> Just like back in the day when Microsoft was forced to let users allow other browser when it wasn't even being blocked. Just theirs was pre-installed!

Microsoft’s antitrust case is frequently misunderstood. MS was a supplier to the companies that made and sold computers. They got in trouble for messing with other suppliers.

Apple manufacturers and sells the computer. It’s not analogous.

It's a LOT closer than you seem to be painting it.

Apple is a supplier to software companies (of both hardware and software). They are getting in trouble for messing with other suppliers (of both hardware and software).

To quote the charges in the MS case:

"the U.S. government accused Microsoft of illegally maintaining its monopoly position in the personal computer (PC) market primarily through the legal and technical restrictions it put on the abilities of PC manufacturers (OEMs) and users to uninstall Internet Explorer and use other programs such as Netscape and Java."

Apple in this case:

"Apple is illegally maintaining its monopoly position in the mobile application market primarily through technical restrictions it puts on the abilities of iOS software developers and users to install 3rd party application and programs."

We're essentially playing out a very similar situation, just with the focus on digital goods.

I don't think this is the case. Here is how I understand this:

Microsoft was accused of having a monopoly in a market (PC) defined by one single software (Windows) and hardware produced by a lot of PC manufacturers.

Apple could be accused of having a "monopoly" in market defined by their own software and their own hardware.

So in a way, IANAL, but Microsoft had a monopoly with their product in a bigger market than the one created by them, while Apple has a "monopoly" on the market (Apple ecosystem) that exists only because they exist. In this way, Microsoft was creating a monopoly in an otherwise free market, while Apple is a monopoly on their own devices, so if Microsoft would stop selling Windows the PC market will still exist, while if Apple will stop selling iPhones with iOS the App Store market will not exist anymore.

The correct comparison could be with Microsoft which has a monopoly on the Surface market where they produce both hardware and software.

The bigger market in this instance is "mobile devices," of which iOS accounts for nearly 60% of users in the US.

It's not nearly as aggressive of a split as MS/everyone else, but being the larger side of a duopoly a lot of vendors don't really have the choice to just ignore them, and meanwhile their users are subjected to this.

The comparison also starts looking a lot closer when you consider the way it impacts web development as a profession that the same ~60% can't choose a browser other than Safari in any sense that has practical meaning.

> MS was a supplier to the companies that made and sold computers. They got in trouble for messing with other suppliers.

Isn't this only true for the US antitrust case? IIRC the EU antitrust case was similar Apple's situation.

If I can sideload apps on an Apple device, what's stopping me from buying a bunch of them, sideloading my special apps, and reselling them at a markup? Or, if the bootloader becomes unlocked, wiping iOS off of the device and installing Android? There's no way to even have other suppliers right now because Apple has everything so locked down.

Isn't Apple now similarly messing with suppliers of iOS apps?

I see a problem with the Facebook, the Microsoft, the Epic store with all different rules and payment methods. Having them to cross a common threshold is better for me as an end user.

Then use the common threshold. I'm sure Epic would happy to keep a version of their games on the App Store with all prices inflated by thirty percent.

Their saga with the Play Store shows that that isn’t the case.[0] Once you allow third parties to use different stores, and those stores aren’t as restrictive, you bet businesses are gonna move there. The whole “if you like the App Store, just don’t use the others” doesn’t work in practice. See also: the whole Steam vs Epic issue on Windows.

Should Apple open their store? Sure. But it’s not as cut and dry as people make it out to be.

[0]: https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/news/how-to-install...

Apple would not let them charge one price for App Store payments and another price for external payments.

Spotify did exactly this before they abandoned in app purchases. I believe Google does this for YouTube Premium.

Apple did have that policy for less than a year over 10 years ago.

A store cannot dictate how much you charge for a product at a different retailer, and they have no right to interfere with your business activity, and the agreements you have with a different distributor.

> A store cannot dictate how much you charge for a product at a different retailer

Isn’t this exactly what is happening everywhere you see “we price match!” or “low price guarantee”?

Platforms can and do require sellers to provide the lowest price, and take whatever measures including offing violators from the platform if this means they suffer losses every time a buyer does their research.

Not even mentioning exclusivity clauses, which are very much legal and very much dictate your relationship with other distributors.

