>Apple relied on a “complex web of offshore entities” and U.S. tax loopholes to avoid paying billions of dollars in U.S. taxes on $44 billion in offshore income over the past four years, according to excerpts from a Senate subcommittee report to be released tomorrow as Apple CEO Tim Cook testifies on the company’s overseas operations.
>The maker of iPhones and iPads used at least three foreign subsidiaries that it claims are not “tax resident in any nation” to help it avoid paying billions in “otherwise taxable offshore income,” the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations said in a statement today.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/connieguglielmo/2013/05/20/appl...
And they're not forcing it on Mac because that would cause outrage and people not upgrading the OS, and desktop/laptop computers are dying anyways.
Also, App Store on Mac definitely has fees.
Perfectly understandable IMHO.
(Webkit might be a platform to Google but it's not from Apple's point of view, it's merely one part of their platform offerings)
Vendor lock in is bad towards the customer so limiting it actually increases the free market.
What you think of is Laissez-faire
Yes, Apple can dictate terms in its own store the same way that your local grocer can.
When Android has 75% market share and multiple competing stores, we’re not even close to monopoly.
Would be all well and awesome if you had any freedom of choice on Apple's platform and weren't forced into being locked into their ecosystem where you pay a 15% Apple tax on every purchase. Say what you like about mobile platforms but making ridiculous comparisons like this doesn't help your case.
I don’t see how that is an argument against ”Yes, Apple can dictate terms in its own store the same way that your local grocer can.”. You don’t have freedom of choice as to who to buy from at your local grocer, either.
I think that, in principle, companies creating a market should be able to decide what gets sold there and demand any cut of sales they want.
That also is what I think laws say in most countries. It’s fairly normal with game consoles, for example, and I expect you can’t sell merchandise from studios competing with Disney (if they still exist) in Disneyland or sell ice cream there without Disney taking a significant cut, or sell Shell products at an Exxon pump.
The big question, though, is whether the market power of a few players in mobile apps is so undesirable that action is necessary, and if so, whether existing laws are sufficient to correct the issue, or whether the rules of the game should change and if so, how.
I think law will be changed, but how, I’m not sure about. Any law saying “this applies only to companies Foo, Bar and Baz” will be shut down in courts, so arguments must be formulated as to what exactly is wrong with the current situation, and decisions will have to be made as to whether those rules also should apply to, for example, game consoles.
Exactly, and this isn't a problem because you have plenty of choice as to which grocer you patronize.
There are plenty of mobile app stores. If you don't like Apple's, then grab an Android and use Amazon's.
I say this just so that people with strong opinions on HN remember there are two sides to every coin.
Who is forced into using their ecosystem?
Apple doesn’t license its operating system to other OEMs, it doesn’t have anywhere near 90% market share and EU case law is irrelevant in the US.
> In 1993, the American software company Novell claimed that Microsoft was blocking its competitors out of the market through anti-competitive practices. The complaint centered on the license practices at the time which required royalties from each computer sold by a supplier of Microsoft's operating system, whether or not the unit actually contained the Windows operating system.
The one where a business gets to decide what they charge?
The free market loophole? The loophole where business pass costs on to customers?
Do you propose governments should set prices?