davidw

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davidw
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  • UK says Apple stifles browser innovation, but chickens out of imposing regulation

    davidwdavidw
    avon b7 said:
    It’s not chickening out. 

    It’s doing the right thing. 

    For once. 

    In this case, the EU doing nothing is doing the right thing. 

    The whole DMA fiasco needs to be reversed ASAP. 
    This isn't about the EU or the DMA. 
    Sure it is, the UK is just copycatting the EU on these issues.

    But, it's hard not to see corrupt intent here from the UK "regulators" when they blithely accept, against all objective evidence, the word of Meta, et al. that they are being prevented from doing good for consumers by "not being allowed to innovate" with browser technology. First of all, consumers don't need (or probably want, if they were to actually think about it) innovation in rendering engines (HTML/CSS/DOM/Javascript). "Innovation" in rendering engines serves only one purpose and that purpose is anticompetitive — user and developer lock-in to a specific rendering engine. And, no, that is not what Apple is doing with WebKit, they follow standards and don't add "features" that make websites incompatible with other browsers. Secondly, the facile representation by these companies that they are in any way interested in improving the user experience is laughable; they are interested in improving their own experience in monetizing users, period. So, how do we explain this attack on user privacy, in both the EU and the UK, that is cloaked in terms like "competition" and "fairness" but seems to have no purpose other than to destroy privacy and pervert the concept of fairness?

    The regulators in the UK, like those in the EU, are either so ignorant of these issues that they have no business regulating anything or they are so corrupt that they view their job as selling "regulation" to the highest bidder. Personally, I think it's a combination of both. But, the UK in particular have a track record of being anti-privacy in all regards, and the EU has a track record of hobbling US companies to benefit EU companies. It's not surprising that they are engaged in these blatant attempts to undermine privacy and competition, but it is particularly hypocritical of them to pretend they are doing the opposite.

    It's not that the consumers don't want or need, "innovation" in browser engines ....... so long as it's in the browser they are already using. But for sure, developers don't want to have to develop websites for more than the 3 main browser engines (WebKit, Blink and Gecko) we have now. The last thing they want is to develop websites to be compatible for another browser engine, no matter how much more "innovative" it might be. And Blink is a fork of Webkit but there are enough differences *(improvements) made over the years, that Blink is now considered another browser engine. And have an over 75% market share. All three are open source and "innovation's " are still possible with-in each browser engine. But Google with their 75% Blink market share has nearly full control on how browsers will have to work in order to properly render internet websites.  Once Blink approach the 90% market share, developers will begin to no longer see a need to develop for the WebKit engine.

    With the EU forcing Apple to allow browser engines other than WebKit, this will only serve to cement Blink "monopoly". What did Microsoft do when they needed to "innovate" their Edge browser ...... they adopted Blink. If company has the money to come up with a new innovative browser, it's Microsoft (not to say that they actually have the talent.). Any market share that Webkit looses in mobile, will be Blink gain. Gecko has no mobile presence. This has already happened on desktop computers when Edge started using the Blink browser engine. But the EU politicians are too tech ignorant to see what most here already know. Do the EU politicians actually think some EU firm is going to develop a new innovative browser engine that will compete with or replace .... Blink?



    If the US DOJ get their wishes and prevent Google from sharing their ad revenue with the owner of the browser, (in exchange for being the default search engine), then we can probably see the end of Gecko engine "innovations", as Google ad revenue sharing accounts for 80% of Mozilla Firefox revenue. And most of Gecko market share will most likely go to Blink.

    Here's a good article detailing the criteria thresholds that the EU came up with, to determine which companies would fall under the regulations outlined in the DMA.


    With the conclusion being .......

    >The Commission has not disclosed the thinking behind these thresholds. However, a reading of the Digital Markets Act Impact Assessment support study annex, which reported an analysis of various quantitative indicators[1] for 19 digital firms[2], shows three things: (1) the exercise carried out by the European Commission was subjective. There is no magic economic formula that would suggest that these are the optimal quantitative thresholds that maximise the efficacy of the restrictions and obligations imposed by the DMA. (2) The approach applied by the European Commission was most likely based on a backward induction process: the Commission had a rough idea of the companies that the DMA should capture, it then crafted the thresholds accordingly, to be sure the bigger players would be included. (3) Finally, the Commission had to make a clear trade-off: too-high thresholds would limit the impact of the DMA because companies with strong market leverage and capable of limiting competition in digital markets could fall out of scope; too-low thresholds would, however, entail high costs, for example burdening companies with compliance duties when they do not restrict competition in the digital market, or increasing pressure on resource-constrained public enforcers.<




    muthuk_vanalingamtiredskills

  • Phil Schiller recounts concerns over App Store fees for external purchases in hearing

    davidwdavidw
    DAalseth said:
    davidw said:
    DAalseth said:
    When I first heard about Apple getting a cut from sales outside of the AppStore I thought it was wrong and would come back to bite Apple in the ***. 30% to offset the cost of running the store was fine. But once someone loads the app I never agreed with Apple claiming a cut of sales from other people’s stores. That always struck me as abusive.

