Free apps with in-app purchases are really the problem here.
How about a compromise - You, Mr./Ms Developer can offer your own in-app purchases but...
Apps that use non-Apple in-app purchases can not be offered for free or for some ridiculously low price. It must be purchased from the App Store at some amount to cover the cost of Apple distributing your application. I don't know what that amount is so let's say $5 is a good starting point. (that's the equivalent of a $15-ish app).
Apple keeps 100% of the purchase price of the app. You're keeping 100% (or more than 70%) of the in-app revenue which is where you've decided your business model is going to make you money. So why should you expect Apple to pay you for something you're not paying them for now.
You may not use Apple's in-app purchase infrastructure as an option. You must provide your own in-app purchase infrastructure and customer service. Don't come crying to Apple about issues with in-app purchases.
If you want to use Apple's in-app purchase mechanism, you can offer a free app, and Apple will take a commission on the in-app purchase like it does today.
How about Apple shut down the App Store altogether and let developers fend for themselves. This is how the Mac platform has operated for decades before app stores were a thing. Let users install whatever they want from wherever they want but Apple still holds them to privacy and security rules. Small developers will of course disappear almost immediately but hey, fuck ‘em.
Assuming this epic-shill bill passes, it will be in the courts for years. Apple can certainly weather the storm, but will Epic? Every retailer - not just the App Store - will be placed on full alert. If the government can force Apple, retail shopping stores will be next.
"the tech giants would be forced to allow them in their digital storefronts"
That's some very scary Big Brother massively intrusive sh**. Would Walmart, Target, Kroger, etc., allow the government to force them to stock certain products on their shelves even if the retailer did not want to carry such products?
Probably, yes. I wouldn't be altogether surprised if some stores are obliged to sell some products that are unprofitable but socially beneficial as a condition of trading in some parts of the world. It's won't be particularly onerous, these stores are very profitable.
If it's forcing the stocking of a dumb shooting game that teenagers play, that's still not particularly scary, it's just a bit pathetic that lawmakers think this is worthwhile.
Unprofitable for whom? Here we might have the government forcing Business A to stock on their shelves, at no charge, products for Business B, that will make a profit from selling their products on Business A shelves.
There is a difference between Business A charging a fee to Business B, for stocking their products and Business A getting a commission to do the same. With a fee, only Business A is guarantee to make a profit. But with a commission, both Business A and B stands to profit. Providing Business B price their products accordingly and Business A cover their cost of stocking Business B products with the commission. Business A do not dictate how much Business B charges for their products on their shelves.
And both Apple and Google do stock products that are unprofitable for them. 75% of the apps in their app stores are free. Even though the developer of those apps might be making money from having a free app in the Apple App and/or Google Play stores. Plus Apple and Google not only provides free apps for government Covid19 tracking, they helped with its development.
When the US government broke up the ATT monopoly and then forced ATT to share their long distance lines with other companies that wants to enter the long distance provider business, like Sprint and MCI, ATT was still able to charge for the use of their long distance lines. The government ddi not force ATT to provide free services for the other telecommunication companies that were making money using ATT long distance lines.
Here we have a State government wanting to force Apple and Google to provide free access to the platforms they built and maintain, because a few crybaby developers don't want to share the profits they make from using their platforms.
I just think these lazy, self entitled POS entities like Epic are playing Apple for a rube and trying to bully Apple through the employment of lobbyists who know how to tweak these clueless and bought and paid-for politicians to do their bidding for them. Arming lobbyists with bags of cash and support from mobs of whiners and fakers is a whole lot cheaper than investing in R&D and doing the hard work required to create, grow, and foster an ecosystem that has broad appeal and staying power.
I don't think it's lazy. It's a calculated attack on Apple to improve revenues at what's perceived to be little or no extra cost. In their minds, if you could make 30% more by cutting out the middleman, they should probably be looking at it. This smells though like a blackmailing attempt - to reduce the 30% cut under the threat of anti-trust because they think that Apple doesn't have any alternatives. For example:
Apple can't drop free apps. It would hurt the independent small developer community.
Any attempt by Apple to drop free apps would be viewed by regulators as anti-competitive, since the App Store is currently the only way to get apps onto the iOS ecosystem.
I'm waiting for the "lower pricing to the consumer by getting rid of the App Store tax" argument to pop up. You can bet that if Epic et.al. win this there will not be a magical 30% reduction in their pricing of the content...
