Apple loving friends, to me the move looks blatantly - not - like Epic wants to be on the App Store at all. They were actually pretty rude about this -this is the one thing almost everyone agrees on.
it really looks like they are rather wanting to have their own store. install to Apple devices by complying with Apple's established security regulations - this is what it seems like they are wanting to achieve with this legal clash - force Apple to regulate 3rd party installations. otherwise suing the Google Play Store made little sense.
ps: EULAs cannot dictate which software we install!.. yet. Apple already lost this case in court, all this may change though depending on the state of courts. this may be the blockbuster trial of our time.
In real, Epic does not care about the payment system. For Epic, it is not about "can´t pay 30% fees", but about "does not want to pay".
All of this is to say that the demands Epic makes in its lawsuit are not, in fact, merely arguing that the smartphone apps market should be more competitive, with more payment options. The sandboxed app store model is not some curious, incidental feature of modern smartphones - rather, this is an essential and hugely important part of why they have such a strong software ecosystem. Epic is explicitly arguing that we should abandon the smartphone software model and security model almost entirely, and switch to what would actually be the old Windows model. Its arguments would also of course mean that we should abandon any level playing field, and move to a model where big companies and big brands have an even bigger advantage, because a trusted platform is replaced by a trusted reputation. This would be good for big established brands - like Epic - but not for may other people.If app developers rather listen to EPIC, then good luck.
Over on 9to5Mac they just posted an article “Apple is now poking antitrust regulators with a stick”. The point being that Apple is now threatening to remove anything that uses the Unreal Engine as well unless Epic toes the line. This would wipe out a lot of small developers that use it. Whether Apple is in the right or not, they are making themselves look like an abuser. They are painting a huge red target on their @$$ and daring the EU, the US Congress, the PRC government, and a hundred others to try and kick them. Unless this is settled soon, it could go very bad for Apple.
I think it's the opposite. Epic is showing regulators that they don't need Apple because there are so many other outlets for them to sell their products (Playstation, Xbox, PC, Android).
Antitrust applies when there's a monopoly. Where is Apple's monopoly of devices that can play FortNite or Unreal Engine games?
But not if they put up a brave fight and then finally, and with much show, capitulate to the Big Brother Apple. They lose, but Apple looks like the bad guy. Political types love to be seen stepping in to help the little guy against some big bad corporate monster, real or imagined.
Over on 9to5Mac they just posted an article “Apple is now poking antitrust regulators with a stick”.
9to5Mac doesn't know what they're talking about per antitrust. They had an article up where the author claimed that there were only six possible outcomes to Epic's lawsuit, and only one of them involved Apple winning in court. They seem to think the whole thing is a slam dunk for Epic, which is laughable.
Whether it is a real monopoly or antitrust violation or not is irrelevant. This is political theater and the perception of Apple as the bad guy, which EPIC is crafting with great skill is what will end up mattering.
I’d be willing to bet a lot of those in Congress have their own personal money tied up in Apple stock...
So Congressman X own's let's say $1mil in Apple Stock. They jump on the Break Up Big Tech bandwagon and impose strong antitrust rules. Their stock drops by 20%, to $800 thousand. But they will assume that over the next few years it will recover. In the mean time they ride the popular wave and get reelected a couple more times. There is no downside for them leading to where the unwashed masses think they want to go.
there is no choice outside the mall. you either sell in the mall or you cannot sell at all.
I don’t agree with this. Apple isn’t saying that you cannot set up shop in a location that’s outside the mall, ....
———— more importantly, Epic wants to sell in apples mall because the customers in apples mall are well off and spend money....they just want to pay strip mall “pricing/rents” vs the going rate to access Apples bespoke customer base.
...but isn’t there value to pay to get access to that mall and revenue stream? It’s simply a business decision you have to make. If not, you don’t sell in that mall.
there is no choice outside the mall. you either sell in the mall or you cannot sell at all.
