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Apple tells EU it has five different App Stores, not just one
- rsynnott 3y agoI mean, I suppose the lawyers feel that they have to be seen to be doing _something_, but this feels like an extremely weak argument.
- kosievdmerwe 3y agoAren't purchases also shared between stores? Like if you buy an app on iPhone you also get it on iPad?
- Hamuko 3y agoDepends on the app but basically, yeah. For example, the Ivory for Mastodon app is a Mac/iPhone/iPad application, and the "Mac App Store Preview" shows screenshots for all three devices. https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/ivory-for-mastodon-by-tapbots/id6444602274 https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/ivory-for-mastodon-by-tapbots/...
- postalrat 3y agoIf true then consider them gifts.
- threeseed 3y agoNo. For example if I buy OmniGraffle for iPad I don't automatically get the Mac version. There are options for developers to do this but it's not automatic.
- jgilias 3y agoThis is on the same shelf as when they tried to convince EU that iPhone is not in fact a phone, so their ask about using a standardized charger doesn’t apply. A friend got one of them new notPhone with a USB C charging port a week ago. Sometimes EU does good things, this is one them. I’m so looking forward to alternative app stores.
- bee_rider 3y agoMixed feelings. I’d like a GNU store but that’s about it. It will be annoying when people start using the Facebook spyware store or some other junk. That’s their choice I guess, but it makes the ecosystem work (typo edit: work should be worse) I think.
- Y-bar 3y agoLet's say Apple gets forced to allow third party app stores. Would there be anything stopping Apple from requiring those app stores to have real, actual individual be responsible for the actively policing those stores for things like fraud and actual malware? For example if there are too many reports of fraud or abuse though some store Apple could hold that individual responsible and or withdraw the signing key for their store? I would guess something like could help.
- throwaway22056 3y agoYes, the EU. It forces Apple to allow sideloading - that means installing apps with no restrictions, from any sources such as any random website. A store is just an app, thus there will be no way for Apple to force alternative stores to anything. There doesn't even need to be a person that could be held responsible, or they could be easily masked behind anonymity of the web or layers of white horses / phished identities.
- Y-bar 3y agoBut from my perspective sideloading is not necessarily a separate on-device store. An on-device store would be equivalent to Steam which first need to be installed on the device for example via the regular iOS App Store or sideloading or another already installed app store. Sideloading would be downloading from a web page or secondary device or similar method. Separate stores would be a decent middle-ground for my part when less tech-savvy people inevitably ask me "can I trust this app" I can reply with "are you about to install it from store X or Y or download elsewhere?". If the answer is "that store from Epic Games" I could sigh quietly and say "it's likely okay".
- sigmar 3y ago>The company contends that iMessage [doesn’t fall within the scope of the DMA] as it is not a fee-based service and it does not monetise it via the sale of hardware devices nor via the processing of personal data. oh, cool. Where do I go to get my no-fee access to iMessage with my pixel phone?
- freedomben 3y agoI'm guessing you just need to install one of the five app stores onto your Pixel, and then you can install iMessage from there
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- elashri 3y agoAlthough it is on app stores, iMessage updates happens with the iOS updates itself. It is just there because you can actually remove the Messages app and then re-install it later if you want.
- b112 3y agoIt just happens to be bundled with the OS. Updates come from the app store. Otherwise you'd need to update the entire OS, just for a minor security fix to imesssgae.
- interactivecode 3y agoI mean it's apple, that's not a stretch
- ryanpetrich 3y agoYes, that's right. You need to update the entire OS for a minor security fix to iMessage.
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- spogbiper 3y agoHow do I use the other 4 app stores on my iPhone?
- freedomben 3y ago> The company contends that iMessage [doesn’t fall within the scope of the DMA] as it is not a fee-based service and it does not monetise it via the sale of hardware devices nor via the processing of personal data. This seems to undermine one of the main arguments that was used against Beeper Mini, mainly that iMessage access was "purchased" by buying an Apple device, and so Beeper Mini users were "stealing" iMessage.
- nickthegreek 3y agoDid Apple use that argument against Beeper Mini? I thought it was just the public.
