Apple is top funder of lobby group that says it represents small developers
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
The cut is a platform fee, and collecting it via the in-app payment system is mechanism, not policy.
The core issue is Apple's rate: although it is usually comparable to rates on other game platforms (eShop, Google Play, Steam...), (some) game and app developers want it reduced so that they receive a higher percentage of an app's retail price.
The largely unfounded expectation that some developers seem to have is that changing IAP payment methods will cause Apple's platform fee to drop to zero, rather than causing Apple to simply collect it by other means.
Edit: for some reason people are responding to me with complaints about Apple's policies and downvoting me because they don't like Apple's platform fees. I'm trying to shed some light on what is actually going on: a dispute over platform fee rates. This is something that much of the media coverage doesn't seem to be getting right.
Perhaps. On the other hand, Nintendo is a beloved company and the Switch is an incredibly successful system with fantastic games. So the walled garden seems to have worked out reasonably well.
I'm not sure why you're responding to my parent comment though, as it was descriptive and not prescriptive.
How true. Well, except for:
- designing and manufacturing the hardware
- marketing and selling the hardware
- creating and promoting the Books app
- popularizing podcasts with the iPod
- creating and promoting the Podcasts app
etc.
> They don't deserve 30% of that.
This illustrates my point: the core dispute is over platform fees charged by the App Store.
- the hardware I already paid for
- this should be included in the price of the hardware (and certainly is in the case of Apple)
- I don't use the Books app, I use the Amazon Kindle app
- I never listened to a podcast on my iPod
- I don't use the Podcasts app, I use the Spotify app
So in the case of Amazon/Spotify, what value is Apple delivering beyond paying for download bandwidth in order for me to download the app (which is like, $0.000001 of bw costs)?
But it isn’t. One of the reasons Apple continues to support old hardware is they collect revenue from the App Store on older devices.
The platform ecosystem is more than just device hardware + server hardware + bandwidth.
I'm sure the store is a factor though!
Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing offers 2 options: 35% royalty and 70% royalty.
https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200644210
You can choose between two royalty options for each of your eBooks: the 35% royalty option and the 70% royalty option.
-If you select the 35% royalty option, your royalty will be 35% of your list price without VAT for each unit sold.
-If you select the 70% royalty option, your royalty will be 70% of your list price without VAT, less delivery costs (average delivery costs are $0.06 per unit sold, and vary by file size), for each eligible book sold to customers in the 70% territories, and 35% of the list price without VAT for each unit sold to customers residing outside the 70% territories.
Including, with help from fees charged to developers and the 30% revenue cut, funding development of all the tools and platforms that make it all possible.
Amazon and Spotify (and their customers) would not do as well without this ecosystem and its tools, devices, and platforms.
I think the value of the ecosystem including all the aspects mentioned is huge. Device sales alone would not ever come close to paying for it all, if you want devices to be in reach of normal people and you don’t want to build your business off of intrusive personalized advertising.
CoreML being a phone feature, then restricting it behind a paywall sounds like something customers would sue apple for. CoreML is already bundled in the price you pay when you purchase an iPhone. It will only work as a cloud service.
>then restricting it behind a paywall sounds like something customers would sue apple for
Slightly difference scenario here but I feel it's similar. In my last job my company bought a system from Oracle that did a bunch of number crunching for processing images to be printed. As I understood it, Oracle charged for utilizing more cores, even though it was an on premise system and everything was already in the box ready to go.
If Apple, or anyone, makes hardware and wants to charge a license to use said hardware, isn't that legal? This sounds like BMW charging a license for their heated seats. The hardware is already there and ready to go, but is behind a paywall.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32170848
Many walled gardens, growing different plants, landscaped in different styles, with different admission fees, but ultimately conforming to basic principles and paying their dues to the Apple botanical society.
Apple Authorized App Merchants.
In an ideal world? Nothing. Apple builds these APIs because they want people to use them, not because they expect a return on their investment. We established that precedent when Google litigated Oracle so many years back.
Of course, Apple will claim they need whatever they can get. Their lack of candid conversation with the community is exactly why we need to respond by taking away their taxman hat.
Xcode is free, though. Apple 'takes their cut' when you pay $99/year to be a registered Apple developer. If that's not enough, then maybe they need to review the checkbook again. Whatever the case is, Apple made a mistake by attaching the success of their software platform to the success of their App Store. The future of the internet was never going to be proprietary, they should have known that back when Microsoft was sued over IE. It's not illegal, but they're certainly teeing themselves up for the most radical antitrust scrutiny witnessed to-date.
It's just a dick move. Consumer advocacy groups should have fixed this by now, but Apple's legendary PR and reality distortion field has fended off most attacks so far.
Unreal Engine is "free" too.
