Facebook joins Microsoft in condemning Apple App Store for business practices
Facebook is joining Microsoft in condemning Apple’s policies as business practices have made it difficult to put gaming apps and services on the App Store. Yahoo FInance’s Dan Howley joins The Final Round panel to discuss.
Video Transcript
MYLES UDLAND: All right, Howley, let's stay in the tech industry. Let's pivot to a company that you follow very closely, and that's Apple, continuing to catch heat for what's happening on the App Store, and specifically with respect to the video game space. And we touched on this briefly when we talked about the new Xbox Live rollout and whether it'll be available on the App Store. Apple continues to catch heat from a lot of its major peers on its policies. What's the status there?
DAN HOWLEY: Yeah, this is really, I mean, just perfect timing for Facebook and Microsoft. They smell blood in the water as far as Apple goes, with its antitrust investigations that are ongoing, and so they're going to strike back. And that's exactly what's going on. Basically, Apple said that Facebook cannot allow Instant Games in its Facebook gaming app, which is a streaming app. Instant Games are HTML5-based games. Apple said that they cannot include that feature in the iOS version of the app. Now, it is available on the Android version.
And COO Sheryl Sandberg came out basically hitting at Apple, saying, you know, they're hurting innovation. Same thing with the VP of Facebook Gaming. And then Microsoft, they have that app that we were talking about the other day, the Game Pass app, which will have the cloud gaming element to it. That is available on Android, but Apple isn't allowing it on iOS. They're not allowing any game streaming services, Google Stadia included.
And Microsoft came out through a statement through a spokesperson basically saying, you know, in language that regulators and politicians are looking at for the antitrust investigation that they are hurting competition in the space. So they clearly understand what they're saying at this point, and they recognize that it's going to hurt Apple's case saying that it's not operating as an illegal monopoly by making statements saying, look, we can't get our app in here. This is clearly hurting competition, clearly hurting consumers, and it's not fair.
And then Microsoft even goes a step further saying that they do not treat all apps the same, which was an argument that was made against Apple during the antitrust hearing, basically saying that, look, video game apps are treated drastically different than similar streaming apps like Netflix. It's also, by the way, worth noting that Apple has its own gaming service called Apple Arcade that's a subscription monthly fee that you pay. So it doesn't look good when you add it all up like that. It's similar to what we've seen out of Apple and Spotify.
MYLES UDLAND: All right, Dan Howley, have a great weekend.
DAN HOWLEY: You too.