- freedomben 3y agoFair point, although I don't think Apple used any arguments against Beeper Mini. They just released "security fixes"
- lucasyvas 3y agoIf this is their best argument then they might as well save some money and stop paying the lawyers on this one.
- Hamuko 3y agoThey tried it with Safari too. Unfortunately for Apple, turns out that their marketing department came up with the tagline "Same Safari. Different device." when advertising how seamlessly Safari works across all their different devices. https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/02/apple_safari_browser/ https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/02/apple_safari_browser/
- WesolyKubeczek 3y agoAlso vulnerabilities and bugs that are exactly the same…
- jzb 3y agoIf you can't win any other way, just gum up the works as long as you can to protect profits as long as you can.
- bee_rider 3y agoI wonder how many days of app-store revenue in Europe it takes for their lawyers to make up their salaries.
- TrianguloY 3y agoSo, does this means that Apple doesn't have a monopoly, but 5 of them?
- Toutouxc 3y agoWell one of them (on Mac) is certainly not a monopoly, on my Mac I have like two apps from the Mac App Store, the rest is bought directly or via Homebrew.
- danmur 3y agoA monopoly on monopolies
- moffkalast 3y agoSounds like they need to be broken up, they make a compelling case.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 3y agoI wonder what the thinking is with this argument. Make the EU come up with an argument that they need to open the apple watch and apple TV to third party app stores too because that seems more silly? Or are they just trying to split it up so iphone numbers are smaller? Or do they hope that they end up with a precedent that they can apply to all their devices instead of just one?
- guitarbill 3y agoAndroid is quite a bit more popular than iPhones in the EU (roughly 66% vs 33%). And the iPhone app store is likely the most lucrative one for Apple. So it makes sense to try and isolate it. It will be interesting to see how the iPad affects this. I'm not sure about the wearable/smartwatch market. That could be more skewed towards Apple Watch. Doubt anybody cares about Apple TV. macOS store is likely exempt as - for now - Macs can install software from anywhere.
- turquoisevar 3y agoThe long and short of it is that the EU, in determining the gatekeepers, looked at the monthly active users for each store separately on the premise that each OS (i.e., iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, watchOS) is separate from each other with its own constraints, functionality, and purpose. The EU then realized that the only App Store that meets the monthly active user threshold is the iOS App Store (and maybe iPadOS, I am not 100% sure as I write this, the preliminary findings were a while back), which wasn’t desirable for the EU as they want to regulate as much as possible. Hence, the EU basically said: “fuck it, we’ll treat them all as one; the DMA is written vague enough that we can get away with this.” Apple is now appealing this finding and echoed the EU’s original stance that these are to be considered separate, with each their own monthly active user threshold to meet.
- andsoitis 3y ago> Not so, said Apple, as the App Store isn’t a single entity. And yet, here's Apple's own description of the App Store: "For over a decade, the App Store has proved to be a safe and trusted place to discover and download apps. But the App Store is more than just a storefront — it’s an innovative destination focused on bringing you amazing experiences. And a big part of those experiences is ensuring that the apps we offer are held to the highest standards for privacy, security, and content. Because we offer nearly two million apps — and we want you to feel good about using every single one of them." https://www.apple.com/app-store/ https://www.apple.com/app-store/
- crazygringo 3y agoIt doesn't matter how Apple markets it to consumers. The law was written in a certain technical way, and what's relevant here is whether it counts as 1 or 5 stores according to the law. It's the same way you could claim Amazon is 1 store, or 58 stores (1 for each country) or 2.5 million stores (for each third-party seller). They're all correct for different purposes, and none of them have anything to do with whatever Amazon writes in marketing material. Likewise, it's perfectly valid for Apple to argue that the law considers the size of an app store per operating system, since an app for one OS doesn't necessarily run on another. The argument might succeed or it might not. But it doesn't have anything to do with marketing copy.
- ajross 3y agoThe DMA is an antitrust statute. While sure, you can argue that Apple operates different stores as a matter of implementation, it strains reason to claim that they somehow compete with each other. No, this argument is silly. Silly arguments aren't illegal, but it's hard to imaging this swaying any judges who aren't just looking for an excuse to find in one direction (which happens! which is why lawyers sometimes construct silly arguments to act as excuses).