Except it isn't. Neither Unreal Engine nor Apple's developer frameworks (shipped alongside Xcode) are public domain or copyleft. They're both proprietary code available under a license that permits certain usages, disallows certain usages, is royalty free under some conditions, and requires payment under other conditions.
> Apple 'takes their cut' when
That's not for you to decide. Epic can decide when to take money from developers who use Unreal Engine, and how much they're entitled to. It's equally Apple's decision which payment represents compensation for the developer's use of their intellectual property, and how much they're entitled to.
You're confusing free with libre. Apple's software and Unreal are free as in "free beer".
I'm not confusing them. The fact that they are not libre is precisely the point I was making. They are both proprietary intellectual property and encumber the person using them with financial obligations under some conditions.
> Apple's software and Unreal are free as in "free beer".
No, they are not. They're free as in "free beer when consumed on our premises, max five per customer, and if you sell our free beer to someone else we'll take some of that revenue thank you very much".
Right, and my point is that it's not free as in beer.
But it is. Being free as in "free beer" has nothing to do with being or not being public domain or copyleft.
Public domain or copyleft refer to free as in "free speech".
Tell that to Epic Games' department of license revenue.
Edit:
In Epic's case the tools remain free as in beer. There's no additional cost to using them.
Epic applies a fee to what you produce with them, and even then:
> A 5% royalty is due only if you are distributing an off-the-shelf product that incorporates Unreal Engine code (such as a game) and the lifetime gross revenue from that product exceeds $1 million USD; in this case, the first $1 million remains royalty-exempt.
If you were to distribute your product for free (as you want), you wouldn't pay Epic a single cent.
If you want to lump that in with free as in beer because Epic isn't taking money from people who haven't made something particularly profitable, okay, but I don’t think many people would agree with you.
(It's also free-as-in-you're-part-of-their-marketing-strategy. Widespread "free" use of Unreal Engine helps build developer experience with Unreal Engine, increasing the availability of relevant skills in the job market, and making its use more attractive when it comes time to start a big, highly profitable project.)
Your attempt to somehow conflate it with someone's business models are laughable at best. All software comes with strings attached. And the biggest one is: even people who distribute software for free still have a business to run and mouths to feed.
Or indeed that post's parent, where a different opinion was offered about when a license for CoreML libraries was paid. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32905596
Or its parent, the one which initially defined the scope of the discussion, which was "...Apple charging a license for the frameworks and tooling they provide..." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32905555
Not about the Xcode IDE itself which I agree is free-as-in-beer. (Though others might disagree — an argument could be made that it was paid for the purchase of a relevant Apple hardware product; the fact that it wasn't pre-installed being a mere technicality.)
That's strange people think as it's providing some kind of "value" which needs to be paid, in reality it's the opposite, it's a problematic byproduct of the monopoly which I would get rid of given the choice.
Under the hood it uses clang, which was developed with Apple support and which I guess has some value…
Clang was a community project, same as LLVM. Apple came along and threw money at it because of FOMO (very similar to CUPS) and eventually a XNU toolchain followed. Apple didn't really provide any value beyond support that already existed for FOSS operating systems.
At the end of the day, it's a dispute over money, and specifically the platform commission rate: developers want a bigger cut of the retail app price on Google Play.
The 'platform fee' shpiel is a distraction from the real problem: iOS must allow alternative storefronts if it wants to survive long-term antitrust scrutiny. There is no other logical outcome.
Solving the single app store antitrust issue doesn't solve the platform fee dispute.
Contrary to popular belief, you can even install a non-safari browser:
https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/main/docs/i...
>Please refer to the Apple documentation on how to get a code signing identity and certificates. You can check that you have a code signing identity correctly installed by running the following command.
It has a secure chain of trust in the sense that the machine is secured against user control. Face, meet boot.
fingerlocks: here, just run these two easy commands to ask apple for their ongoing permission!
But really side loading is not as difficult as you’re making it out to be. The biggest hurdle for most is access to Mac, but renting a cloud instance an option too.
BTW I forgot to mention that the "Chromium for iOS" that you linked to is not a "non-Safari browser". It is the same Safari-wrapper version of Chromium that you can already get from the App Store. The "popular belief" is correct. There is currently no port of any alternative browser engine for iOS. Why would anyone bother to maintain an iOS port for software that can't be practically distributed?
> Why would anyone bother to maintain an iOS port for software that can't be practically distributed?
There is very little difference between a Mac and iOS app these days, and could be practically none at all if engineered correctly.
You're not going to be able to do it in your spare time. You probably wouldn't even be able to get a crippled and buggy version to build at all by yourself. Google's not going to invest in it for no reason while Apple expressly prohibits distribution. The only way there will ever be an alternative browser engine ported to iOS is if the EU actually follows through with forcing Apple to allow alternative browser engines on their App Store and/or alternative app stores, and Apple subsequently loses all of their inevitable appeals in court. Only then would Google (or Mozilla) be able to justify the investment.
https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src.git/+/refs/he...