I don’t agree with this. Apple isn’t saying that you cannot set up shop in a location that’s outside the mall, and not on mall property. There’s plenty of other malls. Android Mall is much bigger, but their customer service regularly gets lambasted for being horrible. Apple Mall is insisting that if you want to sell in their mall then you have to obey their rules. They built their mall on their reputation of ensuring that customers don’t get ripped off and that the quality of goods and services is high. If you read the lawsuit, Epic approached Apple because they wanted to open their own App Store on iOS and sell apps directly to customers, bypassing Apple’s review process and payment systems. Apple, consistent with their policy, said unequivocally no to epic.
To stretch the analogy, Epic wanted to open their own mall in Apple’s parking lot. Selling the same stuff, backed by Apple’s reputation (because, hey..they’re on Apple Mall property they must be approved by Apple Mall...right?), but with their own cash registers and payment vendors. Ones that are more like paiepal and vynmoe that charge Epic less money to process transactions. Mall customers may not see the difference until something goes wrong, and then it really goes wrong. Who takes the reputation hit then? Is it the parking lot mall or do customers go right into the mall office and complain? Apple Mall ultimately gets blamed for a shoddy transaction conducted in their parking lot, that they had no control over or input into.
Apple is protecting their business reputation by insisting on strict rules. Epic is saying that while Apple’s Mall is great, it should be like all the other malls and offer crappy products with lousy customer service because having to meet Apple Mall’s quality and payment standards is just unfair.
Apple sells phones where i would normally be able to install apps from competitors should i choose to do so.
Not sure this is the case at all. Even if you say currently to make in about the market situation today not just the smartphone era I still think it would be hard to win the case that Phones have a common expectation to be able to install any software you want.
A cart vendor rolls into a Mall, sets up shop, never consulted the management of the mall, has no contract.
After he is removed from the mall, goes down the road to another mall. does the same thing and gets kicked out.
Unfortunately in the real counterpart of this analogy, the cart vendor is not allowed to set up shop anywhere else. Many do not wish to be in the App Store Mall, as many cant compensate the high sellers fee (which is totally lawful), but they cant go outside and sell either. That is the reason why this whole ordeal is even an issue - even if it is legal now, sideloading is actively deactivated at each system update - one can now legally circumvent this thanks to the jailbreaking court-ruling, but it is not easy for all, and it can be a hassle. At the very least it is difficult to sustain commercially.
Remember that in many legislations and countries your analogy is real and a cart vendor cannot set up an honest shop for survival anywhere simply because malls, or other government-favoured shops do not want competition (or need cheap labour/slaves). This is all fine until it is us needing to survive and make commerce, and as the world economy is going, i wouldnt think it is just something happening in an other continent.
This legal battle may be the grounds for how we and our children will be living in as short as a decade, as this will update Anti-Trust laws to global digital times. Capitalism becomes totalitarianism when monopolies go unchecked, so Anti-Trust laws are conisdered pillars of Democracy. Epic is acting so aggressively that they almost seem to want to wreck this all up in an otherwise valid case - but they are closer to 99% of humans than any monopoly will ever be.
The cart vendor has a choice, if he wants to be in the mall, he has to pay the fee that the mall requires to be there to use "their" space. Your trying to create fairness where there is none, you can compete or you cannot.. If you decide to setup a cart in a saturated market, you had better be able to market and show that you have a far superior product, or your going to fail..
Epic has no valid case.. They are trying to upend the app store, and in the process even if somehow they succeeded, its unlikely that things would really improve for anyone else.. It would merely show that if you legally force your will on someone its no different than totalitarianism I assume you decry..
imagine if visa and MasterCard charges merchants a 30% fee per transaction. Apple made over 50 billion in revenue from the AppStore last year. Unless they employ 100 mil people or something like that to work for the store and its platform, it’s ridiculous to say they need to charge those high fees to maintain it. maybe Epic’s approach is not the best one but it seems that they are at the end of their rope after trying to work this out with Apple the nice way. Too many developers are angered and most likely this will hurt Apple too in the end
A cart vendor rolls into a Mall, sets up shop, never consulted the management of the mall, has no contract.
After he is removed from the mall, goes down the road to another mall. does the same thing and gets kicked out.
