UK Competition Watchdog Investigates Apple's App Store (go.com) 59
U.K. authorities have launched an investigation into Apple's App Store over concerns it has a dominant role that stifles competition and hurts consumers. From a report: The Competition and Markets Authority said Thursday it was looking into "suspected breaches of competition law" by Apple. The announcement adds to regulatory scrutiny of the iPhone maker's app distribution platform, which is also the subject of three antitrust probes by the European Union's executive Commission. Apple said the App Store is "a safe and trusted place for customers" and a "great business opportunity for developers." The investigation was triggered in part by complaints from app developers that Apple will only let them distribute their apps to iPhone and iPad users through the App Store. The developers also complained that the company requires any purchases of apps, add-ons or upgrades to be made through its Apple Pay system, which charges up to 30% commission. "Millions of us use apps every day to check the weather, play a game or order a takeaway," Andrea Coscelli, the authority's CEO, said in a statement. "So, complaints that Apple is using its market position to set terms which are unfair or may restrict competition and choice -- potentially causing customers to lose out when buying and using apps -- warrant careful scrutiny." The watchdog said it would consider whether Apple has a "dominant position" in app distribution for Apple devices in the U.K., and, if it does, whether the company "imposes unfair or anti-competitive terms on developers" that results in less choice or higher prices for consumers buying apps and extra.
so google isnt a thing? (Score:2)
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TFA: U.K. authorities have launched an investigation into Apple's App Store over concerns it has a dominant role that stifles competition and hurts consumers. From a report:
Peanut gallery: BuT iTs NoT a MoNoPoLy
It doesn't have to be a monopoly owning precisely 100% of the market in order for it to be dominant enough to hurt competition.
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not that they own 100% (they dont)
I see. So when you said:
im not sure how much of a monopoly they can have
you weren't saying how they aren't a monopoly.
Okeydokey
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Yes and as I said that's irrelevant. The law doesn't care iF tHeYrE a MoNoPoLy, it cares if they are distorting the market.
Re: so google isnt a thing? (Score:5, Interesting)
Google Play isnâ(TM)t available on iOS yet, so Iâ(TM)m not sure itâ(TM)s necessarily relevant to the conversation.
Why is availability on iOS relevant, you might ask? Because the cost of installing Google Play (switching to a competitor) is over £1,000 (assuming equivalently specâ(TM)d device).
Here in the UK we do have very strong laws around competition. As an example, there are four main mobile phone carriers and the process of switching or retaining your phone number used to involve calling the existing supplier to obtain a switching code.
A year or two back, the process changed because the regulator was not satisfied with this barrier to switching. Customers can now send a text message and theyâ(TM)ll get the code within a few minutes.
So with the regulatory landscape here, barriers to switching to a competitor are seen as very important. If a short phone call is seen as an unacceptable barrier, I can easily see why the regulators are interested in what is a £1,000 cost to switch.
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You can install third party app stores if you want. My phone has two in addition to play. If apple wanted to ship an app store on Android, they could. The same is not true for third parties on iPhones.
Re: so google isnt a thing? (Score:2)
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You're missing the point; they have a monopoly on app distribution on their platform, Google doesn't - you can sideload, or use alternative app stores. It's worth noting though that even in Google's case they have been investigated, but for a slightly different reason - the bullied bundling of the Play Store with Android devices, and besides, Google could also still yet be investigated as well.
And besides it's not that having a monopoly is inherently problematic, it's when you abuse it that's the problem an
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You don't need a separate car to go to Walmart, a car that won't go to any other store. That's what Apple App Store lock-in is like.
So what is new? (Score:2)
Except you are not free to create them (Score:5, Insightful)
When it becomes pointless to create own phone and app store because no one would buy and use them, this option is literally not available. Which in turn forces you accept terms that are one-sided. That is where anti-monopoly mechanisms kick in. These activities to scrutinize Apple and Google that we hear about lately are the results of the governments recognizing that consumers and business are being heavily disadvantaged by the monopolistic behavior of Apple and Google.
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I'm gonna laugh when people get their way and get alternative storefronts, end-user prices don't change at all (or go up!), and malware and exploits increase dramatically.
