Can Microsoft please tell us first what product is it that Apple has a monopoly in so that we can prepare for the coming Apple antitrust armageddon that they are so worried about?
I think people would lay off Apple if they would just allow third party payment systems fully.
Developers already spend $99+ a year for distribution of their apps in the app store. 3rd party payments require $0 for Apple to maintain because they use zero of Apple's infrastructure outside of the phone you already paid for.
Apple doesn't need to take a cut in your entire business.
Third party payments is a separate issue from charging commissions. Apple can still go ahead, and the courts said they have every right to do so, and charge a commission. It will just be a more complicated process but it can be done, the app developer will just pay Apple from their pockets rather than have the app customer dig into theirs.
Now if you are asking the government to make it illegal for Apple to charge app developers for using Apple's platform to make money, then you will have to make it illegal for Walmart to stop me from setting up a sales kiosk at the Walmart lobby and not pay them a dime.
Are their alternative Xbox stores? Can I side load games onto my Xbox?
That’s a ridiculous comparison. Xbox has around 100 million active users; iOS is nearing 2 billion. Xbox is limited to games; iOS is used in devices that are used in just about every facet of one’s life.
The average app is $5 on IOS and compatible with and usable across years of updates and multiple devices, even family members. Xbox i far more limited in how many simultaneous devices. Don’t they also offer movies etc?
brian.on.android said: Spotify doesn't need Apple's IAP infrastructure and shouldn't be forced to pay for it.
Netflix agreed. That's why they pulled support for IAP.
None of which supports the idea that Apple is unreasonably restraining anyone's trade. Spotify, Netflix, and Amazon Kindle have all been quite successful with people paying for products/services on the web while still distributing their apps through the App Store. That shouldn't be possible if Apple had antitrust level control.
Apple just knows they'd be screwed if they chased Netflix off the App Store.
Apple has clearly shown that they will force developers to implement in-app purchases for a service being sold through their website if they don't have enough money to fight back, but Netflix and Amazon would put up one hell of a fight.
In the case of WordPress, that backfired because the app never sold anything in the first place.
Apple has never "forced" Netflix or any of their developers to use Apple iTunes payment system. I have a Netflix account since they were only a by-mail DVD rental service and been paying for that account with auto CC deduction for over 15 years now. I have never used iTunes to pay for my Netflix account and yet, I have always been able to stream their contents on my iPad and Apple TV. One could always had paid for their subscriptions on the developers own website, if they had one set up to do so.
What Netflix did was to no longer offer iTunes as a payment method to new subscribers. Subscribers that were paying with iTunes could continue to do so. And even today, so long as those subscribers did not let their account lapse, they are still able to pay with iTunes. But by now Apple is only collecting a 15% commission on those payments. With video streaming competition as it is today, Netflix would be stupid to cut off those iTunes paying subscribers and lose anymore subscribers than they already loss by raising their prices, just to recover the 15% commission.
And Netflix is not being an asshole about it, by increasing the price to subscribers using iTunes, to cover the commission, like Spotify does.
Amazon on the other hand just stopped selling digital goods in their Amazon Store app. Apple only collected a commission in digital downloaded goods, like MP3 music, downloaded movies and eBooks. You can purchase a CD or DVD or hardbound cover book through their app, but not the digital download version.
With Amazon Prime Video, Amazon got a deal where current account holders could pay for their subscription with Amazon own payment system, which they could have always done on Amazon website, but now Amazon can do that in their app. But if an Apple customer signs up for a new Prime account can pay with iTunes and Apple get their commission, along with any future purchases they make while using iOS. And like Netflix, Amazon also are not being an asshole about it like Spotify, by increasing the cost of their subscription to subscribers that chooses to pay with iTunes.
By not allowing developers to supply a link in their app, pointing toward where their customers can pay for their purchase without using iTunes, is by no means "forcing" the developer to only use iTunes. Most of these developers have the email address of their customers and could easily inform them of that they could pay using their website. I get email from Netflix all they time, regarding any change in their policy, subscription rate and recommend movies to watch base on the movies I already watched.
And MS is right! Let’s also open up all of Microsoft’s stores to 3rd parties! I wanna be able to sell my crappy games on Xbox without giving them money!!
Microsoft has a monopoly on Windows!! Microsoft, police yourselves!
Microsoft doesn't put the same controls on Windows that Apple puts on their platforms.
For one you can install whatever you want on their devices. For another they allow third party payments for when you do use their store.
