At this point, it's worth remembering that one of the points on which Epic lost was Apple's right to take a cut of transactions.
I found this discussion of the Apple v. Epic ruling to be informative:
> as discussed in the findings of facts, IAP is the method by which Apple collects its licensing fee from developers for the use of Apple’s intellectual property. Even in the absence of IAP, Apple could still charge a commission on developers. It would simply be more difficult for Apple to collect that commission.
Indeed, while the Court finds no basis for the specific rate chosen by Apple (i.e., the 30% rate) based on the record, the Court still concludes that Apple is entitled to some compensation for use of its intellectual property.
But use of said IP is required because Apple forbids side-loading. Therefore Apple App store is a monopoly. So hopefully the court result will in the end help get the Apple App store shut down / opened up.
SCOTUS has ruled[0] that use (including implementation) of APIs is fair use, and does not constitute copyright infringement if the author of those APIs wishes to place restrictions on them.
A developer writing an app for iOS can use the APIs provided by Apple without agreeing to license them.
(Granted, you can't get your app into the App Store and onto iPhones/iPads without agreeing to whatever Apple wants you to agree to. Which... is part of the problem.)
Probably not that much considering the past, present and future totals of a 30% cut across all developers lmao. We're talking about a LOT of money here. There's a reason Apple is a "trillion dollar company" and it's not because they're putting in anything even close to as much as they take out.
If it were possible to run unsigned code on the average iDevice (and Apple's framework/drivers disabled for unsigned code) then this would have already been done, a long time ago.
If that one person does it and lets everyone use it, will they do it for free or should they charge for it, perhaps as a percentage of revenue of the developers and applications who use the code?
“Not that much” as in a billion dollars? Ten billion dollars? 100 billion dollars?
Nobody has been able to build a new browser engine in 25 years. So what would be the dollar estimate of a similarly complex UI framework along with high quality device drivers, development tools, services frameworks like iCloud, etc.?
The consumer, who bought the device? Surely the cost of development of said IP is in total recouped from device sales? The device doesn't work without said framework.
The developers who provide a reason to buy the device? Why should they be forced to use a monopolistic platform only because Apple's marketing has successfully clouded consumers' heads?
Humans are terrible at actually boycotting, but I'd love to see what would happen if 90% of app store devs pulled their apps from app stores. Would people buy as many iPhones? Ooooh, now we realise the value proposition that devs are _offering_ Apple, not taking from them.
My guess is users would only notice if a few dozen developers were gone, and the rest of them make apps that are only a little bit better than web apps if that.
Watch and Mac are more or less failed developer platforms (how many native 3rd party apps exist for them?) yet are also both huge businesses just with Apple apps.
Let's see what I have open on my Mac right now: Chrome, Firefox, VSCode, Slack, Teams, Outlook, Spotify, Activity Monitor, TextEdit, Preview, Cura, Docker Desktop.
Of these Apple is only responsible for 2 of them: textedit I could replace with vscode tbf and activity monitor is only open for when the Macbook plays up (constantly) and doesn't even offer remotely useful _aggregate_ stats like "what the fuck is actually consuming all of my memory".
I use Android so let's see what's open on my phone: Ebay, Telegram, Firefox. Hmmm nothing specifically Samsung/Google related. Just because you make a device with an OS doesn't mean you get to charge rent. Flat charge app developers for the minor admin involved in them submitting apps but charging a percentage is a ludicrous anti-consumer money grab. Doesn't matter if it's Apple, Google or anybody else.
How have they leveraged this argument against the idea that the user who purchased the device has some level of right to use the IP on the phone they purchase? Phrase this question another way: if I were to write and sell some application for the iPhone through my personal website, which requires users phones to be jailbroken, would my application and business be in violation of, specifically, US intellectual property law? Assuming I perfectly side-step other more obvious illegalities like trademark law.
Here's another caveat: assume the bundle I distribute is dynamically linked into the underlying operating system, such that I'm definitely distributing nothing except my own code that I wrote. Or, similarly: I ship nothing but my own code, plus a script I wrote the purchaser has to run to statically link the package with iOS libraries present on their Mac.
