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Does anyone else just…not care? Files is a system app like Windows Explorer. It’s not meant to “compete” with anything. Does anyone think Control Panel competes

Does anyone else just…not care? Files is a system app like Windows Explorer. It’s not meant to “compete” with anything. Does anyone think Control Panel competes with Android’s Settings app? iCloud Drive is a cloud storage competitor that Files works well with, but Files also supports Dropbox and Google Drive and many other storage competitors (anyone who wants to implement the API gets to be in Files). Also, the argument that Files is somehow replacing Dropbox doesn’t even make sense because you need to have the Dropbox app installed in order to connect Files to Dropbox. It’s not a standalone integration, it depends on third party apps providing the correct extension to work correctly. It’s surprising, to me at least, that everyone accepted Files coming packaged with every new iPhone and iPad sold, but for some reason its position in the App Store is a controversial topic? How many people even delete Files and search for it again? Not to mention that installing system apps from the App Store doesn’t even install anything, because the app was never removed, just hidden from Springboard.

jonplackett 5y ago
Care about the principle not the individual case.
- hahahasure 5y ago
  Ha ha We must apologize for the sins of Apple. We always apologize.
tyingq 5y ago
I care that searching for "Dropbox" doesn't give you "Dropbox" in the first page of results, because of some knob Apple is able to turn any time they want.
- lilyball 5y ago
  When a “page” of search results consists of 1 ad and 1 result, it’s really not very meaningful to talk about “pages”.
  - tyingq 5y ago
    "Below the fold" doesn't have meaning? Is that not what he was effectively saying?
    - simondotau 5y ago
      “Below the fold“ implies that the result wasn’t on screen. The second search result is always on screen, even if you have a tiny iPhone from six years ago. When you search for “dropbox“ and the second result is the Dropbox app adorned with the Dropbox logo, is anyone ever going to even notice the first result?
      - tyingq 5y ago
        The exact quote was "In fact, Dropbox wasn't even visible on the first page".
stefan_ 5y ago
I don't think you read the article. Apple boosted their generic Files app above Dropbox for the query Dropbox. That is the controversy.
- quyleanh 5y ago
  Upvote for you and downvote for OP. I think there will be more tricks from Apple to handle search result of other apps.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- ummonk 5y ago
  Yeah but even before reading the article I figured this was an algorithmic mistake, and apparently it is: "While Apple didn’t challenge the idea that Files was unfairly ranked over Dropbox, the company says the reality was a simple mistake: the Files app had a Dropbox integration, so Apple put “Dropbox” into the app’s metadata, and it was automatically ranked higher for “Dropbox” searches as a result."
  - yyyk 5y ago
    The emails themselves say it was a "manual boost" rather than the PR explanation you provided.
    - weird-eye-issue 5y ago
      I'm a little conflicted who to believe. But it sounds like there are specific keywords an app developer can specify for their apps that signals to the App Store search what to rank for (kind of like having keywords on your website tells Google what your page is about). From my understanding Apple manually put "Dropbox" as one of the keywords and that is what they removed. If other app developers can put in keywords like that (and not just Apple for their own apps) then it doesn't sound too bad... But if it was a separate system that is not accessible to other developers to manipulate then that is less cool.
hu3 5y ago
This is not the only case. For example it was reported that Fortnite wasn't the first result when searching for "Fortnite". So Apple has no problem giving users poor results in favor of ads. I guess it's only annoying when Google does it right? Showing File above Dropbox for a "Dropbox" search only adds insult to injury here. edit: the amount of hand waving Apple gets around these parts is irrational. 2 instant downvotes for stating facts.
GeekyBear 5y ago
It's particularly weird to target Apple in such a nebulous case when Selling ads that show up higher in the search results than the product you searched for is literally Google's business model in their only really profitable segment.
- bostonsre 5y ago
  A market place and a search engine with ads are a little different. Apple is the market and also the vendor of the competing product in this case. They used their control of the market to benefit themselves. This type of vertical integration that is used to squash and out compete smaller competitors definitely smells like what anti trust laws were originally put in place to fight. Big tech lawyers should be terrified. The general sentiment of the public is beginning to shift against them and I'm not sure them spending millions more on lobbying will be able to prevent the legislation that will come. Also, just because Google does shifty things doesn't make it ok for Apple to do shifty things too.
