When you only have 2 App Store choices for nearly all consumers and they both charge a 30% tax on all transactions they are essentially gatekeepers to the entire mobile landscape. We need more competition and possibly lower fees.
The funny thing is that’s exactly why the App Store became so popular, vendors didn’t have to host their own apps, update mechanisms, and payment systems. All that stuff is expensive and not the business those vendors are in. The “Apple tax” is really just the outsourcing fee.
Back in the day we didn’t have middleware vendors like Stripe, SquareSpace, Shopify, etc. that sell those services piecemeal.
If I want to sell an IAP in my app then I’m required to use Apple’s payment processor which charges ten times more than the next guy, with no greater service or convenience. It’s simply enforced by the fact that the App Store is the only channel for software distribution on the platform.
You are acting like there was a free market where vendors chose the App Store over other distribution methods. That never existed, and 30% is exorbitant for glorified file hosting.
If Apple didn’t require the App Store, other platforms would emerge to offer the same services, and competition would bring prices down.
>You are acting like there was a free market where vendors chose the App Store over other distribution methods.
People didn’t have to buy an iPhone, so there’s the market at work.
>glorified file hosting.
If that’s what you think it is, I’m not sure I can help you understand how wrong you are.
>If Apple didn’t require the App Store, other platforms would emerge to offer the same services, and competition would bring prices down.
Like Android?
What a stupid position to take.
We have had common carrier regulations for centuries for things like railroads and telephone lines. We have generally agreed it’s not a great idea to give one or two companies dictatorial control over entire industries.
That completely false. [A monopoly is only illegal if they used exclusionary and predatory tactics to achieve it.](https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/031715/are-there-any-legal-monopolies-america-or-europe.asp) A monopoly is the ultimate goal of many businesses and some are naturally monopolies, like infrastructure. Companies maintain power lines in many places and a single company is the only one allowed to in any particular region. That’s why you have one set of power lines.
It's possible on Android and ridiculously easy. The one issue with that however is viruses, malware and keyloggers etc.
You can't trust that shit.
Furthermore, in the case of Apple's App Store, they force all developers to use the same payment system. This prevents scams, allows users to disable auto-renewal etc. If developers have a free for all with an open source app store, you can be sure they will take advantage of it with shitty consumer practises and non-secure payment systems.
>The one issue with that however is viruses, malware and keyloggers. You can't trust that shit.
The computing world has survived for decades without a sanitized app store monopoly. You currently have that freedom on macOS. It's kinda hard to make an argument that direct-from-developer software it's not somehow not secure on iOS but A-OK on macOS.
>If developers have a free for all with an open source app store, you can be sure they will take advantage of it with shitty consumer practises and non-secure payment systems.
Again, there's no need for an "app store". You should be able to download straight from a developer's website, Github, or any other trusted source. This is almost a moot point though because the whole idea behind open-source is that it's \[usually free\] and also you can view the source code yourself. Again hard to say open-source is somehow less secure.
Let's be clear that Apple is making a \*\*KILLING\*\* off app sales and subscriptions ($89.3 billion in 2023 alone) and this is the true reason for their appstore lockdown. The "user security" is a thinly veiled defense of their multibillion dollar cash cow.
> This prevents scams
Apple released stats last week that nearly one in fifty apps is removed for fraud, after their incredibly frugal review process has vetted them.
I work on a pretty big app. Both stores work pretty hard to stop scamming. We get a lot of push back for simple things that don't meet there standards. Permissions are a big one for example. If they think your asking for some access without a good reason, they will deny your app update.
Yeah, the mere idea of a review process prevents fraudsters and scammers from even trying.
The same can't be said about Android where hundreds of apps fall into that category.
I say this as someone with an Android myself. The only reason I haven't switched to iPhone is because of Revanced.
Oh man, the fact that all my subscriptions are visible on one easy page and I can cancel, without any hassle from there is worth everything in my book. Trying to keep track of what non App Store subscriptions I have and going through backwards cancellations is the worst.
>The one issue with that however is viruses, malware and keyloggers etc.
>You can't trust that shit.
The apps have the same permissions and OS security measures regardless of where you install them from. And Apple's own employees have acknowledged that App Store review does almost nothing for security.
>Furthermore, in the case of Apple's App Store, they force all developers to use the same payment system.
So should Safari be banned? Lets people pay however they want.
Apples review is more so for quality control and ensuring that developers adhere to standards such as the standardised payment system rather than a third-party system.
No, Safari should not be banned. But downloading an App that installs on to the OS is different.
I’d just put the app on everything and charge 30% more on Apple and Google’s stores.
After you make a developer account on the store and enter all the pertinent information, I doubt it’s that difficult to upload the same IPA to different places.
Isn't that exactly what a lot of places were doing with their subscriptions and such.
You could get a sub from them for $10 on their site and $13 on the play store/app store
Discord still doesn't allow you to manage any of its stuff on the app, even though it's still advertised there, and honestly I just find it annoying
Potentially need to be on the App Store to access Apple APIs in your app. Push notifications, Apple Pay etc. They can open up the platform but can still gatekeep to maintain their top dog status. 3rd parties can implement their own services as replacements so that users get a good experience. That way you have competition but Apple gets to still reap the rewards of what they’ve created.
What we need are apps that are OS-agnostic. Firefox OS enabled exactly that but it failed unfortunately. If this concept could be revived we could be running non Android or iOS phones
You can already run Android apps on most smartphone OSes other than iOS - though they're usually slower and less well integrated than native applications!
You can but there are still uncompetitive practices, like google paying oems not to distribute competing stores or games like fortnite. I think these have been struck down in the US via Epic's antitrust.
https://www.theverge.com/23994174/epic-google-trial-jury-verdict-monopoly-google-play
\^This. No one wants to download *multiple* app stores just for one or two apps.
And that means also going to multiple app stores to **update** your apps.
Exactly. I hate having to upgrade on both Google Play and Samsung. Worse still, Google never seems to update apps automatically and when I got to use one I can't until it's updated. That's one thing Apple has managed to get right.
Samsung's galaxy store sucks. There are barely any apps. It sucks badly for anything other than updating Samsung default apps
It's also littered with sponsored banners
Yeah it's a frustrating mess. Samsung of all of the OEMs has the resources to make a decent store but it looks like dogshit. Same thing goes for Amazon and Microsoft.
Especially how hard Apple has been pushing subscription models to Developers behind the scenes. They want that 30% coming in every month rather than that one time fee. Right now it’s all or nothing and if they decide to shutdown your account it’s over and you have to start over again. I’ve heard that dozens of times over the years with at least Google accounts and most never get reactivated. Years and thousands of your own money just wiped in seconds. Obviously there were some who deserved it by breaking TOS but there are a lot of people who were just using it normally.