You can publish your iOS source code and let your end-users compile and load the app onto their own devices, and do so without paying any commissions to Apple.
If you were to compile it yourself such that the end-user device would need to be jailbroken because it lacks the necessary digital signatures, IANAL but I think this would be totally fine on your part, and the end-user would be protected by the jail-breaking exception to the DMCA;
> Jailbreaking and Unlocking Smartphones and Tablets
Since 2010, the DMCA has allowed users to jailbreak their smartphones in order to execute lawfully obtained applications unauthorized by the phone manufacturer. Last week’s announcement reaffirmed the rationale that using unapproved applications on smartphones is fair use and limiting users’ ability to execute such applications hinders choice and impairs innovation.
Your customers can't actually do this without downloading XCode and agreeing to its license agreements. Just downloading XCode is an impossible ask, to say nothing of compiling and deploying to a phone.
Somehow it's not unreasonable for third parties to "use" another company's IP when designing aftermarket accessories for physical products, even when those base products themselves are patented.
What makes the iOS situation different? Aren't apps essentially "digital accessories"?
Some people think of the App Store as a bazaar that Apple runs on its property, and it’s a 15-30% charge to setup a tent and sell your wares. Others think of it as Apple’s general store where they carry your app as a product, and you pay 15-30% for a place on the shelf.
The concept that Kroger (for instance) has a monopoly of customers in its own store is ridiculous. There are other stores, and other bazaars.
What analogy would you use to describe this situation that clarifies your position?
> The concept that Kroger (for instance) has a monopoly of customers in its own store is ridiculous. There are other stores, and other bazaars.
I'm not making the argument from a legal perspective, but from a reality perspective, I think that's a very poor analogy to the way operating systems (and "platforms" generally) work.
The very nature of operating systems is that they have much more control than a simple store. For example, if you want to switch from Kroger to Safeway, just go to Safeway. There are almost zero switching costs. I actually was strongly considering switching from Android to iPhone solely to get iMessage access (that's a whole different ball of Apple anti-competitiveness, but I digress...) But in the end, even after buying the iPhone, I decided to give it away as a Christmas gift because I just couldn't stomach how painful switching would be after a decade-plus history on Android: I'd lose all my Android apps, I'd lose all the easiest access to things that live in Google's ecosystem, I'd lose my day-to-day familiarity with my phone, etc. To be clear, I'm not saying that's impossible, but it's just a much higher burden that deciding to go to a different grocery store.
Note the government has often developed special laws for "platform businesses", for example railroads, telecoms, etc., understanding the unique positions these companies are in when it comes to controlling the larger economy. I wish they would regulate operating system platforms in a similar manner.
I like to think this via car analogy: you have similar ecosystem with car infotainment system platforms, but there the cost of switching is often minimum tenfold. Game consoles are an analogous platform to phones with similar pricepoint in switching costs. Of course phones are much more present in our daily lives for the most part of the population. But I suppose the similar burden would easily hit those platforms if legislation would be imposed, and it would come with both upsides and downsides depending on one's viewpoint.
> it's just a much higher burden that deciding to go to a different grocery store
That very much depends on how much you're invested in a particular platform.
Using the store analogy, if you decide not to shop at Walmart anymore because you detest their policies, and the closest store that carries the products you're used to getting is 20 minutes away, or maybe you now have to go to multiple different stores to get everything you need, making an extra 50 minutes of driving, that's a considerable burden of switching as each time you make your purchases (plus pay higher prices).
Apple's App Store is more akin to a Company Store[1] where you live in a town owned by the company you are utilizing for your lifestyle and their store is the only place you have available to shop. It was a scandal in the past as it's unfair to consumers while also being unfair to producers. The argument of "well you can just move/buy a different phone" did not hold up very well with society.
This unethical model is not any better in our modern world.
Not OP, but sticking with your store analogies, I would use the following:
Apple represents the town government, and the App Store is the only general store in the entire town; other stores have been banned. Don't like it? You're free to pack up and move to another city!