  - GeekyBear 5y ago
    > A market place and a search engine with ads are a little different. There is a difference here. Google has a very definite profit motive in selling ads on searches for a given companies product name that ranks higher in their monopoly search engine. I can't see how ranking Files higher than Dropbox has any such profit motive. It's a free system utility that isn't even ad supported.
    - bostonsre 5y ago
      They are steering users away from non Apple apps. If a user installs Dropbox, it seems more likely that they wouldn't want to install and pay for icloud storage. If Apple wasn't benefiting from surfacing their app in front of a non Apple app, why would someone at Apple go through the trouble of setting it up that way?
      - GeekyBear 5y ago
yyyk 5y ago
>Files is a system app like Windows Explorer. It’s not meant to “compete” with anything. That defence helped Internet Explorer a lot. Nope. At the very least searching for 'dropbox' should return 'dropbox' and not be overriden by Apple. >but for some reason its position in the App Store is a controversial topic? How many people even delete Files and search for it again? This makes Apple's defence for manually placing Files at #1 even more nonsensical. >iCloud Drive is a cloud storage competitor that Files works well with, but Files also supports Dropbox and Google Drive and many other storage competitors... If all users installed DropBox, iCloud Drive would get $0. If they used Files, some percentage of users would pay for Apple's solution. That the financial benefit doesn't get 100 percent of users does not make it not a financial benefit.
- 63 5y ago
  >That defense helped Internet Explorer a lot. The past tense implies that battle was already won. Afaik, Windows still uses anti-competetive practices to support Edge (not uninstallable, and 'are you sure you want to change your default browser? Check out the New Edge first!'). The same defense still applies if they want it. I don't think it's right to speak about it like it's a thing of the past.
  - tempodox 5y ago
    Privatezilla [1] helps with many nuisances. Among others, you can block Edge installation with it. [1] https://github.com/builtbybel/privatezilla https://github.com/builtbybel/privatezilla
- graeme 5y ago
  A filesystem and an internet browser are two very different things! Files = Windows explorer, the filesystem. Which is not internet explorer, the browser. Dropbox and Files indeed aren’t really competitors. I often use Files to browser my Dropbox files!
  - mthoms 5y ago
    I just uninstalled Dropbox and upgraded my iCloud storage. I’ll admit it’s an experiment to see if it meets my needs, but for my use case(syncing between my desktop and laptop), they are absolutely direct competitors.
egypturnash 5y ago
If you dig down the email chain PDF you get to email from the head of Epic bitching about how a search for “Fortnite” comes up with ads for competitors first. He then goes on to use the ad for Files that showed up at the top of a search for “Dropbox” as another example. Half the time when I search for any app on the iOS store I get an ad for a knockoff at the top of the search, barely noted as an ad, this is a big problem. Though you get the same shit when you search for anything on Google too. Except a lot of those are ads bought by the very thing you’re searching for, because they have decided giving Google protection money to keep anyone else out of that spot is worth it.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- SalimoS 5y ago
  > barely noted as an ad I don’t know what version you use but in iOS 14 the ad is clearly mentioned and the ad element have a distinct light blue background and all the other elements have w white color !
  - egypturnash 5y ago
    Oh, I guess that’s improved then. Yay! I’ve basically quit updating anything lately, iOS and MacOS do everything I need and new versions just break shit and push developers towards replacing what used to work with slow, underfeatured Electron crap. Still a goddamn pain in the ass. No I don’t want Obvious Ripoff or Close Competitor, I want Actual Thing That I Typed In.
kwdc 5y ago
If I search for something and its found, I expect it to be the first result. Not an ad for its competitor. I hate the manipulation of rankings that interfere in this way.
- Spivak 5y ago
  Huh? But that’s the whole business model of search ads. If you manipulate the organic results then shame on your whole family but sticking ads at the top is to me pretty benign as long as they’re clearly labeled — and on the App Store and Google Search they are.
  - kwdc 5y ago
    If I search for something and it exists, I expect to see it. If necessary put the ad after the result I expect to see. Even with them labelled as ads. That is a better approach. The "its just how it is" kind of narrative isn’t great either. I'd never want to hear that from anyone implying they are innovators or creative types. Especially when the "how it is" aspect is something created as a matter of deliberate choice and not some natural law.

