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EU Reportedly Planning to Charge Apple for Violating Digital Markets Act
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Agreed so much. And the vast majority of Android apps are utter garbage, not examined for dangerous code.
How do some of you still fail to understand that offering the ability to sideload DOESN'T MEAN YOU'LL HAVE TO? It's an option. It's stops Apple squashing competition. We can all stay safe inside the walled garden if we wish.
Steven Sinofsky address this point (and numerous others) very eloquently here. A lot of these “more choice is always better and there are no trade offs involved because you will always be able to pick and choose what you want” arguments fall apart when you think about it for more than a few seconds.
Building Under Regulation [215.]
An essay on the EU Digital Markets Act and Apple’s Update on apps distributed in the European Union (and some personal history)
hardcoresoftware.learningbyshipping.com
What competition? You mean the duopoly of operating systems ill-claimed on these forums? Will there miraculously be more operating systems? No. What there will be more of is a fractured system, gains for the big developers and little to show for the consumer.
In their twisted logic and newspeak, "less choice" means "choice" - and "more choice" means taking away choice.
It does just as well fall apart when you look at it without taking the position of a gatekeeper themselves:
You have a choice not to use it - the same choice that detractors of the DMA claim we have.
Also, how is that any different than being forced to use the Apple App Store - a store that I may not want to use?
Side note: I have more (reasonable) choice in medical providers than I have in mobile app stores or operating systems.
They also might decide to build an app with features that Apple does not allow.
Again: I have no choice and can not get the features that both I and the app developer want.
With an alternative store, I can get these features.
You can still download choose to restrict all of your app and downloads and all of your digital purchases to Apple's first-party service.
What new code is in the system?
I'll repeat for the umpteenth time: iOS have been able to install apps from third-party sources - without ever being reviewed by Apple - for more than a decade. Just download from a website or something, install and trust (Apple helpfully explains it).
Allowing app installation from third-party sources, e.g. developer websites required zero new code to iOS. Sinofsky is too much of a former engineer not to know or comprehend that. He's probably just being disingenuous - though covers up for it by dropping a "boundary cases".
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There likely won't be either way.
The DMA tacitly acknowledges that.
gains for the developer that make the most popular apps used by people.
And that they can use to improve their product/service or pass on (in form of better pricing) to consumers.
No gains for big developers at the expense of consumers. All of this at the expense of consumers.
Conjecture.
We haven't even seen big developers taking advantage of the DMA's provisions/rights and playing it out on the market.
Either way, that's better than having the single one and by far biggest developer of them all (Apple!) continuing to gain even more and more power at the expense of consumers.
The power and influence on smartphones, their operating systems and mobile applications needs to be shared more evenly and checks and balances need to be instituted. Though I do concede that authoritarian or totalitarian governance seems can be awfully popular with some people.
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I never said otherwise that this is an opinion. There are very, very few that are prescient.
Well sure, it's been in effect for 3 months and stuff is still being sorted out.
I disagree (and of course this is where we all go around in circles)
Again, I disagree. If you want power shared more evenly, prevent google from selling android. Not ding apple because of some perceived inequality in the app store market. (Note: I didn't say smartphone operating system market purposely and I used the term perceived purposely)
Perhaps the EU should fund their own mobile operating system then, where they get to decide what is and what isn't allowed on it.
How would that share power more evenly?
It would only increase Apple's market power for app-based transactions, wouldn't it?
Why should they pour hundreds of millions into developing a new OS - when they can just regulate the existing ones? Governments do it all the time - see broadcasting, telecommunications, and the banking industry. In which governments are fairly happy to let private enterprises have sizeable shares if not all of the market. The EU has in fact been the driving force in privatising many (former) government-owned companies and their markets.
And who would want to use a system that has little to no ecosystem of third-party apps? Certainly hardly any average consumer. So realistically, it would need to be made code-compatible with Android apps and/or iOS apps (you know... as in "recompile and a few minor tweaks and it'll run on euOS").
