[HN Gopher] Apple tries to get Epic to admit there's porn on its...
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Apple tries to get Epic to admit there's porn on its store
Author : HieronymusBosch
Score : 86 points
Date : 2021-05-08 14:06 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (kotaku.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (kotaku.com)
| uberswe wrote:
| Isn't it the same thing for mobile web browsers offered on the
| Apple app store? You can download them and use them to access and
| download porn.
| sneak wrote:
| > _" Folks who want porn can buy an android."_
|
| > _" You might care more about porn when you have kids. It's not
| about freedom, it's about Apple trying to do the right thing for
| its users."_
|
| --Steve Jobs
| scarface74 wrote:
| Well Jobs has been dead for over 10 years. The current CEO
| said...
|
| https://www.inverse.com/article/42982-tim-cook-porn-on-iphon...
|
| > The Apple CEO said in an interview with Kara Swisher on
| Wednesday that people who want to use their smartphone to look
| at porn are free to use the web browser, but they shouldn't
| expect Apple to start offering apps.
| testific8 wrote:
| open safari, search for porn, and tap the first link. I think
| your point is moot.
| sneak wrote:
| I think you are perhaps confusing my posting the quote with
| my agreeing with the quote.
|
| That he said that is historical fact, which was my only
| point. I don't actually agree with his position on the matter
| at all.
| tyingq wrote:
| Oh boy. I'd reply back with Leisure Suit Larry on iOS, just to
| poke fun at the puritan rhetoric.
|
| https://apps.apple.com/us/app/leisure-suit-larry-reloaded/id...
| speeder wrote:
| This whole trial is being a huge mess.
|
| 1. Day 1 kids screaming on stream.
|
| 2. A ton of confidential third party data leaking.
|
| 3. Sony refusing cross platform play because it wouldn't earn
| them money directly meanwhile they were claiming it was for
| technical reasons.
|
| 4. Tim Sweeney going off on a weird tangent trying to claim
| Fornite is a "metaverse" and not a game.
|
| 5. Judge getting annoyed with all the requests to seal records
| from a ton of companies.
|
| 6. Epic lawyer saying he wants a record sealed because he doesn't
| want to leak that Paradox is doing a deal with Epic. And Apple
| lawyer pointing out he just made his request pointless.
|
| 7. Epic paid so far 1 billion USD to convince devs to not sell in
| competitor stores.
|
| 8. Epic tried to convince Nintendo to sell on Epic Store (lol)
|
| 9. Apple lawyer pointing out that Epic bans rule breakers, and
| Epic broke rules.
| elliekelly wrote:
| It seems Epic put more energy into the commercial announcing
| the trial than they put into the actual trial. I'm rooting for
| them but I really don't know what they're doing or how they've
| lost control of the narrative so badly so early on. Maybe they
| underestimated Goliath's PR machine? I don't envy their legal
| team trying to regroup this weekend.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| It's a sure-to-lose lawsuit launched in the hopes of
| motivating a Congress strongly influenced by an anti-tech,
| anti-corporate progressive insurgency in the ruling party
| and, oh yeah, a global pandemic. I appreciate Epic's
| position, and would support it if it had been litigated
| through the legislature. But as it is, it's a flagrant waste
| of our courts' time, a public resource.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Epic's "position" that came out in trial was that they
| wanted a special deal from Apple. They are fighting for no
| one other than themselves.
| shephardjhon wrote:
| Its not anti-tech or anti-corpprate, its anti-monopoly.
| Remember its two huge corporations fighting this battle,
| Epic isn't some innocent tiny startup but in this case they
| have a point that Apple and Google have too much control
| and the fight has already resulted in smaller developers
| getting more share of their sales on the two app stores.
| speeder wrote:
| Epic is certainly not anti-monopoly.
|
| And Apple is actually trashing them in court because of
| that.
|
| For example Apple lawyer asked if Epic would have
| accepted a deal where Apple maintained the current
| ecosystem but let Epic have an exception... Epic said
| yes.
|
| At another point Apple asked difference between them,
| Xbox, Switch, etc..., Epic said that because consoles are
| sold at loss they having a monopoly is fine... so that is
| a bad argument if you are trying to prove you are anti-
| monopoly.
|
| And this goes on and on...
|
| Then there is the fact Epic paid 1 billion USD to
| developers not sell in other stores, including in some
| cases to break contracts to do so (for example
| kickstarted games, that promised Steam delivery, and then
| told the people that paid them that it would be Epic only
| and there would be no refunds).
