Hacker News Reader

Comment by figassis | Hacker News Reader

All 5 app stores have centralized user management. I login to the same account in all devices, using the exact same credentials. Watch store does not have fewer users than iPhone store, does not have fewer users than Mac store, does not have fewer users than iPad store.

All 5 app stores have centralized payment card management. Every app I buy charges the same card. I remove that card, it disappears on all stores. A payment fails on one App Store, I get asked to verify my payment info on all other stores.

I assume purchase notifications come from the same email. You manage your account on the same web UI.

All app stores are the same, but of course you need a different UI and possibly backend. In fact, don't I buy apple watch apps from iOS? Aren't there universal iPad/iOS apps?

Sometimes it feels like the level of conversation at these companies is below high school level.

View on HN

You can get your company banned from all stores, not just one. You have to sign up a dev account for all stores, not just one. You pay to publish to all stores, not just one.

They should just argue that every single account accesses their very own unique store.

A judge or jury should be insulted by Apple framing it this way. It’s very much a “this only works because I think you’re an idiot.”

Yeah, it is a provoking waste of the legal systems resources and all ours time. This type of behavior should be punishable in itself.

So should frivolous lawsuits.

Wasn't it previously that you had to pay a separate $99/year fees for Mac App Store in comparison to the iPhone App Store? These days I think you can do with just one $99/year payment.

Ye they were two separate programs, but in June 2015 they unified them.

I presume this was preempting the addition of native 3rd-party app support in WatchOS 2 in September of the same year, so they wouldn't need another developer program and/or app store.

I don't think the way you productize something in order to extract more money makes it a different platform. I'm sure on the backend you just have different subscriptions on the same database.

I’ll preface this by saying that I generally agree with the points you make.

The way the EU looks/looked at this is via monthly active users however, so active users of specific stores was actually relevant.

They realized that this would only put iOS in their crosshairs so they started changing their definition and that’s what Apple is arguing against.

Eh, these are implementation details.

But how can those stores effectively compete while being controlled by the same entity? The EU breaking up Apple into separate companies for each "store" because of this argument would be pretty funny, though.

The EU accepted that Safari for Mac, Safari for iOS and Safari for IpadOS are different browsers hence why the Gatekeeper clause doesn’t apply to Apple.

Apple just using the same argument they’ve successfully argued before already.

They made that argument about Safari, but did they win? I cannot find a news article about the outcome of the argument.

Well on macOS you're free to use whatever. On iOS and iPadOS Apple demands apps to use the Safari engine (WebKit).

So they are a gatekeeper on iOS and iPadOS, but not on macOS.

Didn’t they recently (as in iOS 17) allow for alternative browser engines to be used on mobile?

Apple doesnt fit the description of a monopoly, but this lawsuit was launched anyways. If making the correct arguement doesnt stop you from getting sued, you still have to come up with something to say. It might not be a coherent argument, but then neither is this case.

> However, the term is used more generally to refer to laws designed to prevent companies from engaging in any kind of anti-competitive action – that is, do anything that would tend to artificially distort competition within a market.

> One common myth is that antitrust laws only apply to monopolies. This is very much not the case: They apply to any company large enough to have a dominant position in any market.

High school level atleast much higher than the level of conversation in government.

Zing! Unless...?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com