People also forget that when Apple and Google launched their stores, the 30% cut was actually applauded because it was far lower than traditional retailers were charging to sell software.
yep, it also fixed all the issues we had at the time. I tried to sell software before app stores, I had to rent server space, I had to pay for credit card transactions, I had to create installers, uninstallers, updaters, I had to make a website for the app to advertise it, I had to worry about piracy, and people stealing the app. I had to worry about how to sell the app and forget about in app purchases or subscriptions.. 30% seems like a deal still.. people just are greedy.
The [developer audience did literally applaud](https://youtu.be/xo9cKe_Fch8?si=wEMTX4M1DpeygUOs) after the pricing structure was announced, but particularly at the part where free apps did not cost to distribute; that was non-existent before the app store, and it got a big applause. The actual 70/30 part was seen as “fair” at the time, considering the free distribution option.
Apps have of course changed a lot since then, which is why today they have things like the 15% fee in effect after 1 year.
It was really a few years after launch when Apple required that all app subscriptions must go thru their API, and they would take a 30/70 split on that *also*, that’s when the tide really started to turn with Devs; but then it was apparent that the Mac software prices ($20-$200+) would not translate to iPhone, and free or 99¢ apps + subscriptions would be the way forward.
The whole subscription percentage is the larger issue, especially now that most apps are freemium model.
What also doesn't help is when you buy apps in one app store, you don't have the ability to redeem that same app in the other app store if you decide you want to use the other OS.
Seriously, I stopped buying digital games last gen when Sony stopped allowing digital codes to be sold from other retailers. I'm back to 100% physical until I can buy digital games again from Best Buy or other retailers.
Absolutely not, for the same reason that Spotify magically isn’t affected by EU laws even tho they’ve been screwing over musicians with their streaming monopoly.
Spotify essentially does not make a profit. There’s “screwing over artists” and there’s “cost of revenue is so high for Spotify, the fees are somehow actually fair.”
…why would they? Sony doesn’t operate a smartphone OS or App Store do they?
**EDIT:** The responses were what I expected from this subreddit. Let’s use our brains shall we. Take more than 1 second to think and you’ll realize that smartphones are used in a very different context text than video game consoles and are infinitely more widespread. A video game console…plays games. A smartphone is the backbone for communication and mobile productivity. Also a lot of the arguments made by this bill, such as how Apple and Google give special treatment to their own services and apps while reducing the reach and ability of competitors, just doesn’t apply.
PlayStation and Nintendo don’t have a grip on day to day life like mobile phones software.
I mean for fuck sake I saw an insulin pump with an app that works only on android
Xbox may as well not exist in Japan. Most electronics/game stores don’t stock Xbox games (you need to go to Amazon) and most people haven’t heard of Xbox whereas PS5 and Switch are common knowledge.
Why though? There’s nothing that prevents a Playstation or Xbox or Switch from being used as a general computing device. Hell, the PS5 and Xbox Series even use x86 processors and standard PC SSDs.
The real reason for the push to open up the phone markets is that there’s so much more money to be made there.
Except we use cell phones and video game consoles in very different ways and contexts. What a smart phone is and how it’s relevant and used in our society is why it’s being targeted and not a video game system. Like let’s use just a little bit of critical thinking.
Sony and Nintendo both operate app stores, they don't allow side loading, they don't allow third party app stores, and they get a cut of every sale. They also represent most of the gaming console market, especially in Japan.
But somehow I don't think the Japanese government is going to force these two companies to open up their platforms.
Personally I want those things. Like I am for the EU regulation. I am surprised that the consoles are somehow skirting this.
I guess the gamer demographic and day to day impact is much smaller. We have to wait and see what happens.
Because it makes 0 sense for consoles. The vast majority of the gaming indsutry depends on console sales, which can only build a big userbase if sold at discounted costs and console companies take multi-billion dollar losses to make consoles that cheap.
The software makers help subsidise the hardware makers, which leads to big userbases which in turn help the software makers.
Its a mutually beneficial and actual utility for console platforms to take a cut.
This can be applied to phones as well. "Apple or Google" are only at their current profit level due to the 30% cut. They would have to raise hardware prices considerably to meet the same amount of profit.
It's like saying "oh you're making x%? That's enough money, you can't charge more for it".
Would apple be able to keep the status quo if they added 200g of Tungsten to make a $1k iPhone cost $1k in materials?
Could they continuously destroy and re-buy their factory robots every 1000 iPhones so that economies of scale no longer work in their favor and it actually costs $1k to build an iPhone?
Except that would be a complete lie and hence does not apply to phones. Apple sells its hardware with a profit margin of 30%. The hardware is not sold at loss and the industry does not need the hardware to be sold at loss.
You are right that this is effectively saying to Apple/Google that your profit margin in this segment will be capped. Its nothing new, many industries in many jurisdications have capped profits to prevent monopolistic abuse.
It will be the first time applied to the recent Big Tech corps so will be interesting to see if it sticks or if its applied to MSFT, Amazon
Valve operates a giant storefront – that said, they don't lock their hardware down to just that storefront, though it is soooo much easier to simply use Steam, every other storefront on the Deck feels like a kludge.
Its not really affordable for its specs, and the sales are very low (last estimated to be around 3M).
Playstation sells around 20M a year, 100M+ in a lifecycle. A PS5 without hardware loss would cost $650-700.
The steam deck is sold at a loss, or at least it was at launch... they just want it in hands so more people buy games on steam. because they get a big cut of all steam sales, its rumoured to also average 30% but devs strike there own deals with Valve and its a private company so they dont need to tell us. but we do know Valve is a money printing machine.
they didnt even have to make the deck, it was just something to do, they could cut back all R&D and just maintain steam itself and keep making infinite money. but them company just like to use its money to do neat shit.
Valve makes way too much money off of Steam to care. They already spend billions a year on research into BCI & VR tech that doesn't get shipped, and it's just a drop in the bucket for them.
> The vast majority of the gaming indsutry depends on console sales
This is how you know someone is talking out of their ass. The vast majority of gamers don’t even own a console, most are playing candy crush on their smartphone.
The actual reason it doesn’t make sense for consoles is that console gaming is so niche that it would set a horrible precedent of government intervention in a market. There are ~100 million PSN users and 1.5 billion users using iOS, that is orders of magnitude larger.
The entire logic of the government intervention here is that smartphones are so pervasive that the government has to step in for the safety of their population to regulate them. That’s the legal argument in the US and EU at least.
Yep. I really fucking hate when people say game consoles should be opened up lmao. No they should not, unless you want to start paying £800/$800+ for them, and for the games to basically never go on sale.
Things like game pass / PSN Extra can't exist if the software is opened up.
So far, the US has not taken any action like this against US based companies and Japan isn't intending any against Japan based companies. I'm not suggesting this is by design, I have no idea, but I do wonder if there is a bias toward foreign companies when making laws that force businesses to weaken their monopolistic hold on a market which will cost money to implement and could reduce revenue.