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Its not anti-tech or anti-corpprate, its anti-
| monopoly_
|
| Sorry for being unclear, I was referring to the current
| mood in Congress. Epic has tailwinds in there being a
| desire to reign in Big Tech. It has headwinds in being,
| itself, a tech company. That balance is, on the net,
| favourable to Epic. But marginally favourable isn't a
| great position to be in when it comes to policy in a
| crowded legislative session.
| jjcon wrote:
| >8. Epic tried to convince Nintendo to sell on Epic Store (lol)
|
| This didn't happen, Epic specifically said they were NOT in
| talks with nintendo
| BoysenberryPi wrote:
| This is a lie because The World Ends With You NEO is coming
| to PC via the Epic Game Store. Maybe this is lawyer speak for
| "we were in talks but we have a deal so we are not in talks
| any more"
| jogu wrote:
| Neo: TWEWY is made and published by Square Enix. Why would
| this imply they had talks with Nintendo?
| wodenokoto wrote:
| > Neo: The World Ends With You is an upcoming action role-
| playing game developed and published by Square Enix.
|
| Doesn't sound like it's a Nintendo game.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo:_The_World_Ends_With_You
| mpalmer wrote:
| The metaverse point is sort of relevant, though. Epic has been
| trying to pin Apple down on their definition of a game. Apple
| says Roblox is permissible on the App Store, even though it's a
| user-generated content hub much like Fortnite.
| Pulcinella wrote:
| But Fortnite wasn't banned because it was or was not a game,
| it was banned because Apple alleged that Epic violated the
| App Store rules around payment.
| setr wrote:
| By adding in non-apple transactions. Which is what Robles
| apparently does as well, and has been allowed to do so for
| years.
|
| The defense from apple was apparently that roblox and
| Minecraft to do not in fact constitute games, whereas
| fortunate does, so the rules are different.
| spiderice wrote:
| I don't know enough to outright refute your claims, but
| I'm guessing you're getting something wrong or leaving
| out an important detail (unintentionally). Apple doesn't
| allow non-game apps selling digital goods to circumvent
| the 30%. So whether or not fortnite is a game or not
| seems irrelevant. I would be shocked if I could enter in
| a credit card number and buy something inside roblox
| without going through Apple.
| jareklupinski wrote:
| There are Roblox gift cards that you can purchase at
| other retailers, which can be redeemed through a browser
| to credit the same account that you log into from the
| mobile app: https://en.help.roblox.com/hc/en-
| us/articles/203312720-Where...
|
| So it's not really entering a credit card number per se;
| it's more like giving someone else your credit card
| number so they can give you another number that you type
| into a different portal to make the digital goods
| "appear" on the iOS app.
|
| Why are they making children jump through all these hoops
| just to enjoy an online video game
| https://en.help.roblox.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005566223
| Despegar wrote:
| Anyone can purchase currency outside of the App Store and
| use it in their iOS app, including Fortnite. Roblox
| doesn't bypass Apple's IAP requirement at all.
| spiderice wrote:
| This sounds like exactly how you can do it in fortnite
| already.
| planb wrote:
| > 4. Tim Sweeney going off on a weird tangent trying to claim
| Fornite is a "metaverse" and not a game.
|
| I'm quite sure that's really his plan though. During the
| pandemic, my 12 year old son hung out with his friends on
| fortnite, and I had a feeling that "being together" was more
| important than the game itself. I think there's more potential
| in becoming the Oasis than being just an online shooter and
| Sweeney sees that, but he needs iOS (and mini transactions
| without a middleman) to pull that off. That's why they're going
| all in on this.
| [deleted]
| rowanG077 wrote:
| Isn't this trivially true for any online game though? I
| played Counter Strike for quite some time with the same group
| of people. And looking back, It's not like I disliked Counter
| Strike. But I would have never even played closed to the
| amount of hours if I didn't have that group of people.
