Apple considers transparency information as irrelevant and forbids info about their 30% cut

[RejZoR]

How is it anti-competitive? On what basis? It's their product entirely. It's own separate entity. It's not like they are forcing iOS or MacOS on other companies and thus creating artificial dominance. They are literally creating dominance by people willingly buying their products that operate that way. And now we're at a point we have to punish them for being too successful at selling their own products and people wanting them. Makes no sense. This isn't Microsoft shilling and pushing Windows in all sorts of dirty ways on all system builders and rejecting Linux or other alternatives and creating monopoly that way. It's totally different.

[Bennet]

3 hours ago, Kisai said:

Pointing to the MSIE or WMP bundling as "anti-competitive" is greatly missing the point, because from a legal point of view, they were anti-competitive by twisting the arm of the OEM's selling PC's with Windows on it. No such thing exists for Apple, Sony or Nintendo, but does for Google. Google can not tell OEM's what they can or can not bundle with their phones, only Google can tell Google what to bundle.

I Agree, comparing Apple with the Microsoft case is missing a point. Because what Apple does is different but probably also anti-competitive. And I also agree that what Google does is far more similar to what Microsoft did.

But what the Microsoft case shows is, that regulators are not shy fighting anti-competitive behavior in the tech-industry. And the Microsoft and Apple things are at least remotely related to each other.

3 hours ago, Kisai said:

As Bill Gates liked to bring up during the MSIE one:

https://www.cnet.com/news/a-coke-a-pepsi-on-a-windows-shelf/ (1998)

Quote

But while the courts ponder the weightier antitrust aspects of the case, the DOJ has also asked for a quick decision on its proposal that Microsoft either unbundle Internet Explorer (IE) from Windows 98 or include rival Netscape Navigator with the operating system so that users can have a choice of browsers.

 

Microsoft has decided to attack the latter proposal with some novel analogies. Bill Gates contends that asking him to include Navigator with Windows is like asking Coca-Cola to include three cans of Pepsi in every six-pack.

Again I think this is the wrong analogy for the Apple case. It might be some what applicable for the Microsoft case, but as you said the cases are different.

 

And I think the analogy is wrong for Apple because there is no market with coca cola six-packs. No one was ever able and will be ever able to sell beverages through coca cola six packs. The analogy would be a shop forcing the producer to sell extensions to a product with the payment system of set shop charging the customer a 30% higher price than necessary.

 

3 hours ago, Kisai said:

To which, trying to make the same analogy with MacOS X, iOS or Android is essentially going "well include the Google Play store on iPhone and OS X, and the Apple App store on Android" (regardless if anything bought on it can be downloaded to that device.) The actual mechanisms for these stores to work do not exist, and place additional burdens upon the device manufacturers to support a third party product, and that third party product can harm the first party in significant ways, which is why Apple puts so much effort into vetting software that gets into the app store in the first place.

And this analogy also misses the the point slightly. Again Microsoft case and Apple case different. And no one says Google and Apple should have defunct stubs for their stores on each others OSs. No Google has no intensive, to bring it's shop to iOS and Apple has no intensive to bring it's shop to Android. But Epic for example has the intensive to bring a shop to iOS and a shop to Android. And in fair markets they should be allowed to that.

 

3 hours ago, Kisai said:

Apple does not need to appeal to the kind of person who would sideload software, that feature does not need to exist because those people would not buy Apple hardware in the first place. (Look at how often the same people complain about the price of Apple products and yet can't tell the difference between a Xeon and a Intel U/H part that Apple uses when they make their baseless comparisons to whitebox BYO configurations.) In fact the same people wouldn't buy Google's hardware either, they'd buy the PinePhone if they really wanted that functionality.

The preference of the customer is not really the point here. As I described many times before, I consider iOS Devices as a separate market. And as a customer you always have the option to enter a market or not. But just because you have this choice doesn't the market can't have a monopoly, if this would be the case than no monopolies would exist at all. But if you decide to enter the market, you should be able expect fair pricing and fair treatment. Which can happen in a monopoly, but does not here.