One would hope that legislators would see through the charade of what they're being asked to do, but I have little faith that they will take the time to think through the situation and will make their decision on pure emotion about what "sounds good for the public benefit".
McDonald’s and Burger King do not allow other vendors to sell to consumers in their stores or on their grounds. Should they be forced to allow street food vendors to use their parking lots to sell to consumers directly?
I don’t agree with the law, but this is a horrible and completely inaccurate analogy. A closer one would be that McDonald’s allows everyone to sell food to customers eating in the restaurant but charges a fee for using the space and the law is saying they have to let people who buy from the street vendors come in and use the dining room.
McDonald’s and Burger King do not allow other vendors to sell to consumers in their stores or on their grounds. Should they be forced to allow street food vendors to use their parking lots to sell to consumers directly?
I don’t agree with the law, but this is a horrible and completely inaccurate analogy. A closer one would be that McDonald’s allows everyone to sell food to customers eating in the restaurant but charges a fee for using the space and the law is saying they have to let people who buy from the street vendors come in and use the dining room.
Not only use their dining area for free, McDonald's must also supply the street venders with electricity, gas, water and garbage service. Plus paper plates, cups, straws and utensils. Along with providing a safe space in their parking lot from which to sell their food, with security, so the venders can leave their equipment there overnight. AND provide and staff a customer service window in their diner, where people that are not happy with the vender's food can make a complaint.
Free apps with in-app purchases are really the problem here.
How about a compromise - You, Mr./Ms Developer can offer your own in-app purchases but...
Apps that use non-Apple in-app purchases can not be offered for free or for some ridiculously low price. It must be purchased from the App Store at some amount to cover the cost of Apple distributing your application. I don't know what that amount is so let's say $5 is a good starting point. (that's the equivalent of a $15-ish app).
Apple keeps 100% of the purchase price of the app. You're keeping 100% (or more than 70%) of the in-app revenue which is where you've decided your business model is going to make you money. So why should you expect Apple to pay you for something you're not paying them for now.
You may not use Apple's in-app purchase infrastructure as an option. You must provide your own in-app purchase infrastructure and customer service. Don't come crying to Apple about issues with in-app purchases.
If you want to use Apple's in-app purchase mechanism, you can offer a free app, and Apple will take a commission on the in-app purchase like it does today.
How about Apple shut down the App Store altogether and let developers fend for themselves. This is how the Mac platform has operated for decades before app stores were a thing. Let users install whatever they want from wherever they want but Apple still holds them to privacy and security rules. Small developers will of course disappear almost immediately but hey, fuck ‘em.
Wtf kind of stupid, angry solution is this. No.
Funny, we both read the same post but I viewed his entire post as completely sarcastic. I never once considered the possibility that he was serious. And you viewed his entire post as completely serious. I thought he was completely in agreement with you.
PERockwell said: Any attempt by Apple to drop free apps would be viewed by regulators as anti-competitive, since the App Store is currently the only way to get apps onto the iOS ecosystem.
This is just another hilarious statement. Apple has no obligation to provide free services for free app developers. None whatsoever. It is not anti-competitive to charge app developers a fixed fee just for the privilege of getting onto the App Store since Apple is providing services for that fee. If Apple charged every developer $99 for any single app that goes on the App Store, even free apps, I think that would be of great help to consumers because it would stop all the pure junk apps that appear on the App Store. I've had to browse through dozens of totally useless apps "with no ratings" just to get to apps that people have used and that I might want.
P.S. I have NO IDEA how I got some text to be blue, above.
How about all these whinging ‘developers’ crawl back under their epic rocks !! There apps are all crap anyway and would be missed from the App Store !!
Free apps with in-app purchases are really the problem here.
How about a compromise - You, Mr./Ms Developer can offer your own in-app purchases but...
Apps that use non-Apple in-app purchases can not be offered for free or for some ridiculously low price. It must be purchased from the App Store at some amount to cover the cost of Apple distributing your application. I don't know what that amount is so let's say $5 is a good starting point. (that's the equivalent of a $15-ish app).
Apple keeps 100% of the purchase price of the app. You're keeping 100% (or more than 70%) of the in-app revenue which is where you've decided your business model is going to make you money. So why should you expect Apple to pay you for something you're not paying them for now.
You may not use Apple's in-app purchase infrastructure as an option. You must provide your own in-app purchase infrastructure and customer service. Don't come crying to Apple about issues with in-app purchases.
