemented otherwise. The government should be legislating privacy, but is incapable or unwilling. Apple is doing better than the government. Calling it a monopoly is a dubious claim, because it's not clear apple is enacting anti-competitive practices in an unfair anti-consumer way. If anything they seem to be enacting pro-consumer policies via monopolistic power. That being said, Apple is doing one thing that should be unacceptable. Apple makes apps that compete with things sold in the store it controls. That is the sole problem with the app store in my opinion. The closed-ness of it is vastly more beneficial than it is harmful, and there are clear competitive alternatives to buying an Apple device if you don't like it. Even that being bad is questionable. Kirkland Signature? Half life on steam? Amazon basics? There is clearly precedent. I doubt you feel the same way about each of those implementations of similar behavior.

asiachick 5y ago
If you trust Macy's and you don't trust Bloomingdale's then just keep shopping at Macy's. There's no need for you to ban Bloomingdale's for everyone else. A store and the vehicle I drive to get their shouldn't be tied. Imagine buying a car from Apple and it only being able to drive to Apple licenses stores. Apple can still have the App Store and most users will still only use it. (see Google Play). Banning other stores does zero for Apple and their customers. All it does is ban competition. If you continue to only use the App store from your POV nothing will have changed. You'll still get the same trusted experience.
- hayst4ck 5y ago
  I don't understand this argument. You are using car and store but apple isn't selling a phone and an app store, it's selling you the Apple experience (and my understanding is that is literally how apple thinks about it), and if you don't like it, you can easily buy one of the many android phones. > Banning other stores does zero for Apple and their customers. I don't think this is true at all. Apple gets to retain all apps on the app store despite implementing a very unpopular with business but pro consumer policy like privacy labels. With multiple app stores, the apps might vote on a different store, and all of a sudden as a comsumer, I have to install 20 different app stores to get the full set of apps I want. > Banning other stores does zero for Apple and their customers. If you can't come up with 3 good faith explanations of why a closed app store is good, then you're not critically thinking about the situation or responding in good faith. 3 reason's a locked down app store is bad: - Ties the apps closer to the OS creating a form of vendor lock in for both consumers and app makers - I can't fully utilize my device, it comes limited in specific ways. - Gives apple too much power over apps, especially apps it directly competes with. Your argument is that there's no good faith explanation for a closed app store being better. If you can't think of any, that is a failure of yours, not a failure of Apples. Once you make a list of pros and cons, you realize that there are pros and cons and that someone might actually choose one set of limitations even if you philosophically don't agree with it.

discordance 5y ago

Can Apple be considered a monopoly with 23% [0] of the mobile market share? 0: https://www.idc.com/promo/smartphone-market-share/vendor https://www.idc.com/promo/smartphone-market-share/vendor

anoncake 5y ago
Apple has a monopoly on Iphone app stores, your number is irrelevant.

tibbydudeza 5y ago

A simple solution to the problem - force Google/Apple to implement API's to allow the loading/code signing verification of applications on their respective platforms. On the PC we have GOG/Steam/EA/Windows Store etc ... why can't mobile device be the same ???.

hayst4ck 5y ago
Lets say we have an app ecosystem where you can OK third party apps, and one where that's not possible. Let's say people voted with their dollars that the one where it's not possible is a better ecosystem. Should the one with the closed ecosystem be forced open, especially if the company says that the ecosystem being closed is one of the primary factors in their success and why people prefer it? Apple dictated to companies that they will implement privacy labels. If the ecosystem was open, they could not do that. The big companies could make people jump through hoops to avoid it or put a lot of support into a competitive app platform if iphones were an open platform. I am very in favor of privacy labels, and I think it is a direct result of the closed ecosystem and apples opinionated stance. I think it is a key competitive advantage for apple that the app store remain closed so it can dictate to companies that privacy labels are now a requirement, or HTTPS is a requirement, or anything else. When people say force apple to allow third party app stores, I hear "why do we need Dropbox when there is rsync?" Just because you know that an app is violating your privacy doesn't mean parents do, they can't meaningfully compare and contrast app stores. I hear people not understanding that an app store is a commons in the tragedy of the commons sense, and all commons need a regulator to not turn to garbage.
- tomjen3 5y ago
  The two systems are not otherwise identical, so I don't see that "you could buy an Android" as a reasonable alternative (I own one). I also don't see the issue in that you can install apps from another store, since it is fairly easy to put up a warning "Apple has not approved any of the apps you can buy from this store".
  - david-cako 5y ago

