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I agree with Alex, companies with patents should be forced to use them or lose them. Sitting on them to sue other people shouldn’t be a valid business model.
Regarding snapshot.apple.com, I sat through a minute or so and it shows how different it is living in Europe, I only recognized about half a dozen people, like Kate Blanchett, Brad Pitt and Jennifer. But most of the others I didn’t know, a few I’d heard names, like Taylor Swift or Beyoncé, but I couldn’t pick them out of a line-up.
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Alex seems mistaken about the contempt charge. It wasn’t levied because of non-compliance. It was levied because VP of Finance Alex Roman lied under oath, and Epic had the receipts (which Apple stalled and stalled on providing) to prove it; and because of misuse of attorney-client privilege in attempting to without said receipts.
If you look up her history, Judge Gonzales Rogers has generally upheld Apple’s position in the various cases she’s had. In the Epic case, she even said that Epic’s situation was largely one of its own making. It was in this one single area that she found Epic had a point.
As a side note: I found it particularly reprehensible that Alex’s issue with this is that Apple wrote things down. Not that they violated the order. Not that they were anti-competitive. His problem, essentially, is that they got caught. This goes beyond his claimed-cynicism and into tolerance and acceptable of unethical behavior.
Alex’s assertion that Apple did nothing wrong because it followed the “letter” of the law doesn’t hold water with me. This is akin to the US government being told verbally to halt deportations, and then not doing it because it wasn’t written. It’s complete and utter BS. Judges don’t like it when you play cute with their orders and injunctions.
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I was actually surprised how short that segment was.
If you want Jason’s take, he and Mike spent quite a while discussing the ruling.
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I completely second this. The discussion of this topic on Upgrade 562 is absolutely excellent.
He might well be technically correct. Still, Apple had to know it ultimately wouldn’t fly. I found Stephen Robles’ comment interesting about how he has twice as many subscribers to his podcast who sign up through Apple’s podcast app vs. directly from his site with a big reason being able to manage your subscriptions in one place. I’m a big fan of that and agree completely with Alex’s position on being able to subscribe in app.
I have a subscription to The Athletic that’s not through the App Store. I got a great deal last year for 12 months at a really low price and signed up. I found I rarely use the app and was going to cancel it, but lost track on when it renews. That’s on me. I found out it was last week when I got a notification on my credit card of a subscription charge for $71.99. Now, I’m trying to figure out how to cancel so it doesn’t renew again and there’s apparently no way to do that in the app. I get a pop up telling me I have to go my account on the NY Times website to do anything. Didn’t know I had an account on the NY Times website. Alex is right. This user experience is terrible.
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Exactly. I have no problems with apps linking to external sites, as long as there is also an option to pay through the store. They can charge more through the store, if they want, to compensate for Apple’s vig, but give users the option.
Some places I already have a relationship, others I don’t want a relationship.
I was able to cancel my subscription to The Athletic on the NYT website, but it took a lol of clicks. I am stuck with it until next May. Who know. Maybe I’ll see more value over the next year.
I’m listening to Jason Snell’s Upgrade podcast about this. Apparently, there’s documentation where Phil Schiller is telling Apple not to do what they ended up doing because it went against the judge’s ruling. That’s not good.
Here’s an idea I thought of while cutting grass today. Maybe Apple could get their 30% cut on the initial purchase of the app, or the first in app purchase on free apps. After that, any in app purchases or subscription renewals would only be 5-10%. They’d get to keep the user friendly experience of App Store purchases, but wouldn’t be as punitive. At the same time, developers could also have a link to go outside the App Store. Unless there’s a huge price difference on an expensive purchase, I’d stay in the App Store.
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I’m not opposed to having the option in the store to link out and pay them directly and receive a discount. For some apps, I’d certainly pay them directly, but for most apps that it’s free trial or pay discounted 99 cents for 1month trial, I want that to still be an option through the store so I know my payment is secure. If I’m trying out an app and have decided I trust you yet, I most definitely don’t want to fork over my card info and most likely not even my actual e-mail.
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When I take out a subscription for something that isn’t app based, I always mark the cancellation date in my calendar, so that I don’t forget it.
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Again, it depends, if it is Amazon, where they already have my payment details, Apple has no business poking its nose into the transaction. But, as you say, for others, who I might not trust or just don’t know, going through Apple is teh safer and/or more comfortable choice.
I don’t believe Alex is right because Apple didn’t fulfill the intent of the order - which was to find a way to increase competition. At each step of the way, they foreclosed competition when that was the opposite intent of the order.
I encourage you to listen to the referenced Jason Snell podcast episode (Upgrade 562), where he lays out the issues with far better articulation than I seem to be doing.
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