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Other news on this has quotes from Tim Cook saying that they'd have to find a way to track purchases on IOS and bill developers so that Apple still gets their c

Other news on this has quotes from Tim Cook saying that they'd have to find a way to track purchases on IOS and bill developers so that Apple still gets their cut when using other payment processors. For me, this is way over the line. If they want to charge developers to be on their store, fine. I don't have a problem with that. And charging for using them as a payment processor makes sense. Charging for using Apple services makes sense. But charging them simply because they make money while on a device that an end-user owns? No. Apple doesn't own that device any more. They sold it to someone. Apple owns the store, and the infrastructure. If a developer isn't using that infrastructure, they don't owe anything. I'd be fine with however they want to charge, if there was another way to be on IOS. I'd be less happy with developers being able to use their own payment processors and be on the app store for free. There's a chilling anti-free-speech type of thing going on there. But I'm dead set against both of those happening at once, as it currently is.

deergomoo 5y ago
> If a developer isn't using that infrastructure, they don't owe anything I’ve been following this case and the only thing I can conclude is that their executives genuinely believe that Apple is responsible for all commerce that happens on an iPhone. It’s bordering on delusion. Without third party developers the iPhone would be nothing by now.
- newsclues 5y ago
  Apple doesn’t take a cut of transactions I make in my iPhones browser.
  - Hamuko 5y ago
    They do actually get a cut if you pay with Apple Pay.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204274 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204274 >Are there additional fees to accept Apple Pay? >No. Apple doesn't charge any additional fees.
      - lmz 5y ago
        No additional fees is not incompatible with getting a cut. e.g. they could take some of the card issuer's portion.
      - maxsilver 5y ago
        > Apple doesn't charge any additional fees. They do charge additional fees, just not to customers. Those fees get tacked onto the bank/merchant in the transaction. Apple charges between 0.15% to 0.30% of total transaction, according to Financial Times. https://www.macrumors.com/2014/09/12/more-apple-pay-details/ https://www.macrumors.com/2014/09/12/more-apple-pay-details/
  - deergomoo 5y ago
    Exactly, which is what makes their argument so flimsy. Sure sometimes apps get promotion and featured by the store but for the vast majority of apps, any downloads they get have about as much to do with Apple as the results of your web searches do.
  - SheinhardtWigCo 5y ago
    This is why Apple holds back important APIs from their browser, years after they are available in other browsers: fast 3D graphics, offline storage and compute, push notifications, to name a few.
    - coldtea 5y ago
      Yes. To avoid the crappification of mobile, where everything it's a bunch of slow, memory and battery draining Electron apps, doing whatever they want, each with custom UI...
      - ubercow13 5y ago
        How is that not what exists? Aren't many apps based on web technologies, and/or have custom UIs? There's little standardisation even among 'real' native apps.
        coldtea 5y ago
        >How is that not what exists? Aren't many apps based on web technologies, and/or have custom UIs? Yes, but (a) some, as opposed to all which is the dream of the pro web-app camp. (b) forbidding custom JS and web engines helps keep this low (c) even the crappy mobile-webview apps at least have to be wrapped in an app container, be installable and uninstallable the same way, be notarized, use the same payment system with central control, and be tied to the same policies (e.g. regarding privacy, notifications, use of apis) as native mobile apps
      - mhh__ 5y ago
        Definitely that and not to avoid the potential for circumventing their lock-in. If Apple were that obsessed with performance, their LLVM backends wouldn't be closed source.
    - criddell 5y ago
      I might buy into that theory if they didn't have Apple Pay in the browser.
  - doikor 5y ago
    And for how long would Safari on iOS keep up with new features or not get its performance nuked if for example games started to move into browser apps in major numbers on iOS. Apple itself said in the trial that games pretty much subsidize all other apps in terms of the money Apple makes out of the App Store. iOS Safari already lags behind in features. Apple would just make it even worse if it started to cost them significant amount of money to have a truly great web browser.
    - slver 5y ago
      Apple lags behind Chrome in some features which curiously directly benefit Google. It's not slow, it's not broken. It's a great mobile browser. So stick to reality and not bunch of made up "what ifs".
      - candiddevmike 5y ago
        PWAs and web based push notifications only benefit Google?
        easton 5y ago
        I don’t know about “only Google”, but Apple feels that web push in its current form doesn’t benefit the user (at least, how most browsers currently implement it where every page can ask you for notification privileges). They could gate the functionality behind PWA install, but right now they don’t.
        fauigerzigerk 5y ago
        I don't see how this restriction benefits anyone but Apple. What this restriction does is replace an annoyance that doesn't benefit Apple with one that does. Instead of websites asking to send notifications, they are now nagging us to install useless apps that ask to send notifications and clutter our screens. An honest curator would never even allow these apps into their app store. This is purely a business decision on Apple's part, nothing to do with user interests at all.
  - cblconfederate 5y ago
    For now
- duped 5y ago
  I don't think they believe that so much they believe they can skim off the top of certain areas of commerce on iOS. If they did it with bank transactions, Apple Pay, Venmo, Robinhood, etc then people would be up in arms.
  - dannyw 5y ago
    Divide and conquer. It's gaming and software apps now. It'll be bank transactions and commerce later on. A 1% "Apple Platform Safety Fee" on Robinhood wouldn't surprise me....
    - ben_w 5y ago
      Sounds like you’re complaining about a hypothetical future where they charge less than Visa and MasterCard? https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/research/average-credit-card-processing-fees-costs-america/ https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/research/average-credit-card...
      - blendergeek 5y ago
        No, in this world they will charge on top of Visa and Mastercard.
      - ImprovedSilence 5y ago
        What about funding your robinhood account from your bank and not a card, so neither you nor robinhood pay transaction fees?
        zrail 5y ago
        Bank rails still cost money on a per transaction basis.
        theptip 5y ago
        ACH costs a few cents per transaction. I’ve never seen a company pass this on to their customers.
- dia80 5y ago
  "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  I m pretty sure their users think so too. It's Apple's store, they are IPhone's apps. Which is fine , effective marketing halo effect and all, but somebody has to think of the developers
- an_opabinia 5y ago
  > their executives genuinely believe that Apple is responsible for all commerce that happens on an iPhone iPhones concentrate rich users who buy stuff. There’s nothing delusional about this. Likewise, Epic Game Store giving away games they paid huge advances for also makes those games more money than they ever would directly selling on Steam.
adflux 5y ago
Charging people to make use of their IP is fair IMO. Its similar to paying taxes, even if you don't use the services the taxes are for. The user benefits from Apple maintaining their OS, so has to pay. A citizen paying taxes benefits from all the services the country offers, so he pays taxes.
