Google will appeal the decision: https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/11/23996902/google-will-appeal-the-epic-v-google-verdict
The only thing we’ve learned today is that Apple’s lawyers are far better than Google’s…
Yeah… How the fuck is Google action here “monopolistic” and Apple literally refusing to let anyone in at all somehow isn’t? What a joke.
It’s so frustrating seeing this question constantly in all these threads when this has been explained.
iOS is locked down. It is not an open, competitive market. That in itself is not against the law, and it won’t be considered an anti-trust issue until the market share grows.
Android is not locked down, which means it’s a competitive marketplace.
Google was not doing the same thing as Apple. Google was using shady deals to make Android less competitive. iOS was never competitive to begin with.
Apple got off on a technicality, basically.
What Apple does is shitty and deserves regulating, but apparently we have a ways to go before we reach the EU’s level of understanding on this.
Look, I despise Google as much as anyone these days, and I’m glad they’re taking a beating this time around, but at the same time, it’s also kind of bullshit. And it’s not even because you can sideload apps, or have alternate appstores on Android, but because we have yet to see the same standards being applied to Apple.
I don’t understand, this is bullshit because Apple won their case? Do you mean the Apple case was bullshit?
Right. Apple is even more restricted but somehow won their case. Makes it all seem like bullshit.
The judge in their case decided that the relevant market was mobile gaming, not app stores or in-app payment processing, and since technically Apple didn’t have a monopoly there, the whole monopoly claim by Epic was deemed invalid by that judge. Courts can be stupidly black & white sometimes but that’s how it is and a whole case can be tossed out based on a technicality. Google v Epic however was a jury trial and Epic obviously took lessons from their loss against Apple.
There’s a reason you have organizations like the NLRB, meant to be the “first step” before a labor case goes to a more general trial – it lets a bunch of people who are actual subject matter experts (in the NLRB’s case, labor law experts) be the first pass at reviewing the legal claims before a general court that doesn’t know what the fuck they’re talking about gets involved. It lets you set the tone for the whole ensuing trial process, grounded in understanding and truth.
The average judge doesn’t know jack shit about ANYTHING other than the technicalities of the law. Most of them haven’t done a real day of work in their life. But being a judge gives you the confidence you need to think your understanding of the technicalities of the law can be applied to just about anything, even something you find utterly baffling outside of the trial.
We really lack a qualified commission or board to be the first pass for these big tech disputes. The FTC is asleep at the wheel. And the result is that our ongoing legal frameworks around these issues continue to be arbitrary, unpredictable court rulings based on random judges’ limited understandings and gut instincts. It’s a very bad situation.
In a similar vein, that’s why the fascists on the Supreme Court are trying so hard to undermine and delete Chevron deference. Because when you want to use the courts to just enforce your preferences and write your own laws, having to appeal to subject matter experts just gets in the way.
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Google is a monopoly. Apple in many ways, is also a monopoly. They are lamenting that the latter was not acknowledged.
Definitely a case of “good, now go do apple again”. The mobile marketplaces being locked down and tied to services is bullcrap. If I want a run of the mill open source android OS and to be able to use Gmail (or drive, or some other Google product ) I should not have to allow Google full access to the knowledge of every app I run and the screen time and my location information… Etc, etc.
But I do think the apple win on a technicality will be revisited at some point.
And to be clear, I freaking do not like Epic. But this fight they’re on the side I agree with. Open up the mobile platforms.
On Android you can install unapproved apps and even entire app stores. The barrier to having people install your app is a couple of taps (approximately as difficult as it’d be on Windows when you’ve got to approve UAC a time or two).
So, it is kind of ridiculous in comparison that they lost but Apple with an entire walled of ecosystem that you can’t bypass without finding a zero day exploit won their case.
With that said, I know a lot of people who only buy Apple BECAUSE of that walled off ecosystem and conversely I know people that primarily buy Android for their relatively open system, so I’m in the minority where I think neither Google nor Apple should have to change in this particular regard. Both companies suck, but charging the same price they always have for their app store isn’t the issue I’d fight them over.
The barrier to having people install your app is a couple of taps
Not entirely true. Google has a history of making it as difficult as possible for other app stores to run without outright locking them out as possible.