| robben1234 wrote:
| Sitting in a lobby chatting on Discord with the team while
| waiting for someone to come back from a "short" afk is
| literally half of my hours in CS:GO.
|
| Not even gonna count the amount of time spent just running
| around Dalaran in World of Warcraft while on voice with
| guildmates.
| antihero wrote:
| Ah, greed.
| [deleted]
| thesquib wrote:
| You can download an app from the App Store called a "browser".
| This browser lets you access anything on the world wide web.
| There's explicit content on the web. Therefore you must remove
| browsers from the App Store.
| wheybags wrote:
| There are no browsers on the app store though... Apple doesn't
| allow it already. Eg: Firefox on iOS is actually just a skin on
| top of safari. Agree that in general the stance is ridiculous
| though.
| the_gipsy wrote:
| That's for reasons of disallowing VMs or any kind of program
| interpreter, officially.
|
| In reality it suppresses web apps from gaining capabilities
| of native apps, like notifications.
| scarface74 wrote:
| There in fact is at least one VM in the App Store.
|
| https://ish.app/
|
| It emulates x86. The only thing I have tried with it is
| downloading the x86 version of the aws cli.
| jjcon wrote:
| That really isn't true unless you greatly shrink the
| definition of browser.
|
| For 99.99% of people the browser is not the renderer, it is
| the skin and all that comes with it (synced history,
| bookmarks, adblocking etc etc).
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| The browser is the whole thing. All of it. If you can't
| replace the rendering engine then you can't replace the
| browser. Not only because you can't replace the rendering
| engine but because many of the other things depend on the
| ability to add features to the rendering engine.
|
| If you put a Dodge engine in a Chevy, you don't call it a
| Dodge, you call it a Frankenstein's monster which isn't
| either one and both Dodge and Chevy fans (but especially
| Chevy fans) will think less of you for it.
| Volundr wrote:
| You don't call it a Dodge or a Chevy, but you still call
| it a car.
|
| If anything this seems to me like an argument why Firefox
| with a Safari rendering engine is indeed a browser on the
| app store.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| A Tesla with a Honda engine in it is a car, but it's
| missing the thing that causes people to want a Tesla.
| chrismeller wrote:
| Chrome and Safari; Chrome and Edge all use or used the same
| rendering engine (on one platform or another) for years,
| but you would never say you're using one or the other when
| you don't.
|
| Similarly if my Chevy has the exact same engine as a model
| of Dodge I would never say I'm driving a Dodge.
| dave5104 wrote:
| Yea, that'd also be like saying Edge and Brave aren't
| browsers either. They're just skins on top of Chrome. The
| browser is way more than its rendering engine.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| There's explicit content in reddit which is allowed in App
| Store. Also there's parental controls in iOS, Safari respects
| that setting while other browsers do not, so other browsers are
| 18+ in AppStore.
|
| AFAIK explicit content is allowed in AppStore as long as you're
| clearly separate it from non-explicit with a setting.
| solarkraft wrote:
| > AFAIK explicit content is allowed in AppStore as long as
| you're clearly separate it from non-explicit with a setting.
|
| Example: Telegram blocks channels known for containing porn.
| You can disable the block, but only through a setting in
| Telegram Web (and no mention of that is allowed inside the
| app).
|
| I think that's stupid, inconsistent, benefits nobody and only
| makes for a bad UX, but I guess the argument, as always, is
| "think of the children".
| kevinventullo wrote:
| Please don't give them any ideas.
| pronlover723 wrote:
| How does that help Apple's case? Isn't the fact that some
| competing store can't offer porn apps on iOS proof in Epic's
| favor that Apple should allow 3rd party stores?
|
| There are plenty of VR 3D Porn games (not video). They could
| potentially run on iOS but since there is no way to install them
| and no alternative store they aren't allowed.
|
| Note: Apple themselves argued code = speech in their FBI trial.
| Given that, disallowing certain apps is disallowing certain
| speech. Apple might not sell porn videos, or porn books (though
| they probably actually do), or porn music (though the probably
| actually do) but, all of those things can be installed on your
| iOS device in other ways. But, porn apps can not and there are
| plenty of types of porn apps that can't be done via web apps, and
| certainly not via iOS Safari with it's lack of APIs.