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoBoth sides have to be consistent. If they lump all the app stores together to make an argument just about phones, for example, that won’t fly with judges.
- pjmlp 3y agoEven if I like some of their products, this is a quite lame excuse, and typical Apple line of argumentation.
- pentae 3y agoI wouldn't read into it too much, this is what some of the best paid lawyers in the world cooked up to protect their client and par for the course
- rambambram 3y agoWhether they are the "best paid lawyers" or not, if I was Apple I would let the marketing department keep an eye on these public statements.
- hospitalJail 3y agoI'm not sure the marketing department cares. Apple has literally said their customers had lied about the butterfly keyboard issue for years, when they did the lying. They cannot be damaged, they have a populist demagogue-like effect.
- yard2010 3y agoDon't hate the player hate the game - law systems are so backwards sometimes, you can score a home run being lame
- hospitalJail 3y agoCan you imagine if everyone abused the system? Good thing we frown upon that unless you are a trillion dollar corp.
- rob74 3y ago> But Apple may succeed in arguing that its app stores for other devices should be excluded. (The Mac App Store should already be safe, as users are free to download and install apps direct from developers.) And I imagine Apple would just love to close this historical "loophole", but is probably afraid of the backlash...
- grishka 3y agoThat would not be possible because Macs are much more open by design. There are so many methods to subvert such a restriction, and most of them can't be removed without significantly degrading the utility of the OS. And even if we suppose they did do that, users would just stop updating and stop buying new hardware incapable of running old OS versions.
- nashashmi 3y agoCould not they do that by arguing their chip requires using only ARM-SAFE apps?
- aa_is_op 3y agoGood... five times the fine then!
- newbie578 3y agoHilarious argument, I cannot wait for Apple to open the walled garden this year. Especially for the feeling of vindication here on HN. A lot of people would basically go on you as vultures if you dared voice your opinion that Apple should not have absolute control over the platform and that it doesn't matter what their ToS says.. Look and behold the wall is coming down. And tbh it does feel pretty good after arguing about this on HN for the last couple of years.
- devsda 3y ago> The company in its argument to the EU competition enforcer said it operates five App Stores on iPhones, iPads, Mac computers, Apple TVs and Apple Watches, with each designed to distribute apps for a specific operating system and Apple device They might as well count the iphones with different aspect ratios and inflate the number beyond five.
- seabass-labrax 3y agoConsidering how arbitrary Apple's demarcation of the five App Stores is already, it's not much of a technical leap to go further. I'm no expert on the Apple developer tools, but if it's anything like Android, apps for a 2022 iPhone are a lot closer to apps for a 2022 iPad than they are to a 2018 iPhone. With Android, new API/ABI versions are released with breaking changes, forcing a different set of apps to be available for each version, but the codebase remains mostly the same across form factors at any given point in time. I think the Commission are more than capable of seeing through Apple's artificial distinctions here, but the question is whether the General Court will!
- simion314 3y agoAFAIK Japan is also working on the Google and Apple monopoly or abuses with the store, so for the ones that always will use the same anti-EU arguments try to make them generic to also work for Japan.
- christkv 3y agoI wish the EU said. All public messages services must implement the xmpp protocol as an optional connection interface and be done with it.
- WesolyKubeczek 3y agoEven if they do it, for the sake of argument, which they don't, it won't fly the way you'd like it because unless it comes with lots of red tape ensuring you cannot just whitelist/blacklist a certain type of client on a whim, it's useless. Apple will continue to enforce its authentication scheme where you have to come from iCloud, and you have to attest your device and OS too. What good is it for you to know it's XMPP under the hood if only a blessed client can connect to it?
- grishka 3y agoYeah, fine, there are 5 app stores, except they are still owned by the same company enforcing the same asinine rules in all of them.
- WesolyKubeczek 3y agoI've run across a report that the same app was accepted into iOS App Store while rejected with bullshit reason from the Mac App Store... go figure.
- threeseed 3y agoThis is not true. So the rules are very different between Mac and iOS. Apple allows all sorts of apps to be tolerated on Mac especially those that are developer focused and require elevated access.
