So what are we left with? Apps where users are the product, like Facebook, and freemium apps where you end up paying to get anything useful done with it anyway. Apps where the parent company is making millions if not billions. Is anybody upset that those guys have to chip in for iOS development?
I personally think Apples approach is the lesser of two evils. We don’t pay for OS explicitly anymore. But look at Windows and Android… you end up paying somehow in the end anyway. I’d rather it be through fees on apps than more insidious approaches.
And no. Paying for the phone is not a viable way to pay for the OS. That incentives the phone maker to ditch OS updates for old phones. And we know that’s a real issue. As long as we pay through app fees the phone makers are incentivised to keep releasing OS updates for old phones.
I'm not sure why I have to mention this, but you could be paying for something and get screwed over at the same time. The issue isn't that Google/Microsoft/etc NEED to make money this way, but that this is legal to do.
Also, Windows isn't exactly cheap and I personally couldn't fathom paying more than 100 bucks for an OS and still get treated like crap. I'm sure Android at best only makes 10 bucks from their users with their current model throughout the device's entire lifetime.
I'm pretty sure Google pays Apple more than $10 per year per iPhone user to be the default search on iPhones and Mac. They were paying 18 billion back in 2021. I don't think Apple's marketshare is over 1.8 billion active users yet. Do you think Apple users are just that much more valuable to have searching?
Gaming apps. A huge majority of Apple's revenue (from IAP) came from gaming purchases. This would continue to be the case. A gaming app would have ads + options for purchases (none can survive without it) and Apple now earns both on downloads and IAPs. Many games cross the 1M threshold once they are popular enough. Gaming apps have low retention, and a power curve in paying users.
Plenty of useful apps like the Orca card reader (see your transit card balance by just tapping your card, no internet required), fun games like Antimine, and such where the devs will only target barrier free platforms as it's a passion project are missing in action on iOS.
Only if the app makes a series of decisions that lead to that outcome.
They can either stick with the 15%/30% commission without install fees. Let’s assume it has a revenue of >$1m, so that would be 30%.
Or they can opt into the new EU offering.
Then they’re immediately subject to a €0.50/unique install in 12 months per install in the EU over they reach a 1M installs in the EU.
The baseline is just that, that install fee. Which Apple calls the Core Technology Fee (CTF), in other words a fee for using Apple’s IP in your app.
If they also choose to distribute via the App Store then they’ll pay a commission of 17% and if they also choose to use IAP then they pay an additional 3% in processing fees.
Ironically, the CTF pushes bigger devs to use alternative stores, assuming they will offer a lower commission rate than 17%.
But it’s definitely possible to only pay the CTF if so desired.
Isn't that convenient, a series of (dis)incentives which ensure the house always wins, not just on average, but 100% of the time. Something that a certain piece of anti-trust regulation is intended to change?
I agree devs dont have to go for new terms and could stay with existing terms. The whole convoluted way of introducing this is meant to have that effect.
Microsoft updates Windows OS for longer than Apple updates MacOS or iOS, despite charging a one-time fee that most end-users don't pay themselves.
And is backwards compatible.
And works with 99.999999% of the computer hardware ever made.
It seems like with Apple, you're just paying for a lot of nothing.
Sure, the EU will fix things like they've managed to do in the past with other internet-related stuff (e.g., cookie notices). And I will definitely re-evaluate this take once things change in terms of ads for Windows. But until that happens, I don't see "the EU will fix that" as a valid point in favor of Windows.
https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/windows-11/wind...
All of my Windows PCs just work. And I can stick pretty much any hardware and they just work.
I can't say the say for any of the Apple devices that my friends own, all of whom have had to have them replaced at some point.
These days Microsoft screws their users hard in terms of stealing every scrap of personal data they can from people's devices and shoving ads and unwanted software down their throats. An Apple computer might be highly overpriced, under-powered, and restrictive, but Apple isn't the privacy nightmare that Microsoft is and while Macs aren't perfect when it comes to privacy protections I can't fault people for seeing value in their privacy and being willing to pay for it.
That said, most apple users are overpaying for a status symbol and/or an identity rather than strictly for the privacy benefits and for tech savvy users with privacy concerns a PC with linux is the way to go since it's even better at protecting their data and doesn't come with Apple's restrictions on what you can/can't do with your own computer.
I have never understood this viewpoint. The world isn't rich enough, or Apple devices exclusive enough, for identity to weight so heavily in Apple's favor.
I think convenience silently overshadows cost for many daily use products. People with modest incomes pay enormous annual sums for convenient daily coffee.
For many, relative reliability and lack of cruft make Apple products more convenient. For others, the inconvenience of Apple's "garden walls" drive them away.
