https://developer.apple.com/support/core-technology-fee/

So what are we left with? Apps where users are the product, like Facebook, and freemium apps where you end up paying to get anything useful done with it anyway. Apps where the parent company is making millions if not billions. Is anybody upset that those guys have to chip in for iOS development?

I personally think Apples approach is the lesser of two evils. We don’t pay for OS explicitly anymore. But look at Windows and Android… you end up paying somehow in the end anyway. I’d rather it be through fees on apps than more insidious approaches.

And no. Paying for the phone is not a viable way to pay for the OS. That incentives the phone maker to ditch OS updates for old phones. And we know that’s a real issue. As long as we pay through app fees the phone makers are incentivised to keep releasing OS updates for old phones.

Gaming apps. A huge majority of Apple's revenue (from IAP) came from gaming purchases. This would continue to be the case. A gaming app would have ads + options for purchases (none can survive without it) and Apple now earns both on downloads and IAPs. Many games cross the 1M threshold once they are popular enough. Gaming apps have low retention, and a power curve in paying users.

Plenty of useful apps like the Orca card reader (see your transit card balance by just tapping your card, no internet required), fun games like Antimine, and such where the devs will only target barrier free platforms as it's a passion project are missing in action on iOS.

Only if the app makes a series of decisions that lead to that outcome.

They can either stick with the 15%/30% commission without install fees. Let’s assume it has a revenue of >$1m, so that would be 30%.

Or they can opt into the new EU offering.

Then they’re immediately subject to a €0.50/unique install in 12 months per install in the EU over they reach a 1M installs in the EU.

The baseline is just that, that install fee. Which Apple calls the Core Technology Fee (CTF), in other words a fee for using Apple’s IP in your app.

If they also choose to distribute via the App Store then they’ll pay a commission of 17% and if they also choose to use IAP then they pay an additional 3% in processing fees.

Ironically, the CTF pushes bigger devs to use alternative stores, assuming they will offer a lower commission rate than 17%.

But it’s definitely possible to only pay the CTF if so desired.

Isn't that convenient, a series of (dis)incentives which ensure the house always wins, not just on average, but 100% of the time. Something that a certain piece of anti-trust regulation is intended to change?

I agree devs dont have to go for new terms and could stay with existing terms. The whole convoluted way of introducing this is meant to have that effect.

I'm not sure why I have to mention this, but you could be paying for something and get screwed over at the same time. The issue isn't that Google/Microsoft/etc NEED to make money this way, but that this is legal to do.

Also, Windows isn't exactly cheap and I personally couldn't fathom paying more than 100 bucks for an OS and still get treated like crap. I'm sure Android at best only makes 10 bucks from their users with their current model throughout the device's entire lifetime.

I'm pretty sure Google pays Apple more than $10 per year per iPhone user to be the default search on iPhones and Mac. They were paying 18 billion back in 2021. I don't think Apple's marketshare is over 1.8 billion active users yet. Do you think Apple users are just that much more valuable to have searching?

[1] https://www.bankmycell.com/blog/number-of-iphone-users

Microsoft updates Windows OS for longer than Apple updates MacOS or iOS, despite charging a one-time fee that most end-users don't pay themselves.

And is backwards compatible.

And works with 99.999999% of the computer hardware ever made.

It seems like with Apple, you're just paying for a lot of nothing.

These days Microsoft screws their users hard in terms of stealing every scrap of personal data they can from people's devices and shoving ads and unwanted software down their throats. An Apple computer might be highly overpriced, under-powered, and restrictive, but Apple isn't the privacy nightmare that Microsoft is and while Macs aren't perfect when it comes to privacy protections I can't fault people for seeing value in their privacy and being willing to pay for it.

That said, most apple users are overpaying for a status symbol and/or an identity rather than strictly for the privacy benefits and for tech savvy users with privacy concerns a PC with linux is the way to go since it's even better at protecting their data and doesn't come with Apple's restrictions on what you can/can't do with your own computer.

I have never understood this viewpoint. The world isn't rich enough, or Apple devices exclusive enough, for identity to weight so heavily in Apple's favor.

I think convenience silently overshadows cost for many daily use products. People with modest incomes pay enormous annual sums for convenient daily coffee.

For many, relative reliability and lack of cruft make Apple products more convenient. For others, the inconvenience of Apple's "garden walls" drive them away.

Apple has been a status symbol for ages but the iphone made it undeniable. If you've been unaware of that just check out articles such as these:

"New research shows that owning an iPhone is the most common sign of wealth" (https://9to5mac.com/2018/07/08/iphone-wealth-research/)

"Why the iPhone Is the Perfect Status Symbol" (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/status-insanity-why-the-i_b_5...)

"The ‘iPhone Effect’: Are iPhone Users More Attractive Than Androiders?" (https://www.forbes.com/sites/traversmark/2023/12/30/the-ipho...)

As for identity, you may have never met an "apple" person, but it's absolutely an identity for many. It's a subculture (https://www.wired.com/2002/12/mac-loyalists-dont-tread-on-us...). People have called apple users "cult-like" and their devotion to the Apple brand a religion (https://www.jstor.org/stable/3712458). I have met people who were convinced that they couldn't be a "real" artist without owning Apple products (in one case the person was talking about ipods specifically, not computers or cell phones). The influence of marketing on Apple users can be extremely powerful.

As for expense, even in the US the majority of the population (60%) lives paycheck to paycheck and their standard of living is in decline. The high price of the iphone drove up the cost of other brands so the price gap is smaller at the highest end, but most households can't easily afford to get everyone a $1,000+ phone and android devices offer a wide range of prices and features for families who can't afford the top of the line. Even those that can will probably still get more for their money with a flagship android device. Apple users also have to pay much more for software (https://9to5mac.com/2023/09/06/iphone-users-spend-apps/) and that's not even counting the 30% extra apple charges for their cut of in-app purchases that's been talked about so much lately. Iphone users spend and have more money in general for a reason (https://www.marketingdive.com/news/survey-iphone-owners-spen...) and convenience isn't it.

That said, I agree that the perception of Apple being easier to use does drive sales and for people already used to Apple's weirdness there would certainly be a learning curve in switching away from the platform which encourages people to stay.

I am sure their was some iPhone status effects, especially in iPhone's early days. But status effects follow other effects and die quickly if a product doesn't deliver.

--

I get fans.

I also get the anti-fan simplification syndrome of people who don't understand why Apple products have often appealed to others. Especially when those others are passionate at all.

Googling up articles that obscess of finding non-practical reasons for Apple enthusiasm isn't a good argument.

Apple has typically (for decades, with relatively few fails) had a cleaner level of design and polish vs. Microsoft and other alternatives.

That can be very hard to give up for those that appreciate it.

(Similarly for other consistently distinctively constructed product lines, emphasizing some other area of benefit, of course.)

--

Replies to every one of your links:

> "New research shows that owning an iPhone is the most common sign of wealth"

The article talks about a statistical link with wealth. Not psychology. I don't find it surprising that the wealthy are less price conscious.

> "Why the iPhone Is the Perfect Status Symbol"

The Huffington piece is a complete puff peice. ("A friend got an iPhone because she could not call Uber cabs on her Blackberry. [...] If there is any prospect of drinks on the horizon, she leaves her iPhone safely at home" [..] "There's irony somewhere in this but until Apple comes up with a product called iRony, and livestreams its launch we won't get it.")

Re the "iPhone Effect":

> Apple has always positioned themselves as an aspirational brand. The emphasis on unmatched quality levels, a clean user experience and a distinct and consistent design is at the core of what makes it the most valuable company in the world. [Emphasis mine.]

That is a lot of practical daily non-status value for less price conscious people to buy.

> As for identity, you may have never met an "apple" person, but it's absolutely an identity for many.

I get there are fans. But Apple fans for the most part have had good practical reasons. One big reason wasnt Apple so much as the cruft and shovelware (and now in OS advertising) of other vendors that for some of us gets achingly frustrating. (I have generally had Macs and Windows machines for decades. Pro's and con's for each, but good lord, Windows is still a bag of inconsistency, disorganized plethora's of niggling settings, and trashy interface choices in comparison. Even though I appreciate many reasons others preferred Windows.)

> It's a subculture

Again, Apple products are distinctive in a way that impacts people at a practical level. And that article is from 2002.

> People have called apple users "cult-like" [...]

People often have trouble understanding other people's choices. Article from 2001!

--

TLDR; Just because something can confer status, doesn't make status the reason people buy it. Especially 16 years after a high utility daily use product has been introduced and alternatives abound.

Takeaway: Let other's explain their own motives. Don't project narratives as if they are facts - regardless of how much they are repeated or satisfy you.

One serious research paper showing 60% of 10,000 iPhone owners across diverse demographics listing "status" as in their top 2 purchasing factors would realistically make the argument you are trying to make. Not the articles you listed.

The kinds of articles you thought worth quoting say more about you than Apple customers.

--

Devil's advocate: Apple has not always delivered, other vendors have other benefits, and Apple's legacy of user interface design is seriously marred by "flat design" in my experience. (Design should make usage simpler, not reduce pixels, color, texture, visibility of options or status, or other affordances. Don't get me started on Ives need to eliminate ports people actually used, or flatten keyboards into unreliability.)

