Apple refuses to produce information regarding The App Association (ACT) | Hacker News Reader

Apple refuses to produce information regarding The App Association (ACT)

fosspatents.com

41 pointsnceqs313 comments

A company astroturfing? I don’t believe it. Anyways, I’m playin this great new game called Raid: Shadow Legends…

At this point in life, a company not doing stealth marketing like this is the exception. I can’t trust any endorsement by pretty much anybody to be genuine anymore.

The larger problem (as I see it) is that the general sentiment is that Apple is too big to fail. The engineers on Hacker News all take their marketing at face-value, and then come out en-masse whenever Apple is being investigated for something or accused of wrongdoing. Regardless of who you think is right or wrong in this scenario, it's impossible to deny that it has ruined any genuine discussion about the benevolence of the App Store. No matter who you are in the tech world, you simply cannot deny that Apple invests insane amounts of money maintaining their Reality Distortion Field. Making you think they're an extrajudicial entity is what they want, they need your whole-hearted trust so they can use your whole-hearted anger.

Without trying to sound too fatalist here, trusting any company is your first mistake. I feel like today's Apple users are the Microsoft pundits of the 90s, happily thumping their respective bible until antitrust regulation inevitably rains on their parade, or they all find out that $COMPANY has somehow been doing super bad things all along!

Bitten once, twice shy as they say.

I agree with most of what you said, but Apple is still one of the few big techies that is relying on making better products to increase revenue. All the others have gone down the path of "how do we trick people into transferring their money to us?". In that sense, Apple is exceptional. Their consumer grade hardware, for example, is still unmatched and try as they might nobody has come close.

If I had to bet on one big techie I'd choose Apple, which is probably why their stock has been so resilient. Simultaneously I hope regulators come down hard on the anti-competitive behaviour by Apple (and the others), but I think we're far more likely to see an increase in corruption than a decrease over time.

>All the others have gone down the path of "how do we trick people into transferring their money to us?". In that sense, Apple is exceptional.

Apple Computer? The credit card issuing, sharecropper mobile platform company? That Apple?

Yes, they also make very nice hardware and some decent software I happily use.

Technically Apple doesn't issue the card, Goldman Sachs does. It's also a pretty damn good product as far as credit cards go (and I've used them all). I ended up canceling all my other cards. The only feature the Apple one lacks is the ability to generate card numbers like privacy.com or whatever.

It’s got that. You can open Wallet, go to your card, hit the button in the top right with numbers and then there’s a button to get a new card number. I haven’t used it, so maybe it’s not instant or something.

So... should we let Apple white-label preexisting services until everything is sold with Apple as a services layer? I'm not trying to be reductive here, but that does seem to be what you're describing.

> Apple is still one of the few big techies that is relying on making better products to increase revenue

You can't be serious. Apple is playing every dirty trick they can to spill you down to the last cent. Developer fees, lock in, optional charger, dongle galore, star high device prices with modest hardware, the list is infinite

The OP blog post does nothing to clarify the substance of "Ericsson's 5G complaint" which prevents readers (e.g. me) from determining whether they would support or oppose.

What the post does do is complain that Apple refuses to cooperate with government requests for information which, to my understanding, is legal and largely to be expected.

The blog post also insinuates Apple has been astroturfing which in this context is also legal, though certainly disappointing if true.

In sum: the OP blog post throws shade on Apple's motives without clarifying the stakes of the larger determining context. I'll stop short of calling FUD.

He links to his previous coverage of the dispute. It's just a typical FRAND SEP dispute.

This is a USITC case, and the ITC staff is effectively a party to the dispute, they have certain discovery rights. Hence the reason why they are moving to compel.

FOSSPatents has blogged extensively about the litigation in question, but I'll summarize:

Apple is trying to short Ericsson on standards-essential patent (SEP) fees that every smartphone manufacturer has to pay. Ericsson has tried to get an iPhone import ban to compel Apple to a licensing discussion. Apple has argued such a ban shouldn't be imposed because iOS users can't just "get an Android". In other words, the exact opposite argument they used about sideloading mobile apps.

Apple's position is basically that they shouldn't have to pay for licensing SEP, but app developers should have to pay for being on iOS. In other words, they have a right to licensing fees but Ericsson doesn't. This is hypocrisy, and Apple is trying to have it both ways because Apple is culturally tainted by Steve Jobs.

If they’re astroturfing with The App Association, then they’re doing a very bad job, because I’ve never even heard of it.

ACT | The App Association was Apple's answer to Epic's Coalition for App Fairness. Basically, vehicles that allowed both parties to file amicus briefs against one another in the name of small business app developers.

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