Apple’s default construction for getting payments for the usage of their IP is via commission on revenue.
This is by definition a differential pricing strategy because not everyone has to pay for the usage of Apple’s IP.
Many didn’t like the commission structure and made all sorts of arguments against it. It would just be for payment processing, it would just be for distribution, etc.
Apple has always maintained it was primarily for the use of their IP, all the rest is thrown in as a bonus. They have structured it as such in the developer agreement and US courts have wholesale accepted it as such.
One alternative that has been floated around a lot by people that accept that Apple wants payment for their IP but didn’t like the commission structure regardless was to split off the fee for IP into its own thing.
Now they do that very thing in the form of the CTF (at a more competitive rate than Epic does for Unreal mind you).
In addition there’s a separate commission for App Store services and a separate commission for payment processing.
Now the new complaint is that this payment for their IP for first installs on EU iPhones per 12 months in excess of 1M installs in the EU isn’t good either.
So what is the desired outcome? Use Apple’s IP for free?
I don’t see how this disadvantages third party stores. Does it disadvantage Steam when Epic comes knocking on my door for their share of the pie?
Epic charges me 5% of all my revenue above a million, Apple charges me €0.50 of all my EU installs on iOS above 1M installs in the EU.
Apple’s fee is directly tied to my usage of their IP, I pay them €0.50 in 12 monthly installments for each installation that goes over 1M, but they don’t touch anything else I make off of that install.
Epic wants 5% over every dollar I make over $1M worldwide.
Don’t get me wrong, personally I was content with my 30% and the 15% is a steal for what I get out of it.
But if commission of revenue is the big bad, then the only logical thing for licensing IP is an upfront cost for usage whether you earn money with it or not.
This is how it was with consoles. Thousands upfront for the right to publish and using the IP + thousands for every build to be certified + commission over revenue.
Indies later on got a reduced rate in the hundreds, until you got big.
The desired outcome is for third-party apps and app stores to be able to run on iOS devices for free. Traditionally, building software for consumer operating systems, including Mac OS hasn't been considered using the OS vendor's IP such that it would require permission or payment.
Compilers, SDKs, documentation, every vendor charged for those.
You have to thank Stallman et al. for your free C compiler.
What Apple has done here is bring the console gaming model to general-purpose computing devices. I believe the EU wishes to roll that back and will probably not allow Apple's announced fees and restrictions.
Quote from their own website:
> By enrolling in the Apple Developer Program, individuals and organizations receive everything they need to develop apps for distribution.
OSs are expensive things to build and maintain, and I don't take for granted the fact that my iPhone XS Max (2018) is running the latest version if iOS. If Apple's App Store pricing structure makes that possible, then it's certainly working for me.
It crumbles under the most benign forms of scrutiny.
The comment below already pointed out that vendors charged for all kinds of stuff. Your reply seems to suggest that, for some reason, you’re ok with that, but not if the OS vendor does it.
There’s also the argument that investment in frameworks for iOS is significantly higher than, say, the investment Microsoft made into frameworks for Windows back in the day.
Then there’s the general criticism of an appeal to tradition that there were many traditions that we currently aren’t ok with, and an appeal to tradition suggests that they are inherently good just by virtue of once having been a tradition.
I remember a tradition not too long ago where console manufacturers would charge thousands just for access to the platform and the IP (sometimes rolled into the price of a dev kit), plus thousands more for each build that needed certification plus a commission on sales.
It was so cumbersome for some developers that they did not bother updating their game[0].
Even later on, with lower fees, there’s still a lot of cost to get games published[1].
Now, you might say that consoles are nothing like iPhones, and I will respond by saying that iPhones are nothing like Macs. And on and on we might go.
What matters is what is legal. Apple is in the clear to charge for usage of their IP, even when they use differential pricing and even when other companies are willing to give away their work for free because they see other avenues of revenue by doing so.