 

And that Apple does not sell iOS on non Apple devices and does not offer it's App Store on non iOS devices has nothing to do with this. Because it is obviously in their right to do so. But the other way around should probably not be limited either. If another vendor would choose bring it's store to iOS, why should he be allowed to do it too (because the is a market here). But other OSs on iPhones also do not matter because this would be outside the boundaries of the market and there was never a market to begin with, because you never could (/were supposed to) develop OSs for iPhones.

[Bennet]

3 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

How is it anti-competitive? On what basis? It's their product entirely. It's own separate entity. It's not like they are forcing iOS or MacOS on other companies and thus creating artificial dominance. They are literally creating dominance by people willingly buying their products that operate that way. And now we're at a point we have to punish them for being too successful at selling their own products and people wanting them. Makes no sense. This isn't Microsoft shilling and pushing Windows in all sorts of dirty ways on all system builders and rejecting Linux or other alternatives and creating monopoly that way. It's totally different.

They are creating dominance by forcing potential developers through their shop to potential customers inside this market. Again if Apple would be ordering the apps from the develops and the apps being created on apples behalf, than apple would be fine. But no they said, you are free to develop what ever app you want and you can sell it to the customers in this market. BUT only through our shop.

 

It is different to the Microsoft thing, but still anti-competitive.

[Bombastinator]

This seems to be becoming an argument of dueling ideologies.  It’s been given to the court. We shall see what we shall see.  Apparently the court is choosing to use information different than we have anyway.  Whether she also has the information we do and is merely choosing to act on a different path is unknown. 

[RejZoR]

33 minutes ago, Bennet said:

They are creating dominance by forcing potential developers through their shop to potential customers inside this market. Again if Apple would be ordering the apps from the develops and the apps being created on apples behalf, than apple would be fine. But no they said, you are free to develop what ever app you want and you can sell it to the customers in this market. BUT only through our shop.

 

It is different to the Microsoft thing, but still anti-competitive.

You mean, literally like Epic does with exclusively released titles? Forcing us to buy game sin their dumbass store instead on GOG or Steam? That kind of way? But poor Tim Sweeney got kicked out of Apple's App Store boo hoo. All of a sudden it's Apple bad, Epic good. And just few months ago everyone was bitching about Epic how shitty it is with their BS policies. Paid them or not, me as consumer doesn't give a shit who paid who. I'm forced to buy from some crap store with crap launcher and that's the end of it.

[Bombastinator]

Going to have to unfollow this thread.  It seems to be nothing but multiple endless circular arguments about what the word monopoly should mean in the eyes of whatever viewer.

[Bennet]

9 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

You mean, literally like Epic does with exclusively released titles? Forcing us to buy game sin their dumbass store instead on GOG or Steam? That kind of way? But poor Tim Sweeney got kicked out of Apple's App Store boo hoo. All of a sudden it's Apple bad, Epic good. And just few months ago everyone was bitching about Epic how shitty it is with their BS policies. Paid them or not, me as consumer doesn't give a shit who paid who. I'm forced to buy from some crap store with crap launcher and that's the end of it.

...

8 hours ago, Bennet said:

Of cause Epic has it's own plans and is not the Messiah that came down to save us all. But they still have a point to make here.

 

8 hours ago, Bennet said:

Again Epic is clearly doing this for their own benefit. But whether they intended it or not there is something good in it for all of us. So for them is probably the necessary evil to get this all started

 

I think I said every thing I have to say. We will see how it will end up

[Kisai]

44 minutes ago, Bennet said:

I Agree, comparing Apple with the Microsoft case is missing a point. Because what Apple does is different but probably also anti-competitive. And I also agree that what Google does is far more similar to what Microsoft did.