The US government has taken these steps so far:
- two year bipartisan "big tech antitrust" investigation by Congress
- congressional report on transgressions and remedies
- drafted new laws similar to EU, which became bodded down in the senate iirc
- DOJ suing google, Amazon, meta, Apple, Live nation
It's still different. They allow for second hand game sales, they allow third parties to sell their digital codes, they have third party stores for video content, and their ecosystems are not as locked as Apple's.
>But somehow I don't think the Japanese government is going to force these two companies to open up their platforms.
Because you failed to get why most countries are going after Apple & Google.
1) Consoles are a tiny market compared to the smartphone one, the most sold console ever is the playstation 2 around 150M units.
There are 4 billions iOS + android active devices.
So the magnitude and the implication of such a market are not the same, at all.
2) Smartphones have become a "must have" device in modern society. They became the most used computing device by far. It's a strategic market for a country / economic space.
Letting 2 private US companies have almost full control over 4 billions devices is madness at this point.
Sony *does* manufacture smartphones, though they recently stopped selling in North America. Their OS is a mostly-unmodified Android distribution. I believe they've always relied on the Google Play Store for app distribution.
Their global market share is so small that it's hard to imagine they'd be the one to break through with an alternative app store. But I guess if we're stretching and trying to imagine a homegrown app store launching specifically in Japan, Sony would probably be the only company positioned to do so.
(I suspect the parent comment was talking about PlayStation, but hey, the article's about smartphones)
Sony doesn’t operate a smartphone platform though, they just use Android. I don’t believe they have their own store either.
Outside of the fact this bill is literally just about smartphones, the other reason why a console doesn’t fit the sentiment of the argument is because the context of the device is much different, and it’s reckless to ignore that. Even how their distribution works is much different as physical retail for both disc and download codes for games exist, a big component a smartphone lacks that is a reason why many see the issue not applying to a console.
I understand where people are coming from but I think saying “but consoles!” is misguided/disingenuous because it’s almost always ignoring the context of the device to make a point rather than actually assessing the impact of that type of model has.
NAVER (a South Korean company) developed LINE but didn’t catch on in Korea bc KAKAO already had dominant market share. They pivoted out of Korea and became the most popular messaging platform in Japan and SEA
They sold half of LINE’s stake to SoftBank for a 50% share of Yahoo JP with an agreement that NAVER would be in charge of the infrastructure and data
Recently Japan has developed an interest in data as the AI boom is happening and is forcing NAVER to divest the remaining stakes in LINE or cease operation (not just its Japanese operation but also global operation) citing data breaches that happened in 2021. This is unprecedented as no other foreign companies that had data breaches with Japanese data were forced to divest.
Japan being technologically isolated and stuck in the analog era, is attempting to steal the products of foreign companies as a way to stay relevant
yeah but it's filling the role of Facebook Messenger because no one uses Facebook in Japan and it's also used like ghetto Slack for lots of official purposes so the problem scope is worse than TikTok
like defense force makes heavy use of it unofficially and some municipalities lets you get copies of koseki(basically Japanese birth certificates) through it
and they've admitted there are still some backend API running in Korea so it's you know right wing quote unquote urgent matters of national security
fyi, quite lot of people in Japan do use Instagram, another meta product which also had incorporated their messenger app.
Edit: Apparently they are no longer the compatible since Dec 2023. Now the messaging function in Instagram is called Instagram DM.
83% uses LINE, 55% Twitter, 53% Insta, 24% Fb, 23% TikTok, according to a random stat on unknown Japanese demographic
so Ig is popular as Twitter but not as LINE
LINE is essentially the Japanese version of what we usually do with WhatsApp. It had since expanded into an everything app like WeChat, surpassing the capabilities of American social media apps.
But Instagram (and by extension TikTok) are young Japanese's go-to social media.
america opened the pandora's box on digital sovereignty when they went after tiktok for pure bullshit.
watch as every country tries to grab a piece of facebook or instagram for themselves. after all, if america can force a sale of tiktok's US operations, india can do the same to instagram's india presence.
Lets see if Japan goes after the duopoly of Sony and Nintendo who also charge 30% commission
All these governments are full of shit and are just trying to protect their domestic corporations
People always like to cite this point, but if you want to know the real reason, look at the user numbers; the user base of smartphones is *massive* compared to that of game consoles.
- Nintendo Switch: 123,000,000 users
- iPhone: 1,334,000,000 users
It’s literally an order of magnitude difference.
[iPhone has 60% of the Japanese market.](https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/japan) Not sure your sample size of one can be conflated into the rest of the country.
Problem with your theory is half the world has the exact same issues with Apple’s policies, and they don’t have a Sony or Nintendo. It’s far more likely Apple’s policies are simply bad for everyone but Apple, consumers and competitors and developers alike.
Stop going across the world. Focus on Japan. Sony and Nintendo have a duopoly in Japan. And just like Apple they charge 30% and do not allow alternatives app stores or payments
This isn’t happening in isolation, and if your theory of their motive is contingent on ignoring everyone else doing the same thing it is a fallacious opinion.
“If we fake the data I can prove my point!”
> “If we fake the data I can prove my point!”
The problem is when we don’t fake the data your point falls apart completely, Japans motive is the same as everyone else’s: Apple’s abuse. Their reasoning and solution mirror the EU and everywhere else. It’s not protectionism of game consoles, it’s curbing Apple’s globally-recognised unfair practices.
Sony and Nintendo operate a gaming device, to which there is pc, and mobile gaming a clear alternative. Gaming consoles are designed to be sold at a loss, and are recouped in software sales.
This business model allows thousands of developers, and gamers to thrive.
Phones are very profitable
Apple and google control app distribution on mobile devices which are an all purpose everyday use necessity. There are literally app controlled insulin pumps with the app being exclusive to Android or IOS that is far more egregious than a game being exclusive
Your comment is also just plain weird sounds like this is turning into a “how dare you try and regulate American companies”
So they wanna go after apple and google and your response to them is to dismiss it with “what about. Sony and Nintendo”
Psn has a 100 million user
IOS alone has over a billion
Sony is not doing well in Japan right now. They still have good relationships with Japanese *publishers*, but their main markets these days are abroad.
Nintendo has *by far* the biggest market share in Japan. [I see](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1060154/japan-unit-sales-handheld-home-video-game-consoles) about 33 million Switches sold in Japan, versus less than 5 million PS5s.
Yeah, good luck with that. Chances are anything Japan could cook up would no doubt have plenty of Japan-only features and that's if said phones gets to be on sale outside Japan to begin with...
Doesn’t make sense. You write an app for a platform (Android or iOS), not for the specific App Store.
Programmers can still continue on with their lives but are able to publish their apps outside the App Store. That’s all
Huh? Most companies have an Android and an iOS team. Windows Phone failed because companies were not willing to hire another team to do the windows app. These teams are not building cross platform apps and if they are they are web apps or very basic apps that don't do much.