Apple has been a status symbol for ages but the iphone made it undeniable. If you've been unaware of that just check out articles such as these:
"New research shows that owning an iPhone is the most common sign of wealth" (https://9to5mac.com/2018/07/08/iphone-wealth-research/)
"Why the iPhone Is the Perfect Status Symbol" (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/status-insanity-why-the-i_b_5...)
"The ‘iPhone Effect’: Are iPhone Users More Attractive Than Androiders?" (https://www.forbes.com/sites/traversmark/2023/12/30/the-ipho...)
As for identity, you may have never met an "apple" person, but it's absolutely an identity for many. It's a subculture (https://www.wired.com/2002/12/mac-loyalists-dont-tread-on-us...). People have called apple users "cult-like" and their devotion to the Apple brand a religion (https://www.jstor.org/stable/3712458). I have met people who were convinced that they couldn't be a "real" artist without owning Apple products (in one case the person was talking about ipods specifically, not computers or cell phones). The influence of marketing on Apple users can be extremely powerful.
As for expense, even in the US the majority of the population (60%) lives paycheck to paycheck and their standard of living is in decline. The high price of the iphone drove up the cost of other brands so the price gap is smaller at the highest end, but most households can't easily afford to get everyone a $1,000+ phone and android devices offer a wide range of prices and features for families who can't afford the top of the line. Even those that can will probably still get more for their money with a flagship android device. Apple users also have to pay much more for software (https://9to5mac.com/2023/09/06/iphone-users-spend-apps/) and that's not even counting the 30% extra apple charges for their cut of in-app purchases that's been talked about so much lately. Iphone users spend and have more money in general for a reason (https://www.marketingdive.com/news/survey-iphone-owners-spen...) and convenience isn't it.
That said, I agree that the perception of Apple being easier to use does drive sales and for people already used to Apple's weirdness there would certainly be a learning curve in switching away from the platform which encourages people to stay.
I am sure their was some iPhone status effects, especially in iPhone's early days. But status effects follow other effects and die quickly if a product doesn't deliver.
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I get fans.
I also get the anti-fan simplification syndrome of people who don't understand why Apple products have often appealed to others. Especially when those others are passionate at all.
Googling up articles that obscess of finding non-practical reasons for Apple enthusiasm isn't a good argument.
Apple has typically (for decades, with relatively few fails) had a cleaner level of design and polish vs. Microsoft and other alternatives.
That can be very hard to give up for those that appreciate it.
(Similarly for other consistently distinctively constructed product lines, emphasizing some other area of benefit, of course.)
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Replies to every one of your links:
> "New research shows that owning an iPhone is the most common sign of wealth"
The article talks about a statistical link with wealth. Not psychology. I don't find it surprising that the wealthy are less price conscious.
> "Why the iPhone Is the Perfect Status Symbol"
The Huffington piece is a complete puff peice. ("A friend got an iPhone because she could not call Uber cabs on her Blackberry. [...] If there is any prospect of drinks on the horizon, she leaves her iPhone safely at home" [..] "There's irony somewhere in this but until Apple comes up with a product called iRony, and livestreams its launch we won't get it.")
Re the "iPhone Effect":
> Apple has always positioned themselves as an aspirational brand. The emphasis on unmatched quality levels, a clean user experience and a distinct and consistent design is at the core of what makes it the most valuable company in the world. [Emphasis mine.]
That is a lot of practical daily non-status value for less price conscious people to buy.
> As for identity, you may have never met an "apple" person, but it's absolutely an identity for many.
I get there are fans. But Apple fans for the most part have had good practical reasons. One big reason wasnt Apple so much as the cruft and shovelware (and now in OS advertising) of other vendors that for some of us gets achingly frustrating. (I have generally had Macs and Windows machines for decades. Pro's and con's for each, but good lord, Windows is still a bag of inconsistency, disorganized plethora's of niggling settings, and trashy interface choices in comparison. Even though I appreciate many reasons others preferred Windows.)
> It's a subculture
Again, Apple products are distinctive in a way that impacts people at a practical level. And that article is from 2002.
> People have called apple users "cult-like" [...]
People often have trouble understanding other people's choices. Article from 2001!
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TLDR; Just because something can confer status, doesn't make status the reason people buy it. Especially 16 years after a high utility daily use product has been introduced and alternatives abound.
Takeaway: Let other's explain their own motives. Don't project narratives as if they are facts - regardless of how much they are repeated or satisfy you.
One serious research paper showing 60% of 10,000 iPhone owners across diverse demographics listing "status" as in their top 2 purchasing factors would realistically make the argument you are trying to make. Not the articles you listed.
