tht

We're expecting legal challenges from some of these third parties to the concessions made by Apple announced on Thursday, perhaps with one filed by Epic's Tim Sweeney who is already vocal about the modifications. "Gatekeepers" like Apple have until March 6, 2024, to comply with the law's obligations as it pertains to App Stores and the like.

I haven't read the rules, and obviously can't game out what's going to happen, but yeah, there will be challenges.

Some basic math. Apple has about 100m iPhone users in the EU. They have about 25% share and I'm assuming everyone has a phone. Assuming a successful freemium game like Fortnite gets into 10m installs, that's a 5m Euro bill for something like 1m players with 5 Fortnite updates per year. It all comes down to what the ARPU for Fortnite is.

In 2018, 2019, Fortnite was making about 80m per month worldwide. The EU is probably a quarter of that, so 20m per month? Seems a good deal? I know that my son at the time would spend about $10 every 3 months, whenever a new season started, so his ARPU was about $40/yr, but I don't know many players are like that. Anyways, Fortnite is not a good example as they made 10s of millions per month under the App Store rules when they were on Apple platforms.

Anyways, I'd recommend people relax. It's a market, and you play by the rules the EU market sets. These are new rules set by the EU, and Apple is adjusting. There's probably another couple rounds on the CTF, but you play by the rules. It looks like Apple is making the best of it, and that's good.

pulseimages said:

When has this happened before where a company removed a feature to avoid paying for the technology? 

It happens for every complicated and monied product that you have ever used. It happens on existing products all the time. By complicated, I mean products that are driven by combinations of software and hardware with multitudes of disparate features and that product or company makes money with it. 

Apple had to change the FaceTime architecture multiple times to avoid infringing on patents from VirnetX. It went from a simple peer-to-peer network architecture to a server-side managed architecture. VirnetX vs Apple basically went on for 10 years, with VirnetX winning multiple jury verdicts and monetary damages to only have those decisions vacated. Apple finally got the last remaining patents invalidated and the court proceedings are finally done I think.

Apple almost had to change, or did change, the Time Machine and CoverFlow UIs to avoid UI patents from MirrorWorlds. This also was a back and forth with multiple jury verdict wins for MirrorWorlds that were reversed. But you don't see CoverFlow UIs anymore do you? That's the strange thing, the CoverFlow UI has nothing to do with MirrorWorlds's or David Gelernter's time-stream UI ideas. The Time Machine UI, sure, but CoverFlow, or even the Spotlight UI which was also part of the case? Really, nothing related. Gelernter's UI implementation sucked. I read his book. Smart guy, but not all smart people are good at design. Really, his UI idea was just a series of open windows based on date on a 2D display UI design. Ie, imagine Linux with X-Windows and a bunch of file windows overlapping each other, only with the title bars visible.

It bears repeating, patents have nothing to do with technology nor originality nor rewarding a company or person for their work. The point of the current patent process is for it to not cover your work or product, but to cover all possible products related to or adjacent to your idea. That is the essential outcome of how patents are rewarded, interpreted and litigated. Patent writers who fail to write their patents properly broad will not make it as a patent writer. Patent examiners are directed by law to give the words in a patent the broadest reasonable interpretation. They then let entities fight it out in court on the validity of patents, monetary amounts, infringement, etc.

Maybe I should go and do a search on CPU related patent wars? There are a lot of those. Time and again, to clear infringement, the CPU maker probably just writes some microcode to prevent whatever patented CPU op from happening, and away they go, making that aspect if the CPU op a little slower.

Masimo is basically patent troll adjacent. They have a product portfolio, virtually none which that competes with Apple, and they see patents as a revenue stream, a means to protect their revenue streams, and as tool to negotiate. The CEO has aspirations of being a consumer health company. Prior to the court case, basically all of Masimo's revenue, and still is, is based on selling products to hospitals or components for products going into hospitals. Not sure how much their audio products make or if they have audio products on the market. This court case against Apple is but the first action for their entry into the market. Well, perhaps their first action was the court case against True Wearables. That was a nutso decision by the court right there.

Anilu_777 said:

“In the United States” Apple says. So in other nations the feature should be the same as usual? 

Yup. No change to any Watches sold outside the USA.

This is an import ban from the US International Trade Commission (ITC). Their only powers are tariffs and import bans. So, products being transported into the USA. The US Federal Court of Appeals decided that the import ban can take effect by end of today, and all unchanged Apple Watches will by stopped at the border. Not by regular people bringing one or two, just large amounts.

All existing Watches in the USA are unchanged.

The Watches that have disabled the blood oxygen measurement have a different serial number, and this is how Apple can get them through US customs and sell them in the USA.

Apple and Masimo in the meanwhile are winding themselves through the US Court system on whether Apple is infringing on Masimo's patents or stole trade secrets. The 1st trial ended in a mistrial because the jury decision wasn't unanimous. It was 6-1 in Apple's favor. The appeals or retrials are in process. Apple's countersuit on Masimo's watches is in process. Apple's invalidation efforts on Masimo's asserted patents are in process with 15 of 17 patents invalidated. Appeals of course are ongoing.

After the Masimo vs Apple court case winds down, there will be clarity on what's happening with the Watches sold after today and future Watches.

Heh, Netflix is being a Gatekeeper here, and should be subject to antitrust. /sarcasm

Anyways, the Vision Pro can run Netflix’s iOS and iPadOS apps, unchanged or at minimum with a recompile with the VP target checked. Since they aren’t letting VP users use those apps, Netflix is explicitly not allowing that to happen. 

And so it goes.