The reason I'd characterize it this way is that changing phone platforms is nontrivial. It's not as simple as just going to another store that day.
> The reason I'd characterize it this way is that changing phone platforms is nontrivial.
I'm sorry, but how is it "nontrivial" to change phone platforms? Google says it's easy and all you need is a cable to get the best experience: https://www.android.com/switch-to-android/
Maybe it's "easy", but it's a lossy process. You lose all your purchased iOS apps, and have to manually buy the same apps (assuming they're available) on Android. If you watch the "See the steps" video, the fine print notes that Google can only "transfer" free apps that have direct equivalents (that is, released by the same developer) on the Play Store.
Your iMessage history disappears; Google can't transfer that to your Android phone. They claim to be able to transfer SMS/MMS history, which surprises me: I'm not sure how they accomplish that. I'm sure there's a ton of other user data that they also can't transfer. (Speaking of iMessage, any group chats you were in are now broken.)
Google of course has an interest in telling people that switching is easy and painless. It's not, though.
Don't forget that getting Apple to stop intercepting your text messages is always a problem. I know a bunch of people who decided to try and switch to android, but they weren't getting their text messages and just went back to an iphone inside of a week.
I agree it’s lossy in some way. Most of the popular apps with purchases are tied to a login, so there’s a step of logging in again but the app is free to download.
Everything else you mention is part of the nature of changing operating systems: software incompatibility / unavailability. That never has and unfortunately never will be solved. It’s hard enough to keep old software working on new releases of the same OS.
But that's the point - it's not like, say, switching to a different car make. It is, indeed, non-trivial to switch phone platforms. So why shouldn't we recognize this fact and hold the companies in the market to a different standard?
It's "non-trivial" to switch to driving a 18-wheeler truck, or stick-shift transmission, or that funky wheel thing in Teslas, which don't support the same software that other car infotainment systems do.
You can't force everything to be uniform and support all of the same features to make switching between manufacturers of a product-class "trivial". How's that part of a healthy free market? Requirements to that effect kills all creativity and specialization of products for different purposes. Android and iOS are different and that's a good thing!
Apple collecting 30% off all purchases is not a feature, and being prevented from doing that does not make it impossible for them to differentiate otherwise.
That analogy doesn't work, unless Kroger is the only grocery store that's permitted to exist.
There are no other stores, or other bazaars. If you want to sell an iOS app, your only option is the Apple App Store.
Apparently the courts don't believe this is a monopoly, presumably because you can also choose to toss your iPhone and buy an Android phone instead. I disagree with that reasoning; to me that's like if Whole Foods also exists in addition to Kroger, but if you want to switch to Whole Foods, you have to get an expensive operation to swap out your stomach, because the groceries at Whole Foods don't work with the stomach that works with the groceries at Kroger.
Or that Apple APIs and SDKs are Apple writing at least half of everyone’s apps for them. They manufacture all the pieces, and people can arrange them differently. Playing Apple 30% is recognizing that a good chunk of the code running in any app is developed and maintained by Apple.
By imposition of the platform. If people could choose to use apples SDK for 30% or react native 3000 revenge of the javascript for free, they would not bat an eye and go for the latter.
And the only roads in and out of your neighborhood leads directly to a Kroger. And there's barbed wire fencing surrounding your neighborhood. Meanwhile, deliveries being made to Kroger from distributors may only use Kroger-branded trucks, which cost at least 20% more. Oh, and that truck may only be serviced by Kroger-approved mechanics. Those mechanics can only buy parts from Kroger. Any totaled truck can't be parted out by mechanics and MUST be recertified by Kroger.
The iPhone is like a vehicle (car, motorcycle, John Deere tractor, etc).
iPhone apps are like after market vehicle parts.
As a vehicle owner I'd like to be able to have a choice whether I want to install OEM parts or after market parts. The after market parts might be cheaper, or have features that the OEM parts lack. I would like to be able to purchase these parts without a 30% markup that goes to the car manufacturer.
As an iPhone user, I'd like to be able to install apps on my iPhone without having to pay the iPhone manufacturer a 30% markup.
