This leaves in place the bulk of the ruling favoring Apple, but also the elimination of the anti-steerage rules that Epic successfully challenged (sort of, the trial judge mostly did that on her own).
So, to summarize, the relevant market is this dispute was the mobile game market (not an iPhone-specific market like Epic wanted), Apple does not have a monopoly in that market, and Apple doesn’t need to charge less in the App Store or for in-app purchases. But, due to California law, Apple cannot prevent developers from informing consumers that lower prices are available outside of the app.
Why do we act like there is a "mobile game market" when there are clearly two distinct major private markets, both monopolized by definition of private control over basic aspects like pricing and content, including mandating a private tax rate?
It sounds like the anti-steerage rules are still in limbo—they have not yet taken effect while the appeal is ongoing, and the article doesn't indicate they're already officially set to take effect at a certain date.
Does someone more familiar with the process know if it's a guarantee now that Apple will be forced to comply with that part of the original ruling, or is there room for them to get it removed or postponed indefinitely?
> "But, due to California law, Apple cannot prevent developers from informing consumers that lower prices are available outside of the app."
Is this CA law enforceable because Apple is HQ in CA, or simply because they do business there?
- if simply due to operating business there, couldn't Apple geofence the entire state and only allow developers the option to steer consumers who are using their app within CA state lines?
- if it's simply because Apple is HQ in CA, couldn't Apple simply move it's HQ (on paper) to another US state (like Texas, where a lot of other tech companies have moved HQs)
Maybe I'm totally wrong, but what actually happens if there is a federal court ruling that goes against a state (i.e. CA) law. Which things take precedent if the supreme court wouldn't take it. Maybe this is not the situation here and misunderstood it completely, but let's say then this is a theoretical question.
It seems easy to kind of shrug at this, but this does seem quite significant because of many mobile apps are 'free to play.' Apple pocketing 30% of all of these transactions, and forcing users/devs to go through Apple, is a major part of its revenue. And all of those apps now have the option to direct users to alternative payment methods, where they can both charge users substantially less and make more profit doing so. Should be interesting to see what happens!
> Yvonne-Gonzalez was skeptical of the 30% fee during the trial, and in the ruling she was suspicious about Apple's justification of the commission, writing that "the 30% is not tied to anything in particular and can be changed," but did not order Apple to do so.
Nothing in the ruling[1] seems to prohibit Apple from still charging a "iOS License Fee" for access to the developer tools, APIs, etc. I can very well see them charging based on # of installs or % of revenue, even if developers direct people to an outside payment processor.
On the one hand Apple payments are really frictionless. There is no way 3rd parties can match it. Plus easy to track/cancel.
On the other hand a lower price is a lower price. But is it low enough to get enough users to enter a credit card?
Combine this with the alternate App Store thing (looks like EU only) and we’re in for some shaking out of what is and is not a good strategy as an app maker with never before seen on iPhone options in the mix.
Sort of a tangent but I feel it's a little troublesome that the Supreme Court can deny appeals without even a paragraph of motivation. Clearly they need to filter based on some criteria or another so denying the appeal is fine. But I feel that shouldn't ever occur without some sort of reason as to why. I enjoy listening to the oral arguments for certain cases in the USSC (https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_audio/2..., it's interesting) and I can't help but feel that a lot of the cases that are accepted are of somewhat less importance than "can an effective monopoly be forced into less monopolistic business practices" or some variation of that.
As I understood this ruling at the time, one major caveat was that they have to open up payment options but are still allowed to demand 30% of the third-party payments, thus making it mostly irrelevant.
This article mentions nothing about it - was this interpretation overly pessimistic?
Pretty sure wrong. Apple cannot tax you for buying things on the game’s website. It’s just in app purchases that they have a monopoly on. So it’s annoying but it is possible. Hopefully developers make use of this and other regulation finishes the job
> The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld much of Rogers' decision in 2023, finding that Epic had "failed to prove the existence of substantially less restrictive alternatives" to Apple's system.
What does this mean? Does Apple even allow any alternatives?
It means that Epic failed to identify a better way for Apple to collect its 30%/15% fee than mandating developers use its in-app purchase system.
Epic’s cert petition at the Supreme Court focused on the argument that it’s unfair that their identified solution needed to be equally or less burdensome, but the Supreme Court turned them away.