So not a realistic option, then.
To be honest, I doubt many of them care, given all they want is apps from a trusted source, and most people probably trust Samsung if they are buying Samsung phones with specialized Android builds made by Samsung, if they even know the difference.
Amazon tried selling phones with their own app store built in, but Fire Phones never took off for whatever reason.
In the current model, the barrier to entry is pretty low. $99 gets you xcode, plus you need done hardware.
Once you've made something you need to reach a market. A good market place (like a regular super market) brings together suppliers and customers. That market has costs.
One model for costs is to charge each app the same amount. Say, for example $5000 per app submission. Lots of successful suppliers would like this model because it raises the bar for completion, and means they pay less money.
Another model is free-to-enter, but takes a cut of the sales. Successful products end up paying much much more than stuff no-one wants.
Overall I think I prefer the second model. Wildly successful apps, and developers, are basically funding an equal-access marketplace.
Now, of course there are winners and losers. From published numbers its clear most apps make 0,for some definition of 0. Every developer thinks their app is special, but most are, well, not.
Good marketing helps, buzz in the tech-press, visibility on forums, shows and events, and do on. Some do nothing, waiting for their big apple-lottery break of being "promoted in the app-store".
Developers risen in a world of cost-free-everything believe that they are the sole value-add in the path from hardware to consumer. Apple should provide this appstore connection to the developer free of charge. Of course developers think this, and they're welcome to think this, but it doesn't mean Apple has to do it this way.
Developers have choices. They can choose to develop for Android instead. They can choose to use the Google store, or a different store, or make their own store.
If you develop for iOS you know the rules. If you see value in that market (and you like the low barrier to entry) then go for it. If you make money then pay your 30%. If you don't (and the odds are you wont) then delight in the money you saved by there not being an entrance fee.
But don't sign up for the competition, win the game, _then_ complain the prize money is too low.
You may like Apple, you may not. But its your choice to join their game, or not. There's no bait-and-switch here, the rules are clear and well understood. You either accept their position of strength, their ability to crush you on a whim, their ability to arbtitarily create winners and losers, their ability to earn royalties on your code (on their platform) or you don't.
Hundreds of dollars in apple hardware and software compared to zero dollars for MSVC community, zero dollars for android developer studio, zero dollars for linux toolchain or whatever.
>Once you've made something you need to reach a market. A good market place (like a regular super market) brings together suppliers and customers. That market has costs.
The cost of hosting the app store is essentially the cost of hosting a web service that lets you download and buy programs. The developers could easily host their own app store as a web page if iOS just facilitated running programs downloaded from the internet or loaded externally. Apple has built themselves a dam upstream and is charging everyone downstream for water-rights-as-a-service.
>One model for costs is to charge each app the same amount. Say, for example $5000 per app submission. Lots of successful suppliers would like this model because it raises the bar for completion, and means they pay less money.
>Another model is free-to-enter, but takes a cut of the sales. Successful products end up paying much much more than stuff no-one wants.
The only fair model here is the one where 100% of apple's income comes from hardware sales alone. That is the only situation where you don't set up the user to be exploited by erecting these walls around what they can and cannot run on their own hardware.
> If you develop for iOS you know the rules.
They know the rules, and they know the rules are bullshit. What do you want them to do, throw their hands in the air and say "welp, them's the rules, I guess we can should never try to use our leverage or negotiate better rules cause that's just how it is I guess."
Apple’s software is free, and you need more than zero dollars for the hardware to run Android Developer Studio.
Also, on both platforms you may need a few (or more than a few) phones and tablets for testing (you may be able to test on a simulator, but that doesn’t guarantee things work on the real hardware, doesn’t give you a good idea about performance, and certainly is not a good option for apps that use on-board sensors such as accelerometers)
In the end, I think the difference in cost is between the cost of a PC and that of a Mac, so ballpark $500 in both cases, the phones to test on may cost more.
They can choose not to play. If Apple is not offering any value for their 30% then simply don't publish on IOS.
If all the developers stop developing for IOS then the rules would change.
Of course small developers have no power because individually they have no power, and they are not willing to pool that power collectively (ie unionize).
They're trying to get the govt to act as a collective bargainer on their behalf. Which is likely to fail,because Apple is better at govt than they are.
So yeah, I expect them to say "I can make more money elsewhere, so I'm leaving ios - the fact they don't suggests apple is adding plenty of value worthy of their 30%
Oh my sweet summer child.
And that is what we call the slippery slope.
Apple has created a successful product, therefore developers want to make money from it, therefore apple cannot charge a fee for access, therefore apple cannot charge for developer tools, therefore apple cannot charge for hardware (lest it makes the developers market smaller than it could be if phones were free)
You are saying flagrantly anti-competition without saying it directly.
