The EU should instead set targets.

Ie. "More than half of users have installed at least one app from a non-apple affiliated store by Jan 2026 or you shall pay a fine of $10 per month per iPhone in use in the EU".

That’s a terrible idea. How would they have any control over that. I think you are way overestimating the amount of iOS users that want to use software from outside the App Store.

Agreed, the only realistic way they could hit such a target is to shut down their own app store...

If 3rd party stores didn't charge the Apple tax, I think you'd find plenty of apps moving to other stores, and within a matter of weeks more than half of users would have used a 3rd party store.

That’s my worst nightmare. On my iPhone I want the equivalent of Spotify, not Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Max, etc.

I want the equivalent of a shops in the real world. One shop doesn't carry everything. Even Spotify doesn't carry everything. For one, Apple doesn't allow adult content apps. Steam does. I'm sure there's a market for adult games on iPhone as Steam's success there would seem to suggest. I don't think Apple should be required to sell adult games but I also don't think they should get to dictate that people can't use their phones for adult games. So, more stores would great.

Why can’t people just buy Android phones that allow for this? They should change, not Apple and their users that like the walled garden.

I mean, you realise nobody is going to point a gun at your head and force you to sideload apps right?

Yeah but these companies will force me to install their garbage third party app stores to install their apps. I really just want one good, properly vetted app store on my phone, is that so hard to understand?

If you ever tried out third party app stores on Android you’ll see what I mean. See also the crappy launchers/stores major game publishers try to force on you on PCs.

It's a bit of a false comparison, since you wouldn't have to pay monthly subscriptions to others stores as you have to for streaming services.

Yeah but I would have to deal with multiple app stores of varying security, quality control, resource usage, and other annoyances. No thanks.

That really depends on the store. If Value made a Steam store, or Nintendo made a Nintendo store with Nintendo exclusives I'd expect millions of installs.

Maybe but that is also not within Apple's control.

> They are adept at malicious compliance.

They just got fined 500 millions for failure to comply so I'm not sure adept is the adjective I would use.

How much additional profit have they made based on their malicious compliance? I bet it dwarfs this fine.

That is not so clear. Appstore revenue is ~ $100 billion/y, but Apple makes less than 30% from that.

So the question is: Would more convincing compliance have cost Apple more than single digit percentage decreases in Appstore sales? Comparing the F-Droid vs Playstore situation, this seems unlikely to me.

Apple’s take is 30%, but they have expenses that have to be covered by that. The profit if any would be much less than $30bn.

> The profit if any would be much less than $30bn.

It doesn't cost that much to maintain and run the appstore, it is almost all profits.

You are trying to tell me that credit card processing fees are negligible, software engineers work for free, advertising doesn’t require overhead, etc…

I guess that kind of thinking that everything is basically free is why alot of startups just fail so easily.

None of them are close to 30 billion!!!

Your profit is whatever your revenue minus costs. Plenty of app stores have operated in the red that we know this isn’t trivial to get right. It definitely is nowhere near negligible as patent asserted. I’m frustrated by how dumb HN is getting lately.

You are trying to tell me that all of that stuff combined makes up more than a small fraction of $30 billion per year.

If Apple is so bad at this that they have to charge 30%, they should have failed in the free market to a competitor that can do the same or better for 3%. However, Apple has prevented that, not by being better or cheaper, but by implementing DRM that locks users out from having a choice (and the market as a whole ended up being a duopoly with cartel-like pricing).

Whether Apple can be cheaper isn't really the point (they should be, digital services are a very high margin business). It's that they're anti-competitive to the point that the market for paid apps and in-app payments became inefficient (in a financial sense).

Whether it's adept or not depends on what would have happened if they actually complied.

Sure, a half a billion fine sounds like a lot, but if you don't have another number to compare against, you can't tell if it was clever or not.

Perhaps "compliance" is the wrong term, but surely such a tiny fine will do little to convince them to comply.

They have a couple of months (2? 6?) to comply, otherwise they get additional fines.

500 million is like half a days revenue.

The actual fines for this moving forward are up to 10% of a companies global revenue. The EU made a big point to say that this is the first time they are issuing those fines and as a result they are smaller than they otherwise would be especially in the case of repeat offenders.