Sure, the EU will fix things like they've managed to do in the past with other internet-related stuff (e.g., cookie notices). And I will definitely re-evaluate this take once things change in terms of ads for Windows. But until that happens, I don't see "the EU will fix that" as a valid point in favor of Windows.

https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/windows-11/wind...

All of my Windows PCs just work. And I can stick pretty much any hardware and they just work.

I can't say the say for any of the Apple devices that my friends own, all of whom have had to have them replaced at some point.

For instance I didn't even have an idea of what's required in my place to get recognized as non-profit. And it turns out it's specific to each region, and I need to go ask for the paperwork in the first place.

If the requirement is really a non profit legal status, Apple just raised the bar from "apps that just make no money" to "apps that registered to their local governing bodies that they have a goal of not making money", and that's a huge leap with a crazy high barrier for a random dev (imagine a kid in uni) to push a free app.

Assuming there is some legal framework allowing a smaller entity to piggy back on Mozilla or the Linux Foundation's non profit registration in the developer's country, the dev still needs to at least register as an official entity, which can be awkward depending on their status (do student visa residents get a right to do that for instance ?). There's also the more complex cases of a for profit business publishing an open-source app. Do they need to register a different non profit entity to avoid paying for the open source part then ?

To then explain to Apple how the arrangement is made and have them approve it is another story as well, as we're already seeing that Apple has no intention to make things simple regarding any of these rules.

All in all, there will be clear cut cases that will show it can be simple, but I totally see a long tail of devs stopped at any point of the process, and it's probably by design.

If you like to have an organizationalnumber, you need to apply to the tax authority. If you do business activity and like a local name protection you need to apply to bolagsverket. Depending on the size of the app these steps might be helpful. I don't think our local chapter of FSF, has done any of the registrations just as an example. They run local conferences and other simular works.

I'd almost argue it's easier to form a non-profit entity that become sponsored by a non-profit organization such as TLF.

This almost reinforces the parent's point.

If you are expecting less than $25k in revenue (donations, grants, program service revenue, etc.) in each of your first three years, you can use the IRS's abbreviated process and get setup within a month (for the cost of setting up a corporation with your state government). If that exemption doesn't apply, it can take the IRS over a year to approve your application for tax exempt status. There are also significant compliance costs that can be burdensome for a small organization.

The TLF is a big dog for big dog projects, and I was just using them as an example of the structure. The Apache Foundation has their own flavor of governance, as does Numfocus (which sponsors a bunch of scientific computing projects). I'd expect that this move will probably trigger the creation of some "mobile app developer collective" organizations that specialize in this kind of thing, kind of like a "digital makerspace".

Could one sign over stewardship to the FSF? They're non-profit I think.

MS, you pay one time for the OS. Android you technically don't need to pay at all if you go AOSP. Both still require hardware to support the OS, though.

>And no. Paying for the phone is not a viable way to pay for the OS. That incentives the phone maker to ditch OS updates for old phones.

They do that anyway. mobile support is much lower than desktop which tends to guarantee a decade or so. And it's not like IOS is licensing out to other OEMs anyway.

I don't doubt the ads are there but I avoid them easily enough. Fortunately I get the option to get around that stuff, unlike Apple's environments.

Huh? That is Apple’s model, and iOS supports old hardware much longer than Android does.

If next phone prices go up (especially in EU) after this then maybe it is true?

I give Apple credit for making this clear rule: Having fewer than 1 million users on iOS in the EU means no fee, and you don't need to worry about status at all.

But if you have more installs, I don't think you'll get an easy to get a pass by just by sending Apple a note like "I'm just developing my app for fun" or "My app is open source". Maybe that works, but I wouldn't assume it without testing.

If your app has 1 million+ users, it's not at all convincing to say you made it just for fun, even if that's the truth. And we all know some open source apps are written with intent to make a profit, or given away free to promote related commercial activities or reputation, so saying it's open source isn't convincing either.

Anecdote: I ran a non-profit org, a hackerspace. Not only was it truly a non-profit organisation, it was legally constituted as such. The members had no legal rights to take any of its funds and resources out, those resources came from members and could only be used for the organisations's stated purpose, and because of this structure no tax was due when its funds grew, as they were primarily from member fees and donations. However, it was not a registered charity. It could have been but we decided the administrative overheads were too high.

Unfortunately, we were unable to convince Paypal we were a non-profit despite providing all the organisational documents Paypal requested to prove it (about 10 documents IIRC). This meant we weren't able to use Paypal for significant quantities of funding, i.e. to take membership payments. We could do a tiny amount for a couple of people, but it was capped at a very low limit.

If it's impossible to convince Paypal that a formally constituted non-profit qualifies as such, I wouldn't assume it's easy to convince Apple with casual claims, for an app with 1M+ users.

The new EU stuff is opt-in.

I thought that's what barred many open source programs from getting into the AppStore, and this would be a different but still PITA hurdle.

Yeah GPL licenses are not allowed, at least from GPL2 onwards.

Then again, FOSS can get a CTF exemption if they form a nonprofit.

That’s quite absurd, no? "You can pick which terms you want, the ones where we follow the law, or the ones where we don’t. If you pick the ones where we don’t, it’s cheaper for you."

That said, if you have a an article of the DMA that says otherwise, I’m all ears. It’s a bit hard for me to prove no such thing exists, other than to provide you with the full text of the DMA of course.

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELE...

If you want to continue to distribute your app for free in Apple's app store, literally nothing changes.

Apple points out that the new terms are required for third-party app stores and third-party payments. Not for browser engines.

I'm expecting both Google and Mozilla to make their browsers, with their engine, available in Apple's regular store in the EU.

(And even in the new agreement, it's not half a euro per update. It's per year that contains an install or update. If you update 12 times a year, you're not paying 12 times. You're paying once.)

The requirements list is very interesting.

For example:

> Meet the following functional requirements to ensure your app is using a web browser engine that provides a baseline of web functionality: Pass a minimum percentage of tests available from industry standard test suites: 90% from Web Platform Tests and 80% from Test262

And:

> Program security requirements: You must do the following: Use memory-safe programming languages, or features that improve memory safety within other languages, within the Alternative Web Browser Engine at a minimum for all code that processes web content;

Is WebKit written in C++? That language certainly isn't "memory-safe" (I am not dumping on C++ here!). I assume that Apple uses fuzz testing and static analysis to find memory safety issues. So... does WebKit pass this rule? Hmm... And, are there any browsers written in memory-safe languages? I assume they would be too slow (Java, C#, etc.) I'm not sure if Rust is considered memory safe here. (Can you have null pointer exceptions in Rust -- dereference a null pointer?)

Large portions of each browser are also written in JS ("self-hosted") at this point, and Firefox now contains large components either written in Rust or sandboxed (via wasm) C.

This rule does seem like an easy way to reject literally every browser other than Servo, though.

But not many people will see it here buried down deep in this thread. I suggest you submit it as a new link to HN though. Very interesting stuff!

Apple’s default construction for getting payments for the usage of their IP is via commission on revenue.

This is by definition a differential pricing strategy because not everyone has to pay for the usage of Apple’s IP.

Many didn’t like the commission structure and made all sorts of arguments against it. It would just be for payment processing, it would just be for distribution, etc.

Apple has always maintained it was primarily for the use of their IP, all the rest is thrown in as a bonus. They have structured it as such in the developer agreement and US courts have wholesale accepted it as such.

One alternative that has been floated around a lot by people that accept that Apple wants payment for their IP but didn’t like the commission structure regardless was to split off the fee for IP into its own thing.

Now they do that very thing in the form of the CTF (at a more competitive rate than Epic does for Unreal mind you).

In addition there’s a separate commission for App Store services and a separate commission for payment processing.

Now the new complaint is that this payment for their IP for first installs on EU iPhones per 12 months in excess of 1M installs in the EU isn’t good either.

So what is the desired outcome? Use Apple’s IP for free?

I don’t see how this disadvantages third party stores. Does it disadvantage Steam when Epic comes knocking on my door for their share of the pie?

Epic charges me 5% of all my revenue above a million, Apple charges me €0.50 of all my EU installs on iOS above 1M installs in the EU.

Apple’s fee is directly tied to my usage of their IP, I pay them €0.50 in 12 monthly installments for each installation that goes over 1M, but they don’t touch anything else I make off of that install.

Epic wants 5% over every dollar I make over $1M worldwide.

Don’t get me wrong, personally I was content with my 30% and the 15% is a steal for what I get out of it.

But if commission of revenue is the big bad, then the only logical thing for licensing IP is an upfront cost for usage whether you earn money with it or not.

This is how it was with consoles. Thousands upfront for the right to publish and using the IP + thousands for every build to be certified + commission over revenue.

Indies later on got a reduced rate in the hundreds, until you got big.

The desired outcome is for third-party apps and app stores to be able to run on iOS devices for free. Traditionally, building software for consumer operating systems, including Mac OS hasn't been considered using the OS vendor's IP such that it would require permission or payment.

Compilers, SDKs, documentation, every vendor charged for those.

You have to thank Stallman et al. for your free C compiler.

What Apple has done here is bring the console gaming model to general-purpose computing devices. I believe the EU wishes to roll that back and will probably not allow Apple's announced fees and restrictions.

Quote from their own website:

> By enrolling in the Apple Developer Program, individuals and organizations receive everything they need to develop apps for distribution.