Android platform has multiple sources of apps, and side-loading. Ruthless exploitation of a market has never been tolerated for long.
Remind me of how Apple is doing a better job here, again?
There is talk about the cost of designing and manufacturing the phone, which is irrelevant, especially in a world where users frequently buy new phones every two years. That cost should be borne by the purchaser of the phone.
Now, the ongoing costs of running payment systems and app stores are more significant, and I think it's reasonable to argue that they cannot be zero, but we should have a go at determining them in the market.
While true, paid-for apps from the MS store - the option that should be recommended to laypeople, instead of the dodgy websites that have download button styled ads - charge a registration fee [0] and Microsoft takes a cut of 5 - 30% [1]
[0] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/publish/accoun... [1] "Microsoft takes 5–15% of the sale price for apps and 30% on Xbox games"; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Store
They don't have regular users' best interest at heart. They represent the big companies.
This is called coalition building. It's powerful if done openly. There is a natural alliance between small app developers and the App Store. That Apple was underhanded in its support is unsavory. But a legitimate, rational small-developer lobby wouldn't rule out working with Apple.
The smaller the dev, the more I think the risk-reward tilts in favor of wanting a big store, vs seeing it as either too big a risk or too large a cut.
The App Store (Mac App Store for me) achieved only one thing for me: Make it more complicated (review process, sandbox) and less profitable (30% vs ~8% cut).
I still sell a good share of my software directly without having Apple's horrible review process in between. It's still easier (upload binary, update sparkle RSS feed, done) than the whole App Store review process.
Because the alternative to fighting that power is wielding it. Coalitions are temporary alignments of interests. They're a hallmark of democracies. Their mechanics are highly selective against dogmatists; generally a good thing. Unfortunately when it comes to communities with a high concentration of purists, this knack for pragmatism can backfire by driving disillusionment.
Put another way: do you see small developers benefiting more by allying with big developers against Apple?
Maybe, if they're extremely lucky and prescient, they can quickly leverage that money into increased exposure and other funding sources so they can reduce what they take from big business, whether relatively or in total.
It's just like a small business signing one account that is worth multiple of all the other accounts put together. Either you use that money to diversify as soon as you can or you're just a subsidiary in all but name.
No, this is called astroturfing. The wallet defines the direction of the group.
In one case they argued people primarily jailbreak over-the-top set top video streaming boxes so they can watch pirated content... but the website and software being linked to explicitly said that you didn't have to jailbreak your device to either install or use their app, as you could just sideload it on a normally set up device (as clearly any normal app can play video ;P). It is as if they are just hoping no one bothers to check their references.
(Another time--and I honestly am not 100% sure this one was the App Association, as I am just remembering this one as opposed to having it in my notes on this, but I am pretty sure I remember it being the same guy--showed up to the hearing with a giant stack of evidence against me/Cydia trying to show I was actively involved in piracy, and it essentially lost them their credibility as I was able to quickly show every single reference in the stack was to scammers using my trademarks for fake software and that I had even had a lawyer going around trying to shut them down. They either couldn't tell what was real and what wasn't, or hoped they could pull a fast one on the panel as maybe I wouldn't be there to set it all straight.)
In another case they (definitely the App Association) tried to argue that jailbreaking devices for purposes of repair (where the device is left back in a locked state for the user but the jailbreak let you replace some part or update some software or something) should not be allowed because repair manuals are copywritten, but that argument was essentially a non-sequitur as I don't think Kyle was using original manuals (much less stealing them ;P); and, even if he had somehow gotten a copy, the protection mechanism certainly wasn't protecting the manual.
Honestly, I am pretty sure I could make a better argument against me for them, and it felt like whomever all was funding them must be wasting their money without realizing it; for a while I had thought about doing a big "exposé" of them with the goal of convincing people who were funding them "y'all's money is going to waste on this" in the hope that maybe the companies who were members didn't even realize what the App Association was spending their time on... but I hadn't ever realized it was (according to Bloomberg here) mostly Apple anyway (lol).
FWIW, as far as I could ever tell, the App Association was essentially (in terms of who actually puts together and argued these opinions) just the one person: Morgan Reed (who is the President and is quoted in that article). I highly recommend looking around at the myriad areas of random politics and regulation that he is trying to manipulate, as they make sure to get involved--no matter how low effort--whenever there is an opportunity for public comment.
On the DMCA realm, I cannot wait for the Green v. DOJ case to bear fruit. If it succeeds, the DMCA anti-circumvention and anti-trafficking provisions will be ruled unconstitutional altogether.
Last we heard about the case was the oral argument for the appeal on 9/12, but it left a sour taste in my mouth.