I’m not saying Apple is doing that, but there are so many precedents that I doubt this practice is illegal.

> they have no right to interfere with your business activity

If you choose to do business with them, they are literally taking part in your business activity. No one made you sign the contract (presumably you have done so in expectation of benefitting from the platform, which would attract users to you since its owner develops products that users want). Calling this “interference” is nonsensical.

Nitpick: "We price match" is a store voluntarily taking a price cut for their customers. The other store "dictates" the price, but the first one can always end the sale if they wish.

Wouldn’t this open such a platform to scams where a friend of the seller gets discounts by pointing to seller’s site with super-low prices?

I’m not saying they do not take a cut voluntarily, but they must take measures if this happens too often with a particular seller.

Usually those ads have some fine print saying that their own terms of refusing a sale for whatever reason still apply. So if Store A is taking a loss on sales to force Store B to sell for cheaper, Store B can still refuse to sell you the product. "We price match" only applies if a sale actually goes to completion.

Not sure I get your point.

Imagine store A is a platform like Booking.com, and store B is seller’s site. There is a complaint every day to store A that store B sells cheaper. Store A charges the customer less but pays the seller the same, taking a loss.

Meanwhile, it turns out that those customers are friends of the seller, to whom the seller compensates the transaction plus some extra on top.

Apple can and does do this.

Products on the App Store can be sold at a different price, companies often do this to recoup some of that 30% App Store commission.

Edit: this is a fact, though feel free to downvote. Apple tries to hide this from the user by not letting publishers mention that the app or service is cheaper when purchased outside of the App Store or Mac App Store.

I must be misunderstanding this. Since Apple doesn't support sideloading, how is any product offered both on the App Store and somewhere else, let alone for a different price?

Some apps are sold for a different price on the App Store and the Mac App Store, than if you'd buy it directly from the developer or a store on a different platform. On iOS you can obviously only buy an app on the App Store, with some exceptions.

You can buy subscriptions outside of the App Store and still use the app.

That is not true, at least in the US.

> The whole “if you like the App Store, just don’t use the others” doesn’t work in practice.

Why not? Isn't that the status quo? If you like the App Store, you buy an iPhone and don't use any of the others. If you like F-Droid, you get an Android phone, put LineageOS on it and don't use any of the others. Or if you like multiple Android stores, you can do that too.

Allowing multiple stores on Apple devices just reduces the cost relative to the "buy a new phone" solution.

They're saying that when what's being asked (alternative stores without paying % cut to OS vendor) doesn't solve this at all, as Epic has its own store on Windows but gamers absolutely hate it since Steam is so much better[0], yet Epic purchases exclusivity rights to new games; it only has marketshare because they give away free games and Fortnite requires it.

0: https://redd.it/b94c4i

No they wouldn't. They already pulled Rocket League from the steam store[1] after purchasing their developer. There is no reason they would treat ios any different

[1]https://store.steampowered.com/app/252950/Rocket_League/

Steam developer agreement forbids such practice. You can't set base price of your game any higher than in other stores. And, to be fair, situation isn't as dire as you described it, you can still download and play Rocket League with the latest update in Steam if you have it on your account.

There won't be any, it will be either go to the epic store or don't use our product. For certain apps it will be a pain in the ass. And to be honest, this is why I buy Apple not Android. I don't want to think about it.

There is more to it than only getting apps. How about family sharing or checking what the minors in my family are downloading?

And if they do it on the App Store I want to see the break up of Nintendo, Sony and Xbox games stores too.

Why don't we buy their security concern? We then declare the App Store a utility and divorce it from Apple entirely. Pay Apple off and have it run as a non-profit supported by a minimal tax from Apple and developers.

Apart from the fact that almost nobody could afford to pay them off!

(FWIW, I have always thought that media companies should collectively buy Twitter and run it as a utility)

> I have always thought that media companies should collectively buy Twitter and run it as a utility

That's a pretty good analogy—twitter is to media companies, as power plants are to power companies.

Yes because government being in charge of technology could never go wrong.

You really don’t see the harm in government controlling distribution?

Supported side-loading is a thing on Android since day one? What innovation came out of this? Thousands of rip-off apps, all sort of malware pushed upon clueless users? I know, that some of those things are still a problem on iOS, but just imagine how worse this can gen, if they would be forced to open up the system for additional app stores.

