svanstrom

blastdoor said:

svanstrom said:

blastdoor said:

svanstrom said:

blastdoor said:

If Epic wants to characterize Apple as a monopoly because they control their own App Store, then Epic is a monopoly because they control FortNite. Epic should be broken up and copies of Fortnite given to several other game developers, so that Epic's Fortnite monopoly is finally ended! 

In some seriousness, though... I actually think Apple would be wise to allow other app stores on their platforms, at least sort of. 

Other app stores could be authorized to operate on iOS, and perhaps pay Apple a much smaller share of revenue than the Apple App Store gets. By disassociating the Apple brand from these other stores, Apple could get a share of revenue that hey otherwise might never get, because they could lower their content standards. In other words, Apple could finally make money off of porn! Also, Apple could require that other App Store operators accept liability for anything that goes wrong with the apps sold through their stores. 

Meanwhile, Apple could more aggressively curate their own App Store for content quality, so that their store truly is the best. 

There you completely ignore that for Apple to guarantee security and adherence to guidelines they still have to do the work vetting all apps (and all updates of said apps) themselves; so they are still doing the same work, they just don't get paid the same to do it (and according to your scheme they would also intentionally have to let less quality products get in, just to somehow prove their own superiority by applying the regular quality only in their own store).

Have you ever used a Mac?

Not sure it's possible to even try to continue a discussion if you don't even begin to understand the difference between the platforms/OSes/devices.

Apple chooses the differences, they are not some deep innate property of the universe. It sounds like you have a status quo fetish.

PShimi said:

GeorgeBMac said:

PShimi said:

GeorgeBMac said:

PShimi said:

...

Sure.

The below contains links that @GeorgeBMac has requested in support of what I wrote in a previous post. Most (but not all) of them do not talk about WeChat which is really what this thread is supposed to be about, but they do support my comments about what China has been doing, and in that vein, how Apple supporting the CCP over WeChat does not make any sense.

If you are busy and do not have time to look through all the below material, I would HIGHLY suggest you watch this - directly mentions WeChat various times:

Simone Gao documentary, 1 hour long, viewed over 2 million times - discusses how China hid the virus and lied about human to human transmission, including monitoring people via WeChat and using it as a tool of suppression:



Very interesting video that covers various topics but focuses on Canada's CBC extremely worrying pro CCP anti democratic news stories calling Chinese journalists racist against China when they were talking about the Chinese Government (i.e. it would be like saying someone was racist for saying the Nazis were bad - when the Nazis are not a race - a government is NOT a race) and attempts to conflate the CCP with the Chinese people which is again helping the CCP:



How China is gobbling up millions of acres of land, vital infrastructure and companies in Australia
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7725675/How-China-owns-Australia-buying-infrastructure-land-water.html

How China's CCP has taken control of Port Darwin in Australia for 99 years, a very important and strategic port:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-12/why-did-northern-territory-sell-darwin-port-to-china-what-risk/10755720


Google search: australia gum on shoe china
About 3,850,000 results
Suggest this article first:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/29/chewing-gum-stuck-on-the-sole-of-our-shoes-the-china-australia-war-of-words-timeline

Google: Australia threatened by China virus
China's government attempting to use economic coercion to stop Australia looking into virus further. This is in support of the comments I made about how the CCP is trying to remove the link between the CCP and the Virus:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8264031/Chinese-ambassador-threatens-destroy-Australias-economy-coronavirus-probe.html

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-australia-china/australia-rejects-chinese-economic-coercion-threat-amid-planned-coronavirus-probe-idUSKCN2290Z6

Connected with the above story:
'You will feel more pain': China's chilling new threat to devastate Australia's economy if it supports America in a 'new Cold War' (mentions the above stories)
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8353231/China-warns-Australia-feel-pain-economic-punishment.html


March earlier this year (well before the US was in the throws of Covid19): China Will Do Anything to Deflect Coronavirus Blame - points to Italy as the starting point of Covid19:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/30/beijing-coronavirus-response-see-what-sticks-propaganda-blame-ccp-xi-jinping/
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3903271


As you can see, the information is out there. You do not need to look very far to find it. It is not as if you have to join some secret club, have a special handshake, and follow some mumbo jumbo.
Using WeChat for business communication is a serious danger not only for businesses but freedom in general. Ignoring this threat is like walking on a bed of snakes and pretending that none of them will bite you.