The judges were most focused on whether Green had standing to bring the case (because the government said he would not be prosecuted for doing what he wanted to do) and on whether the appeal itself was adequate at the motion to dismiss stage.
They barely even discussed the issues of fair use and constitutional balance that the 1st amendment requires for copyright law to exist (established by SCOTUS in Eldred and Golan)
I don't know what to think with this new development, honestly.
Could this lead to a VCR/DVR future where we're once again able to record or download steaming content? Platforms and DRM have taken us a step back from the freedoms we once enjoyed.
I would be overjoyed to be able to legally back up Netflix, HBO, and Disney+ for my private library. It seems only fair now that everything is morphing into the absurd "license for eternity" model.
The reality is that tech companies are winning this war, technologically, because asymmetric cryptography works--so there isn't some secret key embedded in the devices that you can merely extract and use--and the industry is getting better about not causing regressions. The big battle over unlocking cellphones from 5-10 years ago? That was nothing more than a gambit (which worked, btw) to change the process rules, because no one is actually using technological techniques to supply unlock codes anyway (it is now all via, shall we say... "light corporate espionage" ;P).
In a world where I am allowed to make a jailbreak that doesn't mean I can make a jailbreak, as we can see in the war with Apple: the reason there aren't jailbreaks for modern iPhones right now isn't because of DMCA fears. We live in an awkward time where bugs can be features :(. The real "practical" changes are thereby going to have to come from proactive regulation that prohibits certain forms of protection or corporate behavior, not attempts to defend the rights of users to publish what they can find and build. I would more watch Right to Repair, or the various antitrust lawsuits (including my related Apple one).
(Note: I know I didn't directly tackle whether anything anyone is doing might help you backup your streaming licensed content, but I also appreciate you didn't directly ask me anyway ;P. I have not heard of such, but I don't pay as much attention to that kind of content. The issue in Green and Huang's cases, though, is about being able to publish information and tools that might help you rip such content, and the reality is you can likely already do that and to the extent to which people start only letting locked down devices with encrypted cables access content, I think you will see companies win that in the next 5-10 years and the legality of publishing a workaround won't matter as there won't be any workarounds to publish. And whether it is legal to do that backup for content no one even pretended you can "buy" seems orthogonal to the efforts I have seen or been involved with.)
Indeed. Of course, trying to regulate crypto will bring everyone against (individual) privacy and freedom out in opposition, and forcing companies to not tie functionality to their private keys / force them to make public those keys would also make you an enemy of the "security" industry.
We live in an awkward time where bugs can be features
As the saying goes, "insecurity is freedom". We only got into this position because of corporate interests that oppose those of the user.
This seems easy to solve. Just mandate that the end-user/purchaser of the hardware should have the same level of control over the code execution as the manufacturer does after the sale. Whatever the manufacturer can do to your own unit after it's in your posession, you should be able to do as well.
No need to get into restricting crypto. After the aforementioned regulations are passed, it will be up to the companies to figure out how to implement them.
I don't see how this changes much except to mandate Apple or any other hardware manufacturer to leave privilege escalation bugs in their software for the lifetime of the device.
Also, updates are generally user-initiated. If the unadvertised "functionality" of unauthorized code execution is patched, the user has only himself to blame, not the manufacturer.
The point of the regulation would be to force manufacturers to officially give users the same level of code execution that they have over the sold devices as themselves.
If Apple, via software updates, can control what software runs on the iPhone of the user, then the user should also have that control, to install whatever OS/bootloader they desire, the same way as Apple can.
Also, Apple doesn't have the ability to install any OS/bootloader as the hardware is specifically tailored to one OS. Even if you had an Apple-sanctioned root mode, it's likely the hardware won't run AOSP images or android compatible bootloader as it's only guaranteed to work with iOS. The same can be said of game consoles.
The code execution is locked down with a private key that only Apple has.
Apple can therefore sign any executable for any iDevice that exists, and it will run without issues. They could make a completely new bootloader/OS combo from scratch while mantaining compatibility with the hardware.
The bar is then: "Is it technically and officially possible for Apple to install any OS/bootloader that's compatible with the iPhone hardware?" The answer to that is yes, it is.
So, if it is possible for Apple to do so (by them having the private key used to sign the OS images) even after they sell it to me, then it should be legally mandated for me to have the same level of official posibility to do the same via the same means.
And digital signatures for the various drivers that only work in iOS.
> Apple can therefore sign any executable for any iDevice that exists, and it will run without issues. They could make a completely new bootloader/OS combo from scratch while maintaining compatibility with the hardware.
That Apple can does not mean it should be compelled to. In addition, Building an entirely new OS is separate from the issue of being regulated to provide equivalent access after sale.
> The bar is then: "Is it technically and officially possible for Apple to install any OS/bootloader that's compatible with the iPhone hardware?" The answer to that is yes, it is.
