“App Store Monopoly” Discussion

Whenever you interact with or use the Play Store, you are Google’s customer. In fact, more so, whenever you use any Android device with Google Services they are gathering your data and making you the product as well.

Having Pi Hole setup you should be more concerned the various free apps and ad networks phoning home for no reason.

Also some legitimate apps (Netflix and Roku spring to mind) the amount of data they collect is staggering.

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Well that didn’t take long.
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Normally I side with Spotify but not this time. This is just whining.

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Yea. Apple one isn’t anti-competitive.

In the same way that Hulu & Spotify bundling services together isn’t.

Apple One is better for people who use some or most of the services. I won’t be switching away from Spotify. I prefer the usability of its app vs Apple’s

I love the look of the new iPad Air however the recent Apple monopoly will prevent me buying one.

Xcloud looks great until it’s supported I wouldn’t consider any apple product.

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Maybe not completely on topic, but I have a friend who works for google who is gonna give me an extra pixel they have.

I will be using it solely for xcloud :upside_down_face:

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My brother tried it on his galaxy yesterday. For the first time in a decade, I’m jealous of an Android app.

It works very well, no real noticeable latency.

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Great banter from Microsoft, they should go further I see you enjoyed Forza on your Xbox, continue where you were on an android device.

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For reasons having nothing to do with Epic’s claims against Apple, Fortnite’s popularity is on the wane. By July 2020, interest in Fortnite had decreased by nearly 70% as compared to October 2019.

It quotes disclosures from Epic that only 10 percent of Fortnite consumers play regularly on the iPhone, and claims that Epic has said Apple is the “smallest piece of the pie’” when it comes to revenue.

I’m sure that pie was said as being hundreds of millions? Not bad work for Epic!

I find these complaints bemusing. They’ve had since June. It’s not Apple’s fault if they wait until the last minute in the hope bugs are due of the betas and not their shoddy scripting. A week’s notice makes little difference, other than a guarantee that your app update is available on day 1. Bugs and crashes with your app should be ironed out by now and on the store before 14 ships. All you need yesterday’s Xcode update for was to simply to submit a version of your app that uses the iOS 14 specific APIs. If their app wasn’t ready to submit before this version of Xcode was made available, then that’s on them.

I have 3 apps on the store in active and ongoing development. Those are ready, and the versions with iOS 14 specific APIs were submitted this morning and approved, so we’re all good to go, with no known crashes or major bugs. I suspect a few issues will prop up, as they do every year once users update to the new iOS versions, but we’ll get those patched and updated too, as always. There’s no issue here, in my opinion.

ETA:
there does exist an edge case where you’d have to be incredibly unlucky, in that the GM release completely bricked your app. In which case, not always the dev’s fault and I sympathise. But this can happen with any software update versions, of which no notice is ever given. This is part and parcel with building apps though. You just have to adapt, and delay if necessary.
We once had an issue back in iOS 12, where one of our apps was quite happily running just fine on a beta build, then Apple released a slightly update version of the beta to the public, and our app would no longer launch. Wasn’t much we could do other than to rush out a quick fix to submit ASAP to tide us over a few weeks.

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I think the bigger problem here is that app developers can 100% fix and resolve issues for iOS14 etc, but they can’t actually publish iOS 14 apps publicly until the GM release of XCode is released, and then they have to go through review etc within Apple.

So, while it might seem inconsequential, app updates for iOS14 couldn’t have been submitted till late last night, so it did mean a bit of a rush for developers.

Additionally, the GM of iOS14 may bring with it new bugs that developers weren’t aware of… that’s the point in a GM, to let developers use the latest version before it goes public (normally a week or so).

Yea, it’s a bit crap for developers, and there should have been a week or so notice imo.

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Can’t say I have personal experience of this. We almost always have our apps ready for submission the moment the Xcode GM is installed. Review process for our updates is often quite smooth and without a hitch too. So there was no mad rush for us here, nor any concern, and the process and duration went about the same as it’s gone every year from memory. The general mood at the end of the event was one of excitement that the update was coming much sooner.

It’s interesting to see more Apple vs Epic news coming out. Apparently, Epic were actually getting quite a lot from Apple for the 30%:

Hardly the case of Apple charging a fee for doing nothing as is typically claimed.

It’s also interesting to see Epic withdrawing Fornite for macOS, likely in an attempt to harm Apple, but I think this is misguided and only going to work against them.

Finally, it’s also interesting to see Apple going for the jugular and attempting to get Unreal Engine development shut down:

I do think Epic has underestimated Apple and their willingness to rough things out. By creating uncertainty around Unreal and their other efforts Apple is going for maximum damage to Epic with what I suspect will be minimal long term effect on Apple.

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Not much detail, but it reads to me like Apple were providing support to ensure that the most popular shooter on the planet was well optimised for their platforms.

This isn’t altruistic support from the goodness of their hearts, it’s quid pro quo from which they both benefit.

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Sounds like some salty companies being salty. I think it’s been discussed that 30% is fairly standard across the digital platforms

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I’ve barely scrolled and…

The Coalition for App Fairness is an independent nonprofit organization founded by industry-leading companies to advocate for freedom of choice and fair competition across the app ecosystem.

This organisation might be non-profit, but the companies involved sure as shit make money and that’s why they want rid of the 30% cut.

For most purchases made within its App Store, Apple takes 30% of the purchase price. No other transaction fee — in any industry — comes close.

Not true. It’s the same on various console/game stores/distribution methods.

Then claiming that Apple are only a payment processor.

And absolutely no surprise to see the usual cry-babies Spotify are part of it.

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