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raghu8912

macrumors 6502
Dec 5, 2016
375
221
San Jose
Let’s put it this way: let’s say there’s a physical product you want to buy and it’s sold at various brick-and-mortar stores at various price points. Some stores have a higher risk of crime—it may be marginally higher or significantly higher, but higher than others nonetheless.

So you hop in your car to purchase your product but your car only lets you drive to the place it deems the safest, even if it costs more at that location. You have no choice to go anywhere else. Some may feel comforted knowing they’re being taken to the safest place, but imagine being told you can’t drive anywhere else even if you want to. Oh, and the makers of this car also get kickbacks when you purchase at the store of its choice.
buy an android, install from any app store you want.
there is no monopoly.
imagine buying a laptop and not able to install Windows, linux on it ?
imagine buying iPhone and not installing Android, windows, linux on it ?
imagine buying AMR based laptop and not able to replace that with intel processor in it ?
 
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gco212

macrumors 6502a
Jul 21, 2004
545
185
Philadelphia
Honestly, is this a lot? It feels like it could be a lot, or it could be pennies. How does it compare to other stores/sites?
 

bzgnyc2

macrumors regular
Dec 8, 2023
123
147


Apple today shared its fourth annual fraud prevention analysis, providing insight into how the App Store's rules protect users from fraudulent apps and other security issues.

Apple says that it prevented over $1.8 billion in fraudulent transactions in 2023 alone, and $7 billion during the period from 2020 to 2023. Apple blocked more than 14 million stolen credit cards and banned more than 3.3 million accounts from further transactions.​

What's important but missing here is the denominator. I am assuming this $1.8B in fraudulent transactions is the app store and IAP? If so that would be out of $90B in revenue flowing through the app store or about 2%. If so then solid work as a good credit card merchent but I bet similar to other large retailers (I suspect Amazon and Walmart deal with similar fraud levels).

By the way, interesting enough the #1 app by IAP is TikTok and their revenue from IAP is greater than all the fraud transactions Apple prevented:


However, if the $1.8 B includes Apple Pay transactions then it would be quite low. I am sure Visa, MC, Amex etc stop a lot more fraud than that...


In any case, the 118,000 developer accounts closed for fraud sounds high. That's a lot of malicious developers who got pretty far through the system. Not sure I would be touting that number...
 
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Beautyspin

macrumors 65816
Dec 14, 2012
1,039
1,195
Looking at the fraudulent apps that had already been allowed, I am skeptical about these figures. Are they just figures that Apple pulling from somewhere or is this vetted by some reputed third-party? I mean, I can also say I stopped Trump from becoming the President, just saying.
 

CapitalIdea

macrumors 6502
Feb 25, 2022
373
1,597
That is a gross exaggeration and purely speculative. If people don’t know any better then they will learn in time. Maybe there will be growing pains but in the end, users will have an expanded market—which is always a good thing.

Also, don’t worry about the multi-trillion dollar company, they’ll do just fine.

Firstly, we have all seen people crawl out of the woodwork and sue Apple for absolutely everything for years, including ridiculous things like a handful of screen issues that they claimed were such a colossal design flaw that it warranted a class action. Don’t pretend like ambulance chasing lawyers are not always swarming around.

Secondly, I don’t care if Apple is wealthy or not. I think this entire situation is absurd, and my philosophy on business does not magically end at a certain market capitalization.
 

mike2q

macrumors regular
Mar 9, 2006
241
539
They won’t be able to save all the EU side loaders who give credit card details to Iamalegitcompanypromise Bahamas Limited.

What a silly comment. People make all sorts of transactions outside of the Apple world (Amazon, physical stores etc) and most of us are getting along just fine. The fact they've convinced you they've been protecting you is just faulty logic on your part.

It reminds me of an old Simpsons episode where a single bear is spotted outside of town. In a panic the town creates a "bear patrol" and puts Homer in charge. He declares the Bear Patrol successful since no more bears have been spotted in town. Lisa try's to explain to him that no bears had been spotted before so the fact there are no bears now has nothing to do with the Bear Patrol. She picks up a random rock and tells him

Lisa - "By your logic this rock is keeping Lions away since we don't see any lions"
Homer - "How much for your rock?"
Lisa - "Dad, you're missing the point"
Homer - "I'll give you $100"
Lisa - "Dad, you don't get..."
Homer - "$500!!!"

Lisa sighs and in a defeated tones says "deal..."

My point is Apples walled garden is just a very very profitable bear patrol.
 

