Apple’s App Store isn’t evil, the headline above a Bloomberg News Editorial states flatly, as Apple squares off in court with Epic Games, “it’s worth remembering what’s really at stake,” Bloomberg News’ Editorial Board writes.
Bloomberg News’ Editorial Board:
Epic doesn’t like that Apple takes a 30% cut of its in-app sales on its devices. To avoid the fee, and in violation of the store’s rules, Epic introduced a payment system that would allow users to purchase items from it directly. Apple and Google (which has a similar arrangement) both yanked “Fortnite” from their mobile stores in response. A lawsuit followed.
This whole chain of events was something of a stunt. Epic immediately unveiled a prepackaged PR crusade, including a video parody and hashtag campaign. An ongoing advertising push paints the dispute as a David-and-Goliath battle on behalf of lowly appmakers, who, in this telling, are being coerced into paying Apple’s punitive fees. On Thursday, a group of likeminded companies announced they had formed an alliance to protest the rules.
This framing has things backward. The App Store has in fact been hugely useful for consumers, stimulated competition and — not least — offered immense benefits to smaller companies…
The consumer benefits are plain. Thanks to the standards that Apple imposes, iPhone users know that whatever apps they select won’t come loaded with spyware, viruses or battery-draining excesses. Buyers have a safe and seamless way to pay, and need no technical aptitude to install their purchases…
It’s true that 30% sounds like a hefty fee. But it’s entirely in line with what other platforms and marketplaces charge for distributing digital content to their users. Fees for software sales at brick-and-mortar shops frequently exceeded 60% before the iPhone came along. And the vast majority of developers pay nothing at all —only those that acquire customers or deliver goods and services through the app are subject to the fee.
MacDailyNews Take: Obviously.
As we wrote earlier today: “Spotify, Epic Games, Match, and the other whiners want all of the benefits afforded to them by Apple’s App Store for free. How much did it cost developers to have their applications burned onto CDs, boxed, shipped, and displayed on store shelves prior to Apple remaking the world for the better for umpteenth time?”
The last thing the App Store needs is an endorsement from Bloomberg. Like an endorsement from Nancy Pelosi on your integrity.
It’s not a matter of being evil or not. It is what it is, it’s not breaking any laws. The question is whether or not Apple is harming the iOS and Mac community for a few dollars more profit. I’d be willing to pay a couple bucks more per device if the store were free for developers. Figure something out for crying out loud ya bunch of greedy fxcks. Heh!
30% of people’s payoff on their hard work, risk, investment, it makes you look more like a corrupt big government than Apple. Someone charges a mere $2.00 for their app and you grab $.60 cents of it.
It’s like you’re taxing people to develop for your platforms. I’m also sick of you being seemingly oblivious to the actual gaming market. Every move you make discourages game developers. Who is in charge of Gaming for Apple anyway? It seems like it must be Tim Cook.
And I’m not so sure you’re not a monopoly. Developers can’t go down the street to sell from a different store for iOS. Seems monopolistic to me. How do we know you’re not going to hogtie the Mac in the same way in the not too distant Apple Silicon future?
Nancy Pelosi is a good leader so I’m not sure where your comment was trying to go with that. iOS/iPadOS is the largest gaming platform in the world, so I’m not sure why you’re saying the platform is oblivious to gaming. It just might not be the style of games you’re used to playing. The rest of your comment demonstrates a complete lack of understanding for running a business that provides goods from other sources. This concept touches so many different types of business and is quite legal. iOS is not a monopoly because there are numerous other platforms developers could create apps for. Nobody made the developers sign their agreement with Apple. Nobody is required to purchase an iPhone. As the judge has already alluded to in the Epic case, this is a contract law situation, plain and simple. Epic has willfully broken their contract. Epic hired some real doofuses for lawyers as they continue to bring up antitrust concerns, which don’t reflect reality.
Nancy Pelosi is the worst House Leader in history and fails the citizens of her district daily. Too interested in breaking laws that don’t apply to the queen and she suffers the worst case of Trump Derangement Syndrome than anyone in politics…
Spoken like a true socialist lefty. If I build something that, it just so happens, people want to be a part of and pay me money to use, then that’s my right to do so.
Nah, spoken like a free market capitalist. Your comment is so ironic as it exactly explains the App Store. Let’s take a look:
If I (Apple) build something (the App Store) that, it just so happens, people (developers) want to be a part of and pay me money to use (30% distribution fee), then that’s my right (as the distributor setting up the contract) to do so. Congrats, you may have just passed your first exam in business 101 🤣
Sigh, yes, which is why my response was to the “give whomever whatever they want for free” lefty socialist.
