I thought this deserved its own thread.

Just a few days ago, in the thread about tech monopolies, I mentioned that a number of European and Asian judicial systems have gone after Apple for some of their blatantly anticompetitive practices but that no one in the US government seemed to care.

It's legislative rather than judicial, but I'm going to have to eat my words.

The Senate Judiciary Committee passed the "Open App Markets App" by a vote of 20 to 2 yesterday. Hopefully the bill or something similar will make it through Congress.

The bill applies to platforms with app stores with at least 50 million US users. The bill's high points are:

Big tech companies would be prohibited from mandating the use of their own payment platforms for in-app purchases. Apple and Google both do this, currently. There are some reasonable arguments on both sides of this question.

They would also be required to allow apps to direct users to websites where they can make payments, bypassing the companies' payment platforms. Currently, Apple does this and Google doesn't. This is why, for example, you can buy an eBook in the Kindle app on an Android phone, but not on an iPhone. In Kindle for Android, when you buy an eBook, the Kindle app essentially opens a browser window to an Amazon web page and lets you complete the transaction directly with Amazon. Apple totally prohibits anything like this. Even putting text like "visit our website to subscribe" in a help section in an app will get the app removed from the Apple App Store and potentially get the app maker's developer account banned. This is straight up anticonsumer, anticompetitive bullshit.

The bill would also require big tech companies to allow app "sideloading," which just means directly installing apps without going through the app store. Currently, Google lets you do this and Apple doesn't.

An article:

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/0...app-markets-act.html

The bill:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/...ess/senate-bill/2710

That is going to make the apple IOS less secure.

It is both anti-competitive and more secure as it is now..

Anytime the politicians screw with something they screw it up.

Wait till the screaming starts when a side loaded app steals everyone's data.

quote:

Currently, Apple does this and Google doesn't.

I think that should be reversed (Apple doesn't do this and Google does) if you can buy eBooks via Amazon with Google and can't with Apple.

As an Apple fan I prefer it stay the way it is.

I hope the bill dies a slow and painful death, as have the previous attempts.

quote:

Originally posted by Hildur:

quote:

Currently, Apple does this and Google doesn't.

I think that should be reversed (Apple doesn't do this and Google does) if you can buy eBooks via Amazon with Google and can't with Apple.

I was speaking in terms of the “bad” practices. In the example you mentioned, Apple prohibits any kind of link or reference to any alternative way to pay for any digital content for any app on the iOS platform. Google doesn’t.

quote:

Originally posted by cparktd:
As an Apple fan I prefer it stay the way it is.

I hope the bill dies a slow and painful death, as have the previous attempts.

Who knows what madness would ensue if Amazon were allowed to say “go to amazon.com to buy more eBooks” in the Kindle app?

Some of the issues addressed by this bill have significant pros and cons. Letting every random Joe Shittydeveloper implement his own payment system for his app that just emails plaintext credit card details to him has obvious security implications.

Some of the issues addressed by this bill are pure anticompetitive bullshit and are nothing but harmful to the consumer. They are PURELY about Apple using their complete control of their massive platform to wring every penny they can out of every transaction they can get their slimy tentacles into. Apple execs have literally explicitly said as much in interviews about the judicial actions against Apple in Europe and Asia.

Allowing payment on the website should be OK, and a reference to it (but maybe not a link) should be allowed. BUT, I don't agree with side loading. People will load all kinds of spyware, malware, trojan horses, and viruses from sketchy sources because they wanted some app. It happens all the time on computers.

Security is essential, especially with phones now having electronic credit cards, payment systems, GPS tracking of family members, and what have you. Phone security is also a safety issue because malware that takes over your phone could prevent emergency calls, get you lost (GPS no worky) and what have you.

That sounds suspiciously like a “blood will run in the streets” argument.

App sideloading has been present on Android since Android was first released in 2008.

Most end users have no use for it and most end users are not even aware it exists, but for the corporate and personal niche use cases that require it (and for the nerds who just want to mess with stuff), it is there, and it has never resulted in widespread security problems of any significance.

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:

quote:

Originally posted by Hildur:

quote:

Currently, Apple does this and Google doesn't.

I think that should be reversed (Apple doesn't do this and Google does) if you can buy eBooks via Amazon with Google and can't with Apple.

I was speaking in terms of the “bad” practices. In the example you mentioned, Apple prohibits any kind of link or reference to any alternative way to pay for any digital content for any app on the iOS platform. Google doesn’t.

Yes, but the way you wrote it, in the context of the previous sentence, reads exactly backwards from the way it is.

Anyway...

I'm a bit confused about that one. For example: We have both NetFlix and HBO Max accounts. We have apps for both on our Apple TVs and on our Apple mobile devices. We pay NF and HBO Max directly, not Apple. The NF account we have, for example, is the same NF account we had when we were on Android devices. (In fact we still have one Amazon Fire TV streamer. The NF app is on it, and accesses the same account.)

(As an aside: This is one of my complaints about One America News. They don't operate their own subscription/payment system. They use the streaming device makers' app store systems. So, if you have a mix of devices, and want OAN on each, you have to pay the $5/mo. for each OS you use to access OAN.)

As for the side-loading question: It won't make Apple OS' less secure. People side-loading stuff will possibly make their devices less secure. Their doing that won't make my devices less secure.

^^^ Yeah, but people will complain about APPLE when their phones don't work and they can't figure out why. And they will call Apple Support, or go to the Apple Store, and ask them to fix it.

And Apple will say, sorry the license agreement says side loading apps voids the warranty for anything but a diagnosed hardware failure, so we can wipe and restore your phone to factory specs and see what happens.

"But I'll lose all my stuff!"

Haven't you backed up the phone to a Mac or PC?