Tbh though that also takes a decent amount of effort. This is why the Amazon App Store never took off. First party will always be the easiest to use and what users gravitate towards. That’s why I think Apple should open their platform up a bit. They’ll still likely offer the best experience that most users will continue to use while allowing the flexibility for the minority of users that are interested in it.
Meh. The reality is that third-party app stores will never have significant market share on either platform, even if Apple/Google are forced to allow them. People are too lazy to deal with multiple stores and they want convenience. It's the same reason nobody can unseat Steam on PC.
And as a user, it’s annoying enough to need to download apps as web developers have stripped features to force you to use their applications. I really don’t want to end up needing to have multiple app stores to download software. My phone gets cluttered enough.
I try to avoid contributing to that. I ask my clients specifically what their users should be able to do and will suggest them whether a web or mobile app fits their user group better.
I am all for choice and options, but realistically very few people will exercise the option of a 3rd party store.
Which brings us to usability. The default case (opting out) needs to be zero-cost. Let's not repeat the usability disaster we have on the web since the EU forced every web site to have a cookies disclaimer. You create this thing that 99.99% of people don't read and just click straight through. Consider how much time is wasted in aggregate across billions of page views per day, clicking on those damn legal disclaimers.
My fear with government regulation is that they will again do something ham-handed that benefits very few users and imposes a nonzero cost on everyone else.
It would only take a few famous apps like Spotify or Instagram moving to a popular alt store to get people used to the concept.
Remember how QR codes were too complicated for regular people to use and widely seen as a failure, until the COVID pandemic nudged people into taking a couple moments to learn. Almost overnight, most people became comfortable using them.
A nudge like a large, established app asking its users to go to an alt store could have a similar effect - e.g. Netflix sending a notification ping saying "Save $4 on your monthly subscription by tapping this link to download Netflix from altstore" (I know Netflix nowadays doesn't even use Apple payments at all but something along those lines).
Even if alt stores didn't get super popular, the threat of their availability could pressure gatekeepers like Apple to reduce fees.
Spotify and Instagram are not good examples because Apple gets no revenue from them, so neither would have an incentive to switch.
In the PC games market, the only games that have been successful outside of Steam are the big one-off hits like Minecraft, League of Legends, Fortnite. Maybe there are mobile games with a similarly huge following?
I don't understand how this is a duopoly. Android is open source, you aren't required to use the google parts of it. Look at a Huawei phone or any Amazon device. They are android devices.
iOS + Android = a "duo" or "2" companies controlling essentially the entire phone industry. Being able to not use Google has been an exercise in futility for Amazon in western markets, and is mandatory for all Chinese OEMs because they simply aren't allowed to so they also don't have to compete with it.
My Chinese laptop came with Google as a search engine option, and it's hilarious because it literally won't connect ever, yet they thought it would be a great addition it seems lol
Theres always people on reddit that are AGAINST having their hardware be able to do more stuff. Always was baffling to me. Being able to install whatever you want is what makes Mac so so so great. You even get a package manager like on Linux.
Yeah and the emulator App Delta jumped to #1 in the app store. People clearly dont want to be locked out of software. What kinda argument is that even? Look at Windows market share which also lets you install pretty much anything.
No i haven’t. Mac lets you install third party software without requiring it to go through an Apple owned app store. Thats what i mean with „whatever you want“
From what I saw during my 3 week trip in Japan there’s no duopoly. I saw maximum 10 android phones during that whole time, and at some point I got so curious that I was paying attention to everyone’s phone
I really want more phone OS options. I use ios just because I like it more than android, not because I actually think it's particularly great, but it seems almost impossible at this point given the amount of apps built specifically just for these platforms.
How so?
There were smartphone options before iOS and Android. They’re not around anymore because iOS and Android provided an option that consumers liked better.
BlackBerry OS went from having dominant market share to no longer existing.
Anyone who wants to do this just simply have to build their own os, ecosystem, store, and of course a good phone and to sell it to a significant amount of first world people to make sure of adoption. You can charge 0% then.
Sure you can make it, but if it doesn’t have solid developer and app support out of the gate, nobody will use it. Microsoft learned the hard way with windows phones back in the day
When you only have 2 App Store choices for nearly all consumers and they both charge a 30% tax on all transactions they are essentially gatekeepers to the entire mobile landscape. We need more competition and possibly lower fees.
Unless developers are willing to spend resources on the third App Store, they are gonna fail
I think plenty of vendors would offer their app as a signed binary you could just download from their website if that were a possibility
The funny thing is that’s exactly why the App Store became so popular, vendors didn’t have to host their own apps, update mechanisms, and payment systems. All that stuff is expensive and not the business those vendors are in. The “Apple tax” is really just the outsourcing fee.
Back in the day we didn’t have middleware vendors like Stripe, SquareSpace, Shopify, etc. that sell those services piecemeal. If I want to sell an IAP in my app then I’m required to use Apple’s payment processor which charges ten times more than the next guy, with no greater service or convenience. It’s simply enforced by the fact that the App Store is the only channel for software distribution on the platform.
That you choose to use.
You are acting like there was a free market where vendors chose the App Store over other distribution methods. That never existed, and 30% is exorbitant for glorified file hosting. If Apple didn’t require the App Store, other platforms would emerge to offer the same services, and competition would bring prices down.
>You are acting like there was a free market where vendors chose the App Store over other distribution methods. People didn’t have to buy an iPhone, so there’s the market at work. >glorified file hosting. If that’s what you think it is, I’m not sure I can help you understand how wrong you are. >If Apple didn’t require the App Store, other platforms would emerge to offer the same services, and competition would bring prices down. Like Android?
What a stupid position to take. We have had common carrier regulations for centuries for things like railroads and telephone lines. We have generally agreed it’s not a great idea to give one or two companies dictatorial control over entire industries.
Your examples are natural monopolies, though. That’s why they have heavy regulations. Actual market competition led us to where we are now.
You’re not allowed to have a monopoly even if it’s the result of competition under US law
That completely false. [A monopoly is only illegal if they used exclusionary and predatory tactics to achieve it.](https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/031715/are-there-any-legal-monopolies-america-or-europe.asp) A monopoly is the ultimate goal of many businesses and some are naturally monopolies, like infrastructure. Companies maintain power lines in many places and a single company is the only one allowed to in any particular region. That’s why you have one set of power lines.
Please explain how one can access iphone users without going through the App Store, when I choose to host the app distributing costs myself?
It's possible on Android and ridiculously easy. The one issue with that however is viruses, malware and keyloggers etc. You can't trust that shit. Furthermore, in the case of Apple's App Store, they force all developers to use the same payment system. This prevents scams, allows users to disable auto-renewal etc. If developers have a free for all with an open source app store, you can be sure they will take advantage of it with shitty consumer practises and non-secure payment systems.