jonplackett 5y ago

Care about the principle not the individual case.

hahahasure 5y ago
Ha ha We must apologize for the sins of Apple. We always apologize.

tyingq 5y ago

I care that searching for "Dropbox" doesn't give you "Dropbox" in the first page of results, because of some knob Apple is able to turn any time they want.

lilyball 5y ago
When a “page” of search results consists of 1 ad and 1 result, it’s really not very meaningful to talk about “pages”.
- tyingq 5y ago
  "Below the fold" doesn't have meaning? Is that not what he was effectively saying?
  - simondotau 5y ago
    “Below the fold“ implies that the result wasn’t on screen. The second search result is always on screen, even if you have a tiny iPhone from six years ago. When you search for “dropbox“ and the second result is the Dropbox app adorned with the Dropbox logo, is anyone ever going to even notice the first result?
    - tyingq 5y ago
      The exact quote was "In fact, Dropbox wasn't even visible on the first page".

stefan_ 5y ago

I don't think you read the article. Apple boosted their generic Files app above Dropbox for the query Dropbox. That is the controversy.

quyleanh 5y ago
Upvote for you and downvote for OP. I think there will be more tricks from Apple to handle search result of other apps.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ummonk 5y ago
Yeah but even before reading the article I figured this was an algorithmic mistake, and apparently it is: "While Apple didn’t challenge the idea that Files was unfairly ranked over Dropbox, the company says the reality was a simple mistake: the Files app had a Dropbox integration, so Apple put “Dropbox” into the app’s metadata, and it was automatically ranked higher for “Dropbox” searches as a result."
- yyyk 5y ago
  The emails themselves say it was a "manual boost" rather than the PR explanation you provided.
  - weird-eye-issue 5y ago
    I'm a little conflicted who to believe. But it sounds like there are specific keywords an app developer can specify for their apps that signals to the App Store search what to rank for (kind of like having keywords on your website tells Google what your page is about). From my understanding Apple manually put "Dropbox" as one of the keywords and that is what they removed. If other app developers can put in keywords like that (and not just Apple for their own apps) then it doesn't sound too bad... But if it was a separate system that is not accessible to other developers to manipulate then that is less cool.

hu3 5y ago

This is not the only case. For example it was reported that Fortnite wasn't the first result when searching for "Fortnite". So Apple has no problem giving users poor results in favor of ads. I guess it's only annoying when Google does it right? Showing File above Dropbox for a "Dropbox" search only adds insult to injury here. edit: the amount of hand waving Apple gets around these parts is irrational. 2 instant downvotes for stating facts.

GeekyBear 5y ago

It's particularly weird to target Apple in such a nebulous case when Selling ads that show up higher in the search results than the product you searched for is literally Google's business model in their only really profitable segment.

bostonsre 5y ago
A market place and a search engine with ads are a little different. Apple is the market and also the vendor of the competing product in this case. They used their control of the market to benefit themselves. This type of vertical integration that is used to squash and out compete smaller competitors definitely smells like what anti trust laws were originally put in place to fight. Big tech lawyers should be terrified. The general sentiment of the public is beginning to shift against them and I'm not sure them spending millions more on lobbying will be able to prevent the legislation that will come. Also, just because Google does shifty things doesn't make it ok for Apple to do shifty things too.
- GeekyBear 5y ago
  > A market place and a search engine with ads are a little different. There is a difference here. Google has a very definite profit motive in selling ads on searches for a given companies product name that ranks higher in their monopoly search engine. I can't see how ranking Files higher than Dropbox has any such profit motive. It's a free system utility that isn't even ad supported.
  - bostonsre 5y ago
    They are steering users away from non Apple apps. If a user installs Dropbox, it seems more likely that they wouldn't want to install and pay for icloud storage. If Apple wasn't benefiting from surfacing their app in front of a non Apple app, why would someone at Apple go through the trouble of setting it up that way?
    - GeekyBear 5y ago