On to @GeorgeBMac later comments on Trump:

I said nothing about Trump. I find it strange how people often attempt to inject something about Trump when talking about China's CCP. I don't live in the US. I am not American. I do not really follow American politics. China affects the ENTIRE WORLD. How can you not understand that? This is NOT about Trump.

That said, your comment about protecting American businesses - well China is constantly draining information from around the world and using it to it's own ends. IP theft is a thing, it is ABSOLUTELY real. 

China's Harbin Z 20 is a virtual clone of America's Black Hawk.
https://www.businessinsider.com/china-tested-black-hawk-copy-z20-helicopter-on-advanced-destroyer-2019-7?r=US&IR=T

South China morning post called "China’s Z-20 Black Hawk lookalike"
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3033088/chinas-z-20-black-hawk-lookalike-and-flying-saucer-concept

A bunch of fighter jets that are near copies:
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/g23303922/china-copycat-air-force/


The point is - these are copied from the militaries of the world - who are 'well protected' and yet the CCP still manages to steal their data. Compared to this, stealing information from businesses is child's play, and WeChat makes this even easier.

So again, what is Apple doing!? It makes NO sense.

I was talking about evidence.   Not propaganda and selective 'facts'.

We do have hard evidence that Russia has attacked our last two elections and is proceeding to attack this one as well.  But for some reason Trump and his Trumpers ignore that and hyperfocus on China hate.   Why is that?   Could Russia be aiding Trump and China just a distraction?  

Around 11 different sources - is 'selective'? Well look, just Google it yourself. I just provided suggestions and tried to select from a variety of different sources on purpose to avoid being 'selective', but whatever.

Australia being bullied by China is propaganda. Um, OK. That's weird. I'm sure you know more than people in Australia do, apparently.

You clearly did not read my reply where I think I made it pretty clear I don't give a toss about Trump.

As for China 'hate' - this is getting a bit much. I am deeply concerned about the plight of the Chinese people in China due to what the CCP is doing to them, and what CCP is doing to the world. Everyone should be concerned about this. Don't think for a moment that what happened to Hong Kong is going to be the end of their aggression. Long after Trump is out of power, this is still going to be an issue for the world. It's not going to magically disappear.

At the end of the day, China uses WeChat to monitor people - Chinese people know that all too well.
By pushing WeChat to remain in use Apple are supporting the CCP to suppress the Chinese people.

If you don't want to understand, that's up to you. No one can open your eyes for you.

macplusplus said:

svanstrom said:

macplusplus said:

dantheman827 said:

seanismorris said:

ArianneFeldry said:

How would consumers not win? Say Epic wins and they get the fee reduced, the ability for direct payments, or more hopefully, we get full sideloading on iOS. For the first situation we could get cheaper apps, as developers could reduce the price of the apps themselves or the price of In App Purchases, something good for the consumer. For the second we got proof that it would be better for the consumer, as the price of V-Bucks was cheaper with the option for directly purchasing the V-Bucks from Epic rather than through Apple's processor. For the third consumers wouldn't be beholden to the App Store. Stadia and Xcloud would be usable on iOS, Much more open source development could occur on iOS because developers wouldn't have to subscribe to a $100 fee to host their apps on the store. Hell, with sideloading we could get app stores that actually show off more than regurgitate the top apps of each category.

Sideloading isn’t a win for consumers, it introduces significant security risks.

I suppose macOS is a security risk then?

iOS and macOS are significantly different. On macOS you can build a whole application without using a single line of code from Apple, this is a full featured standardized UNIX operating system. You cannot do that on iOS, more than half of the code of an app belongs to Apple. Sometimes some curious developers dare to temper with those underlying undocumented and unpublished APIs and learn their lesson from Apple ! So this is not the phone Java of Y2K that makes an iOS app. To sideload an app into iOS you must first get a license from Apple to use that underlying code that you necessarily integrated into your app, and no law or government in the world can force Apple to give that license !