I realize that this analogy doesn't directly address the issue of whether Apple has a monopoly on the market of iPhone apps, but it's how I think about it as a consumer.
Using Kroger as an example is interesting because, there is, in fact, a currently ongoing review of M&A activity in the grocery store business to prevent situations that harm customers.
Because it's not unreasonable to disagree with the law. The judges may be applying it correctly, and correctly following the process for determining that the market is all mobile apps, and not just iOS mobile apps, but it's reasonable for people to disagree with that on first principles.
The legal definition of a monopoly has been refined over multiple decades of case law, I would argue that you can’t have a meaningful discussion about whether a company is or isn’t a monopoly without framing it in that context. And yes while it’s reasonable to disagree with the details of the law, it’s another thing entirely to make up some arbitrary criteria in your head and then declare some company is a monopoly based on your imaginary criteria.
Courts get rulings wrong all the time. How many times has someone on death row been exonerated for a crime?
The App Store is a monopoly by definition. It is the only form of app distribution to 100% of iPhone users. Going further, it is the only form of app distribution to greater than 50% of the US market. Vertical integration is a very valid argument to make here, same as it was with Standard Oil, and other companies of the early 20th century.
> The App Store is a monopoly by definition. It is the only form of app distribution to 100% of iPhone users.
That’s not how monopolies are defined under US law, so no it’s not, by definition.
It’s always possible to define an arbitrarily narrow market such that one company owns 100% of it. The legal definition of a monopoly requires specific criteria to be met which have not been met in this case.
> Why did you leave off my next sentence from the quote?
I quoted the specific line I disagreed with?
> Can you please link to the definition you are using?
To be honest this issue is too complicated to be boiled down to a simple definition as the criteria have evolved over time across multiple Supreme Court (and lower court) cases. In this particular case the "iOS app distribution" market is considered an "aftermarket" in antitrust law (the foremarket being smartphones), and single-brand aftermarkets are rarely allowed by the courts.
If you are genuinely curious about the topic this is a good primer:
The most famous Epic game is (or was until this legal battle) played on iOS more than on any other platform, that's in Epic's own complaint. So who built iOS? Why so many people use it? How come they are willing to pay for games instead of pirating them?
Looks like whoever developed iOS and all the hardware it runs on and the ecosystem that makes it appealing for rich users is actually providing Epic a ton of value and profit, but Epic doesn't want to pay for it. I wonder who's greedy here
(Also it's insane how we just accept that Epic with its massive profits and margins is the one who wants to get a discount from Apple, if anything they should be charged double what small business single person devs pay.)
Epic developed a cross-platform game that runs on half a dozen platforms. The appeal of the game is exactly because of that. And you claim that Epic should pay 30% to Apple, because "we are friends with rich people".
Not to mention that the "is actually providing Epic a ton of value and profit" claim is completely bollocks. Can you point to any iOS-exclusive games that matter out there? Ah, right. They don't exist. Because there's (comparatively) very little money in iOS gaming.
> And you claim that Epic should pay 30% to Apple, because "we are friends with rich people".
What?
> "is actually providing Epic a ton of value and profit" claim is completely bollocks
If it was true Epic wouldn't be clamouring so hard for App Store presence and iOS users. Epic is the first to admit that App Store provides a ton of value and profit. The whole rigamarole is Epic wanting it but paying less or nothing for it.
> there's (comparatively) very little money in iOS gaming.
According to whom? Epic filed a lawsuit because they were losing ungodly money after millions of iOS based gamers stopped playing Fortnite. What did they expect, users will start buy gaming consoles just for this? Sorry but that's ludicrous, there's plenty of other good games on iOS. Many of them also don't try to leech money off you or your kids like Fortnite.
> Can you point to any iOS-exclusive games that matter out there?
That's true of any big game, most games are released for multiple platforms because it'd be stupid not to do it if you can.
> Epic wouldn't be clamouring so hard for App Store presence and iOS users
Do you see deliberately kicking themselves off of Apple platforms as "clamoring so hard"? On the contrary, Epic saw the platform was terrible for shooter games and driving extremely little value, and thus was happy to fight the monopoly on behalf of their _other_ main consumer - game engine developers.