Besides, Apple never claimed their new fee was for distribution, but for "core platform services", i.e. the SDK and tools, which they're already charging for.

> The Core Technology Fee (CTF) is an element of the new business terms in the European Union (EU) that reflects the value Apple provides developers through ongoing investments in the tools, technologies, and services that enable them to build and share innovative apps with users around the world.

"Core platform services" is the term used by the EU.

It’s not just the SDK.

OSs are expensive things to build and maintain, and I don't take for granted the fact that my iPhone XS Max (2018) is running the latest version if iOS. If Apple's App Store pricing structure makes that possible, then it's certainly working for me.

It crumbles under the most benign forms of scrutiny.

The comment below already pointed out that vendors charged for all kinds of stuff. Your reply seems to suggest that, for some reason, you’re ok with that, but not if the OS vendor does it.

There’s also the argument that investment in frameworks for iOS is significantly higher than, say, the investment Microsoft made into frameworks for Windows back in the day.

Then there’s the general criticism of an appeal to tradition that there were many traditions that we currently aren’t ok with, and an appeal to tradition suggests that they are inherently good just by virtue of once having been a tradition.

I remember a tradition not too long ago where console manufacturers would charge thousands just for access to the platform and the IP (sometimes rolled into the price of a dev kit), plus thousands more for each build that needed certification plus a commission on sales.

It was so cumbersome for some developers that they did not bother updating their game[0].

Even later on, with lower fees, there’s still a lot of cost to get games published[1].

Now, you might say that consoles are nothing like iPhones, and I will respond by saying that iPhones are nothing like Macs. And on and on we might go.

What matters is what is legal. Apple is in the clear to charge for usage of their IP, even when they use differential pricing and even when other companies are willing to give away their work for free because they see other avenues of revenue by doing so.

Further down, you state:

> I believe the EU wishes to roll that back and will probably not allow Apple's announced fees and restrictions.

Can I ask what fuels that belief? Or perhaps more importantly, what fuels the belief that they are at all in the position to do something about it?

I see a lot of “Wait till your dad comes home” style comments every time Apple is brought up as if there’s some collective amnesia that “dad” also has to stick to the law and doesn’t have the final say in this universe.

The European Parliament and Council of the European Union are the legislative bodies of the EU, and as such, they can create laws. But like any legislative body, they are limited and need to move within the bounds of the laws.

The European Commission, on the other hand, functions as the executive body of the EU and is to enforce the law. They, too, are limited by the bounds of the law.

Neither the DMA nor its enforcement have been tested in court yet. All of that will start once the EC tries to enforce something, and the EC has, at best, a mixed track record before the court.

Apple made a smart move today because, contrary to what many here think, they went above and beyond the DMA requirements (e.g., it has no price regulation, so all the discounts in fees are freebies), and as such, took the wind out of the EC’s legal argument sails for many of the potential arguments.

The biggest hurdle that one needs to overcome is IP and property rights. Something neither the EU nor the US wants to tackle because it would have significant effects across all commerce. The idea that you can just take a company’s IP and essentially make it public domain will never fly.

At best, in sporadic instances, can you get a court to agree that a company should be forced to charge “reasonable” fees, but with Apple’s fee structure for the EU being less than that of the rest of the markets and and option to evade all but one fee, it’s nearly impossible to convince a court that the CTF is somehow out of line.

Ironically, as I write this, I just realized that an upfront fee for IP usage that is entirely decoupled from revenue is actually very traditional when it comes to fees like this.

The general timeline from investigating violations to ECJ is about ten years, so this will take a while.

0: https://www.destructoid.com/fez-patch-wont-be-fixed-because-...

1: https://www.ign.com/articles/2014/07/30/launching-indie-game...

Appeal to tradition is a fallacy in logic, but laws are not made using pure logic. Laws are made when some group with sufficient political power wants them to be made, and such groups are often driven by tradition, what they perceive to be tradition.

> Or perhaps more importantly, what fuels the belief that they are at all in the position to do something about it?

The European Union is a government; it makes and enforces laws. In this case, it has made a law called the Digital Markets Act which addresses certain types of gatekeeping behavior by large tech companies including Apple. Some readings of this law I've seen forbid Apple from charging fees for distributing apps outside its store and from using any legal workarounds to circumvent that prohibition. It remains to be seen how EU regulators and courts will interpret it.

Your comment makes several references to "IP", but isn't clear about what IP is involved. Is it necessary to use inventions patented by Apple to write an app that runs on an iPhone? Is it necessary to know Apple's trade secrets (aside from things like signing keys that exist for the sole purpose of gatekeeping)? Does it require making copies of things Apple holds copyright to?

This can certainly be a motivator.

In Europe, and the EU in particular, many individual member states as well as the EU itself have the tradition of including an explanatory memorandum when passing new laws.

The function of this is to explain the mindset of the legislators and the motivation behind a law. It is sometimes used by courts to gain clarity on laws that might be a bit more ambiguous in their intent.

Below is a link to the explanatory memorandum of the DMA.

I wasn’t able to find a reference to traditions on regarding licensing fees, or monetization of IP.

But you’re welcome to point me in the right direction.

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELE...

> Some readings of this law I've seen forbid Apple from charging fees for distributing apps outside its store and from using any legal workarounds to circumvent that prohibition. It remains to be seen how EU regulators and courts will interpret it.

Could you point me to these readings, or better yet the specific articles that these readings are based on?

To the best of my knowledge the DMA has little in the way of price regulation. So this is news to me.

> Your comment makes several references to "IP", but isn't clear about what IP is involved.

The IP in question would be code written by Apple provided in the form of frameworks, SDKs, APIs and the like. There’s also the use of software like Xcode, but for the sake of simplicity let’s stick with code written by Apple.

Creating an app by definition makes use of this IP. IP I’m sure will have cost a considerable amount to develop by Apple, so I can see why they’re eager to get payment for it or, alternatively, strategically decide who can use it for free.

Trade secrets aren’t really involved in this and neither is copying, at least not in most cases.

Code generally falls under copyright. Copyright means that making copies requires permission from the owner. Installing and using XCode, for example involves making a copy of XCode, and Apple charges a subscription fee for the privilege. Distributing an iPhone app that statically links Apple libraries is also making copies of Apple's copyrighted code, which requires permission. Dynamic linking to libraries present in the OS, however does not involve distributing copies of them and does not require permission.

Distributing an iPhone app built with open source tools and libraries would not involve copying Apple's code. There aren't many iPhone apps built this way right now as far as I know because App Store rules require the use of Apple's tools, but the DMA requires that apps can be installed from other sources and do not need to comply with those rules.

The other options for IP are trade secrets, trademarks, and patents. Only patents seem likely to support a fee for distributing any app that can run on a certain device, but I don't think Apple has a patent with that effect.

By your logic, streaming services should be paying TV manufacturers for using their "IP" when displaying video to customers. Hogwash.

I don’t see how that’s nonsense or hogwash. It’s a very basic concept since the dawn of men. You want to use or own something I own or made, then I can ask you to pay for it.

In this instance it’s the frameworks and SDKs that were made and that others want to use.

In a similar fashion, they already extract payment in exchange for them featuring whatever app has decided to pay for that privilege. Don’t see how that’s somehow morally better, nor do I see a legal hurdle.

This is why smart TVs are becoming increasingly more annoying, because additional revenue streams are so highly desired. Display more in-interface ads, offer first party 'streaming' for the opportunity to display more ads, put movie purchases/rentals ever more prominently in your UI, always start in your menus rather than the last selected HDMI input, take metrics on what people are watching by default - I am surprised we don't have an Uber Eats button on the remote yet.

Interestingly, a TV manufacturer can't do anything to require a streaming service to provide _their_ IP. Netflix seems to have a policy of not allowing their app to run on projectors, keeping them out of the allow-list for downloads and for execution of the android app. Some projector manufacturers will ship a separate Chromecast dongle or the like so that they can say they support Netflix on the box.

Can I publish an application that does not use Apple IP, let’s say something written in ARM assembler?

If not, then this argument about Apple IP is in bad faith, and not the real reason for anything.

Developers are not forced to develop iOS apps.

There are other alternatives like web apps or only developing for Android.

Developers have choices.

If you want a store in a mall, you have to pay higher leases and probably additional fees than you would if you operated out of your garage.

These arguments always seem to break down to an entitlement to sell things without paying for the products and services used to make the thing.

It should be a conversation more about reasonableness than entitlement.

If any global entity owned such a large percentage of malls that suppliers had little choice but to appear there in order to be competitive, and charged for mall use via a general tax on original and follow up economic activity (instead of in proportion to mall resources used), requiring products be registered with them, and copies of direct and follow up sales records, many people might protest that too.

I think a large part of the disagreement here is the idea that all digital things should be free compared to how the physical world has been forever.

To sell to a hardware store, for example, you need to offer the retailer 40% as a minimum. Then you need to pay, often compulsorily, trading terms, ranging fees, advertising levies and other off invoice things.

They have high costs to cover, but they also force shelf prices down as much as they can.

In my opinion, Supermarkets and hardware stores mis-use their market power way more than Apple appears to be doing

But Apple's (duopoly level) gatekeeper status on global/mobile applications, services, information and transactions is allowing them to hold back an enormous amount of latent innovation.