Third party app stores cannot automatically update apps - each individual update requires going through a modal OS prompt to confirm. This harms the install experience on e.g. F-Droid or Amazon Store on non-Amazon devices.

They can in Android 12.

There’s so many potential pitfalls with side loading and alternate app stores

Apple’s behavior is BS and they need to be forced to allow competition

They’ve done it to themselves

To be fair, iOS jailbreak scene was the birthplace of many UX innovations. However, since them the capabilities of iOS were expanded and jailbreak lost its popularity.

F-Droid.

Like SSL, Apple and Google need to do their part to provide a way for developers to validate an app and prevent clones from being installed instead even if coming from a 3rd party store.

It doesn't really work even with one closed AppStore. How that could work if they would be forced to allow 3rd party AppStores? I don't understand this logic. On one hand you want to force Apple to allow 3rd patry stores (and apps). But still you want them to have final word in the approval process?

And SSL validates just the domain name, which still allows all the phishing attacks to thrive. Compare installing App for the first time to coming to some website for the first time ever. SSL doesn't really provide anything to identify the site, anyone can get any domain.

Like Microsoft allows you to sign your app, there should be a mechanism like this for each OS. I can still install an app if it is not signed but I am being warned.

Why should the app store prevent clones? Clones are just another name for competition. I want the app stores to ensure that the apps are safe, not that they are free of competition.

Microsoft was forced around Internet Explorer not "just" because theirs was pre-installed. It was more that Internet Explorer had become so baked in to the system that it literally could not be removed without breaking Windows. That was the thing that caused rulings against Microsoft.

I'm not sure that holds up in practice. The "fix" for the anti-trust claim (or what it was called) was for Microsoft to add a popup asking the user what browser they wanted, and Internet Explorer (or whatever it's called today) is still as embedded into the OS as it was in the past.

IE isn't embedded in the OS in any significant way any more, and hasn't been for a while. Windows Explorer used to basically be a wrapper around IE, for example.

Windows explorer is STILL a wrapper around IE - I can go install COM components for IE that will run just fine in explorer.

And the vast majority of the webviews used by the OS were IE (now webview2, based on Edge instead).

It turns out the ability to display a webpage is a pretty critical part of any modern operating system - they all support some form of a webview. The one in Windows is based on browsers that MS develops and owns (IE, then EdgeClassic, now Chromium Edge). It's absolutely baked in still.

Nowadays the Windows default browser is called Microsoft Edge (based around Blink engine), and you still cannot remove it from the OS as it's "essential component of our [Microsoft] operating system", at least according to Microsoft themselves:

> Microsoft Edge is the web browser recommended by Microsoft and is the default web browser for Windows. Because Windows supports applications that rely on the web platform, our default web browser is an essential component of our operating system and can’t be uninstalled. To provide our users with compatibility, compliance, accessibility, and performance, we'll continue updating Microsoft Edge through the browser installer or Windows updates.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/why-can-t...

I still click on links in some parts of the OS or other applications on Windows 10 that opens in Microsoft Edge, even though I've set Firefox to be my default browser.

Windows 11 shell is based on chromium now.

I don't know if it shares with the core that buildin edge use. But if it is the case, then obviously you can't remove it just like you can't remove core of ie in pre windows 11 world.

By the way, some function of the new shell seems relies on service not available under safe mode. So the explore.exe will crash repeatedly when you are in safe mode. __And it openes the edge for help article every time it crashed__, so you ends up with dozens of same tab in the edge.

EU is specifically drafting legislation for gatekeepers in Digital Markets Law.

TL;DR Apple and Google will have to allow to install third-party app stores trough their stores.

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?uri=COM%3A20...

