US Supreme Court declines to hear appeals in Apple-Epic Games legal battle
reuters.com
reuters.com
US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39020365 - Jan 2024 (238 comments)
So, to summarize, the relevant market is this dispute was the mobile game market (not an iPhone-specific market like Epic wanted), Apple does not have a monopoly in that market, and Apple doesn’t need to charge less in the App Store or for in-app purchases. But, due to California law, Apple cannot prevent developers from informing consumers that lower prices are available outside of the app.
Will this lead to a carve out for California users, similar to the carve out they are making for app stores in the EU?
Apple’s cert petition at the Supreme Court was basically the argument that’s it’s unfair that a lawsuit from one developer would prevent its anti-steerage language from adhering to any developer.
Regardless of the legality around this, I just don't get that kind of thinking. So anyone who wants to be able to exercise their legal right would have to, individually (or as a class, I guess) take Apple to court over this?
That would actually be kinda fun, now that I think about it. Apple getting hit with thousands of lawsuits over the same thing, all of them settled case law, having to spend all that money on lawyers and court fees.
This reminds me of a dumb quirk of Italian law. Italy offers citizenship to non-citizen foreigners who can prove an unbroken line of citizenship back to their most recent Italian ancestor who was an Italian citizen. (It's more complicated than that and there are some rules and caveats, but that's the basic idea.) There's a super-misogynistic part of that law that says citizenship cannot be passed through female ancestors prior to 1948. The Italian Supreme Court has ruled that part of the law unconstitutional. But the law is still on the books, and Italy's legislature has not updated it to remove the unconstitutional language, so anyone who wants to use that route to get citizenship has to go to court to do so. It's such a waste of everyone's time and money (well, the lawyers, as usual, make out quite well: a slam-dunk case for them that takes very little effort).
Sort of? Apple's appeal was essentially:
1. The federal court was asked by a single litigant to rule on whether this provision of our agreement with them is unfair.
2. Because the role of courts is to provide relief to the litigants of the case, this court has exceeded its authority by making a ruling against all agreements that Apple has with other parties.
I don't know that they necessarily expected to win on that claim, but it doesn't seem to be entirely without merit. There is risk in a world where courts can use individual cases to effectively act with executive and legislative powers.
Federal courts can “certify” questions of state law to the state courts if they don’t know how they should be applying state law, but in this case neither the district court nor the 9th Circuit felt the need to ask for clarification. The Supreme Court has final say on questions of Federal and Constitutional law. State courts have final say on State law and State Constitutions.
A State law that directly conflicts with a Federal law is preempted. There are also sometimes “zones” of preemption created by broad Federal laws. But, in this case, there is no conflict.
Does someone more familiar with the process know if it's a guarantee now that Apple will be forced to comply with that part of the original ruling, or is there room for them to get it removed or postponed indefinitely?
The 9th Circuit’s mandate will now be sent down to the district court, and judgement entered (on just the anti-steerage provision) for Epic. It’s a done deal at this point.
Is this CA law enforceable because Apple is HQ in CA, or simply because they do business there?
- if simply due to operating business there, couldn't Apple geofence the entire state and only allow developers the option to steer consumers who are using their app within CA state lines?
- if it's simply because Apple is HQ in CA, couldn't Apple simply move it's HQ (on paper) to another US state (like Texas, where a lot of other tech companies have moved HQs)
If the business is conducting business with people within a given geographic boundary, then the laws of that geographic boundary apply to the business.
> if simply due to operating business there, couldn't Apple geofence the entire state and only allow developers the option to steer consumers who are using their app within CA state lines?
Yes.
> U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in 2021 rejected Epic's antitrust claims against Apple. But the judge found that Apple violated California's unfair competition law by barring developers from "steering" users to make digital purchases that bypass Apple's in-app system, which Epic contends could save them money with lower commissions.
Choice of law provisions are still subject to the prevailing law. And the first determinant of prevailing law is physical location. Sacramento exerts de facto jurisdiction over every Apple and related asset within California.
I was going to say there's no way they're registered in CA, most companies are registered in Delaware or whatever.....
But nope! Apple Inc is registered in California. Go figure. For all the Irish tax shenanigans, they're still registered in California!
Depending on your Home Country, “Apple” means:
Apple Inc., located at One Apple Park Way, Cupertino, California, for users in the United States, including Puerto Rico;
Apple Canada Inc., located at 120 Bremner Blvd., Suite 1600, Toronto ON M5J 0A8, Canada for users in Canada;
Apple Services LATAM LLC, located at 1 Alhambra Plaza, Ste 700 Coral Gables, Florida, for users in Mexico, Central or South America, or any Caribbean country or territory (excluding Puerto Rico);
iTunes K.K., located at Roppongi Hills, 6-10-1 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-6140, Tokyo for users in Japan;
Apple Pty Limited, located at Level 3, 20 Martin Place, Sydney NSW 2000, Australia, for users in Australia or New Zealand, including in any of their territories or affiliated jurisdictions; and
Apple Distribution International Ltd., located at Hollyhill Industrial Estate, Hollyhill, Cork, Republic of Ireland, for all other users.