Imagine a world where laws forced Apple to enable feature an Apple-compatible version of the Play Store alongside the App Store and vice versa. How would that not be a net positive for the mobile device ecosystem?
It will be interesting to see how far the anti-steering ruling actually goes. Will Apple still be able to block links to a alternative payment options? Or what if the link contains a token that logs you in automatically and goes straight to a payment form that’s almost indistinguishable from an in-app form?
"Developers may apply for an entitlement to provide a link in their app to a website the developer owns or maintains responsibility for in order to purchase such items."
I wonder if this will open the floodgate for more apps to offer free trials through the App Store, with an in-app paywall linking to an external payment processor with lower fees. Basically, Apple gets stuck with the obligation to maintain the App Store, while taking a considerably smaller chunk of the overall pie. Might make them rethink the value proposition of a closed ecosystem if they can't recoup enough of the cost for running the store.
I think apple still gets to collect its 30% in this situation. The ruling was that apps can direct to other payment options but apple can still collect the 30% fee. Only way around the fee I see is to have just a general subscription service and tell users to sign up on the website, giving plausible deniability about where the signup came from.
Not sure why that would lead Apple to opening their devices up. I’d first expect Apple to start charging developers fees for bandwidth usage not tied to a purchase.
"Snubs" doesn't really seem appropriate here as prose. There are plenty of issues with SCOTUS and the US judiciary one could complain about, but a simple one is simply that at the end of the day there is one supreme court of 9 people and they physically can only handle so many cases per year. LOTS or cases of way more fundamental importance then this one get declined every year because only a fraction of those seeking appeal to SCOTUS can possibly get it even if they thought all of them were worthy, which they aren't. At the end of the day this particular case doesn't really seem to rise to that level. There's no big circuit split, no deep constitutional issues, no enormous injustice to individual people, lower courts don't seem to have gotten anything particularly wrong given the current state of the law, and Congress could certainly step in if it wanted in ways much more fine tuned. Each company has plenty of money to be made out of it but that's about it. Neither side got everything they wanted.
I'd personally like to see a federal law trying a scalpel first, where at purchase time people can elect to have the ability to add to the root key store of any hardware they buy, or entrust that to the manufacturer instead. That'd preserve most if not all of the benefits for those who don't want to have to deal with that like right now, and wish to pool their collective purchasing power with Apple or whomever to enforce certain standards on developers. But it'd mean anyone who wanted to could also venture forth from the walled garden and small devs who wanted to focus on that could do so. In terms of power balance I think it'd work out pretty well, the biggest players also want to reach the broadest audience and thus would face more restrictions, whereas small focused devs fine catering to a devoted fanbase, or pure open source, would have the most freedom. It's kinda too bad so much of the conversation is binary of "complete jailed garden" like right now vs "devs getting to do whatever they want to everyone whether they like it or not" like on the PC.
Also, more simply put, SCOTUS declining to review a case is a tacit (and somewhat weak) way for them to state, "the lower court is probably right about this and we don't think we need to get involved".
Even for a hugely important issue, they might decline to hear the case on those grounds, if they think the lower court got it right. For some types of hugely important issues, of course, they might choose to take the case anyway (even if just to affirm the lower courts ruling), in order to establish binding precedent over all federal circuit districts (and below).
I agree that SCOTUS passing is correct and with everything else in your first paragraph as to why.
Addressing the issue would certainly be the job of the legislative branch but I question whether they should try to address this with a law. My feelings on this are a bit conflicted because I truly hate "Jailed Gardens" and wish they didn't exist. However, I also know that it's extremely difficult, if not impossible, to draft legislation that responds to dynamic, rapidly evolving problems in open-ended domains like high tech. It almost always ends up being ineffective, subverted or causing unintended consequences downstream.
As much as I hate it, in areas of governance often the only viable options are all non-optimal in various ways. In this case, I think the 'least bad' approach is to let Apple have their jailed garden and run it the way they want to (short of demonstrable anti-trust, of course). Personally, I opted out of Apple devices a long time ago for this very reason and use Android devices I can root and modify however I want. After all, some people like living in the iOS jailed garden and appreciate the benevolent dictator keeping them safe and making their decisions for them (or are at least willing to tolerate the costs for the benefits). For my part, this is just another of those things I really don't like but for which reflexively calling "Thar oughtta be a LAW!" would be ineffective or make things worse. The road to dystopias is paved with the good intentions of those trying to legislatively enforce idyllic utopias. It's annoying but maxing broad freedom to choose often requires tolerating the annoying behavior of others maxing their freedom to choose (including those selling time-shares in an idyllic garden-jail).