One can produce a good product and never engage in anti-competitiveness, yet be subjected to it. To me it seems like Epic is trying to create a "market" of iOS when really the market is still "mobile devices", which would also include Microsoft's Surface tablet and any convertible laptop that can contain a modem, as that's the only thing that distinguishes an iPad from the Surface/Dell/HP that runs a full version of windows. If it were narrowed only to Smartphones, then the fight would have to be again repeated with MacOS X, iPadOS, AppleTVOS, and anything else. Which the App store isn't distinct between any of those products, and the OS isn't really that distinct either. Considering that the "Smartphone" market includes Android devices of all manufacturers, and various attempts at Linux phones, it's disingenuous to make the argument "iPhone market" or "iOS" market. That would ceeding the fact that Apple makes a superior product and Epic wants to undermine it.

 

 

44 minutes ago, Bennet said:

But what the Microsoft case shows is, that regulators are not shy fighting anti-competitive behavior in the tech-industry. And the Microsoft and Apple things are at least remotely related to each other.

This case is not brought by regulators. What Facebook or Microsoft think of Epic's contract-law case has no bearing on their own contracts with Apple. They may have special arrangements (eg Facebook being preloaded on iPhones) but not special treatment. Microsoft Bing has been used before as a search tool (eg with Siri) but again, that's a completely different arrangement than the one for the app store.

 

44 minutes ago, Bennet said:

Again I think this is the wrong analogy for the Apple case. It might be some what applicable for the Microsoft case, but as you said the cases are different.

Because they are. To try and bend that exact analogy for Apple, it would be like Apple sells 355ml (12fl oz) cans of Apple Cola, Google sells 473ml (16 fl oz) of Google Cream Soda, and Epic sells Drink cozies that fit both, but also sells sweetener packets to make the drinks sweeter.

 

Apple and Google, sell "drinks" but neither are the same kind or shape, but Epic wants to sell things that are not drinks, but are drink-related. The analogy just doesn't work because for Apple, the labels would be part of the can, for google, the labels would be paper, and epic can cover up the labels of either with their epic drink cozies, or sell you additional sugar for those drinks to change them. You can rip the labels off the google soda's but not apples, but it's immaterial, you still need to open the drink for either of Epic's options to be be of value.

 

44 minutes ago, Bennet said:

And I think the analogy is wrong for Apple because there is no market with coca cola six-packs. No one was ever able and will be ever able to sell beverages through coca cola six packs. The analogy would be a shop forcing the producer to sell extensions to a product with the payment system of set shop charging the customer a 30% higher price than necessary.

Again, the analogy didn't work for Bill either. It's an over-simplification of how including a competitors product is ridiculous, despite the fact that many OEM's would include whatever software they were paid to, and there was always a huge complaint about bloatware (and still is) about the amount of third party shovelware (neither produced by Microsoft or the OEM), yet today, even Microsoft includes third party apps as "included" downloads on the user's start menu. 

 

We all know today how to download an alternative browser, but in 1998 the only way for one to exist would have been to include it with the OS, or include it on a CD-ROM, thus doubling the media duplication cost.

 

44 minutes ago, Bennet said:

And this analogy also misses the the point slightly. Again Microsoft case and Apple case different. And no one says Google and Apple should have defunct stubs for their stores on each others OSs. No Google has no intensive, to bring it's shop to iOS and Apple has no intensive to bring it's shop to Android. But Epic for example has the intensive to bring a shop to iOS and a shop to Android. And in fair markets they should be allowed to that.

 

Apple has no reason or incentive to put the Apple store on Google's products. Google however would absolutely love to eat Apple's App store pie, just like Epic and Microsoft would. However smartphones are considered disposable (eg 2 year life span) so it's genuinely not worth supporting hardware that doesn't last long enough to make back the investment. The same reason why some developers shun Android. It's a pain to develop for, and few people spend money on the Android platform unlike iOS. Why would you want the burden of operating a store for a competitors product if you weren't after the commissions and nothing else. You can't possibly make a better store than the manufacturer. I'd in fact argue that the Epic Game store is, and will always be hot garbage that nobody wants and only begrudgingly use for the "free" games gimmick, and Valve seems to put little care into their store. As i stated in another thread. I don't want a dozen different game stores on my PC because they all compete for your attention (EGS pops up ads on your desktop, just like Corel, Magix and various AV products do, because they leave their "updater" programs running in the background.) If you're not going to give me a free upgrade to the latest version, I don't care about seeing ads for sales.