Shelf space is important and necessary for many businesses, but that isn't where tomorrow's world is being crafted.

However, the entitlement that is pervasive here that whatever Apple does is bad and it’s ok to expect them to give their work and infrastructure away for free is just crazy.

If we’re arguing about the value that developers get for what they pay, or if Apple is stifling innovation, or even if Apple is being maliciously compliant, then that’s a different conversation. I’m much more sympathetic to that.

But this is about people demanding Apple give their IP away from free so that they can make money from that expensive to make and operate infrastructure is ridiculous

But Apple owns one of only two global mobile app, service and info platforms, and so has tremendous power to limit and veto other businesses opportunities. Few businesses that need to operate in those ecosystems can be viable only operating in one of them.

And Apple is using that tremendous leverage to do two things normal businesses can't do.

Both of which damage the larger economy.

1) It is gatekeeping fundamental technological and business innovation. Apple limits the types of technology and business models that it will allow on its platforms, in favor of its own versions, or in favor of simply not enabling innovation it finds competitively threatening.

It is very difficult for new innovation on the margins to succeed starting out unable to participate in half the marketplace.

2. It has enough veto power over businesses, that it is able to tax other businesses' success, instead of charging for the value of its products and services to them. I.e. Apple charges a percentage of other businesses product and service revenue - instead of flat charges for its security checks, app listings, etc. Apple charges a percentage of follow up revenue, even if the transaction happens elsewhere. Apple charges a percentage on revenue of transactions that don't even require Apple's assistance or participation but were initially enabled by being on Apple's platform. It even charges a percentage of revenue for fourth parties it has no relationship with, such as for transactions by participants on third party markets, like digital art creators!

No normal business could extend taxes on other's productivity like that, to multiple levels of extraction, independent of productive value provided. They would be rapidly replaced by a competitor happy to make profits set by supply and demand, instead of taxes imposed by the ability to deny (or seriously hamper) entry to a strategic global market.

However, it is important (from a capitialism angle at least) to realize Apple has never falsely represented things. They have not done a bait and switch. They launched with their 30% commission rate on agency-model pricing almost 15 years ago (for apps, which was the same commission rate for music before that), and every change in licensing terms has been either enabling new transactions that were otherwise restricted, or by offering lower rates - such as for certain types of financial transactions, or certain business sizes.

They have also tended to do this with public policy changes rather than unilateral arrangements, although there are some partner programs around tvOS which are pretty tailor-built such that few companies would be able to take advantage of them.

And it is worth noting that they launched first as a platform for web based apps, and when you filter web technologies to actual standards (and not Google inventions) they tend to fight between first and second place with Chrome on actual interoperability.

Companies recognize the marketing value of having a native app within the App Store vs just a normal website. Apple obviously does as well.

> Apple charges a percentage of follow up revenue, even if the transaction happens elsewhere.

Note this is only true via 'new terms' to allow for steering toward alternative payment systems. Apple has always allowed you to operate your own out-of-store payment system (e.g. signing up for a Netflix account on the Netflix site, or purchasing kindle books on kindle.com) without paying them any commission.

However for most consumer apps (e.g. non. 'reader' apps like music, video, books and news) you had to provide a way to purchase in-app using Apple's system.

Many of these reader apps have played with in-app subscriptions off-and-on, which would make an interesting case study as they have been the category actually capable of deciding whether or not in-app purchasing was worth offering. Other categories are mandated.

I also feel like Apple has generally attempted to be well behaved, even as their market power has grown exponentially from a couple decades ago.

They are not the devil. But they are have reached a level of market breadth and power, that behavior not problematic even a few years ago is now an impediment for the market as a whole.

They deserve kudos for their success.

If they don't contort and distract themselves from more productive advances, by prioritizing holding onto leverage that has become too heavy handed for those they serve (and partner with), they are likely to become an even better company.

Microsoft has done fantastically well since giving up Ballmer's scorched Earth, Windows only philosophy. Ironically, if they had given up that control obsession sooner, focusing more on improving Windows shortcomings, they might have skipped the stall associated with that era and be even more dominant now.

Businesses should exist in malls to make a profit not to "be competitive". If it isn't profitable or the return on investment isn't worth it then they should not exist at that mall. It's the mall's fault if they charge too much and start to lose businesses to other malls and in turn lose visitors who would rather visit other malls.

But relatively fair competition is still a necessary component at the scale of an economy. If we are to retain any approximation of equality, equity and not hamper innovation.

If someone somehow owns the only viable commercial water supply for a city block, they can demand whatever they can get from any business on that block that needs water. And each business should make good decisions for itself in that context.

But if someone owns all the commercial water supply for a city, people are going to take political action to alter the economic equation if it starts leveraging that capability to the general cities detriment.

You could maybe import water through trucks or trains or something from somewhere else, but the costs for that would be brutal. Then the incumbent can bankrupt you instantly by undercutting your price, and then hike it back up as soon as you're gone. The Robber Barons in the 19th century used this very tactic frequently in anti-trust situations to hamper competition

>Then the incumbent can bankrupt you instantly by undercutting your price

This could be mitigated by longer term contracts so you are guarenteed a certain amount of payment to make it worth your time before the other company lowered their prices to start competing.

But the water system, or general utility problem, is interesting for many reasons.

Dual sets of infrastructure double the supply costs for a critical input like water, without actually increasing the supply that nature provides.

The solution to keep costs and prices down is then generally to give (or accept) a water supply monopoly, but with price regulation. That is the common solution to avoid price gouging in that monopoly situation.

An iPhone is not a mall. An iPhone is a device owned by the end user. If the end user wants to use an app by some third party developer, they should be able to.

We don't let car dealers from prevent customers from installing aftermarket addons.

Otherwise, it is within its full freedom to shut down their company in the EU.

They aren't "force" to operate in the EU after all. They could just shut down the company.

> If you want a store in a mall

If Apple wants to operate in the EU then they will have to follow the law.

> It should be a conversation more about reasonableness than entitlement.

Or, instead of that, the conversation could be able what a population can democratically decide what they want for their own country.

iOS apps can be written in assembly. I’ve done so myself out of curiosity, and it seems others have done so as well[0].

Of course, I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s excruciating.

That said, isn’t this just a bad-faith argument wrapped in an attempted gotcha? Where your premise is that if you don’t have a choice, then you shouldn’t be charged?

If Apple would say:

“Hey, you can use Swift for free because it’s open source, and you’re welcome to benefit from our contributions to it, and while you’re at it, you’re allowed to use all the basic low-level frameworks that communicate with the OS for free as well. But anything more than that, and we want you to pay us for it.”

Would you then be fully on board with them charging for using the remaining IP they own?

Are IP and ownership rights fluid based on your own moral framework, depending on if one has a choice or not?

Should I just blow past the toll booth of the only bridge here that allows me access to the rest of the country?

How about the only ISP that provides service here? Should they just allow me to use their infrastructure so I can write you this comment?

The other day I saw a nice TV at the local store. It’s pretty much the only place I can get this TV. Do I have your blessing to take it because I don’t have much of a choice?

I make apps for a living, I’m literally the only place on earth where you can get my app. My app saves users a lot of money. Should people just pirate my app and force me on a diet of hardtack?

Where does this fluidity start and where does it end?

I thought, for better or worse (and we can spend hours debating this part alone), we decided that when someone owns something, and especially when they create something, they get to decide who, if anyone, gets to use it and at what’s price if any.

0: https://github.com/richardjrossiii/iOSAppInAssembly

Can I publish an application that does not use Apple IP, let’s say something written in ARM assembler? Or am I forced to use Apple IP?

I can publish on windows without using Microsoft IP, I can publish on android without using google IP, right?

If not, then this argument about Apple IP is in bad faith, and not the real reason for anything.

Not sure what you mean by forced to use Apple IP. You are running on their ARM chip under their kernel, using their libraries to read touch events and display to the screen.

IP is incredibly broad; you can't really avoid using say all copyrighted libraries.

If you are speaking toward is there a path to write applications which will work on iOS devices without signing agreements, paying royalties or having legal action taken against you, there's the Safari browser and it sounds like there will be many more web browsers soon.

> I can publish on windows without using Microsoft IP, I can publish on android without using google IP, right?

I don't see how you could publish a legitimate app for Windows without using e.g. ReadFile.

I don't know how you would publish an Android app without using its proprietary manifest file; you probably come closest there to a minimal working application due to instead using lots of Oracle IP.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Programs_Directive

It's likely that in order to avoid distributing Apple IP one would need to reverse engineer some undocumented APIs, but that's coincidental.

I only ever want to see 2 app stores on my phone, the AppStore, and an FDroid alternative full of free, open-source apps. Anything else is good to be disincentivized.

To comply with the regulation they've introduced even more egregious pricing.

Protect the users from misguided legislation.

To me this only seems to twist the arms of large companies like epic and Facebook. A small malicious app with thousands of installs can exist completely for free.

The app publishers don't have to choose this new pricing. They can stay with the old pricing, if they stay exclusively on Apple's App Store.

The reason Apple wants fewer app stores is that if fewer third party app stores survive, then there are fewer app stores with questionable or lacking review processes out there hosting malicious apps.

