Tile bashes Apple’s new AirTag as unfair competition. It will be asking Congress on Wednesday to take a closer look into Apple

[elfensky]

34 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

As per their website, the subscription includes extended warranty, free battery replacements, ability to add friends (for tracking your stuff), history of where your item was, and an alert system.  While I don't necessarily agree with subscription, at least this subscription is appearing to add at least substance.

 

Also, the Apple agreement is preventing them from pretty much doing exactly that (putting on the website to sell).  They could bypass it, but you have to make a lot of concessions to get your app approved (and Apple could block your updates at a whim because you offered a subscription off site)

As I said in a previous post, nothing is stopping you from selling that subscription only on the website. Look at floatplane as a perfect example.

 

What you can't do is charge less on your site. But you can totally ONLY sell on the site.

[Sauron]

2 hours ago, elfensky said:

... Then you make a skew for Find My, and a skew for your own extra features. I heavily disagree on the anti-competitiveness of it. It's actually very competitive. And good. Tile should innovate and create features that make their app and product stand out from the competition. If they can't... well that's on them. #capitalism.

Well no, because even if Tile made the exact same product as Apple they would still be at a net disadvantage for having to pay for integration, not to mention they'd inevitably lag behind on features because they would necessarily get to know about changes after Apple does. I'm not sure what Apple is even "innovating" on here, they're entering an existing market where you can only do so much to differentiate yourself - except they're using their control over another market to get an advantage.

 

I agree that this is an expression of capitalism but I don't consider that a positive capitalism also pushes towards child labor in places where it's legal, the fact that it's physiological to the system doesn't make it good. Anyway, regardless of your opinion on the morality of it, the fact remains that this is explicitly illegal and I'd be very surprised if the lawsuit ended in Apple's favor. Microsoft lost this kind of lawsuit over much less.

[wanderingfool2]

7 minutes ago, elfensky said:

As I said in a previous post, nothing is stopping you from selling that subscription only on the website. Look at floatplane as a perfect example.

 

What you can't do is charge less on your site. But you can totally ONLY sell on the site.

Just saying, Floatplane would be a terrible example of Apple's eco-system.  If you've seen any of the WAN shows where Luke has talked about it there was so much concessions that had to be made to make it compliant.  IIRC there was talk about having to remove all references to subscriptions and the inability to even link to the website/normal support because it mentioned references to subscription.

 

Here is the specific issue with Apple's App Store (https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#in-app-purchase)

Quote

If you want to unlock features or functionality within your app, (by way of example: subscriptions, in-game currencies, game levels, access to premium content, or unlocking a full version), you must use in-app purchase. Apps may not use their own mechanisms to unlock content or functionality, such as license keys, augmented reality markers, QR codes, etc. Apps and their metadata may not include buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms other than in-app purchase.

So yes, like I said, Apple's rules is stopping you from it.

[pas008]

“Apple launched this product, and its competing app, with a knowledge of a lot of information about our business,” Daru told senators on Wednesday. “They know how our devices do in stores. They know who our customers are. They know our subscription take rates. They know what features people use. I mean, the list goes on and on.”

This sentiment echoed that of Tile CEO CJ Prober, who issued a statement soon after Apple’s AirTag announcement on Tuesday. “We welcome competition, as long as it is fair competition,” he said. “Unfortunately, given Apple’s well-documented history of using its platform advantage to unfairly limit competition for its products, we’re skeptical.”

 

just wow

how can anyone defend apple on this?

 

50billion revenue from app store in 2019 and they do this to another company?

oh wait they sue people for less too

[NineEyeRon]

Love them, will get a few eventually 

[AnonymousGuy]

4 hours ago, pas008 said:

 

with a ecosystem though there needs to be stricter guidelines because they do have a monopoly over that ecosystem/etc

where is the competition on ios?

There's actually nothing inherently illegal about having a dominant position in a market when it was grown organically.   Which in the case of iOS, it was.  The app store restrictions and fees have been there since day 1 and yet no one had any problems jumping on board.  You can't have both ways where it was great profitability for the last 15 years and then claim you're just now being injured by it.  Yeah we'd all love to be able to make revenue with zero cost (30% fees)....maybe Tile should go spend a bagillion dollars making their own phone and OS and growing a customer base then and they can do it.  Oh wait, that's what Apple did.