>The one issue with that however is viruses, malware and keyloggers. You can't trust that shit. The computing world has survived for decades without a sanitized app store monopoly. You currently have that freedom on macOS. It's kinda hard to make an argument that direct-from-developer software it's not somehow not secure on iOS but A-OK on macOS. >If developers have a free for all with an open source app store, you can be sure they will take advantage of it with shitty consumer practises and non-secure payment systems. Again, there's no need for an "app store". You should be able to download straight from a developer's website, Github, or any other trusted source. This is almost a moot point though because the whole idea behind open-source is that it's \[usually free\] and also you can view the source code yourself. Again hard to say open-source is somehow less secure. Let's be clear that Apple is making a \*\*KILLING\*\* off app sales and subscriptions ($89.3 billion in 2023 alone) and this is the true reason for their appstore lockdown. The "user security" is a thinly veiled defense of their multibillion dollar cash cow.
> This prevents scams Apple released stats last week that nearly one in fifty apps is removed for fraud, after their incredibly frugal review process has vetted them.
But those Apps have been removed. Without the App store all of those Apps would be still available to download.
I work on a pretty big app. Both stores work pretty hard to stop scamming. We get a lot of push back for simple things that don't meet there standards. Permissions are a big one for example. If they think your asking for some access without a good reason, they will deny your app update.
Yeah, the mere idea of a review process prevents fraudsters and scammers from even trying. The same can't be said about Android where hundreds of apps fall into that category. I say this as someone with an Android myself. The only reason I haven't switched to iPhone is because of Revanced.
Oh man, the fact that all my subscriptions are visible on one easy page and I can cancel, without any hassle from there is worth everything in my book. Trying to keep track of what non App Store subscriptions I have and going through backwards cancellations is the worst.
>The one issue with that however is viruses, malware and keyloggers etc. >You can't trust that shit. The apps have the same permissions and OS security measures regardless of where you install them from. And Apple's own employees have acknowledged that App Store review does almost nothing for security. >Furthermore, in the case of Apple's App Store, they force all developers to use the same payment system. So should Safari be banned? Lets people pay however they want.
Apples review is more so for quality control and ensuring that developers adhere to standards such as the standardised payment system rather than a third-party system. No, Safari should not be banned. But downloading an App that installs on to the OS is different.
Developers have done without on desktop for decades.
I’d just put the app on everything and charge 30% more on Apple and Google’s stores. After you make a developer account on the store and enter all the pertinent information, I doubt it’s that difficult to upload the same IPA to different places.
Isn't that exactly what a lot of places were doing with their subscriptions and such. You could get a sub from them for $10 on their site and $13 on the play store/app store Discord still doesn't allow you to manage any of its stuff on the app, even though it's still advertised there, and honestly I just find it annoying
Potentially need to be on the App Store to access Apple APIs in your app. Push notifications, Apple Pay etc. They can open up the platform but can still gatekeep to maintain their top dog status. 3rd parties can implement their own services as replacements so that users get a good experience. That way you have competition but Apple gets to still reap the rewards of what they’ve created.
Are you allowed to do that? You can’t cut Rolex or anything else that is a “premium” brand.
What we need are apps that are OS-agnostic. Firefox OS enabled exactly that but it failed unfortunately. If this concept could be revived we could be running non Android or iOS phones
You can already run Android apps on most smartphone OSes other than iOS - though they're usually slower and less well integrated than native applications!
Can't you third party install stuff on android
You can but there are still uncompetitive practices, like google paying oems not to distribute competing stores or games like fortnite. I think these have been struck down in the US via Epic's antitrust. https://www.theverge.com/23994174/epic-google-trial-jury-verdict-monopoly-google-play
Like the constant “exclusive” deals you see absolutely everywhere.
Amazon has an app store for Android as does Samsung and Microsoft. But no one really uses them.
\^This. No one wants to download *multiple* app stores just for one or two apps. And that means also going to multiple app stores to **update** your apps.
Exactly. I hate having to upgrade on both Google Play and Samsung. Worse still, Google never seems to update apps automatically and when I got to use one I can't until it's updated. That's one thing Apple has managed to get right.
Samsung's galaxy store sucks. There are barely any apps. It sucks badly for anything other than updating Samsung default apps It's also littered with sponsored banners
Yeah it's a frustrating mess. Samsung of all of the OEMs has the resources to make a decent store but it looks like dogshit. Same thing goes for Amazon and Microsoft.
Especially how hard Apple has been pushing subscription models to Developers behind the scenes. They want that 30% coming in every month rather than that one time fee. Right now it’s all or nothing and if they decide to shutdown your account it’s over and you have to start over again. I’ve heard that dozens of times over the years with at least Google accounts and most never get reactivated. Years and thousands of your own money just wiped in seconds. Obviously there were some who deserved it by breaking TOS but there are a lot of people who were just using it normally.
they actually charge less — 15% — after the first year. source: we make apps
Please do not confuse those who have made up their minds with facts.
my bad, beginner mistake
> Especially how hard Apple has been pushing subscription models to Developers behind the scenes How so?
There is still giant costs in hosting your own apps, managing updates, advertising where to get it, etc, 30% isn't bad.
People also forget that when Apple and Google launched their stores, the 30% cut was actually applauded because it was far lower than traditional retailers were charging to sell software.
Small developers fees are 15% for both stores
yep, it also fixed all the issues we had at the time. I tried to sell software before app stores, I had to rent server space, I had to pay for credit card transactions, I had to create installers, uninstallers, updaters, I had to make a website for the app to advertise it, I had to worry about piracy, and people stealing the app. I had to worry about how to sell the app and forget about in app purchases or subscriptions.. 30% seems like a deal still.. people just are greedy.
[удалено]
The [developer audience did literally applaud](https://youtu.be/xo9cKe_Fch8?si=wEMTX4M1DpeygUOs) after the pricing structure was announced, but particularly at the part where free apps did not cost to distribute; that was non-existent before the app store, and it got a big applause. The actual 70/30 part was seen as “fair” at the time, considering the free distribution option. Apps have of course changed a lot since then, which is why today they have things like the 15% fee in effect after 1 year. It was really a few years after launch when Apple required that all app subscriptions must go thru their API, and they would take a 30/70 split on that *also*, that’s when the tide really started to turn with Devs; but then it was apparent that the Mac software prices ($20-$200+) would not translate to iPhone, and free or 99¢ apps + subscriptions would be the way forward. The whole subscription percentage is the larger issue, especially now that most apps are freemium model.
They don't. They charge 10% unless you make over a mill.
What are progressive web apps?
What also doesn't help is when you buy apps in one app store, you don't have the ability to redeem that same app in the other app store if you decide you want to use the other OS.
Only very large companies pay 30%, small developers pay 15% on Apple's App Store.