Just to make the connection super explicit for completeness, having fewer avenues for malicious apps is a good thing for user privacy.

There are other better ways to do it, like controlling one app store that has only well reviewed apps, but it seems the EU with the DMA left Apple only this bad way.

Apple gets other benefits from controlling the App Store, beyond protecting user privacy, don't get me wrong. Money being one, but not in a greed sense, but more because mostly that money pays the costs of running the development program, which are huge costs involving many thousands of Apple engineering salaries, which in turn enables the app ecosystem that benefits everyone. Another benefit is they can minimize the appearance of bad user experiences on their platform, to protect their brand, which they have invested a lot in and care a lot about.

This is a non issue.

The real issue… stay with me, it’s a lot of words… is that alternative unreviewed or poorly reviewed app distribution mechanisms open a pathway to pervasive abuse via installation of malicious privacy violating apps onto devices of unwitting targets by people other than the targeted device users.

Even outside of school systems, there is a wide variety of virtual desktop systems where office employees essentially get a fresh install of the OS every morning with their files where they should be — because they can't be trusted to manage a dedicated piece of hardware without adding malware.

For managed Chromebooks, you are incorrect. They are usually configured so that the end-user cannot install additional software, enable developer mode, or set up the Linux sandbox, making them often less useful than Apple iOS or iPadOS devices.

The GGP comment said we should ban PCs [because they're too dangerous for most people to use]. And with Chromebooks or thin clients with virtual desktops, that is exactly what a lot of organizations have done.

None of which you addressed in your knee-jerk response that is about as coherent as "M$" was back in the day (and I did my share of that when I was young and stupid).

You didn't specify managed Chromebooks, but I also didn't know they could be locked down to such a degree, thanks for informing me.

> None of which you addressed in your knee-jerk response that is about as coherent as "M$" was back in the day (and I did my share of that when I was young and stupid).

I honestly don't see why you felt the need to add this last paragraph. Was it "iDevices"? I just used it for convenience. Either way, the snark is totally unnecessary, your comment is better without it.

My comment about "school systems and corporations" did sort of imply "managed"; there's not a public school system in the world that would give their students unmanaged Chromebooks. Some private schools might, but the private schools are also more likely to have it tightly controlled and install spyware because of the "threat of cyber-cheating" (I wish I were kidding: https://www.eff.org/wp/school-issued-devices-and-student-pri...).

My apologies on the snark — it’s too late to edit it, but I read your "iDevices" as snark itself, since most of this discussion has been populated by people who have reflexive anti-Apple stances with exactly no nuance on their stances, so I let my frustration get the better of me. Mea maxima culpa.

No no, when I wrote 'run Linux natively', I meant pure Linux right on the bare metal (on a subset of models). One random hit I got when searching: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/How+to+convert+a+generic+Chrome...

> My apologies on the snark [...]

No worries, and I realize my comment probably comes across differently than intended when in a frustrated mindset. To be honest, that parting shot took me a bit by surprise, and I was about to respond in kind, worsening the quality of discussion. Thankfully, HNs comment guidelines got the better of me : - )

Many things are possible for a suitably motivated person. But such things are unlikely to be done by your average device user (of any sort), because they don't have such motivation and can't even conceive of why they would bother.

Does Apple need to change things? Yes. But I — and I know that I’m not alone on this — happen to agree with Apple that the DMA changes requested will reduce overall security for customers. There may be worthwhile changes that happen because of the DMA, but the reduced security position is real.

All Apple is doing is protecting their pockets.

Apple losing 30% fee? Money lost for apple is money saved by people.

Why are you so invested in defending that company's shitty practices?

When someone already paid for their device they should be able to side load apps and use other app stores (without apple taking a 10% or 30% cut).

Are you an apple employee, marketer or investor? I bet that 30% cut on every app boosts their profits, but if people own phones they ahould be able to use them whatever way they want. Without apple taking a cut again just because.

Instead, many people seem to have had a head-in-the-sand view that many of the services Apple provided were no-cost, or done out of goodwill.

So, now there is the option for alternative marketplaces, the costs have been shifted to those marketplaces.

Makes complete sense.

It's almost like... those marketplaces will need to find a monetising model similar to how the Apple App Stores used to operate.

Part of the appeal about iOS for me is that apps are reviewed for quality and don't have obvious scams or spywear inside.

I'm happy to guide my parents to use and download apps from the app store without worrying about it. Compare this to the constant education and guidance I need to provide about websites, phone calls, text messages etc. The amount of targeted scams and spam we receive nowadays is excessive.

I think this is the problem: people want access to the 'app store' while forgetting/ignoring that the tight security and rigid processes are a feature, not a liability.

You shouldn't be. There have been plenty of scams in the App Store.

And where did you heard iOS is free from viruses?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_(spyware)

From the top of my head there's also AdThief and AceDeceiver.

Not only that but App store is full of Anti-virus offerings.

And let's not pretend that IOS hasn't been jailbroken for 15 years and there aren't already spy/malware apps.

They don't block, and you can disable scanning fully.

It's not.

Now you're suggesting that there ought to be a "warranty void if app is installed" sticker on Apple's supposedly premium hardware which is running Apple's supposedly hyper-secure operating system, otherwise some unwashed piece of software is going to damage it?

No such requirement exist on macOS, for obvious reasons. The double-think in these threads is astounding, repent.

Furthermore, claiming that Apple's review or signing processes are effective measures for preventing malware has no basis in reality. Apple has reviewed, approved and signed malware before, and they'll do it again because detecting malware is borderline impossible.

They do not possess magic powers that can suss out malware any better than industry average because (1) automated virus scanning is almost entirely ineffective against new malware and (2) they're not paying a team of specialists to reverse engineer and analyze app updates.

Now I do agree that bad software can wipe all your data or hold it hostage, but Apple currently provides no such guarantees that software downloaded from the App Store won't do that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty...

>Apple still expects to be compensated for the value it's developer tools and platform is providing to developers, and the €0.50 per install fee is how they are choosing to charge for those services.

Well I wish them the best of luck in their future fights with the EU. Glad some government seems to not be thinking of the trillionaires first.

(if they don't, then what is it for?)

Based on their new alternative business terms, we can better describe what that bundled deal includes (which is still available):

• 15% tier (first $1mil/yr revenue and subscriptions after the first year):

- 10% distribution

- 2% developer platform

- 3% payment processing

• 30% tier (all other revenue):

- 17% distribution

- 10% developer platform

- 3% payment processing

The only service an alternative app store needs it the ability to be made and sideloaded. Apple justifies the 30% cut in teh App Store with all the stuff they do for you in packaging, distributing the app and updates, payment processing, etc.

But somehow they are making it a worse deal to not deal with those services. They are making it more expensive for any moderately popular app to opt out by suggesting that they need 50 cents anytime someone presses the install button. Which feels less like convenience and more like rent seeking.

The do not sell hardware at a loss, they charge yearly for seats to develop for IOS, and they have various other opt in services to incentivize making use of Apple and its App store. They will not be bleeding money if some companies decide to instead roll their own stack.

>It's almost like... those marketplaces will need to find a monetising model similar to how the Apple App Stores used to operate.

except they can't because they still gotta pay apple to exist, apparently. That's where it starts to reek of anti-trust.

Apple did not do this because consumers do not value malware and fraud protection nearly as much as Apple would like everyone to believe.

Where we do impose regulations to ensure public safety, they are decided by a democratic process. And as imperfect as that process may be at times, it is better than letting a single for-profit corporation set the terms.

> they can buy any number of Android phones

I can imagine a world in which iPhone's and Android phones were drop in replacements for each other.

And I can imagine Apple selling many wonderful interoperable products into an open standards ecosystem, with a tiny fraction of its current market cap.

But we live in a world with a huge global corporation with a highly knit ecosystem, quietly investing billions of dollars retarding threatening innovation, continually raising switching costs, and the costs of interoperability with alternatives, growing a tax base of third party efforts having little to do with Apple's efforts (streaming media and games, third party stores, creator economy, ...), shifting inconveniences from users to third parties, etc.

There are worse forms of coercion, i.e. the systematic privacy violations and manipulative media of the surveillance economy (run in part by Google the major benefactor of Android, and which even Apple dips its toes into).

But the choice between iOS and Android ecosystems is anything but a simple easily informed choice, free of supplier leverage, conflicts of interest, with predictable long term implications in cost efficiency and future freedoms of choice for most users.

For the minority who do want this world, again, there is a laundry list of Android variants they can buy.

Coercion implies the threat of violence due to non-compliance. There is no coercion here. Apple, Google, etc aren't governments.

I think it's a little silly to argue that purchasing decisions for a device are an endorsement of every single aspect of that device. There are features that are desirable on iOS that would be enough to influence a consumer to buy an iOS device that have nothing to do with whether or not the device supports sideloading.

But if we are arguing that purchasing decisions are an endorsement of every corporate decision about a device, then it seems silly to argue that voting decisions are not a similar endorsement of government policy. And of course, Apple is not legally obligated to serve the EU, they're one of richest companies on the entire planet so if anyone is equipped to be choosy about the markets they support, it's Apple. However, Apple has freely chosen to do business in the EU, and EU residents have freely chosen to vote for politicians that have imposed regulations on Apple's presence in the market.