The kinds of articles you thought worth quoting say more about you than Apple customers.
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Devil's advocate: Apple has not always delivered, other vendors have other benefits, and Apple's legacy of user interface design is seriously marred by "flat design" in my experience. (Design should make usage simpler, not reduce pixels, color, texture, visibility of options or status, or other affordances. Don't get me started on Ives need to eliminate ports people actually used, or flatten keyboards into unreliability.)
For instance I didn't even have an idea of what's required in my place to get recognized as non-profit. And it turns out it's specific to each region, and I need to go ask for the paperwork in the first place.
If the requirement is really a non profit legal status, Apple just raised the bar from "apps that just make no money" to "apps that registered to their local governing bodies that they have a goal of not making money", and that's a huge leap with a crazy high barrier for a random dev (imagine a kid in uni) to push a free app.
I'd almost argue it's easier to form a non-profit entity that become sponsored by a non-profit organization such as TLF.
This almost reinforces the parent's point.
If you are expecting less than $25k in revenue (donations, grants, program service revenue, etc.) in each of your first three years, you can use the IRS's abbreviated process and get setup within a month (for the cost of setting up a corporation with your state government). If that exemption doesn't apply, it can take the IRS over a year to approve your application for tax exempt status. There are also significant compliance costs that can be burdensome for a small organization.
The TLF is a big dog for big dog projects, and I was just using them as an example of the structure. The Apache Foundation has their own flavor of governance, as does Numfocus (which sponsors a bunch of scientific computing projects). I'd expect that this move will probably trigger the creation of some "mobile app developer collective" organizations that specialize in this kind of thing, kind of like a "digital makerspace".
Could one sign over stewardship to the FSF? They're non-profit I think.
Assuming there is some legal framework allowing a smaller entity to piggy back on Mozilla or the Linux Foundation's non profit registration in the developer's country, the dev still needs to at least register as an official entity, which can be awkward depending on their status (do student visa residents get a right to do that for instance ?). There's also the more complex cases of a for profit business publishing an open-source app. Do they need to register a different non profit entity to avoid paying for the open source part then ?
To then explain to Apple how the arrangement is made and have them approve it is another story as well, as we're already seeing that Apple has no intention to make things simple regarding any of these rules.
All in all, there will be clear cut cases that will show it can be simple, but I totally see a long tail of devs stopped at any point of the process, and it's probably by design.
If you like to have an organizationalnumber, you need to apply to the tax authority. If you do business activity and like a local name protection you need to apply to bolagsverket. Depending on the size of the app these steps might be helpful. I don't think our local chapter of FSF, has done any of the registrations just as an example. They run local conferences and other simular works.
MS, you pay one time for the OS. Android you technically don't need to pay at all if you go AOSP. Both still require hardware to support the OS, though.
>And no. Paying for the phone is not a viable way to pay for the OS. That incentives the phone maker to ditch OS updates for old phones.
They do that anyway. mobile support is much lower than desktop which tends to guarantee a decade or so. And it's not like IOS is licensing out to other OEMs anyway.
I don't doubt the ads are there but I avoid them easily enough. Fortunately I get the option to get around that stuff, unlike Apple's environments.
Huh? That is Apple’s model, and iOS supports old hardware much longer than Android does.
If next phone prices go up (especially in EU) after this then maybe it is true?
I give Apple credit for making this clear rule: Having fewer than 1 million users on iOS in the EU means no fee, and you don't need to worry about status at all.
But if you have more installs, I don't think you'll get an easy to get a pass by just by sending Apple a note like "I'm just developing my app for fun" or "My app is open source". Maybe that works, but I wouldn't assume it without testing.
If your app has 1 million+ users, it's not at all convincing to say you made it just for fun, even if that's the truth. And we all know some open source apps are written with intent to make a profit, or given away free to promote related commercial activities or reputation, so saying it's open source isn't convincing either.
Anecdote: I ran a non-profit org, a hackerspace. Not only was it truly a non-profit organisation, it was legally constituted as such. The members had no legal rights to take any of its funds and resources out, those resources came from members and could only be used for the organisations's stated purpose, and because of this structure no tax was due when its funds grew, as they were primarily from member fees and donations. However, it was not a registered charity. It could have been but we decided the administrative overheads were too high.
Unfortunately, we were unable to convince Paypal we were a non-profit despite providing all the organisational documents Paypal requested to prove it (about 10 documents IIRC). This meant we weren't able to use Paypal for significant quantities of funding, i.e. to take membership payments. We could do a tiny amount for a couple of people, but it was capped at a very low limit.
