Hands up who ISN'T piling in to help Epic Games appeal Apple App Store ruling Epic Games' legal campaign to break Apple's near absolute control over its iOS ecosystem received reinforcement this week from 35 US states, Microsoft, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Citizen, and more than 50 academics, among others. In 2020, Epic Games flouted Apple's iOS App Store rules by directing players of …
First, Apple does have a house, and yes a house to protect as well as to profit from. Could they spread that profit around a bit? Yes but they did build this house a brick at a time and now they reap a decade of very solid marketing and engineering. Do they have others to thank for that success? Absolutely. But so does MS Office, Amazon AWS and thousands of other companies who have a huge product built partially on the efforts of others and housing it in a marketable machine. Just look at Amazon. And try not to think of what became of all the Malls across the country, or the many bookstores that used to exist that are long gone.
Let's consider the accusers, corporate wise. Microsoft the near "king" of product protection? Windows, Office, countless "business" products who just purchased Blizzard for 70 billion to promote their gaming hegemony. So they have a problem with the Apple store? Right. They just hope your lawyers spend more time on Apple than them and this surely helps that goal.
Then we have Epic, the very founding "poor puppy". Epic hasn't operated a profitable enterprise in its entire history of existence! It is giving software away for FREE, and then complaining that Apple holding back profits from them? For God's sake what soul believes they have "the user" in mind? They are pulling a strategy straight out of the Internet Explorer days. If you can't sell a product profitably you give it away hoping that if you can do that long enough you drive the other guy out of business. Bye bye Netscape. See you Malls - next to that "free shipping with Amazon prime" (another venture that never made the company money but surely did put a lot of other companies out of business).
Attorney Generals? Do they think that free is the way this should all be? I mean the Linux endeavor has surely made few hundred billionaires right? Oh wait, maybe not. Hmm. So do you think Tesla should start giving away cars for the $10K worth of batteries and electric motors in them? And why doesn't Epic take on Steam which seems to keep right on chugging in profit and has done so without worrying about the Apple problem, or the Play store or the Microsoft shop.
To me, Epic is pulling the IE vs Netscape plan and is happily enjoining a lot of people with Robin Hood syndrome whereby they don't actually have to make money until their lawyers have done enough damage to their enemies that they can no longer offer an effective product. Spotify is doing the same thing to everyone except Apple in the music streaming business and also does so without yet making a profit.
The is competition by litigation and while Apple isn't a saint, they are being slammed by parties who don't want you to notice what they are doing. And if you give in to that hype, if you help Epic prevail then you'll be doing the gaming world a huge disservice. Let Epic make and sell a profitable business, prove they are operating on a fair basis with ALL their competitors and then, let them come back and make claims. Right now they are hoping the world believes their lawyers more than their marketing team.
Well, this was nice and rambly. I'll take a few of the points that are clearer.
"Yes but they did build this house a brick at a time and now they reap a decade of very solid marketing and engineering."
They have the right to reap a profit from that. They don't have a right to use that as a club to beat profit out of other companies. They reap that profit all the time when they sell phones with massive profit margins, and in that case, there's no legal argument against it. Their effort doesn't entitle them to control others' businesses any more than the author of some code they used could come to them and insist that they give them a cut of their hardware sales.
"Just look at Amazon. And try not to think of what became of all the Malls across the country, or the many bookstores that used to exist that are long gone."
So? Just because their competition caused a different business to fail doesn't make them wrong, but when they use unfair market power to cause that harm, they can be penalized for it. There are indeed antitrust actions being pursued or suggested in Amazon's case, and they make sense too.
"Then we have Epic, the very founding "poor puppy". Epic hasn't operated a profitable enterprise in its entire history of existence! [...] Let Epic make and sell a profitable business, prove they are operating on a fair basis with ALL their competitors and then, let them come back and make claims."
I'm not going to bother checking whether this is true. I'll assume you're correct. In which case, it is meaningless or actively harmful to your point. You do not need to be profitable to sue someone and win if they're harming you. Also, Epic's complaint is that Apple is charging them too much, so if they're correct, Apple's charges might be the reason they're unprofitable. Somehow, you seem to think that profitability should be required to contest a contract's legality. Fortunately for everybody, it doesn't work that way.
