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Comment by comboy | Hacker News Reader

> US Government, please force Apple to open up iPhone to any software we want to install. It's a generic computer.

You have bazillion types of generic computers to choose from. People pay huge overhead to apple exactly because apple makes choices for them - regarding what settings are reasonable to have, what software they want you to use etc.

Personally I don't understand monopoly arguments. If we are talking about some ISP, something like Nestle or even social network/apps, I can somewhat understand it. But here? Users are people who bought Apple hardware to use it based on rules set up by Apple.

I'm not much fan of Apple, I sincerely want to understand the monopoly argument. It seems to me as if people would want to split BMW because .. I don't know we want to be able to install our own custom AC. Because maintenance of the stock one is too expensive.

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> People pay huge overhead to apple exactly because apple makes choices for them...

That’s exactly why I use Apple products. I don’t have time to mess around with third party stores and risk security issues when I need an app that doesn’t want to be on the App Store. I’m ok with paying 30% more as a consumer for the simplicity and peace of mind.

This isn’t the consumers getting angry - it’s developers. That’s why this comment and other dissenting opinions always get downvoted on HN. Not saying devs don’t matter, but there is another side to this that people here don’t want to consider.

I'm pretty unhappy as a consumer.

A consumer can jailbreak their iPhone and install apps that way, or buy an Android phone. You have choices.

> A consumer can jailbreak their iPhone

Apple would prefer that you don't, and tries as hard as it possibly can to make this impossible.

> or buy an android

Lesser of two evils. If anything this lawsuit should be both at both, Apple and Google. Both cripple your devices and both dump you in their walled garden.

All applications should be universal as the same for game services like xbox live, psn and so.

> cripple your devices and both dump you in their walled garden

What? This certainly doesn’t cripple the devices, and I’m the one who purchased products I knew would only work with Apple. That’s consumer choice.

If a consumer does this they waive the right to all sorts of hardware warranties. Essentially, if they jailbreak their phone, Apple no longer recognizes it as an Apple Device so no, you don't effectively have a choice.

> or buy an android

I actually left Android for Apple because I can't stomach Google's hoovering up the entire world's data, but honestly I've gotten to the point that at least Google is the devil you know. I can do things on Android et al to control how much data Google gets about me. I can do nothing about Apple controlling how I am allowed to use my insanely expensive device.

A few years ago it didn't matter so much. Apple's deal had its foibles, but recently they've gone full evil and I am seriously looking at my next device being Android and getting my entire family off Apple.

The problem is that will bring with it months of "did I lose something?" and having to keep both phones around. I have resisted for a long time, it is not an easy process.

The thing is, if Apple alienates developers enough/makes them go bankrupt, the only applications you will be able to use would be the first party Apple ones. That won't be a very enjoyable thing, would be?

That's the entire problem. If a shopping mall was charging every store 30% of their revenue (not profit, revenue!), it would be very quickly going broke and empty. Yet Apple (and to a lesser degree Google, Facebook and a few others) is getting away with this - exactly because unlike the shopping mall, the developers don't have a choice. It is either play by Apple rules - or be excluded from a very sizeable part of the mobile market.

When Microsoft was playing dirty and abusing its market dominance to put a squeeze on companies trying to ship other than Microsoft's software, they got hammered in court pretty bad. The anti-monopoly/abuse of dominant market position laws are there for a reason, even if you, as a consumer, don't see it (yet).

I try to use first party apps because they’re usually better. When I can, I stick to the browser app - which doesn’t have a 30%/15% commission. If I can’t AND I need to pay, I’ll pay 30%/15% extra if I need to.

The thing is, you're not paying 30%/15% extra - if I recall correctly, that is against the terms of the App Store. Developers/companies can't charge a markup to make up for the bit Apple skims off the top - so instead of, say, Spotify getting all of my $10 from an IAP Premium subscription, they get $7. If I sign up for their premium service on their website, however, they get all $10.

Not true, for instance YouTube Premium charges more for subscriptions through the App Store than if you subscribe on YouTube.com

YouTube has negotiated a deal that allows this, as did Amazon Video and a few others. Only huge companies can do this, which further makes the argument that what Apple is doing is abusive.

This is not true. There is no rule that states you must offer the same price when signing up if your service is multi platform. The rules only state you can’t discourage In-App purchase. I use several services where I signed up on the website because it was substantially cheaper than in-app.

That basically just means that non Apple users are subsidizing the cost of Apple users, just like cash users are subsidizing credit card users [0].

[0] http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2010/08/28/how-credit-...

>That's the entire problem. If a shopping mall was charging every store 30% of their revenue (not profit, revenue!), it would be very quickly going broke and empty.

If the same were true for Apple, they would reduce the 30% fee to reverse the trend. The fact that the app ecosystem continues to be rich is a signal that either:

1) most developers are ok with this price to access Apple's "marketplace" of users, and/or

2) developers are irrational - you could always instead focus on Google's platform, which has more users.

