rorschachai

9secondkox2 said:

Apple is allowed to have a differentiator. iMessage is it. 

Enough of this foolishness. Google, for your own good, sit down and shut the heck up. It’s embarassing already. 

gatorguy said:

ctt_zh said:

chasm said:

If Apple can’t make the argument that Google just wants to sell unsolicited “rich” advert-messages to annoy everyone on any platform, then I would suggest they simply shut off the Messages app in Europe, citing privacy concerns.

As the company admits, WhatsApp has won that market and the Messages app is less popular, so it would be no loss to them whatsoever.

WhatsApp are the ones who should REALLY be worried if Google gets its spammy way here. Being forced to allow Google Spamvert-messages will RUIN WhatsApp’s popularity.

Is Google really able to sell unsolicited advert-messages in Europe? My understanding is the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requires consumers to opt-in to such campaigns...

Some posts are essentially made up, with wild accusations fitting whatever argument they want to make. 

"It is paramount that businesses can reach all their customers taking advantage of modern communications services with enriched messaging features," says the letter. "Through iMessage, business users are only able to send enriched messages to iOS users and must rely on traditional SMS for all the other end users."

Translation: spam. Businesses want to be able to send spam more easily. That’s what this letter is about. Who has ever actually asked for “enriched messages” from companies? And the spam will also cost the user money if they have a capped data plan. Sounds great.

Imagine that this was a mall and literally half of the UK population is in this mall

This doesn’t even make sense. The mall in this analogy would be the iOS platform, and the stores inside would be the apps. The owner of the mall gets to decide what rent is and who they want to rent to. Maybe some companies think the rent is too high. But there are other malls (platforms) that exist which anyone is free to go to. And anyone is free to build their own mall, just as they are free to build their own platform. It would take a lot of work and money to do it, but that fact doesn’t mean existing malls are anticompetitive. Apple themselves has spent billions of dollars developing and growing and supporting their platform. And there was nothing that guaranteed the iPhone and the App Store would be successful. 

What Ek is saying is essentially that it’s unfair for Apple to be successful and to decide what happens on their own platform. Spotify wants all the benefits of Apple’s platform without contributing anything. How much money does Apple spend on developing all the APIs that Spotify uses? Does Ek believe every developer is entitled to use them for free (or an essentially nominal $99/year)?

If forced to allow other App Stores, Apple should a) charge a license fee to use its APIs and b) require developers to choose to be in the App Store or a third party one, not both.