If it's impossible to convince Paypal that a formally constituted non-profit qualifies as such, I wouldn't assume it's easy to convince Apple with casual claims, for an app with 1M+ users.
The new EU stuff is opt-in.
I thought that's what barred many open source programs from getting into the AppStore, and this would be a different but still PITA hurdle.
Yeah GPL licenses are not allowed, at least from GPL2 onwards.
Then again, FOSS can get a CTF exemption if they form a nonprofit.
That’s quite absurd, no? "You can pick which terms you want, the ones where we follow the law, or the ones where we don’t. If you pick the ones where we don’t, it’s cheaper for you."
That said, if you have a an article of the DMA that says otherwise, I’m all ears. It’s a bit hard for me to prove no such thing exists, other than to provide you with the full text of the DMA of course.
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELE...
If you want to continue to distribute your app for free in Apple's app store, literally nothing changes.
I only ever want to see 2 app stores on my phone, the AppStore, and an FDroid alternative full of free, open-source apps. Anything else is good to be disincentivized.
Apple’s default construction for getting payments for the usage of their IP is via commission on revenue.
This is by definition a differential pricing strategy because not everyone has to pay for the usage of Apple’s IP.
Many didn’t like the commission structure and made all sorts of arguments against it. It would just be for payment processing, it would just be for distribution, etc.
Apple has always maintained it was primarily for the use of their IP, all the rest is thrown in as a bonus. They have structured it as such in the developer agreement and US courts have wholesale accepted it as such.
One alternative that has been floated around a lot by people that accept that Apple wants payment for their IP but didn’t like the commission structure regardless was to split off the fee for IP into its own thing.
Now they do that very thing in the form of the CTF (at a more competitive rate than Epic does for Unreal mind you).
In addition there’s a separate commission for App Store services and a separate commission for payment processing.
Now the new complaint is that this payment for their IP for first installs on EU iPhones per 12 months in excess of 1M installs in the EU isn’t good either.
So what is the desired outcome? Use Apple’s IP for free?
I don’t see how this disadvantages third party stores. Does it disadvantage Steam when Epic comes knocking on my door for their share of the pie?
Epic charges me 5% of all my revenue above a million, Apple charges me €0.50 of all my EU installs on iOS above 1M installs in the EU.
Apple’s fee is directly tied to my usage of their IP, I pay them €0.50 in 12 monthly installments for each installation that goes over 1M, but they don’t touch anything else I make off of that install.
Epic wants 5% over every dollar I make over $1M worldwide.
Don’t get me wrong, personally I was content with my 30% and the 15% is a steal for what I get out of it.
But if commission of revenue is the big bad, then the only logical thing for licensing IP is an upfront cost for usage whether you earn money with it or not.
This is how it was with consoles. Thousands upfront for the right to publish and using the IP + thousands for every build to be certified + commission over revenue.
Indies later on got a reduced rate in the hundreds, until you got big.
Can I publish an application that does not use Apple IP, let’s say something written in ARM assembler?
If not, then this argument about Apple IP is in bad faith, and not the real reason for anything.
Developers are not forced to develop iOS apps.
There are other alternatives like web apps or only developing for Android.
Developers have choices.
If you want a store in a mall, you have to pay higher leases and probably additional fees than you would if you operated out of your garage.
These arguments always seem to break down to an entitlement to sell things without paying for the products and services used to make the thing.
It should be a conversation more about reasonableness than entitlement.
If any global entity owned such a large percentage of malls that suppliers had little choice but to appear there in order to be competitive, and charged for mall use via a general tax on original and follow up economic activity (instead of in proportion to mall resources used), requiring products be registered with them, and copies of direct and follow up sales records, many people might protest that too.
I think a large part of the disagreement here is the idea that all digital things should be free compared to how the physical world has been forever.
To sell to a hardware store, for example, you need to offer the retailer 40% as a minimum. Then you need to pay, often compulsorily, trading terms, ranging fees, advertising levies and other off invoice things.
They have high costs to cover, but they also force shelf prices down as much as they can.
In my opinion, Supermarkets and hardware stores mis-use their market power way more than Apple appears to be doing
But Apple's (duopoly level) gatekeeper status on global/mobile applications, services, information and transactions is allowing them to hold back an enormous amount of latent innovation.
Shelf space is important and necessary for many businesses, but that isn't where tomorrow's world is being crafted.
However, the entitlement that is pervasive here that whatever Apple does is bad and it’s ok to expect them to give their work and infrastructure away for free is just crazy.
If we’re arguing about the value that developers get for what they pay, or if Apple is stifling innovation, or even if Apple is being maliciously compliant, then that’s a different conversation. I’m much more sympathetic to that.