Unfortunately in the real counterpart of this analogy, the cart vendor is not allowed to set up shop anywhere else. Many do not wish to be in the App Store Mall, as many cant compensate the high sellers fee (which is totally lawful), but they cant go outside and sell either. That is the reason why this whole ordeal is even an issue - even if it is legal now, sideloading is actively deactivated at each system update - one can now legally circumvent this thanks to the jailbreaking court-ruling, but it is not easy for all, and it can be a hassle. At the very least it is difficult to sustain commercially.
Remember that in many legislations and countries your analogy is real and a cart vendor cannot set up an honest shop for survival anywhere simply because malls, or other government-favoured shops do not want competition (or need cheap labour/slaves). This is all fine until it is us needing to survive and make commerce, and as the world economy is going, i wouldnt think it is just something happening in an other continent.
This legal battle may be the grounds for how we and our children will be living in as short as a decade, as this will update Anti-Trust laws to global digital times. Capitalism becomes totalitarianism when monopolies go unchecked, so Anti-Trust laws are conisdered pillars of Democracy. Epic is acting so aggressively that they almost seem to want to wreck this all up in an otherwise valid case - but they are closer to 99% of humans than any monopoly will ever be.
The cart vendor has a choice, if he wants to be in the mall, he has to pay the fee that the mall requires to be there to use "their" space. Your trying to create fairness where there is none, you can compete or you cannot.. If you decide to setup a cart in a saturated market, you had better be able to market and show that you have a far superior product, or your going to fail..
Epic has no valid case.. They are trying to upend the app store, and in the process even if somehow they succeeded, its unlikely that things would really improve for anyone else.. It would merely show that if you legally force your will on someone its no different than totalitarianism I assume you decry..
imagine if visa and MasterCard charges merchants a 30% fee per transaction. Apple made over 50 billion in revenue from the AppStore last year. Unless they employ 100 mil people or something like that to work for the store and its platform, it’s ridiculous to say they need to charge those high fees to maintain it. maybe Epic’s approach is not the best one but it seems that they are at the end of their rope after trying to work this out with Apple the nice way. Too many developers are angered and most likely this will hurt Apple too in the end
What a stupid comment.
Apple does a lot more than just process payments, so stop with the bullshit comparisons to Visa/MC.
Apple had gross revenues of around $50 billion, and kept 30% of that.
No developers I know are angry. Just a few loud mouthed whiners like Tim Sweeney or Daniel Ek.
there is no choice outside the mall. you either sell in the mall or you cannot sell at all.
I don’t agree with this. Apple isn’t saying that you cannot set up shop in a location that’s outside the mall, and not on mall property. There’s plenty of other malls. Android Mall is much bigger, but their customer service regularly gets lambasted for being horrible. Apple Mall is insisting that if you want to sell in their mall then you have to obey their rules. They built their mall on their reputation of ensuring that customers don’t get ripped off and that the quality of goods and services is high. If you read the lawsuit, Epic approached Apple because they wanted to open their own App Store on iOS and sell apps directly to customers, bypassing Apple’s review process and payment systems. Apple, consistent with their policy, said unequivocally no to epic.
To stretch the analogy, Epic wanted to open their own mall in Apple’s parking lot. Selling the same stuff, backed by Apple’s reputation (because, hey..they’re on Apple Mall property they must be approved by Apple Mall...right?), but with their own cash registers and payment vendors. Ones that are more like paiepal and vynmoe that charge Epic less money to process transactions. Mall customers may not see the difference until something goes wrong, and then it really goes wrong. Who takes the reputation hit then? Is it the parking lot mall or do customers go right into the mall office and complain? Apple Mall ultimately gets blamed for a shoddy transaction conducted in their parking lot, that they had no control over or input into.
Apple is protecting their business reputation by insisting on strict rules. Epic is saying that while Apple’s Mall is great, it should be like all the other malls and offer crappy products with lousy customer service because having to meet Apple Mall’s quality and payment standards is just unfair.
