Many a company is upset that they have no leverage in a business deal and want to courts to hand it to them.
I would call that a tax (informally; I know it strictly doesn't meet the definition) and as a customer I would like to know about it.
If the Spotify web store is more profitable than the Spotify iOS store, because Apple wants ITS CUSTOMERS to get the same deal and Spotify wants those customers, then this is good and fair for customers at the point of purchase.
I think it is widely accepted in commerce that a deal is only fair if both parties have the relevant information.
If customers know they're paying more because of Apple's fees and are comfortable with it because they feel they get adequate benefits in return, that's fair.
If they are unaware of this however, am not sure how the deal can be considered fair, since not all parties have the relevant information to make an informed purchase.
It is noticed and often people actively avoid the higher price once they are aware. Some are frustrated and unsubscribe.
This is understandable since they realize they've been paying an on-going 20% premium every month for a one-time convenience by originally pressing the subscribe button from the mobile version. And none of the extra 20% goes to the streamer they wanted to support.
Remember there was a time you could only phone people in the network you were a subscriber. It is not the same, but a similar situation here.
Developers make a choice and everything sold on those platforms has distribution costs. Fortnite is available on most if not all of those platforms. AND, players play against one another through the internet not through a private developers network. So there’s plenty of competition. Why Epic aren’t demanding Nintendo and Sony take a lower cut is a mystery. Or maybe not?
Epic have massively, massively, overplayed their hand here. Instead of creating an amazing new game and using THAT as leverage to platform owners for a deal, they’ve made a satirical video, broken a contract, had their bluff called, and cemented their place in future business school classes as how not to go about a negotiation.
An iPhone is sold for a substantial profit regardless of gaming entirely, and offers none of those services or promotional benefits to developers/publishers.
Not sure what the point is supposed to be with "The value of creating and enabling an entire ecosystem is found to be worth 30%", and making the judgment that Apple hasn't done the same. Without some harder numbers on both sides, it's not a conclusion that anyone is in the position to make. It's also worth remembering that Apple has amassed an extremely loyal customer base that has shown that they are willing to spend an immense amount of money on App Store purchases over the period of decades - Apple does deserve to cash in on that value created such as being the single point of contact for easily addressable issues with app purchases, fraud, & such for the customer, secure & frictionless payments, and most of all, creating the situation where users want to go and spend $ on their platform over alternatives.
The value created is in developers/publishers being able to make more $, which is the ultimate value.
The selling at a loss is just another business strategy to drive hardware sales of a limited-functionality device (ok, you can watch videos and surf the net, but it's hardly an actual computer) compared to the iPhone, where other factors drive sales and increase the user base.
I mean, I love my Switch and I'm definitely a profitable customer but it's a specialized device. If Nintendo's loss-leader strategy is worth 30%, why isn't Apple's strategy? Or really, who gets to decide what the correct % is? And how?
but when you have a duopoly there is no one to decide the correct %, and we start to not have a functioning capitalist market.
Now that Windows 10X seems to go nowhere [1], and Project Reunion is still trying to find out how to merge Windows 7 and 10 worlds [2], one more reason not to do just fine.
[1] - https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10x/238014/windows-...
it isn't a negotiation, it's an anti-trust lawsuit. Tim Sweeney made it clear that the only 'deal' he is willing to accept is 3rd party stores.
It appears there may be some pushback to that as a corporate policy. I guess it could even be suggested that maybe not everything Apple does as policy should be golden law.
Just suggesting a different pov.
I don’t want to rob people of being able to have open hardware but I also don’t want that need to dictate all platforms. Luckily, there are a lot of phones which fit the needs of that market. If I want a phone with one App Store with authoritarian control of the system should I not be able to buy it without fear that one day it will be too popular and deemed too draconian in policy?
We could test this, I mean, suppose the invoices or even the details at the checkout broke down the total into developer’s fee, apple’s fee, government tax, and so everyone could see that, would that be sufficient to fix the problem? I suspect not, because Epic, in this story, are seeking to pay Apple less, and give themselves more - that’s really their bottom line.
Are they really going to all this trouble on my behalf?
The hotel could treat such taxes as overheads and incorporate it into the price, but that's not really useful because they can't change it, only the customer can. Most business overheads aren't like that. If only a customer can affect a charge it makes sense to break it out and highlight it.