If you want to use Apple's in-app purchase mechanism, you can offer a free app, and Apple will take a commission on the in-app purchase like it does today.
How about Apple shut down the App Store altogether and let developers fend for themselves. This is how the Mac platform has operated for decades before app stores were a thing. Let users install whatever they want from wherever they want but Apple still holds them to privacy and security rules. Small developers will of course disappear almost immediately but hey, fuck ‘em.
There would be initial disruption to the current market for sure but if Apple shut down their store, others would provide platforms to substitute it. Remember Kagi at its origins?
The problem is that if Apple shut down their store, the platform would probably wither and then die. Apple would be fucking itself.
The platform depends on the apps remember.
The solution is in the middle ground: choice and competition.
There is no valid reason from a competition perspective why third party app stores should not exist on Apple devices unless perhaps users are made aware of restrictions prior to purchase.
Free apps with in-app purchases are really the problem here.
How about a compromise - You, Mr./Ms Developer can offer your own in-app purchases but...
Apps that use non-Apple in-app purchases can not be offered for free or for some ridiculously low price. It must be purchased from the App Store at some amount to cover the cost of Apple distributing your application. I don't know what that amount is so let's say $5 is a good starting point. (that's the equivalent of a $15-ish app).
Apple keeps 100% of the purchase price of the app. You're keeping 100% (or more than 70%) of the in-app revenue which is where you've decided your business model is going to make you money. So why should you expect Apple to pay you for something you're not paying them for now.
You may not use Apple's in-app purchase infrastructure as an option. You must provide your own in-app purchase infrastructure and customer service. Don't come crying to Apple about issues with in-app purchases.
If you want to use Apple's in-app purchase mechanism, you can offer a free app, and Apple will take a commission on the in-app purchase like it does today.
Could actually be a lot simpler than that. Just have two types of developer accounts.
1. One that remains $100 and your apps get sold through the AppStore only. 2. Another that costs $10,000 and you do not get access to the AppStore, but distribute your apps yourself.
In both cases, the apps still need to be run through Apple's screening process and then digitally signed before they can be installed.
One thing Apple could possibly do to placate these miscreants would be to create a “Wild Wild West” sandbox in Apple devices that is totally walled off from the rest of the device and all native services. Users who are so inclined would then be allowed to directly load apps into the WWW sandbox using some sort of utility or web based protocol. What happens in the sandbox, stays in the sandbox. Yeah, it’s a stupid idea, like having an insane axe murderer living in your spare bedroom with the door always locked, but some people must find that sort of living arrangement rather amusing, like the legislators proposing the overthrow of “Evil Big Tech.”
Trust me, I understand the perceptions seen by the other side. But I also believe those perceptions are selfish, narrow minded, lacking in an understanding of what it takes to build and maintain a vibrant ecosystem, and rooted in rewarding hanger-on mentality. It’s one step lower on the food chain than “participation trophies for everyone,” whether they win or lose. It’s more like taking half of the trophies away from the winning team and giving them to the hot dog vendors in the stadium, because, you know, they were there selling hot dogs. The fact that the stadium and venue for selling hot dogs would not exist without the investment and creation of the stadium and team by owners is lost on the likes of Epic, who is nothing more than a hot dog vendor. Btw - nothing against real hot dog vendors, who have a lot more credibility and self directed motivation than these Minnesota legislators.
Local politicians are for the most part cheap whores, but Epic's ability to get lap dances pretty well indicates Epic doesn't actually need protection from the App Store.
I don’t see the Target/McDonalds/Walmart analog. As a consumer you don’t own the store you’re shopping in. In this case the consumer owns the device. A better one would be if Samsung in some way limited me in what I’m allowed to put in my fridge. Or wanted to charge Wholefoods a surcharge for the milk I want to store in the fridge I purchased.
I don’t see the Target/McDonalds/Walmart analog. As a consumer you don’t own the store you’re shopping in. In this case the consumer owns the device. A better one would be if Samsung in some way limited me in what I’m allowed to put in my fridge. Or wanted to charge Wholefoods a surcharge for the milk I want to store in the fridge I purchased.
Sigh. This again. No.
You don’t own the device. You own some of the device. Apple owns iOS and a bunch of other things in the device that you do not own and that Apple is licensing to you.
This is about Apple protecting their intellectual property. And they have every right to do so.
If you want to run whatever you want on your iPhone without running it through iOS have at it, but if you’re running iOS then Apple have every right to set the rules for what you can and can’t do with their intellectual property.