“ [0] https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/us/term...
> Except to the extent expressly provided in the following paragraph, this Agreement and the relationship between you and Apple shall be governed by the laws of the State of California, excluding its conflicts of law provisions. You and Apple agree to submit to the personal and exclusive jurisdiction of the courts located within the county of Santa Clara, California, to resolve any dispute or claim arising from this Agreement.
[0] https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/us/term...
I wonder why Apple didn’t pick Delaware or another business friendly state.
Why do we act like there is a "mobile game market" when there are clearly two distinct major private markets, both monopolized by definition of private control over basic aspects like pricing and content, including mandating a private tax rate?
The only ones who would really benefit are other large corporations like Epic.
This is completely irrelevant if they are a monopoly and subject to anti trust laws.
> I don't see why they owe it to other companies
That owe it to the countries that they are based in to follow the law, or move their entire company else where, if that's what they choose.
No legal precedent supports the idea that the Android or iOS app stores are monopolies under US law. We are in a thread discussing a final verdict against that proposition which is now binding in CA9.
“This is completely irrelevant if [this decidedly false fact]” is not really a useful statement. Wishcasting that courts will misinterpret the law is not the way forward, the way forward is new laws.
Gotcha. Unrelated to my point though.
My point was that someone saying "well it's their platform, they can do what they want!" Is making a bad argument.
If someone wants to make a good argument, instead of a bad one, then you would have to start talking about what a monopoly is.
But whoever built the platform is simply an argument that is unrelated.
> is not really a useful statement.
It absolutely is useful, because it focuses on the question that matters.
No matter if you think that Apple is a monopoly or not, of which there are reasonable arguments to be made on all sides, the fact that Apple built it just doesn't matter.
Talk about the things that matter, not unrelated points.
> a final verdict against that proposition which is now binding in CA9.
If you meant to imply that this is a final verdict on if Apple is a monopoly or not, then I would recommend that you re-read the original ruling of the California judge.
The California judge was very clear that the verdict only shows that Epic failed in their arguments, not that Apple is decidedly not a monopoly.
Now that SCOTUS has denied cert this constitutes a final judgement. Its rulings on law are binding throughout the 9th circuit. While “possession of monopoly power is a fact question”, this denial is likely to be the final say for quite some time on questions of whether Apple possesses monopoly power in markets related to app stores, which it obviously does not because of the existence of Android.
Epic attempted to argue that Apple has monopoly power in “iOS games” which was rejected since you can’t just arbitrarily narrow your market definition until you find a monopoly.
You still don't understand. This is in reference to epic's case. It not about other people's cases. The final judgement is on Epic. It is not on the upcoming US government case, for example.
Do you understand the difference?
Do a control F on the document for "Epic failed". Notice how the words "epic failed" are completely different from "everyone in the world has failed"?
This case is about epic's case, not others. Mostly because Epic did not provide enough evidence and failed on the fact finding portion of the original trial.
But that has nothing to do with if other groups provide evidence that Epic missed.
> Epic attempted to argue
Epic attempted to argue it. And epic's, and only epic's argument has failed.
> which it obviously does not because of the existence of Android.
I don't think you understand what a monopoly is, according to anti trust law.
A monopoly is not a single firm. Instead it is about durable market power.
https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...
From the FTC:
"Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors."
If you want another source, for future lawsuits, you can simply research the US government's upcoming case against apple.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/17/doj-to-file-antitrust-case-a...
I probably shouldn't have used the term. It's still a very negative sign about our future that's worth fighting.
The right way to look at it is "US law is not written in a way to recognize and break up these monopolies". By any common sense or economic definition, these are monopolies. That the legal definition is out of whack is a problem which will hopefully be corrected.
It's up to us to make them give us better tools for us. This isn't a natural thing that just happens. I don't give a damn which company succeeds in the end so long as the consumer is fairly represented.
They paid lawmakers to keep the laws the way they want them to be.
Just so we're clear, if we were talking about some other country it would be called bribery.
No, they did not and no we would not.
If you have evidence of Apple or Google cutting a cheque to any lawmaker, personally, I'll commit here and now to paying you six figures for it, because it's worth ten times that much in the open.
https://www.opensecrets.org/search?order=desc&q=apple&sort=A...
$140,000 to a John Harris Whitmire. Apparently he's "an American attorney and politician who is the 63rd mayor of Houston, Texas" according to Wikipedia.
