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I wish the United States would follow the EU on this. It's insane that 1 company has near complete control over what software can and cannot be published, and t

I wish the United States would follow the EU on this. It's insane that 1 company has near complete control over what software can and cannot be published, and they get to take a tax on all software sold. Absolutely insane. Obviously there's web, Android, Windows, Linux, gaming consoles, and smart tvs, so there are some work-arounds to avoid the evil empire, but most consumers here in the United States use iPhones and probably have no idea that Apple is taxing all of the app developers and exercising complete editorial control over all software published for the iPhone. Do you think consumers know that Apple literally reviews all software companies products and then decide whether they will allow that company or product to exist? Even worse, its not even high level executives making these decisions, it's $20 an hour employees on their App Review Board making these decisions to kill entire companies.

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multimoon 2y ago
Could you just not buy their products then? While there are more consumer friendly ways to do it sure, I don’t see anything illegal or wrong here. You’re buying their hardware, with the software licensing understanding that comes with it - if you don’t like the terms you don’t buy the hardware. There isn’t a moral calculus that is or needs to be involved here, it’s a simple flat “don’t buy their product if you don’t like it”. If enough people cared and did so, they’d change very quickly. Apple isn’t a monopoly, there are plenty of alternatives that might suit your needs better.
- ZoomerCretin 2y ago
  Like a lot of anti-monopoly laws, the harmed party is not the consumer but other businesses. No, you cannot simply refuse to give Apple their 30% (unless you are yourself big enough to negotiate an exemption; including waiving a 30% fee of your own for Apple's apps on your platforms) if you want access to their huge and very lucrative market. Microsoft lost an anti-monopoly case because they bundled a free browser with Windows. Forcing your competitors to pay 30% and thus have higher costs and prices than your own competing services is a much more straightforward violation.
  - carlosjobim 2y ago
    > if you want access to their huge and very lucrative market. But what gives some third party the right to that huge and lucrative market? It seems parasitic in a kind of way to demand that right.
    - jemmyw 2y ago
      Competition laws
      - carlosjobim 2y ago
        Apple does not hinder any developer from selling their software on competing devices or operating systems. I don't see how an honest person could claim that they're doing anything anti-competitive. I see how the EU politicians can claim that, because they are dishonest and expected to support parasitic actions.
        talldayo 2y ago
        > Apple does not hinder any developer from selling their software on competing devices or operating systems But Apple does hinder every developer from selling their software on Apple devices without using Apple's mandatory software distribution service. Which most of us can agree, is relatively monopolistic in nature and creates a captive market of Apple customers ripe for abuse.
        tpmoney 2y ago
        No, I don't think "most of us can agree" that a manufacturer setting the conditions for distributing plugins for the hardware and software system that they produce and sell is "monopolistic" in nature. That's why we're having these discussions in the first place. Every store, market place and mall has conditions for being able to sell your wares in their space. Every single one of them will prevent you from using their space if you fail to meet those conditions. Malls will kick you out if you close your store during mall hours, denying you the ability to sell to those mall customers. eBay will shut your account if you try to get buyers to pay you outside of eBay, denying you the ability to sell to those eBay customers. Your local grocery store won't be allowing you to set up in the middle of the aisle with a laser light show selling your home made cookies, denying you the ability to sell to the grocery story customers. Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony will all very happily terminate your access to their markets for failure to comply with their development programs, denying you the ability to sell to those console customers.
- kklisura 2y ago
  > don’t buy their product if you don’t like it I like their product. If I buy it: do I own it or do I rent it from them? Obvious next question: If I own it, do I have right to install whatever I want?
  - jdmg94 2y ago
    I like a product from Ford, if I own it I have the right to install whatever I want right? Except Ford has no obligation to make their products compatible with other car makers. If I wanted to LS-swap an F150 it would require a lot of technical knowledge, time, and help but it can be done. You can develop your own jailbreaks for iOS it just requires a lot of technical knowledge, time, and help.
    - kklisura 2y ago
      Apple products are general purpose computers while Ford is not.
      - WheatMillington 2y ago
        iphone is absolutely not a general purpose computer, nor has it ever purported to be.
        kklisura 2y ago
        Would you mind providing your definition of general purpose computer.