- deergomoo 5y ago
  The problem with this view is it assumes developers need the iPhone more than the iPhone needs developers, which is absolutely not the case. It’s symbiotic certainly—for better or worse far more money is spent on iOS than Android—but without apps the iPhone would be basically useless. In my opinion, Apple needs to acknowledge that, rather than acting like developers owe them the shirt off their backs.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    Each developer needs apple more than Apple needs each developer. Developers need to ally with each other, then they can force Apple’s hands. What’s funny is that developers are practically in the best job to do that. Their jobs allow them tons of time to communicate with each other, they’re highly educated and able to communicate, and they have the know how to operate the mechanisms allowing them to communicate (forums, email, chat groups). So what is stopping developers? I can only assume they’re not yet being taken advantage of by Apple sufficiently to warrant the efforts of banding together.
    - calsy 5y ago
      Developers have no leverage because there are no alternatives. What can they do, take their apps and leave the store?
      - adflux 5y ago
        Do you think the same about paying taxes?
slver 5y ago
What you're saying is that you're OK with basically every single developer declaring their app as free, and then asking for your credit card, which will be processed in god knows what ways with most of them. So developers get in the shortterm to avoid the 30% cut. But what happens next? The payment process becomes much more cumbersome and much less safe for users. So they start avoiding any payments on iPhone. Apple loses basically all funding to maintain and curate the store. And in the long-term developers lose the entire platform, because it's based on the goodwill of the users. Who wins?
- devit 5y ago
  This will not happen as long as Apple's cut percentage is lower than the percentage of users that will give up or not download the app when asked for their credit card in-app. Obviously any reasonable Apple's cut will satisfy this requirement.
  - Retric 5y ago
    4 users or 4 million the review process needs to be done and done well otherwise it’s just as risky as installing random crap people download from the internet. So the issue is Apples ‘cut’ needs to cover all those apps with few buyers. It’s a complex problem because applications like BonziBuddy mean you can’t actually trust users to detect issues. That’s not to say Apple ensures quality, just that minimum standards have actual value. On the other hand it’s reasonable for large companies to disagree with subsidizing lone developers. As such a substantial fee to submit apps would likely be required.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- SheinhardtWigCo 5y ago
  This is FUD. Where is the evidence that letting developers choose how to process payments leads to rampant fraud? The online payment landscape outside the App Store is actually very safe for users. Try to cancel an in-app subscription without Googling how to do it. Good luck. Also, if you try using the store, you’ll see it’s not curated in any meaningful way. It’s full of garbage and fake reviews. Someone properly incentivized to improve it could do a much better job.
0xEFF 5y ago
> If a developer isn't using that infrastructure, they don't owe anything. How would a developer build an iOS app without using any system calls or OS frameworks? Xcode? “Infrastructure” is a blurry concept in such a deeply integrated system.
- peoplefromibiza 5y ago
  IMO it's not that blurry. The real point is if Apple wants (or should have the right) to collect taxes on their infrastructure and act like a Government - think about VAT - or they are only selling consumer devices instead. If I buy a tractor from John Deere and make money out of the products I can grow using that tractor I don't have to pay a fee to John Deere, even thought without the JD my fields would probably be much less profitable or plainly unprofitable. So the question is: has Apple built a digital Nation? And in that case, should they be the only monopolistic option?
  - gjsman-1000 5y ago
    However, what makes it even blurrier is that, in the US, being a monopoly (despite what you may have heard) is actually NOT illegal. What is illegal is the monopoly using its monopoly power to perpetuate its monopoly power. However, historically, this was almost always because the monopoly did something like change the rules to benefit themselves after they became a monopoly. From the law's perspective, Apple didn't do anything like that. Apple didn't raise the commission to, say, 50%. Apple hasn't changed the rules since, like, 2009 before they had the theoretical "monopoly" status. This makes proving an illegal monopoly case against Apple (because monopolies are not intrinsically illegal) more difficult.
    - rebelos 5y ago
      > Apple hasn't changed the rules since, like, 2009 before they had the theoretical "monopoly" status. This couldn't be further from the truth. They have carved out many exceptions to the 30% commission over the years - often as part of sweetheart deals to attract larger entities that have negotiating leverage, such as Netflix and Amazon.
smnrchrds 5y ago
I have seen this time after time, that when the question of Apple store comes up, a top-rated comment always makes a comparison with game consoles to argue it is all fair. I don't personally believe the comparison makes sense, but many on HN do. So I am going to ask, how is this different from PS/Xbox/etc? If the game consoles still 'own' the device after you have bought it, e.g. when PS disabled Linux installation feature via update on consoles they had already sold, why shouldn't Apple be entitled to do the same, to do as it pleases with the devices in perpetuity?
- ajconway 5y ago
  Not many companies are in the business of being fair or moral, usually it's about making money. Lawmakers have the power to force companies into being more fair (for whatever definition of "fair"). On the comparison between Apple and Sony, — objectively there is no difference except that they work in different markets and the devices they sell have slightly different purposes. If as a result of all of this Apple is forced to make their devices more general-purpose-like, it would be easier to insist that Sony should do the same.
  - ReptileMan 5y ago
    Since the console gaming have already gotten the worst parts of the pc gaming, I don't think that bringing the positives to consoles is as threatening as you think.
- konschubert 5y ago
  Game consoles have negative margins, it’s their business model. If apple started selling iphones at negative margins maybe they would have a better moral stand in charging a tax.
  - spideymans 5y ago
    Apple subsidizing the cost of iPhones with revenue from elsewhere in their walled-garden ecosystem would arguably be even more anticompetitive. Apple's competitors don't have the ecosystem advantage that would allow them to generate revenue from other parts of their business. Apple would be able to drive down their iPhone prices, while mainlining exceptional quality, which would be very difficult to compete against.
simonh 5y ago
Cook didn't say anything about tracking purchases, or even getting a cut as such. He said they would need to find another way to invoice developers, which just means another revenue model, that's all.
- simondotau 5y ago
  Invoice developers for using their intellectual property? How dare Apple expect a revenue share from developers who use their tools and libraries. Companies that make tools and libraries should be forced to give them away for free. Like Unreal Engine. Completely free, no exceptions.
  - captainredbeard 5y ago
    ...why?
    - simondotau 5y ago
      Because it's Apple's intellectual property. We don't steal it from them because we feel entitled to it.
  - rahkiin 5y ago
