Japan Passes Law to Allow App Marketplaces

Gruber, always with the dumbest takes, on the wrong side on anything he decides to activate his two neurons on. Why he is taken seriously in any context has eluded me for more than a decade now. Maybe he had something more intelligent to say 20 years ago? That’s hell of a credit he must have carved for himself if people give him slack for so long since.

Seeing as Apple makes a distinction between PCs and Consoles, as per their UTM ruling, making a distinction between phones and consoles should be A OK (Apple OK)

@Leo I think DF/Gruber simply (and effectively) caters to readers who want somebody to defend everything and anything that Apple does with some kind of intellectually sounding explanation. I think there is a large number of readers who want to read just that.

@Kristoffer Excellent point. I've been a critic of Gruber's attempts at framing the iPhone as similar to video game consoles from the beginning, but Apple's recent decisions regarding UTM just highlight that they themselves don't believe it either.

I'm glad that nobody's buying Gruber's ridiculous argument, but to add to what everyone already said on the subject: despite their powerful hardware, consoles remain specialized devices — you'll see barely anything in their stores besides games and media players. Whereas, IMO, if a company releases an ad bragging how their electronic device has apps for everything, they've completely lost any claim that this device is not a general-purpose machine.

The Apple product that's actually comparable to game consoles is the Apple TV. And AFAIK no one — not Japan, not the EU — has tried to force Apple to open it up, even though it literally uses the same chips as iPhones.

Phones are also such an integral part of everyday life now that it feels weird that two for profit companies have such control over them.

Consoles on the other hand are perfectly optional.

When I first saw this being reported a couple of days ago, my first thought was "what sort of xenophobic projection is Gruber going to come up with?". It was the EU protecting Spotify, it was South Korea protecting Samsung - it's always foreigners acting in a nationalistic fashion whenever cometition law is briught to bear, and Apple is never at fault.

All he needs is his red MAGA hat to complete his American Suprematist uniform.

Sigh. Guess I have to be that one guy.

Yes, Gruber's take is typically reactionary and stupid. But, is there not something to regulating games consoles as any other computational device? Nobody *wants* the anti-features that are needed to prop up the loss-leading and price-discrimination that make these products "marketable". And, after all, can we really know what benefits would be gained by liberating this sort of hardware until we actually try it? Apple are certainly hypocrites, but once upon a time smartphones were the exception, too.

And now, back to the program ...

I get that Smartphones are so widely used that they get treated differently to more niche devices but my concern is that the EU are going to undermine the very reason smartphone became popular in the first place - people find them safe and convenient to use. I like to think I’m fairly tech savvy but I like to give my bank card details to as few companies as possible - this regulation is going to guarantee that people give out those details to more companies than currently and you can bet some of those companies will turn out to be shady.
I certainly won’t be signing up for a subscription outside the App Store where cancelling will be as hard as the third party can possibly make it.
If the EU get their way, I fear we will look back to the days of one and only App store as halcyon ones for security and privacy reasons - not to mention the ease of managing subscriptions and potential for getting refunds.

"The United States should treat this as a trade war, and reciprocate by passing legislation mandating third-party game stores and payments on game consoles from Sony and Nintendo."

This is a new level of dumb for Gruber. I usually want to give him the benefit of the doubt, I think his positions almost always fall on the pro-Apple side, but are still usually positions a thoughtful person might reasonably hold.

This whole "iPhones are exactly the same as needless toys" thing, though, is just utterly pathetic. I can not believe that he actually genuinely believes this.

"the EU are going to undermine the very reason smartphone became popular in the first place - people find them safe and convenient to use"

Safety is not the reason people use smartphones, or they would already not use them, and third-party stores are not going to make smartphones less safe. If anything, they will make them more safe, because I can just put an actually safety-focused app store on my dad's phone and not worry that he'll accidentally download some scam app from Apple's ostensibly safe store.

@Sebby I see your point. But didn't Sony actually offer Linux for the PlayStation 3, and effectively nobody used it, outside of a few research labs? Even with its limitations (IIRC an entire core was disabled in OtherOS mode), it was an attempt in good faith without being forced by regulation.

I meant EU/Japan of course.