- agluszak 3y ago[news] Big Corp blatantly lies to avoid being punished for breaking the law
- amelius 3y agoIf you're opposed to the idea of governments regulating a market, then wait until you've seen a company regulating one ...
- PedroBatista 3y agoIs Apple trying to pull an Amazon when they said they were a half dozen entities in EU and therefor did not qualify as a big company? ( perhaps even a small business.. ) Btw they might have many "stores" but the market is single and so the brand and "store front", but let's entertainment yet another childish tantrum from Apple..
- zogrodea 3y agoI hadn't heard about Amazon in court but curious to see what you and others in this thread are referencing with this comparison. Is it about this article? Maybe you would have another link I can read about what silly thing Amazon tried? https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/09/ftc-sues-amazon-illegally-maintaining-monopoly-power https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/09/... Thanks!
- PedroBatista 3y agoI was being "cheeky" and misremembered the details but it was based on this: https://qz.com/amazon-vlop-big-tech-dsa-law-eu-regulations-fines-1850630678 https://qz.com/amazon-vlop-big-tech-dsa-law-eu-regulations-f... Still, the overall ridiculous claims and loopholes still stand.
- zogrodea 3y agoThat is indeed pretty ridiculous. Thanks for the reference.
- bni 3y agoI don't care about developers needs in the slightest. As a user I want there to be a single App Store on the iPhone and not the horrible mess like Windows with everyone having their own store/launcher.
- eric__cartman 3y agoI doubt that'll happen. Android has had the possibility to create alternative app stores since the very beginning and even though there are other stores like F-Droid or whatever Samsung calls their bloatware nowadays almost no one uses them. Apple will not bloat their devices with that crap (talking about the Samsung stuff F-Droid is great and I'd love to see an equivalent for iPhones) from the factory and the vast majority of users will still use the default because it's what they are accustomed to and what's recommended by the manufacturer. All mainstream apps will remain in the Apple store and everything will be pretty much the same with the ability to side-load whatever you please to the device you bought.
- The_Colonel 3y agoGoogle Play is much less restrictive. You can download real Firefox from there, so there's no point using a different app store for that. This might be a good side effect - to compete with other app stores (to discourage users from installing them), they might ease up the restrictions.
- cozzyd 3y agoDoes the App Store still ban GPL apps? If so, F-Droid is even more needed on iDevices...
- makeitdouble 3y agoCan't you avoid the horrible mess on windows by not installing any store you don't want ? I assume you're thinking about Steam for instance ? Forgo Steam, and you're back to the iPhone situation where you only get a small portion of the ecosystem in nice and clean walled garden. You're in the mess only if you care about getting the full choice of applications, which Apple will never allow on its own.
- jokoon 3y agoit's crazy how many times US companies went to EU courts, would it GDPR, taxes, monopolies, etc etc
- okanat 3y agoBecause they are the ones that can exploit lax laws of the US (or lax execution). The reason the big companies became big is since 80s almost no company got broken by the US. The US is mostly a single culture and people mostly speak a single language. It is already easier to found more successful companies in the US. Then the laws give much more leeway in workers rights, privacy rights and environment protection in the US. When those companies enter EU market, they try to steamroll the existing EU ones who did everything by the book. They can exploit loopholes better, they can get better loans (sometimes at the expense of natural persons' accounts) and sell for a loss for longer, they can hire lawyers to delay decisions while forcing other competitors into bankruptcy. This reduces actual competition and innovation. Not the best, most beneficial product with better operational cost, customer benefit or even the best profit wins. The one that can inflate their value the most wins. Amazon is a great example of that. Their store sucks in every single way. Filtering sucks, search sucks, quality sucks, delivery sucks, returns except the Amazon center suck. There are way better stores in just Germany than Amazon. But everybody buys at Amazon because they can strong arm sellers to reduce prices to unreasonable levels and avoid strong tax laws. Some people in the EU see this as an actual problem for the economy and act. They try to level the playing field. The US government sleeps on the laws so the companies grow stronger and try to do even more misdeeds globally which also negatively affects EU.