        talldayo 2y ago
        Very conveniently so, because if anyone ever discovered that so-called "apps" are no different from "software" we would accidentally realize that the iPhone is in fact a computer.
    - mbrameld 2y ago
      I think a better analogy would be swapping tires instead of an engine. Engine swaps are rare, most people understand there are physical complications to using an engine from one car in another, even from the same manufacturer. Tire swaps are common, most people expect that if the tire is the right size you can put it on your car, regardless of who made it or where you got it. The same is true for apps on a computing device. Installing new ones is common, not rare like an engine swap in a car. Most people expect that if the app is compatible with the hardware you can put it on the device, regardless of who made it or where you got it.
- prmoustache 2y ago
  Are you read the software licenses for the whole software ecosystem in an Apple shop at purchase time?
- nox101 2y ago
  This so tiring. The issue is not about whether you as a consumer can buy a different phone. The issues is about whether you, as a company, can do business with half the world with one company gating access to those customers. No company should have that level of power. That's why its called the Digital "Markets" Act. It's not some consumer choice act. Neither Apple, nor Google, nor anyone else, should be able to control so many businesses. It's the same reason Booking.com is in trouble. they're so big, they affect nearly every hotel in the world. That's too much power over too many business.
gary_0 2y ago
Go back in time 20 years and tell someone that the most popular personal computer taxes every transaction that runs on it for 30% and has absolute control over what software runs on it including banning any programs it doesn't like, and they'd look at you like you were crazy. And then be like, "Fucking Bill Gates! How'd he pull that off?"
- coob 2y ago
  They’d snap your hands off for distribution and marketing costs as low as 30%. Retail markups were much higher on physical software.
  - msh 2y ago
    For retail software yes, but distributing for next to nothing over the internet was also common (depending on the target group) 20 years ago.
    - HatchedLake721 2y ago
      You mean distributing .mob files on xda-developers and needing to speak with carriers to distribute your app? There’s a reason most developers moved in droves to Apple ecosystem for amazing APIs, software and hardware, abandoned Symbian/blackberry/etc and had no issues with the 30% fee since they instantly got market access to millions of consumers. 30% was never an issue to begin with. People just feel today that everyone should get access to a marketplace with billion users for free, often forgetting what it took to build this market in the first place.
      - jncfhnb 2y ago
        > People just feel today that everyone should get access to a marketplace with billion users for free Exactly > often forgetting what it took to build this market in the first place. Don’t give a fuck
      - heavyset_go 2y ago
        > 30% was never an issue to begin with The confiscation of 30% of all revenue earned online has always been an issue for any company and developer here on planet Earth. There are countless useful apps and companies that will never serve people's needs because it is not financially feasible to run a business where your total revenue is confiscated to the tune of 30%.
theshrike79 2y ago
> gaming consoles To my knowledge none of the big three consoles allow you to install anything you want on them. They're "walled gardens" just as badly as Apple's ecosystem.
- makeitdouble 2y ago
  Banks and train companies don't try to run payment apps on them. Even if technically they could, the fact that they don't is to me the crucial difference.
  - endisneigh 2y ago
    Seems like a different problem.
    - makeitdouble 2y ago
      It is, but it's intertwined in the Apple vs other platforms issue. Regulators make a difference between general purpose platforms and dedicated/single purpose platforms.
- LordDragonfang 2y ago
  Game consoles are not general computing devices. Apple has aggressively and repeatedly marketed iOS devices as being for general-purpose computing. (Remember the "what's a computer" ads?) If Apple wants to claim their devices are computer replacements, they should be regulated like it.
  - paulddraper 2y ago
    What regulations exist on computer devices that Apple is evading?
    - bhelkey 2y ago
      According to this article, Digital Markets Act (DMA).
refulgentis 2y ago
Something that tickled me occasionally was much of my extended family assumed Apple was paying me to make the point of sale app, so restauranteurs would buy iPhones/iPads to use at their restaurant.
mardifoufs 2y ago
Why would the US do that? Europe has no issues when a European corporation has market dominance. It would be dumb for them to do so in a global market. Do you see any push for diversifying the european market by breaking up corporations like SAP or ASML? If anything those two have an even tighter control over their respective markets than apple could ever have over their own.
- spookie 2y ago
  Nobody is ever going to break up ASML. Apple is, in the grand scheme of things much less important. Much less.
  - mardifoufs 2y ago