    They charge royalty on revenue
    - simondotau 5y ago
      Correct, that’s what both companies do.
- wccrawford 5y ago
  He did, actually. I finally found the quote again. https://9to5mac.com/2021/05/21/live-blog-apple-ceo-tim-cook-testifies-in-epic-legal-battle/ https://9to5mac.com/2021/05/21/live-blog-apple-ceo-tim-cook-... > “We would also have to come up with an alternate way of collecting our commission,” Cook says. “We would then have to figure out how to track what’s going on and invoice it and then chase the developers down. It seems like a process that doesn’t need to exist.”
jbverschoor 5y ago
Sure. But who owns the software? You bought a license for that. This is no different from a lot of other platforms. And quite frankly, I’m happy about that, if you compare with incompatible, unupdated, and malicious software on android Google will and is already following Apple with this
crazygringo 5y ago
Unfortunately, Apple has to maintain this rule because otherwise developers will implement workarounds to avoid charging in the App Store altogether. Remember when eBay charged a commission on the sale price but not shipping? Suddenly $50 items became $1 with $49 shipping -- so eBay had to charge the commission on the shipping too even though it didn't seem "fair". Same here -- every app would turn free, and charge to unlock features within using their own payment mechanism. Apple's App Store revenue would drop to zero. No developer in their right mind would let Apple take a cut of anything. As a general rule, app stores simply don't allow third-party payment in apps that don't go through the store, for this exact reason. It's not just Apple with this policy.
- secondcoming 5y ago
  Couldn't Apple recoup any losses by charging app publishers 'rent' to be listed on the app store?
  - natch 5y ago
    No. Think it through: free apps would not be able to afford the rent, so they would need a discount. Then in the limit all apps would become free, so as to get the discount. But some apps would be making a killing with external payment methods, while other apps would be making nothing. Meantime Apple would also be making nothing. I would think Apple has thought about this.
  - joshuaissac 5y ago
    They already charge this: 99 USD annually. https://developer.apple.com/programs/how-it-works/ https://developer.apple.com/programs/how-it-works/
- nsajko 5y ago
  Is your argument that Apple shouldn't themselves bear the responsibility of choosing an unsustainable/immoral/illegal business model?
  - matz1 5y ago
api 5y ago
> Apple doesn't own that device any more. They sold it to someone. Ownership is so pre-cloud. Now everything is cloud tethered so nothing belongs to anyone except whoever runs it’s cloud.
bryanrasmussen 5y ago
>with developers being able to use I guess you mean not being able to? Normally I wouldn't bring it up but I spent a several read throughs trying to make sense of that sentence, and still not sure if I'm right?
lifty 5y ago
It seems that Tim Cook considers the devices and the ecosystem that they create a *aaS. So they shouldn’t be considered general purpose devices on which you can run anything. Think of them as cloud devices with local/edge cacheing for improved experience, very similarly to what Google offers.
samhain 5y ago
Imagine Apple wanting their cut from Google, because I used the chrome app to buy something off of Amazon.
tw04 5y ago
So how do you feel about consoles? Because if they don’t get a cut they don’t survive. I can’t see how you can set a legal precedent against Apple that doesn’t apply to Sony/MS/Nintendo as well.
- Aeronwen 5y ago
  Microsoft already made the claim that smartphones are general purpose computing devices, while a game console is single use one that justifies their walled garden.
Despegar 5y ago
>For me, this is way over the line. If they want to charge developers to be on their store, fine. I don't have a problem with that. And charging for using them as a payment processor makes sense. Charging for using Apple services makes sense. Developers have been so steeped in propaganda about "payment processing" that they have no idea what the 30% commission is for. A court or regulator could force Apple to allow third-party payment processing, side-loading, and third-party app stores, and Apple could change their business model to directly charge for the tools and the SDKs that every developer uses to make native apps. The only way to avoid those costs is the way that already exists today: make a web app. Right now the payment processing costs have been integrated into the commission, but they could charge whatever the market could bear to license their IP for a royalty, so in effect developers could end up paying more. There's nothing in law that says Apple can't charge money for their software. That the use of developer tools and SDKs were free on other platforms like the Mac doesn't mean that it's legally required that it be given away for free.
- clusterfish 5y ago
  They make billions from that 30% cut, and the only reason they can do that is because they disallow all other payments, or even a mention in your app that you can pay elsewhere. They would never be able to charge that much if they allowed any competition, which is exactly why they need to be regulated to allow it. They can't charge a cut of revenue unless they monopolize payment processing, so if as you say they start charging for developer tools, if they charge too much of a flat rate for those, many developers will rightfully walk away, so no, they can't make obscene profits like they're doing now without controlling all payments in iOS apps.
  - Despegar 5y ago
    No they get the billions from their intellectual property. There's a bunch of pro-user, pro-Apple, and pro-developer reasons why they are the single source for apps and payment processing, but that's not the source of the billions, as I just explained. There's a bunch of reasons why it'd be a PITA for everyone involved if they were forced to do this, but no matter what happens the revenue sharing is never going to go away as long as Apple wants to keep that business model. All the frictional costs (more lawyers and accountants) to verify they collect the right royalties is exactly why courts are ultimately going to side with Apple, because the current system is the ideal one for all parties.
derefr 5y ago
> But charging them simply because they make money while on a device that an end-user owns? What Apple are trying to do is to make back the CapEx of developing the OS frameworks developers are relying upon. Those frameworks often make up a non-negligible fraction of an app's USP, i.e. they're partly why the developer is making money. Apple see whatever slice of market value their OS frameworks added to the developer's product, as morally being their money. Whether there's a legal/contractual framework in place to grab that money or not, they feel like they should be pursuing it. Compare and contrast: music producers sampling some other IP-holder's work. You'd expect, as a producer, that if half of your song was just sampled from another particular song, then 50% of the revenue of your song would be morally owed to the IP-holder of the other song. And also, if you had a contract with the IP-holder that paid less than 50% out to them, that'd certainly be legal, but you'd also likely feel that it'd be you getting one up on them — you'd be coming away with more margin than you "deserve", and them with less than they "deserve", given the amount of work each of you put into the final product. Apple thinks that they "deserve" 10–30% of the value App Store apps capture, because they do 10–30% of the work in making every App Store app (in advance, by building frameworks.) It's not about how the app wants to capture that value, any more than income taxes are about how you make money. They're both about the fact that you did make the money, and the 'infrastructural substrate' that 'invested' in you to help you make that money, wants what it sees as its implicit preferred-shareholder-dividend for that 'investment'.