As much as I agree with @FXi saying that Apple worked hard for many years to build what they're reaping from now, I also have to agree with @doublelayer here that Apple could've (once they reached scale) dialed down their cut to something somewhat less... excessive (by some people's standards).
Given how much Apple is an intermediary now, they might as well drop their charges to MasterCard/Visa merchant fee territory (plus maybe a couple of percent more) and become part of the credit-card style ecosystem that already exists. They're taking a cut through Apple Pay, they're taking a cut through App Store, what else do they want to take a cut through?
As for Amazon, they revolutionised how people were able to buy "stuff", with reviews, recommendations, cross-selling, and yes, eventually buying at bulk that dwarfed other organisations. I've been a customer of Amazon's since virtually the beginning (not quite the Jeff Bezos personally packing my order to send it out days, but close enough), and the ability to order a book from a website in the US that would've taken months to source, order in and then receive through a bookstore elsewhere in the world, and have it delivered by FedEx (although *that* part was expensive) within a week... that was revolutionary, it was an absolute delight, and it's things like these that have kept me going back again and again.
Now, as for the single point of the Epic case that Epic *did* win, I absolutely agree with (and never understood why Apple would be dicks about). If you want to offer your customers extra value but require them to go to your website to get it, where's the problem? I know of plenty apps that do this. Why Apple would then throw a strop and demand that Epic stop it is beyond me (other than the obvious loss of the financial cut Apple would've gotten).
Become a merchant provider and the problem goes away. If your user experience in your API is just that much better for the vast majority of users (who can't be bothered to score their 30% bonus by going through some website somewhere else), then you're not losing that much because your customers stick to you. But when you start to *force* people, then you might see some resistance to it especially when they are induced to try an alternative that offers more value.
The irony in that last paragraph is not lost to me (which can also be applied to vaccination resistance - but that's another topic).
considering that Epic created a series of mega smash-hit games, then licensed UE3 to half the games industry for a decade, and now looks to be continuing to do so with UE4...I think the claim that they have never been profitable needs to substantiated.
Wow, you really shouldn't stand on the top of a hill and shout about something you don't understand. It doesn't look good and you embarrass yourself. Other companies might be "bad" and do similar things, others may or may not be run well. It makes no odds to the case at hand, this is about Apple's practices.
Whataboutism at its finest.
No, Apple is taking a spanking because they're a dick. And just because everyone else is a dick and has gotten away with it is no excuse.
The malls and bookstores went out of business because they treated customers poorly. For example, Barnes & Noble used to HAMMER me to get a loyalty card, so much so that it stressed me out and I stopped being a customer. They wouldn't take "no, thank you" for an answer. I'm not crying that their 3 local stores are now gone.
And considering the price of Amazon Prime, the shipping is most assuredly not free. For a while they had the only working storefront, and a search that worked. Now that search returns only alphabet-named Chinese crap, I haven't bought something from Amazon in over 2 months. I've gone to places like bhphotovideo.com and motionpro.com to get the stuff.
Considering the nonexistent customer service I've gotten from Apple, I'm happy to see them taking a beating.
This.
I used to actively avoid Maplin because of the various urchins haunting the aisles. If I did have to go in, I'd plot a route to where I needed to go that avoided the staff.
PC World / Currys is the same. As are car dealerships.
Amazon didn't win by undercutting prices, Amazon won by allowing people to do their own research and read other people's reviews easily.
Nobody...repeat...nobody wants to be accosted by a sales reptile who patrols the aisles like a predator.
In fact, to any reptiles reading this, the longer you tie me up the steeper the discount I expect from you because you're burning my time and my time has value.
Classic example of assuming that everyone else's experience is the same as your own. Often, when shopping in Maplins, I see bewildered looking shoppers, unsure of what technical doodad they need to buy. They welcome the help of a sales "reptile".
You are clearly a technical giant who never needs help when shopping but that doesn't mean the rest of us don't need a hand sometimes.
Anyone needing help can *ask* for it. It should never be assumed.
Staff in a shop are there to assist, not to sell.
If Im not sure where something is, bei g directed there is perfectly fine if I ask to be.