Not that I like restrictive terms and conditions, but this is definitely a "be careful what you ask for" situation.
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"I like this app but they only accept Ethereum."
"Why do I have to pay using a bank transfer to the National Bank of Wakanda."
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How many phones do you carry? (Score:2)
The market is locked in. How would a new phone maker go about convincing members of the public to carry multiple phones, one for each app store?
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You think some customary law justifies anything if the reaction isn't fast enough?
Some "this is how it's always been" rhetoric?
The gears of state institutions turn slowly. That's the most likely answer. If you will, because they're incompetent they didn't see it as a problem earlier.
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It's you who equates the walled garden economy that Apple created with the car economy where there are hundreds of different competitors. Thousands of different repair shops, and you can put any type of gasoline in your car. You can't just put Honda gasoline into your car that's been verified by Honda and from which it takes a 30% cut.
But of course you can try.
Also it's quite disingenuous to claim that it's always been this way. People have been complaining about thes
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Burden of Proof would have you first explain why this analogy is accurate and applicable before others have to justify scrutinizing that analogy.
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Please read again as you are either being dishonest or obtuse. When I buy any product like a car there are characteristics that are known. When I bought my car it is a gasoline powered engine and it uses Honda parts. According to your logic, I can sue Honda ten years later even though these characteristics have not changed. Instead you strawmanned the argument that I talked about car economy. I never did. Dishonesty?
Burden of Proof would have you first explain why this analogy is accurate and applicable before others have to justify scrutinizing that analogy.
So in other words you cannot prove or cite anything that you have said. Instead you just def
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People sue over the stupidest things, like your idiotic idea of suing over a motor change. You can do that. But are you likely to be successful with it? No.
You're shifting the burden of proof again. You're an idiot.
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Brexit? The EU is doing their own investigations so my guess is until Brexit it would've been redundant.
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3) Honda does not offer a conversion kit to make my car entirely electric
Your Honda vehicle probably also doesn't use cryptographic methods to lock out users from installing an aftermarket hybrid or BEV conversion.
4) my Honda does not use Ford parts.
Car companies are regulated such that in some countries, they must make replacement parts available for 7 years (source [stackexchange.com]) or more after the model year. Contrast this with the mobile computing industry, where unrepairability and the attendant e-waste have become the norm.
Hope some developers sign up as witnesses (Score:2)
Hopefully devs like Basecamp (Hey email app) and similar will sign up as witnesses to any hearings that are convened.
Think of the children! (Score:2)
All Apple has to do is lock the kids of the investigators out of their i-everything. The investigators will quickly find that Apple has no dominant position in anything, and the accounts will be duly reactivated.
You know you have really reach max control when no one dares to find that you have too much control.
Still better then it used to be. (Score:4, Interesting)
It is quite annoying for apple to take a 30% off, and then also add on currency exchange which ended up with developers outside the US (US is usually most income) ending up with just about 65% of the sale. And then get taxed on that of course, so you end up with quite a bit less than half the sales.
But consider the alternative. 15 years ago, if you wanted your app to be on Verizon Mobile's Get It Now, you had to develop for the BREW platform, which was not free. Every device you wanted to support, had to be tested and tweaked, as BREW apps didn't "just work" from device to device, which is why you also had to go through a lengthy "BREW testing" process where you paid $1000 for every device you wanted to get approved (or device group to be specific) - and you paid again (don't remember how much) if you failed - and failure was not uncommon! Now, wait, all that and you were not approved for the Verizon store! After you had a MINIMUM of X number of devices approved that Verizon set (IIRC it was over 30), then you could apply and if Verizon desired, they could add you to the store. If not, they would just deny you after you had spend lots of money! I was working at a company that spent about $40k in fees alone to get to apply for the Get It Now store (took about a year from having the app working), and we were accepted and we'd have actually recouped the cost eventually, but Verizon updated their Get It Now store software and borked the installs of our app, in a way that installing our app would actually crash the entire Get It Now store app! Note that we had no control of the installation at all - in that respect it's like Apple now - so we were getting angry customers and all we could do is try to have our contacts at Verizon have their engineers look into it. They were completely unfazed by the fact that user's phones were crashing on opening the store app (I guess if you know Verizon Mobile you'll know they don't care about users), and eventually, after about a week or so, they just dropped our app from their store and told us tough luck.