For those who don't want to use any line of code from iOS then there are web applications. Apple obviously do not charge anything for the sites the user browses. Steve Jobs' first insight was web applications and maybe he was right ?! Maybe the AppStore was a mistake and Apple must shut it down and replace the mainstream utility, productivity and entertainment apps with its own branded (or licensed) ones !

At the time the AppStore was the right thing, and it was required to get things going; but now… Web technologies/standards have evolved to the point where Apple seem to avoid implementing them just to force people into making "real" apps, and using the AppStore.

So that's where the real anti-competitive behaviour is; but no big companies want to take that fight, because they don't benefit from a real open solution.

I don't understand your point, why would Apple avoid implementing web technologies/standards, while there is a whole iWork suite, Pages, Numbers, Keynote, and Photos, Contacts etc... as web applications on iCloud.com?

If you mean by that the exclusion of "apps" that consist of a single web view, again I don't understand why that would be anti-competitive while the developers of those apps do not even need the AppStore, they can  just deploy on the web. In contrast, it is certain that those web view apps present an unfair competition against native apps. The AppStore is not a venue to promote web sites.

macplusplus said:

dantheman827 said:

seanismorris said:

ArianneFeldry said:

How would consumers not win? Say Epic wins and they get the fee reduced, the ability for direct payments, or more hopefully, we get full sideloading on iOS. For the first situation we could get cheaper apps, as developers could reduce the price of the apps themselves or the price of In App Purchases, something good for the consumer. For the second we got proof that it would be better for the consumer, as the price of V-Bucks was cheaper with the option for directly purchasing the V-Bucks from Epic rather than through Apple's processor. For the third consumers wouldn't be beholden to the App Store. Stadia and Xcloud would be usable on iOS, Much more open source development could occur on iOS because developers wouldn't have to subscribe to a $100 fee to host their apps on the store. Hell, with sideloading we could get app stores that actually show off more than regurgitate the top apps of each category.

Sideloading isn’t a win for consumers, it introduces significant security risks.

I suppose macOS is a security risk then?

iOS and macOS are significantly different. On macOS you can build a whole application without using a single line of code from Apple, this is a full featured standardized UNIX operating system. You cannot do that on iOS, more than half of the code of an app belongs to Apple. Sometimes some curious developers dare to temper with those underlying undocumented and unpublished APIs and learn their lesson from Apple ! So this is not the phone Java of Y2K that makes an iOS app. To sideload an app into iOS you must first get a license from Apple to use that underlying code that you necessarily integrated into your app, and no law or government in the world can force Apple to give that license !

For those who don't want to use any line of code from iOS then there are web applications. Apple obviously do not charge anything for the sites the user browses. Steve Jobs' first insight was web applications and maybe he was right ?! Maybe the AppStore was a mistake and Apple must shut it down and replace the mainstream utility, productivity and entertainment apps with its own branded (or licensed) ones !

blastdoor said:

svanstrom said:

blastdoor said:

If Epic wants to characterize Apple as a monopoly because they control their own App Store, then Epic is a monopoly because they control FortNite. Epic should be broken up and copies of Fortnite given to several other game developers, so that Epic's Fortnite monopoly is finally ended! 

In some seriousness, though... I actually think Apple would be wise to allow other app stores on their platforms, at least sort of. 

Other app stores could be authorized to operate on iOS, and perhaps pay Apple a much smaller share of revenue than the Apple App Store gets. By disassociating the Apple brand from these other stores, Apple could get a share of revenue that hey otherwise might never get, because they could lower their content standards. In other words, Apple could finally make money off of porn! Also, Apple could require that other App Store operators accept liability for anything that goes wrong with the apps sold through their stores. 

Meanwhile, Apple could more aggressively curate their own App Store for content quality, so that their store truly is the best. 

There you completely ignore that for Apple to guarantee security and adherence to guidelines they still have to do the work vetting all apps (and all updates of said apps) themselves; so they are still doing the same work, they just don't get paid the same to do it (and according to your scheme they would also intentionally have to let less quality products get in, just to somehow prove their own superiority by applying the regular quality only in their own store).

Have you ever used a Mac?