Do you always submit words to Internet forums that you don’t understand the meaning of?
If I’ve triggered you, I accept your apology.
If you’re a retailer, paying VISA 3% for every transaction is a big chunk. That is why the European Union passed laws that limit how much credit card companies can charge retailers . . . Similarly, for a developer, Apple taking 30% is a huge chunk. Whether it’s by Apple choosing to lower its fee, or through legislation, things need to change.
First of all, visa doesn’t get 3%, your issuing bank gets most of the 3%. Visa the network gets a tiny fraction of a percent. Second, visa/your bank issuer are NOT the correct industry. They dont provide a physical store for goods and services.
Remember back in the day when you would go to a physical store to buy software. They charged 60% or more at times to DISTRIBUTE your software. Similarly, when you buy cokacola at your grocery store, cocacola corp PAYS the super market a big fee for prime shelf space.
ALL DISTRIBUTORS TAKE A BIG CUT. THEY DO NOT RUN CHARITIES. NO ONE OPENS UP A STORE AND MAINTAINS IT SO SELLERS OF GOODS AND SERVICES CAN USE IT FOR FREE.
Apple cut the percent in HALF from physical box stores with their 30% rate down from 60%. They also provide you with XCODE/InterfaceBuilder/GIANT LIBRARIES TO CODE/storage space on servers/network access for the entire world/billing services that collect money and provide it/etc etc. ALL THAT COSTS A LOT OF MONEY. Apple is entitled to charge what it wants. Your opinion is worth less than dirt.
Or let’s play this another way. What you do for a living. I decided youre over paid. Ive decided youre anti competitive because others out there would do the job for less than you. So you need to be investigated and your income reduced.
Some of this might be relevant if apple had a monopoly market position. But it doesn’t. Android has majority market share for phones and mobile app stores, not apple. Apple doesn’t have majority market share for computers or desktop operating systems. It doesn’t have a monopoly in music services, Spotify is bigger. Etc etc.
All this is noise designed to confuse commie “everything (except for my stuff of course) should be free”
In other words, this is a campaign used to troll for the endless useful idiots out there. So no wonder it’s a roaring success.
Great post. There’s a lot of ignorant people that seem to read this site that seem to have no business experience whatsoever. Seems like they’ve never been out in the real world and understand that product distribution has been happening in human society for a very long time prior to digital spaces. The grocery store analogy is hopefully the most simplest one they can understand. The App Store developers are getting by rather nicely in this deal as they certainly aren’t developing the platform’s evolving code base; they certainly aren’t developing and maintaining server infrastructure to distribute to a billion+ users; and the list goes on. This is really a campaign as you said to appeal to complete morons. A campaign I’m glad was started so I know what companies to never support again.
No one would force you to shop elsewhere for iOS Apps other than the Apple Store, had there been alternatives. The Bloomberg Editorial Board is wrong.
MS has their own store, Adobe, and all major vendors as well. They already have paid for these systems, why do they need Apple to sell their wares at any price?
What about Apps Apple decides they don’t want to carry, which is fair. Where can those be sold?
It’s anti-competitive. Period.
“What about Apps Apple decides they don’t want to carry, which is fair. Where can those be sold?”
Like porn apps? Those can be sold at Microsoft’s store… wait, they don’t have porn there. Adobe’s sto… huh, they don’t have porn either.
Just release it for Windows or Android I guess.
I will open a iOS Porn Store then, and I will be ethnically and orientationally diverse!
Get it?
No, you won’t. You’ll make your own phone and put whatever you want on it. You’ll also be able to reject whatever you want for WHATEVER reason you come up with. YOU COULD REJECT APPLE’S APPS, even.
Build it and you get to make the rules on it. Don’t build it, then suffer the fate as all lefties, begging to be let into someone else’s party for free. Better yet, Just stay out, there’s a LOT of ethical and orientationally diverse company for you to enjoy out there.
And that’s the point… censorship!
Realize your fondness for hot button terms like “censorship” and “monopoly.”
Apple has the right to CENSOR porn apps, or simply deny and go elsewhere, and others it deems undesirable.
As I posted before regarding the App Store — Apple created the business and if you want to swim in their pool you obey the lifeguard.
The Google App Store has 600,000 more apps than Apple so there are options.