 

Apple isn't stopping Tile from continuing on with their current business model.  In fact, Apple is expanding more options to them probably specifically to not seem anticompetitive. And Tile is still whining.  Yeah...a gorilla just put his dick on the table and made you look like a ken doll.  Cry more, Tile.  Figure out how to make your product more competitive or die.

[pas008]

5 minutes ago, AnonymousGuy said:

There's actually nothing inherently illegal about having a dominant position in a market when it was grown organically.   Which in the case of iOS, it was.  The app store restrictions and fees have been there since day 1 and yet no one had any problems jumping on board.  You can't have both ways where it was great profitability for the last 15 years and then claim you're just now being injured by it.  Yeah we'd all love to be able to make revenue with zero cost (30% fees)....maybe Tile should go spend a bagillion dollars making their own phone and OS and growing a customer base then and they can do it.

 

Apple isn't stopping Tile from continuing on with their current business model.  In fact, Apple is expanding more options to them probably specifically to not seem anticompetitive. And Tile is still whining.  Yeah...a gorilla just put his dick on the table and made you look like a ken doll.  Cry more, Tile.

where is apples competition on ios?

can windows force you to use only their app store or google on android?

oh wait they allow competition for healthy products

and if they did they be in even more deeper shit

but with apple everything is ok right?

anti competitive is anti consumer and antitrust

41 minutes ago, pas008 said:

“Apple launched this product, and its competing app, with a knowledge of a lot of information about our business,” Daru told senators on Wednesday. “They know how our devices do in stores. They know who our customers are. They know our subscription take rates. They know what features people use. I mean, the list goes on and on.”

This sentiment echoed that of Tile CEO CJ Prober, who issued a statement soon after Apple’s AirTag announcement on Tuesday. “We welcome competition, as long as it is fair competition,” he said. “Unfortunately, given Apple’s well-documented history of using its platform advantage to unfairly limit competition for its products, we’re skeptical.”

 

just wow

how can anyone defend apple on this?

 

50billion revenue from app store in 2019 and they do this to another company?

oh wait they sue people for less too

exactly ty come again

 

organically lol no one can compete with them on ios thats not organic

also

name one thing apple didnt steal,borrow, etc

everyone says intel ms nvidia evil companies

apple is the worst

 

[AnonymousGuy]

1 minute ago, pas008 said:

where is apples competition on ios?

can windows force you to use only their app store or google on android?

oh wait they allow competition for healthy products

and if they did they be in even more deeper shit

but with apple everything is ok right?

anti competitive is anti consumer and antitrust

So outside all this generic Apple ranting, how do you feel Apple producing a product (Airtags) that has more functionality, lower price, better serviceability, etc. is harmful to consumers?

[NinerL]

On 4/21/2021 at 9:12 AM, Master Disaster said:

Read the article please...

 

They're not complaining about Apple having a competing App, they're complaining about Apple expecting them to be able to compete against Apple when Apple include their service for free with every device while they have to pay Apple a 30% cut of any revenue they make.

So? You expect Apple to work for free? What's the point in spending billions in research and development if in the end they're forced to let competitors set the terms/pricing, Apple rightfully so should reap what they sowed.  e.i App store created a billion dollar industry, in some form millions of jobs came from that. 

[CorruptedTech]

On 4/21/2021 at 9:02 AM, avg123 said:

Summary

Now that Apple’s lost item finder AirTag has officially been introduced, competitor Tile is going on record ahead of its testimony in front of Congress tomorrow about how it perceives Apple’s latest product. The company says it will be asking Congress on Wednesday to take a closer look into Apple’s business practices, and specifically its entry in this lost item tracking category.

 

Quotes

 

My thoughts

I think Tile has a point. I am always against Apple acting as a gate keeper between apps and their customer. Tile now not only has to compete with Apple but also has to give a part of their profit to Apple, their competitor as app store fees

 

Sources

Tile bashes Apple’s new AirTag as unfair competition | TechCrunch

Thats kinda sad, its like somebody 1v1´ing in a game and losing because its ¨unfair¨ and the person has ¨ëxperience¨ Has tile been in the been in the business for 6 years.

[pas008]

9 minutes ago, AnonymousGuy said:

So outside all this generic Apple ranting, how do you feel Apple producing a product (Airtags) that has more functionality, lower price, better serviceability, etc. is harmful to consumers?

you think its not antitrust when they have their competitors information and use their position to gain the advantage?

would you be ok with google or microsoft doing the same?

block any other store front so you get all the sales and user data then see where you can steal others ideas for yourself and make better(subjective) with the all  data you collected on them

how is that healthy competition for the consumers?