David there seems to be some miscommunication: im not talking about my opinion, which is actually the same as yours. im talking about anti-trust laws. Apple is trying to defend a Vertical Monopoly pattern with user safety - they themselves know that they cannot argue this case on comercial grounds like you are doing.
Apple sells phones where i would normally be able to install apps from competitors should i choose to do so. Otherwise Apple is leveraging their Software business with Hardware business which is what is called a vertical monopoly. Microsoft was fined and forced to stop blocking non-IE browsers a couple of decades ago and this was just on the OS side.. So much so that in fact Apple already lost this case a couple of years ago - it is now legal to jailbrake. but still every new system update brakes this personal choice. Thing is anti-trust laws are outdated, especially in the case of Apple, because unlike even just a decade ago, Hardware and Software are hard to separate these days.
Epic (and they are not the only ones) also has a valid case even with this reckless attitude, for we cannot confuse the mall - the App Store market -, with App installation. Unless the iPhone isnt considered our property, the law is very clear. Apple cannot actively or passively obstruct my choice of whatever to do with my property. And if you otherwise defend Apple's right to interfere with your property - in other words affirming that the iPhone is only lent to you -, id really make sure i understood what the repercussions of this are for the whole digital society, as this will escalate and expand to other companies and markets without a doubt. It wont matter if you are on Android or whatever, this will hit everybody. Both sides are important and a good solution has to be found for everyone's (including Apple's) sake.
There definitely seems some confusion about loading apps on Apple hardware you purchased and is therefore your property. Go ahead. Load all the apps you want to loads. But start by loading your own OS, because you don’t own iOS, and that’s what those iOS apps you’re wanting to load onto your phone rely upon to communicate with the iPhone hardware. You license a copy of iOS, you don’t own your copy. And that may make all the difference.
Apple sells phones where i would normally be able to install apps from competitors should i choose to do so. Otherwise Apple is leveraging their Software business with Hardware business which is what is called a vertical monopoly. Microsoft was fined and forced to stop blocking non-IE browsers a couple of decades ago and this was just on the OS side..
The Microsoft case isn't relevant here because Microsoft had a monopoly (okay, an overwhelmingly dominant position) in the OS market. What they did that was illegal was to use a monopoly in one market (the OS Market) to establish a monopoly in another (the browser market). In other words, MS was trying to establish a "vertical monopoly". Let me be clear: you have to have a monopoly in one market first to establish a vertical monopoly from it. That's what the word "monopoly" in the term "vertical monopoly" is there for.
That said then, it is just plain wrong to describe Apple's actions as an attempt to establish a vertical monopoly because the iPhone doesn't enjoy anything close to a monopoly in the smartphone market. The only monopoly Apple has is the monopoly in Apple products. Epic and Spotify are trying to convince everyone that this so-called monopoly in the market for your own-brand product is somehow nefarious and illegal. Well it is, but if and only if your product has no significant competitors out there, which is clearly not the case with the iPhone.
If antitrust regulators go after Apple as Epic and Spotify hope, then they should go after BMW for monopolizing the market for BMW cars, Rolex for monopolizing the market for Rolex timepieces, and pretty much every company out there. This is of course patently absurd.
The sad thing is that a lot of journalists, tech pundits, and even congressmen, all of whom should know better, are swallowing the Epic/Spotify narrative hook, line, and pig-ignorant sinker.
A cart vendor rolls into a Mall, sets up shop, never consulted the management of the mall, has no contract.
After he is removed from the mall, goes down the road to another mall. does the same thing and gets kicked out.
Unfortunately in the real counterpart of this analogy, the cart vendor is not allowed to set up shop anywhere else. Many do not wish to be in the App Store Mall, as many cant compensate the high sellers fee (which is totally lawful), but they cant go outside and sell either. That is the reason why this whole ordeal is even an issue - even if it is legal now, sideloading is actively deactivated at each system update - one can now legally circumvent this thanks to the jailbreaking court-ruling, but it is not easy for all, and it can be a hassle. At the very least it is difficult to sustain commercially.