Of course I don't actually think it's that simple. But ignoring the lock-in present in government policy and market participation is no less silly than ignoring the lock-in on in a device where moving away from the ecosystem can cause your credit card to stop working. A more reasonable take is that consumers make purchasing decisions for complicated reasons, some of them having nothing to do with lock-in (if they are even aware of lock-in or security or user freedom debates to begin with, which is usually not the case), and their preferences about these systems can change wildly depending on the circumstances and affordances and research that they do.

As an example, Facebook argued that users were clearly opting in to tracking on iOS by choosing to use the Facebook service instead of the many other available social networks they could sign up for. Thankfully, Apple didn't agree, and when users were offered a more clear choice about whether to share advertising IDs with Facebook, many of them said no. If we took a view that participation in an ecosystem was endorsement of the entire ecosystem, we'd be arguing that Apple adding privacy controls in front of Facebook was somehow circumventing the social-media market. But as it turns out many users did want privacy controls in front of Facebook, just not so much that they were willing to avoid Facebook entirely. When offered the best of both worlds, they were happy to use Facebook while sharing less information with the service.

I can only add, that votes for Putin are similarly not simple votes. Centralization and consolidation of power, or product categories, encompassing a myriad of implications, into one, two or three entities, completely derail the meaning of seemingly normal expressions of preference.

It's not like governments (which also have a monopoly on legal violence, something no corporation has) or political parties at all.

Governments sublease the right on legal violence out to corporations -- The government enforces copyright and legal rights for companies like Apple and allows Apple to dictate the terms of how users interact with phones that they purchased, and the government will commit legal violence if those terms are violated.

It's not so simple as to say that government is completely isolated from business. The government seizing 3rd-party repair parts at the border is on behalf of Apple. Apple definitely has agency over ways in which that monopoly on legal violence is wielded. During Apple's lawsuit with Epic, both parties were operating with the understanding that the government would enforce the outcome of that case using (if necessary) legal violence to do so.

These lines are much blurrier than you suppose; there is a reason why the expansion of the DMCA is often called in some circles "felony contempt of business model." You can't let Apple off the hook here when Apple is able to sic the government on people who break their DRM, run emulators, or otherwise bypass technological controls that have been added to Apple devices. Apple is a part of this. The government is not intervening on Apple's behalf without Apple's permission.

Consent is complicated, people often try to define bright lines between "this is a completely fair outcome that is the result of choice" and "this is a coerced outcome" -- and in reality, there aren't bright lines between those scenarios. The market has plenty of ways to coerce outcomes, some of them completely separate from the government (vendor lock-in does not require a monopoly on legitimate violence) and some of them based on leverage of government systems that allow corporations to compel or ban certain consumer behaviors.

To be clear, I'm not saying that Apple is the same as Putin; there's different kinds of "voting" in any government system. But I really like the way you phrase that: "consolidation of product categories" is a really good description of how Apple's ecosystem works, and it's clear (to me at least) that this consolidation is purposeful and deliberate; Apple wants iOS to be a composite product that is all-or-nothing. And you're completely right that both votes and purchases are often at best decisions about the entire composite ecosystem as a whole and not about the individual parts of those ecosystems.

The consequence is that once consumers are in a place where there are only a few choices about ecosystems that actually make sense to use, there's no longer pressure to change the parts that people don't like as long as the overall ecosystem still remains better than the alternatives. In the same way that single-issue voting allows parties to pass otherwise unpopular policies in other areas, products can excel in specific important areas that allow companies to ignore other flaws and criticisms in other areas. It's very easy for markets to hit local maximums where having a clear market winner in a particular category removes any incentive for the market to otherwise improve, because improving those areas would require at least temporarily moving away from the current best choice.

Given the size of Facebook's userbase and its revenue growth over many years, most people don't care about the tracking that goes on there.

You'll have to dig yourself back out of the vendor lock-in in order to do so. If you have an Apple device and you use an Apple credit card, switching to Android means changing your credit card and changing your subscriptions. It means different compatibility rules between devices, it means different app availability. Sometimes it means giving up related services that are not available on other platforms (almost like the switching costs inherent in bundling services together is part of what this debate is about).

Of course, you can do all that. But you can also emigrate between countries in many cases. The EU and US will allow you to move someplace else if you want to. It'll be expensive, it might be prohibitively expensive, there might be large switching costs and things you have to give up -- but that's just another system of vendor lock-in. The United States will not (generally) say that it's illegal for you to move to France.

And note that with Apple in particular, Apple has the resources to move out of countries if it wants to. Apple is not a single family struggling to make ends meet that can't afford legal advice on how to exit a market. Apple is one of the richest companies in the world. If Apple doesn't want to be part of the EU market, Apple has the freedom to walk away from that market -- and in fact, corporations have done this before, they have exited markets over policy. There are few companies in the world where participation in a market is more of a choice than it is with Apple.

To say that developers have a choice about which ecosystems they work with but that Apple doesn't have a choice about whether it does business in the EU... it's just wildly inconsistent. Oh, Apple would have to give up a lot of revenue, sure. But I wonder if developers making a decision about whether to support iOS have ever faced that conundrum? ;)

I'll concede that the scale is different, but there is no bright line here that makes vendor lock-in fundamentally different, you're just quibbling over where to draw a line on a continuum. And it's a lot simpler and more accurate to the real world to just say, "yes, governments can impose more switching cost but that doesn't mean that switching costs and the concept of coercion stop existing outside of governments." People like to pretend that the extreme power of governments and the extreme danger of government overreach means that they're fundamentally the only system of coercion and that means that markets are always pure expressions of free choice, and it's just obviously not true.

Governments are coercive and are often coercive on a level beyond the market. There is a reason why we care more about freedom of speech as applied to the government than as applied to businesses. Scale matters. But scale is not the same as a binary system. The fact that government has more tools at its disposal to coerce people does not mean that the market (or Apple) has none.

----

> Given the size of Facebook's userbase and its revenue growth over many years, most people don't care about the tracking that goes on there.

And yet, when offered the choice when booting up Facebook on iOS, many users chose to disable tracking. Why? I thought we knew their preference. How do we explain this difference in behavior if using Facebook is an expression of approval over how users are tracked? Are we supposed to believe that all of those users suffered concussions and then suddenly became not OK with the tracking anymore?

It's one thing to say that consumers are choosing to opt into a system, but here we have an example of consumers literally demonstrating two separate choices in opposite directions. So it just doesn't make sense to act like using Facebook means users like being tracked when we have extremely clear signals that those same users immediately opted out of being tracked as soon as they had the opportunity to do so.

The only way to explain that behavior is to say that their usage of Facebook did not provide a clear indicator on their preferences on privacy/tracking and that their decision to use Facebook was a complicated decision based on multiple factors and was not some kind of full endorsement of Facebook's business model.

More generally, I don’t believe I nor anyone else should mandate anything about a private software company’s product roadmap (least of all spiteful bureaucrats obsessed with targeting American technology companies).

The precedent this sets is absurd. The market already provides a solution outside of arbitrary coercion: we all have the freedom to purchase other products.

…except if they value a device that enforces audited software only, because they find it safe and convenient. If they value that they’re wrong, because wanting that is unfair to some businesses who want to sell them things.

> it is better than letting a single for-profit corporation set the terms

This is sort of true, government regulation is better than a single corporation dictating terms. But it’s not that relevant, is it? There are two major corporations in the mobile OS business. Plus a bunch of open source projects and a few small businesses for the adventurous. And web standards making it reasonably possible to not depend on any one of them, if that’s a priority.

Are the big technology companies powerful? Yes. Should they be regulated? Yes. Like this? Probably not.

What is the legitimate reason for tying this to hardware? If you only want to use audited software, then don't install software from outside the official app store. I agree that the iOS App Store is a great service, I just object to it being the only option.

Apple locks up the supply chains for the best screens, the best cameras, the most advanced chip fabrication processes, etc etc. Then practically all of the consumers with enough disposable income to care about those things buys iPhones, and Apple turns around and says "clearly, these people buy our hardware because they like being locked into the App Store!" I don't buy it.

There's a lot of selective reasoning on both sides of this debate. We both know that consumers don't think about security enough that they would consciously avoid an alternate app store in order to keep themselves safe. We've all worked with tech-illiterate people long enough to know that they don't have survival instincts around security, they will happily walk out of a walled garden at the first opportunity, disable their firewalls, and install malware.

But it's also pretty obvious that consumers don't think about security enough that the majority of them are consciously opting into a curated app store as an informed decision. If Apple suddenly decided to throw open the flood gates and became even more open than Android, these users would not switch to Android. I have never heard an ordinary, non-techy, non-HN user tell me that they're buying an iPhone because it doesn't support sideloading.

The reality is, consumers don't think about this at all and they probably don't have much of a conscious preference for any outcome. Some tech users do, but the majority of Apple users are neither so security conscious that they would inconvenience themselves in any way to avoid 3rd-party installs, nor so conscious of consumer freedoms that they would inconvenience themselves in order to buy a device that supports sideloading.

I do not believe that this is a behavior that the market selects for in either direction. The smartphone market is not a reflection of social preference towards either security or freedom.

So I think it's just kind of nonsense to act like this is a question of consumer choice. If Apple is allowed to run a curated store, customers will keep buying Apple products and they'll ignore any apps that they can't install and they'll lose zero sleep about that arrangement. If Apple is forced to run a more open store, customers will keep buying Apple products and they'll install anything they want regardless of the warnings, and they will once again lose zero sleep over it.