I'm not arguing it doesn't buy influence. It does, though not in the form popularly conceived. But it's not bribery. Cheapening bribery by conflating it with campaign finance, or worse, lobbying in general isn't intellectually honest.
A personal election campaign is presumably something in your personal interest, and money is fungible.
> I'm not arguing it doesn't buy influence. It does, though not in the form popularly conceived. But it's not bribery. Cheapening bribery by conflating it with campaign finance, or worse, lobbying in general isn't intellectually honest.
On the contrary, giving in to the sophistry that says that this particular system of organised and regulated bribery is somehow not bribery is intellectual dishonesty. Yes there are some relevant differences between this and other forms of bribery, but the similarities are stronger.
> If you have evidence of Apple or Google cutting a cheque to any lawmaker
And then
> That's a campaign donation
Use newspeak and call it whatever you want, it is VERY clear MONEY WAS PAID TO A LAWMAKER, which is EXACTLY what you wanted evidence of. This very clearly means you need to cut me a 6 figure cheque.
Again, other countries very clearly call this bribery, the US just invented a new word for it.
You absolutely can. You can loan money to your campaign and charge interest on that and then have donors donate to your campaign to repay your debt. Brought to you by the conservative wing of the supreme court in FEC v Cruz.
Are you talking about the App Stores?
The EU realized that and just passed a huge new law/regulatory framework to address it, and presumably the US will be closely watching this space.
It seems like the "iPhone experience" is paying a ton more than you should have to, including the 30% price hike for in-app purchases. Since Apple is already a status symbol brand that might not hurt their image much, but at least this case helped to raise awareness about what people are buying into or have already signed up for with the iphone.
0: https://www.fortnite.com/news/announcing-epic-direct-payment...
A judge can't simply mandate a private tax rate and probably wouldn't want to anyway. Antitrust judgments typically try to remedy root causes limiting competition so the market can work out the rest, rather than try to guess some arbitrary "fair" rate that wouldn't be constant anyway.
The duopoly of mobile app stores would not be nearly as problematic if it wasn’t also tied to a duopoly in phone OS vendors, one of which also tied to a monopoly in phone vendors, which is tied to a monopoly (quasi-monopoly? not sure what to call iMessage in the US) in instant messaging platforms etc.
Which is exactly what RMS and like minded individuals have been warning about. Meanwhile Microsoft is working very hard to retro-fit this onto the remains of the PC market.
Which is not illegal per se and, in most cases, such as Apple’s, not even subject to antitrust scrutiny.
Horizontal integration as a result of mergers is immediately subject to legal scrutiny.
Vertical integration by virtue of mergers can be subject to legal scrutiny.
Vertical integrations as a result of organic expansion are not subject to legal scrutiny.
From a US antitrust perspective, Apple is wholly in the clear as long as they don’t actively abuse their market power after they’ve gained their market dominance.
This means that Apple can be as restrictive and aggressive as it wants before it gains market dominance in the relevant market and maintains that stance as long as they don’t restrict after it gains market dominance.
This makes sense; in the US, they don’t want to punish success, and you are allowed to have an “innocent” monopoly. This also makes sense from the perspective of market-wide ramifications.
If you’d punish vertical integration or single-brand markets in general, then every start-up that automatically has a monopoly over its own products would be subject to punishment. If I develop a new smartphone tomorrow with its own OS and adopt Apple’s approach to the walled garden, I’d be immediately in trouble.
The fact that Apple became successful doesn’t change anything as long as that success isn’t gained by illegal means, like throwing my newly gained market dominance around.
The EU has a different approach to this, mainly through carving legislation that aims to target specific companies. Still, it remains to be seen if that can withstand adjudication by the courts because the EU courts aren’t very eager to condone targeting at this level and retroactively making things illegal.
In a general sense, it’s baffling to see how many people have trouble wrapping their heads around the simple premise that success isn’t punishable in and of itself and that you actively need to abuse your market dominance after you’ve gained it.
The rule of thumb is that if something is perfectly legal to do when you’re small, it’s also perfectly legal to maintain that behavior once you’re big, with very few exceptions.
This is precisely why Apple is always so restrictive when introducing something (e.g., App Store, no carrier bloatware, Apple Pay, commission rate, etc.) because they can always be more flexible. Still, they can never tighten the reigns once they’re successful.
Google tried this the other way around. Relatively open and permissive ecosystem. Now, they’re trying to close it up and bully other parties into doing what benefits Google; this got them in trouble.
Similarly, people really seem to have trouble wrapping their heads around the fact that “the iPhone” is just not the relevant market definition.
Courts almost never go with a single-brand market definition, because it almost never is a relevant definition and would open the door to ramifications across commerce, if only because pretty much every manufacturer has a single brand market and monopoly over it.
When determining the relevant market you want to include substitute products, both on the demand side and supply side.