One thing Apple could possibly do to placate these miscreants would be to create a “Wild Wild West” sandbox in Apple devices that is totally walled off from the rest of the device and all native services. Users who are so inclined would then be allowed to directly load apps into the WWW sandbox using some sort of utility or web based protocol.
My proposal, which is similar to yours, is for Apple to allow users to replace iOS with Android or Linux. Apple already has this approach with its computers: you can replace macOS with any other OS. Giving users this "freedom" would probably win Apple a lot of points in the political arena. Doing this is much simpler, technically, than your idea of supporting two OSs and probably two file systems on the same device at the same time.
Agreed and we are on the same side of the argument. I do not think Apple "owes" a no-cost place on the App Store. I believe they do it out of mutual convenience to developers to grow both developer revenue and Apple services and hardware revenue. And it's seemed to work pretty well until some greedy publishers think they don't owe Apple anything any more and forgot who made this all possible.
Epic - your moral high ground is eroded when your business model is based on in-game add-ons that people have to purchase to continue play - one might call it feeding an addiction that you created with your "free game". (witness a local story in my neighborhood where a kid purchased $10,000+ of in-game add-ons billed to his mom's Apple ID".
But with the uproar against "big tech", Apple must navigate these waters so that they don't appear "monopolisitc/anti-competive" and at the same time don't kill the platform for users and developers. Politicians and the courts don't necessarily see the big picture outside of "big guy bad, little guy good".
Any attempt by Apple to drop free apps would be viewed by regulators as anti-competitive, since the App Store is currently the only way to get apps onto the iOS ecosystem.
This is just another hilarious statement. Apple has no obligation to provide free services for free app developers. None whatsoever. It is not anti-competitive to charge app developers a fixed fee just for the privilege of getting onto the App Store since Apple is providing services for that fee. If Apple charged every developer $99 for any single app that goes on the App Store, even free apps, I think that would be of great help to consumers because it would stop all the pure junk apps that appear on the App Store. I've had to browse through dozens of totally useless apps "with no ratings" just to get to apps that people have used and that I might want.
Again, we do agree, but the precedent has been set to allow free apps with the developer's $99 subscription. I fear that any change to that policy would create an uproar that dwarfs what Epic et. al. are trying to do.
"the tech giants would be forced to allow them in their digital storefronts"
That's some very scary Big Brother massively intrusive sh**. Would Walmart, Target, Kroger, etc., allow the government to force them to stock certain products on their shelves even if the retailer did not want to carry such products? This basically amounts to a government takeover of private property.
Also, would Target allow the makers of the products to collect the full purchase price, leaving $0.00 for Target? I think Target would just shut down its Minnesota stores. And guess what: if this law passes, then many other stores — online and brick-&-mortar both — are going to be targeted by huge lawsuits that say this law is a precedent that they must do the same thing. We'll all get to see just how lightning-fast the MN legislature can repeal a law.
Target is headquartered in Minnesota, so I don’t think that would work.
One thing Apple could possibly do to placate these miscreants would be to create a “Wild Wild West” sandbox in Apple devices that is totally walled off from the rest of the device and all native services. Users who are so inclined would then be allowed to directly load apps into the WWW sandbox using some sort of utility or web based protocol.
My proposal, which is similar to yours, is for Apple to allow users to replace iOS with Android or Linux. Apple already has this approach with its computers: you can replace macOS with any other OS. Giving users this "freedom" would probably win Apple a lot of points in the political arena. Doing this is much simpler, technically, than your idea of supporting two OSs and probably two file systems on the same device at the same time.
Y’know, I’ve heard a lot of dumb ideas bandied around but this one actually makes a lot of sense.
To me the answer (without even needing anything to change) is pretty straight forward: People want to go on and on about how they OWN their device so they should be able to do whatever they want with it. And to a certain degree that’s true... until they want to use iOS - which they do NOT own. Apple owns iOS and Apple has every right to protect it and restrict what people do with it as they see fit.
And then there’s the App Store. The iOS App Store. Not the iPhone App Store. If the App Store is entirely within iOS then I don’t see why anyone has any right to force Apple to do anything other than whatever Apple wants to do with their App Store inside their OS.
Epic wants to argue they should be able to engage their users, on the users devices, directly. Apple rightly says no and one of their arguments should at least be that Apple owns iOS so Apple has rights to restrict etc that. (To be honest I don’t understand why we don’t see Apple arguing that more loudly).