    Yes, but the US or the EU could've pushed for a break up when most of its EUV research was in the US. Market dominance wasn't built overnight. Yes, it would now be very hard to do. But that goes back to my original point, Europe does not really care about market dominance and fairness as long as European corporations are the ones dominating. As you said, if competition and market health was the objective...what ASML does is very important and shouldn't be left to a single corporation. They have complete market control over a critical part of something that's foundational to our modern economy. But I've never heard of a single European move to do something about that. SAP also has a de facto monopoly on entire parts of business processes and administration. Also, apple is in many ways just as important to the US government. So nobody is going to break them up, in the US at least. I'm not making a judgement here, I'm just saying that it's weird to expect the US to shoot itself in the foot, just like it would be weird to expect Europe to do the same. For the EU, the issue is more that Apple isn't European.
    - talldayo 2y ago
      > what ASML does is very important and shouldn't be left to a single corporation. But that's not what market abuse is about. How is ASML impairing their competitors? What would breaking them up do, besides create a second ASML? You have to explain how separating ASML's IP helps the market or their customers. > So nobody is going to break them up, in the US at least. Didn't people say the same thing about Microsoft? "How would they get broken up over something as insignificant as Netscape?"
WheatMillington 2y ago
You point out that there's actually a lot of competition, but that consumers prefer Apple. Isn't this contrary to your greater point?
- noodleman 2y ago
  It's hard not to prefer the ecosystem that is designed to make it as painful as it can be to switch to a competitor.
  - Aeolun 2y ago
    I found switching off Google to be as hard as I imagine switching off Apple will be.
    - vizzier 2y ago
      I just did that switch having been on iphone since the 6s. It is amazing how much choice there is on the Android platform. Having switched to Samsung immediately I get two software stores for a start. I'm not beholden to a single file service; Apps will integrate with multiple different options not just iCloud. I can download multiple browsers, with adblockers. I can download torrent clients without having to jailbreak. Meanwhile I can't receive text chat integrated video above about 240p from iphone friends because Apple won't integrate with them. They're a shit company and I'll never buy their products again.
  - tpmoney 2y ago
    But how did they get people into the ecosystem to begin with? iOS has ALWAYS been this locked down. Heck it didn't even have an app store to begin with. The apps you got were what Apple decided you could have and that was it. Cell phones before the iPhone (Palm, Blackberry and even dumb phones) had some form of software market capabilities, and certainly phones after and their larger competitor (Windows Mobile, Palm again and Android respectively) have had far more open platforms. So how did Apple manage to get all the developers and users locked in when the better options were – perhaps with the brief exception of June 2007 - Sept 2008 (if you don't count Palm and Blackberry) – always there? Additionally, how has Apple designed their ecosystem to make it "as painful as possible" to switch to a competitor? It's on the app developers whether they would charge for a replacement copy of their app on Android. Apple does nothing to prevent them from offering a "switcher" discount. All of your first party app data is syncable to your computer, and Google even offers a tool that says it can do contacts, photos, calendars, messages, apps and music. And if that's not enough, Apple will provide you with a copy of all your iCloud stored account data in the original format (for things like photos) and in standard format (for things like calendars and emails) https://support.apple.com/en-us/102208 https://support.apple.com/en-us/102208. So other than Apple themselves providing a first party tool to migrate your data directly to your new Android phone, what are they doing or not doing that qualifies as "[making] it as painful as can be to switch"
slashdave 2y ago
What do you mean? This is literally how Apple advertises their store: "a big part of those experiences is ensuring that the apps we offer are held to the highest standards for privacy, security, and content". Maybe you want Apple to advertise more effectively? https://www.apple.com/app-store/ https://www.apple.com/app-store/
throwaway-blaze 2y ago
The problem here is that the EU law is "whatever the bureaucrats say it is". The DMA rules are not specific enough for Apple or anyone to know a priori if a feature or product is going to cross the line. Thus Apple is now announcing new features won't immediately be available to EU customers. We should all want more competition but I'm not convinced "because the unelected technocrat in Brussels said so" is the way to do it.
- Aeolun 2y ago
  We literally had an elction for the technocrats in brussels (and strasbourg) two weeks ago.
bimguy 2y ago
Google also taxes for transactions on their Play store, but yes, Apple takes it to the extreme. You don't have to buy into the walled garden though.
- ryan_lane 2y ago
  Neither of these companies should be allowed to control both the hardware and the store. Having a duopoly here ensures that there will be little to no price competition, especially because the stores are full monopolies on their platforms, and developers have no choice but to use both to cover the full market.
