To our total surprise, Apple makes adding alternative payment systems to apps 'painful, expensive, clunky' Apple's idea of complying with the law in the Netherlands offers a glimpse of what developers elsewhere have to look forward to if regulators elsewhere succeed in challenging the company's control of its iOS App Store. Apple is currently trying to fend off lawsuits and proposed legislation around the globe that threaten its …
At what point does it become contempt of court? Perhaps if the heads of Apple in the Netherlands, and perhaps their Lawyers (also in the Netherlands) were given the option of making sure that things worked well (and easily) or they could all spend some lovely time behind bars in a Dutch prison, then things would get moving.
Until then, this is just Apple giving everyone the finger. Ban all new Apple sales (including the Appstore sales) in the EU until such time as they come back begging to be allowed back in, and promising to do as they are told. And then we will see how quickly they (and Google as well), will start obeying the European court orders...
"Ban all new Apple sales (including the Appstore sales) in the EU until such time as they come back begging to be allowed back in, and promising to do as they are told. And then we will see how quickly they (and Google as well), will start obeying the European court orders..."
While I thoroughly agree with the sentiment, beware of unintended consequences. Lots of educational establishments rely on Apple, specifically iPads issued to all students.
Preach. The Ohio State University is about to end our free iPad program for students just after they had us adapt our courses to using them, including buying up a bunch of servers for virtual Windows desktops since the 3D modeling software the College of Engineering uses doesn't run on iPads. Now we have to make the choice of revamping our courses again or having students buy their own iPads
(which will end up bring less powerful than the Pro versions we have been using).
nah. what about...
Allow all AppStore sales and force Apple to pay out 130% to the developers instead of 70% as before for all AppStore transactions and just 100% for all other payment processors until Apple complies.
Also, developer prices cannot be modified. Any surcharges by Apple will result in some proper fines, like the GDPR stuff (x percent of global revenue.....)
They would have to do another lawsuit to get any onerous charges reduced or eliminated.
Cheaper for Apple to finance multi-year legal battles then actually pay people an honest income. That tells you how much money is on the line.
Anyone who has dealt with a cranky two year old has the same experience as vendors dealing with Apple.
I gave up on Apple. Many moons ago I was a big fan of their laptops, but they have become more and more draconian as the years went by. Since my employer at the time forked out the cash for the kit I didn’t care. But since leaving the IT industry I could no longer justify the cost and or condone/tolerate their attitude.
Lenovo themselves are up to some pretty shady things
https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/03/lenovo_indelible_adware/
and they've made it progressively harder and harder to manage their devices in a corporate environment, such as preventing unattended BIOS configuration (which is an essential part of any bare-metal imagine process)
They don't know what Netherlands' authority will consider acceptable, since no guidance was provided, so Apple made a bad offer to see what the response is. Maybe there will be a counteroffer, maybe they are told "no" and drop down to 25%, 22%, 20% and so on until it is accepted. If 20% would be accepted, they would be dumb to have started at 15%.
Apple profit from the app store was between 10 and 25 billion dollars last year, so if it costs them 100 million to run, they just need to charge between 0.4% and 1% to cover their running costs.
Charging 15 to 42.5 times that is pure greed and unregulated monopolistic behaviour.
Maybe but it is easy money and something that most of their most customers appear happy to contribute to.
I know they don't have a choice but Apple set the precedent on this that everyone else followed. To be fair, a 30% profit margin on a service for Apple probably is a pittance but that is simply because the product is priced (and always has been) on what the market will stand. Apple customers (along with quite a few other premium brands) have very deep pockets and are prepared to put they hands into them.
Similarly Corian, Amtico, Miele, Maytag, Dyson, all brands that have products at the top end of the market that don't actually cost the price difference from cheaper products to produce.
There will be plenty of others that people can add to the list. Brand awareness and perceived value is important. Price and branding is as much a differentiator as the actual quality of the product.
I suspect the result, in the longer term, will be far more strict rulings against Apple in those jurisdictions starting or considering similar actions. The various national legal systems will be watching with great interest how Apple pull every trick in the book to be as awkward and unco-operative as possible. Courts generally take a very dim view of that sort of contempt.
I hope Netherland's authority will be offended and react accordingly.
Lawmakers around the World, I guess some of you are bribed lobbied by GAFAM, but wake up before being caught in scandals. More and more users realize what they have to pay way too much because of that kind of monopoly
Mobile phone market is an oligopoly controlled by two companies, each worth more than most countries in this world.
Microsoft doesn't care which apps are run on a windows desktop system, in the end the user is responsible for what happens.
Given someone has $ 1000, that person can buy a windows laptop and run any app or an Android or IPhone, but can only run the apps approved by the overlords of the device for which he paid for in full.
The latter seems seems to imply the manufacturer of the smartphone, be it Samsung, Apple or Motorola, is restricting ownership rights due to the limitations the makers of the operating system impose on it.
Lawmakers could go after OEM device manufacturers installing software restricting ownership of devices sold to consumers, since owners should have unrestricted access to the capabilities of the device they own. This implies that apps with in-game payment systems should be allowed without restrictions or fees since the physical device is capable to run them.
A more nuclear option would be to consider software like patents within the law, which expire after some period, that would help to reduce exposure of the world to de-facto monopolies persisting for decades.
>Microsoft doesn't care which apps are run on a windows desktop system, in the end the user is responsible for what happens.
They did before they were visited by the Justice Dept carrying a big stick.