- clusterfish 5y ago
  Who the hell needs an OS or a device that can't run third party apps? Their devices are nothing without those. Those frameworks aren't optional frills for the sake for developers' benefit, they're basic functionality that end users already paid hundreds or thousands of dollars for. End users paying is how it always worked on desktop too before they spread this monopolistic poison there too. It's amazing how far people will go to justify a monopoly squeezing everyone it deals with just because they have a good brand and make nice products.
  - derefr 5y ago
    > Who the hell needs an OS or a device that can't run third party apps? The first iPhone didn't run third-party apps. Also, the average number of apps paid for per smart-device is < 1. Most people just use free apps. Those free apps — and their users — are essentially free riders on the CapEx of OS framework development, since Apple can't put a tax on income an app doesn't have. So the remaining apps need to be taxed at a higher rate to compensate. > Those frameworks aren't optional frills for the sake for developers' benefit, they're basic functionality that end users already paid hundreds or thousands of dollars for. There are basic OS frameworks that are just table-stakes for having a mobile OS, yes. But there are also some incredibly-specialized frameworks — things that differentiate iOS development from Android development. Reasons devs choose to build an iOS-exclusive app. Apple has, for example, a 3D AR framework, with specialized (neural-network; depth-sensing) hardware in every device put there just to enable the 3D AR framework. No first-party apps really use it for anything. It's just there for third-party devs. That's not "basic functionality." That's an extremely-specialized tool that only a few apps will take advantage of, and for those apps, it's a large part of what makes the app a distinctive experience that can't be had on Android. If not for the fact of requiring special hardware that only Apple can add to the phone, it wouldn't be an OS feature; it'd be a fancy standalone SDK that Apple recoups costs on by selling to developers. Same as they sold e.g. WebObjects, back when. Think of it like this: a city will build most roads "for free", with no increase to your taxes. Those roads are table-stakes to running city infrastructure. They take them out of the budget by reallocating funding away from other things, because citizens would riot if their taxes went up with every road built. But some very-capital-intensive roads that not everybody in the city needs equal access to — e.g. bridges — are built by the city to be toll roads. The business model for these roads is different: rather than the costs of building them coming from the treasury, they're passed on directly to the people who are most advantaged by the road being built: exactly those who will still use the road even with a toll, meaning exactly those who are economically gaining from travelling the road. More often than not, that's businesses (e.g. freight/logistics services.) The 18-wheeler delivering your groceries is paying to use the more-efficient route over the bridge, because that route saves it money, and so increases its profits; and the trade still makes sense even when a part of those increased profits go to the city. > It's amazing how far people will go to justify a monopoly squeezing everyone it deals with just because they have a good brand and make nice products. I'm just trying to explain here why Apple think they're owed 10% of devs' money. I'm not saying they're right in that perception. Just that it's clearly a tempting chain of logic from their perspective. Also, it's a chain of logic that I believe is correct when applied to small businesses (like the aforementioned small music artist getting deeply sampled by a song that makes a lot of money.) I don't see any difference in applying it to a monopoly. Apple's App Store monopoly enables the extraction of "what they think they're owed" on a scale not possible with regular market players, and I'd say that that's definitely bad — but the answer isn't to reject the whole chain of logic of "your profitable thing is 90% my copyrighted IP, so I want royalties" being a valid business model. It just means that Apple should have the power that enables that extraction taken away.
taurath 5y ago
What if the platform strategy is inherently flawed from the perspective of a public good, and is inherently monopolistic and anticompetitive? How does this not reach the absolute definition of a de facto monopoly, especially if you’ve read about the powers that monopolies already broken up we’re using to keep theirs? No monopoly ever will admit it is one. I would like to see a world where platforms are forcibly opened - it seems like any downside could be easily mitigated with competition or regulation. If Apple wants to be a privacy platform great. But they don’t get to take an arbitrary cut out of every companies bottom line with no recourse because they own the hardware. I think anyone saying the potential bad effects don’t have enough imagination as to how well things can work when everything isn’t owned by one company. You could even argue it’s anti capitalist if you wanted.
- grishka 5y ago
  > they own the hardware They don't — the users bought it, it's theirs now. It should be illegal to restrict hardware like this.
  - taurath 5y ago
    Meant to say they build the hardware. Quite agree.
  - anonymouse008 5y ago
    So when you buy a vehicle, you should be allowed to run any custom OSS on the hardware?
    - 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
      I believe that you are already allowed to do whatever you want on your property but if you want to drive it on public roads you need to comply with some minimal safety standards imposed by the state.
      - anonymouse008 5y ago
        At what point do we look at the internet as public roads? With the recent ransomwares, the line appears to be shifting.
colordrops 5y ago
> I'd be less happy with developers being able to use their own payment processors and be on the app store for free. There's a chilling anti-free-speech type of thing going on there. How would this have an effect on free speech?
m463 5y ago
I just like to remember - the cut gets passed onto the customers. There are times this is appropriate - there are times this is not.
1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
"When questioned by Epic Games lawyers, Cook declined to answer a question about whether Apple's iPhone competes with Google's Android in the operating system market." Let us rephrase the question. Does iOS compete with Android in the operating system market. "Customers don't buy operating systems. They buy devices," Cook said." True. Operating systems can be had for free. Customers generally do not buy them (as a separate item), but they do choose them, when they are allowed to do so. What if customers had the option to buy Apple devices without Apple's choice of operating system pre-installed. Apple would never let customers have that choice. A million excuses. "Tech" companies, as well as Microsoft and Apple, remove choice. Users pay nothing for the OS. Someone else pays (OEMs in the case of Microsoft). The OS is pre-installed. Choice is removed. No different than a "default setting" (e.g., "default search engine" for which Google paid $1B to Apple in 2014). The friction to change a pre-installed OS or default setting is too great for most customers. The companies know this and exploit it. Cook suggests that if the customer wants another OS, one that allows a wider variety of apps to be installed, then she can buy a different device. How is that for interoperability. The OS, when controlled by an intermediary such as Apple, is a means of control over users (as well as developers). Any argument that theroretically the most safe, secure and private OS by design is one that the user cannot fully control is unconvincing. If a customer wants privacy against Apple or its business partners, for example, iOS is not designed to offer that.