Switching costs are a factor in determining the competitive pressure, but switching cost doesn’t mean that you can therefore exclude substitutions from the market definition, if only because there’s almost always a switching cost involved. Often times even very high switching costs exist, like a cancellation fee and switching cost can also be non-monetary like the time it takes to learn a product.
A lot of companies try to significantly increase switching cost to lock customers in. This doesn’t mean they don’t have competition in their market or that their acts are illegal.
The court has found that Google/Android is a suitable substitution both on the demand side as well as the supply side. People can switch to Android if Apple (indirectly) increases the costs of apps and developers can also switch if the cost of making apps becomes too high.
Keep in mind that the courts don’t care if an average consumer or supplier would do so, only if a marginal consumer/supplier would. In other words, if a small but significant amount of people would do so, typically 5-10%.
Then Apple can produce their OS, Google can produce their OS, and handset makers can be free to choose what OSes and app stores to support on their phone.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pic....
Well, it's bad regardless of the concept of monopolies. Private markets are not a good sign.
This just means private market. There's nothing special about the term "platform" that changes the feudal nature of this. The tenants compete but the operator has coerced exclusion on collecting its tax. This private market has a single operator offer access on non-negotiable terms against which no other entity is able to make a competing offer. If that's not a monopoly, it's certainly far worse to everyone but the owner of the market.
I chose to buy a device, it's mine. What on earth are you doing meddling with what i do with it, apple? Your taste in apps sucks ass and you charge the poor app developers 10x the value you provide. Being forced to use the appstore actively lowers the value of my phone.
I don't appreciate this attempt by large corps to just rewrite the meaning of ownership and markets without giving us any of the benefits of a world without property or a centralized marketplace. The people here who defend it disgust me.
How is this not straightforwardly a vertically owned market with full price controls to which we can only rent space at exorbitant cost and little return compared to an public market?
We all know the reason: it drives profits and our index funds. Nobody wants to kill the golden goose, even if that represents us all getting collectively sold up river. Which should remind you of about a thousand other problems this country faces.
Hate this useless state for real
That said, the arguable App Store monopoly (legal) is being challenged in the EU and it sounds like Apple is getting ready to relinquish a bit of that stronghold (apparently by giving the EU a different model of software or something. Still have yet to read the rumors in detail).
If Apple has monopoly here then Best Buy has a monopoly too. Everything you buy in Best Buy is priced according to Best Buy. You can't walk into a Best Buy and say "Oh, I already paid for it on Sony's website, so I'm just here to pick up the TV".
Even then, if we focus on stores: Google with multiple stores still does have a play store monopoly (formal, arguably legal given current lawsuits) on Android OS. And on top of that, the EU rulings with Apple mean your metaphor may not be as farfetched as you make it seem.
These aren't based on my opinions so much the fact that both OS are under legal fire. So I wouldn't dismiss this so easily.
The law is arbitrary and highly path-dependent. But in the absence of the law, there's no "market" period, not as a government-protected legal construct. Without the law, Apple could just tell Epic to pound sand because they have the right-of-might to rotate encryption keys, release future versions of the iPhone that scan for Epic software using hardware-based solutions and brick the phone if they're detected, and drop OS updates that retroactively delete Epic games from user phones if they wanted.
I'm glad for the law that prevents that, even if it's the same framework that makes me act like there's a "mobile game market."
On the one hand Apple payments are really frictionless. There is no way 3rd parties can match it. Plus easy to track/cancel.
On the other hand a lower price is a lower price. But is it low enough to get enough users to enter a credit card?
Combine this with the alternate App Store thing (looks like EU only) and we’re in for some shaking out of what is and is not a good strategy as an app maker with never before seen on iPhone options in the mix.
An excellent question. I think the thing is that for the prices that often show up in apps, maybe not? Like, for a $3 app I don't think I'm going to go visit some website, go through their flow, and get out my credit card if I'm only going to save $1. (Ok, I'd probably do it on principle at this point to stick it to Apple, but that's not the same thing.)
If I were going to shell out $100, I'd certainly go to the extra trouble to pay $70 instead, though.
The dangerous thing is that with all these mobile games that slowly siphon money from you, you might over time end up spending many tens or even hundreds of dollars (where 30% off might be a significant amount of money). But if each transaction is small, you might not think much of the difference of a dollar or so per transaction.
And right now we don’t know how big (or small) that effect is.
- no need to enter a CC number in another site (and maintain it)
- no need to create another account to make that payment (or unironically use Apple Pay flows)
- trivial cancellation
- trivial cancellation of limited time trials
Maybe I'm fortunate, stupid, or a combination but not being able to pay for Netflix using Apple subscriptions really bugs me and I'd pay more to avoid it. Which reminds me I need to cancel it...
Well, Apple Pay makes that way easier. But that brings them back to Apple.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-pay-fees-vex-credit-card-...