Revenue or profits is not a good indicator of market share at all, as then parent's BMW argument comes into play: just because you want BMW over Honda, because the owners of the former have more disposable income, does not make BMW a monopoly.

>When Microsoft was playing dirty and abusing its market dominance...

Microsoft's market dominance at the time is MULTIPLES higher than what Apple owns of the mobile OS market.

You're discussing mobile apps as if they exist in a robust free market, but it's actually a platform duopoly covering a nearly essential service. As long as Google doesn't decide to compete on price there is very little incentive for Apple to lower prices.

> The fact that the app ecosystem continues to be rich is a signal that either

How do you know it couldn't be vastly better? I know I would be extremely hesitant to develop an iPhone app given Apple's behavior, and would bet many others feel the same.

The whole point of antitrust law is that the normal mechanisms of the free market cannot correct the situation in whole or in part as a result of the anti-competitive activities.

> If a shopping mall was charging every store 30% of their revenue (not profit, revenue!)

In software sold on an app store, gross margin (before the app store's cut) is a lot closer to revenue than for physical goods sold in a physical store. There are no distribution costs or costs of goods borne by the vendor.

And that is relevant exactly how?

The app cost has to cover the development and maintenance costs, marketing, any overhead and expenses (like bills, electricity, those expensive Apple computers), etc.

That's the majority of your costs, not some imaginary distribution costs that you don't have because you aren't shipping a physical box. Oh and taxes too, which come out of the revenue too. And if I remember right, you are taxed on the value of the sold goods, before the 30% Apple cut (so you pay tax from that too, even though you never see the money).

> The thing is, if Apple alienates developers enough/makes them go bankrupt, the only applications you will be able to use would be the first party Apple ones. That won't be a very enjoyable thing, would be?

I doubt this is a popular opinion, but I'd rather use an iPhone right now with no third-party apps than an Android phone. I do use a few third-party apps on my iPhone, and I would miss them, but it wouldn't be enough to switch to Android.

> If a shopping mall was charging every store 30% of their revenue (not profit, revenue!), it would be very quickly going broke and empty. Yet Apple (and to a lesser degree Google, Facebook and a few others) is getting away with this - exactly because unlike the shopping mall, the developers don't have a choice. It is either play by Apple rules - or be excluded from a very sizeable part of the mobile market.

Would your opinion change if this shopping mall was one of many shopping areas in a large region, but its customers were vastly more likely to spend money, while the other shopping areas attracted mostly customers who walked around but didn't purchase much? Isn't that the analogy with Android, which is a very obvious alternative for both smartphone customers and developers? The only rebuttal I'm seeing is from developers complaining that Android users don't like to spend money on apps.

If that shiny cool mall makes your business unviable, either because they charge extortionist fees or because they impose so many restrictions that you can't make the ends meet (or simply ban you outright because you compete with something they want to get into), then it is completely irrelevant that the customers that come to shop there are rich and willing to spend money. You are still going bankrupt.

And we are getting to this point. The amount of BS an app developer on the Apple platform has to jump through to do anything is beyond ridiculous (yes, I did try to develop for iDevices professionally) - and that is before even this stuff with the 30% transaction cuts.

The time when those $10-$20/apiece apps could actually pay your salary is long past unless you happen to be the one of the very few that has hit a jackpot with an extremely popular app. But Apple keeps piling up new requirements, restrictions and overhead on developers, jacking up various fees - and if you don't like it, they just ban you outright.

At some point people decide they had enough and cut their loses. There are better and easier ways to make money than with iPhone app development.

3) There's no choice to target iOS user.

I wish I could give comments gold on HN.

My phone is the center of my life, and I genuinely appreciate that Apple does the work of vetting applications so I don't have to.

nothing would stop you continueing to use apple's curated store just like many people choose to go to sanitized Blockbuster Video instead of sleazy corner video store. That didn't mean other stores needed to get prevented so that you could go to a store you trusted

That's great. You should have that choice. But it should be a choice. The issue is that Apple block apps that tell users that there's a non-Apple tax alternative. They should not be able to do that. Removing apps that inform the customer about alternatives to in-app purchases is clearly anti-competitive. The screen that offers the alternative would have absolutely no impact on you or your choice. It would have a huge impact on people who are less able to afford the higher Apple in-app-tax-burdened price.

>That's great. You should have that choice. But it should be a choice.

The choice is Android - the platform used by some 80 percent of software users. I don't see the argument for regulatory actions, when consumers can (and do) easily choose to use other mobile platforms, if they don't like the terms of the iOS App Store.

If consumers want to be in the walled garden, great, they should be free to make that decision. If they don't want the walled garden, then great, they're free to pick other platforms. I don't see why the government should force this option upon consumers.

This situation isn't like Microsoft Windows in the 90s, where consumers effectively had no choice but to use Windows.