And of course that's the case because there's no other way to square the idea that people willingly buy into the Apple ecosystem and also that those same people wouldn't avoid sideloaded apps if given the choice. There's no way we can pretend that one of those decisions is a consumer preference and the other one is the opposite and their brains have magically turned off -- the only explanation that explains both behaviors is that consumers are not making either of these decisions based on security/freedom.

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Most consumers are apathetic to this entire debate. Again, there are some tech users that doesn't apply to. They are an extreme minority, but they exist. Some people use Android out of principle, some people consciously choose to use Apple devices because they don't want sideloading. Most people do not fall into either of those categories, and I just think it's a mistake to interpret consumer buying trends of Android/iOS devices like it's some kind of general expression of customer will about technical issues that they don't even understand in the first place.

You have to remember the majority of both Apple and Android customers probably don't even know what sideloading is; they certainly are not making informed decisions about it in any direction. To the extent that they are thinking about privacy or security at all, they are primarily thinking about the number of TV ads that they've seen for each product that used the word "privacy."

So when we talk about regulation, it's more valuable to talk about the effects on the overall market for smartphone apps and software innovation, the practical effects on security regardless of people's supposed choices about the risks they want to take, and about whether the market/security benefits outweigh the downsides. "What consumers want" is a misdirection; consumers don't want anything to do with this debate and they couldn't care less about whether or not Apple has an API for 3rd-party web browsers or whether or not the app store allows distributing GPL apps. They don't know or care what those words mean.

> And of course that's the case because there's no other way to square the idea that people willingly buy into the Apple ecosystem and also that those same people wouldn't avoid sideloaded apps if given the choice.

I think there is a universe in which:

1. Apple allows sideloading on iOS.

2. 95%+ of users don't ever sideload apps, preferring the safety and security of the official App Store.

Note that #2 does not mean consumers need to understand the precise risks of untrusted software, provided they generally understand that malicious apps exist and can harm their phone, whereas Apple promises everything in the app store is safe.

To make this happen, Apple would need to do some work, aka actually compete in the market! They would need to run an advertising campaign about the value of app store curation. They would need to improve search and discoverability, such as by not auctioning off the top search result spot. They might need to take a lower percentage of app revenue.

And Apple should have to do these things because it would be good for consumers!

I do think that general users can understand what the security/freedom tradeoff of sideloading is; this is not something that's beyond the ability of normal people to reason about. I just think that in the current market they don't. I don't believe that the current behaviors we see where lots of people simultaneously buy into iOS as a closed platform and are also pretty bad about staying in walled gardens without being forced to can be explained by saying that one of those things is an educated decision and the other one isn't.

But you're right, that's not to say that in theory consumers couldn't be educated about the tradeoffs or that it wouldn't be good to have a general education effort in that direction. But I think it would need to be a shift and we would need to start doing that education. I'm only trying to push back on the idea that absent consumer education we can still make inferences about their preferences through just surface-level choices that they might be making for arbitrary reasons.

Apple already does that marketing. It’s why I bought an iPhone rather than an android phone. Apple doesn’t have a lockdown on the smart phone market. They don’t even have a majority of it, I choose an iPhone because I don’t want to deal with my phone like a Linux box.

Yes, Apple has a monopoly on iPhones. But making the iPhone suck as much as other phones doesn’t seem like it will correct that monopoly.

Do you believe that if sideloading is offered on the iPhone that the majority of Apple users will be able to make an informed decision about whether or not it's safe to use 3rd-party stores?

This is exactly what I'm getting at: it cannot simultaneously be true that iOS customers already know the security/choice tradoeffs and are opting into the market fully informed about their decisions specifically because they want a walled garden, and also be true that those same people's brains are going to suddenly, magically turn off and they'll be incapable of making security decisions if they ever have an option in the iOS settings to enable sideloading.

Given that we know that lots of people buy Apple phones, and given that we know that many of those same users would choose to sideload possibly malicious apps without hesitation even though doing so would open them up to security risks -- the only explanation that reconciles those two contradictory facts is that the majority of iOS users are not thinking about security or user choice at all. And that's an explanation that's supported by what we seen in the real world as well: when talking to non-technical iOS users they don't tend to have strong opinions about this (if they even know what the debate is in the first place). If you go to a random person on the street and ask them why they bought an iPhone, "app store policy" will not be their response.

You may not be in that category; maybe you did buy an iPhone specifically because you wanted a closed ecosystem. But if so, you are not representative of the majority of iPhone users. The majority of iPhone users don't know what an "alternate browsing engine" is. The majority of iPhone users have probably never thought about how the app store works or whether they agree with it. They don't have preferences in any direction; the majority of iPhone users currently think we're all giant nerds for having this conversation at all.

And being informed about that conversation is what we're talking about when we talk about education. None of this is to say that people couldn't be educated enough to make informed decisions about sideloading or that they're incapable of thinking about security, but you're fooling yourself if you think an average smartphone user is currently thinking about app store policies at all when they buy a smartphone.

I doubt that. Decades of having to run malware (removal) software on Windows has pretty much guaranteed everyone knows what a virus is.

I don’t want every other game dev/streaming service pushing me to install their own “store” like they do on the other platforms. That’s why I keep choosing Apple.

And I still don't understand the "I don't want to have multiple stores on my device". you probably have over 100 apps in your phone right now. And if you don 't you have dozens hidden under the surface for basic IOS functionality. is clicking into another store to install one more app a problem? App/Play stores don't even have all the bells and whistles Steam does (no forums, shit curation that spam companies SEO optimize for, no mod workshop, no community aspect, etc), so that's not an excuse.

And presumably also Chromebooks, since Macs are unacceptable by this standard?

Apple should be absolutely prohibited from controlling what apps users want to run on their devices. If a user wants to install an app, and developer of said app wants it too, they should be able to do it without any restrictions. Or else Apple should start being honest and admit that they are only lending their devices to users, and not selling them, because selling implies full control over property.

- if users are happy with the alt store and it becomes highly successful, Apple loses revenue it would otherwise get from its own store

- if users are unhappy with the alt store because viruses, etc., get onto their phones, or it becomes a spam-ware cesspool, Apple gets the blame (the vast majority of users will not differentiate and then Apple has to spent tons of effort to "don't buy from stores X, Y and Z"--much easier to just disallow them)

Remember, most Apple users care about an optimum experience. If they care a lot about openness they would be using Android / Linux and are not Apple's target.

What other platforms? I've never been pushed to install another store on Android for example, so I highly doubt the situation would be much different on iOS.

In general I agree. But the support burden/cost goes up enormously. Ask Microsoft.

No way they can do that, because the second something malware or fraud happens, you can imagine the headlines. Apple advertises the iPhone as a secure and private device. By notarizing third-party store apps, they still have the ability to remove malicious apps.

1. Developers can continue to use the existing terms.

2. If a smaller developer elects to use the new terms, they pay less commission (10%) and a 3% transaction fee. That’s 2% less.

3. If they have more than 1 million users download their app, then there is an additional €0.50 Core Technology fee. If the developer is a commercial entity, then yes, they have to pay but in reality, it’s the end user that will have to pay.

3. If the app is free but offered by a commercial entity, they pay nothing in commission or payment fees (13% X $0 ) but they reach 1 million installs, then they do have to pay €500k. If the business has no revenue - that’s a weird business model.

4. If the app is offered by a not for profit, then they don’t pay the CTF.

So, the new terms seem better for developers and users in the EU.

I think that "growth first, revenue later" is actually a fairly popular business model, and I can imagine a lot of my own app ideas reaching 1M downloads with <$500k revenue (in an ideal world, but still)

I’d argue that a number way less than 1 million installs would signify enough success to start charging for

1. You made a one time paid app. If in the first year you got 2M installs and sold app for 5$ you are profitable, but next year if those users who already paid will make an app update then you will own ~$1M to apple for those app updates even if you didn't make any new money from those users. You would be forced to change your business model to subscriptions.

2. If user has iPhone, iPad, apple watch and your app support all those platforms then probably this will be counted as 3 installs.

3. By default app store updates app automatically - if user has still some old iphone/ipad that uses from time to time this is getting even worse.

This applies only to iOS Apps. iPad OS and Watch OS isn’t (yet) covered by this Core Technology Fee.

I strongly suggest actually reading the linked page. Most of what you’re saying is clearly and obviously wrong, had you read the page.

So update do counts it just in a year (12 months) install, reinstall and update is counted as one. But once user bought a paid app and installed it then next year if that user update app developer will have to pay for this update

[0] https://developer.apple.com/support/core-technology-fee/

https://developer.apple.com/support/fee-calculator-for-apps-...

Enter "No" to digital goods selling (you are making OpenFlappyBird as a personal project, and are not charging for it!)

Enter 10,000,000 Annual installs.

Check "New Capabilities and Terms" (you are putting it on OpenMarketPlace).

----

Where did I go wrong? This is a genuine question: I am not an iOS developer, maybe I am not applying this calculator correctly to my hypothetical?

I definitely don’t love all of the detail of either option.

However, why would one chose an option that would cost them so much when the other, existing option costs nothing?