- xivzgrev 3y agoHahaha - what a BS argument! And if I have a MacBook, for instance, do I have a choice in downloading the app from the iPad store or the iPhone store? No, there’s just one for my device! And do I have a choice to use a non Apple App Store? No! So while there might be multiple stores for Apple, there’s only one for my device from Apple It’s like arguing that any monopoly isn’t actually a monopoly because the company has multiple physical locations. But the consumer has one choice, constrained by geography I’m no lawyer but this is clearly a Hail Mary, perhaps suggested by some law firm to get a little more money out of Apple
- cassianoleal 3y ago> And if I have a MacBook, for instance, do I have a choice in downloading the app from the MacBook store or the iPhone store? No, there’s one for my device! If it's an Apple Silicon MacBook, yes. It's actually the same App Store application but it can be used to download mobile apps. I think in this case the line being drawn at what frontend is used to interact with the stores is splitting hairs. I agree with the rest of your arguments.
- AniseAbyss 3y ago[dead]
- obmelvin 3y agoI tried to do this recently to download some apps to my Macbook - a few 3rd party apps and the new Journal app from Apple. As far as I could tell, only some apps are directly installable on the laptop, despite this claim? It seemed like I basically needed to sideload the file directly from my phone to the computer. I tried googling and chatgpt, but would love to hear that I missed something!
- madeofpalk 3y agoDevelopers have the option to disable iOS apps from being installed on Apple silicon macs. Unfortunately most 'big' apps just disable this for whatever reason. I don't believe you can 'sideload' unsupported ipas from an iOS device any more.
- hurtuvac78 3y ago>The Mac App Store should already be safe, as users are free to download and install apps direct from developers Not a Mac user/dev here. If I am not going through the store, if I don't use xcode to sign my executable, won't MacOS force the user to go through cryptic command line changes to let them install my software?
- lights0123 3y agoUnless it's changed recently, it's just a right-click and then Open on the app. Older versions let you select radio box in the Security tab in the settings app to allow all apps.
- josephcsible 3y agoThat sounds misleadingly easy. The misleading part is that if you yep to open it the normal way, instead of getting an error that tells you that you can do that, you get an error that makes it sound like the developer did something wrong and there's nothing you can do.
- turquoisevar 3y agoYeah there are two ways around it. One is right click and open and the other one is allowing it in security settings.
- stetrain 3y agoFor unsigned apps you have to go into Settings > Security and click a button to allow the app to run. For signed apps there's no extra step needed by default.
- karaterobot 3y ago> The company in its argument to the EU competition enforcer said it operates five App Stores on iPhones, iPads, Mac computers, Apple TVs and Apple Watches, with each designed to distribute apps for a specific operating system and Apple device. With a straight face they said this, or were they stifling a laugh? If they all say Apple on them, and all the money goes to the same place, and users share an account, and the payment processing is the same, and the same dude is running all of them, and... come on.
- seydor 3y ago"which explain our high fees, because we are forced to run 5 stores, with hundreds of departments that are curated by our paid monkeys" I am often critical of the EU but i can't mock them that well
- hospitalJail 3y agoApple is the classic defector in the prisoners dilemma. Hard to think of a company that has cooperated the least. Between anti-consumer behavior, cutting edge anti-tax behavior, and anti-competitive behaviors, they are defectors. It very much reminds me of a Machiavellian / Nietzsche style. Not that other companies don't do the same, but most aren't as brazen as Apple. I honestly learned a lot from Apple, although as an Individual its seems significantly more frowned upon to lie.
- figassis 3y agoAll 5 app stores have centralized user management. I login to the same account in all devices, using the exact same credentials. Watch store does not have fewer users than iPhone store, does not have fewer users than Mac store, does not have fewer users than iPad store. All 5 app stores have centralized payment card management. Every app I buy charges the same card. I remove that card, it disappears on all stores. A payment fails on one App Store, I get asked to verify my payment info on all other stores. I assume purchase notifications come from the same email. You manage your account on the same web UI. All app stores are the same, but of course you need a different UI and possibly backend. In fact, don't I buy apple watch apps from iOS? Aren't there universal iPad/iOS apps? Sometimes it feels like the level of conversation at these companies is below high school level.
- smabie 3y agoHigh school level atleast much higher than the level of conversation in government.
- BobaFloutist 3y agoZing! Unless...?