deergomoo 5y ago

> If a developer isn't using that infrastructure, they don't owe anything I’ve been following this case and the only thing I can conclude is that their executives genuinely believe that Apple is responsible for all commerce that happens on an iPhone. It’s bordering on delusion. Without third party developers the iPhone would be nothing by now.

newsclues 5y ago
Apple doesn’t take a cut of transactions I make in my iPhones browser.
- Hamuko 5y ago
  They do actually get a cut if you pay with Apple Pay.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204274 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204274 >Are there additional fees to accept Apple Pay? >No. Apple doesn't charge any additional fees.
    - lmz 5y ago
      No additional fees is not incompatible with getting a cut. e.g. they could take some of the card issuer's portion.
    - maxsilver 5y ago
      > Apple doesn't charge any additional fees. They do charge additional fees, just not to customers. Those fees get tacked onto the bank/merchant in the transaction. Apple charges between 0.15% to 0.30% of total transaction, according to Financial Times. https://www.macrumors.com/2014/09/12/more-apple-pay-details/ https://www.macrumors.com/2014/09/12/more-apple-pay-details/
- deergomoo 5y ago
  Exactly, which is what makes their argument so flimsy. Sure sometimes apps get promotion and featured by the store but for the vast majority of apps, any downloads they get have about as much to do with Apple as the results of your web searches do.
- SheinhardtWigCo 5y ago
  This is why Apple holds back important APIs from their browser, years after they are available in other browsers: fast 3D graphics, offline storage and compute, push notifications, to name a few.
  - coldtea 5y ago
    Yes. To avoid the crappification of mobile, where everything it's a bunch of slow, memory and battery draining Electron apps, doing whatever they want, each with custom UI...
    - ubercow13 5y ago
      How is that not what exists? Aren't many apps based on web technologies, and/or have custom UIs? There's little standardisation even among 'real' native apps.
      - coldtea 5y ago
        >How is that not what exists? Aren't many apps based on web technologies, and/or have custom UIs? Yes, but (a) some, as opposed to all which is the dream of the pro web-app camp. (b) forbidding custom JS and web engines helps keep this low (c) even the crappy mobile-webview apps at least have to be wrapped in an app container, be installable and uninstallable the same way, be notarized, use the same payment system with central control, and be tied to the same policies (e.g. regarding privacy, notifications, use of apis) as native mobile apps
    - mhh__ 5y ago
      Definitely that and not to avoid the potential for circumventing their lock-in. If Apple were that obsessed with performance, their LLVM backends wouldn't be closed source.
  - criddell 5y ago
    I might buy into that theory if they didn't have Apple Pay in the browser.
- doikor 5y ago
  And for how long would Safari on iOS keep up with new features or not get its performance nuked if for example games started to move into browser apps in major numbers on iOS. Apple itself said in the trial that games pretty much subsidize all other apps in terms of the money Apple makes out of the App Store. iOS Safari already lags behind in features. Apple would just make it even worse if it started to cost them significant amount of money to have a truly great web browser.
  - slver 5y ago
    Apple lags behind Chrome in some features which curiously directly benefit Google. It's not slow, it's not broken. It's a great mobile browser. So stick to reality and not bunch of made up "what ifs".
    - candiddevmike 5y ago
      PWAs and web based push notifications only benefit Google?
      - easton 5y ago
        I don’t know about “only Google”, but Apple feels that web push in its current form doesn’t benefit the user (at least, how most browsers currently implement it where every page can ask you for notification privileges). They could gate the functionality behind PWA install, but right now they don’t.
        fauigerzigerk 5y ago
        I don't see how this restriction benefits anyone but Apple. What this restriction does is replace an annoyance that doesn't benefit Apple with one that does. Instead of websites asking to send notifications, they are now nagging us to install useless apps that ask to send notifications and clutter our screens. An honest curator would never even allow these apps into their app store. This is purely a business decision on Apple's part, nothing to do with user interests at all.
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  For now
duped 5y ago
I don't think they believe that so much they believe they can skim off the top of certain areas of commerce on iOS. If they did it with bank transactions, Apple Pay, Venmo, Robinhood, etc then people would be up in arms.
- dannyw 5y ago
  Divide and conquer. It's gaming and software apps now. It'll be bank transactions and commerce later on. A 1% "Apple Platform Safety Fee" on Robinhood wouldn't surprise me....
  - ben_w 5y ago
    Sounds like you’re complaining about a hypothetical future where they charge less than Visa and MasterCard? https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/research/average-credit-card-processing-fees-costs-america/ https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/research/average-credit-card...
    - blendergeek 5y ago
      No, in this world they will charge on top of Visa and Mastercard.
    - ImprovedSilence 5y ago
      What about funding your robinhood account from your bank and not a card, so neither you nor robinhood pay transaction fees?
      - zrail 5y ago
        Bank rails still cost money on a per transaction basis.
        theptip 5y ago
        ACH costs a few cents per transaction. I’ve never seen a company pass this on to their customers.
dia80 5y ago
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair
cblconfederate 5y ago
I m pretty sure their users think so too. It's Apple's store, they are IPhone's apps. Which is fine , effective marketing halo effect and all, but somebody has to think of the developers
an_opabinia 5y ago
> their executives genuinely believe that Apple is responsible for all commerce that happens on an iPhone iPhones concentrate rich users who buy stuff. There’s nothing delusional about this. Likewise, Epic Game Store giving away games they paid huge advances for also makes those games more money than they ever would directly selling on Steam.

adflux 5y ago

Charging people to make use of their IP is fair IMO. Its similar to paying taxes, even if you don't use the services the taxes are for. The user benefits from Apple maintaining their OS, so has to pay. A citizen paying taxes benefits from all the services the country offers, so he pays taxes.