rektide 5y ago

The fact that iOS won't let any other browser run on the platform is really the "it's not in our interest to allow iMessage on any other platform" keystone of this monopoly. Maybe maybe users could have an ok experience on the web, online, that might make the app-store monopoly not be so insufferable. But Apple also can restrict & deny any online & web experiences they don't like, since they prevent any browser &c competition on their devices. > This is only true because Apple prevents other vendors from bringing the modern, secure engines they ship to every other OS to iOS. https://mobile.twitter.com/slightlylate/status/1385669199842844672 https://mobile.twitter.com/slightlylate/status/1385669199842... Apple isn't just in a monopoly, they're radically restraining the entire web to keep their monopoly, to make sure their monopoly is an important one, that there's no threat from standards-based online technologies.

RestlessMind 5y ago

I think governments should go after cartels rather than monopolies. Google and Apple combined have a >99% market share for mobile OS/app store market share. They also impose a synchronized 30% fee cut. There is a case to be made for an antitrust behavior from this cartel.

Traster 5y ago
Do you really think that they colluded though? The exact same result can be expected if they simply independently reacted to market conditions. It’d be very hard to prove illegal coordination.
- sumedh 5y ago
  Apple and Google colluded to not poach employees from one another, why do you think they wont collude again?
  - Traster 5y ago
    Because they don’t need to.
    - sumedh 5y ago
      They did not need to collude to suppress employee wages yet they did.
Someone 5y ago
I don’t see that going anywhere. I would expect both parties to argue that this is conscious parallelism, which Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_collusion#Conscious_parallelism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_collusion#Conscious_para...) states “is very hard to prosecute because it may occur without any collusion between the competitors”. They’ll also argue that they don’t keep prices high in their stores and provide value that makes that 15/30% cut worthwhile. Anti-trust, IMO, won’t work either. Currently, Apple will (rightfully, IMO) argue it has viable competition in Android, and Google will say the same about iOS and say they allow other stores to exist. I think we need new law to handle this kind of stuff.

boris1 5y ago

Do yourselves a favor, and read Ayn Rand. Monopolies are created by governments, and are impossible in laissez-faire. Apple has created the App store when MS was seen as a "monopoly" that no one could move. Innovations beats anyone who dominates the market. Google did the same to a Alta Vista and Lycos, just by being better.

unityByFreedom 5y ago

Apple is the best at getting consumers to buy software. US govt cracking down on that is shooting themselves in the foot. Google Play is mostly free ad-supported apps with a higher incentive to resell data.

username90 5y ago
People buy apple phones since they are fine with spending money, so then they spend more money in app stores as well. It has nothing to do with how Apple runs the store.
- unityByFreedom 5y ago
  Noone comes close to their success selling software to consumers. That's because of a legit strategy to unify hardware and software, not anti-competitive behavior. Software piracy was rampant in the 90s and early 2000s. It's why everything now is subscription or online-only. Apple was hugely successful securing their devices and store to convince people to buy software. Disrupting Apple for their success here would hurt competition, not help it. Apple provides developers a secure platform that has customers, and it provides consumers with software and hardware they can trust. Without Apple carrying the torch we would have even more data breaches, less trust, less investment and less innovation.

toyg 5y ago

This will be round 2 in the fight for formalizing the role of OS developers versus App developers. Round 1 was the MS antitrust case, the outcome of which was clearly too weak to survive in the long run. The definition of general-purpose Operating Systems should be formalized, and there should be a clear separation of roles: if you make an OS you cannot make apps and services, end of story. Then force Apple, Google, and Microsoft, to spin off their OS divisions or their apps&services divisions. That would immediately create a level playing-field for everyone. Is this difficult? Yes. Is it necessary? Also yes.