Would be hilarious is Apple decided to make ApplePay less convenient in Safari now to hobble the competition.
App Store refunds are not that different from credit card chargebacks. They mostly happen automatically, with some automatic abuse mitigation as well as a mechanism for the developers to report abuse.
With Stripe, foreign exchange is an extra 1%. The rest of those are taken care of as part of the 3% fee. It doesn't cost that much to process payments.
The one nice thing about the App Store is the centralized recurring subscription management. Seems like a nice juicy low-hanging fruit for Strip to disrupt now that they're allowed to.
It's actually worse with the AppStore, because Apple provides absolutely no assistance to the developer unless you're a billion-dollar plus company.
So Apple gets paid. The customer who has to pay more loses.
And the debate is whether Apple or the app developer gets the blame. I suspect the latter.
Apple will still be collecting 27%: https://www.macrumors.com/2024/01/16/us-app-store-alternativ...
The EU will attack this eventually and demand that the number of taps/clicks/screens to do an apple payment match those of third parties...
2023 New years day I signed up for an offer 6 bucks a month. I knew it was only for a year, but then I forgot. On new years day 2024, I got charged 50 bucks. Maybe I could have fought it, maybe I could have spent some time challenging it, but it was not worth my time, so I canceled my subscription. But what cost me 12 X 6 = 72 for a year now cost me 50 bucks for a month.
This is the difference Apple's payment system can make. You visit the store regularly (hopefully), so you know when the renewal is up, and at what price. Even if you do not visit regularly, I presume you can set up alerts to notify you of expiry, and IIRC they allow small adjustments to the price without notification, but 6=>50 would be notified. Pretty sure.
Of course this does not work for some companies who thrive on people slacking off on canceling re-priced subscriptions.
I don’t think I have any monthly or weekly subscriptions so I can’t be sure about those. I would expect they’re the same though.
> Yvonne-Gonzalez was skeptical of the 30% fee during the trial, and in the ruling she was suspicious about Apple's justification of the commission, writing that "the 30% is not tied to anything in particular and can be changed," but did not order Apple to do so.
Nothing in the ruling[1] seems to prohibit Apple from still charging a "iOS License Fee" for access to the developer tools, APIs, etc. I can very well see them charging based on # of installs or % of revenue, even if developers direct people to an outside payment processor.
0: https://www.npr.org/2021/09/10/1036043886/apple-fortnite-epi...
1: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21060696-epic-v-appl...
It'd end up functioning similar to income tax: Apple has a pretty darn good sense for what the numbers should look like, but they'd rely on you to fill in the gaps, and if you didn't do so accurately they'd sue you for breach of contract.
I'm not sure what would make that an easier anti-competitive lawsuit than the one that Epic lost.
If they decide to ban these kinds of messages, and only enforce link tracking, that would be directly in conflict with the ruling.
Most apps that currently go through the App Store for sales are simple. There are sales for apps (or subscriptions), and they can be individually accounted. You and Apple both know how many users you have on Apple devices, and Apple gets a cut of sales to those users.
I don't like it any more than you do, but it's not hard to do the accounting.
[0] "A Licensed Application may read or play content (magazines, newspapers, books, audio, music, video) that is offered outside of the Licensed Application (such as, by way of example, through Your website) provided that You do not link to or market external offers for such content within the Licensed Application."
If I buy Epic in-game currency from Epic and use it on my PC to buy some skin, and then use the skin I bought that way when playing on my iPhone, should Apple get a cut of the money? If yes, how much? The cost of the skin, or the cost of the in-game currency (maybe I bought a 10 USD bundle, but the skin only cost 1 USD, the other 9 USD is just staying in my account unused)?
Worth noting that they only charge the commission on In-App Purchases, which are "Not Apple Pay".
Apple Pay itself is just a way to pay with Wallet-saved cards and Apple only charges a nominal 15bp fee to the bankcard issuer.
Which part of the judgments would that conflict with? Both the District Court’s ruling and the 9th Circuit’s decision that affirms it only speaks of anti-steering, without any qualifications on potential limitations on steering users away
They also both affirm that the commission would still be due and that Apple would have the right to audit to enforce payment of said commission.
Apple, since then, has implemented changes to its policy that allow steering, albeit under circumstances that will enable them to track users using the purchase link and claim commission over sales in the seven days that follow.
Any opposition to these requirements would be met with a “legitimate interest” counterargument, the legitimacy of the interest already being established by the courts by them stating that they still owe Apple a commission.
In layperson’s terms:
The courts have said that Apple can’t prohibit developers from steering users to an alternative purchase flow while simultaneously stating that developers will still owe Apple the commission. Apple, in response, said: Fine, but we want to be able to track it when you do this and make sure you don’t make it look like the native IAP flow to trick users.