|
| If Apple blocked users from watching/reading/listening to porn on
| their iOS device people would be likely find it unacceptable. The
| same should be true for porn apps by Apple's own logic.
| techrat wrote:
| > Note: Apple themselves argued code = speech in their FBI
| trial. Given that, disallowing certain apps is disallowing
| certain speech.
|
| It's disheartening to see how many people online have no clue
| what 'free speech' means when they use this argument online.
|
| Legal Definition of freedom of speech:
|
| : the right to express information, ideas, and opinions * _free
| of government restrictions*_ based on content and subject only
| to reasonable limitations (as the power of the government to
| avoid a clear and present danger) especially as guaranteed by
| the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution
|
| There are also things that are NOT considered protected speech.
| For example, you cannot shout "Fire" in a movie theater and
| claim it's a free speech right. This falls under the "harm
| principle" exception. Fighting words is another example.
|
| Two things people need to remember when it comes to free
| speech:
|
| 1) It's not absolute, you still suffer the consequences of the
| things you say, and
|
| 2) It doesn't apply to privately owned locations, services or
| media.
|
| So, no, being banned from Twitter is not a violation of your
| free speech.
|
| No, Apple banning or blocking porn from within apps is not a
| violation of free speech.
|
| No, being arrested for threatening to kill someone is not a
| violation of your free speech.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Don't assume that popularity would fall that way.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Note: Apple themselves argued code = speech in their FBI
| trial. Given that, disallowing certain apps is disallowing
| certain speech.
|
| You're using the wrong terms. This is an anti-trust case, not a
| free speech case.
|
| You kind of end up in the same place though. Apple provides
| various services and doesn't allow porn. That's fine, someone
| else can provide a competing service that does allow porn and
| people can choose what they want. Until Apple prohibits the
| competitor from operating, an anti-competitive act.
| ben_w wrote:
| IIRC (and IANAL), the USA's free speech thing is about
| preventing the government from limiting it (except they do
| limit it anyway), and never prevented private companies from
| limiting it on their own turf.
|
| I do feel that super-massive companies need similar
| restrictions on what they can do as governments, and for
| similar reasons, but that's for the future not for the present.
| anchpop wrote:
| That's a common misconception. The supreme court has ruled
| that free speech applies to places that act as a public
| square. That's why, in some areas, malls aren't allowed to
| kick out protestors, because they mall is considered a public
| square in the community. Currently they don't consider any
| online platform a public square, but nothing prevents them
| from changing their mind on that issue
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| While all of that is true, the bigger question in this
| argument is whether or not Apple can justify the premise of
| restricting speech on its platform as arbitrarily/selectively
| as it does without being taking to task for interfering in
| the operation of the product they sold.
|
| For example, was Apple in the right to threaten Telegram with
| expulsion from the App Store for user-generated chatrooms
| protesting the election in Belarus when such events are the
| function of chatroom services?
|
| Would Apple have done the same with iMessage, Discord,
| Facebook Messenger, IRC clients, etc for similar discussions
| Apple deemed inappropriate the previous example?
|
| We can all agree Apple has a 1st amendement right to freedom
| of association. But how far does it justify hypocrisy,
| unwritten rules, retroactive changes to their EULA, and
| interference in commerce at point of sale or after the fact?
| At some point a contract must be a contract and not a list of
| suggestions or commands subject to whimsical application. Not
| on Apple's or Epic's.
|
| On another note, I'm surprised Apple hasn't interfered with
| Tinder or dating apps as a whole considering that user-
| generated content on those is almost certainly pornographic.
| ludamad wrote:
| Good to see itch.io getting so much press :) The founder is also
| the author of https://moonscript.org/
| swiley wrote:
| Good. Apple has no right to demand that the entire world conform
| to their views on sexuality. That there has been a disagreement
| on this lasting this long is insane.
| ericmay wrote:
| Apple can demand it on their platforms though. If you don't
| like their world view you don't have to buy an iPhone ya know.
| swiley wrote:
| I bought a pinephone because I don't like this. The result
| has been that I don't get to participate in the family group
| chat (and Apple has made the UI in the messaging app
| manipulative enough that we haven't managed to make an
| alternative group.)
|
| Apple has separated me from my mother because I don't agree
| with them.
| ericmay wrote:
| I hate to sound callous here, but what is this supposed to
| convince me of?
|
| I don't have or use Facebook or Instagram, or Snapchat, or
| TikTok because I don't agree with them and miss out on lots
| of things - I don't get invited to some events or form
| relationships that others do.
|
| So what?
|
| I guess these companies are separating me from my friends
| and family. How dare they!