Citation needed. I just tried installing the Epic store on my Samsung and it was literally a couple of taps, not even an actual warning - just a friendly dialog box asking me to allow my browser to install apps and that’s it.
Used to be much, much worse. They used to force you to go find a setting called something like ‘allow apps from outside the Play Store’ and tick it, show you warning screens, then when you tried to install an app from it, it would take you out of the store to say ‘do you want to install this from an untrusted location?’
Edit: and that’s before we get onto the subject of Play Protect, which is used to wipe applications from phones that are contrary to Google’s interests but not actual malware.
Not disagreeing, but sidelosding is obvious for people like us who have tinkered with smartphones, especially back when most devices used to be ‘open’ and tons of 3rd party roms were around. It’s obvious for us who know about adb commands and developer settings. It’s not so obvious when you’re a new customer who got their 1st galaxy phone - you’d have no idea there’s something else other than Google play for apps.
I think a lot of people here are missing the point that in a court legal != pro-consumer. The US has monopoly laws that Apple (annoyingly) follows but Google does not.
Apple follows the monopoly laws but Google doesn’t? Which one allows you to install alternative app stores again?
Because Apple does not break monopoly law. Which isn’t about installing app stores, would be weird if that’s in the law anyways given the age.
Apple sells a device they make, with firmware they create. That firmware allows plugins from a catalogue they curate because it’s all their ecosystem, top to bottom.
Google otoh creates an OS. More like MS or Canonical or so.
It’s a clever-evil (clevil?) gambit, right? Become the largest corporation on the planet, but somehow skirt being a monopoly technically. If Apple’s iPhone hardware team colludes with Apple’s App Store team, it’s just collaboration. If they did so with a third party, it’d be collusion.
Meanwhile:
- Third party Bluetooth hardware (like smartwatches) has to use an inferior API than Apple’s private one for their Bluetooth accessories
- Third party browsers have to use Apple’s rendering engine in degraded performance to Safari and can’t use their own
- Third party apps are forced to follow Apple’s power policy (ex: background apps can’t run over 10 minutes) while Apple’s apps can do what they want.
- Apple can circumvent third party VPNs to always allow their traffic to 17.0.0.0, so there is basically no way to block an Apple device from talking to Apple HQ except for taking it offline.
On Android you can take an OEM device and change most aspects of it to suit your needs. On iOS, nope. Sad thing is though, Google seems to be slowly closed-sourcing Android to be like a broken version of Apple.
In the end, we all lose.
The laws need updating, also the people in governance need updating so they can comprehend these things.
Edit: Formatting
I must be seriously misunderstanding the US legal system. OEMs can ship whatever store they want next to Play Store. I have a Samsung phone in my hand with Galaxy Store coming out of the box proving that point.
Apple makes its own app store for its own OS to be used on its own devices. It doesn’t make anyone else bundle its services on third party devices.
It is more that iOS isn’t the market leader. If iOS had Android’s marketshare, Apple would have lost its case.
That certainly weighs into it, but take a look at the agreements that Google has handset manufacturers agree to. They’re quite a lot like 90’s Microsoft.
Shouldn’t this set a precedent for apple as well?
Thing is, Apple is only 30% of the market. Google is the other 70%
Not in the US. The estimates I’ve seen are closer to 50-50 which is really saying something about how effective Apple has been.
Apple’s reasoning is that they also sell their own machines… still bs if you ask me.
How the heck does Google lose this but apple win it? Not that funny. Weird news.
Mishaal Rahman talked a bit about this: https://androiddev.social/@MishaalRahman/111564753075960964
apple has a deeper lobbyist checkbook
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Also the Browser extension store?
Wouldn’t they just argue you can use developer mode to install the extension? Or is that not available on mobile?
On mobile there are no extensions at all.
Only true for sub-par browsers.
This was about Chromium
Only true for sub-par browsers.
Chromium poorly is the most secure Browser. It sucks, and Googles monopoly sucks, but the main problem really is the webstore. Even manifest V3 could allow extensions with daily blocklist updates. But not on that store.
Chromium is by far more secure on both Android and Linux, which is a shame.