But this is about people demanding Apple give their IP away from free so that they can make money from that expensive to make and operate infrastructure is ridiculous
But Apple owns one of only two global mobile app, service and info platforms, and so has tremendous power to limit and veto other businesses opportunities. Few businesses that need to operate in those ecosystems can be viable only operating in one of them.
And Apple is using that tremendous leverage to do two things normal businesses can't do.
Both of which damage the larger economy.
1) It is gatekeeping fundamental technological and business innovation. Apple limits the types of technology and business models that it will allow on its platforms, in favor of its own versions, or in favor of simply not enabling innovation it finds competitively threatening.
It is very difficult for new innovation on the margins to succeed starting out unable to participate in half the marketplace.
2. It has enough veto power over businesses, that it is able to tax other businesses' success, instead of charging for the value of its products and services to them. I.e. Apple charges a percentage of other businesses product and service revenue - instead of flat charges for its security checks, app listings, etc. Apple charges a percentage of follow up revenue, even if the transaction happens elsewhere. Apple charges a percentage on revenue of transactions that don't even require Apple's assistance or participation but were initially enabled by being on Apple's platform. It even charges a percentage of revenue for fourth parties it has no relationship with, such as for transactions by participants on third party markets, like digital art creators!
No normal business could extend taxes on other's productivity like that, to multiple levels of extraction, independent of productive value provided. They would be rapidly replaced by a competitor happy to make profits set by supply and demand, instead of taxes imposed by the ability to deny (or seriously hamper) entry to a strategic global market.
However, it is important (from a capitialism angle at least) to realize Apple has never falsely represented things. They have not done a bait and switch. They launched with their 30% commission rate on agency-model pricing almost 15 years ago (for apps, which was the same commission rate for music before that), and every change in licensing terms has been either enabling new transactions that were otherwise restricted, or by offering lower rates - such as for certain types of financial transactions, or certain business sizes.
They have also tended to do this with public policy changes rather than unilateral arrangements, although there are some partner programs around tvOS which are pretty tailor-built such that few companies would be able to take advantage of them.
And it is worth noting that they launched first as a platform for web based apps, and when you filter web technologies to actual standards (and not Google inventions) they tend to fight between first and second place with Chrome on actual interoperability.
Companies recognize the marketing value of having a native app within the App Store vs just a normal website. Apple obviously does as well.
> Apple charges a percentage of follow up revenue, even if the transaction happens elsewhere.
Note this is only true via 'new terms' to allow for steering toward alternative payment systems. Apple has always allowed you to operate your own out-of-store payment system (e.g. signing up for a Netflix account on the Netflix site, or purchasing kindle books on kindle.com) without paying them any commission.
However for most consumer apps (e.g. non. 'reader' apps like music, video, books and news) you had to provide a way to purchase in-app using Apple's system.
Many of these reader apps have played with in-app subscriptions off-and-on, which would make an interesting case study as they have been the category actually capable of deciding whether or not in-app purchasing was worth offering. Other categories are mandated.
I also feel like Apple has generally attempted to be well behaved, even as their market power has grown exponentially from a couple decades ago.
They are not the devil. But they are have reached a level of market breadth and power, that behavior not problematic even a few years ago is now an impediment for the market as a whole.
They deserve kudos for their success.
If they don't contort and distract themselves from more productive advances, by prioritizing holding onto leverage that has become too heavy handed for those they serve (and partner with), they are likely to become an even better company.
Microsoft has done fantastically well since giving up Ballmer's scorched Earth, Windows only philosophy. Ironically, if they had given up that control obsession sooner, focusing more on improving Windows shortcomings, they might have skipped the stall associated with that era and be even more dominant now.
Businesses should exist in malls to make a profit not to "be competitive". If it isn't profitable or the return on investment isn't worth it then they should not exist at that mall. It's the mall's fault if they charge too much and start to lose businesses to other malls and in turn lose visitors who would rather visit other malls.
But relatively fair competition is still a necessary component at the scale of an economy. If we are to retain any approximation of equality, equity and not hamper innovation.
If someone somehow owns the only viable commercial water supply for a city block, they can demand whatever they can get from any business on that block that needs water. And each business should make good decisions for itself in that context.
But if someone owns all the commercial water supply for a city, people are going to take political action to alter the economic equation if it starts leveraging that capability to the general cities detriment.