What’s the argument of the developers here? They’re allowed to steer users away to their purchase flow of choice; they just have to do it in a way that makes it easy for Apple to audit the owed commissions.
I can’t imagine the courts frowning upon this, especially when both courts have stated on multiple occasions in their judgment how arduous it would be for both Apple and the developers to ensure payment of commissions if alternative payment methods are utilized. This alleviates some of those concerns.
So they do definitively know the volume of apps a developer has sold.
StoreKit API likely phones home as well: https://developer.apple.com/support/storekit-external-entitl...
[0] https://developer.apple.com/support/terms/apple-developer-pr...
This article mentions nothing about it - was this interpretation overly pessimistic?
And they know total installs from the notary service.
Yeah they can piss off with that. It’ll go away with time.
So Apple's method of complying is:
- yes you can link to an external price, but you need to use our API (External Purchase Link) to do it, per our terms
- any purchases made via an External Purchase Link require Apple be paid the usual cut, per our terms
Seems to fairly clearly violate the spirit of the last ruling, but not the letter of it. I dislike Apple's behavior here, but it's actually kinda genius from a "malicious compliance" perspective. Doing the above is going to be more annoying and you will still owe them a cut, so everyone will just keep doing IAP via Apple if their implementation is allowed to stand.
https://9to5mac.com/2024/01/16/apple-revises-us-app-store-ru...
Remove the link and offer a url ;)
What does this mean? Does Apple even allow any alternatives?
Epic’s cert petition at the Supreme Court focused on the argument that it’s unfair that their identified solution needed to be equally or less burdensome, but the Supreme Court turned them away.
Which I think is preposterous, but... there we are.
Steam should make a smart phone, fully open under the hood, decent specs, no walled gardens except optional ones.
Should a mega corp like apple be the gatekeepers for this kind of stuff? In an ideal world no, but at least they are the only ones doing it.
I agree that side-loading apps is no panacea; I use Android, and while I do have the F-Droid store installed, and even side-load a small utility app or two that I've written myself but can't be bothered to make publicly available, I'm actually not sure I know anyone in person who uses anything but the Play Store.
But having the option there, to me -- even if I didn't use it -- is huge. Hell, having the option to install a third-party OS on the phone (even though I don't do it, because it would involve too many compromises to my daily use) is huge.
That should be the default, not this locked-down nonsense Apple forces on everyone. It's just sad to me that so many people accept it as ok and normal.
Just apply this same reasoning to Apple iPhones. Everyone says sideloading is a big deal, but it turns out that when the phones don't have sideloading, people still use them anyway. I guess maybe it just doesn't matter.
Personally I’m happy with both the operation of Facebook and Apple.
I do not wish a 3rd party with no track record of technical innovation, and especially not the US government, come and make some rules about what is a “higher standard”.
You should have higher standards too, then.
My standards are plenty high. They just aren’t aligned with your world views.
You could also do nothing, and just adapt to sideloading and anti-Meta regulation when they both come around.
That's right you didn't call me dumb or irrational, you're just using a metaphor where you look down on me from your higher plane.
Aka they used their position to crush competition not to increase privacy. They absolutely could have taken the opportunity to improve privacy overall but that would have limited their own ads platform so they didn't.
While there are other examples, a single example I think suffices: Google Pay. I like contactless payments, and I like not having to fish around for a credit card (or just not having to bring a credit card, say if I'm out for a run). What are the chances of a Google/Apple-Pay-workalike app ever appearing on the Librem 5 or Pinephone? Seems pretty slim to me.
I'm not saying these phones have no value; clearly they do. And the world is better off with their existence. But they are not a realistic choice for most people.
Yes, unfortunately, if you want the freedom and control, you have to pay for that with some compromises.
> What are the chances of a Google/Apple-Pay-workalike app ever appearing on the Librem 5 or Pinephone?
Waydroid allows to run Android apps. It works fine on my Librem 5, unless apps require verified Android environment. Unfortunately Librem 5 has no NFC at all. AFAIK Pinephone offered a case which enabled NFC functionality.
Also, cell carrier will be tracking your location and giving that info out. Not sure if that can be avoided, but maybe a prepaid plan helps anonymize it.
(Emphasis mine)
I'm quite amused that this is how language works.
https://9to5mac.com/2024/01/16/apple-revises-us-app-store-ru...
What if there was a standardized way to discover these alternative payment links, so users would automatically go there to find a discounted price.
Google engaged in anti competitive practices by discouraging competing stores. Apple doesn’t have competing stores so there’s nothing to compete against.
The law is consistent in that regard because of the scope of the subject matter.
What matters is if using the monopoly position is used to impede competition.
epic could not prove Apple was a monopoly outside their ecosystem. They could prove that Google abused their power within their ecosystem however.