Further down, you state:
> I believe the EU wishes to roll that back and will probably not allow Apple's announced fees and restrictions.
Can I ask what fuels that belief? Or perhaps more importantly, what fuels the belief that they are at all in the position to do something about it?
I see a lot of “Wait till your dad comes home” style comments every time Apple is brought up as if there’s some collective amnesia that “dad” also has to stick to the law and doesn’t have the final say in this universe.
The European Parliament and Council of the European Union are the legislative bodies of the EU, and as such, they can create laws. But like any legislative body, they are limited and need to move within the bounds of the laws.
The European Commission, on the other hand, functions as the executive body of the EU and is to enforce the law. They, too, are limited by the bounds of the law.
Neither the DMA nor its enforcement have been tested in court yet. All of that will start once the EC tries to enforce something, and the EC has, at best, a mixed track record before the court.
Apple made a smart move today because, contrary to what many here think, they went above and beyond the DMA requirements (e.g., it has no price regulation, so all the discounts in fees are freebies), and as such, took the wind out of the EC’s legal argument sails for many of the potential arguments.
The biggest hurdle that one needs to overcome is IP and property rights. Something neither the EU nor the US wants to tackle because it would have significant effects across all commerce. The idea that you can just take a company’s IP and essentially make it public domain will never fly.
At best, in sporadic instances, can you get a court to agree that a company should be forced to charge “reasonable” fees, but with Apple’s fee structure for the EU being less than that of the rest of the markets and and option to evade all but one fee, it’s nearly impossible to convince a court that the CTF is somehow out of line.
Ironically, as I write this, I just realized that an upfront fee for IP usage that is entirely decoupled from revenue is actually very traditional when it comes to fees like this.
The general timeline from investigating violations to ECJ is about ten years, so this will take a while.
0: https://www.destructoid.com/fez-patch-wont-be-fixed-because-...
1: https://www.ign.com/articles/2014/07/30/launching-indie-game...
Appeal to tradition is a fallacy in logic, but laws are not made using pure logic. Laws are made when some group with sufficient political power wants them to be made, and such groups are often driven by tradition, what they perceive to be tradition.
> Or perhaps more importantly, what fuels the belief that they are at all in the position to do something about it?
The European Union is a government; it makes and enforces laws. In this case, it has made a law called the Digital Markets Act which addresses certain types of gatekeeping behavior by large tech companies including Apple. Some readings of this law I've seen forbid Apple from charging fees for distributing apps outside its store and from using any legal workarounds to circumvent that prohibition. It remains to be seen how EU regulators and courts will interpret it.
Your comment makes several references to "IP", but isn't clear about what IP is involved. Is it necessary to use inventions patented by Apple to write an app that runs on an iPhone? Is it necessary to know Apple's trade secrets (aside from things like signing keys that exist for the sole purpose of gatekeeping)? Does it require making copies of things Apple holds copyright to?
Can I publish an application that does not use Apple IP, let’s say something written in ARM assembler? Or am I forced to use Apple IP?
I can publish on windows without using Microsoft IP, I can publish on android without using google IP, right?
If not, then this argument about Apple IP is in bad faith, and not the real reason for anything.
Not sure what you mean by forced to use Apple IP. You are running on their ARM chip under their kernel, using their libraries to read touch events and display to the screen.
IP is incredibly broad; you can't really avoid using say all copyrighted libraries.
If you are speaking toward is there a path to write applications which will work on iOS devices without signing agreements, paying royalties or having legal action taken against you, there's the Safari browser and it sounds like there will be many more web browsers soon.
> I can publish on windows without using Microsoft IP, I can publish on android without using google IP, right?
I don't see how you could publish a legitimate app for Windows without using e.g. ReadFile.
I don't know how you would publish an Android app without using its proprietary manifest file; you probably come closest there to a minimal working application due to instead using lots of Oracle IP.
Can I publish an application that does not use Apple IP, let’s say something written in ARM assembler?
