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valparaiso

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As a back-end engineer I can't understand this outrage.

Apple's approach is less intrusive than Google and Microsoft since they don't touch your photos in iCloud except when you passed threshold and Apple workers will have technical ability to decrypt your detected (not regular) photos and manually compare with images from the database. Also iPhone doesn't trigger photo scanning if you don't upload them to iCloud.

From technical and privacy standpoint they have the best approach and it seems people are mad don't even understanding what Apple is doing.

Android users never cared but when news come to Apple everyone is losing their shit. I can't believe people are that weird.

One Bad Apple 5 years ago

He wrongly interpreted CSAM scanning. He said that Apple will scan your photos and if finds something, it will send photo to Apple. Which is absolutely not how it works. Photo is only scanned before uploading to iCloud Photos. Apple already confirmed it to iMore and it’s clearly stated in Apple papers from press-release.

Fortnite was launched outside of Play Store. You needed to firstly sideload Epic Games Store from their website and then download and install Fortnite. People got mad because they couldn’t find Fortnite on Play Store and started searching on the web. Malware bad boys created a lot of fake pages with malicious Fortnite APK files which in result started stealing personal and finance data. Tim Sweeney failed with that idea and moved to Play Store, but got mad since Google forbids you to bypass Google Billing in games. That’s why his Fortnite was removed from Play Store after malicious hotpatch with their payment system. Clear example how sideloaing failed.

It doesn’t really matter. Apple takes 30% since rules are for all. You can do your business on Android in 3rd party store or without store and don’t pay any fees. But Android users are poor by statistics and no one is using sideloading or 3rd part stores in US. That’s why she hates Apple - they built successful and platform by investing billions and now someone wants to exploit it for free.

Because that’s their business model which was stated by judge in Epic vs Apple case. Such types of business are legal for decades. You can’t change that for Apple by not damaging everyone else. Like Epic sells nearly same Fortnite skins for kids making millions and not allowing any independent designers to sell them in Fortnite skin market.

30% is industry standard. Spotify takes 50% fee from Anchor; Tencent takes 50% fee in its China Android App Store and owns 48% of Epic Games.

If you mention Tencent fee in Tim Sweeny Twitter you'll get instantly banned.

Amazon's Twitch also takes 50%. But everyone's mad at Apple since they produce products and services everyone buys, even Google engineers mostly use iPhones and Macbooks.

Have you followed September's Epic vs Apple hearing? Your statement with grocery store vs app store already doesn't work since for example judge stated to Epic lawyers that Fortnite can be distributed on every platform - iOS, Android, Windows/macOS/Linux, Web and consoles.

If you made an app solely for iOS it was your decision and investment. You could just make it for the Web so every person could access it from any platform.

Closed platforms, as stated by judge to Epic lawyers, are legal types of vertical business. You have Xbox, Playstation and Nintendo with same rules.

If Apple made their way with closed platform from the beginning on mature mobile market the question is why you decided to go to that market (and everyone else) in the first place?

The answer is very simple - on Android most of users are pirating apps, so as developer you won't make a lot of money. Also, in 2008 Apple's 30% tax was unprecedented since in other places it was 50-80%.

Now you, as iOS developer want not to pay Apple's tax but have everything they created - user install base which pays money, push notification services, support and everything else. Just don't want to pay for those services in which Apple invested tens of billions through the years.

From security standpoint - just two weeks ago Android well known third part App Store named APKMirror was installing trojans on user's devices. Do we, Apple users, want same experience? No. That's why most of Google employees/engineers in California and other parts of the world use iPhones and Macbooks.

It seems you skipped preliminary hearing in September 2020. Judge already asked why Epic thinks Apple walled garden (closed platform) is illegal while such types of businesses were legal for decades.

Also judge rejected comparison of open and closed platforms. So she asked Epic lawyers what's the difference between Apple's closed platform and Xbox/PlayStation and Nintendo.

Epic lawyers failed badly without answering. Also failed to answer question when did Apple become monopoly.

They went to the platform because the iPhone was rapidly gaining popularity and they gained access to a captive market.

So as Apple stated in court docs - it's symbiosis between company, developers and users. If iPhone were bad people wouldn't buy them and developers wouldn't create apps with bad conditions in economic terms.

if they could do the store at 30%, they could do it for far less when scaled u

Since they aren't monopoly (court conclusion after TRO hearing and on and after preliminary hearing on September 28th 2020) and we are on free market there is no reason to discuss their fee. Moreover they didn't upped it. And never did from App Store launch in 2008, only lowered for subscriptions after 1 year from 30% to 15%.

Developers can stop learning Objective-C/Swift and switch to Android-whatever on their career start if they feel bad about industry-standard 30% fee. But developers won't because Apple's user base is paying money and not sideloading pirated versions like on Android.

Also business and investors don't care about Android, like Clubhouse - for start-ups only iOS matters on first years.

So what we see? Developers who make tenths of millions (Epic Games with Tencent) want free access for Apple's user (install) base for free. There is a word for this - parasitism.

It's not my opinion. It's fact that court doesn't compare open platforms (Windows, Linux Distros, macOS) with closed ones - iOS, Nintendo, Xbox, PlayStation.

Please see preliminary hearing video where judge rejected such arguments like yours. Epic lawyers failed very badly.