Re:Epic’s decision to bypass Apple’s App Store policies was ...
by shadowgovt on Tuesday September 29, 2020 @09:58AM
(#24627874)
> Smartphone/tablet OSs are logical successors to the laptop/desktop OSs we have not game consoles.
I think that's a case a person could make in a court of law, but there are also compelling cases for "It's more like a console than not" and for "It's its own thing, a separate category of computing device, which should be beholden to a separate set of rules."
The App Store was one of the value-adds Apple brought to the smartphone ecosystem. In a system of heterogeneous methods to put apps on phones (if the app suite was configurable at all and not pre-loaded onto the device), Apple provided a system where they would do quality curation of the apps that were loaded on the device they made and a clean, obvious method to track the apps a person wanted on their device and install them. No complex configuration, no different-installers-for-different-apps, none of that PC-ecosystem nonsense. Along with the iPhone API (that erred on the side of performance over flexibility), it brought a strong product to market.
It's possible what is offered now isn't the same thing, but I think a case could be made by a competent lawyer that the store is part of the entire product offering and makes for a better consumer product, which is what US antitrust law often hinges on (consumer harm).
I think that's a case a person could make in a court of law, but there are also compelling cases for "It's more like a console than not" and for "It's its own thing, a separate category of computing device, which should be beholden to a separate set of rules."
The App Store was one of the value-adds Apple brought to the smartphone ecosystem. In a system of heterogeneous methods to put apps on phones (if the app suite was configurable at all and not pre-loaded onto the device), Apple provided a system where they would do quality curation of the apps that were loaded on the device they made and a clean, obvious method to track the apps a person wanted on their device and install them. No complex configuration, no different-installers-for-different-apps, none of that PC-ecosystem nonsense. Along with the iPhone API (that erred on the side of performance over flexibility), it brought a strong product to market.
It's possible what is offered now isn't the same thing, but I think a case could be made by a competent lawyer that the store is part of the entire product offering and makes for a better consumer product, which is what US antitrust law often hinges on (consumer harm).