However there’s still the people saying “But it’s my device!!”
At the moment, as I’ve said above, I believe it’s a perfectly reasonable answer to that to say: “Yep, it’s your device and you can do whatever you want with your device, but not with iOS.”
Still I can see some people - potentially reasonably - having a problem with the idea that an iPhone can’t do anything beyond say being a paperweight or a lousy mirror, without turning it on and running iOS.
To me it’s pretty reasonable that an iPhone runs only iOS and if you don’t like iOS (including all its restrictions) then don’t buy an iPhone. But others appear to be arguing - indirectly - that the fact that the iPhone is useless without running Apple’s IP on it isn’t reasonable.
So what happens if we address that? What happens if Apple allow iPhones to do more than just weigh paper down without requiring iOS?
If Apple allowed anyone to build and install any OS (Android, Windows, EpicOS, or anything else) on the physical device and allowed the physical device to be open in that regard, but Apple still held tight to the stuff that is absolutely theirs - Apple’s OS, Apple’s App Store, Apple’s services, and Apple’s entire ecosystem - and had them all tied together and locked down together (independent of the hardware) could there be any grounds for anyone to reasonably complain about Apple’s walled garden at that point? If the walled garden is entirely limited to the software, while the hardware is open for you to install whatever you like on it (outside of Apple’s OS and walled garden if you prefer it that way) is there any room for reasonable complaint at that point?
At the moment the Epic v Apple case is in a stage of both having been ordered to mutually define the market. Apple wants to define the market as mobile devices - which makes the most sense to me. Of course Epic wants to define iOS and iPhones as a market in itself - which makes as much sense to me as defining Big Macs as a market (ie. none).
But the lawmakers appear to be entertaining the idea that Apple’s devices are a market in themselves. Personally I think that’s ridiculous, but maybe that has a chance of getting some traction on the “but it’s my device” argument. But how much argument is there for Apple’s OS’s and ecosystem being a market that lawmakers can regulate if Apple’s physical devices aren’t restricted to only Apple’s OS’s?
And then, when only a tiny minority of people who buy iPhones actually install any OS other than iOS on them, I wonder what Epic’s (and anyone else’s) argument then is?
I just don’t understand how anyone can think it’s reasonable to force Apple to effectively open up portions of Apple’s intellectual property for a free for all.
I can’t see Apple opening up the iPhone for installation of other operating systems, but of all their options, it does seem like the one that makes the most sense and solves the problem most cleanly.
————————
On another but still related note:
Every time someone on this forum posts “but it’s my device” and I reply with “but it’s not your OS” - the original poster has never responded. Why?
I challenge all you “it’s my device” people to answer the “but it’s not your OS” response with anything sensible/reasonable.
Comments
There is a difference between Business A charging a fee to Business B, for stocking their products and Business A getting a commission to do the same. With a fee, only Business A is guarantee to make a profit. But with a commission, both Business A and B stands to profit. Providing Business B price their products accordingly and Business A cover their cost of stocking Business B products with the commission. Business A do not dictate how much Business B charges for their products on their shelves.
And both Apple and Google do stock products that are unprofitable for them. 75% of the apps in their app stores are free. Even though the developer of those apps might be making money from having a free app in the Apple App and/or Google Play stores. Plus Apple and Google not only provides free apps for government Covid19 tracking, they helped with its development.
When the US government broke up the ATT monopoly and then forced ATT to share their long distance lines with other companies that wants to enter the long distance provider business, like Sprint and MCI, ATT was still able to charge for the use of their long distance lines. The government ddi not force ATT to provide free services for the other telecommunication companies that were making money using ATT long distance lines.
Here we have a State government wanting to force Apple and Google to provide free access to the platforms they built and maintain, because a few crybaby developers don't want to share the profits they make from using their platforms.
I don't think it's lazy. It's a calculated attack on Apple to improve revenues at what's perceived to be little or no extra cost. In their minds, if you could make 30% more by cutting out the middleman, they should probably be looking at it. This smells though like a blackmailing attempt - to reduce the 30% cut under the threat of anti-trust because they think that Apple doesn't have any alternatives. For example:
- Apple can't drop free apps. It would hurt the independent small developer community.
- Any attempt by Apple to drop free apps would be viewed by regulators as anti-competitive, since the App Store is currently the only way to get apps onto the iOS ecosystem.