Yes that's the point. In my scenario I was wanting to distribute this on a different app store than Apple's, which forces me to choose the new terms.

Your question there is the exact question apple expects people to ask themselves, to dissuade them from supporting other stores.

When you compile OpenFlappyBird for iOS, your binary includes statically linked Apple intellectual property. Just as open source developers are entitled to use copyright law to enforce GPL rules[0], Apple is entitled to set license terms for use of this intellectual property.

While many operating system developers have historically chosen to license this intellectual property at no cost, many others have not. And regardless, norms aren't laws. Apple isn't required to give away their stuff for free.

[0] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#LinkingWithGPL

What does that have to do with being asked to pay $400k/month for a free app that you made $0 from being considered by the person I replied to as "better for developers and users in the EU."?

If we were discussing desktop operating systems, this is the moment where I would advocate switching to a properly Free Software (or near-Free) software ecosystem. Unfortunately there's nothing for me to advocate when it comes to smartphones; there aren't any serious recommendations to make which aren't catastrophically impractical for all but the most obsessive Richard Stallman acolyte.

1. They're already charging for access to SDKs and services via their $100 annual developer fee. Quote from Apple:

> Membership includes all the tools, resources, and support you need to develop and distribute apps, including access to beta software, app services, testing tools, app analytics, and more.

2. In any case, reverse engineering, modifications, and distribution of IP for the purposes of interoperability is protected under the Computer Programs Directive in the EU

2. The directive gives end users the right to reverse engineer, modify, and make PRIVATE copies of intellectual property for the purposes of interoperability. It doesn’t create a new avenue for the redistribution of intellectual property.

Can you imagine if AMD or Intel tried to charge a fee to every program written using their instruction set? How about your web browser or keyboard manufacturer wanting a cut of your revenue? Is that ridiculous enough yet? Apple derives almost the entirety of their value from their app ecosystem, so don't act like giving developers access to development tools used to be charity before this new fee came along. Conveniently it only affects one side of this monopolistic fence, too.

Above all, there's nothing being distributed, the tools and SDKs certainly aren't, and APIs aren't protected IP, courts have already settled that.

Your third paragraph is technically incorrect. Even the simplest iOS binary includes fragments of statically linked Apple intellectual property. Software piracy is software piracy, no matter how simple the app.

Pray tell, when can I publish my porn app on iOS for free?

Apple doesn't want it in their stores, which is fair, but I heard there was this piece of regulation coming around that gave us the right to sideload, and the right to use alternative browsers!

At this point I just look forward to the day they get hit with the spicy fines of percentage annual revenue. If you think that having to pay a fee to exercise your lawful rights will be allowed to stand, I have bad news.

> Software piracy is software piracy, no matter how simple the app.

The law also considers fair use, which is allowed infringement. Additionally, EU courts have ruled that "functional" parts of computer programs aren't protected at all.

Apple’s new rules now allow an avenue for porn apps, and those rules are actually great for paid apps. Hopefully you’re not talking about free porn? You want to women to take their clothes off and you won't even pay them for it?

> the right to use alternative browsers

You have the right to use whatever browser you want, just buy a device which supports that browser. Meanwhile, you're being embarrassingly short-sighted. Browser diversity is infinitely more important than browser choice. Apple is the only significant entity forcing browser diversity upon the web ecosystem.

> If you think that having to pay a fee to exercise your lawful rights

You do that every time you consume the goods and services provided by corporations. You have a lawful right to watch Netflix, but that right doesn't absolve you from paying for your subscription. You have no lawful right to decide how Apple monetises their intellectual property. And the EU has no right to give Apple's intellectual property away.

If you demand that governments force Apple to rearrange their deal, don't complain when they rearrange it.

> The law also considers fair use

Just using someone else's intellectual property because you think you're entitled to isn't fair use. This is the third reply in a row where you've repeatedly demonstrated a gross misunderstanding of law.

> EU courts have ruled that "functional" parts of computer programs aren't protected at all

Wow, there you go again. No they didn't. That ruling did not walk back copyright in any way. The ruling upheld the self-evident truth that functionality isn't protected by copyright. The example they cite is code which parses a specific file format. You can't declare the idea of a specific file format structure as intellectual property, and you can't stop someone from writing their own code to parse it. But that doesn't give them a right to use your code without permission.

Edit: Seems I misunderstood, I just re-read the relevant section:

>iOS apps distributed from the App Store and/or an alternative app marketplace will pay €0.50 for each first annual install per year over a 1 million threshold.

The fact that they are charging money for apps installed from non-App Store sources is ludicrous to me, if they aren't running the store, then they don't get to collect fees on it, imo.

The first million is free. If they reach 1,000,001 installs, they owe Apple €0.50.

And there are also free apps that might want to be distributed through Apple's store alongside an alternative store, which would require them to accept the new terms, as far as I can tell.

> Notarization for iOS apps — a baseline review that applies to all apps, regardless of their distribution channel, focused on platform integrity and protecting users. Notarization involves a combination of automated checks and human review.

...well, except porn and sex-work apps, I guess. Will nobody think of the poor, penniless OnlyFans CEO? /s

Apple at this point is just surpressing whatever it deems bad, even if that app as mandated by the EU wants to be hosted outside of teh App store.

Actually, they'll likely be excited to pay it, since finally having access to the iOS market will unlock tons more revenue. (And lead-gen fees are no stranger to their business model.)

A real option, mind you, not one that's tilted so far in Apple's favor that any competition looks hopeless from day 1.

> Core Technology Fee — iOS apps distributed from the App Store and/or an alternative app marketplace will pay €0.50 for each first annual install per year over a 1 million threshold.

source: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/01/apple-announces-chang...

> Developers can choose to adopt these new business terms, or stay on Apple’s existing terms. Developers must adopt the new business terms for EU apps to use the new capabilities for alternative distribution or alternative payment processing.

So you either choose US/Global Business Model (what we know today), or EU Business Model (what was announced today, with flexibility but high fees). You can distribute on the App Store either way.

> will pay €0.50 for each first annual install per year over a 1 million threshold

EDIT: I misread, I thought they were arguing that the 50c was per month, not the total number at the end of the calculation.

But if I distribute that exact same app on an M1 powered iPad outside of the App Store, I'll be subjected to a fee if my app goes viral, unless I agree not to profit from it and set up a non-profit organization?

As far as Apple is concerned, this is a huge oversight, and will be rectified in the coming years. The idea of computing devices as uncontrollable platforms is a mistake to them. It's only a matter of time.

If I have an app that makes $20,000 annually and all of the sudden there's a huge influx of new downloads (with no guarantee of converting to paid), then I am bankrupt. Apple will charge $4,500 to me PER MONTH for 100k downloads above 1 million. If I have 2 million downloads, I now owe Apple $45,000 per month.

This means the new structure is incredibly regressive. This will destroy small businesses.

I actually could not believe the fee calculator was correct, so I found the section in the terms[0] section 4.1 (A) lays out the fee, which is 0.5 EUR per app install above 1 million installs.

This could, in theory, be used as a way for groups of people to target and take down small businesses. These downloads include "redownloads" where a user may delete and then download the application again. I can already see the lawsuits if Apple does not implement mitigations for these types of attacks.

0: https://developer.apple.com/contact/request/download/alterna...

A progressive tax means you pay more the more the measure you use for taxation goes up

A regressive tax means you pay more the more the measure you use for taxation goes down

Regressive does not definitionally mean “bad for the small guy” even though that is a deterministic consequence of a regressive tax

However the term progressive in this context is “value free” and simply an indication of the direction of relative increase in percentage given the increase or decrease in the taxable measure

In this case the progression is a cliff so not very incremental

It is not progressive unless for some reason you view the "cliff" this way, though it is not a true cliff in the traditional tax sense, since exceeding does not remove the benefit of the 1m/year download credit.

My argument that it is regressive is not based on it being "bad for the small guy", rather I was just pointing out that, as a regressive fee when looking at revenue/download, it will be very bad for small business.

2,000,000 updates acquires a minimum of $45,000 in fees per month!

I hope the EU fines them for blatantly trying to circumvent the law, and makes it a reoccurring monthly fine until they properly comply with the DMA.

[0] "A first annual install may result from an app’s first-time install, a reinstall, or an update from any iOS app distribution option — including the App Store, an alternative app marketplace, ..." https://developer.apple.com/support/core-technology-fee/

How are they even justifying these fees if the app is being distributed entirely outside of the app store? So weird.

Why? Because if you affect one aspect of Apple’s carefully crafted business model, you touch many more.

For instance, the fact that there’s no good free calculator on the iPad is bonkers. Why is it bonkers? Did Apple go “oopsie, we never got around to finishing the iPad calculator app.” for years? No. It’s a calculated decision.

Another example, why did Apple never have a weather app for the iPad UNTIL they bought out their best competition, which happened to be web-based?

Apple factors in everything. Will X push more sales of Y product or Z service? Will the fact that this feature is randomly not present in this set of devices help sell more mac/iPad/iPhone?

Apple loses more than the face-value (which is a lot) of their App store control. They lose a portion of control over their less-tangible business model.

If this wasn’t the case, they’d still be selling iPods.

I see what you did there.

Could you elaborate? I don't get this part -- are you saying they don't include a calc app on the iPad to push iPhone sales?