1. Every company is, in some respect or another, technically a monopolist with regard to its own products. Indeed if this were not true most would go out of business rather quickly.
2. Different legal standards apply to a company selling a finished product to customers vs a company licensing/selling a partial solution to other manufacturers who then sell a finished product to customers.
If you are interested these two principles are a decent starting point for investigation.
Which is irrelevant because monopoly law considers whole markets including consumers and not individual products.
I'd personally like to see a federal law trying a scalpel first, where at purchase time people can elect to have the ability to add to the root key store of any hardware they buy, or entrust that to the manufacturer instead. That'd preserve most if not all of the benefits for those who don't want to have to deal with that like right now, and wish to pool their collective purchasing power with Apple or whomever to enforce certain standards on developers. But it'd mean anyone who wanted to could also venture forth from the walled garden and small devs who wanted to focus on that could do so. In terms of power balance I think it'd work out pretty well, the biggest players also want to reach the broadest audience and thus would face more restrictions, whereas small focused devs fine catering to a devoted fanbase, or pure open source, would have the most freedom. It's kinda too bad so much of the conversation is binary of "complete jailed garden" like right now vs "devs getting to do whatever they want to everyone whether they like it or not" like on the PC.
I am very interested in the outcome of this case. I also absolutely do not care for the idea of the Supreme Court wasting one hour on it.
This is why “snubs” is misleading. This case has been extensively argued. SCOTUS is saying no novel legal questions are apparent to it; the appeals court is affirmed.
While the word "fairly" is often used in place of "consistently", that can lead to confusion because some people mistake the word "fairness" in this context as meaning "morally fair" judicial outcomes. While "moral fairness" does sometimes happen as a result of applying the law consistently, it's not the primary goal or purpose of courts. When things in society are happening that are unfair or otherwise wrong, blaming the courts is like blaming the CPU instead of the programmer. In the US, the "programmer" is congress (the legislative branch). They write the code. The courts in this analogy are the CPU. Their job is to run the code as written correctly and consistently. If the outcomes aren't satisfactory, it's either a bug, missing feature or unhandled exception in the code.
The Supreme Court's primary job is to fix system bugs at the micro-code and kernel levels, stuff like scope violations, etc, when the system runs correct code improperly. It's very rare for the issue behind "bad or unexpected outcomes" to be due to the micro-code or kernel but it can happen. Those rare times are when you call the Supremes. When the Supremes pass on accepting a case without comment, it's like rejecting a bug report, often due to it being a bug in the application-level code. In those cases passing is like responding "Not our Bug." Other times they are basically saying the issue is due to a program using system-level APIs in undefined ways. From their perspective, the system responding to ill-defined or undefined instructions with unexpected or inconsistent results is actually correct, so they respond with "Won't Fix (GiGO)". No one wants the CPU making up how to correctly respond to undefined instructions on its own. This is why the phrase "Courts don't make they law, they apply the law" is such a mantra.
In this case, congress hasn't yet written any code designed to directly address this use case. If we want to "fix" things we need to get the feature approved and on the legislative backlog to be addressed in a future sprint.
I also acknowledge the exact boundary of the court's proper scope has always been a philosophical gray area over which reasonable people can disagree. However, I think most judicial observers today would agree that some courts in prior eras definitely exceeded those proper bounds, even if they don't agree among themselves on exactly how much and when. While there are still those who believe the excessive judicial activism of the past was proper, I think today that viewpoint is a small minority. I suspect that's because even those who agree directionally with certain historical precedents established through such activism understand that the judicial creativity that's wonderful when the court leans your way becomes terrible when the winds inevitably blow the other way.
Hence my analogy about CPUs and how few people think it's a good design approach to "fix" poorly written code or even programs doing things we no longer agree with at the CPU level. The most predictable, reliable and sustainable long-term design approach is for CPUs to consistently run the code as written and for misbehaving code to be fixed at the program level. I think this remains the most proper design intention despite some CPUs of the past being purposefully "creative" to achieve what some may believe were more desirable outcomes than just sticking to the code as written.
They could greatly expand the bench (aka have more judges) so cases get heard faster.
They could create entirely new levels of legal proceedings by expanding "small claims" or invent other forms of legal review that are less formal with simpler discovery rules.
They could greatly expand the basis for appeals and insert more levels of review into the existing process, rather than just trial -> appellate -> SCOTUS.
The fact that the current congress is dysfunctional is a political problem the courts can't fix.
For what it's worth, we have 62 judicial vacancies with 25 nominees pending [1]. Bugging your Senator about this from time to time isn't a bad idea, since most electeds are convinced their voters don't care about judges.
[1] https://www.uscourts.gov/judges-judgeships/judicial-vacancie...
The courts, including the Supreme Court, are supposed to apply the law as written. If people are unhappy with the law, they need to take that up with Congress, not the court system.