andrei_says_ 2y ago
A part of this issue is that said company intentionally cripples their web browser (and all browsers in their platform because they run on the same engine) to prevent progressive web apps from competing with their App Store. This may not be the biggest issue but really grinds my gears because it holds back a whole ecosystem of possibilities.
- nuker 2y ago
  > grinds my gears because it holds back a whole ecosystem of possibilities. One of the possibilities being total Chrome dominance everywhere. "This website only works with Chrome" situation.
  - vinibrito 2y ago
    Nothing stopping apple from implementing more and better APIs in their browser to match Chrome.
    - nuker 2y ago
      Maybe security/privacy of the APIs?
      - vinibrito 2y ago
        Not at all, no such issues where these are implemented.
tpmoney 2y ago
>Obviously there's web, Android, Windows, Linux, gaming consoles, and smart tvs, so there are some work-arounds to avoid the evil empire So obviously, effectively all other forms of computing (including by the way, Apple's own general purpose computers). But this one single OS, distributed by one single company, for two (counting the iPad) hardware platforms, which are also manufactured and distributed exclusively and only by this same single company "has near complete control over what software and and cannot be published, and [gets] to take a tax on all software sold"? Being kind and not dismissing this as outright hyperbole of the highest order, why is this the case? I'm a fan of open source software and hardware, so the fact that this is the case seems like a MASSIVE failure of the entire computing industry at all levels. How is it a company that was famously described as "beleagured" for decades, that supposedly needed a cash infusion by Microsoft of all companies to even stay alive, that has always and famously been singularly focused on their own vision of computing and never been particularly concerned with compatibility or openness, how have they become the single dominating player in the the computing world? How have they gained "near complete control", when the platform they supposedly wield all this control from didn't even have a software store to begin with, and their conditions are as onerous on developers as they always have been? Why did developers flock to this system? Why did consumers? It's not like this is a bait and switch situation. The iPhone was NEVER an open development platform. The 70/30 split has been there from the day the app store was announced. In app purchases weren't a thing to begin with, and when they were announced they too had that same 70/30 split. So how in the world has Apple come to dominate and why hasn't the entire rest of the computing industry managed to come up with anything close to an answer? What is it that Apple is selling to consumers and developers that make their clearly marked and publicly restrictive ecosystem to enticing when the open options are sold right next door? And how have they managed this dominance without even being the majority? Android to the best of my knowledge as more installs, so why is Apple the one controlling the market? In what other industry does the #2 player control the field?
- marcus_holmes 2y ago
  Good questions. I can only point at [1] and say that this has always been the case with domestic computing. The parking lot giving away tanks for free never did as much business as the slick salesman selling the badly-engineered sedans with the easy UI. And that was 1999. I guess people really like European luxury cars. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Beginning..._Was_the_Command_Line https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Beginning..._Was_the_Co...
hot_gril 2y ago
I honestly don't think it's insane at all. Middlemen are everywhere, and if a government body wants to complain about taxation, glass houses... Before iPhone and Android, it was infeasible for small-time devs to sell apps pretty much at all. The two are in hot competition still. Nintendo etc aren't in trouble cause they just stuck to closed systems. If building platforms becomes less profitable, fewer platforms will be built, which so far has been the story in the EU.
ChildOfChaos 2y ago
It depends, it's just different viewpoints, I'm glad Apple reviews all software and decides if it's worth it and a lot of action from the EU tends just to make things worse/annoying for most users, while collecting big fines for themselves.
rldjbpin 2y ago
everybody has their own battles to pick. it might be easy to blame the US and expect better when they are still struggling with lobbying against tax filing nonsense that impact every working-class person. at the same time, the EU has been selective with these cases, and has been mostly around big tech from the US. they could do this for much more, like for printers for example. i wonder if they would lobby this hard against the domestic automotive industry, with their DLC heated seats and what not.
darajava 2y ago
I have an app on the App Store and honestly the review sometimes helps me catch some pretty big bugs. I consider it free basic QA. Having said that, I don’t like the principle of having a gatekeeper either. I also don’t mind the commission they take from in app purchases as the App Store is the main distribution channel that my customers find the app, and it’s only 15% under $1m annual revenue.