Consumers have the choice, but developers don't. Its been proven countless times over the years that Android users are much less likely to pay for applications than iOS users.

As a developer, if you want to survive and make money from your application, you need to be on iOS, as Android is worthless in this regard.

And so, Apple gets 30% of your in app purchase revenue, while providing little value other than being a payment processor, for which the normal charge is less than 2.5%.

>Consumers have the choice, but developers don't. Its been proven countless times over the years that Android users are much less likely to pay for applications than iOS users.

Why should it be Apple's problem that Google can't monetize their dominant market share?

It's not Google. It's me.

Apple values my blood sweat and tears at $0.99/user/lifetime - 30% Apple tax - government taxes.

I don't mean to compare it to a sweat shop, because I live in the first world and have opportunities, but this is a demeaning shakedown and devaluation of my pride, product, and work.

Apple:

1. Shifted where generic computing happens

2. Downplayed the web as the end-all, be-all of application delivery. (It could have been amazing with WASM and sandboxing back in the 00's!)

3. Prevents generic apps from gaining distribution outside of Apple's control and tax

They took advantage of open source, the web, and the Internet. Then they shit on it and offered up the App Store protection racket as salvation.

It's only one of several themes where the giants of today crush the little guy. Computing is less free today than it was a decade ago.

Before Apple I had reach and distribution. Now I have less than 50% of that. And I don't have liberty and control over my own narrative anymore.

Apple values my blood sweat and tears at $0.99/user/lifetime

While I oppose Apple's mandatory walled garden, this isn't their fault. The low price point is a signal that the mobile app market is oversaturated and that you should consider looking elsewhere for revenue.

Couldn’t you make a similar argument against your employer, Playstation?

It seems like they charge the same 30% for roughly the same product — a locked platform to run applications where they take a cut of everything including micro-transactions?

And if this thread were about my employer and their policies, I may choose to weigh in on them also.

Saying that, console games are more often than not the size of a Blu-ray disc, with triple-A games exceeding 40-60Gb in size, sometimes larger. Some popular games come on multiple discs. An order of magnitude larger than the less than 100Mb size of most iOS and Android apps, which are downloadable over a mobile connection. The hosting, bandwidth, CDN, and sales costs for the digital versions of those games and their patches can't be cheap, and are often subject to flash traffic surges, particularly when million of players decide to download them (and their updates) the second they're released. This is to say nothing of the myriad of hosted services that are provided that are unique to consoles.

I don't know what business deals are in place, nor can I make a statement on the perceived value that the publishers who publish on consoles place on what's provided, however its worth noting that even before Fortnite was removed from the app stores, the target of Epic's complaint did not include Playstation, Xbox, or Nintendo.

Entirely fair, the comment was a bit of a snipe and for that I apologize.

There is definitely more of a "community" aspect around gaming, wherein everyone wants to get the midnight release or download the DLC the moment it is ready -- I can see how that creates technical differences in terms of the value console platforms may deliver to a developer.

I would be unkind, though, if I didn't say there does seem to be a rough equivalence. The value provided might be different, but we can clearly see the lines get more blurry with hybrid devices like the Nintendo Switch.

I would assume Epic is targeting Google and Apple because they have much higher gross margins on services (I think 60-70%, which is pretty normal for SaaS, vs around 30% for something like Xbox Live), plus the additional scrutiny mobile phones are under in general. Probably makes the case much easier. The cut does seem pretty hefty when considering most of that money is just going straight into profit margin. Irrespective, I wouldn't be surprised if decisions in the mobile realm find there way as precedent in other, similar cases.

Thanks, I appreciate that. And while I do see their offerings as vastly different in many ways, I do see the parallels you mention.

Speaking personally, and as as a lifelong gamer, I place great value in being able to play my games decades from now. I own collections of discs and cartridges, new and old, which I still enjoy from time to time and look forward to being able to share with my kids one day. I do worry that when the various digital storefronts phase out (as many have done), the hard disks which the DRM'd digital copies live on will eventually die, and the games will disappear forever.

It is somewhat comforting to me that the major consoles still have alternative avenues of publishing and distribution - that of the veritable disc and cartridge, which at least in my mind, helps alleviate many of the anti-competitive concerns. That developers can choose between consoles, publishers, retailers, etc, and that consumers can choose to resell, trade, or give away their games, like good old fashioned property - something which is becoming rarer and rarer these days.

This ecosystem (particularly the physical one) provides a level of competition that doesn't exist on phones, and so, at least in my mind, (and along with the differences I mention in my other post), presents a major difference between the business models.

> while providing little value other than being a payment processor, for which the normal charge is less than 2.5%.

Would you consider providing a large number of paying customers "of little value?"

No, of course not, but Apple is essentially triple dipping in this regard. Lets break down the costs.

1. A $100 annual developer subscription. It could be argued that this goes towards SDK development, developer tooling, and App Store publishing systems.

