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It seems Apple has misunderstood their role here. They are to not be involved at all in transactions between other businesses delivering software to people's ph
by andersa 3y ago
It seems Apple has misunderstood their role here. They are to not be involved at all in transactions between other businesses delivering software to people's phones, just like we have done for every other general purpose computer.
They will need a second, even stronger slap to finally understand it. Actually insane that they believe they will get away with this garbage.
- andersa 3y agoI am not a lawyer and not interested in reading hundreds of pages to figure out whether this is already non-compliant with the DMA, but it is clearly non-compliant with its intention, so I trust it will be fixed.
- londons_explore 3y agoLuckily laws in the EU are mostly enforced by the intention of the law, not the exact wording. Therefore I'm fairly confident that they will be found noncompliant. That might take many years though, allowing Apple a few more years profits.
- threeseed 3y agoCourts in EU and US have all agreed that Apple is well within its rights to charge a license fee for use of their technologies. No different to companies like Epic or OpenAI. And I would have doubts that any regulator would want to get into the business of deciding what is a fair percentage to charge for an SDk or API.
- bombcar 3y agoThis is what it comes down to, at the root. Apple made a decision early on to "give away" the ability to write and distribute (the $100 fee is nothing) apps for their store, and only take payment from payment received. So you have tons of free apps that just exist on Apple's code and infrastructure, with no cost to the companies.
- shaan7 3y agoYes, if the developers want to use Apple's App Store, they should pay for it, that is not the problem. The problem is that developers are forced to use Apple's App Store instead of another distribution platform. But now Apple is saying "Its okay if you want to use another distribution platform, but you still need to pay us". Why is that okay? (And no, an iPhone itself is not Apple's platform, once the user buys the phone, its their platform).
- kj99 3y agoOnce the user buys the phone, they own the physical device, but that’s not all they are receiving. They also receive software and services. They don’t own those - they have a license for them.
- merlindru 3y agoRight, but the software and services prevent you from using the physical device however you want
- 3y ago
- sneak 3y agoThe real worry is not the commercial angle, but the fact that centralized censorship of apps will remain. Apple will retain the ability to shut off protest or encrypted communications/news/social apps, even when distributed outside of their store, by revoking the signatures. This is a threat to a free society, not just a threat to Apple’s price-gouging revenue.
- TravisCooper 3y agoThis is the correct take. Well said.
- endisneigh 3y agoUse websites.
- sneak 3y agoWebsites can’t notify except via centralized Apple systems that can still censor.
- endisneigh 3y agoUse email
- sneak 3y agoEmail isn’t end to end encrypted.
- endisneigh 3y agoSo? You can notify regardless.
- threeseed 3y agoApple made it clear that they will not revoke apps for the content they provide only if they are used for malware or viruses. Given that they have not behaved similar with macOS we should assume the same here.
- paulddraper 3y agoWhat makes a computer general purpose? Is an XBox 360 a general purpose computer?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- doodpants 3y agoEvery computer is general purpose at its core. But some computers ship with software/firmware that restricts the purposes accessible by the end user.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago> But some computers ship with software/firmware that restricts the purposes accessible by the end user. Which is a necessary evil if you're shipping the hardware of that "computer" at ultra low or negative margins in order to make back the investment on SW sales. Otherwise, the air force will buy boatloads of PS3s for a computer farm and scalpers will use PS5 for crypto mining and Sony would go bust from these hardware sales. Apple is in a different position as it makes crazy margins even on hardware which is arare for hardware manufacturers.
- doodpants 3y agoSelling hardware at negative margins is not a "necessary" evil; it's just a business model that some manufacturers choose to impose on consumers, and then we end up with things like DRM-encumbered printer ink cartridges.
- andersa 3y agoGood thing we know that Apple already makes significant profit on every sale of their hardware.
- FirmwareBurner 3y agoYeah, it's almost as if some more healthy competition in the market would help instead of Apple being a monpopoly on mobile along with Google. Hence why we need regulations to break Apple and Google of their high horse.
- gwright 3y agoI think this perspective goes too far. Some people (me included) would actually like to have a secure, vetted ecosystem for software that gets installed on my phone (and even my computer). I realize that other people want something different. And think it is reasonable for people to want different approaches for different devices. Any regulations designed to ensure the "open" model shouldn't prevent the "closed" model from existing. Your comment just seems a bit to heavy handed to my ear. That being said, it seems to me that Apple's attempt is guaranteed to satisfy no one.
- ROLELEE014 3y ago[dead]
- andersa 3y agoYou can have this! Simply only download apps from Apple's store. Apple still has no right to interfere in any way at all, or collect a tax, if I want to sell an app to someone else outside of it.
- jewelry 3y agoWhy don't you use android device then? You're not forced to buy apple product if that's a priority for you.
- andersa 3y agoI do use an android device. Apple hardware is very good however, so I am interested in buying some of their things aswell.
- halJordan 3y agoWhat about the people like you saying Apple has no place in between 3rd party devs and the end user? You literally said he couldn't have it? From your first post if you had your druthers Apple would be slapped harder and harder until they disband the App Store.
- thethimble 3y agoEh I actually prefer Apple mediating all my app payments (despite the X% surcharge that ultimately the consumer pays for). I don’t have to ever enter in my cc info. I can easily cancel subscriptions from a centralized place. Payments UX is user hostile in the wild.
- willsmith72 3y agono reason in 5 years your bank app wouldn't be able to do this (no reason they can't do it yet, but they are banks after all)
- bloppe 3y agoThere's no reason why a different app store couldn't offer the exact same feature; centralized payments for all apps in their store. They could just charge a competitive fee, forcing Apple to compete fairly, lowering prices for all without impacting quality of experience.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- coldtea 3y agoI'd actually would prefer I'm not forced to use some BS third party app store, or more, just because some big player whose apps I need (say Facebook or Google) only makes them available through their own shitty app store, and not through the iOS app store anymore.
- willsmith72 3y agoit's just the distribution. why does that make such a difference to your experience? to me, i see the app store for 5 seconds between clicking a "download" link, pressing "install", and closing it. on my computer i don't care if spotify publishes their desktop app through the apple store, their own website, command line, or some other thing. i trust it because the download link comes from spotify's website, that's the source of authority. i don't care about the thing in between clicking download and having it on my device.
- coldtea 3y ago>it's just the distribution. why does that make such a difference to your experience? Installing an extra BS "app store" app per vendor to do the distribution, dealing with another payment processor and its intricasies (for apps you pay/subscribe for, e.g. Adobe's), multiple places to manage apps and subscriptions, and so on. >on my computer i don't care if spotify publishes their desktop app through the apple store, their own website, command line, or some other thing. I do, and try to get as most of the stuff from the same source as possible, preferably the Mac App Store and brew. I also hate the "update/licensing apps" running in the background for apps I use (Chrome updater is one most would be familiar with, but there are tons, especially for pro apps), and the extra multi-app download managers/stores I'm forced to use. And don't get me started on shit like iLok.