[judge2020]

Is it though? Checking the box quite literally opens you to more users. If you have an iPad native app, your market is much smaller than if you were to allow it to be downloaded on iPhones. And supposedly you get access to 2 million users by deploying to the list of apps available on Apple TV.

[smoldesu]

Look at the Microsoft Store. It's one storefront - you buy Minecraft for Xbox online, you can download it on PC and Xbox alike. It is a single marketplace, despite hosting mutually exclusive platforms. The App Store's situation is nearly identical - all of these platforms share a kernel and a common API base (much like the PC/Xbox relation). The App Store just has a different set of arbitrary boundaries that seem to be re-drawn every time they receive anticompetitive scrutiny.

Put another way - how would accepting this as-is help regulators proceed? It's a finely-tuned joke, and if it didn't come with the olive branch of "illegal content moderation" then it wouldn't have been taken with a straight face.

[scarface74]

> The App Store just has a different set of arbitrary boundaries that seem to be re-drawn every time they receive anticompetitive scrutiny.

Apple introduced the iPad in 2010 with the capability of selling different apps for iPhone and iPad. Back then, they didn’t have a framework for supporting screens of different sizes - which wasn’t introduced until around 2012.

They introduced the AppleTV that could have third party apps in 2015.

This was way before the EU started making up regulation because it can’t produce a viable tech company to save its life.