Remember that in many legislations and countries your analogy is real and a cart vendor cannot set up an honest shop for survival anywhere simply because malls, or other government-favoured shops do not want competition (or need cheap labour/slaves). This is all fine until it is us needing to survive and make commerce, and as the world economy is going, i wouldnt think it is just something happening in an other continent.
This legal battle may be the grounds for how we and our children will be living in as short as a decade, as this will update Anti-Trust laws to global digital times. Capitalism becomes totalitarianism when monopolies go unchecked, so Anti-Trust laws are conisdered pillars of Democracy. Epic is acting so aggressively that they almost seem to want to wreck this all up in an otherwise valid case - but they are closer to 99% of humans than any monopoly will ever be.
The cart vendor has a choice, if he wants to be in the mall, he has to pay the fee that the mall requires to be there to use "their" space. Your trying to create fairness where there is none, you can compete or you cannot.. If you decide to setup a cart in a saturated market, you had better be able to market and show that you have a far superior product, or your going to fail..
Epic has no valid case.. They are trying to upend the app store, and in the process even if somehow they succeeded, its unlikely that things would really improve for anyone else.. It would merely show that if you legally force your will on someone its no different than totalitarianism I assume you decry..
imagine if visa and MasterCard charges merchants a 30% fee per transaction. Apple made over 50 billion in revenue from the AppStore last year. Unless they employ 100 mil people or something like that to work for the store and its platform, it’s ridiculous to say they need to charge those high fees to maintain it. maybe Epic’s approach is not the best one but it seems that they are at the end of their rope after trying to work this out with Apple the nice way. Too many developers are angered and most likely this will hurt Apple too in the end
You seem to think, as many do, that all those revenues somehow are done for free. They all have real costs and expenses.
Read the 10Q quarterly reports. Apple in Q3 2020 made 13.16B in Service revenues. But it cost them 4.3B to make those revenues, about 32.7% goes to expenses, and we are not even considering SGA and R&D expenses. Apple also has to create, sell and support the hardware all these Apps run on. (Plus new iOS versions that support 90% of all current active iPhones and iPads). For that, they had product sales revenue of 46.5B with 32.7B in Expenses, about 70% goes to expenses. Add expenses together and divide by total sales and you get the gross margin of 38%, a fairly consistent point for Apple. So charging 30% for App transactions (in the first year, remember, then it drops to 15% in successive years), is LESS than their overall gross margin and actually pulls it down.
There are roughly 2.2 million apps in the Apple App Store. Let’s say 75% of them update at least once a year. Assign 3 people to review each update taking 2 hours each to review and 1 hr each to document. That’s 6 hours of work for each app update, assuming all goes fine. That’s 1.65 Million updates x 6 hrs. Figure you pay $25/hr (flat pay, no benefits). That’s ~$250M or $0.25 Billion in app update reviews alone. Then there’s the thousands if not 100’s of thousands of new apps that are submitted annually which likely take much more time to review, test, dialog with, iterate with developer, till acceptable.
Services is not a simple enterprise, at least not for a company as big as Apple.
Epic ........ if you lose remember how much $$$$$$ will have been lost as well as being banned from the App Store as well as your cost of litigation. And lastly how many unhappy customers you’re going to have that might not come back
...but isn’t there value to pay to get access to that mall and revenue stream? It’s simply a business decision you have to make. If not, you don’t sell in that mall.
again i agree. the issue is whether courts will see Hardware and Software as tightly integrated, as anti-trust laws are today this doesnt seem possible.. precisely because security issues are real, opening app install on certified app 3rd party app stores would mean we wouldnt need to jailbreak to sideload.
Not sure this is the case at all. Even if you say currently to make in about the market situation today not just the smartphone era I still think it would be hard to win the case that Phones have a common expectation to be able to install any software you want.
i can tell you that if i had built the iPhone and totally revolutionised the sector i would definitely want to hold on to my profits but i think anti-trust laws have to evolve/adapt for this.