    If one purchased the digital downloaded version using the  Amazon app, then Apple charged a commission.

     

    And I always thought that was a very bad idea. If I buy a grocery bag from Target, Target doesn’t get a cut if I use it at Fred Meyers. 

    If you buy a grocery bag from anywhere, you own the bag out right. The seller has no say on where or how you can use it. But IP is different. You never own the IP. You are licensed to use it based on the terms of the license. Target don't own any rights to the grocery bag, after you paid for it.

    When you buy a CD, you can not use the CD or any of the songs on it, like you could with the purchase of a grocery bag.The artists of the songs (or copyright owner) deserves to get paid, if you were to make money using their songs. Commercial use of someone else's IP is not covered under "fair use". But you are allowed to sell that original physical CD, even at a profit, under the First Sale Doctrine in Copyright Laws. But you can never use the IP on it to make a profit, without the permission of its owner.

    If Apple (along with Google, Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo) did not charge a commission for the purchase of Fortnight Bucks (IAP), when playing Fortnight, using a free app on their devices, then how is Apple suppose to recover the cost of hosting Fortnight on their devices?  Fortnight was one of the most downloaded apps from the Apple App Store and Epic made hundreds of millions of dollars selling Fortnight bucks through that free app. The very bad idea was that of Sweeney, when he violated Apple App Store policies and bypassed Apple commission. Policies he had to agreed to before Fortnight was allowed to be a free app in the Apple App Store. This cost him hundreds of millions of dollars (if not over a billion) by now, by getting kicked out of the Apple App Store. (Not to mention the loss from getting kicked out of the Google Play Store, on Android.)



    muthuk_vanalingamForumPostwatto_cobra

  • Judge swiftly tells Apple it can't delay the Google trial

    davidwdavidw
    avon b7 said:
    Pema said:
    Goodness gracious me! That's a $20 Billion dollar infusion from Google to Apple that just flew out the window. Not to mention the fact that going forward Google will no longer have default access to 2.5 Billion Apple devices. If Google is banking on it's Gemini efforts to save their bacon then they may as well start sleeping in homeless shelters and getting handouts. 

    Losing access to 2.5 Billion Apple devices is HUGE. Make no mistake. It literally means that Microsoft can now go ahead and cut a $20 Billion deal with Apple to plug Bing or Apple will just need to beef up Safari and build out a data centre to provide comprehensive search results. The good news is with Apple Intelligence they may be able to shortcut the years-long process of aggregating hangers full of data and provide the search results via Generative AI. Forget Predictive. That's like trying to predict the weather. 
    It's also possible that this is a huge saving for Google. It won't de losing access to iOS devices, just default access. 

    Although I believe Google has a monopoly in a few areas, I also believe that, in search, they are also the best. 

    I have Google Search as a default because there is no better alternative.

    I'm sure the vast majority of iOS device users see things the same way and will make Google their default as well. I'm sure most EU citizens do the same now that we have choice. 

    If anything, Apple is now going to be put under the microscope. Without that annual injection of Google revenues (money for nothing) will they suddenly see search as a viable revenue stream and develop their own search engine? 

    If they do, some people (myself included) will point the finger at the current deal as no more than a 'you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours' situation. 

    And yes, that's how I see things now too.

    The move to kill these kinds of deals among gatekeepers is essential but only way for competition to flourish is to level the playing field.

    The Google/Apple deal only benefitted those two companies and hindered competition. 
    Just exactly when did EU citizens didn't have "choice" of search engine or the "choice" to change the default search engine?

    As for Apple losing $20 Billion in service revenue from their deal with Google sharing with Apple 33% of their ad revenue generated from iOS device search, Google can still offer that to Apple or maybe a smaller percentage like 20%. So long as Apple don't make Google search the default. Why? This to discourage Apple from making a deal with Microsoft to have Bing as their default. 