If not, then this argument about Apple IP is in bad faith, and not the real reason for anything.
Developers are not forced to develop iOS apps.
There are other alternatives like web apps or only developing for Android.
Developers have choices.
If you want a store in a mall, you have to pay higher leases and probably additional fees than you would if you operated out of your garage.
These arguments always seem to break down to an entitlement to sell things without paying for the products and services used to make the thing.
It should be a conversation more about reasonableness than entitlement.
An iPhone is not a mall. An iPhone is a device owned by the end user. If the end user wants to use an app by some third party developer, they should be able to.
We don't let car dealers from prevent customers from installing aftermarket addons.
If any global entity owned such a large percentage of malls that suppliers had little choice but to appear there in order to be competitive, and charged for mall use via a general tax on original and follow up economic activity (instead of in proportion to mall resources used), requiring products be registered with them, and copies of direct and follow up sales records, many people might protest that too.
Otherwise, it is within its full freedom to shut down their company in the EU.
They aren't "force" to operate in the EU after all. They could just shut down the company.
> If you want a store in a mall
If Apple wants to operate in the EU then they will have to follow the law.
> It should be a conversation more about reasonableness than entitlement.
Or, instead of that, the conversation could be able what a population can democratically decide what they want for their own country.
iOS apps can be written in assembly. I’ve done so myself out of curiosity, and it seems others have done so as well[0].
Of course, I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s excruciating.
That said, isn’t this just a bad-faith argument wrapped in an attempted gotcha? Where your premise is that if you don’t have a choice, then you shouldn’t be charged?
If Apple would say:
“Hey, you can use Swift for free because it’s open source, and you’re welcome to benefit from our contributions to it, and while you’re at it, you’re allowed to use all the basic low-level frameworks that communicate with the OS for free as well. But anything more than that, and we want you to pay us for it.”
Would you then be fully on board with them charging for using the remaining IP they own?
Are IP and ownership rights fluid based on your own moral framework, depending on if one has a choice or not?
Should I just blow past the toll booth of the only bridge here that allows me access to the rest of the country?
How about the only ISP that provides service here? Should they just allow me to use their infrastructure so I can write you this comment?
The other day I saw a nice TV at the local store. It’s pretty much the only place I can get this TV. Do I have your blessing to take it because I don’t have much of a choice?
I make apps for a living, I’m literally the only place on earth where you can get my app. My app saves users a lot of money. Should people just pirate my app and force me on a diet of hardtack?
Where does this fluidity start and where does it end?
I thought, for better or worse (and we can spend hours debating this part alone), we decided that when someone owns something, and especially when they create something, they get to decide who, if anyone, gets to use it and at what’s price if any.
By your logic, streaming services should be paying TV manufacturers for using their "IP" when displaying video to customers. Hogwash.
This is why smart TVs are becoming increasingly more annoying, because additional revenue streams are so highly desired. Display more in-interface ads, offer first party 'streaming' for the opportunity to display more ads, put movie purchases/rentals ever more prominently in your UI, always start in your menus rather than the last selected HDMI input, take metrics on what people are watching by default - I am surprised we don't have an Uber Eats button on the remote yet.
Interestingly, a TV manufacturer can't do anything to require a streaming service to provide _their_ IP. Netflix seems to have a policy of not allowing their app to run on projectors, keeping them out of the allow-list for downloads and for execution of the android app. Some projector manufacturers will ship a separate Chromecast dongle or the like so that they can say they support Netflix on the box.
I don’t see how that’s nonsense or hogwash. It’s a very basic concept since the dawn of men. You want to use or own something I own or made, then I can ask you to pay for it.
In this instance it’s the frameworks and SDKs that were made and that others want to use.
In a similar fashion, they already extract payment in exchange for them featuring whatever app has decided to pay for that privilege. Don’t see how that’s somehow morally better, nor do I see a legal hurdle.
