davidw

CrossPlatformFrogger said:

I hope Apple continues to ignore Epic, not because I have anything against Fortnite being on the App Store, but this brings more attention to Apple and its abuse of its platform. So Apple, please carry on! 

mike1 said:

I said this in an earlier post, but I hope there will be an option in settings to choose the app store as the only place from which to download.

sirdir said:

docbburk said:

All without compensation? That's what they are trying to do to Apple. 

I think they can still get compensation. But why, I thought they sell phones. Why shouldn’t the OWNER of the phone have a choice where he licenses his software??

mark fearing said:

Stock buy backs were rightly illegal up until the old nut Reagan made them okay. It is stock manipulation on the way into and out of the process. Here's hoping some day rational thought will prevail again since it did at one time.

gatorguy said:

davidw said:

The solution for Apple seem quite simple. If a developer want to have an app in the Apple App Store where there are advertising and links in the app that allows for any IAP payments outside of Apple iTunes, then Apple will charge those developers $1 per app downloaded per month, with a deal for $10 per  app per year.  (or something to that nature). It will be up to the developers if they want to charge their customers for downloading the app. So a developer can weigh in on whether to have a free app where Apple will get a commission or paid for each downloaded app and hope the users makes enough IAP to bring the cost of having such an app, below what they would had paid in commission.

This way the developers that are happy with the arrangement of having a free app and paying Apple a commission to handle IAP payments (along with refunds and updates) can still do so. And those that don't want to pay Apple a commission on IAP can do so by paying Apple upfront for having an app in the Apple App store from which they are profiting from using Apple IP.

Isn't Apple already doing something like this in the EU, with downloads from third party app stores?

Verbatim quote from the court:

For the reasons set forth herein, the Court FINDS Apple in willful violation of this Court’s 2021 Injunction which issued to restrain and prohibit Apple’s anticompetitive conduct and anticompetitive pricing. Apple’s continued attempts to interfere with competition will not be tolerated...

Apple’s response to the Injunction strains credulity. After two sets of evidentiary hearings, the truth emerged. Apple, despite knowing its obligations thereunder, thwarted the Injunction’s goals, and continued its anticompetitive conduct solely to maintain its revenue stream.

Remarkably, Apple believed that this Court would not see through its obvious cover-up (the 2024 evidentiary hearing). To unveil Apple’s actual decision-making process, not the one tailor-made for litigation, the Court ordered production of real-time documents and ultimately held a second set of hearings in 2025.

To summarize: One, after trial, the Court found that Apple’s 30 percent commission “allowed it to reap supracompetitive operating margins” and was not tied to the value of its intellectual property, and thus, was anticompetitive. Apple’s response: charge a 27 percent commission (again tied to nothing) on off-app purchases, where it had previously charged nothing, and extend the commission for a period of seven days after the consumer linked-out of the app.

Apple’s goal: maintain its anticompetitive revenue stream.

Two, the Court had prohibited Apple from denying developers the ability to communicate with, and direct consumers to, other purchasing mechanisms. Apple’s response: impose new barriers and new requirements to increase friction and increase breakage rates with full page “scare” screens, static URLs, and generic statements.

Apple’s goal: to dissuade customer usage of alternative purchase opportunities and maintain its anticompetitive revenue stream.

In the end, Apple sought to maintain a revenue stream worth billions in direct defiance of this Court’s Injunction.

In stark contrast to Apple’s initial in-court testimony, contemporaneous business documents reveal that Apple knew exactly what it was doing and at every turn chose the most anticompetitive option. To hide the truth, Vice-President of Finance, Alex Roman, outright lied under oath. Internally, Phillip Schiller had advocated that Apple comply with the Injunction, but Tim Cook ignored Schiller and instead allowed Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri and his finance team to convince him otherwise. Cook chose poorly.

The real evidence, detailed herein, more than meets the clear and convincing standard to find a violation. The Court refers the matter to the United States Attorney for the Northern District of California to investigate whether criminal contempt proceedings are appropriate.

This is an injunction, not a negotiation. There are no do-overs once a party willfully disregards a court order. Time is of the essence. The Court will not tolerate further delays. As previously ordered, Apple will not impede competition. The Court enjoins Apple from implementing its new anticompetitive acts to avoid compliance with the Injunction. Effective immediately Apple will no longer impede developers’ ability to communicate with users nor will they levy or impose a new commission on off-app purchases.

The TLDR version? 

"This is an injunction, not a negotiation. There are no do-overs once a party willfully disregards a court order."

You don't have to shout. It doesn't make your statement any more correct.