I don't need to be accosted and told about the days deals, led down the country route past the high ticket items etc etc.
Jumping on every poor fucker that enters the place is predatory, it's not service.
Screw your head on man.
Imagine sitting down in a restaurant because you specifically fancy a nice steak, and you tell the waiter you want a steak but he then proceeds to tell you about the deals of the day, takes you to a different table next to the lobster tank and thrusts a fucking catalog you didn't want or ask for at you.
If you take this, then surround your table with baskets of shitty LED torches and pocket screwdrivers for a quid and you've got Maplin.
Unreal, guess there's some grinding of gears going on.
But Epic had been doing OK. Then 'better' following TenCent's investment, and something 'Fort' thing. Which is where the new focus isn't necessarily better, ie flog episodic content and stuff it with microtransactions.
So kinda where this comes in. Epic wants to flog virtual gold for real cash, without paying an Apple tax. And then there's Epic's own app store.
I'm not normally one to defend Microsoft, but your argument stacks up about as well as "Britain can't criticise China over slave labour, cos it used slave labour in the past"
The point is: Apple clearly have an antitrust problem: Banning all in-app purchases outside of their app store which takes a 30% cut is anticompetitive. Microsoft would want to highlight that, because they don't stop developers from making money outside of the Microsoft Store. (yet)
Google on the other hand, are indeed conspicuous by their absence. Arguably they have an even worse antitrust problem than Apple, but at least they aren't suing developers for having their own ways to offer paid content.
I don't even want to know what Amazon and Facebook are thinking..
Microsoft's brief chooses to compare Apple's conduct to that of AT&T before it was broken up in 1982 after an eight-year legal battle with the US Justice Departmen
Actually AT&T were long in the sights of one arm of the US Government who favoured break up of the telecoms giant. However the Department of Defence and the intelligence arms (CIA, NSA etc.) opposed this and were successful. The reason they were so against breaking up AT&T was because the company was so important to the national security and defence.
It’s not just the revenue slicing that Apple have a stranglehold on. For example if you want to have a browser on IOS it has to use Apple’s WebKit as the engine. So if a bug is found in that engine then you’re screwed. You therefore can’t switch to another browser to avoid the bug. It makes no difference if it’s Firefox, Opera, Brave, Chrome, Edge or Safari on IOS.
Wouldn’t be quite so bad if there hadn’t been a serious bug disclosed recently in that engine. One that Apple dragged their heels over bothering to create a fix for. https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2022/01/21/apple_safari_webkit_indexeddb/
They are pulling a strategy straight out of the Internet Explorer days. If you can't sell a product profitably you give it away hoping that if you can do that long enough you drive the other guy out of business. Bye bye Netscape.
Do you know why Microsoft were so worried about Netscape? It wasn’t so much because Netscape was a threat to sales of Internet Explorer. It was more because they were worried about being able to run programs in the browser. They were concerned that this would allow an Office competitor (for example) to exist that users didn’t need to install. Somewhat ironic therefore that they now have apps designed for use via a browser. I hate Office/Outlook for the web with a passion.
And? Was really the need to "install" an office suite the problem? Moreover back then the internet technology was even lamer than today and a usable web office was even less probable.
The real reason was probably they wanted to control the whole stack and be sure IE would sustain Windows/SQL Server sales and other products for developers.
Still, they never went far as Apple forbidding to install any other browser, pay for the privilege of installing software on its OS, and forcing developers to pay MS even when they could use a different toolset for development. From these beahaviours, one can understand why they are so cozy with China - same mindset.
And? Was really the need to "install" an office suite the problem? Moreover back then the internet technology was even lamer than today and a usable web office was even less probable.
The real reason was probably they wanted to control the whole stack and be sure IE would sustain Windows/SQL Server sales and other products for developers.
Still, they never went far as Apple forbidding to install any other browser, pay for the privilege of installing software on its OS, and forcing developers to pay MS even when they could use a different toolset for development. From these beahaviours, one can understand why they are so cozy with China - same mindset.