They had limits on the number of internet connections you could have before you had to buy the server version.
The licence terms for their SDK banned you from writing anything that competed with Office
They had a business model of simply copying competitors, waiting for them to go bust and then paying a $<1M settlement
At least, get your fact rights
- You could always run non MS software on DOS and Windows. The antitrust issue was about IE only. It is true MS wasn't nice at all with competitors, but never blocked the installation of any software, nor you had to pay MS for the privilege of selling software on Windows.
- That was a license limit on server connections on a machine acting as a server, not a client. In 1996. "In addition, the limit does not apply to anything that does not use the server and runs directly over the transport, such as Windows Sockets" (https://www.landley.net/history/mirror/ms/ntwk4.html)
- The license terms was only for the Ribbon controls. You could write any Office competitor as long as you didn't use the Ribbon controls which were copyrighted. In many ways, they did developers a favor...
Don't forget the AARD code ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code
At least get your facts right. They were actively trying to prevent use of competing products with that little gem, as supported by docs that came out in the anti-trust case.
Completely agree with you on ribbon controls. A UI designer's dream, a developer's royal pain in the bum, and a users nightmare trying to find stuff that used to be neatly organised and customisable in a traditional menu structure. I hate them as a developer of desktop software, I hate them as a designer of automated testing programs, I hate them as a user.
Was that code ever active, or as Wikipedia says "Microsoft disabled the AARD code for the final release of Windows 3.1," - so the code was there but never active? Very idiotic and anti-competitive move, sure, but even they found it was a bridge too far. Keeping them as a "nuclear options" was idiotic as well.
But can you even install a different OS on iPhones/iPads?
I never said MS was a nice company. I was using Borland tools and MS did its best to kill Borland (Borland was helpful in firing in its feet too - dBase, anyone?) - so I never was a MS fanboy. Still I could sell a lot of Windows applications that was never developed with MS tools, and for which MS didn't see a dime from me.
I just said it never went to the extreme lock-in Apple does. Moreover MS had to resort to shady, illegal tactics that when found would just put it in bad waters. Apple strives for legally binding ways to cage developers and users into its walled garden and extract as much money from them as it can.
Actually, looking at Apple, MS was stupid to try that trick. Using the Apple way it should have said transparently that Win 3.1 could only run on MS-DOS and actively enforce it through code signing. For security reasons, of course.... same for Office application - just assert you can install any Office suite as long as it is MS Office, just like Apple does with Safari. Ask for a yearly fee from developers, and force all applications to be signed by MS to run on Windows....
That would only be a vaid comment if it was something you had built for your own use - and someone came along and said you had to let others use it.
In this case, Apple have built something (well millions of iSomethings) which they have sold to customers for the customers to use for the customers benefit. But they've reserved unto themselves the right to dictate what the customers can use that bought item for*, reserved unto themselves the right to prevent you buying accessories (i.e. apps) other than through themselves, and then use the second of those to justify charging devs for the privilege of being able to sell their wares to customers.
Carp car analogy. A bit like Ford restricting your car so that you can only use petrol paid for via Ford financing, only fit tires paid for via Ford financing, only play CDs in the audio system that have been paid for via Ford financing, only listen to radio stations that have been approved by Ford (and for which they charge the radio station). Seems a bit different put that way doesn't it.
* I wanted to use an iPad for WiFi surveys for work - but "not allowed" by Apple. Being pedantic, to do that means using a particular API which existed - but use of it was verboten by Apple for anything but it's own apps.
A bit like Ford restricting your car so that you can only use petrol paid for via Ford financing, only fit tires paid for via Ford financing, only play CDs in the audio system that have been paid for via Ford financing, only listen to radio stations that have been approved by Ford (and for which they charge the radio station).
I take it you've been around a few board meetings in the auto world.
I'm surprised - that Apple allowed adding alternative payment systems to apps in any manner whatsoever, no matter how painful, expensive, or clunky.
EDIT: Oh, a court in the Netherlands gave them absolutely no choice. At least until the United States decides that this is discrimination against U.S. exports, and will result in halting trade with the EU until legislation is enacted to protect Apple from such decisions.
The US will do nothing. They export 202bn€ and import 352bn€ i goods from the EU (2020)
Stopping that is more like suicide than anything else.
Total US investment in the EU is three times higher than in all of Asia.
EU investment in the US is around eight times the amount of EU investment in India and China together.
just nope. The same as the US did not interfere with Facebook/Google vs EU when the privacy shield was unilaterally declared broken...
Remember: Whatsapp is having a EU edition of their data privacy rules (well, not the UK nowadays, tho ;) )
Here's an interesting thought. I have the Amazon app, Screwfix, Ebay and other apps to name a few. I can purchase things through those apps, and presumably Apple don't get to take a cut of that. Presumably because it's a realworld purchase?
Notice Amazon nearly went to the brink with Visa transaction fee rates. From rumour, gossip and various insider sources, the payment processing fees for cards ranges in the 3-5% of the total transaction fees. It's unsurprising that companies are looking at Apple and thinking "what the hell, you take a THIRD of our revenue??"
Amazon's volume is large enough that it gets way better rates than the headline 3% the average small business gets.
The recent Visa spat was about cross border fees for using cards registered in the UK to purchase from Amazon SARL which has come about as yet another 'Brexit benefit' where the card schemes are no longer required to meet EU directives on maximum fees to be charged to merchants.
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