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multimoon 2y ago

Could you just not buy their products then? While there are more consumer friendly ways to do it sure, I don’t see anything illegal or wrong here. You’re buying their hardware, with the software licensing understanding that comes with it - if you don’t like the terms you don’t buy the hardware. There isn’t a moral calculus that is or needs to be involved here, it’s a simple flat “don’t buy their product if you don’t like it”. If enough people cared and did so, they’d change very quickly. Apple isn’t a monopoly, there are plenty of alternatives that might suit your needs better.

ZoomerCretin 2y ago
Like a lot of anti-monopoly laws, the harmed party is not the consumer but other businesses. No, you cannot simply refuse to give Apple their 30% (unless you are yourself big enough to negotiate an exemption; including waiving a 30% fee of your own for Apple's apps on your platforms) if you want access to their huge and very lucrative market. Microsoft lost an anti-monopoly case because they bundled a free browser with Windows. Forcing your competitors to pay 30% and thus have higher costs and prices than your own competing services is a much more straightforward violation.
- carlosjobim 2y ago
  > if you want access to their huge and very lucrative market. But what gives some third party the right to that huge and lucrative market? It seems parasitic in a kind of way to demand that right.
  - jemmyw 2y ago
    Competition laws
    - carlosjobim 2y ago
      Apple does not hinder any developer from selling their software on competing devices or operating systems. I don't see how an honest person could claim that they're doing anything anti-competitive. I see how the EU politicians can claim that, because they are dishonest and expected to support parasitic actions.
      - talldayo 2y ago
        > Apple does not hinder any developer from selling their software on competing devices or operating systems But Apple does hinder every developer from selling their software on Apple devices without using Apple's mandatory software distribution service. Which most of us can agree, is relatively monopolistic in nature and creates a captive market of Apple customers ripe for abuse.
        tpmoney 2y ago
        No, I don't think "most of us can agree" that a manufacturer setting the conditions for distributing plugins for the hardware and software system that they produce and sell is "monopolistic" in nature. That's why we're having these discussions in the first place. Every store, market place and mall has conditions for being able to sell your wares in their space. Every single one of them will prevent you from using their space if you fail to meet those conditions. Malls will kick you out if you close your store during mall hours, denying you the ability to sell to those mall customers. eBay will shut your account if you try to get buyers to pay you outside of eBay, denying you the ability to sell to those eBay customers. Your local grocery store won't be allowing you to set up in the middle of the aisle with a laser light show selling your home made cookies, denying you the ability to sell to the grocery story customers. Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony will all very happily terminate your access to their markets for failure to comply with their development programs, denying you the ability to sell to those console customers.
kklisura 2y ago
> don’t buy their product if you don’t like it I like their product. If I buy it: do I own it or do I rent it from them? Obvious next question: If I own it, do I have right to install whatever I want?
- jdmg94 2y ago
  I like a product from Ford, if I own it I have the right to install whatever I want right? Except Ford has no obligation to make their products compatible with other car makers. If I wanted to LS-swap an F150 it would require a lot of technical knowledge, time, and help but it can be done. You can develop your own jailbreaks for iOS it just requires a lot of technical knowledge, time, and help.
  - kklisura 2y ago
    Apple products are general purpose computers while Ford is not.
    - WheatMillington 2y ago
      iphone is absolutely not a general purpose computer, nor has it ever purported to be.
      - kklisura 2y ago
        Would you mind providing your definition of general purpose computer.
      - talldayo 2y ago
        Very conveniently so, because if anyone ever discovered that so-called "apps" are no different from "software" we would accidentally realize that the iPhone is in fact a computer.
  - mbrameld 2y ago
    I think a better analogy would be swapping tires instead of an engine. Engine swaps are rare, most people understand there are physical complications to using an engine from one car in another, even from the same manufacturer. Tire swaps are common, most people expect that if the tire is the right size you can put it on your car, regardless of who made it or where you got it. The same is true for apps on a computing device. Installing new ones is common, not rare like an engine swap in a car. Most people expect that if the app is compatible with the hardware you can put it on the device, regardless of who made it or where you got it.
prmoustache 2y ago
Are you read the software licenses for the whole software ecosystem in an Apple shop at purchase time?
nox101 2y ago
This so tiring. The issue is not about whether you as a consumer can buy a different phone. The issues is about whether you, as a company, can do business with half the world with one company gating access to those customers. No company should have that level of power. That's why its called the Digital "Markets" Act. It's not some consumer choice act. Neither Apple, nor Google, nor anyone else, should be able to control so many businesses. It's the same reason Booking.com is in trouble. they're so big, they affect nearly every hotel in the world. That's too much power over too many business.