Quoting from a very good book about the antitrust case against Microsoft U.S. vs Microsoft- Joel Brinkley and Steve Lohr ISBN 0-07-135588-x
Page 23
At the heart of this competition-and central to the case-are browsing programs used to navigate the Internet’s World Wide Web. Netscape got an early lead in the market with its Navigator browser. What frightened Microsoft was that navigator could be used as a “platform,” a layer of software on which other programs can run. This is the main function of an operating system, a market in which Microsoft has a monopoly with Windows.
They (Microsoft) had a go at anyone who was producing anything software like.
Page 24
After a meeting with Mr. Gates in 1996, an executive with America Online, the nation’s largest on-line service, wrote to other executives in his company: “Gates delivered a characteristically blunt query: ‘How much do we need to pay you?’ “ he asked, to damage Netscape. “ ‘This is your lucky day’ “
In another case, the memos indicated that Microsoft threatened to stop selling the Apple Computer Co. a version of Microsoft's Office software suite, which holds more than 90 percent of that market -- unless Apple stopped supporting Netscape.
A central argument in the government's suit is that Microsoft has bundled its Web browser with Windows as a tactic in its war with Netscape. For the last year, at least, Microsoft has argued that the browser was added to Windows only for the benefit of customers.
In court Monday, however, the Justice Department displayed numerous internal memos indicating that the bundling was indeed a tactical decision.
This bit is particularly interesting
The memos showed that Microsoft's leaders first wanted to sell Interent Explorer and expected to earn $120 million a year from the sales. Then, when the plan to push Netscape out of competition with Microsoft failed, the company's leaders decided to bundle the browser with Windows instead as a means of helping it gain a majority share of the market.
Nothing wrong there then!
In one memo, written in December 1995 -- in the thick of Microsoft's effort to push Netscape out of the market -- Gates wrote a memo to others in the company acknowledging that Netscape was designing browser software "far better than we are."
In an interview a few months later, displayed in court Monday, Gates said: "Our business model works even if the Internet Explorer software is free. We are still selling operating systems. What's Netscape's business model look like in that case? Not very good."
The government also proffered several memos from computer manufacturers complaining bitterly about Microsoft's licensing restriction that prohibited them from offering Netscape if they wanted to offer Windows.
"We're very disappointed," Hewlett Packard wrote to Microsoft last year. "This will cause significant, costly problems. From a consumer perspective, it is hurting our industry.
"If we had another choice of another supplier, based on your actions here, we would take it."
Intel had produced some multimedia software for Windows 3.1 called N.S.P which stood for native signal processing. Microsoft was not keen with Mr Gates calling it low-quality. The enthusiastic OEMs learning of Microsoft’s dislike of the software backed away and Intel dropped it.
Page 82
“Tensions in the Intel-Microsoft relationship continued over Internet Software. For example, Intel felt that Sun Microsystems’ Java, an Internet programming language was destined to become an industry standard. So Intel had technical programs to support Java which could theoretically become a threat to the dominance of Windows someday. After a meeting with Paul Maritz, a Microsoft executive, Frank Gill an Intel executive wrote in an internal email, “Java remains a major controversy.” Intel’s support for Java, Mr Gill wrote, was viewed by Microsoft as “supporting their mortal enemy.”
Thank you for proving what I said. Microsoft was worried its software sales were hampered by Netscape. A browser may run on different OS and would have not required the whole Windows stack - especially the more lucrative server versions and server software. Same for Java - that at the time was strongly pushed by Sun - probably then hoping to keep Solaris alive, and also they were blabbling about a Java OS just like MS blabbled about a .NET OS - both never materialized.
Office would have been just one of the software involved. The fact they used it to blackmail Apple was juts because it was the only MS software Apple users needed - and it is the only mention of Office in your post.
You seem fixated on Office. I used Office as I said in my original post as an example of a Microsoft product. I could just as easily have put notepad and paint. Apple needed Office far more than Microsoft needed to sell it to Apple. Apple had a tiny market share back then and I read somewhere in connection with the antitrust case that their sales would have been “seriously” dented without Office. Indeed despite a very large investment in an office version just for Apple Bill Gates was threatening to kill it off. Of course with just shy of $7bn in cash or investments in 1996 Microsoft weren’t short of a bob or two. So it would have been chump change to them, but seriously damaged a competitor. Throwing money away is obviously something that Microsoft kept in the corporate playbook, given the vast amount blown on Nokia and Windows phone, remember those?