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| They should be able to do whatever they want in their store.
| What they shouldn't be able to do is prohibit competing
| stores.
|
| "If you don't want the AT&T handset just build your own phone
| network" obviously isn't a reasonable alternative.
| ericmay wrote:
| Except that doesn't hold. If you don't like AT&T there is
| Verizon, Google FI, T-Mobile, etc.
|
| If you don't like Apple, there's Google, Samsung, etc.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| It's a reference to the classic AT&T monopoly, when
| Verizon et al were still part of AT&T and you notoriously
| had to buy your phone from them (and they prohibited
| analog modems in favor of paying them for extortionately
| expensive ISDN lines etc.)
|
| "You can just use Google" is the equivalent of saying
| "you can just use British Telecom." True only in some
| kind of theoretical sense. You can fly to Britain and
| subscribe to telephone service there. It's not realistic.
|
| Saying that you have a choice for the $1 app and all you
| have to do is replace your $400 phone and all your other
| apps and convince all your friends to switch away from
| iMessage is at the same level of practicality. Worse,
| because there are multiple different apps. What do I do
| if I need both iMessage and a BitTorrent client?
| ericmay wrote:
| > And "you can just use Google" is the equivalent of
| saying "you can just use British Telecom." True only in
| some kind of theoretical sense. You can fly to Britain
| and subscribe to telephone service there. It's not
| realistic.
|
| I'm not following. You can literally just go to a Best
| Buy and gaze at lots of different phone models to see for
| yourself. It's very realistic.
|
| > Saying that you have a choice for the $1 app and all
| you have to do is replace your $400 phone and all your
| other apps and convince all your friends to switch away
| from iMessage is at the same level of practicality.
| Worse, because there are multiple different apps. What
| happens if I need both iMessage and a BitTorrent client?
|
| A couple of things: first, you ideally should be doing
| research before buying a product. Second, if you need to
| replace a $400 phone for a $1 app, you're effectively
| buying that app for $401 - it must be really worth that
| amount for you to switch phones. If it's not, then it's
| just not. I think that's a personal choice and doesn't
| have much to do with anything other than making economic
| decisions for yourself. For example, I really like video
| games (but hardly play). There are games that I want to
| play that aren't available on the Mac. My choices are buy
| a Windows machine, or buy a Mac, or buy both (or
| neither). I chose to forgo a game I want to play in favor
| of having a Mac and to make that trade off. It's a trade
| off. I'm _hopeful_ that game could come to the Mac but
| there 's no good reason I can tell to force someone to
| make the game because I want to have my cake and eat it
| too.
|
| Products have features and trade-offs. On the iPhone you
| have iMessage which might be very important to you so you
| can go with an iPhone. Or maybe you need a BitTorrent
| client and it's not available on the iPhone so you buy
| something else.
|
| This is just how the world works.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > I'm not following. You can literally just go to a Best
| Buy and gaze at lots of different phone models to see for
| yourself. It's very realistic.
|
| You can just fly to Britain and rent a flat there. It's
| not physically impossible. It is an unreasonable thing to
| have to do in order to switch carriers.
|
| > Second, if you need to replace a $400 phone for a $1
| app, you're effectively buying that app for $401 - it
| must be really worth that amount for you to switch
| phones.
|
| That's the point. The $400 is a switching barrier which
| acts as a wall segmenting the app markets by platform,
| with the result that Apple has a monopoly on the iOS side
| of the wall. Excluding competing stores is then monopoly
| abuse.
|
| > Products have features and trade-offs. On the iPhone
| you have iMessage which might be very important to you so
| you can go with an iPhone. Or maybe you need a BitTorrent
| client and it's not available on the iPhone so you buy
| something else.
|
| The point is that this trade off is artificial and only
| exists as a result of anti-competitive practices.