gary_0 2y ago

Go back in time 20 years and tell someone that the most popular personal computer taxes every transaction that runs on it for 30% and has absolute control over what software runs on it including banning any programs it doesn't like, and they'd look at you like you were crazy. And then be like, "Fucking Bill Gates! How'd he pull that off?"

coob 2y ago
They’d snap your hands off for distribution and marketing costs as low as 30%. Retail markups were much higher on physical software.
- msh 2y ago
  For retail software yes, but distributing for next to nothing over the internet was also common (depending on the target group) 20 years ago.
  - HatchedLake721 2y ago
    You mean distributing .mob files on xda-developers and needing to speak with carriers to distribute your app? There’s a reason most developers moved in droves to Apple ecosystem for amazing APIs, software and hardware, abandoned Symbian/blackberry/etc and had no issues with the 30% fee since they instantly got market access to millions of consumers. 30% was never an issue to begin with. People just feel today that everyone should get access to a marketplace with billion users for free, often forgetting what it took to build this market in the first place.
    - jncfhnb 2y ago
      > People just feel today that everyone should get access to a marketplace with billion users for free Exactly > often forgetting what it took to build this market in the first place. Don’t give a fuck
    - heavyset_go 2y ago
      > 30% was never an issue to begin with The confiscation of 30% of all revenue earned online has always been an issue for any company and developer here on planet Earth. There are countless useful apps and companies that will never serve people's needs because it is not financially feasible to run a business where your total revenue is confiscated to the tune of 30%.

theshrike79 2y ago

> gaming consoles To my knowledge none of the big three consoles allow you to install anything you want on them. They're "walled gardens" just as badly as Apple's ecosystem.

makeitdouble 2y ago
Banks and train companies don't try to run payment apps on them. Even if technically they could, the fact that they don't is to me the crucial difference.
- endisneigh 2y ago
  Seems like a different problem.
  - makeitdouble 2y ago
    It is, but it's intertwined in the Apple vs other platforms issue. Regulators make a difference between general purpose platforms and dedicated/single purpose platforms.
LordDragonfang 2y ago
Game consoles are not general computing devices. Apple has aggressively and repeatedly marketed iOS devices as being for general-purpose computing. (Remember the "what's a computer" ads?) If Apple wants to claim their devices are computer replacements, they should be regulated like it.
- paulddraper 2y ago
  What regulations exist on computer devices that Apple is evading?
  - bhelkey 2y ago
    According to this article, Digital Markets Act (DMA).

refulgentis 2y ago

Something that tickled me occasionally was much of my extended family assumed Apple was paying me to make the point of sale app, so restauranteurs would buy iPhones/iPads to use at their restaurant.

mardifoufs 2y ago

Why would the US do that? Europe has no issues when a European corporation has market dominance. It would be dumb for them to do so in a global market. Do you see any push for diversifying the european market by breaking up corporations like SAP or ASML? If anything those two have an even tighter control over their respective markets than apple could ever have over their own.