There definitely seems some confusion about loading apps on Apple hardware you purchased and is therefore your property. Go ahead. Load all the apps you want to loads. But start by loading your own OS, because you don’t own iOS, and that’s what those iOS apps you’re wanting to load onto your phone rely upon to communicate with the iPhone hardware. You license a copy o f iOS, you don’t own your copy. And that may make all the difference.
but radarthekat, this not my opinion, it is the law. we might argue the law needs to be updated (i do) but so far Apple already lost this case in court. We can legally jailbreak and sideload now for some time, and the question is rather whether or not Apple has to allow secure app install to 3rd party stores. personally i had to jailbrake my iphone in 2007 when they first came out because even if i had purchased it in-full unsubsidised, it couldnt operate in my country, so i didnt want to loose my investment. but since then, even though i recognise the benefits of competition at that level - first app store was on jailbreak, Apple copied multiple jailbroken ideas throughout the years, and to the day there are very interesting ideas on that side -, i am too old for that now, i am happy to wait for Apple to integrate new features.. but i do appreciate innovation as i am sure you do.
tundraboy said: The Microsoft case isn't relevant here because Microsoft had a monopoly (okay, an overwhelmingly dominant position) in the OS market. What they did that was illegal was to use a monopoly in one market (the OS Market) to establish a monopoly in another (the browser market). In other words, MS was trying to establish a "vertical monopoly". Let me be clear: you have to have a monopoly in one market first to establish a vertical monopoly from it. That's what the word "monopoly" in the term "vertical monopoly" is there for.
That said then, it is just plain wrong to describe Apple's actions as an attempt to establish a vertical monopoly because the iPhone doesn't enjoy anything close to a monopoly in the smartphone market. The only monopoly Apple has is the monopoly in Apple products. Epic and Spotify are trying to convince everyone that this so-called monopoly in the market for your own-brand product is somehow nefarious and illegal. Well it is, but if and only if your product has no significant competitors out there, which is clearly not the case with the iPhone.
If antitrust regulators go after Apple as Epic and Spotify hope, then they should go after BMW for monopolizing the market for BMW cars, Rolex for monopolizing the market for Rolex timepieces, and pretty much every company out there. This is of course patently absurd.
The sad thing is that a lot of journalists, tech pundits, and even congressmen, all of whom should know better, are swallowing the Epic/Spotify narrative hook, line, and pig-ignorant sinker.
i totally agree on the narrative bit, but i think that as many have said Epic is just manipulating public support (a sign of these times), and i believe they are actually hiding the real case until courts gather - they already indirectly hinted they may be going for 3rd party app store regulation.
times were very different, but Microsoft's case was much lighter in anti-trust perspectives, if you consider they were considered to be infringing on the OS layer only.. if you substitute Windows for iPhone and Browsers for Apps then we realise that Microsoft was forced to open to the one thing it was closing on but not even preventing! Apple actively blocks competition on the OS level for multiple services, not just browsers.. but they do not dare say that this is for commercial reasons like most argue here cause that would be blatantly illegal! they justify it with security.. and there is no precedent for this. so it will go to courts for sure, and maybe all the way too.
Rolexes or BMWs are a great example, because what this translates to here is that i wouldnt be able to install a 3rd party part in my beamer if i wanted to because BMW had blocked this option via ECU/firmware. all companies try to do this mind you, but it is simply not legal. they do not even try to argue it is not safe because sometimes the parts are exactly the same and insurances cover everything just the same. Apple is the first major company to argue safety and depending on courts this may or not hold because tradicional capitalist competitive principles argue that regulated 3rd party app stores would not harm Apple and increase innovation. Apple may win but it will have a hard time explaining why it doesnt think they innovated while they copied so many 3rd party ideas, including the App Store.
I did not see anyone mentioned that Chinese company Tencent owns 40% of Epic. Tencent also owns WeChat, which is threatened to be banned by Trump as a known CCP China's propaganda tool.
Over on 9to5Mac they just posted an article “Apple is now poking antitrust regulators with a stick”. The point being that Apple is now threatening to remove anything that uses the Unreal Engine as well unless Epic toes the line. This would wipe out a lot of small developers that use it. Whether Apple is in the right or not, they are making themselves look like an abuser. They are painting a huge red target on their @$$ and daring the EU, the US Congress, the PRC government, and a hundred others to try and kick them. Unless this is settled soon, it could go very bad for Apple.
