The Core Technology Fee was such a mistake, on Apple's part. Presumably it's their attempt at creating a defensible position ("well it's not the App Store but our core technology now"), but it also relocates a relatively volatile discussion from just the App Store to the iPhone itself.
Apple knows what they're doing, they even retroactively added a Free software carveout to the policy in an attempt to offer an olive branch. The longer they spend trying to reinvent the same racket though, the more obvious their market damages become. And if the EU lets them get away with this reconfiguration, they'll let them get away with anything. The US suit ought to bring the hammer down, and threaten Apple with a breakup if they can't find a way to compete with third-parties naturally.
The Core Technology Fee is so absurd. I couldn't help but notice that the Mac is conspicuously missing it. Perhaps the farce would have been too obvious to non-tech people if they had tried to impose it on the Mac.
Apple's hope is probably EU backepdaling or something but as Microsoft vs USA demonstrated, the government machine can be very slow but if it wants to - it will get the things done.
I think Microsoft vs USA demonstrates that stalling until a new administration shows up can be a valid tactic. It’s not guaranteed to work, but even if the odds are say 20% that’s far from nothing when you’re talking 100’s of billions of dollars.
It allowed them to avoid breakup but it still immensely affected Microsoft creating the dead decade or whatever it was called. Nobody expects that regulators will force Apple to breakup (Google is in bigger danger there).
> I think they’re really annoyed by the Facebooks and Spotify’s of the world that make a fortune from the iPhone and pay nothing.
And not the Mac?
It seems pretty obvious that it's not even an ideological thing, Apple is fine with some users not being forced through their ecosystem. They know that the iPhone specifically is most lucrative and are trying to arbitrarily distinguish it from their other products. It frankly doesn't matter how Apple feels about it at the end of the day, there's only compliance and noncompliance.
I think they see them as different for historical reasons. The Mac is a computer and the iPhone is an appliance, so the differences makes sense to them.
Also they tried to retrofit the App Store onto the Mac, it’s a joke compared to what they seem to have thought it would become. Yeah there is software, and I use it, but for many reasons it’s far less successful than it should have been if done well.
> It frankly doesn't matter how Apple feels about it at the end of the day, there's only compliance and noncompliance.
I agree. Some people see the CTF and can’t imagine why they’d create it. I’m just trying to explain what I (and others) have suggested was the reason. It makes sense and is just given their seeming point of view.
Problem for them is no one else, even huge fans, seems to agree.
Wait so you really think that Ford should be viciously angry at somebody if they buy a non ford branded air freshener for their car? Because the air freshener company "makes a fortune from the car and pay nothing".
Apple knows what they're doing, they even retroactively added a Free software carveout to the policy in an attempt to offer an olive branch. The longer they spend trying to reinvent the same racket though, the more obvious their market damages become. And if the EU lets them get away with this reconfiguration, they'll let them get away with anything. The US suit ought to bring the hammer down, and threaten Apple with a breakup if they can't find a way to compete with third-parties naturally.