- Waterluvian 3y agoYou can get your company banned from all stores, not just one. You have to sign up a dev account for all stores, not just one. You pay to publish to all stores, not just one. They should just argue that every single account accesses their very own unique store. A judge or jury should be insulted by Apple framing it this way. It’s very much a “this only works because I think you’re an idiot.”
- plufz 3y agoYeah, it is a provoking waste of the legal systems resources and all ours time. This type of behavior should be punishable in itself.
- cynicalsecurity 3y agoApple is trying to give a laughable, irrelevant argument. They don't even realise it can be regarded as disrespect and play only against them.
- kibwen 3y agoPerfect, then it will be easy enough to split Apple up into five different companies, right?
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoThat's exactly what companies do when they are faced with "companies of greater than size N must follow extra rule" regulations, although many here will say that is just cheating.
- kibwen 3y ago> many here will say that is just cheating I'm going to have to ask for a source of this claim that people who want antitrust action against hypercorporations would somehow be dissatisfied with the stated goal of antitrust, which is to break up trusts.
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoDo you honestly think the iPhone would be less successful if it was broken up into a separate company from the mac business? And the complaints aren't really based on Apple's size, but its market success.
- kibwen 3y agoWhat makes you think my goal is to make the iPhone less successful? What I want are markets with a wide array of healthy competitors, not our current shambling duopoly.
- greycol 3y agoAn iphone seperated from the mac business would either need to run it's own icloud that is open to other companies (e.g. mac if it still wants to sync with mac) or it needs to use 3rd party integrations (e.g. icloud if it's its own company or still part of mac). In one case iphone is making more money and is more open in the other it's spending more money and is more open (which is which; who knows) in either case mac and iphones incentives are no longer aligned on keeping a closed icloud and one (or both) of the products would likely become more open which is good for customers and the whole point of anti-trust. The sucess of iPhone/mac/icloud doesn't really factor into it (some of them will shrink and some will do better as they're not subsidizing other parts of Apple or can canibalize other parts of Apple's market). You'd be right in asserting the success of Apple is a factor, as those who are arguing for such a seperation would say, it's making outsized profits by not competing fairly in several of the markets it's in.
- wiseowise 3y ago> The company in its argument to the EU competition enforcer said it operates five App Stores on iPhones, iPads, Mac computers, Apple TVs and Apple Watches, with each designed to distribute apps for a specific operating system and Apple device. What a fucking joke. It’s like this guy that intentionally plays obtuse with his actshuallllly.
- gumballindie 3y agoI know the EU is run but idiots but even they wouldnt fall for this - I hope.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mensetmanusman 3y agoThey should slightly alter it and personalize it per user, then they would have millions of App Stores.
- spogbiper 3y agoYou own.. Personal.. App Store.. Somewhere to purchase wares Somewhere to pay your fares
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- nashashmi 3y agoArgument holds validity, not! > The company in its argument to the EU competition enforcer said it operates five App Stores on iPhones, iPads, Mac computers, Apple TVs and Apple Watches, with each designed to distribute apps for a specific operating system and Apple device. This is absolutely true. Each OS has a different set of apps. And the catalog is different for each OS. And this will now bite them hard. MacOS has alternative app stores from third parties. iPhone does not have an alternative app store. So iPhone is not following the same rule. Same argument goes for the iPad. And if a simple OS filter can dictate the "number" of app stores Apple maintains, then allowing third party app stores is just another filter away. A new app store by --Company X-- can be added with its own catalog of apps and curation on the front page as well as its own search engine and own roster. This will bite them hard.
- jbverschoor 3y agoInterestingly, I use the AppStore perhaps 10 times per year. I suspect most people don't interact with it. Yes, I get updates, and yes I make use of the payments facilities, but I'm not really an active user on the app store..
- HumblyTossed 3y agoGood grief they're annoying.
- ianferrel 3y ago>The company contends that iMessage [doesn’t fall within the scope of the DMA] as it is not a fee-based service and it does not monetise it via the sale of hardware devices https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VevDpYZ0a4&t=83s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VevDpYZ0a4&t=83s
- 1970-01-01 3y agoHilariously bad defense. www.apple.com apple.com These are 2 different businesses because they are not equal?