2. The 30% fee when selling your app. Similarly, it could be argued that this fee covers application hosting and distribution, as well as advertising, and I guess as a "general fee" for selling your app through the App Store.

3. 30% on all in-app purchases. Given that Apple has no part to play in this (the application was already advertised and distributed, no additional hosting fees as developers are responsible for implementing/unlocking whatever happens once the purchase goes through, etc), what does this cover other than payment processing, which is normally charged at 2.5%~?

I don't get that argument. You're saying developers don't have a choice because smartphone customers do have a choice. If you only care about customers who choose iPhone then shouldn't you respect the clear wishes of those customers and make software that is compatible with the rules of the platform they've chosen?

If you are making money why are you complaining?

If you can’t make money on Android, how will you make money on iOS when the “monopoly” is broken?

Your argument is "When you choose a technology provider you must accept everything that they do without complaining" which is so obviously wrong it's actually hard to know where to start with formulating a response.

This situation isn't like Microsoft Windows in the 90s, where consumers effectively had no choice but to use Windows.

There was an alternative then though - MacOS. And a lot of people defended Microsoft on the basis that they couldn't possibly have a monopoly because you could always buy an Apple computer instead, just as you're arguing that people can switch to Android now. It was a bullshit argument back then too. No one should have to accept that Apple intentionally hides useful information (like alternative ways to buy things in apps) by blocking apps from the app store in the name of their own profit.

>Your argument is "When you choose a technology provider you must accept everything that they do without complaining" which is so obviously wrong it's actually hard to know where to start with formulating a response.

That may be how you've decided to interpret it, but, no, that's not my argument.

>There was an alternative then though - MacOS. And a lot of people defended Microsoft on the basis that they couldn't possibly have a monopoly because you could always buy an Apple computer instead, just as you're arguing that people can switch to Android now

Macintosh computers were only accessible for consumers that were willing to spend an astronomical amount of money on computers. Unless you were loaded with cash, the typical consumer had no choice but to buy from Microsoft if they wanted a PC. That is not the case with smartphones. I'm sure you can go find a very capable Android phone for $50, if you wish. Ultimately nobody has been in a position where they've been forced to purchase an iOS device in order to access a smartphone

Yes the choice is not to buy Apple, there are plenty of android phones which are just as good spec wise and cheaper.

Also pleas don’t make this about “poor people” the devs might make less money but the consumer pays the same price other than for the devices themselves which while well worth the money since they are per year cheaper than android devices that lose support faster than the next model comes out are still luxury items.

The screen that offers an alternative which I assume is the same “allow apps to be loaded form untrusted sources” as android has, would definitely have an impact on me as it would undermine the security model of the device I’m using.

Don't like third-party app stores? Don't use them.

It would be nice if you had that option, wouldn't it?

Can't the same argument just be applied to the phone itself, though? Don't like phones that don't allow third-party app stores? Don't use them. Buy android instead.

It could, but how do we as consumers benefit from allowing dominant vendors to tie completely unrelated aspects of functionality together? Security and utility are not terms in a zero-sum equation.

Yes, but in this case Epic gave this decision to the customer. They could pay more and use Apple's payment rails. Apple killed it, which is what Epic needed to prove consumer harm.

This is going to be a very interesting case.

You seriously think Epic will magically cut down the price of their fake digital items by 30% once Apple gives them up? No, they're going to go straight into their pocket.

That's exactly what they did though[0]. They offered a 20% discount if you use the Epic payment system on iOS, and continued to offer items at the normal price through Apple's payment system. This is what got them kicked off of the app store.

0. https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/news/the-fortnite-m...

I really have to marvel at how well planned this whole series of events is. This wasn't some knee jerk move by Epic, it is calculated and very well executed.

But you don't pay 30% more - if it was the case that devs were allowed to make the iOS in app purchases 30% more than the counterparts, that would be fine (well, not fine, but at least it would give the people options).

Apple has blocked stores from doing so in the past, demanding that the iOS price be the same as outside iOS, effectively taking 30% of developers revenue when bought through the app store.

Do you know any examples that app developer has entered into a deal with Apple to pay that 30% cut even for sales outside iOS or MacOS platforms?

No, but I don't understand the relevance, much less why a developer would do that (or why Apple would ask for it)?

Of course a developer could just raise prices elsewhere to make the cost equal to that on iOS if they raised the price to include Apple's 30% cut, but the problem would remain.

A developer might voluntarily request that to make the payment infrastructure simpler by making the payment routing equal for everyone.

And now they've taken that one step further and insist that if you accept payment anywhere outside of iOS, you are forced to accept payment on device as well, in order for Apple to get access to your market.

For things like games where you're buying "5 more rings" or a "hat for your virtual pet" ok fine -- but for something where you're offering a subscription service to physical therapists where their subscription buys them things in the real world, this is completely unreasonable.