Microsoft licenses their OS to 3rd party OEMs. Apple does not. That's a huge difference in business models. It's in Microsoft's best interest to allow a certain degree of "openness" to attract OEMs to their platform, the same can be said of Android.
There is nothing illegal about controlling your own platform or controlling what features you include on your own OS and hardware. The App Store is part of Apple's whole "widget"; it is a feature and it is implemented the way they want to implement it - it allows them more control over how the platform progresses and it provides them with a hefty revenue stream which gets turned around and put back into advancing the entire platform; which includes the developer tools, the OS, silicon design, hardware R&D, etc.
Apple is much too successful - we need to stop it now! -- Microsoft
Microsoft is pretty pathetic, and Apple's privacy terms rankle Microsoft's nerves. Too bad Windows doesn't have the same privacy safeguards - with Windows attempting to force everything through Edge.
Microsoft runs their own closed ecosystem with XBox, so it's a lot of Microsoft calling the kettle black.
The real monopoly is in the enterprise software realm where Microsoft keeps boosting prices for their good enough software.
What really pisses off Microsoft is that they don't have access to Apple Silicon ARM processors, so Windows ARM will run faster on Apple hardware than on their OEMs - or indeed on their own surface machines.
Microsoft has a point here. In the 90s it was so successful it almost killed Apple. On the other hand, Steve Jobs resurrected Apple without having to stop Microsoft.
Worth noting Microsoft invested in Apple in the 90's. Apple may owe Microsoft to a degree.
Yeah. Not so much. Microsoft "invested" 150 million in Apple to end the QuickTime law suit. Microsoft made 1 billion on that investment when they they sold their stock a few years later. Also, given that Microsoft basically stole the Macintosh Toolbox API's to create a better Windows, Apple owes them nothing.
Worth noting Microsoft invested in Apple in the 90's. Apple may owe Microsoft to a degree.
Oh puleeze, stop with the revisionist history. First off, Apple had about $1.5 billion in cash at the time, so they didn’t really need the money ($150 million). But Microsoft wanted to get out from under the Apple lawsuit for copying the Apple “look and feel”, so Gates ponied up. Apple also got a promise that MS would continue to issue Mac-compatible Office for another five years. Apple did issue stock to MS.
Apple is much too successful - we need to stop it now! -- Microsoft
Microsoft is pretty pathetic, and Apple's privacy terms rankle Microsoft's nerves. Too bad Windows doesn't have the same privacy safeguards - with Windows attempting to force everything through Edge.
Microsoft runs their own closed ecosystem with XBox, so it's a lot of Microsoft calling the kettle black.
The real monopoly is in the enterprise software realm where Microsoft keeps boosting prices for their good enough software.
What really pisses off Microsoft is that they don't have access to Apple Silicon ARM processors, so Windows ARM will run faster on Apple hardware than on their OEMs - or indeed on their own surface machines.
Microsoft has a point here. In the 90s it was so successful it almost killed Apple. On the other hand, Steve Jobs resurrected Apple without having to stop Microsoft.
Yup, MS is speaking from experience
But I have to say I have often wondered why Apple hasn't separated its various businesses. I am not at all sure what that would look like, or even if it would help keep antitrust lawsuits from coming.
Apple isn’t losing any sleep over anything that Microsoft says, and Microsoft has had plenty of bad things to say about Apple over the years. It didn’t hurt Apple then and it won’t hurt Apple now. Apple follows its own path, listens to its customers, listens to its conscience, listens to its gut, and so far things seem to be going pretty well.
If Apple had listened to its detractors at the point of time when they emerged from their leadership and visionary drought they would be in the trash pile of abandoned personal computer history, like Sun, DEC, Compaq, Osborn, Commodore, and many others. Perhaps Microsoft helped save them from the pile, but that would be a far too sympathetic take on Microsoft’s motivation. Microsoft probably needed a token example to prove they didn’t devour or destroy EVERYTHING that they touched on their road to total world domination of the personal computing market.
So, as much as I personally think the Apple is poking the hornets nest of intrusive regulatory oversight by continuing to expand its ecosystem to include content and services that many old guard organizations with big donor checkbooks cherish, I can only assume Apple knows what they are doing and can handle the dissent from the peanut gallery.
This action by Microsoft is the same as a driver honking their horn and flashing their lights at the car in front of them when their car is incapable of passing the car ahead of them. Apple isn’t going to slow down, pull over, and let Microsoft go on by. If Microsoft wants to pass Apple they’ll have to get in the passing lane and get by Apple based on their own power and capabilities. You know, just like Apple did when they blew past Microsoft many years ago.