spookie 2y ago
Nobody is ever going to break up ASML. Apple is, in the grand scheme of things much less important. Much less.
- mardifoufs 2y ago
  Yes, but the US or the EU could've pushed for a break up when most of its EUV research was in the US. Market dominance wasn't built overnight. Yes, it would now be very hard to do. But that goes back to my original point, Europe does not really care about market dominance and fairness as long as European corporations are the ones dominating. As you said, if competition and market health was the objective...what ASML does is very important and shouldn't be left to a single corporation. They have complete market control over a critical part of something that's foundational to our modern economy. But I've never heard of a single European move to do something about that. SAP also has a de facto monopoly on entire parts of business processes and administration. Also, apple is in many ways just as important to the US government. So nobody is going to break them up, in the US at least. I'm not making a judgement here, I'm just saying that it's weird to expect the US to shoot itself in the foot, just like it would be weird to expect Europe to do the same. For the EU, the issue is more that Apple isn't European.
  - talldayo 2y ago
    > what ASML does is very important and shouldn't be left to a single corporation. But that's not what market abuse is about. How is ASML impairing their competitors? What would breaking them up do, besides create a second ASML? You have to explain how separating ASML's IP helps the market or their customers. > So nobody is going to break them up, in the US at least. Didn't people say the same thing about Microsoft? "How would they get broken up over something as insignificant as Netscape?"

WheatMillington 2y ago

You point out that there's actually a lot of competition, but that consumers prefer Apple. Isn't this contrary to your greater point?

noodleman 2y ago
It's hard not to prefer the ecosystem that is designed to make it as painful as it can be to switch to a competitor.
- Aeolun 2y ago
  I found switching off Google to be as hard as I imagine switching off Apple will be.
  - vizzier 2y ago
    I just did that switch having been on iphone since the 6s. It is amazing how much choice there is on the Android platform. Having switched to Samsung immediately I get two software stores for a start. I'm not beholden to a single file service; Apps will integrate with multiple different options not just iCloud. I can download multiple browsers, with adblockers. I can download torrent clients without having to jailbreak. Meanwhile I can't receive text chat integrated video above about 240p from iphone friends because Apple won't integrate with them. They're a shit company and I'll never buy their products again.
- tpmoney 2y ago
  But how did they get people into the ecosystem to begin with? iOS has ALWAYS been this locked down. Heck it didn't even have an app store to begin with. The apps you got were what Apple decided you could have and that was it. Cell phones before the iPhone (Palm, Blackberry and even dumb phones) had some form of software market capabilities, and certainly phones after and their larger competitor (Windows Mobile, Palm again and Android respectively) have had far more open platforms. So how did Apple manage to get all the developers and users locked in when the better options were – perhaps with the brief exception of June 2007 - Sept 2008 (if you don't count Palm and Blackberry) – always there? Additionally, how has Apple designed their ecosystem to make it "as painful as possible" to switch to a competitor? It's on the app developers whether they would charge for a replacement copy of their app on Android. Apple does nothing to prevent them from offering a "switcher" discount. All of your first party app data is syncable to your computer, and Google even offers a tool that says it can do contacts, photos, calendars, messages, apps and music. And if that's not enough, Apple will provide you with a copy of all your iCloud stored account data in the original format (for things like photos) and in standard format (for things like calendars and emails) https://support.apple.com/en-us/102208 https://support.apple.com/en-us/102208. So other than Apple themselves providing a first party tool to migrate your data directly to your new Android phone, what are they doing or not doing that qualifies as "[making] it as painful as can be to switch"

slashdave 2y ago

What do you mean? This is literally how Apple advertises their store: "a big part of those experiences is ensuring that the apps we offer are held to the highest standards for privacy, security, and content". Maybe you want Apple to advertise more effectively? https://www.apple.com/app-store/ https://www.apple.com/app-store/

throwaway-blaze 2y ago

The problem here is that the EU law is "whatever the bureaucrats say it is". The DMA rules are not specific enough for Apple or anyone to know a priori if a feature or product is going to cross the line. Thus Apple is now announcing new features won't immediately be available to EU customers. We should all want more competition but I'm not convinced "because the unelected technocrat in Brussels said so" is the way to do it.