Back then if Microsoft saw what you did as a threat to their business they either tried to get you to stop producing the product or just tried to put you out of business. What they were worried about was a competitor who already had a lead in browsers. They were worried about the future potential of the browser so decided to use anticompetitive behaviour to kill their competitor off. The government won the case but it didn’t have much effect on Microsoft.
Back then if Microsoft saw what you did as a threat to their business they either tried to get you to stop producing the product or just tried to put you out of business.
.. or flat out stole your technology, which is why it has been accused of aggressively tifling innovation.
This post has been deleted by its author
Still, they never went far as Apple forbidding to install any other browser, pay for the privilege of installing software on its OS, and forcing developers to pay MS even when they could use a different toolset for development. From these beahaviours, one can understand why they are so cozy with China - same mindset.
I have no idea how old you are and what you remember of the mid to late 90s. However at the time Bill Gates was still firmly at Microsoft and a dominant figure in the tech industry.
The problem for Microsoft back then was that they saw almost everyone as a competitor and therefore a threat. For example they talked to Apple about QuickTime and tried to get them to drop the version for Windows. Then they changed things in Windows to stop QuickTime working on their OS. They did a similar thing to RealNetworks according to the Chief Exec Rob Glaser. Bill Gates doesn’t come out of that case looking anything other than a bit paranoid in my opinion based on the evidence presented.
They didn’t forbid the only other serious other browser out there at the time. They did their hardest to get the computer manufacturers not to pre-install Netscape Navigator. They gave AOL space on the win95 desktop in return for ditching Navigator. They tried their hardest to kill Navigator off completely. Wasn’t just forbidding it from their OS they also approached Apple about making Internet Explorer the default on their computers. Then baked it into the OS so it wasn’t avoidable if you owned a Windows computer.
Still as far their anti-competitive tactics went - they never forbid to install third party software nor asked to be paid for the privilege. I'm old enough that I developed a lot of software with Borland tools, SQL Anywhere and Oracle, and I didn't give MS a dime but for the OS costs - and Oracle didn't even run on Windows as it was often on HP Unix or Solaris.
Try to do that with Apple on iOS. It's not that because Gates was a dick - and MS paid for it because just the spectre of an antitrust action forced it to change its behaviour, including opening the APIs and thereby allowing far broader interoperability especially with Linix - Cook can do whatever he likes now.
Really I can't understand why people believe Apple is not an issue - and a worse one - just like MS was an issue 25 years ago. It's incredible how much shiny-shiny devices brainwash some people.
Still as far their anti-competitive tactics went - they never forbid to install third party software nor asked to be paid for the privilege
No, they simply changed their code so it would report "problems" and randomly "break" - that was a play they started quite early with PC DOS and any competing DOS like the one that Novell made.
As we're talking about Apple I would like to point out that I use plenty freeware for both MacOS and iOS, and all Apple asks for their IDE, libraries and dev platform is that you get yourself a dev license which ties your identity to the code. It makes choosing software where you have at least some idea who developed it easier.
Do I think 30% is too much? If I compare it to other platforms I start to wonder who is really behing this campaign because Google charges exactly the same but is somehow "overlooked" in most of the reporting which makes the disenchantment expressed feel very much artificial.
If you pardon the pun, I get the impressing that Apple is being gamed here..
@LDS
I have upvoted you because (even as an Apple user) I tend to agree with you.
But
Everyone seems to forget that Epic willingly signed a contract agreeing to Apple's terms and conditions. And now they want to get out of it for free.
Using the same argument should I now stop paying my Barclaycard because I have decided they are wrong for charging me so much interest? And they should maybe lend me money for, preferably, free or at least a much lower rate?
If you go into a shop you pay whatever the price that they will agree to and if you don't like it you walk away. But maybe Epic should remember that they signed an agreement...
"Everyone seems to forget that Epic willingly signed a contract agreeing to Apple's terms and conditions. And now they want to get out of it for free."