What if the shoe were on the other foot? What company would hire me if I negotiated a salary and then after we shook hands and everybody had the warm and fuzzies, I said, "Well now, you'll understand this is just the rate I charge, so it is exclusive of federal and state income tax. These are additional fees that I am responsible, by law, for collecting from you on behalf of the government. I've broken the numbers down this way in the interest of full transparency."
There is a single income tax rate, 10%, so it doesn't matter how much you earn. If your investments make more than the annual minimum wage, you also have to pay the health insurance tax and "social security" tax.
Interestingly, many large companies use services for this kind of thing, much like Apples walled garden, where their employees can spend without worrying about tracking all these details, and the service takes care of all the (significant) legal wrangling and deal negotiation to make this simple.
That's essentially what Apple does for their money: makes it possible for users to buy things across a host of jurisdictions from an ecosystem of vendors, without risking their device security or payment security. There is a significant amount of legal and infrastructural wrangling involved, most of which the end customer, and many of the vendors don't fully understand.
But yeah, let us focus on the least important part: price.
The question is, should Spotify be able to tell customers that they are getting a higher fee because they are making the purchase on an iOS device?
To me, it requires massive contortions of logic to believe that customers are better off not having this disclosed.
Customers ought to know, but whether companies are compelled to tell them is problematic - just see the prices of fuel or snacks at motorway service stations - which reflect a local monopoly, not the true cost. Ultimately, it seems the answer over time is that nobody is forced to buy Spotify or a WHSmith sandwich. The music you can go and buy in the shops, or from Amazon, Googly, Tidal, Bandcamp. Spotify is like WHSmith at a service station and wants to use the local monopoly as an excuse to put up their prices and push the cost onto the consumer rather than factoring it into their business.
(OK, only appears to work on the desktop, weird)
Ok, that’s new to me. Thanks.
Are you saying you think Spotify should just charge everyone extra and take extra profit from Android customers? As an Android user, why should I pay extra so you can use an iPhone?
Assume me and you are the only 2 users on Spotify and they need $10 per user in revenue. As far as I'm concerned, I should pay $10 and you should pay $14.29. Apple gets $4.29 (14.29 * .3) and Spotify gets $20.
If Spotify can't differentiate and has to charge every user the same, they won't charge everyone $14.29 because they're in a competitive industry and keeping the cost to the customer as low as possible is important. It's more likely they'll charge us both $12.15 and call it $10 average revenue per customer.
If Epic's lawsuit accomplishes only one thing, I hope Apple is forced to allow developers to advertise and charge different prices for iOS users. If you think iOS is worth +43% on everything you buy on your phone you're welcome to pay that IMO. I don't want to and I'm happy with Android.
I am surprised how this unprecedented practice is not widely discussed - I am not aware of any situation in real life where you rent a store and you are told you cannot charge what you want.
There are established limits on what a contract can enforce, an outrageous terms are not considered valid in court. For instance a phone operator could not have penalty of £10,000 for a going over your credit.
I believe this term should be considered outrageous - if apple wants to charge 100% tax, thats fine, but their customers will pay 100% more and then they might have questipms for Apple.
Back in the real world, sales assistants may not be allowed to offer deals unless asked first - I know that my partner was basically given very heavy hints to ask if the sales assistant "had any special offers" before he could offer a deal on a new motorbike. I guess this is the same, without the helpful hints. Some people scour the web for coupons and deals, other people pay the full price (and then get extremely cross when the first screen they see in their new app offers a 25% off coupon, yes you, Capture One, you bastards)
John Lewis pay a different rent (again presumably) based on the more desirable location, but it's also reasonable to assume their payment provider is the same.
In this case, I would argue that Apple have the monopoly on the App Store, which is fine if they are reasonable about it. However, there's no optionality on the payment processor: they insist it's them and take 30% (from what I've read; not actually an iOS dev).
Would it not be more reasonable for them to charge a small revenue fee (rent) and allow you to choose a payment provider? They could audit the payment provider to achieve the security features that they seem to be presenting as an excuse for their charges.
Would you call that a tax or would you call that rent?
If iOS was a monopoly, how is it possible to get Fortnite on all these other platforms? That just doesn’t make any sense. The only monopoly Apple has is on selling and licensing their own products.
In the case of Google I would like to disagree, if only for the fact that I have options as where to procure my software and run it in a manner that is intended, but I must concede that it is more cumbersome that I would like. That is the key difference that makes what Apple does so egregious, and why I don't really have much problems with Google at the current time.