    There is no money to be made from offering a search engine for the internet. The money is made from selling targeted ads using search results. I don't think Apple is going to or want to, compete in the internet targeted ad business. The EU Commission will have a field days going after Apple if they do. Remember that BS "Gatekeeper" labeled place on Apple by the DMA? Well that would prevent Apple from promoting their own services, so Apple search can not be the default search, on their own platform. The EU might also force Apple to share their search results with competitors that wants to place ads based on Apple search results.

    The real question is, are we going to lose Mozilla Firefox. Firefox have the same deal with Google, where Google pays Mozilla a percentage of the ad revenue for being made the default search on Firefox. Though what Mozilla receives is a small fraction of what Apple gets. But for Mozilla, it represents over 85% of their total annual revenue. How is losing the choice of Firefox, good for competition and the consumers? 



    muthuk_vanalingamronnwatto_cobraCloudTalkingatorguy

  • Epic Games shifts EU app store strategy after missing target by 71 million users

    davidwdavidw
    That’s a pretty big miss.

    So far, that is the most massive understatement of the year.


    The Epic Games alt app store is available on iOS in the EU and on Android Worldwide. There are 3.3B Android users Worldwide. So Sweeney expecting 100M users in their alternative app store was just 3% of all the Android users Worldwide (not including the 120M iOS users in the EU). That is setting the bar very low to begin with. And Epic only got 29M. That's less than 1% (.089%) of all Android users Worldwide (not including the iOS users in the EU). Not only did Sweeney fail to clear the low bar he set, he fell flat on his face before the jump.

    Why would any developer want to put their apps in the Epic Games alt app store to reach less than 1% of the mobile users, even for just a 12% commission. All of a sudden, having your app available Worldwide in the Google Play Store and/or Apple App Store and paying the applicable commission, makes perfect business sense. Too many don't realize that the Google and Apple commission includes having access to their app stores loyal customer base.


    watto_cobraBart Ymuthuk_vanalingam

  • Norway gets world's first Apple Pay alternative for iPhone

    davidwdavidw
    spheric said:
    charlesn said:
    "We have fought for years to be able to compete on equal footing with Apple," said Rune Garborg, CEO of Vipps MobilePay

    Only in the EU is it considered "equal footing" when the government hands you another company's hardware and IP to use free of charge. Maybe Vipps should have spent those years developing its own phone and VippsPay system? Little wonder that European economies are and have been in the toilet. I honestly wish Apple would just pull the plug on selling to Europe and "Let them eat Android." 
    I had no idea the United States is now part of the EU… 

    https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-apple-monopolizing-smartphone-markets

    Point 4: 
    „
    • Limiting Third Party Digital Wallets. Apple has prevented third-party apps from offering tap-to-pay functionality, inhibiting the creation of cross-platform third-party digital wallets.“

    FYI- The Department of Justice is not the US Courts. The DoJ is part of the Executive Branch whose head is appointed by the POTUS. Until the Judiciary Branch of the US government rules in favor of the DoJ claims, Apple can not be  held guilty for violating any of those claims.

    Federal Trade Commission is also part of the Executive Branch whose head is appointed by the POTUS. They alleged that Facebook is a monopoly (in Social Media market) but the US courts decided otherwise. The FTC is appealing.


    With Amazon, the FTC case against them won't be heard in the US Courts until 2026. So until the US Courts rule on the matter, the FTC case against Amazon in not a matter of law and no action can be taken against Amazon until then. Not to mention before any appeal is heard.


    With Google, the US Courts has ruled in favor of the FTC and against Google (Alphabet). But there's still the appeal to the SCOTUS. So until then, Google will most likely not be broken up, as recommended by the DoJ.


    So the DoJ claiming that Apple is .......... "Limiting Third Party Digital Wallets. Apple has prevented third-party apps from offering tap-to-pay functionality, inhibiting the creation of cross-platform third-party digital wallets.“, means nothing until the US courts rule on the matter. This is not at all like the EU, where the DMA is a matter of law and already been tested in their courts.

     At least you're in the EU. There are many people here in the US, that thinks the DoJ is part of the US Court system. But even the DoJ have to prove their case in a US Federal Court and if needed, all the up to the SCOTUS, before the DoJ claim(s) can be acted upon. Think of the DoJ as the prosecuting attorney representing the US government in a court case against Apple. Apple have the right to disprove any of the DoJ allegations in a court. And the US Court can side with Apple.




    muthuk_vanalingamMplsPwatto_cobra