You could maybe import water through trucks or trains or something from somewhere else, but the costs for that would be brutal. Then the incumbent can bankrupt you instantly by undercutting your price, and then hike it back up as soon as you're gone. The Robber Barons in the 19th century used this very tactic frequently in anti-trust situations to hamper competition
>Then the incumbent can bankrupt you instantly by undercutting your price
This could be mitigated by longer term contracts so you are guarenteed a certain amount of payment to make it worth your time before the other company lowered their prices to start competing.
But the water system, or general utility problem, is interesting for many reasons.
Dual sets of infrastructure double the supply costs for a critical input like water, without actually increasing the supply that nature provides.
The solution to keep costs and prices down is then generally to give (or accept) a water supply monopoly, but with price regulation. That is the common solution to avoid price gouging in that monopoly situation.
An iPhone is not a mall. An iPhone is a device owned by the end user. If the end user wants to use an app by some third party developer, they should be able to.
We don't let car dealers from prevent customers from installing aftermarket addons.
Otherwise, it is within its full freedom to shut down their company in the EU.
They aren't "force" to operate in the EU after all. They could just shut down the company.
> If you want a store in a mall
If Apple wants to operate in the EU then they will have to follow the law.
> It should be a conversation more about reasonableness than entitlement.
Or, instead of that, the conversation could be able what a population can democratically decide what they want for their own country.
iOS apps can be written in assembly. I’ve done so myself out of curiosity, and it seems others have done so as well[0].
Of course, I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s excruciating.
That said, isn’t this just a bad-faith argument wrapped in an attempted gotcha? Where your premise is that if you don’t have a choice, then you shouldn’t be charged?
If Apple would say:
“Hey, you can use Swift for free because it’s open source, and you’re welcome to benefit from our contributions to it, and while you’re at it, you’re allowed to use all the basic low-level frameworks that communicate with the OS for free as well. But anything more than that, and we want you to pay us for it.”
Would you then be fully on board with them charging for using the remaining IP they own?
Are IP and ownership rights fluid based on your own moral framework, depending on if one has a choice or not?
Should I just blow past the toll booth of the only bridge here that allows me access to the rest of the country?
How about the only ISP that provides service here? Should they just allow me to use their infrastructure so I can write you this comment?
The other day I saw a nice TV at the local store. It’s pretty much the only place I can get this TV. Do I have your blessing to take it because I don’t have much of a choice?
I make apps for a living, I’m literally the only place on earth where you can get my app. My app saves users a lot of money. Should people just pirate my app and force me on a diet of hardtack?
Where does this fluidity start and where does it end?
I thought, for better or worse (and we can spend hours debating this part alone), we decided that when someone owns something, and especially when they create something, they get to decide who, if anyone, gets to use it and at what’s price if any.
Can I publish an application that does not use Apple IP, let’s say something written in ARM assembler? Or am I forced to use Apple IP?
I can publish on windows without using Microsoft IP, I can publish on android without using google IP, right?
If not, then this argument about Apple IP is in bad faith, and not the real reason for anything.
Not sure what you mean by forced to use Apple IP. You are running on their ARM chip under their kernel, using their libraries to read touch events and display to the screen.
IP is incredibly broad; you can't really avoid using say all copyrighted libraries.
If you are speaking toward is there a path to write applications which will work on iOS devices without signing agreements, paying royalties or having legal action taken against you, there's the Safari browser and it sounds like there will be many more web browsers soon.
> I can publish on windows without using Microsoft IP, I can publish on android without using google IP, right?
I don't see how you could publish a legitimate app for Windows without using e.g. ReadFile.
I don't know how you would publish an Android app without using its proprietary manifest file; you probably come closest there to a minimal working application due to instead using lots of Oracle IP.
It's likely that in order to avoid distributing Apple IP one would need to reverse engineer some undocumented APIs, but that's coincidental.
The desired outcome is for third-party apps and app stores to be able to run on iOS devices for free. Traditionally, building software for consumer operating systems, including Mac OS hasn't been considered using the OS vendor's IP such that it would require permission or payment.
Compilers, SDKs, documentation, every vendor charged for those.
You have to thank Stallman et al. for your free C compiler.
What Apple has done here is bring the console gaming model to general-purpose computing devices. I believe the EU wishes to roll that back and will probably not allow Apple's announced fees and restrictions.
Quote from their own website:
> By enrolling in the Apple Developer Program, individuals and organizations receive everything they need to develop apps for distribution.
Besides, Apple never claimed their new fee was for distribution, but for "core platform services", i.e. the SDK and tools, which they're already charging for.
> The Core Technology Fee (CTF) is an element of the new business terms in the European Union (EU) that reflects the value Apple provides developers through ongoing investments in the tools, technologies, and services that enable them to build and share innovative apps with users around the world.