For me it is not about the fees or the stores, its that Apple in practice forbids anyone in the digital marketplace to do business with any of their consumers unless it goes through them, as they own the app store and for the average user, their devices only run apps that are on the app store. Epic is in no position to reject the proposition of using Apple's payment service or their store entirely and still do business with the million of customers that are playing Fortnite.
Apple should be definitely be able to charge for the access to their App store customer base, but Epic should be allowed to reject that price and still be allowed to do business with the iOS user base on their own terms, just like they did on Android with side loading before striking a deal to be on the Google Play store.
I’m personally opposed to Apple locking down MacOS to run only signed binaries. If they go too far with that I’ll stop buying Macs, but to what extent do I get to dictate to Apple what software they develop, what products they choose to sell and how they decide to implement them?
On balance I think it’s a good thing the US and EU are looking at these issues. Clearly at the moment there is at a consensus and I think there is a legitimate role for oversight of how these companies operate and enforce the rules on their systems. I’m not convinced though at forced openness on every platform of any kind is tenable.
I wouldnt call it trying to dictate what Apple does.Also I would like to specify that I don't really wanna dictate what software Apple develop or what products they want to sell in their store(atleast beyond whatever code is necessary for sideloading). What I do take issue with, is Apple dictating which companies are allowed to do business with "me" as a consumer, should I be on their platform.
Walled Gardens has not been the norm of Hardware/operating system platforms in the pc/laptop market, and I don't think it should be that way on mobile either. All of the major OS vendors could have implemented similar walled gardens if they wanted to, they just couldn't get away with it. I hope this leads to Apple not getting away with it either.
Conventionally, rent-seeking is a poor quality activity which doesn’t generate any new wealth, it just transfers it.
But that’s not the case here, at least from my perspective, as Apple invests huge amounts in developing their hardware and software and millions of developers around the world (ok, maybe thousands, I don’t know) and their families have benefited from this.
It’s not like they’ve inherited a vast real-estate portfolio that was amassed through violence and war (see British aristocracy, est. 1066) and have invested relatively little into it.
Prior to the 1980s, monopolies were considered bad (or at least extremely dangerous and suspicious) by default, and leveraging one to privilege your entry into another market was a huge no-no (though I'm not sure leveraging a monopoly to create a monopolized adjacent market would always have been seen the same way).
Robert Bork's theory of "consumer harm" as the guiding light of anti-trust enforcement (and further conceiving of "harm" mostly in the form of higher prices, or at least "value for money") has given corporations too much wiggle room and consequently led to a lot of contorted legal and economic arguments, substantially reducing antitrust scrutiny and enforcement (which was the whole point, AFAICT).
Maybe Apple should offer two deals to publishers: 1) Pay £1,000,000 up front and keep all the revenue 2) Pay As You Earn.
The same is true in the case of the iPhone vs. Desktop + web experience: it's different. One way that highlights the added benefit of the iOS app store is that it's safer than the open web.
This puts Spotify in a weird spot. Their only options are:
1) Charge more to iOS users. This seems unfair to them and of course they will complain and blame Spotify when they find out they've been overcharged since Apple explicitly forbids informing customers about their fees.
2)Charge ~10-20% (depending on the share of iOS subscribers) to users of all platforms to compensate for Apple's fees. Why should I as an Android user pay extra so that someone else can make purchases on an iPhone?
3) Status quo - disable subscriptions on iOS entirely, make customers jump through the hoops to figure out how to purchase a Spotify subscription.
I don't have the exact figure, but I imagine that quite a few Spotify customers use their subscriptions on multiple platforms. Apple just wants to take a permanent 30% cut if the the initial subscription was handled through an iOS app. Maybe this isn't such a huge problem for game DLC where there is no fixed unit cost, but companies like Spotify need to pay royalties to music labels, etc.
It seems Apple prevents you from embedding the website, linking to the website, directing users to that website from the app, or giving a FAQ that includes information about how the user is expected to pay via the website. Users have to guess, or already know.
Watch the struggles LTT have gone through with the Floatplane app.
I agree that for large companies like spotify it is just a transactional thing they could potentially bake into the price but when interacting with smaller entities it just feels wrong that they have no alternative.
Furthering your café analogy:
• How many cafés do you think pay an annual amount + 30% of their revenue to their landlord, and may only use the landlord's payment system comprising of landlord dollaz
• Would consumers of a popular café be seriously concerned if their café were suddenly closed because they decided to accept cash directly?