I think it's the opposite. Epic is showing regulators that they don't need Apple because there are so many other outlets for them to sell their products (Playstation, Xbox, PC, Android).
Antitrust applies when there's a monopoly. Where is Apple's monopoly of devices that can play FortNite or Unreal Engine games?
But not if they put up a brave fight and then finally, and with much show, capitulate to the Big Brother Apple. They lose, but Apple looks like the bad guy. Political types love to be seen stepping in to help the little guy against some big bad corporate monster, real or imagined.
Over on 9to5Mac they just posted an article “Apple is now poking antitrust regulators with a stick”.
9to5Mac doesn't know what they're talking about per antitrust. They had an article up where the author claimed that there were only six possible outcomes to Epic's lawsuit, and only one of them involved Apple winning in court. They seem to think the whole thing is a slam dunk for Epic, which is laughable.
Whether it is a real monopoly or antitrust violation or not is irrelevant. This is political theater and the perception of Apple as the bad guy, which EPIC is crafting with great skill is what will end up mattering.
I’d be willing to bet a lot of those in Congress have their own personal money tied up in Apple stock...
So Congressman X own's let's say $1mil in Apple Stock. They jump on the Break Up Big Tech bandwagon and impose strong antitrust rules. Their stock drops by 20%, to $800 thousand. But they will assume that over the next few years it will recover. In the mean time they ride the popular wave and get reelected a couple more times. There is no downside for them leading to where the unwashed masses think they want to go.
Not “Congressman X”... Nancy Pelosi. As Speaker of the House, she’s the head of all Democratic representatives. That’s the most powerful position of any Democrat in the US. And at least according to the reporting on OpenSecrets, at minimum she holds $3 million in Apple stock.
Comments
it really looks like they are rather wanting to have their own store. install to Apple devices by complying with Apple's established security regulations - this is what it seems like they are wanting to achieve with this legal clash - force Apple to regulate 3rd party installations. otherwise suing the Google Play Store made little sense.
ps: EULAs cannot dictate which software we install!.. yet. Apple already lost this case in court, all this may change though depending on the state of courts. this may be the blockbuster trial of our time.
All of this is to say that the demands Epic makes in its lawsuit are not, in fact, merely arguing that the smartphone apps market should be more competitive, with more payment options. The sandboxed app store model is not some curious, incidental feature of modern smartphones - rather, this is an essential and hugely important part of why they have such a strong software ecosystem. Epic is explicitly arguing that we should abandon the smartphone software model and security model almost entirely, and switch to what would actually be the old Windows model. Its arguments would also of course mean that we should abandon any level playing field, and move to a model where big companies and big brands have an even bigger advantage, because a trusted platform is replaced by a trusted reputation. This would be good for big established brands - like Epic - but not for may other people.If app developers rather listen to EPIC, then good luck.
There is no downside for them leading to where the unwashed masses think they want to go.
maybe Epic’s approach is not the best one but it seems that they are at the end of their rope after trying to work this out with Apple the nice way. Too many developers are angered and most likely this will hurt Apple too in the end
Apple does a lot more than just process payments, so stop with the bullshit comparisons to Visa/MC.
Apple had gross revenues of around $50 billion, and kept 30% of that.
No developers I know are angry. Just a few loud mouthed whiners like Tim Sweeney or Daniel Ek.
That said then, it is just plain wrong to describe Apple's actions as an attempt to establish a vertical monopoly because the iPhone doesn't enjoy anything close to a monopoly in the smartphone market. The only monopoly Apple has is the monopoly in Apple products. Epic and Spotify are trying to convince everyone that this so-called monopoly in the market for your own-brand product is somehow nefarious and illegal. Well it is, but if and only if your product has no significant competitors out there, which is clearly not the case with the iPhone.