"Core platform services" is the term used by the EU.
It’s not just the SDK.
OSs are expensive things to build and maintain, and I don't take for granted the fact that my iPhone XS Max (2018) is running the latest version if iOS. If Apple's App Store pricing structure makes that possible, then it's certainly working for me.
It crumbles under the most benign forms of scrutiny.
The comment below already pointed out that vendors charged for all kinds of stuff. Your reply seems to suggest that, for some reason, you’re ok with that, but not if the OS vendor does it.
There’s also the argument that investment in frameworks for iOS is significantly higher than, say, the investment Microsoft made into frameworks for Windows back in the day.
Then there’s the general criticism of an appeal to tradition that there were many traditions that we currently aren’t ok with, and an appeal to tradition suggests that they are inherently good just by virtue of once having been a tradition.
I remember a tradition not too long ago where console manufacturers would charge thousands just for access to the platform and the IP (sometimes rolled into the price of a dev kit), plus thousands more for each build that needed certification plus a commission on sales.
It was so cumbersome for some developers that they did not bother updating their game[0].
Even later on, with lower fees, there’s still a lot of cost to get games published[1].
Now, you might say that consoles are nothing like iPhones, and I will respond by saying that iPhones are nothing like Macs. And on and on we might go.
What matters is what is legal. Apple is in the clear to charge for usage of their IP, even when they use differential pricing and even when other companies are willing to give away their work for free because they see other avenues of revenue by doing so.
Further down, you state:
> I believe the EU wishes to roll that back and will probably not allow Apple's announced fees and restrictions.
Can I ask what fuels that belief? Or perhaps more importantly, what fuels the belief that they are at all in the position to do something about it?
I see a lot of “Wait till your dad comes home” style comments every time Apple is brought up as if there’s some collective amnesia that “dad” also has to stick to the law and doesn’t have the final say in this universe.
The European Parliament and Council of the European Union are the legislative bodies of the EU, and as such, they can create laws. But like any legislative body, they are limited and need to move within the bounds of the laws.
The European Commission, on the other hand, functions as the executive body of the EU and is to enforce the law. They, too, are limited by the bounds of the law.
Neither the DMA nor its enforcement have been tested in court yet. All of that will start once the EC tries to enforce something, and the EC has, at best, a mixed track record before the court.
Apple made a smart move today because, contrary to what many here think, they went above and beyond the DMA requirements (e.g., it has no price regulation, so all the discounts in fees are freebies), and as such, took the wind out of the EC’s legal argument sails for many of the potential arguments.
The biggest hurdle that one needs to overcome is IP and property rights. Something neither the EU nor the US wants to tackle because it would have significant effects across all commerce. The idea that you can just take a company’s IP and essentially make it public domain will never fly.
At best, in sporadic instances, can you get a court to agree that a company should be forced to charge “reasonable” fees, but with Apple’s fee structure for the EU being less than that of the rest of the markets and and option to evade all but one fee, it’s nearly impossible to convince a court that the CTF is somehow out of line.
Ironically, as I write this, I just realized that an upfront fee for IP usage that is entirely decoupled from revenue is actually very traditional when it comes to fees like this.
The general timeline from investigating violations to ECJ is about ten years, so this will take a while.
0: https://www.destructoid.com/fez-patch-wont-be-fixed-because-...
1: https://www.ign.com/articles/2014/07/30/launching-indie-game...
Appeal to tradition is a fallacy in logic, but laws are not made using pure logic. Laws are made when some group with sufficient political power wants them to be made, and such groups are often driven by tradition, what they perceive to be tradition.
> Or perhaps more importantly, what fuels the belief that they are at all in the position to do something about it?
The European Union is a government; it makes and enforces laws. In this case, it has made a law called the Digital Markets Act which addresses certain types of gatekeeping behavior by large tech companies including Apple. Some readings of this law I've seen forbid Apple from charging fees for distributing apps outside its store and from using any legal workarounds to circumvent that prohibition. It remains to be seen how EU regulators and courts will interpret it.
Your comment makes several references to "IP", but isn't clear about what IP is involved. Is it necessary to use inventions patented by Apple to write an app that runs on an iPhone? Is it necessary to know Apple's trade secrets (aside from things like signing keys that exist for the sole purpose of gatekeeping)? Does it require making copies of things Apple holds copyright to?
This can certainly be a motivator.
In Europe, and the EU in particular, many individual member states as well as the EU itself have the tradition of including an explanatory memorandum when passing new laws.
The function of this is to explain the mindset of the legislators and the motivation behind a law. It is sometimes used by courts to gain clarity on laws that might be a bit more ambiguous in their intent.