deergomoo 5y ago
The problem with this view is it assumes developers need the iPhone more than the iPhone needs developers, which is absolutely not the case. It’s symbiotic certainly—for better or worse far more money is spent on iOS than Android—but without apps the iPhone would be basically useless. In my opinion, Apple needs to acknowledge that, rather than acting like developers owe them the shirt off their backs.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  Each developer needs apple more than Apple needs each developer. Developers need to ally with each other, then they can force Apple’s hands. What’s funny is that developers are practically in the best job to do that. Their jobs allow them tons of time to communicate with each other, they’re highly educated and able to communicate, and they have the know how to operate the mechanisms allowing them to communicate (forums, email, chat groups). So what is stopping developers? I can only assume they’re not yet being taken advantage of by Apple sufficiently to warrant the efforts of banding together.
  - calsy 5y ago
    Developers have no leverage because there are no alternatives. What can they do, take their apps and leave the store?
    - adflux 5y ago
      Do you think the same about paying taxes?

slver 5y ago

What you're saying is that you're OK with basically every single developer declaring their app as free, and then asking for your credit card, which will be processed in god knows what ways with most of them. So developers get in the shortterm to avoid the 30% cut. But what happens next? The payment process becomes much more cumbersome and much less safe for users. So they start avoiding any payments on iPhone. Apple loses basically all funding to maintain and curate the store. And in the long-term developers lose the entire platform, because it's based on the goodwill of the users. Who wins?

devit 5y ago
This will not happen as long as Apple's cut percentage is lower than the percentage of users that will give up or not download the app when asked for their credit card in-app. Obviously any reasonable Apple's cut will satisfy this requirement.
- Retric 5y ago
  4 users or 4 million the review process needs to be done and done well otherwise it’s just as risky as installing random crap people download from the internet. So the issue is Apples ‘cut’ needs to cover all those apps with few buyers. It’s a complex problem because applications like BonziBuddy mean you can’t actually trust users to detect issues. That’s not to say Apple ensures quality, just that minimum standards have actual value. On the other hand it’s reasonable for large companies to disagree with subsidizing lone developers. As such a substantial fee to submit apps would likely be required.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
SheinhardtWigCo 5y ago
This is FUD. Where is the evidence that letting developers choose how to process payments leads to rampant fraud? The online payment landscape outside the App Store is actually very safe for users. Try to cancel an in-app subscription without Googling how to do it. Good luck. Also, if you try using the store, you’ll see it’s not curated in any meaningful way. It’s full of garbage and fake reviews. Someone properly incentivized to improve it could do a much better job.

0xEFF 5y ago

> If a developer isn't using that infrastructure, they don't owe anything. How would a developer build an iOS app without using any system calls or OS frameworks? Xcode? “Infrastructure” is a blurry concept in such a deeply integrated system.

peoplefromibiza 5y ago
IMO it's not that blurry. The real point is if Apple wants (or should have the right) to collect taxes on their infrastructure and act like a Government - think about VAT - or they are only selling consumer devices instead. If I buy a tractor from John Deere and make money out of the products I can grow using that tractor I don't have to pay a fee to John Deere, even thought without the JD my fields would probably be much less profitable or plainly unprofitable. So the question is: has Apple built a digital Nation? And in that case, should they be the only monopolistic option?
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  However, what makes it even blurrier is that, in the US, being a monopoly (despite what you may have heard) is actually NOT illegal. What is illegal is the monopoly using its monopoly power to perpetuate its monopoly power. However, historically, this was almost always because the monopoly did something like change the rules to benefit themselves after they became a monopoly. From the law's perspective, Apple didn't do anything like that. Apple didn't raise the commission to, say, 50%. Apple hasn't changed the rules since, like, 2009 before they had the theoretical "monopoly" status. This makes proving an illegal monopoly case against Apple (because monopolies are not intrinsically illegal) more difficult.
  - rebelos 5y ago
    > Apple hasn't changed the rules since, like, 2009 before they had the theoretical "monopoly" status. This couldn't be further from the truth. They have carved out many exceptions to the 30% commission over the years - often as part of sweetheart deals to attract larger entities that have negotiating leverage, such as Netflix and Amazon.

smnrchrds 5y ago

I have seen this time after time, that when the question of Apple store comes up, a top-rated comment always makes a comparison with game consoles to argue it is all fair. I don't personally believe the comparison makes sense, but many on HN do. So I am going to ask, how is this different from PS/Xbox/etc? If the game consoles still 'own' the device after you have bought it, e.g. when PS disabled Linux installation feature via update on consoles they had already sold, why shouldn't Apple be entitled to do the same, to do as it pleases with the devices in perpetuity?

ajconway 5y ago
Not many companies are in the business of being fair or moral, usually it's about making money. Lawmakers have the power to force companies into being more fair (for whatever definition of "fair"). On the comparison between Apple and Sony, — objectively there is no difference except that they work in different markets and the devices they sell have slightly different purposes. If as a result of all of this Apple is forced to make their devices more general-purpose-like, it would be easier to insist that Sony should do the same.
- ReptileMan 5y ago
  Since the console gaming have already gotten the worst parts of the pc gaming, I don't think that bringing the positives to consoles is as threatening as you think.
konschubert 5y ago
Game consoles have negative margins, it’s their business model. If apple started selling iphones at negative margins maybe they would have a better moral stand in charging a tax.
- spideymans 5y ago
  Apple subsidizing the cost of iPhones with revenue from elsewhere in their walled-garden ecosystem would arguably be even more anticompetitive. Apple's competitors don't have the ecosystem advantage that would allow them to generate revenue from other parts of their business. Apple would be able to drive down their iPhone prices, while mainlining exceptional quality, which would be very difficult to compete against.

simonh 5y ago

Cook didn't say anything about tracking purchases, or even getting a cut as such. He said they would need to find another way to invoice developers, which just means another revenue model, that's all.