If antitrust regulators go after Apple as Epic and Spotify hope, then they should go after BMW for monopolizing the market for BMW cars, Rolex for monopolizing the market for Rolex timepieces, and pretty much every company out there. This is of course patently absurd.
The sad thing is that a lot of journalists, tech pundits, and even congressmen, all of whom should know better, are swallowing the Epic/Spotify narrative hook, line, and pig-ignorant sinker.
Read the 10Q quarterly reports. Apple in Q3 2020 made 13.16B in Service revenues. But it cost them 4.3B to make those revenues, about 32.7% goes to expenses, and we are not even considering SGA and R&D expenses. Apple also has to create, sell and support the hardware all these Apps run on. (Plus new iOS versions that support 90% of all current active iPhones and iPads). For that, they had product sales revenue of 46.5B with 32.7B in Expenses, about 70% goes to expenses. Add expenses together and divide by total sales and you get the gross margin of 38%, a fairly consistent point for Apple. So charging 30% for App transactions (in the first year, remember, then it drops to 15% in successive years), is LESS than their overall gross margin and actually pulls it down.
There are roughly 2.2 million apps in the Apple App Store. Let’s say 75% of them update at least once a year. Assign 3 people to review each update taking 2 hours each to review and 1 hr each to document. That’s 6 hours of work for each app update, assuming all goes fine. That’s 1.65 Million updates x 6 hrs. Figure you pay $25/hr (flat pay, no benefits). That’s ~$250M or $0.25 Billion in app update reviews alone. Then there’s the thousands if not 100’s of thousands of new apps that are submitted annually which likely take much more time to review, test, dialog with, iterate with developer, till acceptable.
Services is not a simple enterprise, at least not for a company as big as Apple.
will have been lost as well as being banned from the App Store as well as your cost of litigation. And lastly how many unhappy customers you’re going to have that might not come back
RISK IS MORE THAN REWARD!
i can tell you that if i had built the iPhone and totally revolutionised the sector i would definitely want to hold on to my profits but i think anti-trust laws have to evolve/adapt for this.
but radarthekat, this not my opinion, it is the law. we might argue the law needs to be updated (i do) but so far Apple already lost this case in court. We can legally jailbreak and sideload now for some time, and the question is rather whether or not Apple has to allow secure app install to 3rd party stores.
personally i had to jailbrake my iphone in 2007 when they first came out because even if i had purchased it in-full unsubsidised, it couldnt operate in my country, so i didnt want to loose my investment. but since then, even though i recognise the benefits of competition at that level - first app store was on jailbreak, Apple copied multiple jailbroken ideas throughout the years, and to the day there are very interesting ideas on that side -, i am too old for that now, i am happy to wait for Apple to integrate new features.. but i do appreciate innovation as i am sure you do.
i totally agree on the narrative bit, but i think that as many have said Epic is just manipulating public support (a sign of these times), and i believe they are actually hiding the real case until courts gather - they already indirectly hinted they may be going for 3rd party app store regulation.
times were very different, but Microsoft's case was much lighter in anti-trust perspectives, if you consider they were considered to be infringing on the OS layer only.. if you substitute Windows for iPhone and Browsers for Apps then we realise that Microsoft was forced to open to the one thing it was closing on but not even preventing! Apple actively blocks competition on the OS level for multiple services, not just browsers.. but they do not dare say that this is for commercial reasons like most argue here cause that would be blatantly illegal! they justify it with security.. and there is no precedent for this. so it will go to courts for sure, and maybe all the way too.
Rolexes or BMWs are a great example, because what this translates to here is that i wouldnt be able to install a 3rd party part in my beamer if i wanted to because BMW had blocked this option via ECU/firmware. all companies try to do this mind you, but it is simply not legal. they do not even try to argue it is not safe because sometimes the parts are exactly the same and insurances cover everything just the same. Apple is the first major company to argue safety and depending on courts this may or not hold because tradicional capitalist competitive principles argue that regulated 3rd party app stores would not harm Apple and increase innovation. Apple may win but it will have a hard time explaining why it doesnt think they innovated while they copied so many 3rd party ideas, including the App Store.
It's complicated.