Are their alternative Xbox stores? Can I side load games onto my Xbox?
Microsoft allows alternative payment methods in the store, and their cut is only 12%, not 30%. It is a world of difference. A 30% cut simply for digital distribution today is frankly absurd. (Looking at you too, Steam.)
Not on the xBox. The reduction in commission only applies to the Window App Store on a PC. And at first did not apply to games. There was hope that Microsoft would also lower their commission on the Xbox, but Microsoft has already denied that. Later Microsoft lower their commission on games, but only in their Windows App Store on a PC.
Are their alternative Xbox stores? Can I side load games onto my Xbox?
That’s a ridiculous comparison. Xbox has around 100 million active users; iOS is nearing 2 billion. Xbox is limited to games; iOS is used in devices that are used in just about every facet of one’s life.
The last I checked, an Xbox have a web browser and support a mouse and keyboard. If it can do that, then it can do what most consumers uses a computer for. Granted most consumers buy an Xbox to play games.
tmay said: What Apple owes is a tip of the hat to MS for keeping its corpulent ass focused on x86, killing its chances of success in mobile.
Thus their need to buy the developer of Candy Crush after years and years and years of Windows gamers making fun of Candy Crush.
Do you think that MS "NEED to buy the developer of Candy Crush" for $70B? I think the real purpose of acquiring Activision / Blizzard is CoD, Overwatch, Diablo and WoW, among other IP's. I think Candy Crush still one of the most popular games in iOS and Android, so it was good it was part of the deal.
Bringing Xbox into the argument shows the supreme lack of intelligence on the topic. For the ones who have trouble doing basic logic, gaming consoles are specialized devices that are not designed for personal computing. Oh it has a web browser? Yeah well so does refrigerators nowadays.
Might as well pull in Sony and Nintendo also, and make the comparisons even more nonsensical.
Phones are personal computers. We can use our PCS and Macs without paying any sort of tax on software. So how is it acceptable for our phones that we already paid for the hardware, devs are still paying a 30% premium for software?
Yes Apple deserves to get paid for their work. And they have been handsomely. Nobody asked them to make iOS, that was their own choosing. Building out a app store pulling in health and gaming etc that's all their choice. So to cry blood for Apple and near sad situation that they need to charge 30% to developers is bongos thinking. You have to pay into Apple just to make software anyway and then you're paying out for every sale on top of it every single time. Yes there are certain scenarios in there where is not flat 30% but come on.
So for the love of all thats holy please stop bringing up the utterly ridiculous Xbox comparison...its very foolish and child-like.
Love mac hardware, apple otherwise are control freak narcissists that deserve the scrutiny.
And MS is right! Let’s also open up all of Microsoft’s stores to 3rd parties! I wanna be able to sell my crappy games on Xbox without giving them money!!
Microsoft has a monopoly on Windows!! Microsoft, police yourselves!
Microsoft doesn't put the same controls on Windows that Apple puts on their platforms.
For one you can install whatever you want on their devices. For another they allow third party payments for when you do use their store.
Windows is Not a mobile device that stores all your data and can be easily stolen or misplaced. When windows phone existed they had a similar store but it failed miserably and they a jealous now.
If MS is jealous of Apple mobile market, I suppose Apple is jealous of MS enterprise market, right?
They are afraid Apple will finally get serious about enterprise software and compete with Office in a concerted manner. They also see the Mac install base increasing significantly since the pandemic. That means fewer windows licenses. What’s crazy is that if Apple doubled their install base Microsoft would still have 80% of the market, but they are just greedy and want it all.
Do you really MS is afraid of Apple enterprise software? Apple has a lot work to do if they want to get close to MS in the enterprise, specially when you consider the ecosystem MS have for enterprises.
And yes, Mac installed based grew, but looks like Windows too, considering Windows 10 / 11 are installed in 1.5B devices.
And MS is right! Let’s also open up all of Microsoft’s stores to 3rd parties! I wanna be able to sell my crappy games on Xbox without giving them money!!
Microsoft has a monopoly on Windows!! Microsoft, police yourselves!
Microsoft doesn't put the same controls on Windows that Apple puts on their platforms.
For one you can install whatever you want on their devices. For another they allow third party payments for when you do use their store.
Windows is Not a mobile device that stores all your data and can be easily stolen or misplaced. When windows phone existed they had a similar store but it failed miserably and they a jealous now.
If MS is jealous of Apple mobile market, I suppose Apple is jealous of MS enterprise market, right?