Then this is no longer about consumers having the right to do as they wish with a device they have purchased. Instead, this is about compelling Apple into providing protected information or forcing the company to design an open OS. This runs afoul of many constitutional protections not the least of which is compelled speech.
> So, if it is possible for Apple to do so (by them having the private key used to sign the OS images) even after they sell it to me, then it should be legally mandated for me to have the same level of official posibility to do the same via the same means.
That they have a private key, does not mean they're obligated to share it nor should they. I fret for the precedent this would set. Arguing for control of your own device that you can root yourself is not the same as forcing a manufacturer to allow arbitrary access to the OS at first swipe.
All this is a disgression however. The point is that the law should simply mandate that manufacturers design their devices in a way in which what the OEM can do to an already-sold device in terms of code execution/control also be possible for the new owner to do.
Worth noting that certain people probably have means to dump streaming HD Netflix content but keep these methods private because presumably Netflix can change things around to break them. So the cat and mouse game continues.
I hate to push back on you (of all people) for this, but no it's actually not. You are talking too much with your hacker hat on and not enough with your legal hat on. There is quite a difference between accredited security firms doing responsible security research, and random unaffiliated parties with shifting and conflicting motivations doing "security research". That angle is a losing angle and it's not because these companies did anything, it's because it is actually a fallacious and bad meme that has propagated around forever in hacker circles, seemingly for no other reason than that it is fun to think about it.
In my opinion, if you follow that "right" to its legal and technical conclusion, you will end up with the "right" of corporate security firms to do research. That's it. I don't mean to be all doom and gloom though. You are right that the idea of "right to repair" is a much broader thing that makes a much more compelling case for any kind of consumer protection angle.
Section 1201 makes it illegal to bypass access controls regardless of what you do after. You could bypass a technological protection measure that controls access to a copyrighted work and do nothing with the work itself after and it would still be illegal.
I don't know of anything in his history that would lead me to believe that, but I'm hardly his biographer or anything.
Just watch how many times he said Privacy is a Fundamental Human Right. It is now ingrained into the company to the point of using it as an argument in court.
And I haven't even mention China.
Apple is one of the few corporations whose customers I feel nothing but contempt for. I don't find their approach coercive; it's just plain brainwashing. Businesses could just build browser-based apps; it's possible to make them user-friendly but businesses who build software are just as brainwashed as Apple customers.
I don't feel the same way about Google or Facebook on the business/advertiser side; I think their monopolization of user's attention is genuinely coercive and there are no alternatives for businesses. For a company to monopolize their own platform is not at all the same as them monopolizing a public platform like the web. The web is the last frontier of the global free market.
EDIT: oof, capitalism strikes again. i assume the 'I work for apple' and 'well the devs just didn't form their own lobby' crowd has an opinion about their faceless godking. if devs are hackers and hn is devs, I don't understand why there's any defense of this company at all. Lisa needs braces. you deserve to be compensated for your hard work.
Neither of those statements are true. Please refrain from making emotional arguments based on misinformation.
Sources:
- https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/apple-sends-tim-cook-t...
- https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-knowingly-used-child-l...
- https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/10/22428899/apple-suppliers-...
Apple doesn’t have real control over Foxconn any more than Microsoft, Sony, Google, Nintendo, etc who all use them, but people where competing for those jobs.
So Google, Microsoft, Samsung, Apple, Nintendo, Nokia, Sony etc all end up using Foxconn to manufacture electronics at scale. Foxconn is actually slightly above average for Chinese manufacturing, but that’s really saying more about working conditions in China than anything positive about Foxconn.
https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/601138:CH?leadSource=uverify...
China isn’t going to let a foreign company operate an ISP in China, but a China/Foreign partnership is acceptable.
The suicide rate at Foxconn when the suicide nets were installed was lower than the average at US colleges.
Everything about this story is just sensationalism.
Children and political prisoners may be used as forced labor in China, but pretending that has something to do with Apple in particular is more misinformation.
Apple have programs in place to try to prevent this.
It's really fruitless to engage with you.
1. Foxconn at its worst was having fewer suicides per-capita among its workers than most populations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides#Analysis (sourced from ABC News and The Economist)
The rest is anecdotal first-hand data from me, so feel free to ignore it:
2. The working conditions were bad, but not THAT bad. It was a shitty factory job where you were under a lot of scrutiny, but probably not as much as working at Amazon today.
3. The pay at those Foxconn jobs was great. People were making multiples of what they could earn back home for way less effort. Foxconn factory workers thought of themselves as hot shit, much like factory technicians used to think of themselves in the USA before all those jobs disappeared. It looked like there was a nice corporate ladder you could work your way up, too, since they'd filter things through multiple layers of increasingly-elite technicians/engineers on their way to me.