Gatekeepers like Apple will have specific obligation according to Article 5:

(b) allow business users to offer the same products or services to end users through third party online intermediation services at prices or conditions that are different from those offered through the online intermediation services of the gatekeeper;

(c) allow business users to promote offers to end users acquired via the core platform service, and to conclude contracts with these end users regardless of whether for that purpose they use the core platform services of the gatekeeper or not, and allow end users to access and use, through the core platform services of the gatekeeper, content, subscriptions, features or other items by using the software application of a business user, where these items have been acquired by the end users from the relevant business user without using the core platform services of the gatekeeper;

And Article 6:

(c) allow the installation and effective use of third party software applications or software application stores using, or interoperating with, operating systems of that gatekeeper and allow these software applications or software application stores to be accessed by means other than the core platform services of that gatekeeper. The gatekeeper shall not be prevented from taking proportionate measures to ensure that third party software applications or software application stores do not endanger the integrity of the hardware or operating system provided by the gatekeeper;

(k) apply fair and non-discriminatory general conditions of access for business users to its software application store designated pursuant to Article 3 of this Regulation.

Following articles, like:

- article 7: Compliance with obligations for gatekeepers

- article 10: Updating obligations for gatekeepers and

- article 11: Anti-circumvention

give the EU Commission quite a lot of executive power to ensure effective implementation.

Will these laws also apply to game consoles? Set top boxes?

The current law draft deems you a gatekeeper if you have:

- annual EEA turnover equal to or above EUR 6.5 billion in the last three financial years

- market value of at least EUR 65 billion in the last financial year and it provides a core platform service in at least three Member States

So, I believe it will apply to many game consoles.

More in detail:

Article 2, Definitions

‘Core platform service’ means any of the following:

(a) online intermediation services;

(...)

Article 3, Designation of gatekeepers

Paragraph 1, a provider of core platform services shall be designated as gatekeeper if:

(a) it has a significant impact on the internal market;

(b) it operates a core platform service which serves as an important gateway for business users to reach end users; and

(c) it enjoys an entrenched and durable position in its operations or it is foreseeable that it will enjoy such a position in the near future.

Paragraph 2, a provider of core platform services shall be presumed to satisfy:

(a) the requirement in paragraph 1 point (a) where the undertaking to which it belongs achieves an annual EEA turnover equal to or above EUR 6.5 billion in the last three financial years, or where the average market capitalisation or the equivalent fair market value of the undertaking to which it belongs amounted to at least EUR 65 billion in the last financial year, and it provides a core platform service in at least three Member States;

(b) the requirement in paragraph 1 point (b) where it provides a core platform service that has more than 45 million monthly active end users established or located in the Union and more than 10 000 yearly active business users established in the Union in the last financial year;

for the purpose of the first subparagraph, monthly active end users shall refer to the average number of monthly active end users throughout the largest part of the last financial year;

(c) the requirement in paragraph 1 point (c) where the thresholds in point (b) were met in each of the last three financial years.

And watch European citizens complain that now their game consoles are more expensive because the console makers won’t sell them at a loss since they can’t be subsidized by fees.

Or since there is already a shortage, the console makers prioritize the US.

Then Apple will have a much higher fee to use their developer tools.

Also in the case of Google, you can’t use Google Services outside of the Google Play store. The only company that has had the resources to duplicate many of those services is Amazon.

In iOS users case, you won’t be able to use iCloud backup, the same notifications controls, access to global settings, probably no access to KeyChain or any other API that requires server side integration.

A fine goal, and I approve strongly, but I worry that without a real understanding of what has happened in China, the outcome might be prices like China's (50% cut being typical, https://archive.fo/5dvsz). And IMO, anyone who says "well, obviously the only reason…" doesn't really understand.

I don't think so and this is where unregulated markets (although I am not a fan at all) would push the prices down. If anyone can provide an app store and that app stores fees are lower people will move.

What Apple and Google need to do is work on assuring that Apps can be uniquely identified (which the can already) and validated so that you don't have a clone of an App in another app store.

AIUI China has many mobile phone builders that all use android with minimal customisation, so they're basically interchangeable except for the prices of the vendor-provided app store on each. And apparently none of them use app pricing to undercut the others, unless I've overlooked recent developments?

It's not clear to me why the Chinese competition fails at undercutting Apple/Google and the proposed app store competition would achieve that. I don't see the relevant difference.

The unique identifier on Android is easily broken, BTW. I don't know iOS well, but on android it's simple. IIRC you don't even need an android development kit, the java tools will do. This fine web page lets you download a formerly welll-known app; someone downloaded the app, unzipped the executable (which is in zip format), resigned and uploaded. https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/app-quickpic-v4-5-2-class...