| Otherwise you could get iMessage on your iPhone from the
| Apple App Store and get a BitTorrent client from some
| other app store still on your iPhone.
|
| It's one thing for something not to exist because there
| is no demand for it. If anybody can develop a Mac game
| and then not everybody does because there aren't enough
| Mac gamers to justify it, _c 'est la vie_. It's caused by
| lack of demand, not anti-competitive behavior. If you
| want to develop a game for Mac, nobody is stopping you.
|
| Whereas if the reason the Mac gaming market was small was
| that Apple had their own game studio and prohibited games
| from competing studios, that's anti-competitive behavior.
|
| It's specifically problematic because the market can't
| fix it -- even if there is demand for alternatives,
| alternatives are _prohibited_ , which is different than
| just not enough people wanting them for anybody to become
| a provider.
| cletus wrote:
| This whole thing is a shit show. I've said for awhile that App
| Store monopolies won't last forever. But it's not clear to me
| what the alternative is and maybe that's why they will last.
|
| First there are a couple of different issues. Deciding what's on
| the App Store is one issue but payment processing is a potential
| separate issue.
|
| Second 30% May have made sense once when this was a small
| business. It's not anymore. Apple is inviting these lawsuits by
| simply not throwing big publishers a home with reduced rates.
|
| Third, the whole tax on digital purchases is completely
| arbitrary. There was a time when Apple was working out what to do
| with Amazon and that's when this role came about. Not being able
| to purchase kindle books just highlights the artificial and
| arbitrary nature of all this.
|
| Fourth, at the risk of offending HN folks who self-servingly
| believe everyone wants or needs side-loading apps, most people
| benefit from the filtering of apps. Side-loading and unrestricted
| third party payments would simply be another attack vector.
|
| Lastly, a bunch of different app stores is a terrible user
| experience. Just look at the friction of finding which streaming
| service has a particular movie or TV show.
|
| I honestly think Apple could make most of these objections and
| potential problems go away by simply having a tiered percentage
| that rewards high volume publishers. It could scale down to 10%
| at which point the business case for an expensive legal challenge
| mostly disappears.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > First there are a couple of different issues. Deciding what's
| on the App Store is one issue but payment processing is a
| potential separate issue.
|
| This is all the same issue -- whether there should be other
| stores. If there are other stores then the other stores could
| filter apps differently _and_ use other payment methods.
|
| > Second 30% May have made sense once when this was a small
| business. It's not anymore. Apple is inviting these lawsuits by
| simply not throwing big publishers a home with reduced rates.
|
| > Third, the whole tax on digital purchases is completely
| arbitrary. There was a time when Apple was working out what to
| do with Amazon and that's when this role came about. Not being
| able to purchase kindle books just highlights the artificial
| and arbitrary nature of all this.
|
| Other stores could also charge lower fees and not charge any
| fee for digital purchases, and provide competitive pressure for
| Apple to do so. This is probably the largest reason they don't
| want to.
|
| > Fourth, at the risk of offending HN folks who self-servingly
| believe everyone wants or needs side-loading apps, most people
| benefit from the filtering of apps. Side-loading and
| unrestricted third party payments would simply be another
| attack vector.
|
| Nothing about third party stores prevents filtering. It only
| provides a choice of who does the filtering separate from your
| choice of hardware and operating system.
|
| But naturally if anyone can operate a store then you can
| operate your own and do your own filtering. Maybe most people
| don't want to do that; that's fine. They don't have to. Anyone
| could still choose to leave it to Apple or Debian.
|
| > Lastly, a bunch of different app stores is a terrible user
| experience. Just look at the friction of finding which
| streaming service has a particular movie or TV show.
|
| The problem there was never finding which service has it. There
| are several interfaces that allow you to search through all of
| them. The problem there is that you have to pay for each
| subscription and nobody wants to pay a monthly fee to a
| thousand separate subscription services.
|
| But there is no monthly fee for an app store app. It's not a
| subscription service.
| yladiz wrote:
| > There are several interfaces that allow you to search
| through all of them.
|
| So I have to download an app to search through store fronts,
| which I have to download, to download my app?
| hakfoo wrote:
| To me, the simplest route is to allow sideloading with big
| nasty disclaimers.