Nobody forgot that. They didn't get to choose the contract, and you have to be in the contract to use the system. In addition, you have to be in a contract to challenge it in court. If they think the contract is unfair, the only way for them to make the claim is to be in the contract.
"Using the same argument should I now stop paying my Barclaycard because I have decided they are wrong for charging me so much interest? And they should maybe lend me money for, preferably, free or at least a much lower rate?"
Not yet, but maybe. First, you should go to other cards and see if they offer you better services. You can switch to them. In Apple's case, they don't allow any other options. If you were to find that all competing cards have agreed to overcharge you, you could in fact sue them for collusion or monopolistic behavior depending on how many there are. If you can prove that they are intentionally harming you through illegal market domination, the court would decide in your favor and force them to improve. The only problem in your case is that it's harder to prove for payment cards than for one software supply system.
The bigger irony is that it was Microsoft who added XHTTPRequest to the web browser in order to allow interactive webmail without resorting to Java applets. Other browser vendors adopted the feature to remain compatible with Outlook webmail, and it eventually got pushed through the ECMA standards process.
Basically, Microsoft, while afraid of web-apps, did more to create web-apps than any other browser vendor.
It was always almost inevitable that the trial case would be a dog and pony show for the inevitable appeals, since it was never a slam dunk for either side. And regardless of the outcome, I'm almost certain this one will go to the Supreme Court, and it's very possible the new court may redefine the Sherman Act for ages to come. At least it'll be at least 2025 until it anything really happens on it.
I generally agree, and there are many obvious targets around the Android ecosystem. However, in the specific case of app distribution, I think Google's case is stronger as the sideloading option is available on all Android devices. That doesn't mean it's impossible, but it gives Google an argument Apple cannot use, which might cause it to win even if Apple's dominance is recognized.
"sideloading option is available on all Android devices"
That is an unrealistic assertion. Firstly, the technical difficulty. Secondly the security risk.
Being able to Install a different OS might be a better claim. But Google sometimes works with Samsung et al to make that difficult/impossible on many newer models.
So basically, it's out of the fire into the frying pan.
Me: "sideloading option is available on all Android devices"
Reply: "That is an unrealistic assertion."
I'm not sure I see your points. Taking them one at a time:
"Firstly, the technical difficulty."
The steps are \1) tap on the .apk file, 2) the box tells you it's not allowed, 3) tap to enable it, 4), tap on the .apk again. A lot of users are not confident when they see the warning box in step 2, but it's not technically difficult to do.
"Secondly the security risk."
Granted, but irrelevant. That's also the argument Apple uses, and you can't win there. If you agree with me that there should be a mechanism of installing software which is not controlled by Google, then this is going to bring some chance of malware. Users decide whether they will use that mechanism given the risks.
"Being able to Install a different OS might be a better claim."
No, it really isn't. That's a case where Google can more easily be charged with anticompetetive actions, because their licensing for Play Services restricts manufacturers from offering other forks of Android. Most devices do not support any variant, creating one requires significant effort, and Google keeps taking more functionality out of AOSP and into their frameworks to weaken it. Sideloading can be activated on any device using the standard UI. Different OSes cannot be installed without at best playing with the bootloader and using a command line tool with many opportunities to break something, and often not even then.
That is an unrealistic assertion. Firstly, the technical difficulty. Secondly the security risk.
You can side load an entire markets and then the "security risk" is "gone". After all if you're trusting apple / google to ensure the apps are secure why wouldn't you trust Amazon Market for Android or any of the others ?
Atleast on Andoid there is a means of doing it. Try that on iOS
"...they did build this house a brick at a time and now they reap a decade of very solid marketing and engineering."
This is true but I think the point should be that ther percentage rake-off should have dropped over the years as the app store market (and apps in general) exploded. 30% while you're building an ecosystem and heavily investing in things such as the distribution infrastructure is fine. As the market has matured they are getting a massive chunk of other people's profit for very little work.
If Apple had gradually reduced the % take over the years and were now only taking 5%, nobody would be complaining and they would still be making a shit-ton of money. They kept it at 30% purely because they have such a dominant market position.
Apple doesn't have a dominant market position in total cellphone sales (~14%) or in share of sales of Fortnite games (~7%).