We were forced to "include" this functionality in the app or Apple threatened to remove it, so we did and just made it impossible to find.

Woah, seriously? If this is true, that is truly anti-competitive. Apple would be basically trying to pass off the competitive disadvantage a 30% cut costs by passing it onto the developers.

Evidently customers DO care. Or are you suggesting that the bulk of those customers paid $9.99 for the same items that they could have paid $7.99 for - inside the same app - just to thank Apple for their 'peace of mind'??

Epic gave the customer a choice. If the evidence doesn't show that the majority of customers still chose the $9.99 option, that's certainly bolstering their claim that Apple's decision to remove the ability to do so is harmful to consumers, not (just) developers.

That's the really, deeply cynical part of all this - in a world where Epic could use their own payment processing without Apple taking a cut, all their customers would be paying the full $9.99, not $7.99. It doesn't require much of a crystal ball at all to realize this, because it was the reality right up until the very instant that Epic Games needed to push the idea that Apple's cut was actually costing consumers money rather than them as part of this lawsuit and PR campaign. $9.99 everywhere, on PC direct from Epic, on consoles (which take a similar cut), Android, iOS, everywhere. The extra went straight into Epic Games' pockets.

Certainly. But I don't think there's anything inherently immoral to that. Market value of item is X - that's what the customer will be paying. There's more value, theoretically, to the customer, in paying that to the producer directly - more income for them, more incentive to continue producing or improving. Similar for the producer, more revenue.

No-one gains value out of rent-seeking middlemen but rent-seeking middlemen.

Note: I am not saying the Apple Store doesn't not add value in terms of payment processing, exposure, bandwidth, and so on. But I will argue strongly that you'll have a hard time showing that this added value is _worth_ that thirty percent cut. I also highly doubt that should it be three percent (as indeed it is on the MAS!), this lawsuit, these arguments, would not be being had.

> 30% more

1/0.7 = 1.43

You're not paying 30% more, you're paying 43% more. Maybe you're fine with paying even more than that, but lets keep the math clear.

1/0.85 => 17% more. If we’re gonna nitpick, let’s not ignore that it’s 15% after a year.

It's against the Apple ToS to charge more on their app store.

I guess I don't quite get this argument. Allowing users to install a third-party app store on a device they purchased doesn't impact another user's ability to use Apple's walled garden exclusively. As a customer, it's frustrating because I have to choose between Google's crazy surveillance and Apple's authoritarian regime. I'd really like to just buy a device and then do what I want with it, because I bought it. For example, if Apple were to allow me to install the equivalent of F-Droid on iOS, I would feel pretty differently about them as a company.

I disagree. I like Apple products, own an iPhone and iPad, but I wish I could run any code on it because they are my devices. Having a streamlined experience overall shouldn’t prevent me from installing an emulator, and shouldn’t trap businesses into paying ridiculous fees. Im hesitating buying a Mac as my next computer because of their locked down attitude, which could spill to MacOS (already has to some degree).

> I wish I could run any code on it

But by extension that means any bad guy can run any unsigned code on it as well.

Look at the prevalence of Android malware to iOS. The latter basically doesn't exist outside of well funded nation states.

Apple does an extremely poor job of software inspection - they have API limiters that are quite effective at shutting down a lot of the malicious-to-device software people might write but privacy concerns are impossible for them to cover. Depending on how you define unsigned code your statement is either quite correct or extremely inaccurate and I think issues like privacy and data tracking are, honestly, more noticeable and impactful to the average non-techy user than your phone being part of a botnet.

"Hide my Email for Sign in", killing advertising identifiers, preventing cross app tracking, etc. are all things that can only exist on a platform where code is signed and sandboxed.

Is Apple's app store vetting or API restrictions perfect? No, of course not. But it is a million times better than any other platform.

The former basically doesn't exist in Western nations either, so I'm not sure what the point is here.

A well designed permissions system means what code runs is up to the user.

In 2019 Kaspersky Labs identified over 3 million unique Android malware samples. iOS malware is so rare AV companies usually issue press releases about finding them (like LightSpy).

The reason you might not know about Xerxes, SMSreg, Cerberus, LokiBot, BlackRock, FunkyBot, UpDroid, etc. is because another Android malware family isn't newsworthy.

Unless Apple really screws up, that malware would have to be downloaded and installed by me. If I "flip a switch" and enable that option, that's on me. PCs have always been like this and no one bats an eye. I'd be willing to accept that risk; hey, Apple could make flipping that switch really freaking difficult if they wanted too, I wouldn't mind. Just as long as I have the option.

There are many tech illiterate people in this world, and many who would be easy prey to someone pulling a scam, getting them to flip that switch.

My answer to that is: what about PCs? Of course you're right, and I'm right too (I'd like to think ahah). This is freedom at the cost of security; this trade-off, as in real life, has no simple solution. I certainly don't pretend to have the answer here.