> they were losing ungodly money after millions of iOS based gamers stopped playing Fortnite
Sorry but this is just laughable, and the numbers are all there in the lawsuit already. Almost no one played Fortnite on IOS. Some players installed on mobile but the majority solely used it as a web frontend to purchase cosmetics. Thus robbing Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo of their commissions for creating the platforms that players _actually_ play on.
> leech money off you or your kids like Fortnite.
If it wasn't obvious you have some weird bone to pick already, this certainly proves it. Epic's monetization model is wildly less predatory than the vast majority of mobile games. Why are you speaking so confidently about something you seem to know nothing about?
> [iOS] is actually providing Epic a ton of value and profit
> Apple offers developers significantly more than just a games engine. (comment from threeseed)
Apple sells hardware to consumers (above cost), then blocks consumers from actually using the hardware they own, and developers from distributing software for it, without paying Apple a monopolistically-high cut of sales. All Apple provides to developers is access to consumers who are blocked from their own hardware, and a nominal file distribution via CDN. A game engine provides an order of magnitude more value to developers than a CDN file distribution platform offers.
If Apple was providing real value to developers they wouldn't be so deathly afraid of competing with other app distributors.
> Do you see deliberately kicking themselves off of Apple platforms as "clamoring so hard"?
It was a miscalculation. They didn't realize that so many of their users play only on iOS and are not about to invest in new hardware.
Well, turns out their game wasn't that addictive by itself! what made it a killer is a combo of 1) a decent game I guess 2) being available on the most popular gaming platform in developed world. Simply look at HN headline, since 2020 the game made almost no news except for being kicked off marketplaces. Even during Covid lockdowns! It just speaks volumes.
> the numbers are all there in the lawsuit already. Almost no one played Fortnite on IOS
Exactly, they are in the lawsuit. Some 100+ millions of nobodies eh?;)
> Epic's monetization model is wildly less predatory than the vast majority of mobile games.
Oh yeah, I totally agree that scammy behavior is a continuum.
> Apple sells hardware to consumers (above cost)
You are expecting them to sell below cost? And then what, be a charity? Or sell your data to profit, like the alternatives?
> then blocks consumers from actually using the hardware they own
It's clear that you have a preexisting bone to pick with Apple. No one blocks me from using iPhone...
> All Apple provides to developers is access to consumers
The consumer base they created by daring to develop a completely new product with entire ecosystem of hardware and software that those consumers somehow keep and keep finding appealing.
I don't get where the equivalence of "iPhone user" and "rich person" comes from.
It's $1000, most people have acess to that kind of money, even if they need to finance it and even if it is a terrible financial decision for them to buy one, many still do.
It's not the implication, it's the association. Owning an iPhone of course doesn't logically imply the owner is rich. Empirically, however, an iPhone user is likely be higher income.
> It's $1000, most people have acess to that kind of money
"Most people" don't. I maybe do but it's at least half of my monthly income after tax & rent
Worldwide, iPhone user = rich person (and also almost any American = rich person). By being on App Store, Epic had access to those users. Then they lost millions of users after Epic left App Store. You reap what you sow.
Fortnite was previously on iOS, at least until the events and lawsuit referenced in the main link. It’s kinda literally the entire point of the legal battle.
I found this discussion of the Apple v. Epic ruling to be informative:
> as discussed in the findings of facts, IAP is the method by which Apple collects its licensing fee from developers for the use of Apple’s intellectual property. Even in the absence of IAP, Apple could still charge a commission on developers. It would simply be more difficult for Apple to collect that commission.
Indeed, while the Court finds no basis for the specific rate chosen by Apple (i.e., the 30% rate) based on the record, the Court still concludes that Apple is entitled to some compensation for use of its intellectual property.
https://stratechery.com/2021/the-apple-v-epic-decision/
The judge hinted here and there that Epic should have sued over the size of Apple's cut, not it's right to take a cut.