U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly

Re:U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone mon... by chiefalchemist on Thursday March 21, 2024 @11:41AM (#39779982)

But doesn't the higher fees on dev help to keep the riff raff out? Sure, it's a nice profitable margin-padding fee but how else do they keep out the bottom feeders? Do Apple users what to pay a premium to get more useless noise?

Note: I'm not defending Apple. But the higher dev fees do serve a purpose other than revenue.

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Re:U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone mon... by autoexec on Thursday March 21, 2024 @12:23PM (#39780686)

> But doesn't the higher fees on dev help to keep the riff raff out?

It doesn't keep malware from getting in. If it's hurting people by limiting their choices and it isn't keeping people safe then what good is it?

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Re:U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone mon... by ethbr1 on Thursday March 21, 2024 @11:45AM (#39780062)

If high fees (with high margins) are there to ensure the integrity of the store, then Apple could invest more of that margin into ensuring the integrity of the store.

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Re:U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone mon... by rrrrrrrrrrrryan on Thursday March 21, 2024 @12:08PM (#39780444)

Back in the day you used to have to pay a bunch of money upfront to buy the software that allows you to develop software for a particular platform, then you were free to distribute your software as you wish.

If Apple is really concerned about keeping out the riff raff they could raise the annual flat developer fees.

But we all know that's not what they're actually concerned about - the app store is estimated to have 80% margins right now. They're just charging what the market will bear, and the market will bear quite a lot right now as they're part of a duopoly on smartphones.

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Re:U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone mon... by chiefalchemist on Thursday March 21, 2024 @12:38PM (#39780896)

> they're part of a duopoly on smartphones.

Well, that's another conversation then isn't it? If that's the case, then Apple and Google (Play) should be named then, yes?

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Re:U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone mon... by rrrrrrrrrrrryan on Thursday March 21, 2024 @12:56PM (#39781199)

Only if the justice department believes Google has been using its dominant market position to harm consumers.

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Re:U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone mon... by tebbers on Friday March 22, 2024 @01:59PM (#39793133)

Which it hasn’t been because there are alternative app stores, payment processors and sideloading.

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