The place looked like a lot like a college campus when I was there. Tons of young, happy-looking people working hard and getting paid well for it.
IMO this all stems back to that debunked and retracted NPR report talking about armed guards and a prison-like atmosphere. The worst thing I had to deal with in Shenzhen was there not being enough butter in the cakes at the factory's onsite bakery when I bought my coworkers a couple of big birthday cakes.
You're attempting to dispel the misinformation you posted with more misinformation?
I don’t really understand why so many commenters go out of their way to defend Apple for free here. They have a paid PR department for that.
As far as the suicide nets go, during their worst year of suicides, Foxconn had a suicide rate of 1.5 per 100,000, which is over 10 times less than the suicide rate of the US or China.
I particularly hate Apple because they contradict themselves more than any other company their size. They claim that privacy is a human right, but they sell out to every government who asks politely. They go to great length to make usable software, but none of that usability empowers the user. They've built a dumb-pipe for money in the same way Disney World is a high-margin playground for mildly affluent idiots. I hate it, and refuting their asinine "PR spin" is a personal vendetta of mine. Actually it's something I do to lots of companies, including a number of startups posted here. It's a miracle I haven't been banned for toxicity on that front, at least.
In any case, I'll gladly stop slamming Apple the day they develop a working relationship with their customers and drop their holier-than-thou act. Until then, it's open season!
Apple is legitimately the only company that puts their money where their mouth is. It obviously is not far enough to satiate you (which, in my opinion is wholly unrealistic for a company with operations of that size) so I have to wonder what companies you actually do buy products from. If you use a smartphone or computer of any kind, you're just a huge hypocrite. It's fine to say that they don't go far enough but, considering that they go farther than literally any other electronics or tech company to make sure that their products are sustainable and made with fair labor, it doesn't make any sense that you would be against them to the extent that you are.
So... what type of phone and computer do you use?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides#Analysis
> ABC News[48] and The Economist[49] both conducted comparisons and found that although the number of workplace suicides at Foxconn was large in absolute terms, the suicide rate was actually lower than the overall suicide rate of China[50] or the United States.[51] According to a 2011 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report, China had a high suicide rate with approximately 22.23 deaths per 100,000 persons.[52] In 2010, the company's employee count was a reported 930,000 people.[53]
I would imagine that nation-wide suicide statistic would be heavily skewed by people who are elderly, disabled, extremely socially isolated or otherwise on the fringes of society.
Why pick on Apple?
- Apple doesn't allow side loading of apps. You have to go through their store with their rules.
- You have to pay Apple 15% of all commerce originated on your idea or platform.
- You have to integrate with Apple login and Apple payments, which reduces your relationship with your customer to a smidge.
- Apple cripples its web browser, encouraging app distribution of your software.
- Apple allows competitors to place ads on its App Store in your app's name or brand, making it an uphill battle to keep growing.
- Apple doesn't allow you to deploy at your own cadence. If you need an emergency bug fix, you're out of luck.
- Apple forces you to follow their app development guidelines. These are capracious moving targets and you're forced to follow on Apple's schedule, despite whatever costs and labor needs your business has.
- Apple can remove your app at any time for any reason with completely asymmetric power.
- Apple forces you to build on their hardware despite software being limitless.
- Apple frequently brings out competing apps.
Once a person is in the Apple ecosystem, it's very difficult to reach them without paying Apple somehow.
- What average user side loads apps? That would be like asking to sideload apps on your microwave -- it's just impractical and not the commonplace behavior. I understand this is HN, but still. Sideloading apps is a minor complaint for a minority: Google report recently showed 0.06 of users sideload apps, globally. Paltry.
- Both Apple AND Google have to pay 15% for all commerce originated on the idea or platform at the end of the day.
- If your idea of maximizing "relationship" involves maximizing the companies profits first, then I disagree with the premise. Having a partnership with Apple is a good thing. You'll be associated with quality build and security. If you want to go your own way, then do what, say, Patreon does or OnlyFans does and do your own thing. No need to have Apple or Google for that matter hold you back.
- If you don't like the Apple browser (Safari) you're more than welcome to use Firefox and Chrome if you'd like and make adjustments to make it the default browser.
- Apple is doing what Amazon did/does best...is this so bad for every business as a whole? If we can all do better, why not? This will lift up profits for _everyone_.
- "Deploying at your own cadence" could lead to security bedlam if improperly executed. Not to mention the deployment monitoring on Google/Android is quite outdated.
- I'm sorry, but you're developing for their phone. It's not public. It's not a non-profit. It's like developing for Nintendo Switch -- of course you have to follow their development guidelines, procedures and recommendations to reach the level of quality they need. It's a two-way street. You're entering into their territory. You're brash for assuming you can just walk in and do whatever you want.