Below is a link to the explanatory memorandum of the DMA.
I wasn’t able to find a reference to traditions on regarding licensing fees, or monetization of IP.
But you’re welcome to point me in the right direction.
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELE...
> Some readings of this law I've seen forbid Apple from charging fees for distributing apps outside its store and from using any legal workarounds to circumvent that prohibition. It remains to be seen how EU regulators and courts will interpret it.
Could you point me to these readings, or better yet the specific articles that these readings are based on?
To the best of my knowledge the DMA has little in the way of price regulation. So this is news to me.
> Your comment makes several references to "IP", but isn't clear about what IP is involved.
The IP in question would be code written by Apple provided in the form of frameworks, SDKs, APIs and the like. There’s also the use of software like Xcode, but for the sake of simplicity let’s stick with code written by Apple.
Creating an app by definition makes use of this IP. IP I’m sure will have cost a considerable amount to develop by Apple, so I can see why they’re eager to get payment for it or, alternatively, strategically decide who can use it for free.
Trade secrets aren’t really involved in this and neither is copying, at least not in most cases.
Code generally falls under copyright. Copyright means that making copies requires permission from the owner. Installing and using XCode, for example involves making a copy of XCode, and Apple charges a subscription fee for the privilege. Distributing an iPhone app that statically links Apple libraries is also making copies of Apple's copyrighted code, which requires permission. Dynamic linking to libraries present in the OS, however does not involve distributing copies of them and does not require permission.
Distributing an iPhone app built with open source tools and libraries would not involve copying Apple's code. There aren't many iPhone apps built this way right now as far as I know because App Store rules require the use of Apple's tools, but the DMA requires that apps can be installed from other sources and do not need to comply with those rules.
The other options for IP are trade secrets, trademarks, and patents. Only patents seem likely to support a fee for distributing any app that can run on a certain device, but I don't think Apple has a patent with that effect.
By your logic, streaming services should be paying TV manufacturers for using their "IP" when displaying video to customers. Hogwash.
I don’t see how that’s nonsense or hogwash. It’s a very basic concept since the dawn of men. You want to use or own something I own or made, then I can ask you to pay for it.
In this instance it’s the frameworks and SDKs that were made and that others want to use.
In a similar fashion, they already extract payment in exchange for them featuring whatever app has decided to pay for that privilege. Don’t see how that’s somehow morally better, nor do I see a legal hurdle.
This is why smart TVs are becoming increasingly more annoying, because additional revenue streams are so highly desired. Display more in-interface ads, offer first party 'streaming' for the opportunity to display more ads, put movie purchases/rentals ever more prominently in your UI, always start in your menus rather than the last selected HDMI input, take metrics on what people are watching by default - I am surprised we don't have an Uber Eats button on the remote yet.
Interestingly, a TV manufacturer can't do anything to require a streaming service to provide _their_ IP. Netflix seems to have a policy of not allowing their app to run on projectors, keeping them out of the allow-list for downloads and for execution of the android app. Some projector manufacturers will ship a separate Chromecast dongle or the like so that they can say they support Netflix on the box.
Apple points out that the new terms are required for third-party app stores and third-party payments. Not for browser engines.
I'm expecting both Google and Mozilla to make their browsers, with their engine, available in Apple's regular store in the EU.
(And even in the new agreement, it's not half a euro per update. It's per year that contains an install or update. If you update 12 times a year, you're not paying 12 times. You're paying once.)
The requirements list is very interesting.
For example:
> Meet the following functional requirements to ensure your app is using a web browser engine that provides a baseline of web functionality: Pass a minimum percentage of tests available from industry standard test suites: 90% from Web Platform Tests and 80% from Test262
And:
> Program security requirements: You must do the following: Use memory-safe programming languages, or features that improve memory safety within other languages, within the Alternative Web Browser Engine at a minimum for all code that processes web content;
Is WebKit written in C++? That language certainly isn't "memory-safe" (I am not dumping on C++ here!). I assume that Apple uses fuzz testing and static analysis to find memory safety issues. So... does WebKit pass this rule? Hmm... And, are there any browsers written in memory-safe languages? I assume they would be too slow (Java, C#, etc.) I'm not sure if Rust is considered memory safe here. (Can you have null pointer exceptions in Rust -- dereference a null pointer?)
Large portions of each browser are also written in JS ("self-hosted") at this point, and Firefox now contains large components either written in Rust or sandboxed (via wasm) C.
This rule does seem like an easy way to reject literally every browser other than Servo, though.
But not many people will see it here buried down deep in this thread. I suggest you submit it as a new link to HN though. Very interesting stuff!