“Turnover rent options” -> https://www.boxpark.co.uk/enquiries/
And...
https://rew-online.com/profit-sharing-model-could-save-mom-a...
I think Epic does actually have a lot of leverage. They have clout. They're a popular, widely respected company and founder. They could easily organize a strike, where large companies frustrated by this exploitative fee all pull their apps and publicly say "move to Android" or something.
Probably the fear of such a strike itself would lead to negotiations. It would just be embarrassing. Apple would not want to be the phone without any of the apps that people want. Who would buy that? And it doesn't matter that Android currently has the same fees, because they just copy Apple and would also change after such a strike wins out.
It's not just the companies though. I've heard others online say "the company doesn't have to sue, there's probably a free market solution," 90% of the people I know shout BAD TAKE! and assume that it must/should be decided in the courts.
The saddest part to me is just the total lack of creativity. There is a way to do it without suing and it would probably even be more impactful, because Apple would know that it is wrong when it loses. Rather than simply feeling that it has to comply with a law, it would know that developers themselves have negotiating power and there is a reasonable point of exploitation that Apple has long since passed.
I wish the Epic guy would consider this.
Escalating to mom is not an adult way to behave.
This is a business fight about power, control and money. Positioning it as some moral crusade is disingenuous at best. I don’t love Apple’s policies, but Epic aren’t asking that Apple gives developers freedom, it’s asking that EPIC gets freedom to also run an App Store and take fees from developers. It’s literally writ large in Sweeney’s E-Mails to Apple in June:
“Please confirm within two weeks if Apple agrees in principle to allow Epic to provide a competing App Store”
When you say "escalating to mom," it isn't clear to me if you're criticizing Epic's lawsuit, in which case I am in agreement with you and criticizing the same thing - or if you're criticizing my suggestion to go on strike, which I think would be the opposite of "escalating to mom." It would instead be gathering your friends in unison against a bully and stating plainly, without appeal to law or to force, that there is no mutual agreement in your interactions and that you want new terms to your relationship.
I also disagree that there is no moral argument to be made here. The point is that it should not matter what Epic's particular motivations are, because they're borne from the same frustrations and feeling of unfairness that all other developers here are in a position to one day find themselves. If Epic is acting strictly selfishly, a win for them is still a win for everyone else. To interpret these events in good faith is to put yourself in their shoes - not to require them to fight for you for it to be just.
As far as I've heard, Epic is not asking to be able to charge developers, they want to sell their own things in their own game at their own prices. There aren't any third parties involved in that so I'm not sure where you got that part from.
It's one thing to say that you think a strike would fail, it's another to say that it shouldn't be attempted. For someone so rigorously defending Apple on ostensibly free-market grounds, you're stopping short of going all the way and accepting a free-market response to their high prices. Your defense is selective, and my interpretation of such selectivity is that you yourself do not have conviction when it comes to how markets should operate or what are just actions inside a free market, but simply an emotional defense of a trillion dollar corporation who makes nice products that you like.
To confirm, I definitely think Epic are running to Mom here with the lawsuit, they were trying to get Apple sucked in deliberately by breaking the contract.
Regarding the moral argument, Tim Sweeney doesn't get to represent all other developers unless he at least checks with a few, and he might be surprised at the range of responses he would get. This is supposed to be a game where everyone knows the rules in advance and sticks to them. There is plenty of evidence to say that Apple has offered sweetheart deals or not applies the rules consistently - and that IS unfair, and I hope Apple gets a smackdown on that. But on the basis that you knew what the rules were in advance, should we continue to accept these events in good faith?
On the subject of money, Apple's prices are off-the-charts crazy right now, and speaking as a veteran of the prices of the early 1990s, I am staggered at how expensive everything is. My current iPhone is almost two years old and it had better last another three at least. I just bought a new MBP in January and the cost was eye-watering. That had better last ten years. And on these things, we have little choice, or at least I don't. I want to be in that ecosystem, because I've tried the others and they suck, so if it's a choice of spending the money or having my life suck, well, that's why money was invented.
I would rather not be seen as defending Apple, because they don't need my help, and I don't want to help them, but I also do not want to read emotive and partial cheap shots at them decrying their "tax" and espousing "freedom" - everything is a trade-off and people make those choices themselves. If Epic had decided to sue Apple, Google, Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft all at the same time, or done the diplomatic thing and gotten an alliance or coalition to stand up to Apple, that would be defensible, but it seems that the Sweeney Toddler approach won out - how are we supposed to support this even if we agree that Apple deserve a kicking?