- Of course they should be able to have that right especially if malevelont actors are in play, which they are en masse and global at times. They need this right to protect users.
- Again, I bring up Nintendo here, but they forced developers to develop on the Wii and Switch using their odd hardware and software. Was that a sin? I think no. Odd hardware is only odd and cumbersome if you can't handle the technological "challenge." Which some like Capcom were able to handle with ease.
- They should be allowed to expand on their own OS. Claiming they can't because it "competes" with other apps is just not true, frankly. I think of the recent medications app. Does what most other junk medication apps do in the app store but 100X. Now I don't have to pay $19.99 for a "good" app (which frankly, sucks) I can just use the app Apple has.
- Let them go into the 88% Android ecosystem. Apple is for those of us users who want it to work, cleanly without headache. If it requires a "Tax" and pain for up-and-comer-developers so be it. If you want a perfect product, expect the imperfect to get weeded out.
I only want the cream of the crop in the app store, and I'm an average user. I don't want spyware/malware/bloatware and I want that weeded out for me beforehand. I don't want to step into a jungle. I want order and I want quality. That's just how I see it.
We're talking about America and how the DOJ needs to disrupt domestic corporate abuses.
> What average user side loads apps?
Kind of my point. Google makes it scary. Apple prevents it outright. In reality, everything should be distributed over the web.
> Both Apple AND Google have to pay 15% for all commerce originated
No they do not. They pay peanuts to maintain the biggest and most profitable walled gardens in the world. Adding little to the world while taxing the up and coming innovators.
> Apple is doing what Amazon did/does best
Amazon deserves the same treatment.
> could lead to security bedlam if improperly executed
This describes everything ever. Software isn't too dangerous to use.
> you're more than welcome to use Firefox and Chrome
Reskinned Safari. Woefully out of date with standards.
> Having a partnership with Apple is a good thing. You'll be associated with quality build and security.
I'll get billed margins that I need to pay my employees. I just want to write software, not pay the mafia boss that built an empire.
> you're developing for their phone
It's not their phone anymore - it's society's gateway to the Internet and ecommerce. The DOJ needs to catch up. Break up Apple and Google or put them into straightjackets.
> bring up Nintendo here
A kid toy, a sliver of the economy, replete with dozens of alternatives. You don't do banking, physical commerce, architectural design, or meet strangers to fuck with your Wii.
> I don't want to step into a jungle.
The world doesn't need kid gloves. Every time you step into a car you face death.
It's time to make competition from the bottom healthy again.
Does it matter? The capability exists. I can and have downloaded F-Droid and can easily download open-source free-from-Google apps without ever interacting with the Play Store. That's impossible on iPhone. If side-loading doesn't matter, then why doesn't Apple just allow it? Why the big hoopla?
> - If you don't like the Apple browser (Safari) you're more than welcome to use Firefox and Chrome if you'd like and make adjustments to make it the default browser.
Except you can't. Apple forces you to use Safari even if you install Firefox, Chrome etc. It's just reskins, not the actual browser. Safari is the new IE. An old, aging, out-of-date browser existing only so Apple can force their users into the prison of the App Store.
> - They should be allowed to expand on their own OS. Claiming they can't because it "competes" with other apps is just not true, frankly. I think of the recent medications app. Does what most other junk medication apps do in the app store but 100X. Now I don't have to pay $19.99 for a "good" app (which frankly, sucks) I can just use the app Apple has.
In other words, the big mega-corp can destroy competition as long as you don't have to pay $20 and can keep feeding the beast. Apple has stolen the concepts, ideas of apps that are well-loved by consumers, pretending that it's just apps that suck is disingenuous. Apple is not some saviour coming in to create better apps. They're stealing from competition and forcing them out of business.
It's a trillion dollar business, they should not be allowed to constantly destroy perfectly fine businesses. It leads to a crappy, non-competitive market.
I used to be a huge Windows Phone fan. During its heyday, it wasn't far behind Android or iOS in features, and it was in a really sweet spot where it was almost as open as Android to hacking without being hideously primitive and janky like Android was at the time. (Talking ancient Android, before the anti-jank project) Windows Phone had something like 50+ million users. Nobody would port any apps to it though, even "apps" that were just tracking code bundled around a website.
It was so damn frustrating that companies would come out with apps for set top boxes and game consoles that had total install bases a fraction the size of the Windows Phone market, but they'd completely ignore that phone platform since it was a smaller percentage of the overall phone market. What was even more bizarre is that they'd usually launch on iOS first despite its tiny install base relative to Android at the time, since the execs personally liked iPhones better.
Somehow the path of every big business and VC required an "app" on iOS first, then eventually adding half-assed Android support, and not only did they not support other platforms, they'd actively block users from hacking together their own open source clients for linux, Windows Phone, etc.