yyyk 5y ago

>Files is a system app like Windows Explorer. It’s not meant to “compete” with anything. That defence helped Internet Explorer a lot. Nope. At the very least searching for 'dropbox' should return 'dropbox' and not be overriden by Apple. >but for some reason its position in the App Store is a controversial topic? How many people even delete Files and search for it again? This makes Apple's defence for manually placing Files at #1 even more nonsensical. >iCloud Drive is a cloud storage competitor that Files works well with, but Files also supports Dropbox and Google Drive and many other storage competitors... If all users installed DropBox, iCloud Drive would get $0. If they used Files, some percentage of users would pay for Apple's solution. That the financial benefit doesn't get 100 percent of users does not make it not a financial benefit.

63 5y ago
>That defense helped Internet Explorer a lot. The past tense implies that battle was already won. Afaik, Windows still uses anti-competetive practices to support Edge (not uninstallable, and 'are you sure you want to change your default browser? Check out the New Edge first!'). The same defense still applies if they want it. I don't think it's right to speak about it like it's a thing of the past.
- tempodox 5y ago
  Privatezilla [1] helps with many nuisances. Among others, you can block Edge installation with it. [1] https://github.com/builtbybel/privatezilla https://github.com/builtbybel/privatezilla
graeme 5y ago
A filesystem and an internet browser are two very different things! Files = Windows explorer, the filesystem. Which is not internet explorer, the browser. Dropbox and Files indeed aren’t really competitors. I often use Files to browser my Dropbox files!
- mthoms 5y ago
  I just uninstalled Dropbox and upgraded my iCloud storage. I’ll admit it’s an experiment to see if it meets my needs, but for my use case(syncing between my desktop and laptop), they are absolutely direct competitors.

egypturnash 5y ago

If you dig down the email chain PDF you get to email from the head of Epic bitching about how a search for “Fortnite” comes up with ads for competitors first. He then goes on to use the ad for Files that showed up at the top of a search for “Dropbox” as another example. Half the time when I search for any app on the iOS store I get an ad for a knockoff at the top of the search, barely noted as an ad, this is a big problem. Though you get the same shit when you search for anything on Google too. Except a lot of those are ads bought by the very thing you’re searching for, because they have decided giving Google protection money to keep anyone else out of that spot is worth it.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
SalimoS 5y ago
> barely noted as an ad I don’t know what version you use but in iOS 14 the ad is clearly mentioned and the ad element have a distinct light blue background and all the other elements have w white color !
- egypturnash 5y ago
  Oh, I guess that’s improved then. Yay! I’ve basically quit updating anything lately, iOS and MacOS do everything I need and new versions just break shit and push developers towards replacing what used to work with slow, underfeatured Electron crap. Still a goddamn pain in the ass. No I don’t want Obvious Ripoff or Close Competitor, I want Actual Thing That I Typed In.

kwdc 5y ago

If I search for something and its found, I expect it to be the first result. Not an ad for its competitor. I hate the manipulation of rankings that interfere in this way.

Spivak 5y ago
Huh? But that’s the whole business model of search ads. If you manipulate the organic results then shame on your whole family but sticking ads at the top is to me pretty benign as long as they’re clearly labeled — and on the App Store and Google Search they are.
- kwdc 5y ago
  If I search for something and it exists, I expect to see it. If necessary put the ad after the result I expect to see. Even with them labelled as ads. That is a better approach. The "its just how it is" kind of narrative isn’t great either. I'd never want to hear that from anyone implying they are innovators or creative types. Especially when the "how it is" aspect is something created as a matter of deliberate choice and not some natural law.