I'm fine with Google and Apple having App stores, so long as I'm not forced to use them. They should compete like everyone else. The walls of the walled garden have to be torn down. They still get to have a garden, they just can't lock unwitting people inside of it.
Walls to keep apps out should be fine, but they should have to have gates to let the consumers out - i.e. a method to install other apps (not through the app store) that have every bit the same level of access as the device manufacturer's apps.
There should be two levers used to achieve this. One is anti-trust style legislation. The other is patent misuse legislation. If you try and prevent consumers from running software on hardware they bought from you to make a profit, you shouldn't be allowed to prevent consumers from buying the same hardware from someone else - that's what patents do - they create government enforced monopolies on the hardware. You should be required to invalidate (donate to the public domain) every patent on the hardware if you want to sell hardware where you get to profit off your monopoly on letting developers write software for the hardware.
These Epic rulings are better than nothing, but I can't help but feel that their solution of "make Apple distribute software they don't like in their app store" is the wrong one.
A company can lock the hardware but not the software, or lock the software but not the hardware? I’ve not heard this idea before, it sounds like an extremely logical idea. It would easily be achieved by splitting apple in two. I wonder if there are any downsides to that? The “walled garden” of hardware and software does have some benefits, but the cost to society is too high.
Is anyone proposing making Apple distribute software? If so, though, pretty sure just allowing sideloading instead would satisfy all of Apple’s critics including the government. It’s Apple who insists that all roads onto the iPhone must go through them (and give them 30% of your gross revenue)
> Is anyone proposing making Apple distribute software?
That's what the plain language of this injunction does.
Admittedly if Apple had come to the court (or even potentially came to the court now) and agreed to the alternate solution of allowing sideloading the court might have issued a different injunction (or modify this injunction).