I'm waiting for the "lower pricing to the consumer by getting rid of the App Store tax" argument to pop up. You can bet that if Epic et.al. win this there will not be a magical 30% reduction in their pricing of the content...One would hope that legislators would see through the charade of what they're being asked to do, but I have little faith that they will take the time to think through the situation and will make their decision on pure emotion about what "sounds good for the public benefit".
Thanks for answering one of my many questions. The number of questions you didn't answer was "Many-1".
On the contrary, Apple has every right to do things that "hurt the community." For example, it could shut down the entire App Store or stop selling iPhones. Those things would certainly hurt the community but there isn't a single person on earth that can force Apple to provide an App Store or sell iPhones. Apple can also charge developers of free apps a fixed fee just to get their App application processed. They can also charge developers of free apps a monthly fee for keeping their app onto the App Store. I could go on with additional fees to cover additional services that Apple provides free app developers. There is nothing wrong at all with charging people for the services you provide, even if that "hurts them." I get the impression that you think Apple OWES developers of free apps a no-cost place on the App Store. That's wrong. Apple is subsidizing free app developers with the money they take in from big app developers, like Epic. Is subsidization illegal? Do you really want Apple to be forced to charge developers of free apps in order to be compensated for their services?
This is just another hilarious statement. Apple has no obligation to provide free services for free app developers. None whatsoever. It is not anti-competitive to charge app developers a fixed fee just for the privilege of getting onto the App Store since Apple is providing services for that fee. If Apple charged every developer $99 for any single app that goes on the App Store, even free apps, I think that would be of great help to consumers because it would stop all the pure junk apps that appear on the App Store. I've had to browse through dozens of totally useless apps "with no ratings" just to get to apps that people have used and that I might want.
P.S. I have NO IDEA how I got some text to be blue, above.
The problem is that if Apple shut down their store, the platform would probably wither and then die. Apple would be fucking itself.
The platform depends on the apps remember.
The solution is in the middle ground: choice and competition.
There is no valid reason from a competition perspective why third party app stores should not exist on Apple devices unless perhaps users are made aware of restrictions prior to purchase.
1. One that remains $100 and your apps get sold through the AppStore only.
2. Another that costs $10,000 and you do not get access to the AppStore, but distribute your apps yourself.
In both cases, the apps still need to be run through Apple's screening process and then digitally signed before they can be installed.
Trust me, I understand the perceptions seen by the other side. But I also believe those perceptions are selfish, narrow minded, lacking in an understanding of what it takes to build and maintain a vibrant ecosystem, and rooted in rewarding hanger-on mentality. It’s one step lower on the food chain than “participation trophies for everyone,” whether they win or lose. It’s more like taking half of the trophies away from the winning team and giving them to the hot dog vendors in the stadium, because, you know, they were there selling hot dogs. The fact that the stadium and venue for selling hot dogs would not exist without the investment and creation of the stadium and team by owners is lost on the likes of Epic, who is nothing more than a hot dog vendor. Btw - nothing against real hot dog vendors, who have a lot more credibility and self directed motivation than these Minnesota legislators.
Epic - your moral high ground is eroded when your business model is based on in-game add-ons that people have to purchase to continue play - one might call it feeding an addiction that you created with your "free game". (witness a local story in my neighborhood where a kid purchased $10,000+ of in-game add-ons billed to his mom's Apple ID".
But with the uproar against "big tech", Apple must navigate these waters so that they don't appear "monopolisitc/anti-competive" and at the same time don't kill the platform for users and developers. Politicians and the courts don't necessarily see the big picture outside of "big guy bad, little guy good".
Again, we do agree, but the precedent has been set to allow free apps with the developer's $99 subscription. I fear that any change to that policy would create an uproar that dwarfs what Epic et. al. are trying to do.
At the moment, as I’ve said above, I believe it’s a perfectly reasonable answer to that to say: “Yep, it’s your device and you can do whatever you want with your device, but not with iOS.”
At the moment the Epic v Apple case is in a stage of both having been ordered to mutually define the market. Apple wants to define the market as mobile devices - which makes the most sense to me. Of course Epic wants to define iOS and iPhones as a market in itself - which makes as much sense to me as defining Big Macs as a market (ie. none).
————————
On another but still related note:
Every time someone on this forum posts “but it’s my device” and I reply with “but it’s not your OS” - the original poster has never responded. Why?
I challenge all you “it’s my device” people to answer the “but it’s not your OS” response with anything sensible/reasonable.