They are afraid Apple will finally get serious about enterprise software and compete with Office in a concerted manner. They also see the Mac install base increasing significantly since the pandemic. That means fewer windows licenses. What’s crazy is that if Apple doubled their install base Microsoft would still have 80% of the market, but they are just greedy and want it all.
Do you really MS is afraid of Apple enterprise software? Apple has a lot work to do if they want to get close to MS in the enterprise, specially when you consider the ecosystem MS have for enterprises.
And yes, Mac installed based grew, but looks like Windows too, considering Windows 10 / 11 are installed in 1.5B devices.
Windows 10/11 install base grew at the expense of Windows 7/8 users that upgraded. Overall, Windows is losing market share to Google ChromeOS and MacOS. Windows global marketshare (based on quarterly sales figures) is now only about 80%. It has lost about 7% in the past couple of years.
‘Entity A’ expresses grave concerns about how ‘Entity B’ is doing something bad so that it will distract from the fact that ‘Entity A’ is doing exactly what they’re criticising ‘Entity B’ of doing.
The democrats have mastered this technique with their increasing desire for an authoritarian state. ‘In the public’s interest’, because the population are babies and need protection from the evil coronavirus and the evil Trump and the evil misinformation, and they want the population to suckle at the government’s teat. And the population is happy to submit out of fear.
No matter how much you scream and carry on like a little bish, your cult leader lost fair and square and Biden is still your president.
Apple is much too successful - we need to stop it now! -- Microsoft
Microsoft is pretty pathetic, and Apple's privacy terms rankle Microsoft's nerves. Too bad Windows doesn't have the same privacy safeguards - with Windows attempting to force everything through Edge.
Microsoft runs their own closed ecosystem with XBox, so it's a lot of Microsoft calling the kettle black.
The real monopoly is in the enterprise software realm where Microsoft keeps boosting prices for their good enough software.
What really pisses off Microsoft is that they don't have access to Apple Silicon ARM processors, so Windows ARM will run faster on Apple hardware than on their OEMs - or indeed on their own surface machines.
Microsoft has a point here. In the 90s it was so successful it almost killed Apple. On the other hand, Steve Jobs resurrected Apple without having to stop Microsoft.
Worth noting Microsoft invested in Apple in the 90's. Apple may owe Microsoft to a degree.
Microsoft cashed that out ages ago and made a pretty penny on it. Apple owe Microsoft nothing, and not worth noting at all.
And MS is right! Let’s also open up all of Microsoft’s stores to 3rd parties! I wanna be able to sell my crappy games on Xbox without giving them money!!
Microsoft has a monopoly on Windows!! Microsoft, police yourselves!
Microsoft doesn't put the same controls on Windows that Apple puts on their platforms.
For one you can install whatever you want on their devices. For another they allow third party payments for when you do use their store.
Windows is Not a mobile device that stores all your data and can be easily stolen or misplaced. When windows phone existed they had a similar store but it failed miserably and they a jealous now.
If MS is jealous of Apple mobile market, I suppose Apple is jealous of MS enterprise market, right?
They are afraid Apple will finally get serious about enterprise software and compete with Office in a concerted manner. They also see the Mac install base increasing significantly since the pandemic. That means fewer windows licenses. What’s crazy is that if Apple doubled their install base Microsoft would still have 80% of the market, but they are just greedy and want it all.
Do you really MS is afraid of Apple enterprise software? Apple has a lot work to do if they want to get close to MS in the enterprise, specially when you consider the ecosystem MS have for enterprises.
And yes, Mac installed based grew, but looks like Windows too, considering Windows 10 / 11 are installed in 1.5B devices.
Windows 10/11 install base grew at the expense of Windows 7/8 users that upgraded. Overall, Windows is losing market share to Google ChromeOS and MacOS. Windows global marketshare (based on quarterly sales figures) is now only about 80%. It has lost about 7% in the past couple of years.
Comments
Now if you are asking the government to make it illegal for Apple to charge app developers for using Apple's platform to make money, then you will have to make it illegal for Walmart to stop me from setting up a sales kiosk at the Walmart lobby and not pay them a dime.
What Netflix did was to no longer offer iTunes as a payment method to new subscribers. Subscribers that were paying with iTunes could continue to do so. And even today, so long as those subscribers did not let their account lapse, they are still able to pay with iTunes. But by now Apple is only collecting a 15% commission on those payments. With video streaming competition as it is today, Netflix would be stupid to cut off those iTunes paying subscribers and lose anymore subscribers than they already loss by raising their prices, just to recover the 15% commission.