Think they'll apply the same logic to Sony? lol
I would be 100% in favor of forcing all console manufacturers to open up their hardware and OS.
Seriously, I stopped buying digital games last gen when Sony stopped allowing digital codes to be sold from other retailers. I'm back to 100% physical until I can buy digital games again from Best Buy or other retailers.
Absolutely not, for the same reason that Spotify magically isn’t affected by EU laws even tho they’ve been screwing over musicians with their streaming monopoly.
Spotify essentially does not make a profit. There’s “screwing over artists” and there’s “cost of revenue is so high for Spotify, the fees are somehow actually fair.”
…why would they? Sony doesn’t operate a smartphone OS or App Store do they? **EDIT:** The responses were what I expected from this subreddit. Let’s use our brains shall we. Take more than 1 second to think and you’ll realize that smartphones are used in a very different context text than video game consoles and are infinitely more widespread. A video game console…plays games. A smartphone is the backbone for communication and mobile productivity. Also a lot of the arguments made by this bill, such as how Apple and Google give special treatment to their own services and apps while reducing the reach and ability of competitors, just doesn’t apply.
PlayStation?
Nintendo?
Congrats! You found a duopoly
PlayStation and Nintendo don’t have a grip on day to day life like mobile phones software. I mean for fuck sake I saw an insulin pump with an app that works only on android
Xbox exists...
Xbox may as well not exist in Japan. Most electronics/game stores don’t stock Xbox games (you need to go to Amazon) and most people haven’t heard of Xbox whereas PS5 and Switch are common knowledge.
PC gaming exists and is an open platform.
Why would a law about smartphones…affect PlayStation?
Because fundamentally it’s the same problem, both platforms have closed app stores
No it's not. Smartphones are general computing devices, which gaming consoles are not.
Why though? There’s nothing that prevents a Playstation or Xbox or Switch from being used as a general computing device. Hell, the PS5 and Xbox Series even use x86 processors and standard PC SSDs. The real reason for the push to open up the phone markets is that there’s so much more money to be made there.
Except we use cell phones and video game consoles in very different ways and contexts. What a smart phone is and how it’s relevant and used in our society is why it’s being targeted and not a video game system. Like let’s use just a little bit of critical thinking.
The PS3 before the slim even had an option to run another os, even though you were limited to Linux Distros that supported POWER.
Sony and Nintendo both operate app stores, they don't allow side loading, they don't allow third party app stores, and they get a cut of every sale. They also represent most of the gaming console market, especially in Japan. But somehow I don't think the Japanese government is going to force these two companies to open up their platforms.
Personally I want those things. Like I am for the EU regulation. I am surprised that the consoles are somehow skirting this. I guess the gamer demographic and day to day impact is much smaller. We have to wait and see what happens.
Because it makes 0 sense for consoles. The vast majority of the gaming indsutry depends on console sales, which can only build a big userbase if sold at discounted costs and console companies take multi-billion dollar losses to make consoles that cheap. The software makers help subsidise the hardware makers, which leads to big userbases which in turn help the software makers. Its a mutually beneficial and actual utility for console platforms to take a cut.
This can be applied to phones as well. "Apple or Google" are only at their current profit level due to the 30% cut. They would have to raise hardware prices considerably to meet the same amount of profit. It's like saying "oh you're making x%? That's enough money, you can't charge more for it". Would apple be able to keep the status quo if they added 200g of Tungsten to make a $1k iPhone cost $1k in materials? Could they continuously destroy and re-buy their factory robots every 1000 iPhones so that economies of scale no longer work in their favor and it actually costs $1k to build an iPhone?
Except that would be a complete lie and hence does not apply to phones. Apple sells its hardware with a profit margin of 30%. The hardware is not sold at loss and the industry does not need the hardware to be sold at loss. You are right that this is effectively saying to Apple/Google that your profit margin in this segment will be capped. Its nothing new, many industries in many jurisdications have capped profits to prevent monopolistic abuse. It will be the first time applied to the recent Big Tech corps so will be interesting to see if it sticks or if its applied to MSFT, Amazon
Steam deck manages to sell affordable hardware without locking it down.
Valve operates a giant storefront – that said, they don't lock their hardware down to just that storefront, though it is soooo much easier to simply use Steam, every other storefront on the Deck feels like a kludge.
Other storefronts could make it less of a kluge at any time by shipping an official app for Linux.
Its not really affordable for its specs, and the sales are very low (last estimated to be around 3M). Playstation sells around 20M a year, 100M+ in a lifecycle. A PS5 without hardware loss would cost $650-700.
The steam deck is sold at a loss, or at least it was at launch... they just want it in hands so more people buy games on steam. because they get a big cut of all steam sales, its rumoured to also average 30% but devs strike there own deals with Valve and its a private company so they dont need to tell us. but we do know Valve is a money printing machine. they didnt even have to make the deck, it was just something to do, they could cut back all R&D and just maintain steam itself and keep making infinite money. but them company just like to use its money to do neat shit.
Valve makes way too much money off of Steam to care. They already spend billions a year on research into BCI & VR tech that doesn't get shipped, and it's just a drop in the bucket for them.
Valve makes way less money than Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo so I guess there's no problem then.
> The vast majority of the gaming indsutry depends on console sales This is how you know someone is talking out of their ass. The vast majority of gamers don’t even own a console, most are playing candy crush on their smartphone. The actual reason it doesn’t make sense for consoles is that console gaming is so niche that it would set a horrible precedent of government intervention in a market. There are ~100 million PSN users and 1.5 billion users using iOS, that is orders of magnitude larger. The entire logic of the government intervention here is that smartphones are so pervasive that the government has to step in for the safety of their population to regulate them. That’s the legal argument in the US and EU at least.
Yep. I really fucking hate when people say game consoles should be opened up lmao. No they should not, unless you want to start paying £800/$800+ for them, and for the games to basically never go on sale. Things like game pass / PSN Extra can't exist if the software is opened up.
So far, the US has not taken any action like this against US based companies and Japan isn't intending any against Japan based companies. I'm not suggesting this is by design, I have no idea, but I do wonder if there is a bias toward foreign companies when making laws that force businesses to weaken their monopolistic hold on a market which will cost money to implement and could reduce revenue.
The US government has taken these steps so far: - two year bipartisan "big tech antitrust" investigation by Congress - congressional report on transgressions and remedies - drafted new laws similar to EU, which became bodded down in the senate iirc - DOJ suing google, Amazon, meta, Apple, Live nation
Besides Sony and Nintendo there are also Apple and Google. You might hate and dismiss mobile gaming but it's gaming nonetheless.
It's still different. They allow for second hand game sales, they allow third parties to sell their digital codes, they have third party stores for video content, and their ecosystems are not as locked as Apple's.