Apple does have a dominant share of customers who buy iPhones. 100%, in fact. I guess that is what you mean, and therefore you are absolutely correct, in that limited sense.
I agree with what you're saying and yes I did mean iPhones, where of course they are the de-facto 100% dominant operator.
But... iPhone owners spend massively more money in the App Store than their nearest competitor Google Play. (Quick search.. "estimated $41.5 billion on apps from the Apple App Store during the first six months of 2021, almost double $23.4 billion by Android")
Since Apple is one company compared to effectively the rest of the world I would still argue it's pretty dominant. If you're an app developer and want to make it big you HAVE to be in the App Store and therefore you HAVE to pay the Apple tax.
So their hardware sales are irrelevant... they have a dominant position in selling apps and therefore can dictate terms without the usual considerations to being competitive.
So have you every considered why Apple have nearly double the app store sales than the rest of the market despite only having 26% of the market (Android is about 73% of the market)(*1)?
If the hardware is irrelevant as you say, than what is it that Apple are doing to explain this difference? Even if Apple dropped their charges entirely and reduced the price of all apps and in-app purchases by 30%, their market would still be bigger - not even taking into account the massive uplift in sales such a price reduction would bring (and I'm sure people would find a way of claiming that this too is uncompetitive/not fair).
Google charge 30% on revenues over $1m, 15% on your first $1m
Apple charge 30% if your revenue is over $1m, 15% otherwise (which isn't quite as good but is only problematic for developers making just over $1m)
By the way - did you know that most(*2) online retailers take a cut on everything that they sell... you should probably take a look into at that too.
(*1) https://www.statista.com/statistics/272698/global-market-share-held-by-mobile-operating-systems-since-2009/#:~:text=Market%20share%20of%20mobile%20operating%20systems%20worldwide%202012%2D2021&text=Android%20maintained%20its%20position%20as,of%20the%20global%20market%20share.
(*2) all
Someone would complain, even if it was 1%. Perhaps just not someone with deep enough pockets. Although, Apple could buy Epic with just the cash that disappeared into the crack in the sofa. Still might happen if things start to go obviously bad for Apple. (I am not convinced they will - it will be down to the wire).
Apple have more money than The Vatican and will show more tenacity in this case than even Oracle could dream about.
Don't forget the politicians who will receive handsome campaign contributions just to make the right law get passed so that only Apple gets hit by this investigation.
Remember that the majority of politicians are lawyers who make laws for the enhancement of their profession.
Barstewards the lot of them.
That's one for the record books under "chutzpah" to be sure!
While Windows grew up long before the app store model and isn't relevant to this particular discussion, the XBox market certainly is. Microsoft and Sony both take the same 30% from games sold for their consoles, and both don't allow third parties to put their own stores on the console to get around that cut. Microsoft offers lower rates - but only if they agree to make their games available on Microsoft's xCloud streaming platform.
I fail to see how Microsoft can argue that Epic is right in this case about the iPhone, but if Epic wins and inevitably comes after Microsoft over XBox that they will be wrong in that case.
Given that consoles are sold at a loss, at least initially, this seems like a much bigger risk for Microsoft than for Apple. All I can think of is that Microsoft's ultimate target is not Apple but Sony. Both Apple and Microsoft have plenty of other successful business lines they make billions from if the 30% fee spigot is shut off. Sony, not so much - allowing Microsoft to dominate in gaming instead of playing second fiddle to Playstation. Their (attempted, we'll see if it is allowed) purchase of Blizzard fits in with this, as either cutting off Blizzard games completely or giving Xbox/PC first access to their games would further hobble Sony.
Very interesting insight. From the Verge -
Court documents reveal that PlayStation 4 generated 46.8 percent of Fortnite’s total revenues from March 2018 through July 2020, while Xbox One, the second-highest platform, generated 27.5 percent. iOS ranked fifth, with just 7 percent of total revenue. The remaining 18.7 percent would have been split between Android, Nintendo Switch, and PCs.
I expect that's their long term play, and don't really care much about Apple.
They are attacking Apple because 1) they knew getting removed from the App Store would impact them the least based on their relative revenue and 2) they figured it was a ripe target since the iPhone is locked down similarly to PS/Xbox but Apple makes so much money selling them it is perhaps an easier lift legally with a judge/jury than going after console makers who can argue they sell hardware at a loss.