> Today's denial of petitions for certiorari means that Apple has mostly run out of legal options to prevent changes to its App Store policies now that multiple courts have found its "anti-steering" language anticompetitive.
So the courts agree that Apple uses anticompetitive practices.
As siblings point out, the courts agree to one single anti-competitive practice.
The thing here is that the only thing Epic won on was a fairly clear California law, the anti-steering stuff. While this is good news, this isn't really groundbreaking: it's an unsurprising legal result, given that the CA law exists, and doesn't conflict with any federal law.
The bits where Epic lost were much more significant, and were related to plain-vanilla anti-trust law. Law which I had hoped would apply here and break up Apple's iOS app distribution monopoly.
A court found that Apple used a specific business practice found to be anticompetitive, this was upheld on appeal and SCOTUS declined to address any legal questions. So, to restate what you said more correctly: a court has found Apple used an anticompetitive practice and an Appeals court upheld it or “agreed” if you prefer.
Law is a whole lot more boring when you murder the rhetorical intent in how people interpret it with extreme prejudice.
Yes, that's correct. Hopefully some of their other anti-competitiveness practices get ruled against but for now it's rather limited to some of their most flagrant behavior.
[+] [-] dang|2 years ago|reply
US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39020365 - Jan 2024 (238 comments)
[+] [-] granzymes|2 years ago|reply
So, to summarize, the relevant market is this dispute was the mobile game market (not an iPhone-specific market like Epic wanted), Apple does not have a monopoly in that market, and Apple doesn’t need to charge less in the App Store or for in-app purchases. But, due to California law, Apple cannot prevent developers from informing consumers that lower prices are available outside of the app.
[+] [-] JeffSnazz|2 years ago|reply
Why do we act like there is a "mobile game market" when there are clearly two distinct major private markets, both monopolized by definition of private control over basic aspects like pricing and content, including mandating a private tax rate?
[+] [-] lolinder|2 years ago|reply
Does someone more familiar with the process know if it's a guarantee now that Apple will be forced to comply with that part of the original ruling, or is there room for them to get it removed or postponed indefinitely?
[+] [-] alberth|2 years ago|reply
Is this CA law enforceable because Apple is HQ in CA, or simply because they do business there?
- if simply due to operating business there, couldn't Apple geofence the entire state and only allow developers the option to steer consumers who are using their app within CA state lines?
- if it's simply because Apple is HQ in CA, couldn't Apple simply move it's HQ (on paper) to another US state (like Texas, where a lot of other tech companies have moved HQs)
[+] [-] bluish29|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] voisin|2 years ago|reply
Will this lead to a carve out for California users, similar to the carve out they are making for app stores in the EU?
[+] [-] somenameforme|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] judge2020|2 years ago|reply
> Yvonne-Gonzalez was skeptical of the 30% fee during the trial, and in the ruling she was suspicious about Apple's justification of the commission, writing that "the 30% is not tied to anything in particular and can be changed," but did not order Apple to do so.
Nothing in the ruling[1] seems to prohibit Apple from still charging a "iOS License Fee" for access to the developer tools, APIs, etc. I can very well see them charging based on # of installs or % of revenue, even if developers direct people to an outside payment processor.
0: https://www.npr.org/2021/09/10/1036043886/apple-fortnite-epi...
1: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21060696-epic-v-appl...
[+] [-] MBCook|2 years ago|reply
On the one hand Apple payments are really frictionless. There is no way 3rd parties can match it. Plus easy to track/cancel.
On the other hand a lower price is a lower price. But is it low enough to get enough users to enter a credit card?
Combine this with the alternate App Store thing (looks like EU only) and we’re in for some shaking out of what is and is not a good strategy as an app maker with never before seen on iPhone options in the mix.
[+] [-] remon|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] misnome|2 years ago|reply
This article mentions nothing about it - was this interpretation overly pessimistic?
[+] [-] newprint|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jncfhnb|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cubefox|2 years ago|reply
What does this mean? Does Apple even allow any alternatives?
[+] [-] granzymes|2 years ago|reply
Epic’s cert petition at the Supreme Court focused on the argument that it’s unfair that their identified solution needed to be equally or less burdensome, but the Supreme Court turned them away.