Life has risks - you could fall off a ladder and injure yourself, but we dont outlaw them because as a society we recognize that they are also useful tools.

> Life has risks - you could fall off a ladder and injure yourself

Great analogy actually. Ladders are dangerous, yes - but we don’t make them necessary to daily life and they’re certainly not something most people interact with

My girlfriend has an iPhone and an android phone. She is 29, she has accidentally installed malware from the play store, multiple times.

Anecdote yes, but the fact it happened in my house and more than once opened my eyes significantly to the problem.

My grandparents have no chance if my girlfriend gets got.

You and I live in a microcosm, most people on this site have a very finely tuned bullshit filter. Don’t assume everyone does, even the young.

even so, there's no reason a filtering of software for anti-malware purposes must be conflated with the private entity also arbitrarily deciding what software is and isn't allowed. they could do one without the other

What you said makes no sense whatsoever.

A platform that filters will remove things, unless your speaking from the pulpit of “the algorithm”.

yes but filtering malicious code and filtering by arbitrary criteria are not the same thing.

> Unless Apple really screws up, that malware would have to be downloaded and installed by me. If I "flip a switch" and enable that option, that's on me.

The fact that Apple does not have this attitude is why their products are better for customers than alternatives that do have this attitude. A customer isn't any happier with a malware-ridden device if it got that way because they were tricked into clicking a fake software update button.

> PCs have always been like this and no one bats an eye.

Yes, lots of people bat eyes. As a very on-the-nose examples, lots of people buy Macs, for instance, because of their reputation for having less malware (that might be outdated now, but was certainly true for a large portion of the last 20 years). Malware has been a major problem for customers on PCs and Android phones for a long time. The fact that the problem has existed for a long time doesn't mean it's not a big problem.

The fact that Apple does not have this attitude is why their products are better for customers than alternatives that do have this attitude.

Macs allow you to install software from anywhere. Which is bad and Apple should disallow it, right?

There is a long tradition of Mac customers expecting that ability, and Apple has explicitly said they recognize that desire in the market and is not removing the ability. That said, they have added some extra warnings and confirmation steps in order to run unsigned software, and some people have even complained about that.

You can run any code on it already as a developer.

You can run pretty much any code on your iPad and iPhone that you want. You do need to pay your 99 bucks or so for a dev account, but you can run anything you can build for your iOS devices that way.

There is no "locked down attitude" with macOS, macOS is as open as ever. You can easily turn off all the malware protection if you want to do that. Many devs do.

The argument here isn't about you running any code you want. The argument is about access to the App Store and forcing Apple to allow anyone to distribute anything. That's something I don't want. I want Apple to distribute high quality apps that I can generally trust not to be riddled with malware, unlike their competitors. Apple has built a high value App Store, and devs want to change that to suit their wishes, and in so doing would turn it into the thing it has managed to keep away from since its beginning.

I think your argument is invalid, because i.e. Epic wouldn't want to share a buildable XCode project of Fortnite with you. The 99$ fee is also unreasonable IMHO.

Also, building complex applications is far from non-trivial; it's typical for me to spend a few hours fiddling with dependencies to get some complicated code running.

As for MacOS, yes on the software side things are still open, but on the hardware side things are closing up (for example, mandatory unbreakable encryption which can make data recovery impossible; I don't have a big problem with that however). Plus I've got no idea how long that will lasts since Apple does whatever it wants.

> I think your argument is invalid, because i.e. Epic wouldn't want to share a buildable XCode project of Fortnite with you.

They could share an installer that downloads and copies their binaries. Not too different from what many game publishers do on PC.

I'm not sure whether the main barrier to people doing this is the $99/year fee, or the friction associated with setting up a developer account, or the perceived (and real) risk of getting malware if customers made a habit of doing this.

But an iPhone in the US already costs $1000 over say 5 years, plus several hundred per year in carrier costs. I could entertain an argument that an extra $99/year to have an effectively unlocked device is not exorbitant or anticompetitive. If you think it is...would you still think so at $49? Or $9? The revenue Apple get from that must be insignificant compared to the app store.

Right - epic isn’t going to give you the source.

But you can run anything you can build.

Building a good Xcode project is as simple as pushing the “open in Xcode” button on github and pushing build. Obviously not all projects are that nice.

You'll fine with keep disabled the 3rd party store option.

It seems to me the obvious solution is to extend the "parental controls" install permission feature, and add an optional restriction API for "sideload apps" (like on Android). This would handle the "I want a locked down device" scenario for MDM and parental controls users.

Those who want an unrestricted device could enable sideloading (which would permit non-apple-notarized apps to be installed), and permit non-expiring developer self-signed apps. Then the free market could go ahead and develop "stores" and alternative ecosystems.

> Personally I don't understand monopoly arguments.