|
| That neuters almost all App Store related complaints-- about
| fees, about curation mistakes, about impermissible content
| types, about the cost of admission for a hobbyist publishing a
| free app. "Just tell users to side load" is enough to make the
| affected developers whole.
|
| They must be dead terrified of sideloading that it doesn't even
| seem to be in the discussion. I'm curious whether it's actually
| a fear that major revenue streams will bypass the 30% cut
| (doesn't seem to be too much of a problem for Google Play), or
| if they're afraid of losing control over their curated
| ecosystem and it ending up looking more like the MacOS level of
| flexibility?
| burnte wrote:
| > Fourth, at the risk of offending HN folks who self-servingly
| believe everyone wants or needs side-loading apps, most people
| benefit from the filtering of apps. Side-loading and
| unrestricted third party payments would simply be another
| attack vector.
|
| Yes, but those people can still stick with the App Store.
| That's not a good reason to take that freedom away from others.
| Macha wrote:
| I can see the argument here that if there are other app
| stores, some apps that these users would want would then be
| exclusive to these app stores, much like Epic does on PC, so
| they may be forced into using them anyway.
| Retric wrote:
| It's not just about Apple here. Credit card companies don't let
| Apple pass along those fees to customers.
|
| An app that costs 100$ and sells 1,000 copies has much lower
| transaction fees than an app that costs 1$ and sells 100,000
| copies.
| p49k wrote:
| It's not that much of a difference. Apple bundles app
| purchases over days/weeks into a single charge to save fees.
| Retric wrote:
| That only helps when people are making frequent purchases,
| most people aren't buying apps/coins multiple times a week
| or even month.
| [deleted]
| amcoastal wrote:
| Imagine how high apples stock price will go when they're forced
| to allow porn on the app store. They're missing out on so much
| potential revenue right now.
| itsdrewmiller wrote:
| How is epic having an app that can be used to get offensive
| content different from the Apple App Store allowing web browsers?
| heisenbit wrote:
| Reddit has some explicit content. How on earth is this relevant
| to the question of abusing a dominant market position which is
| what case is about. Is Apple arguing we can commercially abuse
| our partners and customers because we save you from porn?
| Seriously?
| itsdrewmiller wrote:
| I assume their argument here is "It's expensive to run an App
| Store that screens content effectively - here is an example
| where a cheaper store missed something." This specific
| example doesn't seem like strong evidence though.
| jjcon wrote:
| >here is an example where a cheaper store missed something
|
| I don't think they are saying itch missed something (itch
| certainly doesn't think so)
| itsdrewmiller wrote:
| Apple is saying that Epic missed that Itch allows
| offensive content via the Epic store (indirectly).
| greshario wrote:
| > Reddit has some explicit content
|
| Understatement of the millenium there.
| nodamage wrote:
| Web browsers can be restricted using the iOS parental control
| system.
| TekMol wrote:
| What is the issue with porn? Is there something bad about it? If
| so, what? Seeing people naked? Seeing people having sex?
|
| The article even mentions porn in one sentence with hate:
| A little further down, you say no porn and no hate,"
| Apple's lawyer continued. "Do you see that?"
|
| Hate and porn? Really? How are hate and porn related?
| devmunchies wrote:
| interesting, I'm the exact opposite, i don't see an issue with
| mean words but I consider porn personally destructive.
| newsclues wrote:
| Content many parents want to keep away from their children
| 13415 wrote:
| Apple sells iPhones to children? Couldn't the just sell
| children's iPhones then?
|
| It's not uncommon to have two different products for adults
| and for children.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| What's the argument for banning porn, anyway?
| dkarras wrote:
| Steve Jobs didn't want it on the platform back in the day. I
| think that's about it.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| Did he say why?