DaniTheFox

macrumors member
Nov 24, 2023
55
41
Switzerland
I would venture to guess these types of users probably wouldn’t be going out of their way to download apps through alternative marketplaces. And if they are, you’re basically saying Apple needs to police stupidity by restricting choice, thereby limiting options for better-educated users. I understand where you’re coming from, but these are the types of scare tactics that Apple is relying on to be proliferated to keep everything in their ecosystem.
I wouldn’t be so sure that they would download from whatever. Remember the pandemic we had not so long ago. Everyone was giving advice what video conferencing software to use. At that time, if I remember correctly, there was a software which you couldn’t remove from your Mac. (I am looking at you Zoom).
Or was there not one which every „shady“ person was recommending to any other to use for secure communication. In reality the „shady“ person was hired from the government and the software was reporting everything to the police. I thing that was on android.
 

truthsteve

macrumors 6502a
Nov 3, 2023
903
2,736
Let’s put it this way: let’s say there’s a physical product you want to buy and it’s sold at various brick-and-mortar stores at various price points. Some stores have a higher risk of crime—it may be marginally higher or significantly higher, but higher than others nonetheless.

So you hop in your car to purchase your product but your car only lets you drive to the place it deems the safest, even if it costs more at that location. You have no choice to go anywhere else. Some may feel comforted knowing they’re being taken to the safest place, but imagine being told you can’t drive anywhere else even if you want to. Oh, and the makers of this car also get kickbacks when you purchase at the store of its choice.
buy a car that has android software that lets you go anywhere you want.

Valid points, but letting the maker of the device rather than the government or the user themself make the decision to take on the risk is the troublesome part.

Fundamentally there are those who don’t believe in choice because of security risks, and those who believe in choice because it outweighs those security risks.
you always had the choice of buying android
 
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ninecows

macrumors 6502a
Apr 9, 2012
678
1,097
What a silly comment. People make all sorts of transactions outside of the Apple world (Amazon, physical stores etc) and most of us are getting along just fine. The fact they've convinced you they've been protecting you is just faulty logic on your part.

It reminds me of an old Simpsons episode where a single bear is spotted outside of town. In a panic the town creates a "bear patrol" and puts Homer in charge. He declares the Bear Patrol successful since no more bears have been spotted in town. Lisa try's to explain to him that no bears had been spotted before so the fact there are no bears now has nothing to do with the Bear Patrol. She picks up a random rock and tells him

Lisa - "By your logic this rock is keeping Lions away since we don't see any lions"
Homer - "How much for your rock?"
Lisa - "Dad, you're missing the point"
Homer - "I'll give you $100"
Lisa - "Dad, you don't get..."
Homer - "$500!!!"

Lisa sighs and in a defeated tones says "deal..."

My point is Apples walled garden is just a very very profitable bear patrol.
Haha… so true. That 7B number is meaningless. They don’t state the denominator and neither do anything to compare it with fraud rates on more open platforms.

Just give them a big number and they’ll eat it. How stupid do they think we are?
 

johnmacward

macrumors 6502
Jul 12, 2011
347
254
That is a lot of saving. Good on Apple for doing all they can.

Pretty impressive honestly.
Quite worrying to see such a lack of scepticism in relation to Apples numbers - paper (or webpages) never refused ink (or text pixels). The full dataset will never be published so no one can verify the validity of their claims. I doubt the numbers are truly accurate as they are predicted outcomes of preventing fraud - "this fraudster "would" have gouged you out of XXX dollars if they had the chance" whereas we have absolutely no idea. Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting fraud doesn't happen but there's no doubt that these are idealised figures to make Apples App Store look "amazing" and its what justifies their 30% rent on every paid purchase. Tip to the fans, companies are rarely truly honest, you always have to sell your positive side and hide your negative side (until someone outs it for you) - first be sceptical, second, keep being sceptical.
 

johnmacward

macrumors 6502
Jul 12, 2011
347
254
considering epic games banned themselves on purpose, Fortnite players are sure being forced to sideload. did you realize that?
Stop it, no ones forcing anyone to play Fortnite or sideload it. You can thank the EU that you can sideload Fortnite if that's what you want to do, just don't use the word "forced". If you happen to be addicted which forces you to take risks, that's something else.
 

johnmacward

macrumors 6502
Jul 12, 2011
347
254
buy a car that has android software that lets you go anywhere you want.


you always had the choice of buying android
Or we can just let the EU provide us with more choice, which they have done and NOW I can choose if I want to take that risk. It's a sort of a perfect system. Just not available to the rest of the world, which is a pity.
 
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