Although Epic appealed to SCOTUS, and SCOTUS rejected their appeal, which makes it seem like SCOTUS is unlikely to rule that app stores have to be open.
In general the judicial system's bizarre treatment of Apple baffles and somewhat infuriates me. If Google has to allow alternative app stores on Android due to monopoly power, and has to allow alternate billing options due to monopoly power, and yet is the smaller of the two in the U.S., how on Earth does the legal system continue to give a free pass to Apple doing the same thing while having more market power in the U.S. than Google? It's obscene and makes me deeply question the integrity of the judicial system in the U.S. as a whole.
Personally I think both Google and Apple should have to open up their app store system and billing systems more broadly, but it's pretty despicable for the judicial system to simply pick winners and losers like this.
The difference is that Apple doesn't try and pretend their platform is open-source, whereas Google wants to have its cake (i.e. impose competitive blockers on their own platform) and eat it too (i.e. benefit from calling their platform open source and having free development fed back into it).
Yeah the code being open-source vs closed-source didn't have anything to do with the legal ruling here. The judge claimed that the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store are not competitors (LMFAO), and therefore Google can be held liable even if Apple wasn't. https://www.theverge.com/23959932/epic-v-google-trial-antitr...
(FWIW, the journalist who wrote both articles is ethically barred from reporting on Apple due to his wife being an Apple employee, but still apparently covers Google/Android, so... Take the slant of his coverage with a grain of salt.)
You have two walled gardens and two monopoly-esque distribution platforms within those walls.
Nobody with an iPhone can use Google Play, and nobody with an Android can use the app store.
Which is why disallowing, or hindering, competing app stores within one walled garden is clearly anti-competitive.
It's not reasonable to expect consumers in one ecosystem to completely leave the ecosystem for one specific app, just like it's not reasonable to expect a homeowner to sell their house and move somewhere just so they can pay a lower utility bill.
Is the utility company serving your house a competitor with the utility company across the street if I have to move houses to switch between them?
Yes, if you look at the market as a whole. Clearly not if you use a reasonable interpretation and consider costs of switching.
If Apple and Google are truly providing unique value to developers and consumers, then they have nothing to fear from alternative app stores. Their profits won't be affected.
Android as a platform is open source. Android does not promise any of Google Services' features.
Meanwhile, Apple literally reinvents apps/features that developers on iOS have made and rolls them into the base OS/you can bet when an API is blocked or deprecated that Apple is just about to release their own version of something.
People like to joke that Google's "don't be evil" is no longer applicable, but they completely ignore just how evil Apple really is. Totally brainwashed.