[+] [-] kelnos|2 years ago|reply
Which I think is preposterous, but... there we are.
[+] [-] ken47|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Covzire|2 years ago|reply
Steam should make a smart phone, fully open under the hood, decent specs, no walled gardens except optional ones.
[+] [-] elpool2|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] threeseed|2 years ago|reply
https://9to5mac.com/2024/01/16/apple-revises-us-app-store-ru...
[+] [-] DreamGen|2 years ago|reply
What if there was a standardized way to discover these alternative payment links, so users would automatically go there to find a discounted price.
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] Arnt|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beaned|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nsagent|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HDThoreaun|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Uvix|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] londons_explore|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asah|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jbverschoor|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] honeybadger1|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xoa|2 years ago|reply
I'd personally like to see a federal law trying a scalpel first, where at purchase time people can elect to have the ability to add to the root key store of any hardware they buy, or entrust that to the manufacturer instead. That'd preserve most if not all of the benefits for those who don't want to have to deal with that like right now, and wish to pool their collective purchasing power with Apple or whomever to enforce certain standards on developers. But it'd mean anyone who wanted to could also venture forth from the walled garden and small devs who wanted to focus on that could do so. In terms of power balance I think it'd work out pretty well, the biggest players also want to reach the broadest audience and thus would face more restrictions, whereas small focused devs fine catering to a devoted fanbase, or pure open source, would have the most freedom. It's kinda too bad so much of the conversation is binary of "complete jailed garden" like right now vs "devs getting to do whatever they want to everyone whether they like it or not" like on the PC.
[+] [-] kelnos|2 years ago|reply
Even for a hugely important issue, they might decline to hear the case on those grounds, if they think the lower court got it right. For some types of hugely important issues, of course, they might choose to take the case anyway (even if just to affirm the lower courts ruling), in order to establish binding precedent over all federal circuit districts (and below).
[+] [-] mrandish|2 years ago|reply
Addressing the issue would certainly be the job of the legislative branch but I question whether they should try to address this with a law. My feelings on this are a bit conflicted because I truly hate "Jailed Gardens" and wish they didn't exist. However, I also know that it's extremely difficult, if not impossible, to draft legislation that responds to dynamic, rapidly evolving problems in open-ended domains like high tech. It almost always ends up being ineffective, subverted or causing unintended consequences downstream.
As much as I hate it, in areas of governance often the only viable options are all non-optimal in various ways. In this case, I think the 'least bad' approach is to let Apple have their jailed garden and run it the way they want to (short of demonstrable anti-trust, of course). Personally, I opted out of Apple devices a long time ago for this very reason and use Android devices I can root and modify however I want. After all, some people like living in the iOS jailed garden and appreciate the benevolent dictator keeping them safe and making their decisions for them (or are at least willing to tolerate the costs for the benefits). For my part, this is just another of those things I really don't like but for which reflexively calling "Thar oughtta be a LAW!" would be ineffective or make things worse. The road to dystopias is paved with the good intentions of those trying to legislatively enforce idyllic utopias. It's annoying but maxing broad freedom to choose often requires tolerating the annoying behavior of others maxing their freedom to choose (including those selling time-shares in an idyllic garden-jail).
[+] [-] thomastjeffery|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 2OEH8eoCRo0|2 years ago|reply
So the courts agree that Apple uses anticompetitive practices.
[+] [-] kelnos|2 years ago|reply
The thing here is that the only thing Epic won on was a fairly clear California law, the anti-steering stuff. While this is good news, this isn't really groundbreaking: it's an unsurprising legal result, given that the CA law exists, and doesn't conflict with any federal law.
The bits where Epic lost were much more significant, and were related to plain-vanilla anti-trust law. Law which I had hoped would apply here and break up Apple's iOS app distribution monopoly.
[+] [-] MBCook|2 years ago|reply
Fixed it. They said not allowing developers to say it was possible to pay externally was against the law. I think a California law?
They did not say that about Apple’s fee, the existence of only Apple’s App Store, or anything else.
It was limited to anti-steering.
[+] [-] SllX|2 years ago|reply
Law is a whole lot more boring when you murder the rhetorical intent in how people interpret it with extreme prejudice.
[+] [-] tick_tock_tick|2 years ago|reply