Also, what would your reaction be to that? I can totally see you, i7guy, the other usual suspects complaining how the EU is just "out to get" United-Statesian American companies, engaging in protectionism, just propping up EU companies, distorting the market. Oh, and lament protectionist "government subsidies", of course.
So...? Hundreds of millions going down the drain - and it wouldn't change much.
I’ll leave it to the reader to answer the question.
Apple should not be regulated in the success or failure of its competitors.
I wonder if Apple are ever conflicted about their walled garden directly enabling easy censoring in this way, simply from government pressure
appleinsider.com
Russia forces Apple to remove VPN apps from the App Store
Apple has caved to pressure from Russian authorities and removed a number of the best iPhone VPN apps from the App Store in the country.
appleinsider.com
I'm pretty sure that's not how arguments work. If you aren't going to defend your claim, then don't make it.
Google doesn't sell Android, Google sells their services. There's Google-free distributions of Android out there for those such inclined. Suffice to say that Google and Android are much like Intel and Windows - frequently together, but either can be had without the other.
Forget about Apple's competition - this is about the market that Apple has decided it is the sole arbiter of. Apple has taken this position themselves, picking and choosing which software is allowed to even have a chance at success.
As I said, it's up to the reader for their interpretation.
To the tune of billions a year for licensing fees.
Android is the most popular mobile operating system on the planet and as said above, Google reaps the benefits.
And it's their platform. Even though the EU has forced a deregulation with this bad legislation, it is still Apples platform.
Apple regulates (decides) the success or failure of its competitors.
That’s why they should be regulated.
When you have a platform that controls access to millions of consumers, for tens of thousand of businesses across a wide range of industries, and more than half of all consumer spending in a category), prepare for regulations to be imposed on your business conduct. Your platform has far outgrown “only yours to govern” - it has become a utility of sorts. And no, the definition or regulation of utilities isn’t confined to things/services strictly needed for survival.
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I partially agree. Because of Apples success and the fact that smartphones aren’t like candy, a purchase from apple means the competition won’t get a purchase. So if that is what you mean I agree.
Disagree.
The competition won’t only lose a purchase. It will lose out on many purchases for years to come. A new buyer/user of an iPhone won’t (and can’t) purchase apps or make transactions for digital goods from other stores other than the ones available for “his” operating systems. He is locked into the ecosystem.
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That's the deal with competition. Apple probably loses out on sales of other smartphone brands. That's the nature of the beast. It's not Apples fault, even though by operating system metrics, android outflanks ios, that Apple is a popular and beloved brand.
That's perfectly fine and that is the way it goes with most purchased items. I buy a hisense tv and can't install an LG oled panel. Additionally lock-in is not a thing in real life. (on smartphones) It's only a talking point on MR. I know several people who went from ios to android. (only to return to ios) And the DMA doesn't do anything to let one run an ios app on another operating system whether it's windows, linux or android.
Lock-in is a thing - for example on cars. You buy a car and mod the heck out of it. You buy a different car, different make, can you transfer those mods?
It absolutely is!
My family is all Apple. We use Find My, Apple Pay Cash, shared iCloud storage, the whole 9. I could not switch to Android if I wanted to because it would cut me off from all these things that my family depends on daily. This is by design.
It’s not a long-term, “for life” lock-in. It’s a soft lock-in, as customers are very unlikely to switch short-term (spend hundreds of dollars on a new device and hours to relearn their smartphone habits and retrain muscle memory).
Just like on phones “modded” with preferences, settings and third-party app purchases. Same concept.
Certainly not.
It’s their fault that they’re abusing that platform power to muscle themselves in on other markets though (such as eBook, streaming and games).
It absolutely isn't.
The above are justifications and are purely subjective. Not real reasons. You may like the product differentiation that Apple brings to the table and may decide their products are different enough than the competition to stay with them. But make no mistake, you can move to another device, another smartphone, another flip-phone etc.
It's called product differentiation. Somewhere there seems to be this misconception that every product manufactured has to do the same thing in the same way. Nope.
Yes, it's called product differentiation.