And Netflix is not being an asshole about it, by increasing the price to subscribers using iTunes, to cover the commission, like Spotify does.
https://www.igeeksblog.com/how-to-create-free-apple-developer-account/
Amazon on the other hand just stopped selling digital goods in their Amazon Store app. Apple only collected a commission in digital downloaded goods, like MP3 music, downloaded movies and eBooks. You can purchase a CD or DVD or hardbound cover book through their app, but not the digital download version.
With Amazon Prime Video, Amazon got a deal where current account holders could pay for their subscription with Amazon own payment system, which they could have always done on Amazon website, but now Amazon can do that in their app. But if an Apple customer signs up for a new Prime account can pay with iTunes and Apple get their commission, along with any future purchases they make while using iOS. And like Netflix, Amazon also are not being an asshole about it like Spotify, by increasing the cost of their subscription to subscribers that chooses to pay with iTunes.
https://daringfireball.net/2020/04/amazon_apple_prime_video ;
By not allowing developers to supply a link in their app, pointing toward where their customers can pay for their purchase without using iTunes, is by no means "forcing" the developer to only use iTunes. Most of these developers have the email address of their customers and could easily inform them of that they could pay using their website. I get email from Netflix all they time, regarding any change in their policy, subscription rate and recommend movies to watch base on the movies I already watched.
Microsoft licenses their OS to 3rd party OEMs. Apple does not. That's a huge difference in business models. It's in Microsoft's best interest to allow a certain degree of "openness" to attract OEMs to their platform, the same can be said of Android.
There is nothing illegal about controlling your own platform or controlling what features you include on your own OS and hardware. The App Store is part of Apple's whole "widget"; it is a feature and it is implemented the way they want to implement it - it allows them more control over how the platform progresses and it provides them with a hefty revenue stream which gets turned around and put back into advancing the entire platform; which includes the developer tools, the OS, silicon design, hardware R&D, etc.
Yeah. Not so much. Microsoft "invested" 150 million in Apple to end the QuickTime law suit. Microsoft made 1 billion on that investment when they they sold their stock a few years later. Also, given that Microsoft basically stole the Macintosh Toolbox API's to create a better Windows, Apple owes them nothing.
https://www.polygon.com/22409511/microsoft-store-pc-revenue-share-steam-epic-games
https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/24/22549222/microsoft-store-developers-windows-11-revenues-games
https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/29/22409285/microsoft-store-cut-windows-pc-games-12-percent
https://www.techsupportall.com/microsoft-wont-cut-its-commission-for-xbox-games/
Microsoft has a "monopoly" with their Microsoft Store on an Xbox and there's no need for them to reduce their commission there.
That 1st post of yours on AI, wasn't the best way to make a first impression.
The last I checked, an Xbox have a web browser and support a mouse and keyboard. If it can do that, then it can do what most consumers uses a computer for. Granted most consumers buy an Xbox to play games.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/24/22691196/xbox-new-edge-browser-chromium-release
90% of what i do on my MacBook, can be done on an Xbox. There's even a Safari browser.
Might as well pull in Sony and Nintendo also, and make the comparisons even more nonsensical.
Phones are personal computers. We can use our PCS and Macs without paying any sort of tax on software. So how is it acceptable for our phones that we already paid for the hardware, devs are still paying a 30% premium for software?
Yes Apple deserves to get paid for their work. And they have been handsomely. Nobody asked them to make iOS, that was their own choosing. Building out a app store pulling in health and gaming etc that's all their choice. So to cry blood for Apple and near sad situation that they need to charge 30% to developers is bongos thinking. You have to pay into Apple just to make software anyway and then you're paying out for every sale on top of it every single time. Yes there are certain scenarios in there where is not flat 30% but come on.
So for the love of all thats holy please stop bringing up the utterly ridiculous Xbox comparison...its very foolish and child-like.
Love mac hardware, apple otherwise are control freak narcissists that deserve the scrutiny.
Do you really MS is afraid of Apple enterprise software? Apple has a lot work to do if they want to get close to MS in the enterprise, specially when you consider the ecosystem MS have for enterprises.
And yes, Mac installed based grew, but looks like Windows too, considering Windows 10 / 11 are installed in 1.5B devices.
https://www.geekwire.com/2021/chromebooks-outsold-macs-worldwide-2020-cutting-windows-market-share/
Desktop Operating System Market Share Worldwide | Statcounter Global Stats
But as you said, in recent years, both, macOS and Chrome OS market share are growing quickly.