[CorruptedTech]

1 minute ago, CorruptedTech said:

Thats kinda sad, its like somebody 1v1´ing in a game and losing because its ¨unfair¨ and the person has ¨ëxperience¨ Has tile been in the been in the business for 6 years.

I mean like what is this microsoft?

[Leviathan-]

I'm all for competition but I know anticompetitive practices when I see it. From Tech Crunches article, the fourth paragraph, it states Tile requested access to Apples U1 chip so they can finish working on their UWB feature and release it. Apple has not yet released it to them all the while they R&D their own product. This to me smells rotten and is a problem especially when Tile subscriptions paid through Apple, give a slice off the top back to Apple.

 

Now I don't know guys, maybe some of you do. Who else in the Smart Phone arena offers UWB capability?  

[Bombastinator]

6 minutes ago, Leviathan- said:

I'm all for competition but I know anticompetitive practices when I see it. From Tech Crunches article, the fourth paragraph, it states Tile requested access to Apples U1 chip so they can finish working on their UWB feature and release it. Apple has not yet released it to them all the while they R&D their own product. This to me smells rotten and is a problem especially when Tile subscriptions paid through Apple, give a slice off the top back to Apple.

 

Now I don't know guys, maybe some of you do. Who else in the Smart Phone arena offers UWB capability?  

Didn’t know about the U1 denial.  That bit is interesting and may tip the case.

[Leviathan-]

33 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Didn’t know about the U1 denial.  That bit is interesting and may tip the case.

Here is the article if you wish to read it. I loosely quoted the fourth paragraph but it is there for you to see in its whole context.

https://techcrunch.com/2021/04/20/tile-bashes-apples-new-airtag-as-unfair-competition/

[Jtalk4456]

3 hours ago, Obioban said:

1. Yes, the 10cm thing is for a lost key, etc. The dog finding is the iPhones looking for missing tags use. 

2. The Find My network has existed for many years now without getting hacked in any way. The benefit of it being end to end encrypted that Apple can't access the data-- which also means that even if Apple gets hacked, the hackers still don't have access to it. 

1. For a lost key, I'd argue 10 cm accuracy is unneeded. I find the alarm tone much more helpful when finding things. 

2. hmmmm.... might wanna check again on that
https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/bug-in-apples-find-my-feature-couldve.html

[Blademaster91]

5 hours ago, Obioban said:

The AirTags are using Apple's U1 chip to get that <10 cm accuracy-- not bluetooth. These should be significantly more accurate than any other tracker out there. 

 

Not sure what you mean by all iPhone scanning being too much-- it's end to end encrypted, so only the AirTag owner can see the results. Not Apple, not any governments, etc. 

 

Tile uses subscriptions for non local (bluetooth range) finding things. 

 

The rest of your complaints seem to just be generic apple ranting-- in the case of AirTags, apple is the cheapest for the feature set, longest battery life, waterproof, serviceable, not claiming they invented the category, privacy minded, and doesn't require a subscription. 

1. So that means the airtag only works with apple devices, and accuracy doesn't mean it's better, that is subjective. 

2. Hackers could get all kinds of info from that.

3. According to Tile the subscription is for free battery replacements, an extended warranty, alerts, unlimited sharing, and 30 days of device location history. I don't like subscriptions but at least you get more with it.

4. You can call it "apple ranting" all you want but it's true once apple decides they want to enter the market with something people think apple invented it or its suddenly better because apple took an idea and decided to make their own.

Again I don't like a subscription service, however at least the Tile works with both android,and iphone. I would rather pay a subscription than buy something that is only available on an apple device, and with a Tile I could get people with either an iphone or android device to help me find my lost keys or phone.

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, Leviathan- said:

Here is the article if you wish to read it. I loosely quoted the fourth paragraph but it is there for you to see in its whole context.

https://techcrunch.com/2021/04/20/tile-bashes-apples-new-airtag-as-unfair-competition/

Interesting.  There are some weird dates here besides Apple releasing a competitor before allowing access to U1.  Apple apparently started doing stuff in 2015 but the record starts in 2020?  Apple also has a rep for buying companies whose stuff they want to integrate like that.  As does microsoft.  This is a prime reason amongst several that buying companies is a thing.  It’s generally cheaper to buy a company than compete with it.  Was there an attempt?  Why did it not happen?  There appear to be other competitors already as well. I can see a couple ways TILE may be out in the cold on this one.  They also might not though. 