Firstly, the term 'monopoly' is frequently used in the meaning of 'monopoly power' not as pure monopoly. Competition laws take effect long before full monopoly. Market failures can start appear even with 20% market share in some markets.

Secondly, I suspect that you implicitly have some narrow definition of market in mind. In competition law, defining a relevant market is essential and nontrivial. You seem to think about smartphones as "the market". iOS app distribution can be also considered a market.

Personal opinion: multiplayer game like Fortnight benefits from network effect. People are playing across devices and platforms. You could argue that Android and iPhone platforms are complement products in App Markets instead of substitutes. Restrictions in one may harm sales in the other. All game developers must sell to both platforms to be on the market. iOS App store relies on this effect. There is no choice.

> I don't know we want to be able to install our own custom AC. Because maintenance of the stock one is too expensive.

You can do that actually. There are laws in places specifically that allow you to do that, because BMW would otherwise stop you.

The car industry is a perfect example. They had to put laws in place to allow you to change parts of your car, while still maintaining safety and integrity.

It wasn't that BMW would stop you, or that you weren't allowed to.

It's that car manufacturers had to be stopped from claiming "you voided the warranty on your brakes by installing your own radio" (entirely egregious, I agree, but separate).

> You have bazillion types of generic computers to choose from. People pay huge overhead to apple exactly because apple makes choices for them - regarding what settings are reasonable to have, what software they want you to use etc.

I like the Android approach. "Unknown sources" are not allowed by default but you can enable them. Doesn't mean you have to enable them and I'd be ok with a bright red bar at the top of the screen all the time that you can't disable if you have unknown sources enabled.

Great. Get an Android then.

You're generalizing your own opinion. If I could buy an iPhone and run Android on it, I would do that. Instead I'm stuck choosing between good hardware with crappy OS (Apple) vs. outdated hardware with an OS that fits my needs (all Android devices).

no you wouldn't apple devices are better BECAUSE of the software. On avg the hardware is under powered compered to android hardware.

This is blatantly wrong. Apple's CPU and GPU designs have been years ahead of Qualcomm/Samsung/... for years now, especially regarding single core performance. Check any mobile device benchmark.

was that benchmark done on non-apple software?

FYI: https://www.anandtech.com/show/14892/the-apple-iphone-11-pro...

SPEC2006 is industrial standard, and other 3rd party benchmark tested.

Not really, Apple's CPU/GPU teams are very good, hey chaps and chapesses, but their primary advantage comes from the fact that Apple is looking at revenue for the entire device, the SOC is not the product. They can afford a little more cache etc. It's also right to point out that the margin is pretty narrow in A13 and Snapdragon 865 guise. So saying they are year(s) ahead is hyperbole, perhaps 6 months! In anycase the relatively close performance of the current SOCs makes me eager to see what they do with Apple Silicon in order to bridge the gap to Desktop/Laptop class performance? I do wonder whether the current cooling solutions in Apple's laptops are more about delivering the best product to the consumer or creating a favourable comparison to their own silicon. I found this LTT, https://youtu.be/MlOPPuNv4Ec?t=321, intriguing and wonder if this is deliberate or a manufacturing defect. Note the gap between the CPU lid and the die. It's a fairly entertaining video, the things they try but that gap, the entire cooling solution actually, are a little hard to understand.

Not at all.

.. umm android users have been talking shit about iPhone specs for years

They’ve also been wrong for years

Sums up the general Android population

You really wouldn't want to do that. Android phones still need @20-30% more powerful hardware to get comparable performance.

With all due respect... the statement that "People pay huge overhead to apple exactly because apple makes choices for them" is very silly.

Could you explain how it is silly?

I've seen that exact reason (or some variation of it) echoed by many consumers who prefer Apple products. Are you suggesting that these people do not exist, or are lying?

From my perspective Epic is shooting themselves and all other developers in the foot. Many app stores specialize in pirated software, fake in-app purchases, gaming assists, various troll and other bot automations. Users would be stuck with full screen popups, unwanted VPNs, bitcoin miners, government surveillance apps, and other malware in an effort to get a discount from the official Epic store. Developers will have more cheating, fraud, and store revenues will drop to Google levels as there are cheaper pirate stores. There will be no free apps because developers making a profit like Epic won't carry the rest.

Strongly disagree. I have 4 MBPs. I can install whatever I want on them, thankfully. I write my own code and execute it on them.

My iPhone? I don't want them telling me what I can do with it. I want the good hardware and OS compatibility with my MBPs. I also want to install whatever I want because I'm an adult and developer in a free economy.

And you can do that just fine.

You just can't tell them how to curate the App Store.

So then they should allow a competing app store and Apple can just heavily curate their own app store.

I think you could actually do that. You can run your own code, Apple doesn't actually care what you run if you have a dev account and are compiling your own stuff to put on your machine. So what's to stop you from installing an app store, or at least some semblance of one that would let you run your own apps under an app you compile and put on your iOS device?