Maybe because most consoles are sold at a loss or with a very small profit with the intention of making their money back from the sales of games, where as Apple are making profit not just app sales and in app payments, but a big mark up on the iDevices as well. Microsoft are thinking they are less likely to be in the target for anti competition rules when it comes to the Xbox.
As for the Apple monopoly side of things, while overall worldwide Android has around 70% market share. In the US and UK iOS has around 55% so is actually the slightly more popular OS.
Disclosure: I don't and have never owned an iPhone, and I also never play Epic Games.
In what way are Epic Game players trapped so that they cannot play games except on an iPhone/iPad/Mac?
From my reading I know they have other options -
- PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC, Mac, GeForce NOW, and the Epic Games App on Android (according to Epic)
- On a Linux desktop
- Theoretically on a third party phone OS such as Lineage (although it might require a lot of development to become possible).
Why choose to play on an Apple device? In fact
Earlier this month, we learned that the iOS version of Fortnite was a huge revenue driver for Epic Games — the game earned more than $700 million from iOS customers over the two years before it was pulled by Apple, according to court documents (PDF) released ahead of Epic’s trial against the iPhone maker. But even though iOS Fortnite players brought in a staggering amount of money for Epic, iOS isn’t the biggest platform in terms of revenue for the game — apparently, it might even be among the smallest.
Court documents reveal that PlayStation 4 generated 46.8 percent of Fortnite’s total revenues from March 2018 through July 2020, while Xbox One, the second-highest platform, generated 27.5 percent. iOS ranked fifth, with just 7 percent of total revenue. The remaining 18.7 percent would have been split between Android, Nintendo Switch, and PCs.
So, I guess, they are not trapped.
If we're talking about price fixing between hardware/OS suppliers, that is a different issue. But that is not a case against Apple alone, but in collusion with others.
I find it comparatively ridiculous that 35 AG's would get onboard this case while non-competitive US healthcare, (healthcare is a basic necessity), continues to gouge with impunity. The difference in customer choice couldn't be more stark, and the total damage runs tens of thousands times or more higher.
Fiber is another case - geographically 99% of the US has little or no choice. Where are the AG's on that? Some maybe. Certainly not 35.
Practically speaking, I'm not excited or particularly moved by this case as an example of human injustice, or even business injustice. Even if am qualitatively (legally) wrong, I am still certain I am qualitatively right - it's way down on the priority list.
This is, ultimately, a question of freedom of choice. When I own a device, can I do whatever I want to that device? Or only what the manufacturer says I can do? Do I really own the device at all if it is locked in?
Seeing everyone and his dog pile in on this case is interesting, because equally "everyone else" should be held to the same standards of what else comes out of this case.
So that's both MS and PS very clearly in the firing line amongst a million other outfits.
I don't think there is any question that if Apple says you have to use their front end to permit installation of stuff, that is counter to any model of ownership and freedom.
I have a lot of time for Apple hardware, and indeed, some of their software is very good too. But one suspects they are arguing a losing battle here on ownership models.
Unfortunately, US law affects the rest of the world whether we like it or not so a 50-50 on the outcomes is rather less than satisfactory. Almost as though we need some international law or something...
If Epic was sincere, as opposed to simply being a whiny, bad attitude, conniving and contriving company, I'd have sympathy. But considering that the entire lawsuit was based on nothing-at-all, no sympathy shall be forthcoming.
“The Court finds that with respect to Epic Games’ motion as to its games, including Fortnite, Epic Games has not yet demonstrated irreparable harm. The current predicament appears of its own making,” Rogers wrote, arguing that Epic “strategically chose to breach its agreements with Apple” and thus disturb the status quo.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/25/21400240/epic-apple-ruling-unreal-engine-fortnite-temporary-restraining-order
Dummies like Epic are willfully self-destructive while acting as parasites. They have zero interest in actual customer rights, just personal profit at the expense of their customers. Justice from their ludicrous lawsuit is the loss of access to their market.
Apple: Please maintain your walled garden and continue to allow user app security to prosper.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