"No"

And so on.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:

quote:

Originally posted by Hildur:

quote:

Currently, Apple does this and Google doesn't.

I think that should be reversed (Apple doesn't do this and Google does) if you can buy eBooks via Amazon with Google and can't with Apple.

I was speaking in terms of the “bad” practices. In the example you mentioned, Apple prohibits any kind of link or reference to any alternative way to pay for any digital content for any app on the iOS platform. Google doesn’t.

Yes, but the way you wrote it, in the context of the previous sentence, reads exactly backwards from the way it is.

Ah, I see now. You’re right.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

Anyway...

I'm a bit confused about that one. For example: We have both NetFlix and HBO Max accounts. We have apps for both on our Apple TVs and on our Apple mobile devices. We pay NF and HBO Max directly, not Apple. The NF account we have, for example, is the same NF account we had when we were on Android devices. (In fact we still have one Amazon Fire TV streamer. The NF app is on it, and accesses the same account.)

The Apple iOS developer program terms of service say that if your iOS app accepts any kind of payment within the app for digital content, it has to do so through the Apple App Store payment platform.

Apple takes a 15% cut of all transactions up to an annual total of $1 million, and a 30% cut after that. This is new. Prior to late 2020, it was 30% for everybody, across the board.

If you try to make an app that accepts payment through a different system, Apple will remove your app from the App Store and may ban your developer account.

There is an argument to be made that not allowing other payment systems provides a security benefit.

The Apple iOS developer program TOS also say that your app can’t provide any kind of link, text, or other information related to alternative ways to pay for digital content.

If you try to make an app that says “go to our website to pay for content,” Apple will remove your app from the App Store and may ban your developer account.

This is a straight-up, harmful to the consumer cash grab with no conceivable justification.

Apple won’t stop you from using content you have paid for elsewhere.

Apple recognizes that Amazon, Netflix, Google, and so on and so forth are not going to fork over 30% of their gross revenue on digital content to allow it to be consumed in iOS apps and would tell Apple to go piss up a rope if Apple tried to make them.

Apple also recognizes that if Apple was the only digital content provider on iOS, there would be a few diehard fanboys still using iPhones and iPads, but damn near everyone would pitch their iDevices in the trash and buy something else.

So Apple lets you use content you have paid for elsewhere, but they do absolutely everything they think they can possibly get away with to keep payments going through the App Store by mot letting apps use alternate payment systems inside the app and not letting apps direct users to other ways to pay for content.

Google requires apps to use the Play Store payment system, too, if the payment is happening directly in the app. However, Google is marginally less totally consumed by greed and doesn’t prohibit providing links or information about alternative ways to purchase. Taking Amazon Kindle as an example, if you’re in the iOS app and you look up a book you haven’t purchased, you can see information about the book but there is no way to purchase it, no link to the Amazon page where you can purchase it, not even a statement of “you can buy this eBook on Amazon.com.” In the Android Kindle app, when you click on a book you haven’t purchased, it basically opens a popup browser window to the eBook’s Amazon webpage. Assuming you are logged in to your Amazon account, you can then push the “1-click Buy” button on the popup webpage, the purchase goes through as any other purchase on Amazon.com would, and then the popup browser window closes and the new purchase appears in Kindle. It’s seamless enough that most people don’t even realize that a browser window has opened or that they were briefly technically on the Amazon webpage and not in the Kindle app.

The consequences for not following the rules are not hypothetical. There was a legal battle that started in 2020 between Epic Games, who make the popular game Fortnite, and Apple and Google. Epic tried to give users a direct payment option to bypass the App Store payment system (and Google Play payment system) and Apple removed Fortnite from the App Store and Google removed Fortnite from the play Store. Fortnite isn’t a little guy, either. At the time the whole mess started, Fortnite has been downloaded from the Apple App Store 250 million times and had made $1.2 billion (billion with a “b”) in Apple App Store payment system transactions. Epic eventually lost in 2021, and almost two years later, Fortnite is still gone from both the App Store and Play Store.

Epic broke the rules and got the consequences laid out in the rules. I just supply this as evidence that the rules are stringently enforced.

As an aside related to another issue from this thread, if you still want to play Fortnite on an Android device, you can, because you can download the app directly from Epic Games and “sideload” it (install it yourself without using the Play Store). You’re shit out of luck on iOS, though.

Apple is understandably cagey about exactly how much money they make off the App Store platform, but estimates are that the gross transaction total for 2021 was about $85 billion, so Apple took in somewhere in the ballpark of $13-25 billion of pure profit just in transaction fees.

And that right there tells you exactly why Apple is willing to be such an overwhelmingly controlling asshole about digital content payments in iOS apps and by providing a whole ecosystem of services that are unavailable, inconvenient, or terrible to use on other platforms. They are doing absolutely everything they can to keep people locked into a massively profitable ecosystem that they can milk for every penny they can possibly get out of it.

I wrote this post on an iPhone 13 Pro Max. It’s a nice phone. I’ve had several MacBook Pros. They’re nice laptops. You couldn’t pay me enough to mire myself in Apple’s service ecosystem. It’s like the Hotel California - “you can never leave.”

quote:

Originally posted by Lefty Sig:
^^^ Yeah, but people will complain about APPLE when their phones don't work and they can't figure out why. And they will call Apple Support, or go to the Apple Store, and ask them to fix it.

And Apple will say, sorry the license agreement says side loading apps voids the warranty for anything but a diagnosed hardware failure, so we can wipe and restore your phone to factory specs and see what happens.

"But I'll lose all my stuff!"

Haven't you backed up the phone to a Mac or PC?

"No"

And so on.

Android has allowed sideloading since 2008 and this has never been a significant problem.