kwyjobojoe 5y ago
It's impossible to fairly compete against a company that has total knowledge and access to the OS, access to stats on what your programs do and how they work, and total knowledge and control of future development.
rhn_mk1 5y ago
This is too simplistic. Linux distributions like Ubuntu provide both the OS and the apps and services. One could argue that the OS is the apps and services. Yet we see neither a monopoly there, nor complaints. Which leads me to believe that what you're proposing is not addressing the root cause.
- toyg 5y ago
  There are complaints in the Linux world too, about package management (e.g. the push to snaps), they’re just less relevant since the platform is fully open anyway and there is no economic impact.
ChuckNorris89 5y ago
>there should be a clear separation of roles: if you make an OS you cannot make apps and services, end of story. This. How come the authorities cracked down hard on Microsoft in the 90's and early 2000's for exactly this but aren't doing the same with Apple and Google now? I remember the days when, at least in the EU, due to antitrust laws, Windows XP had to come without Windows Media Player and without Internet Explorer preinstalled[1], which made for a rough out of the box experience for newbie users if they just wanted to quickly browse the web or play their "totally legit" mp3s after installing it, but it served to give competing apps and browsers a fighting chance and not allow Microsoft to entrench its monopoly further. By the same logic, why can't we force Google/Apple to not prioritize their own apps and services on their platforms against their competitors? [1]https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14465160 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=144651...

ENGNR 5y ago

We need an Ethereum App Store to handle vouching for apps. Let apps pay a bond and ever reducing insurance to the people who vouch for them, based on auditing and perceived risk by the market Apple doesn’t dare charge a fee to WeChat, we need something as big for the open community

xd455e 5y ago

What happens when an app store distributed via apple store contains apps that have malware? Will apple be able to remove them? The entire news will be of apple iphone has malware and such. I would like easy sideloading of different ipa stores. So that we can have modded premium apps. Youtube with adblocker and sponsorblock and so many things

dzonga 5y ago

to the people that have experience designing Operating Systems - how difficult is it to have proper application sandboxing ? If everything is user level sandboxed. app can only access it's data. then apple | google wouldn't need to charge 30% to vet apps. if data is to be shared - it has to be explicit.

zepto 5y ago
It’s impossible because it doesn’t solve social engineering or phishing attacks.
vbezhenar 5y ago
Browser environment provides a living example that it's possible to have a proper application sandboxing. Even with multiple different produciton-quality implementations. A more interesting and practical question is how difficult is it to have proper application sandboxing, while keeping reasonable backwards compatibility level with existing code. I think that it's near impossible, that's why I don't hold high hopes regarding any existing OS sandboxing. But new systems like Fuchsia might actually bring us Android successor able to run any code without fear.

brap 5y ago

I find it scary that not a single person in this thread is against the idea of the government using its force against tech. Everyone’s just nodding in unison.

matthewdgreen 5y ago
If you violate the various copyright, trademark and patent laws that protect the App Store business model, tech will have no problem instigating the government to use force on you. Ask Corellium or geohot. ETA: The above may sound snarky, but my point is serious. This entire business model exists because of a series of powerful laws that are backed with the threat of force. To pretend that we can just leave the government out of this debate is foolish: it’s already there, enacting policy. There is no opt-out.
Jochim 5y ago
What do you find scary about it? You're comment doesn't help me understand why we should be worried about the government reining them in.
sumedh 5y ago
I find it scary that you trust Apple and Google and others who have admitted that they colluded to not poach employees from one another and suppress wages.
- tracer4201 5y ago
  My own city has suffered from lawlessness, with government rendering law enforcement useless and advocating policies that threaten the safety and welfare of its citizens. Meanwhile, homelessness has skyrocketed and our public parks and other public spaces are dangerous because of aggressive homeless people littering trash, feces, and their drug needles. I trust Apple almost infinitely more than I trust my local government. They can collude about employees all they want, but I would rather have my government run the way Tim Cook runs Apple. I like what Apple delivers. My local government delivers no value, in my opinion, and they’re making the situation worse. In fact, my local government blames big companies and their only solution is to tax us to death. The tax revenue is plundered on a non profit industry whose supposed goals are to help these homeless people, but the majority of their funding goes to paying their own salaries, their executives, and all the overhead. I’m honestly worried about sending my children to school. We’ve now had homeless camps on school grounds. You can shoot heroine on school grounds now. In my mind, government isn’t the answer — it’s actually the source of the rot.