I've never really thought about this before, but it seems like it's probably possible. Again, this doesn't help Epic -- they don't want to run apps on your phone, they want to monetize mass user phones, not give code to devs who are willing to put in the effort to install something through Xcode.

You cannot. The T chip that boots the touchbar and fingerprint reader (and provides the firmware to the main CPU on boot) is just as locked down as any iPhone. If you try to modify its OS (BridgeOS, a modified iOS), your computer will not boot.

Yeah, it makes no sense at all. Apple isn't even close to a majority in any markets!

Desktops? Definitely not. Laptops? No. Tablets and Phones? Haha, no (Edit: Actually yes, if one only considers the US).

https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-sta...

iOS is literally the majority of the market in the USA. It has nearly 60% market share. https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-sta...

This is certainly something US courts would care about.

Alright, well color me surprised because I wouldn't have guessed that at all.

Still, 60% is hardly a monopoly either.

By definition, anything over 50% should give you de facto control. I'm curious what you mean by 60% not being a monopoly.

> the exclusive possession or control of the supply of or trade in a commodity or service.

60% is not exclusive or even de-facto exclusive. The only thing Apple has a monopoly on is Apple products.

The threshold the US government uses for market share is typically 50%, along with exclusionary conduct.

58% is not a monopoly by any definition.

In fact US Justice Department states quite clearly that it isn't a monopoly if it's 50% or less. This isn't a light switch where you instantly change from "not a monopoly" to "monopoly" based on a temporary gain in market share.

https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...

iOS's percentage of paid app users dwarfs Android's, which could be a factor. Surely revenue should be considered when evaluating market share?

https://sensortower.com/blog/app-revenue-and-downloads-2018

That is comparing Apple and Google's App Stores.

Android is a much larger ecosystem than just Google.

58% is enough to clear a 50% threshold.

I didn't say that 58% immediately means monopoly: it doesn't necessarily mean it's a monopoly, but it can mean it. I was correcting the OP who claimed that "Apple isn't even close to a majority in any markets!" In fact, Apple is a majority — and a sizable one — in the market US courts care most about: the US market.

It's probably a monopoly for a variety of reasons, including its majority market power — which as you point out is typically one of the necessary (but not sufficient) markers of monopoly — as other commenters have pointed out; e.g. its exclusionary conduct such as banning XCloud, Fortnite, etc.

Antitrust law is not just about monopolies, it is about anticompetitive business practices. Monopolistic behavior is just one type of antitrust concern.

> iOS is literally the majority of the market in the USA. It has nearly 60% market share.

Are you confusing the words mono and majority?

Nope. A company doesn't need 100% market share to count as a monopoly under US law. The threshold for market share is typically 50%, along with exclusionary conduct.

I also, by the way, didn't use the word "monopoly" (although I think Apple is one with iOS): I used the word "majority." So I'm not sure where your comment claiming that I confused "mono" and "majority" is even coming from.

> People pay huge overhead to apple exactly because apple makes choices for them - regarding what settings are reasonable to have, what software they want you to use etc.

Well, they think it gives them quality. Instead they kinda get fleeced and pushed into a threadmill of planned obsolescence, e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2_SZ4tfLns

The only people who buy the idea of planned obsolescence are the ones who haven’t worked on products like that.

Also, Apple doesn’t have to provide software support to 6 year old phones when nobody else does

> The only people who buy the idea of planned obsolescence are the ones who haven’t worked on products like that.

So, how many Apple products Apple said could not be repaired have you repaired?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVAmnV65_zw

There is nothing to "buy into", it's all in the open. There is something to be in denial about however, and you just offer an ad-hominem right out of the gate, plus the statement that phones failing when they cease to be "supported" is fine and normal; but somehow not planned, even predictable obsolescence.

It's a shift from owning things that either break or last, to a constant churn, enforced by software where the hardware can't be made bad enough. Apple is hardly alone in this, but Apple is in it, for sure.

> So, how many Apple products Apple said could not be repaired have you repaired?

Ok so...

A) Non-repairability is not planned obsolescence. At Apple’s scale, they can’t repair every breakage with the quality people expect, so they opt to replace.

B) You’re making huge accusations, but it’s seriously unsubstantiated. I will say that I agree that products should last longer, but that’s a technical challenge not a financial decision.

> Non-repairability is not planned obsolescence.

You already acknowledged that 6 year old phones are obsolete.

And you also claimed claimed that "only someone who didn't work on Apple products" could possibly "buy into" [that's also a huge accusation, one you don't even bother to back up] the idea that Apple is a treadmill of increasingly crappy things. That is demonstrably wrong, yet also not worthy of you even acknowledging it.

> that’s a technical challenge not a financial decision

Proof for that? Nevermind, you just ignore your glaring errors, and demand more proof, as if you watched those videos fully, while dropping laughable claims like that casually.

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