 

 

44 minutes ago, Bennet said:

The preference of the customer is not really the point here. As I described many times before, I consider iOS Devices as a separate market. And as a customer you always have the option to enter a market or not. But just because you have this choice doesn't the market can't have a monopoly, if this would be the case than no monopolies would exist at all. But if you decide to enter the market, you should be able expect fair pricing and fair treatment. Which can happen in a monopoly, but does not here.

iOS devices are not a separate market, and anyone trying to argue that (like Epic), is being dishonest about their motives. The market is broadly defined as "mobile computer" and specificly defined as "smartphone", there is no market of iOS devices, because only Apple makes iOS devices. There are no authorized iOS distributions for loading onto other smartphones, and there are no Android versions that can be loaded onto iOS devices.

 

44 minutes ago, Bennet said:

And that Apple does not sell iOS on non Apple devices and does not offer it's App Store on non iOS devices has nothing to do with this.

No it absolutely does, because you can't claim there is a market where one doesn't exist unless the products are equivalent. Since you can't install the OS from one onto the device of the other, they are distinct products, not markets. The "smartphone" platform is equivilent so there's a market. The "portable computer" platform is equvilent, so there's a market there. A smartphone can do everything an iPad can do, and an iPad can do just about everything a Macbook can do, despite not running the same OS on them. Microsoft itself has clearly shown there is no distinction between an iPad running iOS and a Windows Tablet that can run the full version of Windows when it tries to sell you on buying a Surface tablet.

Microsoft considers the iPad running iOS to be in the same market as the Windows Surface tablet, despite focusing only on UI trash. The Apple ads then invoke the same language. Both Microsoft and Apple consider iOS devices to be equal to a computer.

 

44 minutes ago, Bennet said:

 

Because it is obviously in their right to do so. But the other way around should probably not be limited either. If another vendor would choose bring it's store to iOS, why should he be allowed to do it too (because the is a market here). But other OSs on iPhones also do not matter because this would be outside the boundaries of the market and there was never a market to begin with, because you never could (/were supposed to) develop OSs for iPhones.

Pick one:

a) iOS is a smartphone OS, therefor the market is smartphones

b) iOS/iPadOS/MacOSX is a computer OS, therefor the market is computers

 

It does not matter if the same apps do not exist on an iPhone, iPad and MacOS X, despite being delivered through Apple's App store, that's a developer's decision. There is no "iPhone" market.

 

[Bennet]

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

iOS devices are not a separate market, and anyone trying to argue that (like Epic), is being dishonest about their motives. The market is broadly defined as "mobile computer" and specificly defined as "smartphone", there is no market of iOS devices, because only Apple makes iOS devices. There are no authorized iOS distributions for loading onto other smartphones, and there are no Android versions that can be loaded onto iOS devices.

I see your point. I also thought about this. But while trying to build me the mental model for this, I run into a problem. When the market is smartphones, than this market seamed weirdly split. Where obviously users on the iOS side of things can not access Android App and users on the Android side of things are unable to access iOS apps. I don't want to say, that this is the thing or a thing that needs to change. So I was unsure whether in this split case it could still be considered a market. In retrospect, considering how complicated economics is, probably. But it was easier (for me) considering it as separate markets with a coherent set of customers/users buying apps for their devices.

 

This is probably also how Epic sees the things and how they want other to see it.

 

I don't know I'm neither a business administration guy nor I'm a lawyer, So I will relativize what I said about the market situation. If it is one single smartphone market than Epic is walking on very thin ice here and if not than they are right and Apple is in trouble. Time will tell.

 

But I will stand by the things I said about security. Which I know is irrelevant in the current context, but just to summarize my opinion.

 

Edit & PS: And I appreciate, you took the time formulating a proper explanation and not just yelling that it is nonsense.

[SansVarnic]

-= Locked =-

-= Thread Cleaned =-

 

Topic has run its course.