simondotau 5y ago
Invoice developers for using their intellectual property? How dare Apple expect a revenue share from developers who use their tools and libraries. Companies that make tools and libraries should be forced to give them away for free. Like Unreal Engine. Completely free, no exceptions.
- captainredbeard 5y ago
  ...why?
  - simondotau 5y ago
    Because it's Apple's intellectual property. We don't steal it from them because we feel entitled to it.
- rahkiin 5y ago
  They charge royalty on revenue
  - simondotau 5y ago
    Correct, that’s what both companies do.
wccrawford 5y ago
He did, actually. I finally found the quote again. https://9to5mac.com/2021/05/21/live-blog-apple-ceo-tim-cook-testifies-in-epic-legal-battle/ https://9to5mac.com/2021/05/21/live-blog-apple-ceo-tim-cook-... > “We would also have to come up with an alternate way of collecting our commission,” Cook says. “We would then have to figure out how to track what’s going on and invoice it and then chase the developers down. It seems like a process that doesn’t need to exist.”

jbverschoor 5y ago

Sure. But who owns the software? You bought a license for that. This is no different from a lot of other platforms. And quite frankly, I’m happy about that, if you compare with incompatible, unupdated, and malicious software on android Google will and is already following Apple with this

crazygringo 5y ago

Unfortunately, Apple has to maintain this rule because otherwise developers will implement workarounds to avoid charging in the App Store altogether. Remember when eBay charged a commission on the sale price but not shipping? Suddenly $50 items became $1 with $49 shipping -- so eBay had to charge the commission on the shipping too even though it didn't seem "fair". Same here -- every app would turn free, and charge to unlock features within using their own payment mechanism. Apple's App Store revenue would drop to zero. No developer in their right mind would let Apple take a cut of anything. As a general rule, app stores simply don't allow third-party payment in apps that don't go through the store, for this exact reason. It's not just Apple with this policy.

secondcoming 5y ago
Couldn't Apple recoup any losses by charging app publishers 'rent' to be listed on the app store?
- natch 5y ago
  No. Think it through: free apps would not be able to afford the rent, so they would need a discount. Then in the limit all apps would become free, so as to get the discount. But some apps would be making a killing with external payment methods, while other apps would be making nothing. Meantime Apple would also be making nothing. I would think Apple has thought about this.
- joshuaissac 5y ago
  They already charge this: 99 USD annually. https://developer.apple.com/programs/how-it-works/ https://developer.apple.com/programs/how-it-works/
nsajko 5y ago
Is your argument that Apple shouldn't themselves bear the responsibility of choosing an unsustainable/immoral/illegal business model?
- matz1 5y ago

api 5y ago

> Apple doesn't own that device any more. They sold it to someone. Ownership is so pre-cloud. Now everything is cloud tethered so nothing belongs to anyone except whoever runs it’s cloud.

bryanrasmussen 5y ago

>with developers being able to use I guess you mean not being able to? Normally I wouldn't bring it up but I spent a several read throughs trying to make sense of that sentence, and still not sure if I'm right?

lifty 5y ago

It seems that Tim Cook considers the devices and the ecosystem that they create a *aaS. So they shouldn’t be considered general purpose devices on which you can run anything. Think of them as cloud devices with local/edge cacheing for improved experience, very similarly to what Google offers.

samhain 5y ago

Imagine Apple wanting their cut from Google, because I used the chrome app to buy something off of Amazon.

tw04 5y ago

So how do you feel about consoles? Because if they don’t get a cut they don’t survive. I can’t see how you can set a legal precedent against Apple that doesn’t apply to Sony/MS/Nintendo as well.

Aeronwen 5y ago
Microsoft already made the claim that smartphones are general purpose computing devices, while a game console is single use one that justifies their walled garden.

Despegar 5y ago

>For me, this is way over the line. If they want to charge developers to be on their store, fine. I don't have a problem with that. And charging for using them as a payment processor makes sense. Charging for using Apple services makes sense. Developers have been so steeped in propaganda about "payment processing" that they have no idea what the 30% commission is for. A court or regulator could force Apple to allow third-party payment processing, side-loading, and third-party app stores, and Apple could change their business model to directly charge for the tools and the SDKs that every developer uses to make native apps. The only way to avoid those costs is the way that already exists today: make a web app. Right now the payment processing costs have been integrated into the commission, but they could charge whatever the market could bear to license their IP for a royalty, so in effect developers could end up paying more. There's nothing in law that says Apple can't charge money for their software. That the use of developer tools and SDKs were free on other platforms like the Mac doesn't mean that it's legally required that it be given away for free.

clusterfish 5y ago
They make billions from that 30% cut, and the only reason they can do that is because they disallow all other payments, or even a mention in your app that you can pay elsewhere. They would never be able to charge that much if they allowed any competition, which is exactly why they need to be regulated to allow it. They can't charge a cut of revenue unless they monopolize payment processing, so if as you say they start charging for developer tools, if they charge too much of a flat rate for those, many developers will rightfully walk away, so no, they can't make obscene profits like they're doing now without controlling all payments in iOS apps.
- Despegar 5y ago
  No they get the billions from their intellectual property. There's a bunch of pro-user, pro-Apple, and pro-developer reasons why they are the single source for apps and payment processing, but that's not the source of the billions, as I just explained. There's a bunch of reasons why it'd be a PITA for everyone involved if they were forced to do this, but no matter what happens the revenue sharing is never going to go away as long as Apple wants to keep that business model. All the frictional costs (more lawyers and accountants) to verify they collect the right royalties is exactly why courts are ultimately going to side with Apple, because the current system is the ideal one for all parties.

derefr 5y ago

> But charging them simply because they make money while on a device that an end-user owns? What Apple are trying to do is to make back the CapEx of developing the OS frameworks developers are relying upon. Those frameworks often make up a non-negligible fraction of an app's USP, i.e. they're partly why the developer is making money. Apple see whatever slice of market value their OS frameworks added to the developer's product, as morally being their money. Whether there's a legal/contractual framework in place to grab that money or not, they feel like they should be pursuing it. Compare and contrast: music producers sampling some other IP-holder's work. You'd expect, as a producer, that if half of your song was just sampled from another particular song, then 50% of the revenue of your song would be morally owed to the IP-holder of the other song. And also, if you had a contract with the IP-holder that paid less than 50% out to them, that'd certainly be legal, but you'd also likely feel that it'd be you getting one up on them — you'd be coming away with more margin than you "deserve", and them with less than they "deserve", given the amount of work each of you put into the final product. Apple thinks that they "deserve" 10–30% of the value App Store apps capture, because they do 10–30% of the work in making every App Store app (in advance, by building frameworks.) It's not about how the app wants to capture that value, any more than income taxes are about how you make money. They're both about the fact that you did make the money, and the 'infrastructural substrate' that 'invested' in you to help you make that money, wants what it sees as its implicit preferred-shareholder-dividend for that 'investment'.