Aeolun 2y ago
We literally had an elction for the technocrats in brussels (and strasbourg) two weeks ago.

bimguy 2y ago

Google also taxes for transactions on their Play store, but yes, Apple takes it to the extreme. You don't have to buy into the walled garden though.

ryan_lane 2y ago
Neither of these companies should be allowed to control both the hardware and the store. Having a duopoly here ensures that there will be little to no price competition, especially because the stores are full monopolies on their platforms, and developers have no choice but to use both to cover the full market.

andrei_says_ 2y ago

A part of this issue is that said company intentionally cripples their web browser (and all browsers in their platform because they run on the same engine) to prevent progressive web apps from competing with their App Store. This may not be the biggest issue but really grinds my gears because it holds back a whole ecosystem of possibilities.

nuker 2y ago
> grinds my gears because it holds back a whole ecosystem of possibilities. One of the possibilities being total Chrome dominance everywhere. "This website only works with Chrome" situation.
- vinibrito 2y ago
  Nothing stopping apple from implementing more and better APIs in their browser to match Chrome.
  - nuker 2y ago
    Maybe security/privacy of the APIs?
    - vinibrito 2y ago
      Not at all, no such issues where these are implemented.

tpmoney 2y ago

>Obviously there's web, Android, Windows, Linux, gaming consoles, and smart tvs, so there are some work-arounds to avoid the evil empire So obviously, effectively all other forms of computing (including by the way, Apple's own general purpose computers). But this one single OS, distributed by one single company, for two (counting the iPad) hardware platforms, which are also manufactured and distributed exclusively and only by this same single company "has near complete control over what software and and cannot be published, and [gets] to take a tax on all software sold"? Being kind and not dismissing this as outright hyperbole of the highest order, why is this the case? I'm a fan of open source software and hardware, so the fact that this is the case seems like a MASSIVE failure of the entire computing industry at all levels. How is it a company that was famously described as "beleagured" for decades, that supposedly needed a cash infusion by Microsoft of all companies to even stay alive, that has always and famously been singularly focused on their own vision of computing and never been particularly concerned with compatibility or openness, how have they become the single dominating player in the the computing world? How have they gained "near complete control", when the platform they supposedly wield all this control from didn't even have a software store to begin with, and their conditions are as onerous on developers as they always have been? Why did developers flock to this system? Why did consumers? It's not like this is a bait and switch situation. The iPhone was NEVER an open development platform. The 70/30 split has been there from the day the app store was announced. In app purchases weren't a thing to begin with, and when they were announced they too had that same 70/30 split. So how in the world has Apple come to dominate and why hasn't the entire rest of the computing industry managed to come up with anything close to an answer? What is it that Apple is selling to consumers and developers that make their clearly marked and publicly restrictive ecosystem to enticing when the open options are sold right next door? And how have they managed this dominance without even being the majority? Android to the best of my knowledge as more installs, so why is Apple the one controlling the market? In what other industry does the #2 player control the field?

marcus_holmes 2y ago
Good questions. I can only point at [1] and say that this has always been the case with domestic computing. The parking lot giving away tanks for free never did as much business as the slick salesman selling the badly-engineered sedans with the easy UI. And that was 1999. I guess people really like European luxury cars. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Beginning..._Was_the_Command_Line https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Beginning..._Was_the_Co...

hot_gril 2y ago

I honestly don't think it's insane at all. Middlemen are everywhere, and if a government body wants to complain about taxation, glass houses... Before iPhone and Android, it was infeasible for small-time devs to sell apps pretty much at all. The two are in hot competition still. Nintendo etc aren't in trouble cause they just stuck to closed systems. If building platforms becomes less profitable, fewer platforms will be built, which so far has been the story in the EU.

ChildOfChaos 2y ago

It depends, it's just different viewpoints, I'm glad Apple reviews all software and decides if it's worth it and a lot of action from the EU tends just to make things worse/annoying for most users, while collecting big fines for themselves.

rldjbpin 2y ago

everybody has their own battles to pick. it might be easy to blame the US and expect better when they are still struggling with lobbying against tax filing nonsense that impact every working-class person. at the same time, the EU has been selective with these cases, and has been mostly around big tech from the US. they could do this for much more, like for printers for example. i wonder if they would lobby this hard against the domestic automotive industry, with their DLC heated seats and what not.

darajava 2y ago

I have an app on the App Store and honestly the review sometimes helps me catch some pretty big bugs. I consider it free basic QA. Having said that, I don’t like the principle of having a gatekeeper either. I also don’t mind the commission they take from in app purchases as the App Store is the main distribution channel that my customers find the app, and it’s only 15% under $1m annual revenue.