So Apple is like a blessing compared to that. Don't get me wrong, I've had app rejections for ridiculous reasons, completely not covered by their terms, their appstoreconnect site is working badly most of the time, they change their rules whenever they want and, yes, their 30% cut is definitely too much. But then again, Apple charges a lot for everything anyway, and finally, with their 15% for small businesses (which is closer to 20% if you are getting the income in non-USD) it's not too bad for most devs. And it's so much better than mobile apps before, and it's just on their devices, more than half of users don't use Apple devices, it's a choice.
Let's also not forget that online also get high commisions for providing less. E.g. ebay takes 13% (10% fees + paypal 3%) for just hosting an advert! Amazon takes more IIRC. They are getting quite some commissions for less value offered.
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However, "we made things more convenient" is not a justification for "and that convenient option is the only option you're going to get and we can set whatever terms we like". It would be more "convenient" if either Apple or Google got out of the mobile OS business, so developers and users didn't have to make any choices, but that is obv
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If apple had to allow other "payment processors", they'd have to charge for at least some of the rest: XCode, developer portal and dev tools, the app submission/testing/installing/updating/reporting etc, the actual app store. I mentioned ebay & amazon because with those we can get the "going price" for at least the last part of the equation - how much the market thinks a listing of your product on an online store should cost. And that's the low figure, some "specialty" markets that are monopolistic get
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Hardly. Apple makes its bank on hardware sales. All those dev tools are loss leaders for hardware sales (and to a certain degree the cloud services for which they charge). Apple does not force you to sign up for AppleTV+, Apple gaming thing (whatever it's called), paid iCloud, etc - you can choose to live
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You do realize developers have to pay taxes on the income from the app, right? Sales taxes and income taxes and currency exchanges all eat into it. It's just with Apple doing the hard work, the developer just has
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I am not sure you understood my point. I was saying that, since you have to pay income taxes anyway, Apple's cut is so significant that you end up with less than half of the (pre-VAT/sales tax) gross income, which is quite annoying.
And the comment about the ~5% due to currency exchange is valid. Apple does not give me a choice, I WANT to be paid in USD which is where most of my users are, but Apple only pays me in GBP. It would be fine if they did not get a commission on the conversion as well, or they gave
What I'm trying to understand here.... (Score:2)
Re:What I'm trying to understand here.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Because it's not about what people CHOOSE to accept. It's about what they're FORCED to not choose.
If a store only has a reader that only takes Mastercard, that's one thing. No different to the way that your American Express won't get you far in the UK.
But if a store has been told by the card companies "You must not take Visa", then that's anti-competitive.
Apple saying that developers can ONLY accept their own payment processor is the problem here. That's anti-competitive. As a business dealing with Apple, I have literally no choice but to comply.
Me starting up a business and then saying "Sorry, there was Mastercard and VISA available but I only chose VISA" isn't anti-competitive. As a business, I had a choice, it was free, and I made that choice.
It's a fine line in some cases, but legally there's a clear distinction.
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No, they are literally preventing any other way of, say, buying a DLC. It's their way or the highway. If a developer wanted to take PayPal because all their other apps on other platforms pay via Paypal, they can't. They MUST use iTunes Store because Apple will not allow them to use Paypal.
Not "we don't support that, you're on your own" but literally "you MUST NOT do that if your app is on the Apple store".
It's not unreasonable in this day and age to allow an app developer to let you pay them in Paypal, f
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To further the physical store analogy. it's like VISA telling the businesses that it works with that they cannot use their relationship with VISA to process credit cards other than VISA.
But it does not prevent the business from making arrangements with other credit card companies.
Much like Apple does not force developers to only release their applications for iOS.
How many phones should one carry? (Score:2)
The analogy is still imperfect in an important way. It's practical for a user of credit to carry multiple credit cards with no setup fee, no annual fee, and no interest if paid in full each month like I do. It's far less practical for a user of mobile computing to carry multiple phones, one to reach each app store.
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> No different to the way that your American Express won't get you far in the UK.
I see you still live in the 90s.
Well done!
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