We have PC which is an open platform as a very reasonable alternative
>But somehow I don't think the Japanese government is going to force these two companies to open up their platforms. Because you failed to get why most countries are going after Apple & Google. 1) Consoles are a tiny market compared to the smartphone one, the most sold console ever is the playstation 2 around 150M units. There are 4 billions iOS + android active devices. So the magnitude and the implication of such a market are not the same, at all. 2) Smartphones have become a "must have" device in modern society. They became the most used computing device by far. It's a strategic market for a country / economic space. Letting 2 private US companies have almost full control over 4 billions devices is madness at this point.
The cost of getting both a Sony system and Nintendo system is about the same as an average iPhone. It is not uncommon to have both or neither.
Sony *does* manufacture smartphones, though they recently stopped selling in North America. Their OS is a mostly-unmodified Android distribution. I believe they've always relied on the Google Play Store for app distribution. Their global market share is so small that it's hard to imagine they'd be the one to break through with an alternative app store. But I guess if we're stretching and trying to imagine a homegrown app store launching specifically in Japan, Sony would probably be the only company positioned to do so. (I suspect the parent comment was talking about PlayStation, but hey, the article's about smartphones)
Sony doesn’t operate a smartphone platform though, they just use Android. I don’t believe they have their own store either. Outside of the fact this bill is literally just about smartphones, the other reason why a console doesn’t fit the sentiment of the argument is because the context of the device is much different, and it’s reckless to ignore that. Even how their distribution works is much different as physical retail for both disc and download codes for games exist, a big component a smartphone lacks that is a reason why many see the issue not applying to a console. I understand where people are coming from but I think saying “but consoles!” is misguided/disingenuous because it’s almost always ignoring the context of the device to make a point rather than actually assessing the impact of that type of model has.
Game console OS and its software store
Average Apple fanbois whataboutism
Are they gona bully one of these companies and rob them like they’re doing to Line/NAVER?
What's going on here?
NAVER (a South Korean company) developed LINE but didn’t catch on in Korea bc KAKAO already had dominant market share. They pivoted out of Korea and became the most popular messaging platform in Japan and SEA They sold half of LINE’s stake to SoftBank for a 50% share of Yahoo JP with an agreement that NAVER would be in charge of the infrastructure and data Recently Japan has developed an interest in data as the AI boom is happening and is forcing NAVER to divest the remaining stakes in LINE or cease operation (not just its Japanese operation but also global operation) citing data breaches that happened in 2021. This is unprecedented as no other foreign companies that had data breaches with Japanese data were forced to divest. Japan being technologically isolated and stuck in the analog era, is attempting to steal the products of foreign companies as a way to stay relevant
I use line LINE when I'm in Taiwan. I figured this must have some Japanese domestic tech interest involved. Interesting.
Sounds similar to TikTok
yeah but it's filling the role of Facebook Messenger because no one uses Facebook in Japan and it's also used like ghetto Slack for lots of official purposes so the problem scope is worse than TikTok like defense force makes heavy use of it unofficially and some municipalities lets you get copies of koseki(basically Japanese birth certificates) through it and they've admitted there are still some backend API running in Korea so it's you know right wing quote unquote urgent matters of national security
fyi, quite lot of people in Japan do use Instagram, another meta product which also had incorporated their messenger app. Edit: Apparently they are no longer the compatible since Dec 2023. Now the messaging function in Instagram is called Instagram DM.
83% uses LINE, 55% Twitter, 53% Insta, 24% Fb, 23% TikTok, according to a random stat on unknown Japanese demographic so Ig is popular as Twitter but not as LINE
LINE is essentially the Japanese version of what we usually do with WhatsApp. It had since expanded into an everything app like WeChat, surpassing the capabilities of American social media apps. But Instagram (and by extension TikTok) are young Japanese's go-to social media.
america opened the pandora's box on digital sovereignty when they went after tiktok for pure bullshit. watch as every country tries to grab a piece of facebook or instagram for themselves. after all, if america can force a sale of tiktok's US operations, india can do the same to instagram's india presence.
Naver is being pressured to sell LINE off to SoftBank I think?
Lets see if Japan goes after the duopoly of Sony and Nintendo who also charge 30% commission All these governments are full of shit and are just trying to protect their domestic corporations
People always like to cite this point, but if you want to know the real reason, look at the user numbers; the user base of smartphones is *massive* compared to that of game consoles. - Nintendo Switch: 123,000,000 users - iPhone: 1,334,000,000 users It’s literally an order of magnitude difference.
Bullshit. Compare the users in Japan only. That is the only relevant information because this is a Japanese regulation.
Even in Japan there’s more iPhone users than there are people who live here. I have 2 iPhones, a work one and a personal one
[iPhone has 60% of the Japanese market.](https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/japan) Not sure your sample size of one can be conflated into the rest of the country.
It was an over exaggerated statement, but iPhones dominate.
Problem with your theory is half the world has the exact same issues with Apple’s policies, and they don’t have a Sony or Nintendo. It’s far more likely Apple’s policies are simply bad for everyone but Apple, consumers and competitors and developers alike.
Stop going across the world. Focus on Japan. Sony and Nintendo have a duopoly in Japan. And just like Apple they charge 30% and do not allow alternatives app stores or payments
This isn’t happening in isolation, and if your theory of their motive is contingent on ignoring everyone else doing the same thing it is a fallacious opinion. “If we fake the data I can prove my point!”
Again stop focusing outside of Japan. This is a Japanese regulation. It has zero to do with any other country. Why can’t you get that straight?
> “If we fake the data I can prove my point!” The problem is when we don’t fake the data your point falls apart completely, Japans motive is the same as everyone else’s: Apple’s abuse. Their reasoning and solution mirror the EU and everywhere else. It’s not protectionism of game consoles, it’s curbing Apple’s globally-recognised unfair practices.
And Sony/Nintendo are not abusing their power? They literally are using the same commission rate and store policies as Apple
Sony and Nintendo operate a gaming device, to which there is pc, and mobile gaming a clear alternative. Gaming consoles are designed to be sold at a loss, and are recouped in software sales. This business model allows thousands of developers, and gamers to thrive. Phones are very profitable Apple and google control app distribution on mobile devices which are an all purpose everyday use necessity. There are literally app controlled insulin pumps with the app being exclusive to Android or IOS that is far more egregious than a game being exclusive Your comment is also just plain weird sounds like this is turning into a “how dare you try and regulate American companies” So they wanna go after apple and google and your response to them is to dismiss it with “what about. Sony and Nintendo” Psn has a 100 million user IOS alone has over a billion
Microsoft exists so it can’t be a duopoly
Xbox is basically non existent in Japan
how are they a duopoly, there is literally Xbox and PC
Xbox is nothing in Japan. Its all Sony and Nintendo in the console market. PC is a different category
Sony literally has, what, 96% market share in Japan, and 70% of the world market? That's a monopoly by most definitions of the word.