Edited April 22, 2021 by Bombastinator

[divito]

15 hours ago, Sauron said:

Apple would need to offer third parties the ability to integrate their own functionality in their native app for free or at the very least allow them to distribute their own app at no additional cost.

Which is what allowing them in Find My accomplishes, precisely to avoid anti-competitive perspective.

 

15 hours ago, Sauron said:

Imagine this scenario: what if Microsoft decided they wanted to make graphics cards, bundled their own driver into Windows and then started charging competitors a fee to have the privilege of distributing their own driver on Windows, or for making their own products compatible with the existing driver? Surely you can see how having a de facto monopoly on desktop computer operating systems gives them an unfair competitive advantage here. The same applies to Apple.

 

And this is where the conflation is happening. Apple's 30% app store commission is completely separate to the point.

Tile is even mentioned in the article "that it doesn’t want to give up the direct relationship it has with customers via its own iOS app to instead support Apple’s “Find My” users. 

Essentially, they want to be hosted and listed on Apple's platform for free, while being able to collect revenue through said platform AND while still being able to be used through Apple's own software, simply because they developed a similar product. I strongly dislike Apple and will never use one of their products, but Tile is delusional in that sense. 

[wanderingfool2]

4 hours ago, AnonymousGuy said:

There's actually nothing inherently illegal about having a dominant position in a market when it was grown organically.   Which in the case of iOS, it was.  The app store restrictions and fees have been there since day 1 and yet no one had any problems jumping on board.  You can't have both ways where it was great profitability for the last 15 years and then claim you're just now being injured by it.  Yeah we'd all love to be able to make revenue with zero cost (30% fees)....maybe Tile should go spend a bagillion dollars making their own phone and OS and growing a customer base then and they can do it.  Oh wait, that's what Apple did.

 

Apple isn't stopping Tile from continuing on with their current business model.  In fact, Apple is expanding more options to them probably specifically to not seem anticompetitive. And Tile is still whining.  Yeah...a gorilla just put his dick on the table and made you look like a ken doll.  Cry more, Tile.  Figure out how to make your product more competitive or die.

They developed a competing app while not allowing access to features that Apple is using their own.  They may (unproven) have used stats and data they were privy to to create the competing product

 

Also, there weren't as many restrictions in terms of things like payment as before.

[AnonymousGuy]

2 hours ago, Blademaster91 said:

1. So that means the airtag only works with apple devices, and accuracy doesn't mean it's better, that is subjective. 

2. Hackers could get all kinds of info from that.

Airtags can work with Android, it's only the high precision directional function that's iPhone 11 / 12 because of hardware support.

 

It's Apple so I'm unconcerned about the security of it.  If they say end to end encrypted and has safeguards in it....I believe them cause no one has found anything contradictory in their Touch/FaceID implementations or Secure Enclave.  And if there ever is a problem Apple actually maintains support for their products vs. the Google strategy of "on to the next" after 9 months.

[avg123]

I created this thread, made the OP quoting the articles and stuff and and now the mods have made some 3 post guy the OP and thread creator of this thread???

WTF?

mods?

@wkdpaul@Skiiwee29

[Skiiwee29]

Just now, avg123 said:

I created this thread, made the OP quoting the articles and stuff and and now the mods have made some 3 post guy the OP and thread creator of this thread???

WTF?

mods?

@wkdpaul@Skiiwee29

You did, it was I who messed it up with a thread merge. Its why I marked your OP as the best answer. I apologize. 

[Blancaster]

I get that Apple is forcing Tile to pay them their share for purchases on the App Store, but at the same time, how about not having a subscription model? Try tying the cost into the cost of the device instead of creating an endless stream of money.

[hishnash]

9 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

As per their website, the subscription includes extended warranty, free battery replacements, ability to add friends (for tracking your stuff), history of where your item was, and an alert system.  While I don't necessarily agree with subscription, at least this subscription is appearing to add at least substance.

 

Physical goods and phsycil services (like buying cheese or paying for repair) do not need to go through apples payment system even if you pay in an app on the iPhone (see the amazon app lets you buy cheese, and other goods). The issue they have here is their subscription includes software features "add friends" etc if it was just "extended warranty, free battery replacements" then apple would not ask for a cut. But what they should just do is send you an email when you create an account with your tile and get you to subscribe from there in a webpage (that is not even against apples rules).