Apple regulates this market, and we have to pay them a tax.
I originally started on Android and moved to iOS to check the other side. I find it annoying that I can't really use Kindle like I could before.. Or tell Siri to play something from Spotify. I'm forced to use Apple alternatives and it's the reason I'm moving back to Android when my phone dies.
You certainly can ask Siri to play music from Spotify, I don't know who said you can't. That was added last October with iOS 13. I have no idea what's happened with Kindle, but I use Google Play and Kobo books as well as Apple's Books, and everything works fine for reading. If not being able to purchase books on the device bothers you so much, fair enough, it's your choice, but nothing much has stopped me from finding the cheapest source of an ebook in epub format and reading it.
Do you know any store that adds a line showing their margin on the customer receipt ?
(Incidentally credit card companies, like Apple, really hate it; I think some states have exceptions in their laws to disallow contracting out of it?)
Buying airline tickets online often display the processing fee for using MasterCard/Visa too.
The important part is other options are displayed so I have a choice - iDeal, PayPal, MasterCard, Visa, bank transfer, etc.
Man i would really love this! the luxury goods market would be ruined overnight when everyone realizes that most of the time you're paying for the brand!
Online stores profit from the difference between buying at volumes and selling at a higher price.
They don't charge over the market price, they buy at a discount
Apple doesn't buy anything, doesn't have a warehouse, doesn't allow publishers to discuss the terms of the agreement, they take the same fee from everyone, in this regards it is very similar to a flat tax
Apple store is more similar to a market place, a mall in the physical world, in a mall businesses rent the space
They pay in proportion on how much space they rent and the quality of the space they rent
Apple (unfairly IMO) charges the same amount for everyone, even though some apps are promoted by the store and the vast majority of them is practically undiscoverable unless you already know what to look for.
If Apple was a store it would be a store that only place orders on your behalf, just because it's the only store in town and charges a fee on every order, even if they don't do much
If you had the phone number of the supplier you could place the order yourself, but Apple prohibits customers to even ask for it and if publishers try to contact customers directly, they sue them
In this imaginary town people supporting the Apple business say to people sick and tired of their way of doing it "change town"
I hoped we would be better than tribes in 2020
Apart from warehouse all the stock, provide check/out, provide distribution.
Nobody asked Apple to provide check out, distribution and warehouse
They are doing it and forcing everybody to follow along with that because it's best for Apple
In the same way Facebook hosts your pictures because it's good for them
I'm sure companies like Twitter, Facebook, Microsoft, epic, Spotify, Google etc. etc. are perfectly capable of doing all of the above, Apple simply prohibits them from even writing in their apps "this is not the only way you could buy this app"
I’ll concede the point that Apple are looking after Apple. I’ll also concede the point that Apple don’t disclose enough about their restrictions to their customers. However, I still find their App Store and fees reasonably tolerable, as a customer. Apple’s approach falls in line with much of how I want my computing to work. They’re not perfect, but compared to Google and FB, they’re by far the more appealing supplier. Compared to Microsoft, I just find Apple’s stuff nicer to use.
Maybe they didn’t ask for it, but they sure as hell use it. No-one has to make native apps.
They can't not use it
That's the point
PWAs are crippled on the iPhone and the fact that the only browser available is Safari is not encouraging for developers, so native it's the only option to have a good experience on iOS
Apple does want you to develop native apps, because to make native apps you have to buy Apple hardware, Apple developer licenses and Apple devices to test them
They could very well not use it.
I’ve chosen not to develop (or learn how) iOS native apps. For now. Almost everything I want to do could be a web app and I’d take the cost of maintaining servers for shelf space, distribution and offline storage. I’d have to use email for notifications. Notifications are optional at point of consumption anyway so they can’t be relied upon, so this UX impairment is minor.
The PWA argument doesn’t work for me. Most of the features I might choose to use PWA abilities for can be implemented in other ways.
No, they can't or they would have done it already
> I’ve chosen not to develop (or learn how) iOS native apps
I've chosen to skip writing mobile apps entirely, that doesn't mean that the company I work for can ignore their users on iOS hence they can't ignore Apple store policies
> Most of the features I might choose to use PWA abilities for can be implemented in other ways.