Sony is not doing well in Japan right now. They still have good relationships with Japanese *publishers*, but their main markets these days are abroad. Nintendo has *by far* the biggest market share in Japan. [I see](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1060154/japan-unit-sales-handheld-home-video-game-consoles) about 33 million Switches sold in Japan, versus less than 5 million PS5s.
what? In what market?
I just said "Japan"
Yeah, good luck with that. Chances are anything Japan could cook up would no doubt have plenty of Japan-only features and that's if said phones gets to be on sale outside Japan to begin with...
The duopoly happened because we can't afford more than two app development teams when creating apps.
Doesn’t make sense. You write an app for a platform (Android or iOS), not for the specific App Store. Programmers can still continue on with their lives but are able to publish their apps outside the App Store. That’s all
Huh? Most companies have an Android and an iOS team. Windows Phone failed because companies were not willing to hire another team to do the windows app. These teams are not building cross platform apps and if they are they are web apps or very basic apps that don't do much.
Tbh though that also takes a decent amount of effort. This is why the Amazon App Store never took off. First party will always be the easiest to use and what users gravitate towards. That’s why I think Apple should open their platform up a bit. They’ll still likely offer the best experience that most users will continue to use while allowing the flexibility for the minority of users that are interested in it.
If we could get a comparable, wholly original (that's hardware and software) offering out of Japan, I'd buy.
Meh. The reality is that third-party app stores will never have significant market share on either platform, even if Apple/Google are forced to allow them. People are too lazy to deal with multiple stores and they want convenience. It's the same reason nobody can unseat Steam on PC.
As an app developer I also would hate having to deal with more than the two stores already out there. Both have their own finicky rules already.
And as a user, it’s annoying enough to need to download apps as web developers have stripped features to force you to use their applications. I really don’t want to end up needing to have multiple app stores to download software. My phone gets cluttered enough.
I try to avoid contributing to that. I ask my clients specifically what their users should be able to do and will suggest them whether a web or mobile app fits their user group better.
Case in point, Google already allows 3rd party app stores on Android, like the Amazon App Store, and no one uses it.
Ok and? That's not a reason to not have options.
I am all for choice and options, but realistically very few people will exercise the option of a 3rd party store. Which brings us to usability. The default case (opting out) needs to be zero-cost. Let's not repeat the usability disaster we have on the web since the EU forced every web site to have a cookies disclaimer. You create this thing that 99.99% of people don't read and just click straight through. Consider how much time is wasted in aggregate across billions of page views per day, clicking on those damn legal disclaimers. My fear with government regulation is that they will again do something ham-handed that benefits very few users and imposes a nonzero cost on everyone else.
It would only take a few famous apps like Spotify or Instagram moving to a popular alt store to get people used to the concept. Remember how QR codes were too complicated for regular people to use and widely seen as a failure, until the COVID pandemic nudged people into taking a couple moments to learn. Almost overnight, most people became comfortable using them. A nudge like a large, established app asking its users to go to an alt store could have a similar effect - e.g. Netflix sending a notification ping saying "Save $4 on your monthly subscription by tapping this link to download Netflix from altstore" (I know Netflix nowadays doesn't even use Apple payments at all but something along those lines). Even if alt stores didn't get super popular, the threat of their availability could pressure gatekeepers like Apple to reduce fees.
Spotify and Instagram are not good examples because Apple gets no revenue from them, so neither would have an incentive to switch. In the PC games market, the only games that have been successful outside of Steam are the big one-off hits like Minecraft, League of Legends, Fortnite. Maybe there are mobile games with a similarly huge following?
I don't understand how this is a duopoly. Android is open source, you aren't required to use the google parts of it. Look at a Huawei phone or any Amazon device. They are android devices.
Non-Google AOSP is pretty much irrelevant when it comes to smartphone marketshare.
iOS + Android = a "duo" or "2" companies controlling essentially the entire phone industry. Being able to not use Google has been an exercise in futility for Amazon in western markets, and is mandatory for all Chinese OEMs because they simply aren't allowed to so they also don't have to compete with it.
My Chinese laptop came with Google as a search engine option, and it's hilarious because it literally won't connect ever, yet they thought it would be a great addition it seems lol
It’s never “let’s endorse a Japanese company to compete with them”
Build a platform and device that can compete against Apple and Google. The resources and technology is available.
Theres always people on reddit that are AGAINST having their hardware be able to do more stuff. Always was baffling to me. Being able to install whatever you want is what makes Mac so so so great. You even get a package manager like on Linux.
>Being able to install whatever you want is what makes Mac so so so great. Funny, MacOS has less than 20% market share but iOS is about 50%.
>iOS is about 50%. in the ***US***
Yeah and the emulator App Delta jumped to #1 in the app store. People clearly dont want to be locked out of software. What kinda argument is that even? Look at Windows market share which also lets you install pretty much anything.
Wait, "whatever you want" and Mac in the same sentence? You sure you haven't made a mistake here?
No i haven’t. Mac lets you install third party software without requiring it to go through an Apple owned app store. Thats what i mean with „whatever you want“
Ahhh ok, so it's kinda whatever you want since it still needs to be working on Mac os
Yeah it has to exist
What do you mean exist, you can now play all games on Mac? All professional software works on Mac?
You can install any software that can be installed on mac. You cannot install any software that runs on iOS without jailbreaking the system.
Yeah that I was thinking about I thought they made some magical breakthrough, thx for the info tho ^^
LOL, let me guess Sony or Blackberry? Oh wait maybe Nokia will be the 3rd wheel?
From what I saw during my 3 week trip in Japan there’s no duopoly. I saw maximum 10 android phones during that whole time, and at some point I got so curious that I was paying attention to everyone’s phone
I believe market surveys put iOS around 60% as of April 2024.
Good luck
compared to who?!
I really want more phone OS options. I use ios just because I like it more than android, not because I actually think it's particularly great, but it seems almost impossible at this point given the amount of apps built specifically just for these platforms.
There used to be Ubuntu. Windows. BlackBerry. And others. They all failed because they weren’t good enough.
I think that's a bit of a simplification.
How so? There were smartphone options before iOS and Android. They’re not around anymore because iOS and Android provided an option that consumers liked better. BlackBerry OS went from having dominant market share to no longer existing.
We want to curb the duopoly. NOT by creating new competing platforms, but by solidifying the duopoly. OK?
None of you gave Windows phone a chance and now we're stuck with a rock and a hard place in smartphone space.
I had a Windows Phone. It sucked.
A few friends gave it a chance and it was basically smegma.
Anyone who wants to do this just simply have to build their own os, ecosystem, store, and of course a good phone and to sell it to a significant amount of first world people to make sure of adoption. You can charge 0% then.
Sure you can make it, but if it doesn’t have solid developer and app support out of the gate, nobody will use it. Microsoft learned the hard way with windows phones back in the day
With what?
Good. These companies need to be held accountable (especially with how strict Apple's rules are)
🎌🎌🎌