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| I'm not a prude, but why ruin a family friendly product
| with porn?
| dkarras wrote:
| I mean, we are not saying Apple should have shipped
| iPhones with porn preinstalled. What is the harm in
| allowing developers offer porn content FOR PEOPLE THAT
| SEARCH FOR IT IN THE APP STORE, possibly after turning on
| a flag for nsfw content? That is not possible, that
| content is not allowed on the app store, ever. It is
| their right to do so of course, their store and product
| and all, but people that support the decision confuse me
| a bit. There is literally no harm to you if it was
| allowed. You won't see it unless you search for it.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| Would it be ruined?
|
| It's not difficult to make the porn opt-in, so you
| wouldn't even see it if you didn't want to.
| katbyte wrote:
| and it's certainly readily available via a browser
| neogodless wrote:
| Are you talking about computers?
| high_derivative wrote:
| Apple likes a family friendly facade on its products of
| Chinese slave labour
| SAI_Peregrinus wrote:
| The process of creating a family isn't family-friendly.
| [deleted]
| zinclozenge wrote:
| Porn usually has much higher risk for chargebacks when it comes
| to payment processing.
| Blahah wrote:
| It's important to make sure people have to use the least
| legitimate and most risky sources for anything that hypocrites
| feel the need to pretend to be morally outraged about. Sex and
| fun drugs are the classics. The only way to make them seem
| inherently bad is to force them to be illicit.
| ben_w wrote:
| I'm not familiar with itch.io; is it actually relevant whether or
| not itch.io lists adult content, even if itch.io is listed on the
| Epic store? Apple blocks adult content (as much to my frustration
| as to one of the top comments on the kotaku article), but I can
| go into the iOS App Store, download the Amazon app, and see their
| dildo and porn collections, so it feels like a hypocritical
| argument on Apple's part. (I don't even have to be signed into
| the Amazon app).
| ronsor wrote:
| Apple has never really enforced App Store rules consistently.
| eqtn wrote:
| If apple are fored to allow other stores through its app store,
| then those stores and apps in them would have to adhere to the
| same app store guidlines. What I would like to see is a way to
| sideload alternative stores or ipa. They can make it as hard as
| to enabling this, instead of a simple switch for security and
| privcy purposes. So that we don't have to fiddle with the
| Altstore to install iTorrent, Emulators or Youtube++
| [deleted]
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| You can download Chrome, Firefox or even Safari and watch porn
| online for free from your xOS device, nothing easier and they
| know it.
| crazydoggers wrote:
| This last line is obnoxious...
|
| > _So there we go: That's all cleared up now! Apple's advertiser-
| sanitized, sex work- and LGBTQ-unfriendly utopia is saved from
| scary indie games like "Horny Chronicles." Thank goodness._
|
| I for one don't want to see all that crap in app stores when I'm
| browsing for something, and I don't want my kids seeing that
| stuff... it has nothing to do with being "LGBTQ utopia". It's
| simple called good taste.
|
| Same reason when I turn on the TV I don't want to be assaulted
| with this stuff.
|
| We've all decided long ago that the way forward with free speech
| is to categorize, and rate content... movie, tv ratings, preview
| ratings, etc. By having proper channels and places for certain
| content free speech is actually extend.
|
| I'm thankful Apple tries hard to make the App Store a place of
| quality. So let's not throw the baby out with the bath water by
| forcing stores to be completely open un moderated spaces in the
| name of more competition.
|
| Edit: People are missing the point here. The issue is about
| intent. Browsers and Amazon apps are not app stores. So having
| those available doesn't point to intent to allow specific types
| of content on an app platform.
| Blahah wrote:
| Browsers are very close to app stores. Both of them can have
| parental controls enabled, and neither of them need to police
| perfectly legal content to prevent a subset of users getting
| harmed or offended. It's trivial to actively prevent porn being
| shown by default, for example, without banning it. The intent
| with banning porn is to create a PR narrative around moral
| policing.
| calgoo wrote:
| The rating system you mention is not something that "we"
| decided. That was forced onto the people by the same group of
| people that think swear words should be banned from tv.
|
| The great thing about the internet, is that we all don't have
| to consume the same feeds anymore. We can all find our own
| level of filtering that makes us confortable. However, there is
| no reason to push that onto other people. The only rules that
| really should apply are the rule of the law, where "We" HAVE
| decided that certain things are illegal.
|
| Like others said: Let me choose what i want or don't want to
| see. That should be a few checkboxes when i setup my profile
| and that's it. Why should apple tell me what i should and
| should not see?
| gostsamo wrote:
| So, ask for a feature where 18+ content is not allowed for
| children's accounts and where an adult's account can filter
| this stuff out if so desired. Or allow all kinds of stores, one
| for every taste.
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