That's the problem
When the actor that controls 50% of the market doesn't fully implement some standard to drive adoption of their closed platform, development becomes more costly
And it reflects on both development time and price for the end user
I mean seriously people, do you not realise the words you use also affect the way you think about things and not just the other way around?
Also margin is the wrong term - these are transaction fees charged by the platform.
The best comparison is Airlines and airport - every time i buy a ticket, i know how much money actually goes to the airline.
It’s a bit more nuanced than that. The issue is that cities will often have their own sales tax, or that states have different sales tax. This gets pretty complicated when you advertise a price near the border of a tax cliff. Well, not complicated for the customer, but for the business.
But here's the other kicker. The Netherlands VAT is ~21%, the German VAT is/was 19%. It's a pretty simple difference that's basically negligible.
In Kentucky, sales tax is 6%, but in Ohio it's 5.75%, not that big of a difference. Oh wait, in Ohio it's 0% going through the drive thru. In Tennessee, sometimes there's no sales tax on clothing.
Tax is a political tool in the US, not so much elsewhere.
I think we only have this discussion because of Apple’s market cap. Most others are envious. Sure, Apple have a lot of power, but they do a fairly good job of using it responsibly. The interactions with the Chinese government do desire further scrutiny, however.
I’m not a shareholder.
I agree Google are adware. I disagree that tales them out of the discussion of monopoly.
I also think the monopoly discussion and the 30% fees discussion are separate. This relates to my interpretation that the 30% covers “shelf space, distribution, And security”.
If the fee were 5% but nothing else changed, Apple might still have a monopoly.
"A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed upon a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures"
Without the in app purchase fees, developers could (and would) give away the app and take all of the revenues.
With the in app purchase fees, developers (rightfully) feel as though Apple is taking a cut for something they they did not sell.
If apps sold for $40 or $80 each, Apple would have a much harder time justifying the commission on in app purchases. The motivation to do so would still be there, but the pressure from consumers may have more bearing on the rates (though I doubt they would eliminate them).
I dont see why collecting 30% from Games is anything off limit. I consider Gaming as Non-Essential. If you dont like the Gaming Platform. Go Elsewhere. Literally every Gaming Platform collects 30% ( if not more ) on Games being sold. That is everything from early days of Nintendo, Sega, and now Playstation and Xbox. So in the case of EPIC, why are they happy with Sony and Microsoft charging them 30% on Playstation and Xbox? Whether they are losing money on the console sales is irrelevant in this context, that is their business model, and that is how the market works and accept. Nintendo is able to compete with a profits on both console and games.
However charging 30% on Apps, on productivity, business tools and when there are only One competing App Platform in the whole world ( of whole of US ) is where the question of Monopoly or Monopsony comes into play.
I dont think there is an easy answer. On one hand, changing 30% of subscription for Education and Fitness App is ridiculous. Apple being the sole buyer and pitching these client / business / partners against each other while benefiting from it is precisely the definition of Monopsony.
On the other hand, I would much rather paid this 30% extortion than having a platform where user can, no matter how difficult it may be, able to side load Apps. I dont want any of my family member doing it. If you really want the ability to side loads, Android it is.
I think Apple should just keep the 30% on Games. 15% of One Time Purchase Apps, 10% on Subscription and call it a day. I think that is a fair deal. Payment Processing, Fraud Protection, Refund and General Admin and Store Operation would have put it close to 5%. Business aren't losing much with the 10% Rent. With the lower commission Apple can better Enforce the Sign up rules. No more "Reader" App Guidelines. You are allowed to give better deals else where like on your Website. But as a consumer I am happy with the extra 10% for the safety of going through Apple.
And some additional info, it is estimated that 80% of App Store Revenue are from Gaming. So dropping the Apps and Subscription to 15% / 10% arrangement isn't going to make their services revenue collapse. Apple are also working hard on their AppleCare+ push, as you can now buy it within the first year of your purchase and Apple Store Genius has had their KPI percentage increased for AppleCare sold. ( Personally I think what is happening in Apple Retail is even worst than the App Store )
I’m confused, why are you opposed to the option of sideloading? Are you unaware that you can sideload on iOS? (see /r/sideloaded for a thriving sub on sideloadable apps)
It takes a little setup but it is totally doable and doesn’t require jailbreak or anything.