No App developer should be allowed to force their own terms and violate licensing agreements. Snot nose Fortnite can take a hike…
Rejects from the App Store can be sold from the individual developer’s website, right? I think this would solve your caring concern.
Or developers could also form a corporate union to share a centrally-planned space from which to sell their wares. I would have no problem with this Socialist initiative for their Capitalists dilemma.
Apple products and services are a minority product and are not essential. All of Apple’s products and services can be provided by other vendors like google, amazon, Samsung, LG or Microsoft just to name a few. Apple is a premium brand where user pay for enhanced security, privacy and stability. Apple is a premium developer platform where developers agree to certain conditions in exchange for developer tools and easy access to controlled market place. Consumers have other options. Developers have other options. Every developer and end user that has ever bought an Apple product/service has legally agreed to the rules and conditions. The 30% developer fee has been unchanged since opening of developer access to the App Store. Remember in the early days developers could not even make/sale apps for the iPhone.
If now developers and owners of apples products find they no longer agree to the predetermined terms set by Apple then they have a options. Don’t use Apple products and switch to one of the other ready available options. If you don’t agree with the terms don’t use the product or service. To use an Apple product is a choice of willful limitation in exchange for a ‘premium’ service at a ‘high’ price. Again, consumers/developers have cheaper productS and services readily available.
The idea that a 3rd party developer can agree to terms then at a later time force Apple to change the terms is not logical or legal. Who should determine the new developers fee. Should epic get unlimited access to Apple tools and services and pay Apple nothing ? Should Apple be forced to make premium developer tools and services for developers for free? Should Apple be forced to expose unlimited access to their customer data and security without limit? Again if you don’t agree to Apple terms then you have other options. Apple is not an monopoly not even a majority.
If Apple is forced to change something as fundamental as pricing then what else can a 3rd party determine. Should Apple be forced to “open source’ all R&D and provide all source code so other can make 3rd party iPhones or make alternative app stores.
Epic/Tencent are in alignment with the CCP. They readily change the rules to self serve their agenda. They pretend to be for the concern of the community but it’s just a front for greed and power. Epic gives Their games out for free but then charges 99.00 (mostly to kids)for virtual money to buy custom upgrades. Should epic be forced to open up their game so I can develop simple 3d models with custom skins and charge what I want ? Of course not.
Apple isn’t evil but … Marxist like to hijack the target with emotions of fairness and equality only to cut the throats of their target and watch them bleed out. They don’t love the poor they only hate the rich.
Four stars because your otherwise excellent reply made something political that isn’t. The “battle” between Epic (and others) and Apple, while it is economic, has nothing to do with marxist vs capitalist economics.
Sure, Epic wants to pay lower (or no) percentages to put their stuff on the App Store, but that’s not Marxism. It’s just business. Epic isn’t doing what they are for the “good of the people” they’re doing it to get make money. Are they going to substantially lower their prices if they get what they want from Apple? Not very likely.
It’s the nature of every form of life on Earth (even humans) to try to get something with as little effort as possible. Only human beings have turned this innate desire into something negative by using terms like lazy, greedy, etc., and typically used to describe the actions/desires of others as almost no one applies those terms to themselves. Thanks to most religions, philosophies, and social/economic movements… all of which serve no real purpose except to manipulate others.
The sense (want) of freeloading or greed has no party!
Hypocrisy and graft, however, are specialties of the trumpista party.
Forced transfer of technology and slave labor are specialties of CCP China. Once Beijing Biden takes over we can all sleep peacefully at night because the source of all evil throughout time and space (the orange devil) will be conquered. Forced organ harvesting of religious minorities, 2 million Uyghur muslims in concentration prisons is an outright joyful song compared to inappropriate tweets at 3am. Come On Man !
Three things: No one said that it’s evil so that makes the headline into hair-on-fire, Fox NewsEntertainment. It’s also a Straw Man argument, where the arguer argues against an assertion no-one made, hence illogical also irrational. And “evil” is a Fundie religious term so why inject a religious belief into this secular tech topic?
you are sadly evil, Fartiste. Your fart suqqs ballz, it’s anti-family, anti-western values, you are an avowed commie and an all around horrible person who loves to come here and mouth off absolute nonsense. May you forever be saddle with 2nd-hand Androids, even that is too good for you, Windows Mobile should be your punishment for being such an a-hhhhhole.
John Dyngler – he’s fake as fake can be
App Store may not be evil, but Bloomberg sure is.