I’m not unaware of pre-existing issues in the App Store but I do think multiple app stores will inevitably lead to more fraud as it’s setting a expectation with the user that they are going to be switched away from where they were via a link to a web page - which is already the primary method of phishing scams.

Maybe it can be done securely at all times but I just fear it won’t end well. And lets not forget that Epic Games were fined for unfair commercial practices aimed at Children like putting false timers on items in their store to encourage rash decisions by children - how lovely it will be to have these new stores!

"it’s setting a expectation with the user that they are going to be switched away from where they were via a link to a web page"

I'm not sure what exactly you're describing here.

"lets not forget that Epic Games were fined for unfair commercial practices aimed at Children like putting false timers on items in their store"

You mean like pretty much every gacha game in the iOS store?

@Niall I’m always confused when I hear this argument about not wanting to pay for apps outside of the App Store. Doesn’t everyone already buy from all sorts of vendors on the Web and in person? And it’s fine? What makes paying for an app uniquely dangerous?

@Michael yeah you’re right - I’m happy to pay for things in shops and restaurants but I’m very wary of clicking on a link that purports to be legitimately taking me to a place I know. External app stores are going to be accessed by clicking on a link.
I was recently targeted by a company who say they are representing a utiluity company and claimed I owed money - the email included a link to a ‘portal’ which I sure as hell wasn’t going to click - I replied via the email with proof I was in credit and they responded that they couldn’t t accept that response but I had to follow the link to the ‘portal’.
No I don’t buy from all sorts of vendors on the web - I don’t trust unknown web vendors as it’s easy to fake reputation with fake reviews etc.
I’m not new to buying software via the web - I loved the early era of shareware and bought a modem script from a NZ developer around the year 2000 that allowed me to send pictures from my PowerBook G3 via Zterm using infrared connection to a Nokia 3210 :) I was so grateful I paid more than the suggested price.
But I’d be very unlikely to accept being thrown out of the App Store and into the modern day web where all sorts of scams and intercepts seem to exist (admittedly whether real or feared)
Maybe it’s just me, but I fear a ‘throwing the baby out with the bathwater’ scenario is ‘developing’.

@Plume - lots of games have timers yeah, but I don’t think the App Store has ever pretended an offer was time limited when it wasn’t - unlike the case with the Epic Games store

@Niall

Ever considered 1-time credit cards?

I don't think Gruber sees the forest for the trees -- in this case I doubt he realizes that we are leaving the uni-polar moment and entering a multi-polar world, the latest sign of which is that the petro-dollar contract with Saudi Arabia has not been renewed. Pissing off our few remaining allies/friends further with silly trade-wars over trivial matters like Nintendo's consoles would only hasten our fall.

@Sebby The fundamental difference between the iPhone, and (typical) games consoles, is that Consoles are sold at a loss by their makers, so as to make them as affordable and as widely purchasable as possible, and so consumers will have more disposable cash to buy the games, which can be priced reasonably because the console maker hasn't sucked all the financial oxygen out of the room.

So it would seem reasonable that the console maker can direct all game sales through their own store, since they have eaten a loss / deferral so that consumers have more money available for 3rd party gamedevs. Slowly, over time the console maker will return to break even on the console via their store fees.

Nintendo may be a special case, because they've traditionally sold their consoles at a profitable level straight off the bat.

"lots of games have timers yeah, but I don’t think the App Store has ever pretended an offer was time limited when it wasn’t - unlike the case with the Epic Games store"

I'm not sure what you're saying. The case against Epic had nothing to do with their store, it was about Fortnite. Apple sells the exact same kinds of games in their store that Epic was sued for.

“ACM also found that, through various design choices for its offerings in its Item Shop, Epic exploited the vulnerabilities of children”

OK Plume my mistake it’s not an App Store but an in game ‘Item Shop’ but still think it doesn’t n’t bode well for their own App Store.

Above quote from
https://www.acm.nl/en/publications/epic-fined-unfair-commercial-practices-aimed-children-fortnite-game#:~:text=Epic%20fined%20for%20unfair%20commercial%20practices%20aimed%20at%20children%20in%20Fortnite%20game,-The%20Netherlands%20Authority

@OUG - no never used a one-time card but maybe I should consider them

"but still think it doesn’t n’t bode well for their own App Store."

They already have a games store. It's much better curated than Apple's store.