All the comments saying “just allow side-loading apps/third-party stores and let people decide themselves” ignore the fact that by doing so then iOS will end up with the same virus/malware issues that you see on Windows and Android. Suddenly we’ll need to help friends and family factory reset their iPhone because their search engine got hijacked, or because they get spammed with sex notifications, etc.
Why? Who is forcing YOU to sideload?
There's no reason why the default couldn't be status quo and you'd only opt in into sideloading, this way the users who want the walled garden still get it and the users who want to sideload can optionally opt into that.
Why is it always an either/or?
As for Android, I'm pretty confident in saying that F-Droid, which is a 3rd party store, is generally safer than even the Play Store.
Android's problem is the lax review of apps even on the Play Store, lack of updates soon after purchase etc. Most users on Android don't even have sideloading enabled, that's not a huge vector.
I may be capable of sticking to the App Store and not side-loading apps, but many of my friends, family and non-developer coworkers are not. They’ll click on random links in their mailbox, ads from apps and when browsing the web.. the end result is that they end up accidentally having their homepage, search engine and browser hijacked, they get redirected to spam websites, links on websites gets replaced with affiliate links, their sensitive information gets stolen, etc.
I’ve never had to help fix an iPhone and I don’t know anyone who’s been infected with malware (besides e.g. TikTok secretly copying clipboard and such), however for Windows and Android then I have people reach out to me on a monthly basis because they accidentally installed something that fucked up their computer/phone and they need help fixing it.
As for F-Droid, I hope you realize that their store is even more locked down than the App Store, and it’s as far as I’m aware the only secure third-party store on Android.
All well and good, but this is not due to sideloading. That is an option that is disabled by default and the majority of people keep it that way. There's sketchy apps on the Play Store itself, which does not require you sideloading. I feel like you're conflating sideloading with malware here.
> As for F-Droid, I hope you realize that their store is even more locked down than the App Store
Not sure what you mean exactly, considering you can even have your own repos in F-Droid, but in any case the point is that it is a 3rd party store.
I don't think anyone is arguing no store can be locked down if you have multiple choices.
It is. iPhones don’t suffer from these malware issues precisely because everything is locked down and you can’t get apps to the iPhone without Apple’s manual approval. If Android was locked down and only allowed apps to be installed through F-Droid then they wouldn’t have any malware issues either.
The reason F-Droid is safe is because they’re also locked down and their approval process is even more strict than Apple’s.
> I don't think anyone is arguing no store can be locked down if you have multiple choices.
What I’m saying is that once you allow third-party app installations then malware will follow. And as we can see with Macs, not even Apple will be able to prevent it no matter how much they try to discourage people from downloading apps outside the App Store. The malware you see on Macs are a result of users downloading apps outside the App Store, and the same thing would happen to iPhones if they allowed third-party app installations.
Apple has as much malware than Android
It just uses different channels
> Adware has become much more aggressive in 2019, heavily targeting consumer and business endpoints on Windows, Mac, and Android devices. A new team of the most active adware families have replaced the top adware family detections of 2018. In total, we saw approximately 24 million Windows adware detections and 30 million Mac detections. The top three consumer threat detections belonged to adware families and the number one business detection was also adware. The number one Mac detection, an adware family called NewTab, brought in 28 million detections itself.
https://resources.malwarebytes.com/files/2020/02/2020_State-...
If you're arguing that iOS should prevent ignorance too, then by that logic it should prevent users from receiving emails because of possible scams.
You're posting on a site called Hacker News so I'd expect you to know, but does you extended family know, without you telling them? Doubt ir, just as I would expect most people to think "Hacker News" has to do something with illegality or perhaps reporting on criminal hackers.
Though I agree a minimum revenue threshold would make sense. But that's not apples strategy. Their strategy is to subtly charge the massive amount of indie developers (developer account fee) and take 30% from the get go.
I don't think most people would consider direct payment to reputable companies like Epic to be a particular security risk. I don't think most realize why they can't subscribe to Spotify from their iPhones, they think it's simply not implemented.
The thing is, Apple now holds a tremendous amount of power over a large set of the population. All the comments saying "just buy an Android" ignore the simple fact that you buying an Android does not change the fact that a significant portion of the market is elsewhere.
I'd be more OK with this if Apple was OK with displaying a 30% Apple tax on checkout. But the fact that they prevent apps from showing it and actively try to conceal it shows that they know most of their customers would ask questions about it, at the very least, likely question if the "benefits" they get in return are worth it.