And I think we both agree a great many things are issues Congress should resolve by changes to the law.
I find it unfortunate that the vast majority of arguments (for or against) in these kinds of cases are just ad-hoc complaints about what the poster wants because it would be more convenient for them. There is very little reasoning from principles going on. The much larger question is: should companies be able to be rewarded for creating a market? That covers everything from retail stores to game consoles and cell phones.
Millions of businesses pay commissions every single day to someone else for access to the other company's customers. Some people say they aren't doing anything of value, they are just getting in the middle... but if they hadn't done anything at all there would be no market and no customers to sell to. It takes a ton of work to build a business, find customers, keep those customers happy, and get those customers to enter an ongoing payment relationship the customer trusts enough to continue making purchases. And come back to keep buying into the ecosystem every X years. My personal opinion is that has a value greater than $0 that so many people seem to be arguing here.
Addressing the issue would certainly be the job of the legislative branch but I question whether they should try to address this with a law. My feelings on this are a bit conflicted because I truly hate "Jailed Gardens" and wish they didn't exist. However, I also know that it's extremely difficult, if not impossible, to draft legislation that responds to dynamic, rapidly evolving problems in open-ended domains like high tech. It almost always ends up being ineffective, subverted or causing unintended consequences downstream.
As much as I hate it, in areas of governance often the only viable options are all non-optimal in various ways. In this case, I think the 'least bad' approach is to let Apple have their jailed garden and run it the way they want to (short of demonstrable anti-trust, of course). Personally, I opted out of Apple devices a long time ago for this very reason and use Android devices I can root and modify however I want. After all, some people like living in the iOS jailed garden and appreciate the benevolent dictator keeping them safe and making their decisions for them (or are at least willing to tolerate the costs for the benefits). For my part, this is just another of those things I really don't like but for which reflexively calling "Thar oughtta be a LAW!" would be ineffective or make things worse. The road to dystopias is paved with the good intentions of those trying to legislatively enforce idyllic utopias. It's annoying but maxing broad freedom to choose often requires tolerating the annoying behavior of others maxing their freedom to choose (including those selling time-shares in an idyllic garden-jail).
Even for a hugely important issue, they might decline to hear the case on those grounds, if they think the lower court got it right. For some types of hugely important issues, of course, they might choose to take the case anyway (even if just to affirm the lower courts ruling), in order to establish binding precedent over all federal circuit districts (and below).
This is not the correct view. Every year SCOTUS passes on many cases they think are worthy but not worthy enough to justify taking up the court's limited time. It can't just be a "worthy" case. It has to present serious constitutional questions, represent a split between the circuit courts, or similar.
The federal court view is that the courts cannot and should not be the venue to solve all problems. Congress should get off its lazy butt and legislate.
This seems circular. your last sentence IS what constitutes a worthy case (for the SCOTUS)
No I was correcting the idea that by passing on a case SCOTUS is blessing the lower court opinion.
SCOTUS passes on cases where the justices might completely disagree with the lower court or appellate decision. They pass on cases they think are a huge injustice too.
>Every year SCOTUS passes on many cases they think are worthy but not worthy enough to justify taking up the court's limited time. It can't just be a "worthy" case.
You must be using worthy in a different context than worthy of SCOTUS review.
I agree with you that decision or justice of the lower court is irrelevant, the SCOTUS cares about the reasoning behind it.
A case is worthy of the SCOTUS if it has a conflicted constitutional questions at the heart of it.
> Also, more simply put, SCOTUS declining to review a case is a tacit (and somewhat weak) way for them to state, "the lower court is probably right about this [...]"
I was refuting that notion. It is 100% incorrect.
SCOTUS passes up cases they think are wrongly decided all the time.
They pass on cases with constitutional questions if the case itself is not suitable (according to whatever criteria they use).
They pass on cases that meet all the bars because their calendar is already full with cases they think are more important, often trusting that the issue will present itself again in the future with different case.
SCOTUS passing on a case is not any form of agreement with lower courts. Not strong agreement. Not weak agreement.
So the courts agree that Apple uses anticompetitive practices.
Law is a whole lot more boring when you murder the rhetorical intent in how people interpret it with extreme prejudice.
Fixed it. They said not allowing developers to say it was possible to pay externally was against the law. I think a California law?
They did not say that about Apple’s fee, the existence of only Apple’s App Store, or anything else.
It was limited to anti-steering.
The thing here is that the only thing Epic won on was a fairly clear California law, the anti-steering stuff. While this is good news, this isn't really groundbreaking: it's an unsurprising legal result, given that the CA law exists, and doesn't conflict with any federal law.
The bits where Epic lost were much more significant, and were related to plain-vanilla anti-trust law. Law which I had hoped would apply here and break up Apple's iOS app distribution monopoly.