clusterfish 5y ago
Who the hell needs an OS or a device that can't run third party apps? Their devices are nothing without those. Those frameworks aren't optional frills for the sake for developers' benefit, they're basic functionality that end users already paid hundreds or thousands of dollars for. End users paying is how it always worked on desktop too before they spread this monopolistic poison there too. It's amazing how far people will go to justify a monopoly squeezing everyone it deals with just because they have a good brand and make nice products.
- derefr 5y ago
  > Who the hell needs an OS or a device that can't run third party apps? The first iPhone didn't run third-party apps. Also, the average number of apps paid for per smart-device is < 1. Most people just use free apps. Those free apps — and their users — are essentially free riders on the CapEx of OS framework development, since Apple can't put a tax on income an app doesn't have. So the remaining apps need to be taxed at a higher rate to compensate. > Those frameworks aren't optional frills for the sake for developers' benefit, they're basic functionality that end users already paid hundreds or thousands of dollars for. There are basic OS frameworks that are just table-stakes for having a mobile OS, yes. But there are also some incredibly-specialized frameworks — things that differentiate iOS development from Android development. Reasons devs choose to build an iOS-exclusive app. Apple has, for example, a 3D AR framework, with specialized (neural-network; depth-sensing) hardware in every device put there just to enable the 3D AR framework. No first-party apps really use it for anything. It's just there for third-party devs. That's not "basic functionality." That's an extremely-specialized tool that only a few apps will take advantage of, and for those apps, it's a large part of what makes the app a distinctive experience that can't be had on Android. If not for the fact of requiring special hardware that only Apple can add to the phone, it wouldn't be an OS feature; it'd be a fancy standalone SDK that Apple recoups costs on by selling to developers. Same as they sold e.g. WebObjects, back when. Think of it like this: a city will build most roads "for free", with no increase to your taxes. Those roads are table-stakes to running city infrastructure. They take them out of the budget by reallocating funding away from other things, because citizens would riot if their taxes went up with every road built. But some very-capital-intensive roads that not everybody in the city needs equal access to — e.g. bridges — are built by the city to be toll roads. The business model for these roads is different: rather than the costs of building them coming from the treasury, they're passed on directly to the people who are most advantaged by the road being built: exactly those who will still use the road even with a toll, meaning exactly those who are economically gaining from travelling the road. More often than not, that's businesses (e.g. freight/logistics services.) The 18-wheeler delivering your groceries is paying to use the more-efficient route over the bridge, because that route saves it money, and so increases its profits; and the trade still makes sense even when a part of those increased profits go to the city. > It's amazing how far people will go to justify a monopoly squeezing everyone it deals with just because they have a good brand and make nice products. I'm just trying to explain here why Apple think they're owed 10% of devs' money. I'm not saying they're right in that perception. Just that it's clearly a tempting chain of logic from their perspective. Also, it's a chain of logic that I believe is correct when applied to small businesses (like the aforementioned small music artist getting deeply sampled by a song that makes a lot of money.) I don't see any difference in applying it to a monopoly. Apple's App Store monopoly enables the extraction of "what they think they're owed" on a scale not possible with regular market players, and I'd say that that's definitely bad — but the answer isn't to reject the whole chain of logic of "your profitable thing is 90% my copyrighted IP, so I want royalties" being a valid business model. It just means that Apple should have the power that enables that extraction taken away.

taurath 5y ago

What if the platform strategy is inherently flawed from the perspective of a public good, and is inherently monopolistic and anticompetitive? How does this not reach the absolute definition of a de facto monopoly, especially if you’ve read about the powers that monopolies already broken up we’re using to keep theirs? No monopoly ever will admit it is one. I would like to see a world where platforms are forcibly opened - it seems like any downside could be easily mitigated with competition or regulation. If Apple wants to be a privacy platform great. But they don’t get to take an arbitrary cut out of every companies bottom line with no recourse because they own the hardware. I think anyone saying the potential bad effects don’t have enough imagination as to how well things can work when everything isn’t owned by one company. You could even argue it’s anti capitalist if you wanted.

grishka 5y ago
> they own the hardware They don't — the users bought it, it's theirs now. It should be illegal to restrict hardware like this.
- taurath 5y ago
  Meant to say they build the hardware. Quite agree.
- anonymouse008 5y ago
  So when you buy a vehicle, you should be allowed to run any custom OSS on the hardware?
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
    I believe that you are already allowed to do whatever you want on your property but if you want to drive it on public roads you need to comply with some minimal safety standards imposed by the state.
    - anonymouse008 5y ago
      At what point do we look at the internet as public roads? With the recent ransomwares, the line appears to be shifting.

colordrops 5y ago

> I'd be less happy with developers being able to use their own payment processors and be on the app store for free. There's a chilling anti-free-speech type of thing going on there. How would this have an effect on free speech?

m463 5y ago

I just like to remember - the cut gets passed onto the customers. There are times this is appropriate - there are times this is not.

1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago

"When questioned by Epic Games lawyers, Cook declined to answer a question about whether Apple's iPhone competes with Google's Android in the operating system market." Let us rephrase the question. Does iOS compete with Android in the operating system market. "Customers don't buy operating systems. They buy devices," Cook said." True. Operating systems can be had for free. Customers generally do not buy them (as a separate item), but they do choose them, when they are allowed to do so. What if customers had the option to buy Apple devices without Apple's choice of operating system pre-installed. Apple would never let customers have that choice. A million excuses. "Tech" companies, as well as Microsoft and Apple, remove choice. Users pay nothing for the OS. Someone else pays (OEMs in the case of Microsoft). The OS is pre-installed. Choice is removed. No different than a "default setting" (e.g., "default search engine" for which Google paid $1B to Apple in 2014). The friction to change a pre-installed OS or default setting is too great for most customers. The companies know this and exploit it. Cook suggests that if the customer wants another OS, one that allows a wider variety of apps to be installed, then she can buy a different device. How is that for interoperability. The OS, when controlled by an intermediary such as Apple, is a means of control over users (as well as developers). Any argument that theroretically the most safe, secure and private OS by design is one that the user cannot fully control is unconvincing. If a customer wants privacy against Apple or its business partners, for example, iOS is not designed to offer that.